October 7, 2025 • 57 mins
What really makes company culture crack as you scale from 10 to 30+ people? In this candid conversation, Aaron Schmookler (co-founder of The Yes Works) sits down with Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit (CEO, MarsBased) to unpack the patterns they have seen across startups and mid-size teams, remote and on-site.
We dive into: preventing culture erosion during hypergrowth, why manager span of control matters, how to sell services without hard selling, practical leadership habits (Be Obvious), and the realities of building trust in distributed teams. Real stories touch on TextExpander, Medtronic, and SOG Knives, with step-by-step ideas you can apply tomorrow.
If you lead a team, sell B2B services, or you are scaling a product org, this episode gives you actionable frameworks for structure, communication, and conflict, without the fluff.
🎬 You can watch the video of this episode on the Life on Mars podcast website: https://podcast.marsbased.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:07):
I'm loving that you have this attitude and this you
know, I th I've got the feelingthat we'll have a great time.
We're already recording, Aaron,so welcome to the show.
Here we are.
You know, next to nothing aboutthe show, uh, you've been
introduced to me by our mutualfriend Greg Scoun of Tex
(00:30):
Expander Fame.
And um as I mentioned, I like tohave these conversations for the
first time.
Or I don't like having certainconversations that they should
have been a podcast episode.
And the second time you havethem, they're not as good.
And you said, let's do it.
And you're one of the very firstpeople to accept that, not the
first, but I'm having thefeeling that we'll have a good
time.
SPEAKER_01 (00:49):
People decline.
SPEAKER_00 (00:51):
Not yet.
I haven't had that.
But because I started doing thisbefore my paternity leave, I
only recorded three episodesthis way, right?
And so and they went reallywell.
I would say like the successrate was good.
They haven't been published yet.
Um, but uh I'm fairly confidentthat I will keep doing this in
the future.
So thank you for agreeing tothis unknown kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01 (01:15):
Well, it's uh it's a fun and new way to think about
how uh how podcasts might happenand also how introductory
conversations might happen.
So uh we're having this one forposterity.
SPEAKER_00 (01:29):
There's two things that will make this happen uh
more interesting for people.
The first one is like this isnot a kind of content that you
usually see.
Like most podcasts are street.
I don't know if you're a podcastperson.
I am.
I love I love missing podcasts,yeah.
I've come to the realizationmost podcasts are very scripted.
They have the same people, thatthey're like all in the same
(01:51):
circles, and they follow thesame kind of structure, you
know, like dropping some bangersin the beginning, and some
smooth transition to theconversation, then every 10
minutes or something like a bigheadlines or like a clickbait uh
kind of content, and do you knowthe crisis towards the end, or
like the worst moments,lowlights of the company, and
then the the inspirational storytowards the end, right?
(02:14):
So it feels like I only kind ofknow what we're gonna talk
about.
Exactly.
And uh so precisely that'sthat's what I want to do.
The second is I like to like Ilike to give voice to other kind
of companies, not like youusually you see like everybody's
shooting for I want to have likethe CEO of a Stripe, the CEO of
(02:34):
uh Facebook, the CEO ofwhatever, like the big names,
right?
Or companies right after anexit, right?
Yeah, and I find that I learnmore from companies like yours
when I listen to podcasts thanfrom, you know, because at the
very end of the day, I thinkthat the takeaways are more
practical from people who arelike one or two steps above you,
(02:55):
not ten steps.
Like what can I learn from ElonMusk?
SPEAKER_01 (02:58):
Most of us are running most of us are running
average companies, right?
Maybe not average in terms ofuh, well, I mean, most of us are
running average companies inevery way.
That's the that's the nature ofaverage, right?
And we really are the thechallenge is not how do I become
Facebook.
It's it's how do I become thenext step?
(03:22):
That's it, it's a smallincrement that we need to
accomplish.
Always, right?
How do you eat an elephant?
One one bite at a time.
SPEAKER_00 (03:34):
Exactly.
So, Aaron, I have a lot ofquestions for you.
Um to give some context to theaudience, that issue I wrote uh
a couple of months back, maybeeven three months back, was at
Marsbase we were hitting 30people, right?
Uh right now, uh, for the firsttime in history.
We used to, for the first 10years, we used to hire two to
(03:54):
three people at a time, which issomething very organic, very
feasible for a company that'ssmall, boutique, um, very
artisanal, if you will.
Um, and last year we decided totake it a notch a notch up,
right?
And said, okay, we're gonna hiresix people, see what happens.
We've hired eight.
We're in the process of hiringtwo more people before the end
of the year.
And I felt like a lot of thingswere trembling in the company,
(04:19):
not for they were not badnecessarily, but things were
shaky for a while.
We've had to stabilize thecompany way more, put more put
in more effort than in previousyears, because with two people
like, ah, what do they see ordid this there?
Would you hire one six months,the next person?
Now, in February, we hired fourpeople at the same time.
And that was that was big forus.
(04:40):
Probably not as big forcompanies you work for.
I've seen Microsoft on your onyour website and um a few other
big clients.
But in companies like us, itfeels like it's it resembles the
situation Tech Expander had inthe day.
And so I wonder how do youactually work for companies like
the size of Microsoft andcompanies like Marspace?
(05:03):
Like is playbook similar or isit very different?
SPEAKER_01 (05:06):
Uh it's it's similar because uh Microsoft may be a
giant corporation and we didn'tserve the giant corporation.
We served a team at Microsoft.
Well, we served a team atMedtronic.
So uh you know, people talkabout you know, if a VP at at
(05:27):
Microsoft has an organization.
This is my organization withinthat that behemoth.
Um and the frankly, most of ourmost of our clients are
companies in the 30 to athousand people range.
So the getting out the theMicrosofts and the Medtronics
(05:48):
and the uh those are much rareroutings for us.
SPEAKER_00 (05:54):
30 people, 30 to 1,000 is like quite a big range.
So like the drop down ofcompanies usually comes in
smaller.
SPEAKER_01 (06:00):
You know, we're working we're working with a
team.
And then maybe we're workingwith a with a with a broader
base, having having begun withone team as a pilot, then we're
rolling out the same tools andtechniques for uh for a a
broader base of people.
(06:21):
And what we're doing at anygiven time is helping leaders
create environments and givingpeople the skills that it uh
that are required to beeffective with other people.
It's hard to be effective withpeople.
We are we are funny creaturesand uh and and at times
(06:42):
unpredictable, at times uh youknow, really reactive.
So it's there are a lot ofskills that that need building,
and it doesn't matter whetherthere are 50,000 people in your
organization or five, it's thesame skills.
SPEAKER_00 (06:57):
How do you sell these kinds of services?
Like I am I find it extremelyhard, maybe not extremely hard,
but like pretty hard to sellbespoke development to
companies.
Like companies of all sizes likeyou work for companies like
Microsoft, and startups andscale-ups and public
organizations and NGOs.
Um but selling something likebespoke development when half of
(07:19):
the world just buys fuckingWordPress and that's it, is very
difficult.
But when Greg introduced me toyour company, I thought like,
wow, this kind of consulting oflike company culture and team
organization, like fixing thiskind of stuff, of course
everyone needs it, but must be areally hard sell from the
outside of perspective.
SPEAKER_01 (07:39):
Yeah.
Well, I think one of theimportant shifts, and we've been
in business just one year lessthan you.
One of the important shifts thatI made it has been to some
degree and an important way tostop trying to sell it.
So uh, for example, a CEO wasintroduced to me by the leader
(08:05):
of his uh of his peer group.
He said, Oh, you know, given thechallenge you're having, you
should talk to Aaron.
And he said, I've got greatpeople on my front lines, and
I've got great people managingthem, and I don't understand why
all these great people are ateach other's throats all the
time.
And so rather than sell him thefix, I asked him some questions.
(08:29):
And I learned that each of thesemanagers, who was really well
hired and well selected for uh acommitment and an integrity that
had them working hard to driveperformance, each of those
managers was managing 30 people,20 people.
So they had an awful largenumber of direct reports.
(08:54):
And uh and I said, Well, thisthe you know, the the research
shows that that's just too manypeople.
And he said, Well, let me trybreaking it down and you know,
have them managing eight to 10people instead.
And they stopped being at eachother's throats because they had
these managers had the time tobuild strong enough
(09:14):
relationships to withstand thepressure of them working hard to
drive performance, and uh so hegot a little free insight and
didn't need us.
I find that when I help peoplewith the easy stuff, not that
(09:37):
that's easy, but the insight iseasy.
We get work.
He's introduced me to people whowho needed our.
Not for his company.
We didn't get work from hiscompany, but I have had
introductions from him that thatdid lead lead to work.
Uh and there are a number of ofstories like that where you know
(09:59):
we're we're maybe moving downthe sales path.
We discover some insight that'sgonna really transform things
things for them.
And uh not that everything isfixed, but enough is fixed that
the that the priority drops forworking with us to s uh under
something else.
Um and what goes around comesaround.
(10:22):
So some of those folks do comeback and say, okay, now this has
risen to a priority level againwhere we actually need some uh
some intensive work, and we getto we get busy.
And people will listen toconversations when you told
them.
Sorry?
Oh yeah.
Sorry, I broke you off.
Go ahead.
I was just saying it's alwaysconversations.
(10:44):
Every every month and month anda half or so, I I have a I call
it a CEO's bull session.
And I invite a bunch of peopleand we talk about some uh
particular topic of interest.
Like uh in a couple weeks, I'mgonna be uh running a bowl
session with CEOs about how tohave a strategic retreat with
(11:05):
your leadership team thatdoesn't just waste time and
money.
And we have a conversation.
And I'm I'm not necessarily theexpert in the room, though I
have some insight about that.
I facilitate a conversation.
And uh because I'm buildingrelationships and offering value
and not clawing after people, uhpeople lower their guard, and I
(11:30):
eventually see an opportunity tosay, would you like help with
that?
SPEAKER_00 (11:36):
I see a lot of parallelisms in what you what
you do and what we do, right?
Um I think I understand that yousort of do like you probably
don't like the sales word thethe same way I don't like it.
We do some kind of consultativeprocess.
I don't know if that's the rightword.
Uh bear in mind that I'm notnative in English, but uh in
(11:58):
which like you're introduced tosomebody, they've got a problem,
you just go there with nointention to sell.
If you sell, great.
But the first, like the firstintention is to go there, listen
to what the other person has gotin store for you.
