January 27, 2025 • 54 mins
The episode delves into the frustrations and dynamics of corporate meetings, questioning their effectiveness and proposing strategies for improvement. It explores core concepts like punctuality, the Pareto Principle, and the importance of recognizing A-players within teams, all while advocating for more efficient meeting structures.
• Discussion of the importance of punctuality in meetings
• Personal anecdotes contrasting corporate and startup meeting cultures
• Introduction to the Pareto Principle in the context of employee contributions
• The significance of identifying and retaining A-players within teams
• Analyzing strategies for more effective and engaging meetings
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
are you ready for that?
No, you.
You did it way earlier than Iwas expecting I was not a little
.
I saw you still a little bit Iwas still silencing all my
notifications to make sure Idon't get pinged in the middle
of you do that.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I have the.
I have the mental fortitude tojust ignore them yeah, I don't
yeah, actually I enjoy it.
I see like I'll see a littletoast notification pop up from
someone.
It's like really importantbuildings on fire, can you save
me?
It's like no, no, is thismarked on?
Your calendar yeah, of courseit is.
Yeah, is it not on yours?
(00:38):
No, what is wrong with you?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
no, no it is, it is, it is, it's there.
I, I text you.
We're actually pretty good atplanning, like every week, even
sometimes two weeks, like we'vegotten well, not planning
content, but planning when we'reactually going to speak.
We're decent Okay.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
So I always hit it there about two and a factor of
10 or so minutes.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, yeah, not bad.
Yeah.
Sometimes I'm late, I mean, butit's on the calendar, yeah not
bad.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah, sometimes I'm late, I mean, but it's on the
calendar, okay.
How often are you late tomeetings?
Depends how important is themeeting Percentage-wise.
Give me a ballpark.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Not too often.
I'm pretty punctual.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, yeah Percent.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Being late 30%.
I'm late for 30% of my meetings, you have to remember.
I have a lot of meetings, so doI so, 30% of my meetings being
a little late Yesterday, fromeight to five, nonstop 30 minute
meetings all day.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Oh dude that is the absolute nightmare scenario,
that's nightmare fuel for me.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
from eight to five nonstop 30 minute meetings all
day.
Oh dude, that is the absolutenightmare scenario.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
That's nightmare fuel for me.
Do you know what you want toknow?
My percentage of lateness tomeetings is what percent?
It's less than one.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
There's only like one individual that actually will
hold me over.
Otherwise, I'm sorry thismeeting is going over.
I have another meeting to go toIf you'll get a.
I'm sorry this meeting is goingover.
I have another meeting to go to.
If we need to schedule, I'llfollow up.
My calendar is available.
Done, it's never me.
I am never the reason a meetinggoes over.
So like I hate it.
I hate when people are late andI hate being late.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
So to clarify, so I don't seem like a scumbag, the
reason I'm late to those 30% isusually my team has it and I'm
there for like support and ifthat's the case, like it's
actually a little trick that Ido, sometimes I do show up late,
just so they got it and theydon't need me.
Sometimes I like to slide inabout five minutes late.
(02:43):
Not fair.
Nobody knows I'm even there.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
No, no, disagree, Disagree.
This is a bad look.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
I don't think so.
I mean, frankly, I don't care.
I'm like, hey, the team's gotit, I'm here to support, I'm
going to show up when I want toshow up and hopefully you don't
need me at all.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
You need to reject the invite.
Don't go period.
You're, you're, you're doingone of the worst of both worlds.
Here it's like I'm late tosomething I shouldn't be at at
all.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I don't think I need to be there, then decline.
I give the team the wherewithalto say, hey, you don't need me.
But sometimes I like to listenin to be like, okay, cool, I
like want to see what's going on.
But the first five minutesdoesn't matter anyways, for the
rest of these meetings Like ifit's a big, you know what I'm
talking about you get anythingproductive done in the first
five minutes of a big meetingwith 10 or so people.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yes, all the time out .
It's a if you're saying, ifyou're wasting the, if you start
a meeting bad, the wholemeeting is going to be bad, the
first five minutes is crucial.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
You got to get it right, no, so the rest of it's
good, let's let's talk about thefirst five minutes of every
meeting oh my gosh, okay, youshow up, yeah we're gonna go
through this together.
We're gonna do a stark contrast.
We're gonna compare bruceversus clark.
First, five minutes of meetingslarger than 10 people all right
, well, actually, okay, you havea lot of those meetings.
This is relevant for you, right?
(04:10):
Yes, yeah, okay, good, justwant to make sure at least two
or three a day, yeah, okay so.
So we show up.
This is my world, clark's world.
You show up.
People are trickling in.
The host of the meeting says,hey, we're going to get started
in just a few minutes.
We're just waiting for everyoneto join.
Two, two and a half minutes,maybe three minutes goes by.
They say, okay, great, let's goahead and get started.
(04:32):
Looks like we have a goodquorum.
Is everyone okay with merecording this meeting?
Another minute goes by.
God, I forgot how my corporateis Let me share my screen, and
then they start sharing thescreen by the time five minutes
rolls around is when thingsactually happen.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
My God, you are still in corporate and I guess I
still am at a startup.
That is the difference.
I'll enter a meeting hey, how'sit going?
Hope everyone has a good day.
I usually tell a joke While I'mdoing this.
I'm bringing up the screenshare Yep.
If this, I'm bringing up thescreen share yep.
If we aren't sharing screen inunder a minute, this meeting is
already a failure and I shouldhave declined.
Uh, we get into it quick.
(05:09):
It's like all right, let's,let's, let's hit the ground
running.
Here's where we're at, here'swhat we need to be.
What's going on?
You speak and they speak and Ilisten to them and then we
respond to what they say andthen it's okay.
Next thing go, go, go, letlet's get through this.
It is personally a cripplingdefeat If we don't end the
meeting early.
That means we didn't budget ourtime well, and usually those
(05:33):
aren't the meetings that I run.
So just you know that littlehumble brag, but I like to get
through it, get it done.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Anytime.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
I schedule a meeting.
If you show up late to themeeting, too bad, you're late,
I'm going to criticize you forit, and uh, that's that's what's
going to happen.
You have a calendar, you haveyour times.
Be there, you're wasting ourtime.
Our time is being wasted.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Yeah, this is the difference between enterprise,
massive corporation and startupusually, so a lot of people
actually join meetings early.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
I don't do that.
I don't do that because I don'tlike the banter, I don't want
to do the whole how's yourweekend?
how's your dog?
No, I don't want a water cooler.
Second, my clock is on the hourof the half hour.
I'm in there, I'm loading in,I'm getting ready to screen
share if it's my meeting,otherwise I'm getting ready to.
You know, at least listen,participate, do what I can, but
(06:27):
no lateness if it.
There is very few times whenanyone at my company is late to
a meeting and it's usually like,for you know, medical reasons
or something like I had to go doCPR on my dog, like no one's
ever late.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Ever Poor dogs.
Who's doing CPR on their dogsin the middle of the day?
I'm not taking them to the vet.
I got it.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I'd say I could never go back to corporate.
I just couldn't do it.
I work eight times as much as Iused to, but there's a brutal
efficiency to it.
I could not deal with thenonsense that you just
efficiency to it, and like Icould not deal with the nonsense
that you just explained to me.
Oh, forgot it existed.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
So many people listening to this sympathize
with what I just said becausethey know.
They know how often it happensand then I'm going to give you
the worst one in the world.
Oh, by the way, disclaimer ifit's my meeting, I'm always on
time.
We always have an agenda and weget done early.
Just to be clear, it's anytimeit's someone else that's not on
my team's meeting.
I'm just like this is a GDwaste of time.
(07:30):
My favorite thing is you happento meet more than 10 people.
You get started after fiveminutes, the recording is there
and then someone 10 minutes insays like oh hey, do we cover
this already?
And you're just like I swear Ifyou were here the first five
minutes of the meeting.
Yeah, we covered it.
Go back and listen to therecording.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Do you say that?
Do you actually say that?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Oh, you should say that we passive, aggressively,
say that and I even tell my teamto do it.
We'll be like yeah, we startedwith that in the beginning of
the meeting.
Feel free to check out therecording.
Yeah, good, good, yeah.
But sometimes it's like a VP orabove and at that point you
don't really have a choice.
You got to be like oh yeah,let's go back to slide one.
Going back five slides, let'srestart for this.
(08:13):
One person Happens all the time.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Don't have this problem.
I love that I don't have thisproblem.
It's great.
It's great.
Thank you for making megrateful for working with us.
That's why.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
This is why I'm late 30% of the time.
By the way, are you recordingthis meeting?
Do you have your consent torecord this meeting?
Okay, good, we should probablydo the intro.
So now that we're recording weshould probably start.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Welcome back to Corporate Strategy, the podcast.
It could have been an email I'mBruce and I'm Clark, and and
I'm Clark and you're on mute.
See you next week.
Good knowing you guys, it wasfun, it's awesome.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Hey, did you see the survey?
Yes, I saw the survey.
I was actually surprised by theresults.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
I wasn't.
I knew all along.
Really, yeah, in your heart ofhearts, in my heart of hearts, I
knew who doesn't like a littlegoof.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Who doesn't like a little goof, who's like a little
goof.
You know, sometimes I justthink we put it like the end of
the episodes.
I think we just go too far.
I guess people want that.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
It's the end.
I mean, if you've listened thatlong, you've already lost.
Did you not hear what I've saidabout meetings?
See, I go back and that's whywe don't get donations or
anything.
It's because we save all thatcrap for the end listen.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
If you want more goof , go back.
Don't listen the whole episode,just go to the last, like two
minutes, and listen to everysingle and two minutes to every
single episode and you will behappily surprised by the amount
of goof there's a majority thatsays I need more goof.
I was shocked that many peopleyeah, we had a lot of votes what
(09:48):
70 ish percent of people saidmore goof more goof.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
And then there was a decent amount that says the goof
is good, and only one was likeless goof, yep.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Do you think they differentiate goof and structure
?
Do you think they want morestructure?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
That was actually.
So I have a couple more surveyquestions.
I was going to do one a week,so you know I just, yeah, you
know I don't want to overwhelmthem.
I love our little Discordmembers.
I don't want to, you know, makethem do too much work on top of
their day jobs.
But I was going to ask do youlike the flow of the show?
Would you rather we have moreconsistent structure, or do you
like the kind of meanderingleading into sections when we
(10:26):
feel like it?
Organic versus structured, Ithink will be how I phrase it or
keep it as it is right now.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, I like it.
Look at you.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
I also want to ask do we need more guests?
Right amount of guests, lessguests?
Like, we'll figure all this out.
I want to make sure we'regiving the people exactly what
they want, and I do know rightnow I want more goof.
Yep.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
More goof.
I hope you have your license togoof updated.
I'll be honest with you.
My brain is complete mush, so alot of what's going to come out
of my mouth this episode willlikely be goof.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I'm actually really excited for this episode, like
let's just skip vibe check.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Cause I don't care.
Um, well, first vibe check.
We're happy you're alive,because alex and I didn't know
if you were going to come back.
It was really weird.
It was really weird as a firstepisode in corporate strategy
history that you were not a partof.
It was strange.
So at least tell the peopleyou're alive and you're okay I'm
alive, I'm okay.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
so anyways, onto the topic.
Uh, yes, I had real bad strepthroat and, uh, it was sad.
It was kind of sad because,like I went to film our our well
, this is not in D8.
I went to film somethingspecial that we're going to
produce soon and when I gotthere, in the freaking under 10
(11:43):
degree Denver weather, the heatand everything was just like as
the day went on, cause I was theMC for this event.
So like my voice is just gettingworse and worse, and we kind of
filmed it in reverse order, soit's almost going to sound like
I'm getting better as the thinggoes on.
