February 18, 2025 • 37 mins
Dan Balcauski speaks with Jim Morrisroe, CEO of 15Five, on the SaaS Scaling Secrets podcast. Jim shares his journey from enterprise sales leader to CEO, emphasizing transformation moments, including his tenure at Zimbra and overcoming personal challenges. They discuss the importance of data-driven, targeted employee engagement, managing multi-generational workforces, and navigating the complexities of remote work environments. Jim highlights the critical role of effective leadership and mentorship in driving productivity and company success, offering valuable strategies for B2B SaaS companies aiming to scale.
00:30 Meet Jim Morrisroe: A Journey in Tech Leadership
01:35 The Zimbra Experience: From Minor Leagues to Major Leagues
03:11 Building High-Performance Teams
06:30 The Vulnerable Side of Leadership
12:27 Joining 15Five: A New Beginning
15:06 Employee Engagement and Performance
21:33 Remote Work and Productivity
28:45 Generational Differences in the Workforce
Guest Links
15Five.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmorrisroe/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dan Balcauski (00:20):
Welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast
that brings you the insidestories from leaders of the best
scale up, B2B SaaS companies.
I'm your host, Dan Balcauski,founder of Product Tranquility.
Today I'm excited to speak withJim Morrisroe, CEO of 15Five.
Jim is a veteran technologyexecutive with over 25 years of
experience building and Scalingsoftware companies.
He has an impressive recordleading four companies to
successful exits.
At 15Five, Jim's helpingorganizations develop their team
(00:40):
through 15Five performancemanagement and employee
engagement platform.
Let's dive in.
Welcome Jim to SaaS ScalingSecrets.
Jim Morrisroe (00:46):
Thanks, Dan.
I'm happy to be here.
Dan Balcauski (00:48):
I'm excited for our conversation today.
I think you're gonna have a lotof good insights around leading,
managing, increasing performanceof teams across organizations
for our audience.
Before we get into that though,I wanna know a little bit more
about you.
We all have these moments in ourlives where, our perspective,
our mindset, our view of whatthe world looks like changes
(01:10):
almost in an instant.
I like to think of it as asuperhero transformation moment.
One day, you're Peter Parker,normal high school student.
You get bit by a radioactivespider.
Next day you wake up yourSpiderman.
What has that been for you andyour journey?
Jim Morrisroe (01:22):
Yeah.
Well, so, so thanks for teeingthat up.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna do aslightly more traditional
version of that answer and thenI'm gonna do a little bit more
vulnerable version.
I'll, and I'll try to break'emup.
So, so the first one that, that.
Transformed me was I wascruising along as an enterprise
sales leader in Silicon Valleyworking for a larger software
(01:43):
and hardware company.
It's a company called CableTron.
I was at Lucent, I was at Cisco,and I got a recruiter call for a
VP of sales at a company calledZimbra.
As an a company, we ultimatelysold to Yahoo and then I spun it
out and sold it to VMware afterthat the company was funded by
Excel and Benchmark and RedPointand had a CEO named Satish
(02:04):
Dharmaraj and a president namedScott Dietzen, who have gone on
to do amazing things.
And the transformation that Iwent through, is it.
Literally felt like I went fromthe minor leagues like not even
triple a ball, like from singlea ball to all of a sudden I'm in
the majors, the the intellectualcapacity of these people.
The the drive, the passion, I.
(02:26):
I'm not a hundred percent surewhat they saw in me because I
was a rookie pitcher coming outof single A, but it, it
absolutely transformed my lifenot only relationship wise, but
what it took to be to have thegrit and determination to build
a company.
Dan Balcauski (02:42):
You mentioned, it felt like all of a sudden you
were in the major leagues.
What was it that you saw thatall of a sudden you're like, oh
these people are operating at adifferent level, or they're
thinking about things adifferent way from where you
were sitting before, as in yourprevious roles.
Jim Morrisroe (02:56):
I mean there, there was no one thing, there
were, millions of small things,but the the concentration of
talent that they had assembledwithin this company, we ha we
have, we all know this conceptof a 10 x engineer.
We had 10, 10 x engineers.
We know the concept of long workweeks, but to do things
organized and in a way whereeveryone's rowing in the same
(03:17):
direction.