Like they've got this problem,they've got this.
And I just go there into themeeting, try to solve the
problem, and I always I amalways very clear, we might not
(12:21):
be the right fit for you.
Yeah.
It might be that you need thisother technology, that you will
need probably a cheaper company,maybe you can do it in-house,
you don't need more space forit, nothing.
But they think, like most peopleare approached all the time by
people who are trying to sellvery hard, right?
So by having this sort ofrelaxed and chill conversation,
(12:42):
I I sense their barriers comingdown.
And that's where perhaps a moreexperienced and and better
salesman will be like, go now,I'm jumping for the throat.
Right.
Not myself.
Sometimes I just leave theconversation there.
So, okay, now I fix your problemor talk to this other person who
are like, oh no, uh, you're notgonna sell anything to me.
No.
(13:03):
People will not remember whatyou told them, what you did for
them.
They will remember how you madethem feel.
And if you made them feelcomfortable, they will
eventually come back.
SPEAKER_01 (13:10):
Right.
Uh and I I think I've gone backkind of back and forth on a
pendulum swing in some ways uhover the course of my career as
uh in sales.
And I I don't really mind theword sales.
Um but you know, I've gone, II've definitely been that
clingy, desperate trying totrying to get your business guy.
(13:34):
And then I've I've swung too farto the other side and just been
like, you know, it's all good,and you know, maybe like you
tell me, and uh, and and to thatpoint, and and the more mature I
get, and the the more detachedfrom the outcome I get, whether
it's the outcome of making thesale or the outcome of whether
(13:56):
or not you are offended by meand and focus on what I think uh
puts me in the middle, which isservice.
You know, there's also somethinghorrible about knowing, okay,
it's time for you, thesalesperson, to ask me to buy.
And in fact, like I've come toyou for your leadership.
(14:18):
And now the I I've felt like wewere making progress along the
way, and all of a sudden theprogress has stalled, and I'm
not the expert here.
I I've come to you to be myguide, and the progress has
stalled, and that's a terrible,uncomfortable place for
everybody to be.
And so also in in my role within uh in selling our services, I
(14:43):
I I try to focus on what isgonna serve you best, and
sometimes that's saying, Allright, uh, it seems like this is
a good idea.
Uh am I wrong?
SPEAKER_00 (15:01):
You're not.
And actually my net my nextquestion was was gonna be um,
because I've seen that you youalso run a podcast and a blog,
and content has been perhaps thebest and cheapest way to give
away some tiny bits of freebiesto attract customers, right?
But you mentioned that you hostthis events, private events for
(15:21):
CEOs, that is actually also verygood tactic, right?
So you just invite them, have acasual conversation, try to sell
nothing, but you're in the room.
And people, when they get in theroom, they get like this small
circle of people, like at thebackstage of a conference or or
of a big event.
That's where the magic happens,right?
So the podcast working wondersfor us because we're able to
(15:43):
share our information freely,share like we've got a uh the
company culture is based ontransparency.
So we share our revenue numbers,the things we do internally and
stuff like that.
And people are like, oh wow,you're giving this away for
free.
You must be really good at whatyou do, right?
So that big builds trust andauthority.
Um, but jumping into kind oflike the subject of the of what
(16:06):
I wanted to cover here today,which is the company culture.
We have been one of the loudestcompanies in Spain to talk about
company culture.
15 years ago, no one talkedabout company culture.
Granted, we're not a verycompany, but I took the idea of
company culture from the US fromwhen I spent a good time there
in 2013.
And um and we were very vocalabout having a like strong
(16:29):
company culture that went beyondlike usual startup benefits, not
perks, but actual companyculture.
And um and since then, in Spain,companies have learned how to do
it, right?
Back then, company culture wasthe freaking ping pong table at
the office and the fruitiesnacks, right?
Um but there's one thing that Idon't feel like there's an
(16:50):
actual consensus on this, and Ifear that the answer to this
will be it's different for everycompany, but at what point does
company culture break?
SPEAKER_01 (17:01):
It depends.
And and uh and there arepatterns.
Like you mentioned being rightat about 30 people, and 30
people, it's pretty common forthe wheels to start to feel like
they may be coming off the bus.
Uh that's when Text Expanderreached out to us, is when there
were about 30 people andgrowing.
(17:22):
Um there is I think of ofculture, uh it's the set of
contagious behaviors andattitudes in a in a community
and a company as a community.
And all behavior.
Guess what?
(17:42):
All behavior is contagious.
So, you know, I I th uh as youwere as you were talking about
it, I I was thinking about whenI was 18 and I went to a
Grateful Dead concert.
And you know, I'd listened toGrateful Dead music before.
I'd never been to a GratefulDead concert, and I my behavior
(18:06):
was affected by the behavior ofall the people around me.
If you've never been to alibrary, you might walk into the
library talking loudly, and thenpretty quickly you're gonna go,
I am standing out like a sorethumb.
And you're gonna get quiet ifonly to to appreciate and and
(18:27):
try to understand what have whathave I just come into?
And so the reason that I say itdepends is that different
people's behavior, depending ontheir forcefulness, depending on
their charisma, depending on uhhow they spend their time, may
(18:50):
be more or less contagious.
And so I think there are somehighly charismatic leaders that
can keep a uh a culture on trackaccording to what track they're
trying to create more thanothers.
There are other leaders thatI've worked with where you know
(19:11):
there are 10 people in theirorganization and the the culture
starts to uh rattle a little bitbecause the force of their
personality doesn't carry thatlevel of contagion.
And one other one other thoughtfor you is you talked earlier
(19:32):
about growing incrementally oneperson at a time.
You know, you bring one personin, and that's one person among
15.
So they're the 16th person, andso there are 15 people with this
culture contagion, and then thatone person is likely to be kind
of absorbed into that culture.
(19:53):
And if you're 20 people and youhire four all at once, well, now
all of a sudden, those four havea more forceful effect
contagion-wise.
And I I'm just using the wordcontagion neutrally.
It could be that they have anincredibly positive effect on
(20:16):
your culture.
It could be that they have anegative effect on your culture,
it could be that their effect onyour culture is neutral, and
still it does change things.
I don't know if that answeredyour question.
SPEAKER_00 (20:28):
It does, because I've got the feeling that um
most companies having culturalproblems is because they hit
hypergrowth, right?
And that's when they starthiring because they're running
out of time.
They're most likely VC backed,therefore they've got 12 months
to 18 months left of runway, andthey have to make a lot of
(20:51):
experiments trying to reachproduct market fit.
That means we don't have a lotof people, we don't have enough
people, we have to hire a lot,even though we know that most of
these people will have to befired if things go south or if
the company just goes bust in in12 months, right?
Um, but they hire them anyways,at the cost of company culture.
(21:11):
And most problems the companiesface in these situations are
caused by overhiring than forwhat I understand is company
breaking, right?
It's they actually break it onpurpose, right?
In this, I don't know if you areof the same opinion or not, but
uh I I I think that's that's acommon a common trend I've seen
(21:33):
in VC backed companies.
SPEAKER_01 (21:35):
Yeah.
Uh I I do think that the focusof VC is not necessarily
conducive to things likesustainability.
And there's also there's somevalue to well, let's not lose
(21:56):
slowly.
Let's not let's not bleed todeath slowly, excuse me.
Let's actually take some risksand see whether this thing is
viable or unvi or not viable.
So I think there are there areyou know uh there are some
narrow slices here, some somethin slices between what is and
(22:20):
what isn't wise.
And and any risk, uh, you know,you're gonna break things.
You know, a lot a lot of usspend marketing money, for
example, that if this marketingmoney doesn't work, we're gonna
be in trouble cash flow-wise.
And, you know, one of themistakes that I made early on
(22:43):
was to not spend money onmarketing.
Uh and that meant that we bledto death more slowly.
SPEAKER_00 (22:51):
And the other thing that I think like really affects
the erosion of company cultureis the length of the tenure of
the employees and the companies,right?
In startups, high-growthcompanies, technology in
particular, a lot of companieshave got an average tenure, or a
lot of people, sorry, have gotan average tenure of 1.5 years
(23:12):
and the companies, right?
Difficult to keep a um companyculture around if your employee
attrition is 32%.
That means that every threeyears, 100% of your employees
change.
And uh how can you keep thisconsistent over the years?
In our case, for instance, we'vegot the other side of the
spectrum, believe it or not.
(23:33):
Most of our people are seven toten years into the company,
which is really weird.
People don't leave our company.
That either means that we payvery well, or we just don't uh
they don't get tired of us,right?
At the same time, while thatsounds something very good for
culture, it comes with a certainset of struggles as well, which
(23:55):
is uh long-term motivation,right?
Or people getting older andreskilling them and stuff like
that.
Is this also like sort of thechallenges that you also
encounter on companies, oryou've never seen a company with
this kind of problem?
SPEAKER_01 (24:09):
Absolutely.
Because uh, you know, as triteas it may be, I I don't remember
who it was who who originallysaid what got you here won't get
you there.
And so there are aspects ofculture that may that may be
perfect for having gotten youwhere you are.
(24:32):
And now it's it's that sameculture that may be holding you
back.
And culture is habitual.
And so if you've got long tenureand now you need a change in
culture, for example, maybeyou've been a move fast break
things culture and you've stillgot move fast break things habit
(24:53):
when you've actually figured outwhat works and you've become
impatient with what worksbecause it's not the personality
that your culture has developedto be.
Now it's time to perhaps becomea little bit more conservative.
So there are cultural habitsthat you need to change.
Uh, can that happen with thesame people?
(25:14):
Of course, people quit smokingand quit drinking all the time.
It doesn't mean it's gonna beeasy.
SPEAKER_00 (25:22):
How about uh I've got the feeling that trying to
be an external consultant orexpert or advisor, I don't know
how you guys call yourselves,when you come into the company,
you know that um people tend tochange their behavior when they
know they're being analyzed orassessed, right?
Yeah.
So if you come into a companywith certain challenges and um
(25:46):
they'd like to they'd like youto come in and assess what's
going on, assess what works,what doesn't, and you start
joining their Slack.
I don't know what's yourmethodology, your playbook.
So you you you let me know here.
But um I'm assuming that somehowyou try to blend in or get to
know the team or inspect certainthings and whatnot.
(26:07):
And the team might kind of likeraise an eyebrow at the very
least, and say, like, oh, Ithink there's something going
on.