But yeah, there was a timethere was a moment on stage
(12:04):
where I was interviewing someonethat we'd like paid to speak
with us and like he does thisfive minute thing.
It's really good, he's reallygood.
And halfway through his speech,like I feel this tickle in my
throat and I'm going to cough.
But I'm mic'd up, I'm on camera, like I have to keep it cool, I
have to keep together, so Isuppress it, I'm just like doing
(12:29):
my best to not do anything.
There are literally tearscoming out of my eyes because
like it's getting worse and it'sstarting to hurt.
And then the second he's done.
I say thank you, but what comesout is like it's so bad, I'm
like I'm so sorry, like at leastwe got your take, I'll redo
this, I'm dying, please forgiveme.
And then apparently they couldhear every time I was like
drinking and coughing and likeclearing my throat and like this
(12:52):
is just so embarrassing.
So after that I found out I didhave strep.
Fortunately I didn't give it toanybody.
I think I got it on the planeride over and it was just kind
of like brewing Literally.
Got back, was dying, gotantibiotics.
Three days later I had to flyback out for another thing where
I was doing presentations andfortunately the voice was at
(13:12):
least like moderatelyrecuperated, but there was no
way I was doing a podcast, justnone.
I was like, yeah, I didn't wantus to stop.
We've been doing so good on thestreak, so I think y'all can
handle it yeah, absolutely yeah,anytime we need a sub.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
We got a good bank of people that can jump in, so
happy you're alive.
I also went on a trip this pastweekend and I got sick too.
I went to Minnesota Minnesota.
I have some friends, some oldco-workers, who were there, so
we went in to experience thetrue tundra of the north and the
Monday temperature.
(13:43):
Monday morning the feels liketemperature was negative 29.
The actual temperature wasnegative 13.
Terrible, it was absolutelyinsane.
But I also got sick.
I got a stomach bug the day wegot there.
I don't think it was from theplane, nora, thanks.
I don't know what it was.
It was really weird.
I like, and I usually have apretty iron stomach, but we ate
(14:04):
something and I pretty clean, soit was a little bit out of my
normal diet.
But we're traveling.
I'm like why not?
I could not like stomachanything for the next three days
, like everything I would eatwould just make me sick.
So I ended up coming back onthe plane back home after like
three days, totally fine, yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
I don't know if it's what I ate.
I think there's an actual buggoing around.
It's called Nora or somethinglike that.
Someone I work with got it.
It couldn't come to the thingin Scottsdale Arizona, arizona.
It's just going around.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
It's terrible.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
I've been on and off sick since December.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
I'm ready for it to be done, I'm ready 2025 is a
year of health for you.
You got to turn, it's not it'snot.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
There's no way.
I think, um, I know theantibiotics actually like worked
.
They cured up a lot.
They cured up more than justthe strep.
So I'm hoping, like right nowI'm in this good state of
cleanliness, just how you havepurged all of your disgusto, uh,
through different means, butyou know, purge nonetheless.
Hopefully we can just plateauhere I like it and we're getting
(15:20):
sick.
Rest of the year that's it allright deal.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
I Can we just agree to that now I'll sign up for
that.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
What piece of my soul .
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Do I have to give to the devil in order to make I?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
think, statistically it's in our favor, given our
country has now left the worldhealth organization and is, you
know, electing non-scientificpeople to tell us about medicine
and science.
So I think we're fine.
I think, if anything, we'renever going to get sick again.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
So God bless, let's go, let's ride this train.
We're going to live forever,we're never going to get sick
and technology is going to ruleour lives.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
You know what I hate?
Smart people, doctors,scientists, medical
professionals who went to schoolfor seven years.
They're stupid, useless.
Get out of here.
What do you know?
Just let me do surgery UselessGet out of here.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
What do you know?
Just let me do surgery.
Yeah, I was a software engineer, I could do it.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Give me that scalpel, I'm going to start cutting.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, let me loose, let me inthere.
That's actually a pretty decenttransition into today's topic,
believe it or not, I don't know.
Get ready Like I didn't know.
Get ready like I didn't knowthis.
I'm sure, I'm sure our uhprevious host, alex restrepo, is
intimately familiar with this,but I am going through the
(16:31):
process of reviewing my team forpay raises and promotions and
all that, and I was sitting downwith the hr coordinator today
and they're walking me throughall of this and it's called
calibration by the way, pleasestop the they they informed me
of it's called the paretoprinciple, p-a-r-e-t-o principle
(16:52):
you heard of this before I haveheard of it.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I do not remember what it is, but I know what I've
.
I know I've heard it all right.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
This comes from wikipedia.
The pareto principle is alsoknown as the 80 rule, the law of
the vital few and the principleof factor sparsity.
It states that for manyoutcomes, roughly 80% of
consequences come from 20% ofcauses.
The vital few.
And the way it was used with meis you know, at any business,
(17:22):
20% of the employees bring about80% of the value to the
organization.
Within that 20%, I thinkthere's a 3% in the corporate
measure.
There's a 3% that does justgangbusters.
Let that simmer for a second.
(17:43):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Just I just let that simmer for a second, but like
it's crazy when I heard this youI didn't know if I literally
thought you went on mute becauseyou were so at a loss for words
I still am.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
When I heard this, my stomach flipped like an hr
person just told me this Likethis is truth and I'm not
arguing that it's not right,like when I saw it, like I guess
this kind of makes sense.
But then, like, is thisactually true?
And if you start looking at Imean just looking at the
(18:19):
Wikipedia page, there's a lot ofdata to kind of back up that
this is actually something thatis within a certain standard
deviation of error mostly true.
Is that acceptable?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
No, is it avoidable?
I think is the better question.
As you, especially as you thinkof your own team.
I get a decent sized team tothink that 80% of my team let's
use round numbers If I have ateam of 10, eight people are not
significantly contributing andonly two are like for my own
(18:59):
team.
I don't think it's true.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, I think it's definitely not probably in my
team or my larger uh org thatI'm part of.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
It's not factually not true yeah, I think, as
you're a startup, you have theunique opportunity to work with
like super talented people andyou're all doing crazy amounts
of work because you you have toto stay alive.
So, yeah, it's weird actually,thinking back to it.
It's weird that your HR persontold you at a relatively small
(19:27):
startup still I mean, you guysare growing a lot but that they
told you that this is theprinciple.
I can totally see it where Iwork, like if, as I think about
the broader whole of theorganization, absolutely only
20% of people do the work, andthen you have three people like
in.
You guys will realize this Ifyou're a high performer, there
are certain people that just getshit done and they're smart.
(19:50):
Every single time I know I'msorry, sorry for the little ears
Every single time you dosomething important, you end up
going to this person like, oh,you'll realize, all roads lead
to this person somehow.
And those are the 3%.
There's like a core group ofpeople that you're like, if I
want to do something, I'm goingto end up going back to them,
and so either everything goesthrough them, every single thing
(20:12):
ends up going through them,they get promoted through the
ranks, whatever, or they're likethis hidden resource that they
don't want anyone to know aboutthem, but certain people do when
they go to them for thesethings, to try to get things
done.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
So it's totally true in a massive organization.
I think back to our time at BigCorp and if I just think about
the people whose names I can'teven remember because they were
so inconsequential like maybe,yeah, you know, like 80% seems
like a large number.
Until I think about just ourtime in the scrum pits.
Remember when we had the scrumpits?
(20:46):
Oh, I remember 80% of thosepeople were definitely useless
and I include myself in thatnumber because I was certainly
useless when we were in thescrum pits.
So like yeah, yeah, just ridingthat wave.
So okay, it's true, it's, it'sat least true.
(21:07):
When you get to a certain largeenough number, what do we do
about it?
I mean, obviously, like youknow, we talk about CAC a lot on
this and CAC is very personal.
This is, this is somethingthat's a bigger look at
structural, organizational youknow, it's HR level, right Like
(21:29):
is this solvable or do we justaccept this for what it is?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
I think, in order to try to solve it, we have to try
to think about why it happens.
Okay, I think the reason ithappens in any business that's
growing is one there are only somany really talented people in
the world.
Not everybody is talented andsmart and willing to work really
(21:53):
hard Like you are going to.
Eventually, I think it'sinevitable, you'll get people
that are not going to be Aplayers.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Get the pal voodoo out of your mouth.
That's something right.
Voodoo out of your mouth.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
I wish, with the best intent, I wish I could say
everybody was super smart.
Everyone's going to work hardon everything they do, but no,
for a lot of people they don'tcare enough to work that hard.
They just want to earn apaycheck and sign off at the end
of the day, which is okay aslong as they're doing their job
Well.
That's the thing I think.
As you're scaling like, I think, sheer volume, you're going to
(22:24):
hit this Like I think it'sinevitable.
Is, I guess, what I'm saying?
But I think the reason is, whenyou're scaling at least my
hypothesis at some point yourbusiness is doing so well that
you're not scaling slowly overtime.
Usually you're scaling quickbecause the market demand is
shifting to you or you'restarting to take over from the
competition, or something bighappens that thrusts a wave at
(22:45):
you.
You've got to hire fast, and inorder to hire fast, you're not
going to do the due diligence oneverybody that joins, and so
you're going to, naturally, Ithink, just get a bunch of
people.
That may or may not be great.
You'll get some good, butyou'll get a majority bad as
you're scaling.
And then Alex actually saidsomething that I've never heard
(23:06):
before on the last episode, butit was really really wise A
players hire A players.
B players hire C players.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
And as you're scaling .
Yeah, it was so good, Likelight bulb in my head.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I'm like every B player I've worked for has hired
C players and if they had.
A players, they get rid of themquick.
That's the way it goes.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
They get rid of them.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, it literally happened to me.
I was an A player working for aB manager and he found a way to
get me off the team and thesecond I joined another team, I
got promoted and everybody wasreally happy.
So true, so they try to getpeople underneath them that you
know can just do what they sayand boost their ego.
But to go back to what we'retalking about, it's like, as you
(23:50):
scale, these b players arehiring c players and then c
players are hiring d players ore, f players, whatever such a
such a letter exists.
Yeah, I think so.
Letter e exit no kidding sothat's my hypothesis.
What do you think you would likethat?
Does it make sense?
Speaker 1 (24:09):
it does, I do like it .
It does make sense.
So it just makes me ask morequestions, which is, if the b
players are hiring c players,are the b players actually the
problem and are the c playersfixable right?
Because like, if you put a Cplayer in management, is that
now correct?
Can we make a C player an Aplayer and avoid the B player
(24:30):
pit?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
You could.
It's all about potential skilldevelopment guidance, but if
they're only getting guided bythe B player, they're never
going to get there.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
So let's imagine a perfect world, right Like.
You have the choice to hirewhomever you'd like and you
don't have to hire whoever youdon't like and you can fire
whoever you want.
Can you build an organizationthat's 2000 person plus that
avoids this?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I personally think like 2000 plus I think.
So Now, if you're getting tolike 500,000, no, I think you're
going to hit this law justbecause of sheer volume, like I
don't think there's a way aroundit.
How?
Speaker 1 (25:12):
many is Twitter now, or X or whatever the hell it's
called.
I've got no idea, cause he cutso much right, like, yeah, dude.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
He cut a ton.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I mean to be honest, though, if you want to keep the
A players, you kind of got to goslash and burn.
Hold on, I'm doing it on GoogleGreat radio.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Great radio.
Everyone wants to listen tothis.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Great radio.
Oh, there's actually like aemployee count over the last few
years.
Hold on, Hold on, hold on.
I'm going to give us some.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm scrolling, I'm scrolling, Iswear I'm scrolling.
Get this Ketamine.
(25:59):
Elmo, when did he acquire what?
Two years ago now?
Yeah, so at the time ofacquiring 7,500 employees In
2012,.
When Twitter was founded, itwas 2,000 employees.