I had never seen that type ofpolish in a company and that
just raw collection ofhorsepower.
And so that has stuck with me.
And we, we I have a belief that.
All humans are amazing.
But a company to, to succeed inthis environment it takes really
a group of amazing humans thatare going the same direction.
(03:41):
And we had both of those things.
Dan Balcauski (03:42):
Well, I actually, I wasn't planning on going this
direction, but you did bring upsomething interesting.
I was listening to a podcast theother day and they were talking
about how Patrick Collison atStripe was able to recruit Greg
Brockman who is, distinguishedengineer one of the founders of
OpenAI.
Incredible talent and.
(04:03):
Honestly the sort of lessonlearned there was a little bit
disappointing because they wereasking, well, like, well, look,
how did, how is Patrick and hisco-founder able to, attract, a
talent like Greg Brockman.
'cause I hear a lot, people willbe like, oh man, we, 10 x
engineers, right?
We want the rockstar engineer,right?
How many PO job applicationposts are written with it?
We want the rockstar talent.
And so the answer was, well, itwas basically game recognized
(04:24):
game like Patrick was able toattract Greg because Greg
recognized the, unique talentthat Patrick was, that Patrick,
and vice versa.
Was there something that you sawthat allowed these folks to be
able to bring in those,'cause ita 10 engineer right?
They've got opportunity out thewazoo, so, was there something
that you saw in the way theseguys operated that really
allowed them to pull in thattype of talent?
(04:46):
In mass,
Jim Morrisroe (04:47):
Well, I think that's amazing insights there is
that and it brings us ultimatelyback to, at some point, to what
15Five is trying to helpcompanies do.
But it's that, highly talentedpeople, highly motivated people
want to work with other highlytalented and highly motivated
people.
The net.
Netflix book no Rules, rules isanother great example of that
(05:09):
where, Netflix decided to pay 10x for 10 X engineers and to do
that everywhere and to putactually their money where their
mouth is, and they realized ifthey weren't getting the, that
10 x value.
That that person either had tobe coached up or coached out
because they were going to dragthe rest of the superstars in
(05:29):
the wrong direction.
And I think that ultimately iswhat what I found at Zimbra was
that the collection of thistalent ended up having a
snowball effect for attractingnew pe, new people of that same
flavor.
And the reason it was soformational to me is I must have
had something of that becausethe, these guys know how to
interview these people know howto interview.
(05:51):
But it, my, I, my impostersyndrome immediately kicked in
and I had to it forced me tochallenge myself to a whole
different level of of grit andpassion and and tapping into
things I probably didn't evenknow I had.
Dan Balcauski (06:04):
There's something uncomfortable and comforting at
the same time about feeling likeyou're in the wrong room, like
you somehow snuck in the backdoor among all these talented
people.
But it could also probably beunnerving.
And there's, I guess, I guessthe flip side is the Groucho
Marx.
I would never be part of anyclub that would, I have me
Jim Morrisroe (06:20):
Right.
Exactly.
That's, that's the feeling I hadevery day for the first, six
months probably.
Dan Balcauski (06:26):
Well, at the beginning you said you had two
takes on my question.
What was your second take?
Jim Morrisroe (06:30):
The last one is, as I mentioned, is very
vulnerable and it it's on theother end of that journey.
So a after zimbra I had a chanceto become a CEO and I had, and I
will, I'll give your audience alittle bit of a glimpse when
you're the enterprise salesleader.
The venture capitalists do notnormally give their best
companies to the sales leader tobe the CEO.
(06:53):
So, they usually try to hang onto the founder for as long as
they can.
And if if they have superstarsin their portfolio, they bring a
Frank Slootman in or somebodylike that, that has an
engineering and productbackground.
And I didn't know any of this.
And so when a enterprise salesleader is off to get his CEO
wings, whether that's smart ornot the most likely candidate is
(07:14):
a distressed company.
And that was clearly where Ilanded.
And I built a be of, bit of atrack record taking distressed
software companies, SaaScompanies.
Polishing them up and ultimatelyselling them.
And, some of my companies afterafter Zimbra were exactly like
that.
In addition to that, my wife andI had four kids in the East Bay
(07:35):
of the Bay Area and they wereall growing and playing sports.