I'm uh gonna start working alittle bit more these days and
gotta stretch the hours a littlebit more and stuff like that.
Is how how do you do it?
How do you do it so that itdoesn't affect the not the
team's performance, the team'suh actual like how they how they
(26:30):
how they act?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (26:32):
Well, I mean when you talk to Greg, and I I
watched your podcast with Gregfrom uh from Text Expander, one
of the things he mentioned thatI think he said it, you know, it
it saved them untold waste.
Is is a simple tool, a simplepiece of vocabulary, be obvious.
(26:56):
So while we absolutely dodiagnose the cultures we're
coming into, also we justrecognize that there are certain
principles of effectivecommunication and collaboration,
effective leadership that areuniversal and difficult, and as
it's so difficult, in fact, thatthey're aspirational.
(27:18):
So clarity of communication,that's that is difficult.
Uh it's universal and it isaspirational.
I I'm a pretty clearcommunicator, and I still need
to become ever more clear.
So wherever you are, if we canimprove your effectiveness at
(27:43):
clear, consistent communication,and be obvious is a tool and a
bit of language once youunderstand what it means, that
makes even the most effectivecommunicators even more
effective.
So we can we can give you tools,we can give you techniques, and
we can give you skills that aregoing to make your culture a
(28:05):
more effective culture,regardless of where you are now.
We don't necessarily need tounderstand.
So that's one piece.
And then the other piece is ifwe hang out with you long
enough, and we hung out withText Expander long enough, the
facade that you put up is goingto become tiresome and you will
become exhausted, and the facadewill go away, which we've all
(28:29):
experienced.
Any to anybody who's ever hiredsomebody has experienced this,
right?
That somebody comes in, they puton a certain amount of effort,
they put on a certain mask.
100%.
And that lasts for a couple ofmonths, maybe, right?
With the people who have thegreatest endurance, and then you
start to see their true colors.
Uh, and sometimes their truecolors are equally, or even
(28:51):
perhaps more wonderful.
And sometimes you just go, yeah,great.
Well, I'm glad you're getting toknow more because your
effectiveness in this role isincreasing because you know more
about the role, even as youreffort level, your willingness
and endurance may be dropping.
SPEAKER_00 (29:12):
But reading between the lines, that means that
you've got to work for a longperiod, right?
So when you come into thecompanies, you don't just go
there for a few weeks.
It's probably like a six sixmonths project or something like
that.
How do you actually work?
SPEAKER_01 (29:23):
You know, sometimes sometimes it's a six-month
project.
Sometimes it's a as it was withwith Text Expander.
I think we worked with them for18 months.
Uh sometimes, as we worked withSOG knives, we worked with SOG
knives for one afternoon.
And we gave them tools, we gavethem an experience.
Everything that we do in interms of upskilling a team is
(29:46):
experiential because we all knowenough generally to be more
effective.
The question is do we have theexperience to put our faith and
lean into these things that weknow?
Um, and so we gave.
them the some of the same toolsthat we gave SOG uh excuse me
that we gave Text Expander, likeBe Obvious.
(30:07):
And the new leader, the new CEOof SOG Knives, was disciplined
enough that he said, all right,this is our new SOP.
And uh and then tactical enoughthat he took over from there.
And they grew those skills fromthe principals themselves.
(30:31):
So some of our clients are arevery short term and some of them
are longer term.
SPEAKER_00 (30:39):
How about the other obstacle I think that a process
like this or a company likeyours might might might face and
we experience it firsthand isbeing remote, right?
I don't know if you do on-siteprojects, I take it that most of
it is is remote because I'mseeing your clients they come
(31:01):
from everywhere.
In our case, we've never had anoffice.
And that in and of itself isalready a challenge because you
know it as an expert in acompany culture.
Remote environment, hard remoteenvironments, they really
struggle to consolidate companycultures.
We take longer.
And that's a fact just becausewe we don't spend enough time
(31:22):
together.
But coming into as an externalobserver or as a consultant and
advisor um I don't know if thatthe company culture is also
diluted there.
You can sense it there as an youknow as this third party coming
into the company and say like ohI'm not seeing where things are
going.
I don't understand everythingbecause I'm not exactly in the
(31:43):
office and remote environmentsare more difficult to work with
in your opinion?
SPEAKER_01 (31:53):
Yeah it's harder.
Before COVID in fact we didn'tdo remote work.
We just said uh let us help findfind you something because the
way that we train and and reallyany behavior change is gonna
generally require some level oftraining.
(32:15):
The way we train is soexperiential we didn't at first
see a way to do it effectivelyonline.
Then COVID came along and wesaid all right well we better we
better figure this out and wespent some some really intensive
time going all right well how dowe deliver this remotely and
thankfully you know we we metPhilip and Greg of of Text
(32:38):
Expander after COVID began sothat when they said can like you
they were entirely remote um canwe work with you?
And we said yes we we havefigured out how to do that.
So it is it is a a differentchallenge because as I said uh
(32:59):
culture is contagious behaviorsand attitudes uh I can't give
you a cold from here um right soso there are contagions that are
harder in particular you know Ican I can uh cultivate a
(33:19):
particular image of behaviorsfor you while we're on Zoom you
know that are harder to maintainfor an entire day in the office
together so I can fake it moreeasily and then go and and and
be otherwise also the behaviorsthat you want me to uh adopt are
(33:46):
harder to instill in me becauseI'm not seeing you as much I'm
not around the behaviors thatyou want which is why uh another
reason why part a big part ofour focus is in training.
Most people want to do the bestthat they can almost everybody
(34:06):
everybody's doing the best thatthey can and in large measure
it's about skill I'm not gonnaget on a unicycle because I am
afraid I'm gonna fall off it butif I have the training to stay
on a unicycle and I grow theconfidence then I will happily
(34:32):
get on a unicycle similarly alot of the the most effective
tools of communication thingslike listening patience allowing
silence those are scary untilyou've had the training to see
(34:54):
that they work and then you canhave the confidence in the same
way you're you're willing to geton that unicycle that is
actually very good segue for mynext question which is what is
your playbook then?
SPEAKER_00 (35:10):
Because uh let me let me explain we we recorded
five episodes with an MAboutique dissecting how they
work right not that's a prettylike the MA industry is not very
transparent and so most peopledon't know like how these
companies work um what isrequired to get involved with
(35:32):
these kind of companies whatsort of transactions fees uh how
does an N NDA work and uncompetelike uh non-shopping agreement
and stuff like that similarly weare recording right now like and
this week's we're recording ahow to build an agency series
for the Markspace podcast uhbased on our experience um but
(35:52):
we don't know how your kind ofcompany operates so what is how
does the typical engagement looklike like is there uh I suppose
an NDA then yeah you give aquote or is it a retainer?
SPEAKER_01 (36:06):
How do you guys work we want to understand where you
are as well as we can and whereyou're trying to get right so
it's it's kind of like if youwere to call up a physical
trainer and say hey I needphysical training they're gonna
(36:26):
go okay well what are yourgoals?
Oh you want to lose weight wellhow heavy are you right so that
so there there's uh there's thatkind of let's learn what is the
origin and what's thedestination.
Okay now we can think aboutplotting a route so that's
(36:47):
that's step one then we agreeokay we're gonna do this much of
that route together very oftenwhat we think about is is kind
of three aspects of a healthyculture one is structural
prepare the soil we have had anumber of uh leaders call us and
(37:11):
say one of our core values hereis trust I'm not experiencing
trust people don't trust eachother they don't trust me I
don't understand what's going onand I say well open your open
your employee handbook to arandom page and start reading to
me and there are policies inemployee handbooks on every page
(37:32):
and not every employee handbookmost that say in no uncertain
terms though in different wordswe don't trust you as far as we
can throw you so if your corevalue is trust and your employee
handbook says for instance andthis is one of the most
egregious types of policies whenyou get back from bereavement
leave bring us an obituary or adeath certificate to prove that
(37:55):
you actually lost a loved one ifyou want trust you've got to
show trust I went to a parochialhigh school you know religious
you'd think that morals would bean important part of that and
they told us they they told usall day every day you know every
(38:18):
time we took a test we are goingto be watching you like hawks if
anybody cheats you're gonna getzero and it's gonna go on your
record and there will bedisciplinary action taken
essentially they were telling usy'all are cheaters so we're
gonna be watching out for thatdon't do what you do everybody
(38:42):
cheated it was a it was a itbecame a sport given their
security measures how are wegonna get past them then I went
to college and in college therewas an honor code and the
professor was not permitted tobe in the room while we were
(39:03):
taking our exams they'd givethis the exam they'd answer any
questions and then they wererequired to leave and then we
wrote a little pledge that saidI've neither given nor received
aid during this exam.
Essentially I I did this this ismy work I did not cheat.
I did not see or hear about anycheating in the four years that
(39:26):
I was in college.
So people will live up to ordown to the expectations that
you have from them.
So that's one example of preparethe soil are the structures
correct another example wealready talked about great
managers, great people on thefront lines, why are they at
each other's throats?
Because the structure of havingso many people report to a
(39:50):
single manager is not conduciveto a strong relationship.
And so there's resentmentbuilding and that's creating
problems for you that'sstructure.
Prepare the soil plant the seedswe have eight principles of
effective communicationcollaboration and leadership
that we train teams to uhunderstand and implement be
(40:13):
obvious is one of those some ofour clients just get four of
those eight and we plant thoseseeds in people's brains and
they germinate on their own.
So we've come back to clientsyears later and said I I'll say
something to the CEO like heyjust to be obvious here and he
(40:37):
it this has happened more thanonce that the CEO I'm thinking
about Katie right now she saidwait you say be obvious too like
we say that and I said youremember where you got it she's
like oh my goodness four fiveyears later she's like we got
that from you it's just become apart of their vernacular to the
(40:59):
extent that they forget thatwhere it came from that's
culture is we don't evennecessarily recognize what it is
where it came from that it'ssomething we do it's just it's
just how we are.
And then the third the thirdphase is is water the garden uh
and that is where we help yougerminate those principles and
(41:22):
give you real tactics if youthink about the seeds and the
the principles as strategies foreffective culture then the
tactics are for example it wegive people a four-step process
for giving effective feedback.