Wow, yeah, so I mean, you know,maybe that's part of the
(26:19):
problem.
The question is, did the cutsactually make it better?
I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, I think there's alwaysgoing to be like to your point
of like how do you fix this?
Yes, you have to kind of beruthless and say we're gonna
weed out b players and c playersand c yeah, anybody who's not a
, anyone who's not an a player.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
We're weeding them out and we're going to fire so
okay To go back to ourmanagement episode with Danny
Yonkers.
He had the example of maybeeven a C player that could have
been an a player in a differentrole, right.
So like I think we do have toestablish that a lot of this
(27:07):
isn't actually the person that'sthe problem, it's the position.
Yep, I don't know if ruthlesscuts is the answer, so much as
it is like actually hiring forthe right role, ensuring that
the proper people are promotedto the position that is best for
their specific skill sets, ornot promoted when promotion is
(27:30):
not appropriate.
Don't just make every good IC amanager or director.
Make good managers anddirectors good managers and
directors.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah, I think the I mean the easy way to like avoid
this is intentionally hire andtake the right time, but yes,
capitalism doesn't wait for that.
You know what I mean.
Like sometimes and I've evendone I've hired someone a little
too quickly, should haveprobably done a little more due
diligence and they didn't end upworking out.
Yeah, you do have to thinkabout like.
Yeah, I'm kind of to blame, Ishould have put them through
(28:03):
some more due diligence or had adifferent process to like
really try to weed out theissues.
But I think, as companies arescaling, like sometimes you're
just so desperate to be like weneed bodies, Like you're just
trying to find anybody who canremotely do the job.
Bring them in.
So once you're already in theproblem, then yeah, you've got
options, it's.
Do you intentionally take thetime to train people, to set
(28:27):
proper expectations, toreorganize the company in a way
that actually makes sense, or doyou just go slash and burn
route and say we're just goingto cut everybody that can't do
this programming test on awhiteboard, we're cutting.
I mean that's not the solution.
Yeah, you can't do that it's anoption.
Sure, is it the right option?
Speaker 1 (28:49):
probably, not probably not because, again, you
know, it's not looking atactual yeah, not cac but like
actual culture fit, skill set,fit.
Like where does this person,where is this person's best
excellence going to come from?
You know, we need a differentacronym for that.
Like this might be the year ofcac, but I I think there's an
(29:10):
opportunity to actually definesomething from a management
perspective.
How do you put someone wherethey'll be the most?
How do you take a d player andturn them into an, a player in
that company?
Like there's there's a formulafor that there's got to be,
because I truly believe there'sgotta be, cause I, I truly
believe you know, if you got thejob, unless it's truly like the
manager sucks and they're justtrying to like cover their own
(29:30):
tracks by hiring bad people,there is a place for you at that
company.
You've got the job for a reasonand like it's, it's the
management, it's the direction,it's the organization that's
failing you, not you failing thecompany yeah, I agree, I always
assume positive intent andplacement is a big piece of that
(29:51):
.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Like you want to assume everybody's smart,
everybody's capable, but to yourpoint, I think placement is
really important, like do theyhave the right skills, the right
experience to do this job, theright demeanor, whatever the
qualities are and and to be tofix this, like you have to be
intentional.
You have to say are they in theright spot?
Do they have the right skills?
(30:12):
And you, based on those answers, do they have the right
demeanor?
You could say, okay, what do weneed to do?
If they don't have the rightskills, we can train them.
So we can train them up and getthem the right certifications.
We can have them trained to doit.
We can sit them with a mentor.
Sometimes there are things youcan't solve, like do they have
too big of an ego?
(30:32):
Do they not know how to talk topeople?
And they need to talk to peoplein this role?
And then the question is okay,do you move them to something
that's more individual,contributor based, so that way
they can do better in that role,because we generally think
they're smart and could be good.
And then some cases you're justlike, okay, this person.
You can't, I can't fix that.
They kind of suck.
As a person.
You gotta let them go.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Yeah, I'm thinking back.
I made the example earlier whenwe were in the scrum pits and I
was part of that 80%.
But prior to that, when you andI were on the team together, we
were the 20, right.
Like we goofed off all day andwe made that place so much
(31:13):
better than before.
We were there because we lovedwhat we did, we did it
effectively and it gave usplenty of time for goof.
When we got moved, I mean, youwere more successful than I was,
but when I got moved, they'rebasically like oh, you must know
what you're doing.
So here's a project that youhave no skill set in.
You are completely in over yourhead for what you're building.
(31:35):
Go build it with these completestrangers you have no culture
with.
And I failed for three yearsthere because of that and like I
probably should have been firedin all honesty, like I think I
survived because of mypersonality, but like it was not
good.
And I think a lot of people werethere with me too, which is
like you took us out of theelement in which we were hired
(31:57):
to succeed and placed us under a.
Go build this thing so we canmake lots of money quickly.
And they didn't.
By the way, that didn't happen.
They ended up wasting a metricbutt ton of money in doing this
project, so I truly believe thisis a management issue in
retrospect, like they took an aplayer and turned me into a d
(32:18):
player yeah, they set you up forfailure, I think, is the way to
say.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
It's like, yeah, you couldn't have been successful.
I think you're too hard onyourself.
By the way, I think you dideverything you could to try and
be successful.
I think the whole project wasdoomed from the start.
It was doomed right.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
well, it was 200 people.
They literally pulled 200people from their places of
success and comfort and saidthese are all the best people
we've got in the company.
Go build this thing You'reclearly qualified for it without
knowing what we were evenbuilding, and it just, I think,
like that is the result of likeD tier management bringing down
(32:56):
a, b, c's all to the D level.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah, it's yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
And I mean I think it just people don't know what
that company is.
But I think that company I meanthe trajectory of that happened
after we left to now clearlysays like leadership was the
issue big corp is no longeraround for anyone curious, which
is crazy big corp has beenconsumed by the machine that is
capitalism yep, yeah, it's crazybecause it's just.
(33:27):
They made a big swing, which Ican respect like I think you do
have to swing for the fences alittle bit but there was no
product sense or strategy ofwhat we were really trying to do
.
And taking all the big peopleand throwing them at something
and say, hey, make somethingthat works, without any kind of
guidance or structure orthinking about, like, how this
could even affect them, like,are these the right people, is
(33:49):
this the right mesh of skillsand capabilities to get us there
Was certainly the wrongapproach.
They should have started with acore team to be like, okay,
these are the top people,they've got the right skills,
let's have them build towardsthis thing.
And then bring in people as youkind of really start building
something, to say, okay, do theyhave the right skills, are they
the right demeanor for this job?
(34:11):
In this, the culture of theteam, whatever it is, let's
bring them on intentionallyrather than just like what was
that term in the early, earlyodds blitz scaling rather than
just blitz scaling to whateverdirection I know so bad.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
It's so bad in retrospect.
Just the word blitz.
Let's not, uh, especially now.
Let's not, please, is there?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
ever a situation where just blitzscaling really
works, throwing bodies at it,hiring thousands upon thousands
of people this is the whole rock.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
This is the problem with the term rock star, right,
like we throw that around a lotin corporate.
Oh yeah, clark's a rock star.
You throw him on a project,you're going to be successful.
All we need to do is get allthe rock stars and put them
together and the failing of thisis the beatles, like literally
the biggest rock stars of alltime, just cranked out what is
(35:13):
it?
10 absolute bangers of albumsover six years.
Some of the greatest music evermade by four human beings.
Just absolute tour de forcetalent.
When they broke up they neversaw like a percentage of the
success that they had in theirgroup.
And like I'm not saying they'renot talented, like George
(35:35):
Harrison's one of the mosttalented guitarists ever.
Paul McCartney, incrediblytalented singer, songwriter,
like good band, did you know?
Okay, on their own.
I mean paul still gets concerts, people still listen to him,
but like he hasn't made a singlejam that comes close to what
they made when they were in thebeatles.
And you can look at any likemajor group that breaks up.
(35:57):
Or like I'm gonna go off and domy own thing.
I mean there's there's smallexceptions, like Justin
Timberlake and you know a fewindividuals become bigger as
solo artists Beyonce, but soloartist, not as a group.
Why do we use the term rockstar?
This is basically where I'mgetting to, because it happens
to rock stars, it's going tohappen to people.
(36:18):
It's the Prater principle.
You're taking something that'sactually like 100% good and
you're like, ah, let's do the2080 again, let's do it, Just
throw in some background drummer, a guitarist who cares who it
is?
It'll be good, it'll be great,it's one person Don't carry him.
We got Paul McCartney.
What could go wrong?
(36:38):
Yeah, you think Paul McCartneycould do scrum.
You think if we shoved him inthe scrum pits he would do okay
with agile, like, hey, buddy,your, your output of songs is
not, you know, up to snuff.
I need you to re-estimate thevelocity.
How many, how many points is asong per week from you?
Speaker 2 (37:01):
your backlogs running a little dry.
You should really do somecompetitive intelligence in here
.
All you're doing is writingpoems and we need bangers.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Listen, we need bangers out of you.
Where's the yesterdays at like,I'm looking for the yesterdays
eleanor rigby's.
Oh, how many, how many pointswas that on?
Speaker 2 (37:23):
the velocity board.
Why don't we fill the backlogwith some bangers?
Okay, just get it together andget some bangers in there.
Prioritize it.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Okay, it doesn't work , it doesn't work.
I think this is the realtakeaway.
I started with PraetorPrinciple, but I think I've
landed somewhere else, which isdon't move people, don't do it.
I think that's how you getthere.
Like, if we really diagnosethis problem, yes, I think
(37:51):
hiring is a big part of it.
I completely agree withRestrepo's comment B players
hire C tier.
I believe that.
But I think the real crux ofthis is when you have management
or you get promoted inmanagement and you're not the
right fit.
You can very easily take whatis wholesome and good and
operating at a hundred percentefficiency and completely bungle
(38:13):
that up because you don'tactually understand that the
people are where they belong,the talent is where it is at
foster it, pay it, promote it,but don't move it, don't it?
Speaker 2 (38:23):
let it be good, let it be so you're proposing that
if there's like a rock star teamthey're crushing vibes, real,
every single project they'redoing just knocks out of the
park, generating tons of revenue.
It's like just just leave themalone, don't touch them, don't
add more people, do not touchthem, don't pull people, just
(38:45):
say, hey, whatever you guys got,whatever magic juju you got
going in this team, keep doingthe good things.
I mean, if it ain't broke.
Yeah, I like what you're sayingand, to be honest with you, I
like the idea of giving themmore agency.
But I think there's carefulthere there's.
(39:06):
You gotta be really cautiousbecause just because you can
give them a roadmap and they canexecute and do really well
doesn't mean they'd be good withmore autonomy or agency.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Right, I mean sticking with the social network
.
You know, uh, facebook has well, they bought Instagram, but
Instagram has since added what?
What's it called?
Reels?
What's the?
Speaker 2 (39:30):
videos.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Yeah, Reels.
So you know, if you had therockstar team.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yeah, no, no reels.
And then threads is somethingthey recently started.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
We'll use Reels and Threads as an example.
Right Like.
Threads was not a success asfar as I'm concerned because no
one talks about it, no one usesit.
But if you took the team,instagram is one of the most
popular, if not the most popular, picture sharing social network
out there.
The team that built thatprobably got some really good
(40:00):
talent there.
But if you took them and said,hey, go make it work for video,
go make it work for text, that'swhere you get threads.
Right Like, you picked the wrongpeople to make your project
work, when they should befocused on what they've done.
Well, and I don't.
I don't have an inside scoop atInstagram, I'm just making a
hypothesis based on theconversation we've had here.
(40:22):
But I've seen that happen to us.