SPEAKER_00 (41:38):
One, two, three, four you do this, then this,
then this, then this uh and thatpoints back to it it evolves out
of those principles and nowyou've got specific tactics to
employ uh because the principlesand the tactics can reinforce
(41:58):
one another that is that sort ofwell no that actually answers
the question of like how do youguys work in terms of playbook
but in terms of like thecontract how do you that how do
companies engage with each otherright is there the process does
it look like a free consultationat the beginning or we come to
(42:18):
your office visit 30 minutessomething like that then it's an
ongoing agreement there's a paidcake at the beginning I don't
know like what would peopleexpect from a process like this?
Because we've never hadcompanies like yours on the
podcast.
SPEAKER_01 (42:33):
So yeah I'm just um so kids at public utility
district they came to us andthey said here's the issue uh
and I said oh well it soundslike you don't have a system for
this is how we manage peoplearound here and that seems to me
to be maybe the primary issue.
You've got a system for how dowe create our work tickets and
(42:55):
how do we do procurement and howdo we do hiring and we've you've
got a system for everythingexcept the care and feeding of
your most important asset thepeople in your company so what
we want to do is we're gonnagive you a system for this is
how we manage people around herewe'll do a little diagnostic
first we'll plant the seeds giveyou these these principles and
(43:18):
then we will over the course ofeight months also give you and
train you in a system ofmanaging people and performance
that leads to strongrelationships, strong retention
and strong performance.
And and that's that was theagreement from the beginning we
just said all right we're goingto do this significant meal.
(43:41):
We've also got something we callthe culture seed starter where
we survey the team and measurethem on six six characteristics
of highly effective teams thingslike trust and respect, a focus
on results, a willingness andability to manage conflict uh
things like accountability,right?
(44:02):
We're gonna measure your healthin a snapshot through a survey
then we're gonna give you thesefirst four principles and then
we're going to talk about theresults of the survey together
and what you as a team want todo about it.
And that's as far as we go inthis first phase.
(44:22):
You may decide that what youwant to do about it is entirely
DIY and we'll give you somepointers and send you off to DIY
and some clients who do theculture seed starter uh see that
those four principles have giventhem enough they decided DIY
from there and some say okaywe'd like to uh we'd like to
(44:42):
increase our willingness andability to manage conflict we
think that's the most importantplace for us to focus and we
might ask do you want help withthat?
SPEAKER_00 (44:51):
And if they do we have tools for that brings me to
my next question as you mightknow this is a very artisanal
process right and you as afounder as you scale your
company um you found you findyourself between a rock and a
hard place finding the balancebetween I want to sell more I
(45:16):
want to grow the client base atthe same time I the company does
a great job because I'm stillinvolved in the projects the
moment I go hands off I don'tknow whether it's gonna happen
but I in our experience didn'twork very well in the past.
And so how do you find thisbalance of I am involved enough
(45:39):
in the day-to-day of theprojects and overseeing things
and like putting the finaltouches on the adding the final
layer of quality of yourdistinctive founding principles
and quality and you know caringfor the growing sales.
SPEAKER_01 (45:57):
For me and my company it it kind of goes like
this you know so I started overhere and it it was you know you
mentioned the pendulum right I'mdoing I'm doing it all right and
it's kind of like well that'snot working let me let me
delegate some of this and someof that I delegated well enough
(46:18):
that I had only had to backslideto here and then the work from
here to here is in systematizingthis stuff well enough that
people can who aren't me canexecute and then also taking my
hands off of other stuff whereI'm holding things back because
other people execute better thanI do.
(46:40):
And then making new progressrealizing the ways in which it
hasn't been effectivelysystematized going back and then
working my way forward tosystematize and train people
more effectively and so we'rekind of slowly creeping our way
uh forward and then you know thethe level of experience and the
(47:04):
the decade plus of time that Ihave doing this, there are some
parts of what we do that I dobetter than anybody else and so
there's some dialogue to havewith some of our clients about
do you want to pay to take meaway from the other stuff that
(47:25):
I'm doing?
SPEAKER_00 (47:26):
In which case you can pay more and and have me or
you can pay a little less andget 90% of the quality that's
always a very difficultconversation because most of the
times if you do like us one ofour strongest selling points is
like oh the founders areinvolved in the project.
SPEAKER_01 (47:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (47:45):
And we are right but a certain point you're like I'm
not required here because likethe company is less complex now.
It's been like you know for twoyears and we're moving to this
other more complex problem andperhaps more mentally
stimulating project right um andthen your natural instinct is
not to to reduce the fees rightto the clients but they they
(48:07):
they see you going away andthey're like oh why are you
going away from the projectright but we're still always
there for anything that justcomes up any putting out any
fires and stuff like that.
So that's why I think peoplelove companies like ours
probably like yours becausefounders are still there.
SPEAKER_01 (48:22):
We care um we're coming up to the close to the
the to to the end of the of theof the show but there's one
question we ask to everybodywe've always asked this question
not only in the five years ofLife on Mars the Mars Days
podcast but also in the 15 yearsI've been hosting events um
which is what's been yourbiggest fuck up biggest personal
(48:45):
fuck up and and and work likeprofessional fuck up and how
much money did it cost to you Ican't calculate it's got to be
one of your own yeah you have toown it up I cannot calculate how
much it cost me and and I and Iwant to care for good people who
(49:11):
are part of this company'shistory and without whom w the
company wouldn't be what it wasI think my biggest fuck up has
been not believing people whenthey tell me who they are that
(49:33):
sounds interesting you know thatthere's there's uh you know
people saying this is what'swhat my priority is and they
have skills they have abilitiesthat I lusted after and I wanted
those skills and felt like Icouldn't get where I wanted to
(49:56):
go without them and then makeexcuses for the behaviors that
uh and the actions thatcompromised either my integrity
or the well-being and health ofthe company our ability to adapt
and grow with the demands of themarket and still kind of lusting
(50:23):
after those skills and abilitiesand being scared of what would
happen if I were to just say Ilove this but this isn't working
and if this is part of thepackage then we're gonna need to
figure out a way to to go ourseparate ways because I can't be
(50:45):
around this can't have this inthe company can't see the future
being as bright as it needs tobe if we keep going in the
directions that this insistsupon.
So um that's my answer.
SPEAKER_00 (51:03):
For what however clear or muddy it may be no it's
good usually people try to giveme very cliche um crap like I
hired the wrong person or I tooktoo long to fire that person and
stuff like that, right?
Sometimes we get I set theoffice on fire.
That was good.
Like somebody at Amazon set anoffice on fire somebody deleted
(51:25):
the production database of likeentire record record company on
like a beak launch day.
Some are really freaking epicbut like some of them they try
to get away with this sort ofsmall things.
Yours is uh much morephilosophical if you will but
given that like in the work orthe the field that you that you
do um it's uh it's I understandthat you can't allow for
(51:52):
fuck-ups in judging people rightor in trusting people because at
the very end of the day beculture is built with people.
So if they're not sincere to youor you're not able to read
between the lines, you're notdoing a great job.
SPEAKER_01 (52:04):
I I would adjust that a little bit.
I think there's I give myself alot of grace around trusting the
wrong people where where I hopeI have learned my lesson is in
not continuing to throw goodmoney after bad the sunk cost
(52:25):
fallacy.
SPEAKER_00 (52:31):
Let me shift directions and instead uh
continuing to try to putlipstick on a pig okay gotcha
and uh I feel like I havecommitted the same mistake
multiple times but also becauseI have a certain tendency of
working with friends andsometimes you just don't want to
(52:53):
hurt them.
Yeah and you're like okay I'lltry to you know put the lipstick
on a pick as you mentioned anduntil that gets to somehow to
somewhere acceptable and thenyou part ways but uh I think I
think we're we've been on thesame boat here.
Many thanks Aaron um one lastquestion for you rolling out the
(53:13):
red carpet.
So how can we help you on theYesWorks like with our community
at Life of Mars, Marspace, isthere anything specific you guys
are looking for um any kind ofprofile you want to hire some
new market you want to tap intosomething we can do for you.
SPEAKER_01 (53:28):
I'll say this I I really am a man on a mission.
Uh this company started almost12 years ago now when my wife
told me she was pregnant and Iwas doing work that I loved in a
job that I hated.
And I just thought this is thisis bullshit.
I don't want to come home andhave my daughter see that even
though I love my work I'mexhausted and and uh and and not
(53:52):
because I'm tired but becauseI'm I'm trying truly tapped out
and sapped of my life force Idon't want her to think that's
even a possibility I don't wanther to relate to her fellow
humans you know by saying youknow another day another dollar
same shit different day I hateFridays I hate my I hate or I
(54:14):
love you know TGIF I hateMondays I hate my boss all that
stuff I do not want my daughterto come up in the work culture
that you and I came up in Alexum so if you are perplexed by
frustrated by uh simply believethat that things could be better
(54:38):
interpersonally in your companyor between your your folks and
uh and your customers your folksand your vendors and you just
think that there's got to be adifferent way I'd love to talk
if I can if I can help withinsight in any way uh that's
(54:59):
that's how y'all can help ishelp me forward this mission
that we instead of comingtogether on uh you know I'll
I'll never forget the clerk whowho told me after just a great
job doing you know having agreat rapport with me building
(55:20):
rapport just in the couple ofseconds that we were I was
checking out she said you know Iasked how are you and she said
I'll be better in a couple hourswhen I get off that that way
that we try to find commonalitytogether is poison.
So if I can in any way help usfind commonality through the
(55:40):
grace of being able to make acontribution through our work
that's a good day for me.
So help me have more good daysuh so that we can all uh find
that commonality together ashumans by uh the grace of being
able to do a good good workmaking a contribution.
SPEAKER_00 (55:58):
That that is actually very inspirational.
So thank you for sharing.
Just a couple of thoughts herefirst one is you know we've been
talking a lot about companyculture in this podcast in our
blog and whatnot this isactually the very first time I
feel like I'm having a veryforked conversation with
somebody who knows their shitabout company culture.
The second one is bring back thepodcast.
(56:19):
Like um I feel like all of thesesharings all of these learnings
um should be shared on like morefrequently on a podcast you've
got a great voice you've got agreat setup a fantastic
background and experience likeand experienced you you could
you could fill many many bookswith that so uh podcasting you
know is a is a great issomething very very useful and
(56:41):
uh it's a great way to pay forwork.
So thank you for doing this.
Thank you for the opportunity tohave this chat together.
I feel like I learned a ton anduh wishing you continued
success.