Right Like, we were crushing itand then we weren't, because we
were moved based on rockstarstatus and an expectation that
if they can, if they can build a, then they can absolutely build
X, when that's not at allequivalent and not considerate
of the skills, the vibe, theculture, the energy, all of
(40:44):
those things.
The challenge, I think, isactually what do you do when you
have a rockstar team that can'tdo anything else and they no
longer bring value to thecompany.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Yeah, it's like if you decommission their product
they're working on, I mean, thenyou have to ask it's like, okay
, they were productive, but theyweren't working on the right
things.
And I think that's kind of thecrux of all this is, if a team
or group people are doing really, really well, it's only natural
to be like give them more.
Give them more, put them onsomething more important,
(41:17):
because it'll be better for theorganization.
If you do that which I think ina lot of ways it can be if you
do that which I think in a lotof ways it can be If you set
them up for success, they can besuccessful in that change.
I think that's the right thingto do in a corporation.
It's hey, we've got this bigbet that we need to do.
We need good people.
We got to pluck the good people, because the thing they're
(41:39):
working on now, even thoughthey're crushing it, is not as
important as this thing thatwe're starting Like.
You got to weigh thosepriorities.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
And again this all comes back to the problem, which
is companies have to chaseprofit at all costs.
So rather than say, hey, we canjust sustain this, we've
created infinite energy.
As long as we continue to dowhat we're doing, just the way
we do it today, we'll always becash flow positive and can
(42:09):
continue to exist.
That's not good enough.
I need to have 20% profitincrease next year, and we're
not going to get that by beinggood at what we're good at.
We have to do something else.
I think that is the belly ofthe beast that forces the
stupidity to happen.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
I think you're right.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
We have to go build a headset, even though we own the
phone market.
Let's go do something that noone's asked us for, that we can
fail spectacularly at.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
We have to build headphones because we're a
vacuum company.
Thanks, Dyson.
You know what I'm talking about.
It is true, I think that's it.
It's the cause, that's where itstarts that is where it starts.
I think the cause is that andthe effect is the prater
principle yep, I think if youare just funny because you know
(42:57):
the prater, principle is allabout cause and effect, so yeah,
cyclical, sure I think, ifyou're a private company, if
you're privately owned, held,like, or you're a single board
of directors, like think aboutfacebook.
So yeah, cyclical, worryingabout bottom line, I mean, of
(43:21):
course he still has to worryabout it.
But he could just say, hey,we're not going to do anything
new, we're doing great.
Search is a great business,we'll be good to go.
Now there are going to bedisruptors that come along, or
competition, and you're going tohave to figure out how do you
fend those off and hold yourmarket share, because that's the
rest of the world.
But, if the rest of the worldwas just satisfied with where
they were at, then you'd neverhave this problem.
(43:42):
I don't think, cause then you'dbe like, oh, it's just the
stain, it's just coast.
But I think human nature isn'tlike that.
Human nature is always going topush you to want to do more, to
make more money, to try to domore things.
I think it's just in us.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yeah, and I mean I'm not saying that like you can't
do new.
I mean Facebook marketplace isthe perfect example, right, like
they're super successful andthat was never a great
Facebook's original vibe.
So like you absolutely can donew ideas Apple was a computer
company, now they're a phonecompany.
Like you know, like you canpivot, you can change, you can
(44:17):
grow.
I'm not saying you shouldn't,just when you're forced to, when
you're forced to think outsidethe box, not because you want to
, then you're forced to thinkoutside the box not because you
want to, but because you have to.
I think that leads todestruction.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
It's funny.
Also, in the last episode Alexbrought up a happy story about
Arizona tea company.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Oh my gosh, that video is great.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
If you haven't seen it, that is so good.
That is the definition of whatwe're talking about right now.
It's like just say, hey, we'remaking tons of money, we're fine
, we're keeping the operationslean, we only have A players.
And Alex told the story of likeyeah.
They asked the guy hey, how bigis your marketing department?
He's like it's huge.
It's like six foot eight,because it's one person doing
(44:57):
the whole thing, which it's likeif that's working and they're
doing great and they're makinggood money and they're fulfilled
.
It's like that's the dream.
But they do have to worry aboutlike will there be a disruptor,
but their brand has held thetest of time?
Like that is the true.
Interesting thing is like how,how have they been able to
thwart disruption andcompetition so well while still
(45:20):
maintaining how they are?
Speaker 1 (45:21):
That's the dream, I'll give them even more of a
shout out.
Because if I'm on the road, ifI'm doing a day trip somewhere
and I have to stop at a gasstation and I'm looking at the
drinks and I want something cool, refreshing and tasty, I'm
always going to get the can ofArizona, because Coke I used to
love Coke.
Coke used to taste good.
(45:43):
Now it tastes like garbage, ittastes like battery acid.
It's so disgusting.
They ruined it and I'm surethey ruined it for the purpose
of profit.
But Arizona tastes the exactsame way it did when I used to
buy the cans in high school.
It's like I'm drinkingnostalgia, because nothing
tastes that good anymore.
Everything tastes like crap.
It fascinates me that, that itupsets me, because I feel in
(46:08):
their case that could be theworld we live in.
Yeah, like every company couldbe arizona, but because of the
stock market and billionaire,billionaire itis, the terrible
disease of grading capitalismlike we can't have nice things.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yeah, arizona is the exception, but it is not the
rule yeah, there's definitelysome diamonds in the rough of
everything else, and there's athere's something called, uh,
the innovators dilemma, which isjust, it's all about just uh,
the law that, like, bigcompanies can't innovate and
(46:49):
they will be disrupted bysmaller companies that come up
with better ideas and they canmove and be more nimble, and
things they talk about like, ohyeah, we should shift our AI
strategy.
They're talking about let's hosta meeting in three months, and
small startups are like no,we're doing it right now and
we're starting to take marketshare right now.
We don't need to wait threemonths to talk about this, like,
(47:10):
we're doing it actively.
And so it's like, as a bigcompany, in order to, you got to
balance that like how, howoften are you innovating?
How often are you looking atcompetition to say what do we
need to do to change things,while still trying to be nimble?
In that way, and I think thelarger your corporation, the
harder it is to do.
And that's why I think Arizonait's like, yeah, if the head guy
sees something, they can alljust like switch on a dime,
because it's such a smallorganization of saying like,
okay, let's just flip, we'll dosomething different today.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
And so I think, that's like the beauty.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
It's like if you're a lean organization generating a
ton of revenue, you can probablyprotect yourself from being
disrupted.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Well, and like it was so refreshing just to see like
he never sacrificed the product.
Yeah, what he did was heimproved how the product was
canned, where it was canned, howthey deliver it.
The time they do it they do itat night because traffic is less
.
It's like, oh my gosh, it's alljust optimization problems that
he's solving for to keep thecost low, to keep the customer
happy, and he never sacrificesthe quality of the tea, which is
(48:08):
what everyone wants.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
It's just do I hear church bells in the background?
Speaker 1 (48:14):
uh, yeah, that's my clock.
It goes up on the hour.
That's why you're on time foreverything you're like church
bells are ringing.
My wife got me the coolest clock, uh, for christmas and it's, uh
, it's called a kleido clockk-l-y-d-o.
It's got a unique, it's got alittle, it's got a face.
Every day the face is somethingdifferent and it's like a
(48:37):
moving thing, so, like you mightsee, you know, like a trippy
space field one day and the nextday it's a little dancing robot
.
I love it Great.
It ticks, it chimes on the hour, which is great for me because
it keeps me just on track of,like, what time it is, cause I I
lose the time in my count.
Like I'll literally just be inmeetings and not know what time
(48:59):
it is, cause I'm just thingEverything.
It's great, highly recommend,great product.
I'm sure it'll be sucky in 10years, don't worry.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
That's pretty sweet.
Get it today, before it suckstomorrow.
Yeah, exactly, Get it todayquick, before they get disrupted
and have to innovate tosomething way worse.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
Google's going to buy them and it's going to be like
Nest all over again.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Yeah, poor Nest.
Well, I don't think we ever gotto any conclusions.
I think it's, at the end of theday, there's ways to avoid this
by being intentional abouthiring, being intentional about
moving people, even if they'regood, and making sure if a team
(49:40):
is not doing great, you try tofigure out.
Is it a skillset issue?
Is it a placement issue?
Could we put this person in adifferent spot and they would do
better?
Or could we train them thisskill and they could do better?
And I think those are the rightthings to do to try to get well
(50:02):
.
We're going to promote you,you're going to get a raise,
whatever it is, so that way theyhave the motivation to do it.
Which all of that retainingemployees, helping make them
happy, making them more skilledthat's just going to help your
company in the long run.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Yep, I agree and I'm really glad you're the 20% of
this podcast, thank God for that.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
I feel like I'm the three and you're the 20, but
You're like wait what?
No, I follow.
No, you too.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
You know, when I was looking at this, I noticed on
the Wikipedia page.
You ever heard of the 1% rule.
I don't know 1% rule is ahypothesis that more people will
lurk in a virtual communitythan will participate.
And you know what?
I think we buck this trendbecause you can join our discord
(50:55):
today and we don't have nearlyas many even the lurkers like.
They're like hi, I'm a lurker,it's like that.
Okay, immediately by sayingthat you're not a lurker anymore
, you're a human being.
So if you want to join ourdiscord and join in the kind of
conversations that we have hereit's actually been a little dead
this week it's probably becausewe haven't been it's our fault
Stroking the flame.
We need to get back in thereand put some, put some lighter
(51:16):
fluid on that bad, that badplace, but don't, we are not the
1%.
Down with them, down with them.
I say down with them.
We throw the blue shell at themand join our discord.
The way you do that is by goingto the show notes of the podcast
thing you're listening to rightnow through your ear holes.
(51:38):
In those notes, be a link tree.
You can join our discord, jointhe conversation.
You can play what do you meme?
Or you can submit a picture,meme form, of something we
talked about in the previousepisode and we have to describe
it in the next one with our wordmouths.
You can do Is it Me or Is itCorporate?
Anonymous confessions.
Do forward, slash, confess inthe Is it Me or Is it Corporate
channel and we will respond toany anonymous confession about
(52:01):
your corporate sins and we willtell you if it's a you thing or
a corporate thing.
Get in there, it's a goodcommunity.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
Good people.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
All of our guests come from Discord, so, like, get
in here, hang with us.
You can also donate If you'dlike to see the show keep going.
So would we.
Right now we're ad free, butwe're not going to be for much
longer because we got to makethe monies y'all.
So if you'd like to donate, youcan go to buy us a coffee, also
in our link tree, and supportthe show there.
We have a website.
(52:27):
We have a merch store.
We don't make any money on themerch, but you can buy your baby
, a baby onesie.
Yes, clark, is there anythingelse?
Speaker 2 (52:35):
No, I think you got it all.
Yeah, we got a website.
You can submit topics there,but it's not as great, it's not
as great as going to Discord andyou can literally just type it
in and see a bunch of livefeedback.
You can stay completelyanonymous, so don't feel like
you need to oust yourself.
This is meant to be just agreat community to create an
awesome corporate strategycommunity out there in the world
so we can all help each otherhave better lives in the
(52:57):
corporate setting.
Speaker 1 (52:59):
It's the new LinkedIn .
We don't allow self-help here.
If you come in here and you'reblasting, your self-help
propaganda.
We will kick you.
You're not invited.
You're not invited.
Get that out of here.
I get up at 6 o'clock every dayand drink my million dollar cup
.
We don't want that.
Shove that down the toilet.
Our Discord's for real peopleonly Flush it.
(53:20):
Linkedin 2.0.
That's what we're going torename it.
It's no longer the CorporateFan, it's LinkedIn.
If it didn't suck.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
Maybe we don't just use the name.
We don't want to live thelegacy We've got to come up with
something better.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
We need to Instagram this Facebook.
Yeah, I think that's it.
I think that's it for this show.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Yeah, share it.
Bless you, Clark.
We only grow if you share, soshare yeah bless you.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
Yes, we're happy you're back.
Please, I'm glad to be back,been too long.
Glad to be back Letting loose.
As always, you're Clark andyou're Bruce and y'all are on
mute.
We'll see you next week.
are you ready for that?
No, you.
You did it way earlier than Iwas expecting I was not a little
.
I saw you still a little bit Iwas still silencing all my
notifications to make sure Idon't get pinged in the middle
of you do that.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I have the.
I have the mental fortitude tojust ignore them yeah, I don't
yeah, actually I enjoy it.
I see like I'll see a littletoast notification pop up from
someone.
It's like really importantbuildings on fire, can you save
me?
It's like no, no, is thismarked on?
Your calendar yeah, of courseit is.
Yeah, is it not on yours?
(00:38):
No, what is wrong with you?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
no, no it is, it is, it is, it's there.
I, I text you.
We're actually pretty good atplanning, like every week, even
sometimes two weeks, like we'vegotten well, not planning
content, but planning when we'reactually going to speak.
We're decent Okay.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
So I always hit it there about two and a factor of
10 or so minutes.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, yeah, not bad.
Yeah.
Sometimes I'm late, I mean, butit's on the calendar, yeah not
bad.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah, sometimes I'm late, I mean, but it's on the
calendar, okay.
How often are you late tomeetings?
Depends how important is themeeting Percentage-wise.
Give me a ballpark.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Not too often.
I'm pretty punctual.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, yeah Percent.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Being late 30%.
I'm late for 30% of my meetings, you have to remember.
I have a lot of meetings, so doI so, 30% of my meetings being
a little late Yesterday, fromeight to five, nonstop 30 minute
meetings all day.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Oh dude that is the absolute nightmare scenario,
that's nightmare fuel for me.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
from eight to five nonstop 30 minute meetings all
day.
Oh dude, that is the absolutenightmare scenario.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
That's nightmare fuel for me.
Do you know what you want toknow?
My percentage of lateness tomeetings is what percent?
It's less than one.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
There's only like one individual that actually will
hold me over.
Otherwise, I'm sorry thismeeting is going over.
I have another meeting to go toIf you'll get a.
I'm sorry this meeting is goingover.
I have another meeting to go to.
If we need to schedule, I'llfollow up.
My calendar is available.
Done, it's never me.
I am never the reason a meetinggoes over.
So like I hate it.
I hate when people are late andI hate being late.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
So to clarify, so I don't seem like a scumbag, the
reason I'm late to those 30% isusually my team has it and I'm
there for like support and ifthat's the case, like it's
actually a little trick that Ido, sometimes I do show up late,
just so they got it and theydon't need me.
Sometimes I like to slide inabout five minutes late.
(02:43):
Not fair.
Nobody knows I'm even there.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
No, no, disagree, Disagree.
This is a bad look.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
I don't think so.
I mean, frankly, I don't care.
I'm like, hey, the team's gotit, I'm here to support, I'm
going to show up when I want toshow up and hopefully you don't
need me at all.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
You need to reject the invite.
Don't go period.
You're, you're, you're doingone of the worst of both worlds.
Here it's like I'm late tosomething I shouldn't be at at
all.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I don't think I need to be there, then decline.
I give the team the wherewithalto say, hey, you don't need me.
But sometimes I like to listenin to be like, okay, cool, I
like want to see what's going on.
But the first five minutesdoesn't matter anyways, for the
rest of these meetings Like ifit's a big, you know what I'm
talking about you get anythingproductive done in the first
five minutes of a big meetingwith 10 or so people.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yes, all the time out .
It's a if you're saying, ifyou're wasting the, if you start
a meeting bad, the wholemeeting is going to be bad, the
first five minutes is crucial.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
You got to get it right, no, so the rest of it's
good, let's let's talk about thefirst five minutes of every
meeting oh my gosh, okay, youshow up, yeah we're gonna go
through this together.
We're gonna do a stark contrast.
We're gonna compare bruceversus clark.
First, five minutes of meetingslarger than 10 people all right
, well, actually, okay, you havea lot of those meetings.
This is relevant for you, right?
(04:10):
Yes, yeah, okay, good, justwant to make sure at least two
or three a day, yeah, okay so.
So we show up.
This is my world, clark's world.
You show up.
People are trickling in.
The host of the meeting says,hey, we're going to get started
in just a few minutes.
We're just waiting for everyoneto join.
Two, two and a half minutes,maybe three minutes goes by.
They say, okay, great, let's goahead and get started.
(04:32):
Looks like we have a goodquorum.
Is everyone okay with merecording this meeting?
Another minute goes by.
God, I forgot how my corporateis Let me share my screen, and
then they start sharing thescreen by the time five minutes
rolls around is when thingsactually happen.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
My God, you are still in corporate and I guess I
still am at a startup.
That is the difference.
I'll enter a meeting hey, how'sit going?
Hope everyone has a good day.
I usually tell a joke While I'mdoing this.
I'm bringing up the screenshare Yep.
If this, I'm bringing up thescreen share yep.
If we aren't sharing screen inunder a minute, this meeting is
already a failure and I shouldhave declined.
Uh, we get into it quick.
(05:09):
It's like all right, let's,let's, let's hit the ground
running.
Here's where we're at, here'swhat we need to be.
What's going on?
You speak and they speak and Ilisten to them and then we
respond to what they say andthen it's okay.
Next thing go, go, go, letlet's get through this.
It is personally a cripplingdefeat If we don't end the
meeting early.
That means we didn't budget ourtime well, and usually those
(05:33):
aren't the meetings that I run.
So just you know that littlehumble brag, but I like to get
through it, get it done.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Anytime.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
I schedule a meeting.
If you show up late to themeeting, too bad, you're late,
I'm going to criticize you forit, and uh, that's that's what's
going to happen.
You have a calendar, you haveyour times.
Be there, you're wasting ourtime.
Our time is being wasted.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Yeah, this is the difference between enterprise,
massive corporation and startupusually, so a lot of people
actually join meetings early.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
I don't do that.
I don't do that because I don'tlike the banter, I don't want
to do the whole how's yourweekend?
how's your dog?
No, I don't want a water cooler.
Second, my clock is on the hourof the half hour.
I'm in there, I'm loading in,I'm getting ready to screen
share if it's my meeting,otherwise I'm getting ready to.
You know, at least listen,participate, do what I can, but
(06:27):
no lateness if it.
There is very few times whenanyone at my company is late to
a meeting and it's usually like,for you know, medical reasons
or something like I had to go doCPR on my dog, like no one's
ever late.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Ever Poor dogs.
Who's doing CPR on their dogsin the middle of the day?
I'm not taking them to the vet.
I got it.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I'd say I could never go back to corporate.
I just couldn't do it.
I work eight times as much as Iused to, but there's a brutal
efficiency to it.
I could not deal with thenonsense that you just
efficiency to it, and like Icould not deal with the nonsense
that you just explained to me.
Oh, forgot it existed.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
So many people listening to this sympathize
with what I just said becausethey know.
They know how often it happensand then I'm going to give you
the worst one in the world.
Oh, by the way, disclaimer ifit's my meeting, I'm always on
time.
We always have an agenda and weget done early.
Just to be clear, it's anytimeit's someone else that's not on
my team's meeting.
I'm just like this is a GDwaste of time.
(07:30):
My favorite thing is you happento meet more than 10 people.
You get started after fiveminutes, the recording is there
and then someone 10 minutes insays like oh hey, do we cover
this already?
And you're just like I swear Ifyou were here the first five
minutes of the meeting.
Yeah, we covered it.
Go back and listen to therecording.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Do you say that?
Do you actually say that?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Oh, you should say that we passive, aggressively,
say that and I even tell my teamto do it.
We'll be like yeah, we startedwith that in the beginning of
the meeting.
Feel free to check out therecording.
Yeah, good, good, yeah.
But sometimes it's like a VP orabove and at that point you
don't really have a choice.
You got to be like oh yeah,let's go back to slide one.
Going back five slides, let'srestart for this.
(08:13):
One person Happens all the time.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Don't have this problem.
I love that I don't have thisproblem.
It's great.
It's great.
Thank you for making megrateful for working with us.
That's why.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
This is why I'm late 30% of the time.
By the way, are you recordingthis meeting?
Do you have your consent torecord this meeting?
Okay, good, we should probablydo the intro.
So now that we're recording weshould probably start.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Welcome back to Corporate Strategy, the podcast.
It could have been an email I'mBruce and I'm Clark, and and
I'm Clark and you're on mute.
See you next week.
Good knowing you guys, it wasfun, it's awesome.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Hey, did you see the survey?
Yes, I saw the survey.
I was actually surprised by theresults.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
I wasn't.
I knew all along.
Really, yeah, in your heart ofhearts, in my heart of hearts, I
knew who doesn't like a littlegoof.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Who doesn't like a little goof, who's like a little
goof.
You know, sometimes I justthink we put it like the end of
the episodes.
I think we just go too far.
I guess people want that.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
It's the end.
I mean, if you've listened thatlong, you've already lost.
Did you not hear what I've saidabout meetings?
See, I go back and that's whywe don't get donations or
anything.
It's because we save all thatcrap for the end listen.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
If you want more goof , go back.
Don't listen the whole episode,just go to the last, like two
minutes, and listen to everysingle and two minutes to every
single episode and you will behappily surprised by the amount
of goof there's a majority thatsays I need more goof.
I was shocked that many peopleyeah, we had a lot of votes what
(09:48):
70 ish percent of people saidmore goof more goof.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
And then there was a decent amount that says the goof
is good, and only one was likeless goof, yep.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Do you think they differentiate goof and structure
?
Do you think they want morestructure?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
That was actually.
So I have a couple more surveyquestions.
I was going to do one a week,so you know I just, yeah, you
know I don't want to overwhelmthem.
I love our little Discordmembers.
I don't want to, you know, makethem do too much work on top of
their day jobs.
But I was going to ask do youlike the flow of the show?
Would you rather we have moreconsistent structure, or do you
like the kind of meanderingleading into sections when we
(10:26):
feel like it?
Organic versus structured, Ithink will be how I phrase it or
keep it as it is right now.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, I like it.
Look at you.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
I also want to ask do we need more guests?
Right amount of guests, lessguests?
Like, we'll figure all this out.
I want to make sure we'regiving the people exactly what
they want, and I do know rightnow I want more goof.
Yep.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
More goof.
I hope you have your license togoof updated.
I'll be honest with you.
My brain is complete mush, so alot of what's going to come out
of my mouth this episode willlikely be goof.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I'm actually really excited for this episode, like
let's just skip vibe check.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Cause I don't care.
Um, well, first vibe check.
We're happy you're alive,because alex and I didn't know
if you were going to come back.
It was really weird.
It was really weird as a firstepisode in corporate strategy
history that you were not a partof.
It was strange.
So at least tell the peopleyou're alive and you're okay I'm
alive, I'm okay.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
so anyways, onto the topic.
Uh, yes, I had real bad strepthroat and, uh, it was sad.
It was kind of sad because,like I went to film our our well
, this is not in D8.
I went to film somethingspecial that we're going to
produce soon and when I gotthere, in the freaking under 10
(11:43):
degree Denver weather, the heatand everything was just like as
the day went on, cause I was theMC for this event.
So like my voice is just gettingworse and worse, and we kind of
filmed it in reverse order, soit's almost going to sound like
I'm getting better as the thinggoes on.
But yeah, there was a timethere was a moment on stage
(12:04):
where I was interviewing someonethat we'd like paid to speak
with us and like he does thisfive minute thing.
It's really good, he's reallygood.
And halfway through his speech,like I feel this tickle in my
throat and I'm going to cough.