SPEAKER_01 (56:52):
Well thank you Alex you know I I do podcasts not
infrequently I have my ownpodcast and I'm brought on as a
guest every so often my favoritepodcasts are ones like this
where people engage with me inways that have me saying things
I've never said beforesurprising myself with with new
insight into the work that I'mdoing.
(57:13):
So uh I'm grateful to you for uhbeing present with me in such a
way that that you'd bring newstuff out of me.
Thank you.
I'm loving that you have this attitude and this you
know, I th I've got the feelingthat we'll have a great time.
We're already recording, Aaron,so welcome to the show.
Here we are.
You know, next to nothing aboutthe show, uh, you've been
introduced to me by our mutualfriend Greg Scoun of Tex
(00:30):
Expander Fame.
And um as I mentioned, I like tohave these conversations for the
first time.
Or I don't like having certainconversations that they should
have been a podcast episode.
And the second time you havethem, they're not as good.
And you said, let's do it.
And you're one of the very firstpeople to accept that, not the
first, but I'm having thefeeling that we'll have a good
time.
SPEAKER_01 (00:49):
People decline.
SPEAKER_00 (00:51):
Not yet.
I haven't had that.
But because I started doing thisbefore my paternity leave, I
only recorded three episodesthis way, right?
And so and they went reallywell.
I would say like the successrate was good.
They haven't been published yet.
Um, but uh I'm fairly confidentthat I will keep doing this in
the future.
So thank you for agreeing tothis unknown kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01 (01:15):
Well, it's uh it's a fun and new way to think about
how uh how podcasts might happenand also how introductory
conversations might happen.
So uh we're having this one forposterity.
SPEAKER_00 (01:29):
There's two things that will make this happen uh
more interesting for people.
The first one is like this isnot a kind of content that you
usually see.
Like most podcasts are street.
I don't know if you're a podcastperson.
I am.
I love I love missing podcasts,yeah.
I've come to the realizationmost podcasts are very scripted.
They have the same people, thatthey're like all in the same
(01:51):
circles, and they follow thesame kind of structure, you
know, like dropping some bangersin the beginning, and some
smooth transition to theconversation, then every 10
minutes or something like a bigheadlines or like a clickbait uh
kind of content, and do you knowthe crisis towards the end, or
like the worst moments,lowlights of the company, and
then the the inspirational storytowards the end, right?
(02:14):
So it feels like I only kind ofknow what we're gonna talk
about.
Exactly.
And uh so precisely that'sthat's what I want to do.
The second is I like to like Ilike to give voice to other kind
of companies, not like youusually you see like everybody's
shooting for I want to have likethe CEO of a Stripe, the CEO of
(02:34):
uh Facebook, the CEO ofwhatever, like the big names,
right?
Or companies right after anexit, right?
Yeah, and I find that I learnmore from companies like yours
when I listen to podcasts thanfrom, you know, because at the
very end of the day, I thinkthat the takeaways are more
practical from people who arelike one or two steps above you,
(02:55):
not ten steps.
Like what can I learn from ElonMusk?
SPEAKER_01 (02:58):
Most of us are running most of us are running
average companies, right?
Maybe not average in terms ofuh, well, I mean, most of us are
running average companies inevery way.
That's the that's the nature ofaverage, right?
And we really are the thechallenge is not how do I become
Facebook.
It's it's how do I become thenext step?
(03:22):
That's it, it's a smallincrement that we need to
accomplish.
Always, right?
How do you eat an elephant?
One one bite at a time.
SPEAKER_00 (03:34):
Exactly.
So, Aaron, I have a lot ofquestions for you.
Um to give some context to theaudience, that issue I wrote uh
a couple of months back, maybeeven three months back, was at
Marsbase we were hitting 30people, right?
Uh right now, uh, for the firsttime in history.
We used to, for the first 10years, we used to hire two to
(03:54):
three people at a time, which issomething very organic, very
feasible for a company that'ssmall, boutique, um, very
artisanal, if you will.
Um, and last year we decided totake it a notch a notch up,
right?
And said, okay, we're gonna hiresix people, see what happens.
We've hired eight.
We're in the process of hiringtwo more people before the end
of the year.
And I felt like a lot of thingswere trembling in the company,
(04:19):
not for they were not badnecessarily, but things were
shaky for a while.
We've had to stabilize thecompany way more, put more put
in more effort than in previousyears, because with two people
like, ah, what do they see ordid this there?
Would you hire one six months,the next person?
Now, in February, we hired fourpeople at the same time.
And that was that was big forus.
(04:40):
Probably not as big forcompanies you work for.
I've seen Microsoft on your onyour website and um a few other
big clients.
But in companies like us, itfeels like it's it resembles the
situation Tech Expander had inthe day.
And so I wonder how do youactually work for companies like
the size of Microsoft andcompanies like Marspace?
(05:03):
Like is playbook similar or isit very different?
SPEAKER_01 (05:06):
Uh it's it's similar because uh Microsoft may be a
giant corporation and we didn'tserve the giant corporation.
We served a team at Microsoft.
Well, we served a team atMedtronic.
So uh you know, people talkabout you know, if a VP at at
(05:27):
Microsoft has an organization.
This is my organization withinthat that behemoth.
Um and the frankly, most of ourmost of our clients are
companies in the 30 to athousand people range.
So the getting out the theMicrosofts and the Medtronics
(05:48):
and the uh those are much rareroutings for us.
SPEAKER_00 (05:54):
30 people, 30 to 1,000 is like quite a big range.
So like the drop down ofcompanies usually comes in
smaller.
SPEAKER_01 (06:00):
You know, we're working we're working with a
team.
And then maybe we're workingwith a with a with a broader
base, having having begun withone team as a pilot, then we're
rolling out the same tools andtechniques for uh for a a
broader base of people.
(06:21):
And what we're doing at anygiven time is helping leaders
create environments and givingpeople the skills that it uh
that are required to beeffective with other people.
It's hard to be effective withpeople.
We are we are funny creaturesand uh and and at times
(06:42):
unpredictable, at times uh youknow, really reactive.
So it's there are a lot ofskills that that need building,
and it doesn't matter whetherthere are 50,000 people in your
organization or five, it's thesame skills.
SPEAKER_00 (06:57):
How do you sell these kinds of services?
Like I am I find it extremelyhard, maybe not extremely hard,
but like pretty hard to sellbespoke development to
companies.
Like companies of all sizes likeyou work for companies like
Microsoft, and startups andscale-ups and public
organizations and NGOs.
Um but selling something likebespoke development when half of
(07:19):
the world just buys fuckingWordPress and that's it, is very
difficult.
But when Greg introduced me toyour company, I thought like,
wow, this kind of consulting oflike company culture and team
organization, like fixing thiskind of stuff, of course
everyone needs it, but must be areally hard sell from the
outside of perspective.
SPEAKER_01 (07:39):
Yeah.
Well, I think one of theimportant shifts, and we've been
in business just one year lessthan you.
One of the important shifts thatI made it has been to some
degree and an important way tostop trying to sell it.
So uh, for example, a CEO wasintroduced to me by the leader
(08:05):
of his uh of his peer group.
He said, Oh, you know, given thechallenge you're having, you
should talk to Aaron.
And he said, I've got greatpeople on my front lines, and
I've got great people managingthem, and I don't understand why
all these great people are ateach other's throats all the
time.
And so rather than sell him thefix, I asked him some questions.
(08:29):
And I learned that each of thesemanagers, who was really well
hired and well selected for uh acommitment and an integrity that
had them working hard to driveperformance, each of those
managers was managing 30 people,20 people.
So they had an awful largenumber of direct reports.
(08:54):
And uh and I said, Well, thisthe you know, the the research
shows that that's just too manypeople.
And he said, Well, let me trybreaking it down and you know,
have them managing eight to 10people instead.
And they stopped being at eachother's throats because they had
these managers had the time tobuild strong enough
(09:14):
relationships to withstand thepressure of them working hard to
drive performance, and uh so hegot a little free insight and
didn't need us.
I find that when I help peoplewith the easy stuff, not that
(09:37):
that's easy, but the insight iseasy.
We get work.
He's introduced me to people whowho needed our.
Not for his company.
We didn't get work from hiscompany, but I have had
introductions from him that thatdid lead lead to work.
Uh and there are a number of ofstories like that where you know
(09:59):
we're we're maybe moving downthe sales path.
We discover some insight that'sgonna really transform things
things for them.
And uh not that everything isfixed, but enough is fixed that
the that the priority drops forworking with us to s uh under
something else.
Um and what goes around comesaround.
(10:22):
So some of those folks do comeback and say, okay, now this has
risen to a priority level againwhere we actually need some uh
some intensive work, and we getto we get busy.
And people will listen toconversations when you told
them.
Sorry?
Oh yeah.
Sorry, I broke you off.
Go ahead.
I was just saying it's alwaysconversations.
(10:44):
Every every month and month anda half or so, I I have a I call
it a CEO's bull session.
And I invite a bunch of peopleand we talk about some uh
particular topic of interest.
Like uh in a couple weeks, I'mgonna be uh running a bowl
session with CEOs about how tohave a strategic retreat with
(11:05):
your leadership team thatdoesn't just waste time and
money.
And we have a conversation.
And I'm I'm not necessarily theexpert in the room, though I
have some insight about that.
I facilitate a conversation.
And uh because I'm buildingrelationships and offering value
and not clawing after people, uhpeople lower their guard, and I
(11:30):
eventually see an opportunity tosay, would you like help with
that?
SPEAKER_00 (11:36):
I see a lot of parallelisms in what you what
you do and what we do, right?
Um I think I understand that yousort of do like you probably
don't like the sales word thethe same way I don't like it.
We do some kind of consultativeprocess.
I don't know if that's the rightword.
Uh bear in mind that I'm notnative in English, but uh in
(11:58):
which like you're introduced tosomebody, they've got a problem,
you just go there with nointention to sell.
If you sell, great.
But the first, like the firstintention is to go there, listen
to what the other person has gotin store for you.
Like they've got this problem,they've got this.
And I just go there into themeeting, try to solve the
problem, and I always I amalways very clear, we might not
(12:21):
be the right fit for you.
Yeah.
It might be that you need thisother technology, that you will
need probably a cheaper company,maybe you can do it in-house,
you don't need more space forit, nothing.
But they think, like most peopleare approached all the time by
people who are trying to sellvery hard, right?