But I'm mic'd up, I'm on camera, like I have to keep it cool, I
have to keep together, so Isuppress it, I'm just like doing
(12:29):
my best to not do anything.
There are literally tearscoming out of my eyes because
like it's getting worse and it'sstarting to hurt.
And then the second he's done.
I say thank you, but what comesout is like it's so bad, I'm
like I'm so sorry, like at leastwe got your take, I'll redo
this, I'm dying, please forgiveme.
And then apparently they couldhear every time I was like
drinking and coughing and likeclearing my throat and like this
(12:52):
is just so embarrassing.
So after that I found out I didhave strep.
Fortunately I didn't give it toanybody.
I think I got it on the planeride over and it was just kind
of like brewing Literally.
Got back, was dying, gotantibiotics.
Three days later I had to flyback out for another thing where
I was doing presentations andfortunately the voice was at
(13:12):
least like moderatelyrecuperated, but there was no
way I was doing a podcast, justnone.
I was like, yeah, I didn't wantus to stop.
We've been doing so good on thestreak, so I think y'all can
handle it yeah, absolutely yeah,anytime we need a sub.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
We got a good bank of people that can jump in, so
happy you're alive.
I also went on a trip this pastweekend and I got sick too.
I went to Minnesota Minnesota.
I have some friends, some oldco-workers, who were there, so
we went in to experience thetrue tundra of the north and the
Monday temperature.
(13:43):
Monday morning the feels liketemperature was negative 29.
The actual temperature wasnegative 13.
Terrible, it was absolutelyinsane.
But I also got sick.
I got a stomach bug the day wegot there.
I don't think it was from theplane, nora, thanks.
I don't know what it was.
It was really weird.
I like, and I usually have apretty iron stomach, but we ate
(14:04):
something and I pretty clean, soit was a little bit out of my
normal diet.
But we're traveling.
I'm like why not?
I could not like stomachanything for the next three days
, like everything I would eatwould just make me sick.
So I ended up coming back onthe plane back home after like
three days, totally fine, yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
I don't know if it's what I ate.
I think there's an actual buggoing around.
It's called Nora or somethinglike that.
Someone I work with got it.
It couldn't come to the thingin Scottsdale Arizona, arizona.
It's just going around.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
It's terrible.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
I've been on and off sick since December.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
I'm ready for it to be done, I'm ready 2025 is a
year of health for you.
You got to turn, it's not it'snot.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
There's no way.
I think, um, I know theantibiotics actually like worked
.
They cured up a lot.
They cured up more than justthe strep.
So I'm hoping, like right nowI'm in this good state of
cleanliness, just how you havepurged all of your disgusto, uh,
through different means, butyou know, purge nonetheless.
Hopefully we can just plateauhere I like it and we're getting
(15:20):
sick.
Rest of the year that's it allright deal.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
I Can we just agree to that now I'll sign up for
that.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
What piece of my soul .
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Do I have to give to the devil in order to make I?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
think, statistically it's in our favor, given our
country has now left the worldhealth organization and is, you
know, electing non-scientificpeople to tell us about medicine
and science.
So I think we're fine.
I think, if anything, we'renever going to get sick again.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
So God bless, let's go, let's ride this train.
We're going to live forever,we're never going to get sick
and technology is going to ruleour lives.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
You know what I hate?
Smart people, doctors,scientists, medical
professionals who went to schoolfor seven years.
They're stupid, useless.
Get out of here.
What do you know?
Just let me do surgery UselessGet out of here.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
What do you know?
Just let me do surgery.
Yeah, I was a software engineer, I could do it.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Give me that scalpel, I'm going to start cutting.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, let me loose, let me inthere.
That's actually a pretty decenttransition into today's topic,
believe it or not, I don't know.
Get ready Like I didn't know.
Get ready like I didn't knowthis.
I'm sure, I'm sure our uhprevious host, alex restrepo, is
intimately familiar with this,but I am going through the
(16:31):
process of reviewing my team forpay raises and promotions and
all that, and I was sitting downwith the hr coordinator today
and they're walking me throughall of this and it's called
calibration by the way, pleasestop the they they informed me
of it's called the paretoprinciple, p-a-r-e-t-o principle
(16:52):
you heard of this before I haveheard of it.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I do not remember what it is, but I know what I've
.
I know I've heard it all right.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
This comes from wikipedia.
The pareto principle is alsoknown as the 80 rule, the law of
the vital few and the principleof factor sparsity.
It states that for manyoutcomes, roughly 80% of
consequences come from 20% ofcauses.
The vital few.
And the way it was used with meis you know, at any business,
(17:22):
20% of the employees bring about80% of the value to the
organization.
Within that 20%, I thinkthere's a 3% in the corporate
measure.
There's a 3% that does justgangbusters.
Let that simmer for a second.
(17:43):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Just I just let that simmer for a second, but like
it's crazy when I heard this youI didn't know if I literally
thought you went on mute becauseyou were so at a loss for words
I still am.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
When I heard this, my stomach flipped like an hr
person just told me this Likethis is truth and I'm not
arguing that it's not right,like when I saw it, like I guess
this kind of makes sense.
But then, like, is thisactually true?
And if you start looking at Imean just looking at the
(18:19):
Wikipedia page, there's a lot ofdata to kind of back up that
this is actually something thatis within a certain standard
deviation of error mostly true.
Is that acceptable?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
No, is it avoidable?
I think is the better question.
As you, especially as you thinkof your own team.
I get a decent sized team tothink that 80% of my team let's
use round numbers If I have ateam of 10, eight people are not
significantly contributing andonly two are like for my own
(18:59):
team.
I don't think it's true.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, I think it's definitely not probably in my
team or my larger uh org thatI'm part of.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
It's not factually not true yeah, I think, as
you're a startup, you have theunique opportunity to work with
like super talented people andyou're all doing crazy amounts
of work because you you have toto stay alive.
So, yeah, it's weird actually,thinking back to it.
It's weird that your HR persontold you at a relatively small
(19:27):
startup still I mean, you guysare growing a lot but that they
told you that this is theprinciple.
I can totally see it where Iwork, like if, as I think about
the broader whole of theorganization, absolutely only
20% of people do the work, andthen you have three people like
in.
You guys will realize this Ifyou're a high performer, there
are certain people that just getshit done and they're smart.
(19:50):
Every single time I know I'msorry, sorry for the little ears
Every single time you dosomething important, you end up
going to this person like, oh,you'll realize, all roads lead
to this person somehow.
And those are the 3%.
There's like a core group ofpeople that you're like, if I
want to do something, I'm goingto end up going back to them,
and so either everything goesthrough them, every single thing
(20:12):
ends up going through them,they get promoted through the
ranks, whatever, or they're likethis hidden resource that they
don't want anyone to know aboutthem, but certain people do when
they go to them for thesethings, to try to get things
done.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
So it's totally true in a massive organization.
I think back to our time at BigCorp and if I just think about
the people whose names I can'teven remember because they were
so inconsequential like maybe,yeah, you know, like 80% seems
like a large number.
Until I think about just ourtime in the scrum pits.
Remember when we had the scrumpits?
(20:46):
Oh, I remember 80% of thosepeople were definitely useless
and I include myself in thatnumber because I was certainly
useless when we were in thescrum pits.
So like yeah, yeah, just ridingthat wave.
So okay, it's true, it's, it'sat least true.
(21:07):
When you get to a certain largeenough number, what do we do
about it?
I mean, obviously, like youknow, we talk about CAC a lot on
this and CAC is very personal.
This is, this is somethingthat's a bigger look at
structural, organizational youknow, it's HR level, right Like
(21:29):
is this solvable or do we justaccept this for what it is?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
I think, in order to try to solve it, we have to try
to think about why it happens.
Okay, I think the reason ithappens in any business that's
growing is one there are only somany really talented people in
the world.
Not everybody is talented andsmart and willing to work really
(21:53):
hard Like you are going to.
Eventually, I think it'sinevitable, you'll get people
that are not going to be Aplayers.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Get the pal voodoo out of your mouth.
That's something right.
Voodoo out of your mouth.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
I wish, with the best intent, I wish I could say
everybody was super smart.
Everyone's going to work hardon everything they do, but no,
for a lot of people they don'tcare enough to work that hard.
They just want to earn apaycheck and sign off at the end
of the day, which is okay aslong as they're doing their job
Well.
That's the thing I think.
As you're scaling like, I think, sheer volume, you're going to
(22:24):
hit this Like I think it'sinevitable.
Is, I guess, what I'm saying?
But I think the reason is, whenyou're scaling at least my
hypothesis at some point yourbusiness is doing so well that
you're not scaling slowly overtime.
Usually you're scaling quickbecause the market demand is
shifting to you or you'restarting to take over from the
competition, or something bighappens that thrusts a wave at
(22:45):
you.
You've got to hire fast, and inorder to hire fast, you're not
going to do the due diligence oneverybody that joins, and so
you're going to, naturally, Ithink, just get a bunch of
people.
That may or may not be great.
You'll get some good, butyou'll get a majority bad as
you're scaling.
And then Alex actually saidsomething that I've never heard
(23:06):
before on the last episode, butit was really really wise A
players hire A players.
B players hire C players.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
And as you're scaling .
Yeah, it was so good, Likelight bulb in my head.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
I'm like every B player I've worked for has hired
C players and if they had.
A players, they get rid of themquick.
That's the way it goes.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
They get rid of them.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, it literally happened to me.
I was an A player working for aB manager and he found a way to
get me off the team and thesecond I joined another team, I
got promoted and everybody wasreally happy.
So true, so they try to getpeople underneath them that you
know can just do what they sayand boost their ego.
But to go back to what we'retalking about, it's like, as you
(23:50):
scale, these b players arehiring c players and then c
players are hiring d players ore, f players, whatever such a
such a letter exists.
Yeah, I think so.
Letter e exit no kidding sothat's my hypothesis.
What do you think you would likethat?
Does it make sense?
Speaker 1 (24:09):
it does, I do like it .
It does make sense.
So it just makes me ask morequestions, which is, if the b
players are hiring c players,are the b players actually the
problem and are the c playersfixable right?
Because like, if you put a Cplayer in management, is that
now correct?
Can we make a C player an Aplayer and avoid the B player
(24:30):
pit?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
You could.
It's all about potential skilldevelopment guidance, but if
they're only getting guided bythe B player, they're never
going to get there.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
So let's imagine a perfect world, right Like.
You have the choice to hirewhomever you'd like and you
don't have to hire whoever youdon't like and you can fire
whoever you want.
Can you build an organizationthat's 2000 person plus that
avoids this?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I personally think like 2000 plus I think.
So Now, if you're getting tolike 500,000, no, I think you're
going to hit this law justbecause of sheer volume, like I
don't think there's a way aroundit.
How?
Speaker 1 (25:12):
many is Twitter now, or X or whatever the hell it's
called.
I've got no idea, cause he cutso much right, like, yeah, dude.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
He cut a ton.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I mean to be honest, though, if you want to keep the
A players, you kind of got to goslash and burn.
Hold on, I'm doing it on GoogleGreat radio.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Great radio.
Everyone wants to listen tothis.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Great radio.
Oh, there's actually like aemployee count over the last few
years.
Hold on, Hold on, hold on.
I'm going to give us some.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm scrolling, I'm scrolling, Iswear I'm scrolling.
Get this Ketamine.
(25:59):
Elmo, when did he acquire what?
Two years ago now?
Yeah, so at the time ofacquiring 7,500 employees In
2012,.
When Twitter was founded, itwas 2,000 employees.
Wow, yeah, so I mean, you know,maybe that's part of the
(26:19):
problem.
The question is, did the cutsactually make it better?
I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, I think there's alwaysgoing to be like to your point
of like how do you fix this?
Yes, you have to kind of beruthless and say we're gonna
weed out b players and c playersand c yeah, anybody who's not a
, anyone who's not an a player.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
We're weeding them out and we're going to fire so
okay To go back to ourmanagement episode with Danny
Yonkers.
He had the example of maybeeven a C player that could have
been an a player in a differentrole, right.
So like I think we do have toestablish that a lot of this
(27:07):
isn't actually the person that'sthe problem, it's the position.
Yep, I don't know if ruthlesscuts is the answer, so much as
it is like actually hiring forthe right role, ensuring that
the proper people are promotedto the position that is best for
their specific skill sets, ornot promoted when promotion is
(27:30):
not appropriate.
Don't just make every good IC amanager or director.
Make good managers anddirectors good managers and
directors.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah, I think the I mean the easy way to like avoid
this is intentionally hire andtake the right time, but yes,
capitalism doesn't wait for that.
You know what I mean.
Like sometimes and I've evendone I've hired someone a little
too quickly, should haveprobably done a little more due
diligence and they didn't end upworking out.
Yeah, you do have to thinkabout like.
Yeah, I'm kind of to blame, Ishould have put them through
(28:03):
some more due diligence or had adifferent process to like
really try to weed out theissues.
But I think, as companies arescaling, like sometimes you're
just so desperate to be like weneed bodies, Like you're just
trying to find anybody who canremotely do the job.
Bring them in.
So once you're already in theproblem, then yeah, you've got
options, it's.
Do you intentionally take thetime to train people, to set
(28:27):
proper expectations, toreorganize the company in a way
that actually makes sense, or doyou just go slash and burn
route and say we're just goingto cut everybody that can't do
this programming test on awhiteboard, we're cutting.
I mean that's not the solution.
Yeah, you can't do that it's anoption.
Sure, is it the right option?
Speaker 1 (28:49):
probably, not probably not because, again, you
know, it's not looking atactual yeah, not cac but like
actual culture fit, skill set,fit.
Like where does this person,where is this person's best
excellence going to come from?
You know, we need a differentacronym for that.
Like this might be the year ofcac, but I I think there's an
(29:10):
opportunity to actually definesomething from a management
perspective.
How do you put someone wherethey'll be the most?
How do you take a d player andturn them into an, a player in
that company?
Like there's there's a formulafor that there's got to be,
because I truly believe there'sgotta be, cause I, I truly
believe you know, if you got thejob, unless it's truly like the
manager sucks and they're justtrying to like cover their own
(29:30):
tracks by hiring bad people,there is a place for you at that
company.
You've got the job for a reasonand like it's, it's the
management, it's the direction,it's the organization that's
failing you, not you failing thecompany yeah, I agree, I always
assume positive intent andplacement is a big piece of that
(29:51):
.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Like you want to assume everybody's smart,
everybody's capable, but to yourpoint, I think placement is
really important, like do theyhave the right skills, the right
experience to do this job, theright demeanor, whatever the
qualities are and and to be tofix this, like you have to be
intentional.
You have to say are they in theright spot?
Do they have the right skills?
(30:12):
And you, based on those answers, do they have the right
demeanor?
You could say, okay, what do weneed to do?
If they don't have the rightskills, we can train them.
So we can train them up and getthem the right certifications.
We can have them trained to doit.
We can sit them with a mentor.
Sometimes there are things youcan't solve, like do they have
too big of an ego?
(30:32):
Do they not know how to talk topeople?
And they need to talk to peoplein this role?
And then the question is okay,do you move them to something
that's more individual,contributor based, so that way
they can do better in that role,because we generally think
they're smart and could be good.
And then some cases you're justlike, okay, this person.
You can't, I can't fix that.
They kind of suck.
As a person.
You gotta let them go.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Yeah, I'm thinking back.
I made the example earlier whenwe were in the scrum pits and I
was part of that 80%.
But prior to that, when you andI were on the team together, we
were the 20, right.
Like we goofed off all day andwe made that place so much
(31:13):
better than before.
We were there because we lovedwhat we did, we did it
effectively and it gave usplenty of time for goof.
When we got moved, I mean, youwere more successful than I was,
but when I got moved, they'rebasically like oh, you must know
what you're doing.
So here's a project that youhave no skill set in.
You are completely in over yourhead for what you're building.
(31:35):
Go build it with these completestrangers you have no culture
with.
And I failed for three yearsthere because of that and like I
probably should have been firedin all honesty, like I think I
survived because of mypersonality, but like it was not
good.
And I think a lot of people werethere with me too, which is
like you took us out of theelement in which we were hired
(31:57):
to succeed and placed us under a.
Go build this thing so we canmake lots of money quickly.
And they didn't.
By the way, that didn't happen.
They ended up wasting a metricbutt ton of money in doing this
project, so I truly believe thisis a management issue in
retrospect, like they took an aplayer and turned me into a d
(32:18):
player yeah, they set you up forfailure, I think, is the way to
say.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
It's like, yeah, you couldn't have been successful.
I think you're too hard onyourself.
By the way, I think you dideverything you could to try and
be successful.
I think the whole project wasdoomed from the start.
It was doomed right.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
well, it was 200 people.
They literally pulled 200people from their places of
success and comfort and saidthese are all the best people
we've got in the company.
Go build this thing You'reclearly qualified for it without
knowing what we were evenbuilding, and it just, I think,
like that is the result of likeD tier management bringing down
(32:56):
a, b, c's all to the D level.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah, it's yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
And I mean I think it just people don't know what
that company is.
But I think that company I meanthe trajectory of that happened
after we left to now clearlysays like leadership was the
issue big corp is no longeraround for anyone curious, which
is crazy big corp has beenconsumed by the machine that is
capitalism yep, yeah, it's crazybecause it's just.
(33:27):
They made a big swing, which Ican respect like I think you do
have to swing for the fences alittle bit but there was no
product sense or strategy ofwhat we were really trying to do
.
And taking all the big peopleand throwing them at something
and say, hey, make somethingthat works, without any kind of
guidance or structure orthinking about, like, how this
could even affect them, like,are these the right people, is
(33:49):
this the right mesh of skillsand capabilities to get us there
Was certainly the wrongapproach.
They should have started with acore team to be like, okay,
these are the top people,they've got the right skills,
let's have them build towardsthis thing.
And then bring in people as youkind of really start building
something, to say, okay, do theyhave the right skills, are they
the right demeanor for this job?
(34:11):
In this, the culture of theteam, whatever it is, let's
bring them on intentionallyrather than just like what was
that term in the early, earlyodds blitz scaling rather than
just blitz scaling to whateverdirection I know so bad.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
It's so bad in retrospect.
Just the word blitz.
Let's not, uh, especially now.
Let's not, please, is there?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
ever a situation where just blitzscaling really
works, throwing bodies at it,hiring thousands upon thousands
of people this is the whole rock.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
This is the problem with the term rock star, right,
like we throw that around a lotin corporate.
Oh yeah, clark's a rock star.
You throw him on a project,you're going to be successful.
All we need to do is get allthe rock stars and put them
together and the failing of thisis the beatles, like literally
the biggest rock stars of alltime, just cranked out what is
(35:13):
it?
10 absolute bangers of albumsover six years.
Some of the greatest music evermade by four human beings.
Just absolute tour de forcetalent.
When they broke up they neversaw like a percentage of the
success that they had in theirgroup.
And like I'm not saying they'renot talented, like George
(35:35):
Harrison's one of the mosttalented guitarists ever.
Paul McCartney, incrediblytalented singer, songwriter,
like good band, did you know?
Okay, on their own.
I mean paul still gets concerts, people still listen to him,
but like he hasn't made a singlejam that comes close to what
they made when they were in thebeatles.
And you can look at any likemajor group that breaks up.
(35:57):
Or like I'm gonna go off and domy own thing.
I mean there's there's smallexceptions, like Justin
Timberlake and you know a fewindividuals become bigger as
solo artists Beyonce, but soloartist, not as a group.
Why do we use the term rockstar?
This is basically where I'mgetting to, because it happens
to rock stars, it's going tohappen to people.
(36:18):
It's the Prater principle.
You're taking something that'sactually like 100% good and
you're like, ah, let's do the2080 again, let's do it, Just
throw in some background drummer, a guitarist who cares who it
is?
It'll be good, it'll be great,it's one person Don't carry him.
We got Paul McCartney.
What could go wrong?
(36:38):
Yeah, you think Paul McCartneycould do scrum.
You think if we shoved him inthe scrum pits he would do okay
with agile, like, hey, buddy,your, your output of songs is
not, you know, up to snuff.
I need you to re-estimate thevelocity.
How many, how many points is asong per week from you?
Speaker 2 (37:01):
your backlogs running a little dry.
You should really do somecompetitive intelligence in here
.
All you're doing is writingpoems and we need bangers.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Listen, we need bangers out of you.
Where's the yesterdays at like,I'm looking for the yesterdays
eleanor rigby's.
Oh, how many, how many pointswas that on?
Speaker 2 (37:23):
the velocity board.
Why don't we fill the backlogwith some bangers?
Okay, just get it together andget some bangers in there.
Prioritize it.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Okay, it doesn't work , it doesn't work.
I think this is the realtakeaway.
I started with PraetorPrinciple, but I think I've
landed somewhere else, which isdon't move people, don't do it.
I think that's how you getthere.
Like, if we really diagnosethis problem, yes, I think
(37:51):
hiring is a big part of it.
I completely agree withRestrepo's comment B players
hire C tier.
I believe that.
But I think the real crux ofthis is when you have management
or you get promoted inmanagement and you're not the
right fit.
You can very easily take whatis wholesome and good and
operating at a hundred percentefficiency and completely bungle
(38:13):
that up because you don'tactually understand that the
people are where they belong,the talent is where it is at
foster it, pay it, promote it,but don't move it, don't it?
Speaker 2 (38:23):
let it be good, let it be so you're proposing that
if there's like a rock star teamthey're crushing vibes, real,
every single project they'redoing just knocks out of the
park, generating tons of revenue.
It's like just just leave themalone, don't touch them, don't
add more people, do not touchthem, don't pull people, just
(38:45):
say, hey, whatever you guys got,whatever magic juju you got
going in this team, keep doingthe good things.
I mean, if it ain't broke.
Yeah, I like what you're sayingand, to be honest with you, I
like the idea of giving themmore agency.
But I think there's carefulthere there's.
(39:06):
You gotta be really cautiousbecause just because you can
give them a roadmap and they canexecute and do really well
doesn't mean they'd be good withmore autonomy or agency.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Right, I mean sticking with the social network
.
You know, uh, facebook has well, they bought Instagram, but
Instagram has since added what?
What's it called?
Reels?
What's the?
Speaker 2 (39:30):
videos.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Yeah, Reels.
So you know, if you had therockstar team.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yeah, no, no reels.
And then threads is somethingthey recently started.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
We'll use Reels and Threads as an example.
Right Like.
Threads was not a success asfar as I'm concerned because no
one talks about it, no one usesit.
But if you took the team,instagram is one of the most
popular, if not the most popular, picture sharing social network
out there.
The team that built thatprobably got some really good
(40:00):
talent there.
But if you took them and said,hey, go make it work for video,
go make it work for text, that'swhere you get threads.
Right Like, you picked the wrongpeople to make your project
work, when they should befocused on what they've done.
Well, and I don't.
I don't have an inside scoop atInstagram, I'm just making a
hypothesis based on theconversation we've had here.
(40:22):
But I've seen that happen to us.
Right Like, we were crushing itand then we weren't, because we
were moved based on rockstarstatus and an expectation that
if they can, if they can build a, then they can absolutely build
X, when that's not at allequivalent and not considerate
of the skills, the vibe, theculture, the energy, all of
(40:44):
those things.