So by having this sort ofrelaxed and chill conversation,
(12:42):
I I sense their barriers comingdown.
And that's where perhaps a moreexperienced and and better
salesman will be like, go now,I'm jumping for the throat.
Right.
Not myself.
Sometimes I just leave theconversation there.
So, okay, now I fix your problemor talk to this other person who
are like, oh no, uh, you're notgonna sell anything to me.
No.
(13:03):
People will not remember whatyou told them, what you did for
them.
They will remember how you madethem feel.
And if you made them feelcomfortable, they will
eventually come back.
SPEAKER_01 (13:10):
Right.
Uh and I I think I've gone backkind of back and forth on a
pendulum swing in some ways uhover the course of my career as
uh in sales.
And I I don't really mind theword sales.
Um but you know, I've gone, II've definitely been that
clingy, desperate trying totrying to get your business guy.
(13:34):
And then I've I've swung too farto the other side and just been
like, you know, it's all good,and you know, maybe like you
tell me, and uh, and and to thatpoint, and and the more mature I
get, and the the more detachedfrom the outcome I get, whether
it's the outcome of making thesale or the outcome of whether
(13:56):
or not you are offended by meand and focus on what I think uh
puts me in the middle, which isservice.
You know, there's also somethinghorrible about knowing, okay,
it's time for you, thesalesperson, to ask me to buy.
And in fact, like I've come toyou for your leadership.
(14:18):
And now the I I've felt like wewere making progress along the
way, and all of a sudden theprogress has stalled, and I'm
not the expert here.
I I've come to you to be myguide, and the progress has
stalled, and that's a terrible,uncomfortable place for
everybody to be.
And so also in in my role within uh in selling our services, I
(14:43):
I I try to focus on what isgonna serve you best, and
sometimes that's saying, Allright, uh, it seems like this is
a good idea.
Uh am I wrong?
SPEAKER_00 (15:01):
You're not.
And actually my net my nextquestion was was gonna be um,
because I've seen that you youalso run a podcast and a blog,
and content has been perhaps thebest and cheapest way to give
away some tiny bits of freebiesto attract customers, right?
But you mentioned that you hostthis events, private events for
(15:21):
CEOs, that is actually also verygood tactic, right?
So you just invite them, have acasual conversation, try to sell
nothing, but you're in the room.
And people, when they get in theroom, they get like this small
circle of people, like at thebackstage of a conference or or
of a big event.
That's where the magic happens,right?
So the podcast working wondersfor us because we're able to
(15:43):
share our information freely,share like we've got a uh the
company culture is based ontransparency.
So we share our revenue numbers,the things we do internally and
stuff like that.
And people are like, oh wow,you're giving this away for
free.
You must be really good at whatyou do, right?
So that big builds trust andauthority.
Um, but jumping into kind oflike the subject of the of what
(16:06):
I wanted to cover here today,which is the company culture.
We have been one of the loudestcompanies in Spain to talk about
company culture.
15 years ago, no one talkedabout company culture.
Granted, we're not a verycompany, but I took the idea of
company culture from the US fromwhen I spent a good time there
in 2013.
And um and we were very vocalabout having a like strong
(16:29):
company culture that went beyondlike usual startup benefits, not
perks, but actual companyculture.
And um and since then, in Spain,companies have learned how to do
it, right?
Back then, company culture wasthe freaking ping pong table at
the office and the fruitiesnacks, right?
Um but there's one thing that Idon't feel like there's an
(16:50):
actual consensus on this, and Ifear that the answer to this
will be it's different for everycompany, but at what point does
company culture break?
SPEAKER_01 (17:01):
It depends.
And and uh and there arepatterns.
Like you mentioned being rightat about 30 people, and 30
people, it's pretty common forthe wheels to start to feel like
they may be coming off the bus.
Uh that's when Text Expanderreached out to us, is when there
were about 30 people andgrowing.
(17:22):
Um there is I think of ofculture, uh it's the set of
contagious behaviors andattitudes in a in a community
and a company as a community.
And all behavior.
Guess what?
(17:42):
All behavior is contagious.
So, you know, I I th uh as youwere as you were talking about
it, I I was thinking about whenI was 18 and I went to a
Grateful Dead concert.
And you know, I'd listened toGrateful Dead music before.
I'd never been to a GratefulDead concert, and I my behavior
(18:06):
was affected by the behavior ofall the people around me.
If you've never been to alibrary, you might walk into the
library talking loudly, and thenpretty quickly you're gonna go,
I am standing out like a sorethumb.
And you're gonna get quiet ifonly to to appreciate and and
(18:27):
try to understand what have whathave I just come into?
And so the reason that I say itdepends is that different
people's behavior, depending ontheir forcefulness, depending on
their charisma, depending on uhhow they spend their time, may
(18:50):
be more or less contagious.
And so I think there are somehighly charismatic leaders that
can keep a uh a culture on trackaccording to what track they're
trying to create more thanothers.
There are other leaders thatI've worked with where you know
(19:11):
there are 10 people in theirorganization and the the culture
starts to uh rattle a little bitbecause the force of their
personality doesn't carry thatlevel of contagion.
And one other one other thoughtfor you is you talked earlier
(19:32):
about growing incrementally oneperson at a time.
You know, you bring one personin, and that's one person among
15.
So they're the 16th person, andso there are 15 people with this
culture contagion, and then thatone person is likely to be kind
of absorbed into that culture.
(19:53):
And if you're 20 people and youhire four all at once, well, now
all of a sudden, those four havea more forceful effect
contagion-wise.
And I I'm just using the wordcontagion neutrally.
It could be that they have anincredibly positive effect on
(20:16):
your culture.
It could be that they have anegative effect on your culture,
it could be that their effect onyour culture is neutral, and
still it does change things.
I don't know if that answeredyour question.
SPEAKER_00 (20:28):
It does, because I've got the feeling that um
most companies having culturalproblems is because they hit
hypergrowth, right?
And that's when they starthiring because they're running
out of time.
They're most likely VC backed,therefore they've got 12 months
to 18 months left of runway, andthey have to make a lot of
(20:51):
experiments trying to reachproduct market fit.
That means we don't have a lotof people, we don't have enough
people, we have to hire a lot,even though we know that most of
these people will have to befired if things go south or if
the company just goes bust in in12 months, right?
Um, but they hire them anyways,at the cost of company culture.
(21:11):
And most problems the companiesface in these situations are
caused by overhiring than forwhat I understand is company
breaking, right?
It's they actually break it onpurpose, right?
In this, I don't know if you areof the same opinion or not, but
uh I I I think that's that's acommon a common trend I've seen
(21:33):
in VC backed companies.
SPEAKER_01 (21:35):
Yeah.
Uh I I do think that the focusof VC is not necessarily
conducive to things likesustainability.
And there's also there's somevalue to well, let's not lose
(21:56):
slowly.
Let's not let's not bleed todeath slowly, excuse me.
Let's actually take some risksand see whether this thing is
viable or unvi or not viable.
So I think there are there areyou know uh there are some
narrow slices here, some somethin slices between what is and
(22:20):
what isn't wise.
And and any risk, uh, you know,you're gonna break things.
You know, a lot a lot of usspend marketing money, for
example, that if this marketingmoney doesn't work, we're gonna
be in trouble cash flow-wise.
And, you know, one of themistakes that I made early on
(22:43):
was to not spend money onmarketing.
Uh and that meant that we bledto death more slowly.
SPEAKER_00 (22:51):
And the other thing that I think like really affects
the erosion of company cultureis the length of the tenure of
the employees and the companies,right?
In startups, high-growthcompanies, technology in
particular, a lot of companieshave got an average tenure, or a
lot of people, sorry, have gotan average tenure of 1.5 years
(23:12):
and the companies, right?
Difficult to keep a um companyculture around if your employee
attrition is 32%.
That means that every threeyears, 100% of your employees
change.
And uh how can you keep thisconsistent over the years?
In our case, for instance, we'vegot the other side of the
spectrum, believe it or not.
(23:33):
Most of our people are seven toten years into the company,
which is really weird.
People don't leave our company.
That either means that we payvery well, or we just don't uh
they don't get tired of us,right?
At the same time, while thatsounds something very good for
culture, it comes with a certainset of struggles as well, which
(23:55):
is uh long-term motivation,right?
Or people getting older andreskilling them and stuff like
that.
Is this also like sort of thechallenges that you also
encounter on companies, oryou've never seen a company with
this kind of problem?
SPEAKER_01 (24:09):
Absolutely.
Because uh, you know, as triteas it may be, I I don't remember
who it was who who originallysaid what got you here won't get
you there.
And so there are aspects ofculture that may that may be
perfect for having gotten youwhere you are.
(24:32):
And now it's it's that sameculture that may be holding you
back.
And culture is habitual.
And so if you've got long tenureand now you need a change in
culture, for example, maybeyou've been a move fast break
things culture and you've stillgot move fast break things habit
(24:53):
when you've actually figured outwhat works and you've become
impatient with what worksbecause it's not the personality
that your culture has developedto be.
Now it's time to perhaps becomea little bit more conservative.
So there are cultural habitsthat you need to change.
Uh, can that happen with thesame people?
(25:14):
Of course, people quit smokingand quit drinking all the time.
It doesn't mean it's gonna beeasy.
SPEAKER_00 (25:22):
How about uh I've got the feeling that trying to
be an external consultant orexpert or advisor, I don't know
how you guys call yourselves,when you come into the company,
you know that um people tend tochange their behavior when they
know they're being analyzed orassessed, right?
Yeah.
So if you come into a companywith certain challenges and um
(25:46):
they'd like to they'd like youto come in and assess what's
going on, assess what works,what doesn't, and you start
joining their Slack.
I don't know what's yourmethodology, your playbook.
So you you you let me know here.
But um I'm assuming that somehowyou try to blend in or get to
know the team or inspect certainthings and whatnot.
(26:07):
And the team might kind of likeraise an eyebrow at the very
least, and say, like, oh, Ithink there's something going
on.
I'm uh gonna start working alittle bit more these days and
gotta stretch the hours a littlebit more and stuff like that.
Is how how do you do it?
How do you do it so that itdoesn't affect the not the
team's performance, the team'suh actual like how they how they
(26:30):
how they act?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (26:32):
Well, I mean when you talk to Greg, and I I
watched your podcast with Gregfrom uh from Text Expander, one
of the things he mentioned thatI think he said it, you know, it
it saved them untold waste.