The challenge, I think, isactually what do you do when you
have a rockstar team that can'tdo anything else and they no
longer bring value to thecompany.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Yeah, it's like if you decommission their product
they're working on, I mean, thenyou have to ask it's like, okay
, they were productive, but theyweren't working on the right
things.
And I think that's kind of thecrux of all this is, if a team
or group people are doing really, really well, it's only natural
to be like give them more.
Give them more, put them onsomething more important,
(41:17):
because it'll be better for theorganization.
If you do that which I think ina lot of ways it can be if you
do that which I think in a lotof ways it can be If you set
them up for success, they can besuccessful in that change.
I think that's the right thingto do in a corporation.
It's hey, we've got this bigbet that we need to do.
We need good people.
We got to pluck the good people, because the thing they're
(41:39):
working on now, even thoughthey're crushing it, is not as
important as this thing thatwe're starting Like.
You got to weigh thosepriorities.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
And again this all comes back to the problem, which
is companies have to chaseprofit at all costs.
So rather than say, hey, we canjust sustain this, we've
created infinite energy.
As long as we continue to dowhat we're doing, just the way
we do it today, we'll always becash flow positive and can
(42:09):
continue to exist.
That's not good enough.
I need to have 20% profitincrease next year, and we're
not going to get that by beinggood at what we're good at.
We have to do something else.
I think that is the belly ofthe beast that forces the
stupidity to happen.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
I think you're right.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
We have to go build a headset, even though we own the
phone market.
Let's go do something that noone's asked us for, that we can
fail spectacularly at.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
We have to build headphones because we're a
vacuum company.
Thanks, Dyson.
You know what I'm talking about.
It is true, I think that's it.
It's the cause, that's where itstarts that is where it starts.
I think the cause is that andthe effect is the prater
principle yep, I think if youare just funny because you know
(42:57):
the prater, principle is allabout cause and effect, so yeah,
cyclical, sure I think, ifyou're a private company, if
you're privately owned, held,like, or you're a single board
of directors, like think aboutfacebook.
So yeah, cyclical, worryingabout bottom line, I mean, of
(43:21):
course he still has to worryabout it.
But he could just say, hey,we're not going to do anything
new, we're doing great.
Search is a great business,we'll be good to go.
Now there are going to bedisruptors that come along, or
competition, and you're going tohave to figure out how do you
fend those off and hold yourmarket share, because that's the
rest of the world.
But, if the rest of the worldwas just satisfied with where
they were at, then you'd neverhave this problem.
(43:42):
I don't think, cause then you'dbe like, oh, it's just the
stain, it's just coast.
But I think human nature isn'tlike that.
Human nature is always going topush you to want to do more, to
make more money, to try to domore things.
I think it's just in us.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yeah, and I mean I'm not saying that like you can't
do new.
I mean Facebook marketplace isthe perfect example, right, like
they're super successful andthat was never a great
Facebook's original vibe.
So like you absolutely can donew ideas Apple was a computer
company, now they're a phonecompany.
Like you know, like you canpivot, you can change, you can
(44:17):
grow.
I'm not saying you shouldn't,just when you're forced to, when
you're forced to think outsidethe box, not because you want to
, then you're forced to thinkoutside the box not because you
want to, but because you have to.
I think that leads todestruction.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
It's funny.
Also, in the last episode Alexbrought up a happy story about
Arizona tea company.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
Oh my gosh, that video is great.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
If you haven't seen it, that is so good.
That is the definition of whatwe're talking about right now.
It's like just say, hey, we'remaking tons of money, we're fine
, we're keeping the operationslean, we only have A players.
And Alex told the story of likeyeah.
They asked the guy hey, how bigis your marketing department?
He's like it's huge.
It's like six foot eight,because it's one person doing
(44:57):
the whole thing, which it's likeif that's working and they're
doing great and they're makinggood money and they're fulfilled
.
It's like that's the dream.
But they do have to worry aboutlike will there be a disruptor,
but their brand has held thetest of time?
Like that is the true.
Interesting thing is like how,how have they been able to
thwart disruption andcompetition so well while still
(45:20):
maintaining how they are?
Speaker 1 (45:21):
That's the dream, I'll give them even more of a
shout out.
Because if I'm on the road, ifI'm doing a day trip somewhere
and I have to stop at a gasstation and I'm looking at the
drinks and I want something cool, refreshing and tasty, I'm
always going to get the can ofArizona, because Coke I used to
love Coke.
Coke used to taste good.
(45:43):
Now it tastes like garbage, ittastes like battery acid.
It's so disgusting.
They ruined it and I'm surethey ruined it for the purpose
of profit.
But Arizona tastes the exactsame way it did when I used to
buy the cans in high school.
It's like I'm drinkingnostalgia, because nothing
tastes that good anymore.
Everything tastes like crap.
It fascinates me that, that itupsets me, because I feel in
(46:08):
their case that could be theworld we live in.
Yeah, like every company couldbe arizona, but because of the
stock market and billionaire,billionaire itis, the terrible
disease of grading capitalismlike we can't have nice things.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yeah, arizona is the exception, but it is not the
rule yeah, there's definitelysome diamonds in the rough of
everything else, and there's athere's something called, uh,
the innovators dilemma, which isjust, it's all about just uh,
the law that, like, bigcompanies can't innovate and
(46:49):
they will be disrupted bysmaller companies that come up
with better ideas and they canmove and be more nimble, and
things they talk about like, ohyeah, we should shift our AI
strategy.
They're talking about let's hosta meeting in three months, and
small startups are like no,we're doing it right now and
we're starting to take marketshare right now.
We don't need to wait threemonths to talk about this, like,
(47:10):
we're doing it actively.
And so it's like, as a bigcompany, in order to, you got to
balance that like how, howoften are you innovating?
How often are you looking atcompetition to say what do we
need to do to change things,while still trying to be nimble?
In that way, and I think thelarger your corporation, the
harder it is to do.
And that's why I think Arizonait's like, yeah, if the head guy
sees something, they can alljust like switch on a dime,
because it's such a smallorganization of saying like,
okay, let's just flip, we'll dosomething different today.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
And so I think, that's like the beauty.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
It's like if you're a lean organization generating a
ton of revenue, you can probablyprotect yourself from being
disrupted.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Well, and like it was so refreshing just to see like
he never sacrificed the product.
Yeah, what he did was heimproved how the product was
canned, where it was canned, howthey deliver it.
The time they do it they do itat night because traffic is less
.
It's like, oh my gosh, it's alljust optimization problems that
he's solving for to keep thecost low, to keep the customer
happy, and he never sacrificesthe quality of the tea, which is
(48:08):
what everyone wants.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
It's just do I hear church bells in the background?
Speaker 1 (48:14):
uh, yeah, that's my clock.
It goes up on the hour.
That's why you're on time foreverything you're like church
bells are ringing.
My wife got me the coolest clock, uh, for christmas and it's, uh
, it's called a kleido clockk-l-y-d-o.
It's got a unique, it's got alittle, it's got a face.
Every day the face is somethingdifferent and it's like a
(48:37):
moving thing, so, like you mightsee, you know, like a trippy
space field one day and the nextday it's a little dancing robot
.
I love it Great.
It ticks, it chimes on the hour, which is great for me because
it keeps me just on track of,like, what time it is, cause I I
lose the time in my count.
Like I'll literally just be inmeetings and not know what time
(48:59):
it is, cause I'm just thingEverything.
It's great, highly recommend,great product.
I'm sure it'll be sucky in 10years, don't worry.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
That's pretty sweet.
Get it today, before it suckstomorrow.
Yeah, exactly, Get it todayquick, before they get disrupted
and have to innovate tosomething way worse.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
Google's going to buy them and it's going to be like
Nest all over again.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Yeah, poor Nest.
Well, I don't think we ever gotto any conclusions.
I think it's, at the end of theday, there's ways to avoid this
by being intentional abouthiring, being intentional about
moving people, even if they'regood, and making sure if a team
(49:40):
is not doing great, you try tofigure out.
Is it a skillset issue?
Is it a placement issue?
Could we put this person in adifferent spot and they would do
better?
Or could we train them thisskill and they could do better?
And I think those are the rightthings to do to try to get well
(50:02):
.
We're going to promote you,you're going to get a raise,
whatever it is, so that way theyhave the motivation to do it.
Which all of that retainingemployees, helping make them
happy, making them more skilledthat's just going to help your
company in the long run.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Yep, I agree and I'm really glad you're the 20% of
this podcast, thank God for that.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
I feel like I'm the three and you're the 20, but
You're like wait what?
No, I follow.
No, you too.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
You know, when I was looking at this, I noticed on
the Wikipedia page.
You ever heard of the 1% rule.
I don't know 1% rule is ahypothesis that more people will
lurk in a virtual communitythan will participate.
And you know what?
I think we buck this trendbecause you can join our discord
(50:55):
today and we don't have nearlyas many even the lurkers like.
They're like hi, I'm a lurker,it's like that.
Okay, immediately by sayingthat you're not a lurker anymore
, you're a human being.
So if you want to join ourdiscord and join in the kind of
conversations that we have hereit's actually been a little dead
this week it's probably becausewe haven't been it's our fault
Stroking the flame.
We need to get back in thereand put some, put some lighter
(51:16):
fluid on that bad, that badplace, but don't, we are not the
1%.
Down with them, down with them.
I say down with them.
We throw the blue shell at themand join our discord.
The way you do that is by goingto the show notes of the podcast
thing you're listening to rightnow through your ear holes.
(51:38):
In those notes, be a link tree.
You can join our discord, jointhe conversation.
You can play what do you meme?
Or you can submit a picture,meme form, of something we
talked about in the previousepisode and we have to describe
it in the next one with our wordmouths.
You can do Is it Me or Is itCorporate?
Anonymous confessions.
Do forward, slash, confess inthe Is it Me or Is it Corporate
channel and we will respond toany anonymous confession about
(52:01):
your corporate sins and we willtell you if it's a you thing or
a corporate thing.
Get in there, it's a goodcommunity.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
Good people.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
All of our guests come from Discord, so, like, get
in here, hang with us.
You can also donate If you'dlike to see the show keep going.
So would we.
Right now we're ad free, butwe're not going to be for much
longer because we got to makethe monies y'all.
So if you'd like to donate, youcan go to buy us a coffee, also
in our link tree, and supportthe show there.
We have a website.
(52:27):
We have a merch store.
We don't make any money on themerch, but you can buy your baby
, a baby onesie.
Yes, clark, is there anythingelse?
Speaker 2 (52:35):
No, I think you got it all.
Yeah, we got a website.
You can submit topics there,but it's not as great, it's not
as great as going to Discord andyou can literally just type it
in and see a bunch of livefeedback.
You can stay completelyanonymous, so don't feel like
you need to oust yourself.
This is meant to be just agreat community to create an
awesome corporate strategycommunity out there in the world
so we can all help each otherhave better lives in the
(52:57):
corporate setting.
Speaker 1 (52:59):
It's the new LinkedIn .
We don't allow self-help here.
If you come in here and you'reblasting, your self-help
propaganda.
We will kick you.
You're not invited.
You're not invited.
Get that out of here.
I get up at 6 o'clock every dayand drink my million dollar cup
.
We don't want that.
Shove that down the toilet.
Our Discord's for real peopleonly Flush it.
(53:20):
Linkedin 2.0.
That's what we're going torename it.
It's no longer the CorporateFan, it's LinkedIn.
If it didn't suck.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
Maybe we don't just use the name.
We don't want to live thelegacy We've got to come up with
something better.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
We need to Instagram this Facebook.
Yeah, I think that's it.
I think that's it for this show.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Yeah, share it.
Bless you, Clark.
We only grow if you share, soshare yeah bless you.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
Yes, we're happy you're back.
Please, I'm glad to be back,been too long.
Glad to be back Letting loose.
As always, you're Clark andyou're Bruce and y'all are on
mute.
We'll see you next week.
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