Is is a simple tool, a simplepiece of vocabulary, be obvious.
(26:56):
So while we absolutely dodiagnose the cultures we're
coming into, also we justrecognize that there are certain
principles of effectivecommunication and collaboration,
effective leadership that areuniversal and difficult, and as
it's so difficult, in fact, thatthey're aspirational.
(27:18):
So clarity of communication,that's that is difficult.
Uh it's universal and it isaspirational.
I I'm a pretty clearcommunicator, and I still need
to become ever more clear.
So wherever you are, if we canimprove your effectiveness at
(27:43):
clear, consistent communication,and be obvious is a tool and a
bit of language once youunderstand what it means, that
makes even the most effectivecommunicators even more
effective.
So we can we can give you tools,we can give you techniques, and
we can give you skills that aregoing to make your culture a
(28:05):
more effective culture,regardless of where you are now.
We don't necessarily need tounderstand.
So that's one piece.
And then the other piece is ifwe hang out with you long
enough, and we hung out withText Expander long enough, the
facade that you put up is goingto become tiresome and you will
become exhausted, and the facadewill go away, which we've all
(28:29):
experienced.
Any to anybody who's ever hiredsomebody has experienced this,
right?
That somebody comes in, they puton a certain amount of effort,
they put on a certain mask.
100%.
And that lasts for a couple ofmonths, maybe, right?
With the people who have thegreatest endurance, and then you
start to see their true colors.
Uh, and sometimes their truecolors are equally, or even
(28:51):
perhaps more wonderful.
And sometimes you just go, yeah,great.
Well, I'm glad you're getting toknow more because your
effectiveness in this role isincreasing because you know more
about the role, even as youreffort level, your willingness
and endurance may be dropping.
SPEAKER_00 (29:12):
But reading between the lines, that means that
you've got to work for a longperiod, right?
So when you come into thecompanies, you don't just go
there for a few weeks.
It's probably like a six sixmonths project or something like
that.
How do you actually work?
SPEAKER_01 (29:23):
You know, sometimes sometimes it's a six-month
project.
Sometimes it's a as it was withwith Text Expander.
I think we worked with them for18 months.
Uh sometimes, as we worked withSOG knives, we worked with SOG
knives for one afternoon.
And we gave them tools, we gavethem an experience.
Everything that we do in interms of upskilling a team is
(29:46):
experiential because we all knowenough generally to be more
effective.
The question is do we have theexperience to put our faith and
lean into these things that weknow?
Um, and so we gave.
them the some of the same toolsthat we gave SOG uh excuse me
that we gave Text Expander, likeBe Obvious.
(30:07):
And the new leader, the new CEOof SOG Knives, was disciplined
enough that he said, all right,this is our new SOP.
And uh and then tactical enoughthat he took over from there.
And they grew those skills fromthe principals themselves.
(30:31):
So some of our clients are arevery short term and some of them
are longer term.
SPEAKER_00 (30:39):
How about the other obstacle I think that a process
like this or a company likeyours might might might face and
we experience it firsthand isbeing remote, right?
I don't know if you do on-siteprojects, I take it that most of
it is is remote because I'mseeing your clients they come
(31:01):
from everywhere.
In our case, we've never had anoffice.
And that in and of itself isalready a challenge because you
know it as an expert in acompany culture.
Remote environment, hard remoteenvironments, they really
struggle to consolidate companycultures.
We take longer.
And that's a fact just becausewe we don't spend enough time
(31:22):
together.
But coming into as an externalobserver or as a consultant and
advisor um I don't know if thatthe company culture is also
diluted there.
You can sense it there as an youknow as this third party coming
into the company and say like ohI'm not seeing where things are
going.
I don't understand everythingbecause I'm not exactly in the
(31:43):
office and remote environmentsare more difficult to work with
in your opinion?
SPEAKER_01 (31:53):
Yeah it's harder.
Before COVID in fact we didn'tdo remote work.
We just said uh let us help findfind you something because the
way that we train and and reallyany behavior change is gonna
generally require some level oftraining.
(32:15):
The way we train is soexperiential we didn't at first
see a way to do it effectivelyonline.
Then COVID came along and wesaid all right well we better we
better figure this out and wespent some some really intensive
time going all right well how dowe deliver this remotely and
thankfully you know we we metPhilip and Greg of of Text
(32:38):
Expander after COVID began sothat when they said can like you
they were entirely remote um canwe work with you?
And we said yes we we havefigured out how to do that.
So it is it is a a differentchallenge because as I said uh
(32:59):
culture is contagious behaviorsand attitudes uh I can't give
you a cold from here um right soso there are contagions that are
harder in particular you know Ican I can uh cultivate a
(33:19):
particular image of behaviorsfor you while we're on Zoom you
know that are harder to maintainfor an entire day in the office
together so I can fake it moreeasily and then go and and and
be otherwise also the behaviorsthat you want me to uh adopt are
(33:46):
harder to instill in me becauseI'm not seeing you as much I'm
not around the behaviors thatyou want which is why uh another
reason why part a big part ofour focus is in training.
Most people want to do the bestthat they can almost everybody
(34:06):
everybody's doing the best thatthey can and in large measure
it's about skill I'm not gonnaget on a unicycle because I am
afraid I'm gonna fall off it butif I have the training to stay
on a unicycle and I grow theconfidence then I will happily
(34:32):
get on a unicycle similarly alot of the the most effective
tools of communication thingslike listening patience allowing
silence those are scary untilyou've had the training to see
(34:54):
that they work and then you canhave the confidence in the same
way you're you're willing to geton that unicycle that is
actually very good segue for mynext question which is what is
your playbook then?
SPEAKER_00 (35:10):
Because uh let me let me explain we we recorded
five episodes with an MAboutique dissecting how they
work right not that's a prettylike the MA industry is not very
transparent and so most peopledon't know like how these
companies work um what isrequired to get involved with
(35:32):
these kind of companies whatsort of transactions fees uh how
does an N NDA work and uncompetelike uh non-shopping agreement
and stuff like that similarly weare recording right now like and
this week's we're recording ahow to build an agency series
for the Markspace podcast uhbased on our experience um but
(35:52):
we don't know how your kind ofcompany operates so what is how
does the typical engagement looklike like is there uh I suppose
an NDA then yeah you give aquote or is it a retainer?
SPEAKER_01 (36:06):
How do you guys work we want to understand where you
are as well as we can and whereyou're trying to get right so
it's it's kind of like if youwere to call up a physical
trainer and say hey I needphysical training they're gonna
(36:26):
go okay well what are yourgoals?
Oh you want to lose weight wellhow heavy are you right so that
so there there's uh there's thatkind of let's learn what is the
origin and what's thedestination.
Okay now we can think aboutplotting a route so that's
(36:47):
that's step one then we agreeokay we're gonna do this much of
that route together very oftenwhat we think about is is kind
of three aspects of a healthyculture one is structural
prepare the soil we have had anumber of uh leaders call us and
(37:11):
say one of our core values hereis trust I'm not experiencing
trust people don't trust eachother they don't trust me I
don't understand what's going onand I say well open your open
your employee handbook to arandom page and start reading to
me and there are policies inemployee handbooks on every page
(37:32):
and not every employee handbookmost that say in no uncertain
terms though in different wordswe don't trust you as far as we
can throw you so if your corevalue is trust and your employee
handbook says for instance andthis is one of the most
egregious types of policies whenyou get back from bereavement
leave bring us an obituary or adeath certificate to prove that
(37:55):
you actually lost a loved one ifyou want trust you've got to
show trust I went to a parochialhigh school you know religious
you'd think that morals would bean important part of that and
they told us they they told usall day every day you know every
(38:18):
time we took a test we are goingto be watching you like hawks if
anybody cheats you're gonna getzero and it's gonna go on your
record and there will bedisciplinary action taken
essentially they were telling usy'all are cheaters so we're
gonna be watching out for thatdon't do what you do everybody
(38:42):
cheated it was a it was a itbecame a sport given their
security measures how are wegonna get past them then I went
to college and in college therewas an honor code and the
professor was not permitted tobe in the room while we were
(39:03):
taking our exams they'd givethis the exam they'd answer any
questions and then they wererequired to leave and then we
wrote a little pledge that saidI've neither given nor received
aid during this exam.
Essentially I I did this this ismy work I did not cheat.
I did not see or hear about anycheating in the four years that
(39:26):
I was in college.
So people will live up to ordown to the expectations that
you have from them.
So that's one example of preparethe soil are the structures
correct another example wealready talked about great
managers, great people on thefront lines, why are they at
each other's throats?
Because the structure of havingso many people report to a
(39:50):
single manager is not conduciveto a strong relationship.
And so there's resentmentbuilding and that's creating
problems for you that'sstructure.
Prepare the soil plant the seedswe have eight principles of
effective communicationcollaboration and leadership
that we train teams to uhunderstand and implement be
(40:13):
obvious is one of those some ofour clients just get four of
those eight and we plant thoseseeds in people's brains and
they germinate on their own.
So we've come back to clientsyears later and said I I'll say
something to the CEO like heyjust to be obvious here and he
(40:37):
it this has happened more thanonce that the CEO I'm thinking
about Katie right now she saidwait you say be obvious too like
we say that and I said youremember where you got it she's
like oh my goodness four fiveyears later she's like we got
that from you it's just become apart of their vernacular to the
(40:59):
extent that they forget thatwhere it came from that's
culture is we don't evennecessarily recognize what it is
where it came from that it'ssomething we do it's just it's
just how we are.
And then the third the thirdphase is is water the garden uh
and that is where we help yougerminate those principles and
(41:22):
give you real tactics if youthink about the seeds and the
the principles as strategies foreffective culture then the
tactics are for example it wegive people a four-step process
for giving effective feedback.
SPEAKER_00 (41:38):
One, two, three, four you do this, then this,
then this, then this uh and thatpoints back to it it evolves out
of those principles and nowyou've got specific tactics to
employ uh because the principlesand the tactics can reinforce
(41:58):
one another that is that sort ofwell no that actually answers
the question of like how do youguys work in terms of playbook
but in terms of like thecontract how do you that how do
companies engage with each otherright is there the process does
it look like a free consultationat the beginning or we come to
(42:18):
your office visit 30 minutessomething like that then it's an
ongoing agreement there's a paidcake at the beginning I don't
know like what would peopleexpect from a process like this?
Because we've never hadcompanies like yours on the
podcast.
SPEAKER_01 (42:33):
So yeah I'm just um so kids at public utility
district they came to us andthey said here's the issue uh
and I said oh well it soundslike you don't have a system for
this is how we manage peoplearound here and that seems to me
to be maybe the primary issue.
You've got a system for how dowe create our work tickets and
(42:55):
how do we do procurement and howdo we do hiring and we've you've
got a system for everythingexcept the care and feeding of
your most important asset thepeople in your company so what
we want to do is we're gonnagive you a system for this is
how we manage people around herewe'll do a little diagnostic
first we'll plant the seeds giveyou these these principles and
(43:18):
then we will over the course ofeight months also give you and
train you in a system ofmanaging people and performance
that leads to strongrelationships, strong retention
and strong performance.
And and that's that was theagreement from the beginning we
just said all right we're goingto do this significant meal.
(43:41):
We've also got something we callthe culture seed starter where
we survey the team and measurethem on six six characteristics
of highly effective teams thingslike trust and respect, a focus
on results, a willingness andability to manage conflict uh
things like accountability,right?
(44:02):
We're gonna measure your healthin a snapshot through a survey
then we're gonna give you thesefirst four principles and then
we're going to talk about theresults of the survey together
and what you as a team want todo about it.
And that's as far as we go inthis first phase.
(44:22):
You may decide that what youwant to do about it is entirely
DIY and we'll give you somepointers and send you off to DIY
and some clients who do theculture seed starter uh see that
those four principles have giventhem enough they decided DIY
from there and some say okaywe'd like to uh we'd like to
(44:42):
increase our willingness andability to manage conflict we
think that's the most importantplace for us to focus and we
might ask do you want help withthat?
SPEAKER_00 (44:51):
And if they do we have tools for that brings me to
my next question as you mightknow this is a very artisanal
process right and you as afounder as you scale your
company um you found you findyourself between a rock and a
hard place finding the balancebetween I want to sell more I
(45:16):
want to grow the client base atthe same time I the company does
a great job because I'm stillinvolved in the projects the
moment I go hands off I don'tknow whether it's gonna happen
but I in our experience didn'twork very well in the past.
And so how do you find thisbalance of I am involved enough
(45:39):
in the day-to-day of theprojects and overseeing things
and like putting the finaltouches on the adding the final
layer of quality of yourdistinctive founding principles
and quality and you know caringfor the growing sales.
SPEAKER_01 (45:57):
For me and my company it it kind of goes like
this you know so I started overhere and it it was you know you
mentioned the pendulum right I'mdoing I'm doing it all right and
it's kind of like well that'snot working let me let me
delegate some of this and someof that I delegated well enough
(46:18):
that I had only had to backslideto here and then the work from
here to here is in systematizingthis stuff well enough that
people can who aren't me canexecute and then also taking my
hands off of other stuff whereI'm holding things back because
other people execute better thanI do.
(46:40):
And then making new progressrealizing the ways in which it
hasn't been effectivelysystematized going back and then
working my way forward tosystematize and train people
more effectively and so we'rekind of slowly creeping our way
uh forward and then you know thethe level of experience and the
(47:04):
the decade plus of time that Ihave doing this, there are some
parts of what we do that I dobetter than anybody else and so
there's some dialogue to havewith some of our clients about
do you want to pay to take meaway from the other stuff that
(47:25):
I'm doing?
SPEAKER_00 (47:26):
In which case you can pay more and and have me or
you can pay a little less andget 90% of the quality that's
always a very difficultconversation because most of the
times if you do like us one ofour strongest selling points is
like oh the founders areinvolved in the project.
SPEAKER_01 (47:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (47:45):
And we are right but a certain point you're like I'm
not required here because likethe company is less complex now.
It's been like you know for twoyears and we're moving to this
other more complex problem andperhaps more mentally
stimulating project right um andthen your natural instinct is
not to to reduce the fees rightto the clients but they they
(48:07):
they see you going away andthey're like oh why are you
going away from the projectright but we're still always
there for anything that justcomes up any putting out any
fires and stuff like that.
So that's why I think peoplelove companies like ours
probably like yours becausefounders are still there.
SPEAKER_01 (48:22):
We care um we're coming up to the close to the
the to to the end of the of theof the show but there's one
question we ask to everybodywe've always asked this question
not only in the five years ofLife on Mars the Mars Days
podcast but also in the 15 yearsI've been hosting events um
which is what's been yourbiggest fuck up biggest personal
(48:45):
fuck up and and and work likeprofessional fuck up and how
much money did it cost to you Ican't calculate it's got to be
one of your own yeah you have toown it up I cannot calculate how
much it cost me and and I and Iwant to care for good people who
(49:11):
are part of this company'shistory and without whom w the
company wouldn't be what it wasI think my biggest fuck up has
been not believing people whenthey tell me who they are that
(49:33):
sounds interesting you know thatthere's there's uh you know
people saying this is what'swhat my priority is and they
have skills they have abilitiesthat I lusted after and I wanted
those skills and felt like Icouldn't get where I wanted to
(49:56):
go without them and then makeexcuses for the behaviors that
uh and the actions thatcompromised either my integrity
or the well-being and health ofthe company our ability to adapt
and grow with the demands of themarket and still kind of lusting
(50:23):
after those skills and abilitiesand being scared of what would
happen if I were to just say Ilove this but this isn't working
and if this is part of thepackage then we're gonna need to
figure out a way to to go ourseparate ways because I can't be
(50:45):
around this can't have this inthe company can't see the future
being as bright as it needs tobe if we keep going in the
directions that this insistsupon.
So um that's my answer.
SPEAKER_00 (51:03):
For what however clear or muddy it may be no it's
good usually people try to giveme very cliche um crap like I
hired the wrong person or I tooktoo long to fire that person and
stuff like that, right?
Sometimes we get I set theoffice on fire.
That was good.
Like somebody at Amazon set anoffice on fire somebody deleted
(51:25):
the production database of likeentire record record company on
like a beak launch day.
Some are really freaking epicbut like some of them they try
to get away with this sort ofsmall things.
Yours is uh much morephilosophical if you will but
given that like in the work orthe the field that you that you
do um it's uh it's I understandthat you can't allow for
(51:52):
fuck-ups in judging people rightor in trusting people because at
the very end of the day beculture is built with people.
So if they're not sincere to youor you're not able to read
between the lines, you're notdoing a great job.
SPEAKER_01 (52:04):
I I would adjust that a little bit.
I think there's I give myself alot of grace around trusting the
wrong people where where I hopeI have learned my lesson is in
not continuing to throw goodmoney after bad the sunk cost
(52:25):
fallacy.
SPEAKER_00 (52:31):
Let me shift directions and instead uh
continuing to try to putlipstick on a pig okay gotcha
and uh I feel like I havecommitted the same mistake
multiple times but also becauseI have a certain tendency of
working with friends andsometimes you just don't want to
(52:53):
hurt them.
Yeah and you're like okay I'lltry to you know put the lipstick
on a pick as you mentioned anduntil that gets to somehow to
somewhere acceptable and thenyou part ways but uh I think I
think we're we've been on thesame boat here.
Many thanks Aaron um one lastquestion for you rolling out the
(53:13):
red carpet.
So how can we help you on theYesWorks like with our community
at Life of Mars, Marspace, isthere anything specific you guys
are looking for um any kind ofprofile you want to hire some
new market you want to tap intosomething we can do for you.
SPEAKER_01 (53:28):
I'll say this I I really am a man on a mission.
Uh this company started almost12 years ago now when my wife
told me she was pregnant and Iwas doing work that I loved in a
job that I hated.
And I just thought this is thisis bullshit.
I don't want to come home andhave my daughter see that even
though I love my work I'mexhausted and and uh and and not
(53:52):
because I'm tired but becauseI'm I'm trying truly tapped out
and sapped of my life force Idon't want her to think that's
even a possibility I don't wanther to relate to her fellow
humans you know by saying youknow another day another dollar
same shit different day I hateFridays I hate my I hate or I
(54:14):
love you know TGIF I hateMondays I hate my boss all that
stuff I do not want my daughterto come up in the work culture
that you and I came up in Alexum so if you are perplexed by
frustrated by uh simply believethat that things could be better
(54:38):
interpersonally in your companyor between your your folks and
uh and your customers your folksand your vendors and you just
think that there's got to be adifferent way I'd love to talk
if I can if I can help withinsight in any way uh that's
(54:59):
that's how y'all can help ishelp me forward this mission
that we instead of comingtogether on uh you know I'll
I'll never forget the clerk whowho told me after just a great
job doing you know having agreat rapport with me building
(55:20):
rapport just in the couple ofseconds that we were I was
checking out she said you know Iasked how are you and she said
I'll be better in a couple hourswhen I get off that that way
that we try to find commonalitytogether is poison.
So if I can in any way help usfind commonality through the
(55:40):
grace of being able to make acontribution through our work
that's a good day for me.
So help me have more good daysuh so that we can all uh find
that commonality together ashumans by uh the grace of being
able to do a good good workmaking a contribution.
SPEAKER_00 (55:58):
That that is actually very inspirational.
So thank you for sharing.
Just a couple of thoughts herefirst one is you know we've been
talking a lot about companyculture in this podcast in our
blog and whatnot this isactually the very first time I
feel like I'm having a veryforked conversation with
somebody who knows their shitabout company culture.
The second one is bring back thepodcast.
(56:19):
Like um I feel like all of thesesharings all of these learnings
um should be shared on like morefrequently on a podcast you've
got a great voice you've got agreat setup a fantastic
background and experience likeand experienced you you could
you could fill many many bookswith that so uh podcasting you
know is a is a great issomething very very useful and
(56:41):
uh it's a great way to pay forwork.
So thank you for doing this.
Thank you for the opportunity tohave this chat together.
I feel like I learned a ton anduh wishing you continued
success.
SPEAKER_01 (56:52):
Well thank you Alex you know I I do podcasts not
infrequently I have my ownpodcast and I'm brought on as a
guest every so often my favoritepodcasts are ones like this
where people engage with me inways that have me saying things
I've never said beforesurprising myself with with new
insight into the work that I'mdoing.
(57:13):
So uh I'm grateful to you for uhbeing present with me in such a
way that that you'd bring newstuff out of me.
Thank you.
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