And my company, my distresssoftware companies were
somewhere in Palo Alto or SanFrancisco or San Mateo.
And the.
The internal tension of adistressed software company, a
family of six.
A horrible journey between a awork meeting and a JV basketball
(07:59):
game.
Literally could take four hourson some days and having to leave
early or miss a game.
That whole just life showing up.
I ended up dealing with that ina really unhealthy way.
Mostly having to do with copiousamounts of vodka.
And so my stress release was wasalcohol and that almost killed
(08:21):
me.
And so, what what ultimatelyhappened just about five years
ago now, just before Covidstarted is I needed to make a
decision.
Either I find.
A way to deal with life onlife's terms, or I die and my
family helped me get to thatpoint.
But it's I'm happy to say afterfive years I haven't touched a
drop.
I'm happier.
(08:41):
I'm more mentally healthier, I'mmore physically healthy.
I do the best work of mylifetimes 10.
And so, as I've approached15Five in four years with, no
nothing but healthy stressrelease.
Techniques and a whole newenergy.
I, it literally feels like Ihave a superpower at this
(09:01):
company because I don't havethat burden of how I used to
deal with life.
Dan Balcauski (09:06):
I really appreciate the vulnerability and
authenticity in that.
And I know that, being a leaderof, in any role, a CEO
especially could be a lonely,very stressful job.
And, was there anything.
I guess that you've been able apro, usually I ask this sort of
at the end, but given thatyou've sort of outlined the
story, like, are, were theresort of ways that you're you've
(09:28):
developed practices group, likegroups, like how did like how
have you sort of managed outsideof that?
Jim Morrisroe (09:33):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, listen, anybody that weall in the US or in the world
have addiction is a unfortunate,story in, in a lot of our lives,
either firsthand or through ourfamily members.
And, it's not a happy ending forthe most part.
90% of people that becomesubstance addicted end up on a
path that leads to death.
(09:53):
Recover is is really, reallyhard and ultimately, my.
Initial path was through 12 stepprograms and and those type of
things.
But it led me to a couple oftechniques that that are in play
every day.
The first one is to be ofservice.
So there's nothing I.
Worse for our mental health thanto be stuck in our own head.
(10:16):
And there's nothing that helpsus get out of our own head more
than being of service to otherhumans.
And that can be just the oldtradition of holding the door
open at the grocery store.
That can be doing somethingextra for your wife or your
family.
But I actually put it in playby, volunteer work primarily in
the homeless areas.
So I do a set of homelessoutreach and food kitchen type
(10:38):
stuff in some of my spare time.
That helps, but it's, it has tobe a daily practice and that's
just not practical for me inthis age.
So that's number one.
And then number two, if if anyof you get a chance to spend any
time with Marcus Aurelius's me,meditations, or stoicism in
general there is some amazingwisdom, whether you are trying
(11:00):
to improve your mental health orjust, be a better executive.
And so, Ryan Holiday's, dailyStoic is a ex or Twitter follow
that I highly recommend and anyof those practices around being
present not reacting emotionallybecause that's only going to
compound things and make themworse.
Those two things.
(11:21):
So of service.
And then being, staying curiousand, about, about the works of
kind of the stoics is, has beena big part of my journey.
Dan Balcauski (11:30):
I appreciate you sharing both of those and for
yes I've, at one point nolonger, but I used to subscribe
to the Daily STO as well.
And for those who aren't awareof Marcus Realis or meditations,
Marcus Realis Roman Emperor so,this is not a woowoo guy wrote
a, basically his journal.
Of how he was dealing with thedaily stresses of ev all the
pressures put on him and, wasable to apply this philosophy.
(11:52):
And if you think there's anyonewho would have, absolute control
over their environment, it couldmake the world bend to their
wishes.
You would think it'd be a Romanemperor at the height of Rome's
power.
But we find out even in fromthose personal writings that
even that is not the case.
So, we are all on this sharedjourney together and.
The more, nobody gave us ahandbook when we were born to
drive this incredibly complexmachine.
(12:14):
So appreciate you sharing thosetips.
I'm gonna make a hard pivot backto the business world after that
one.
So I don't, I have, I don't haveany good segues to move back
into the business world afterthat, but I appreciate you
sharing those stories.
So, you were running a couple ofdistressed companies and now
you're at 15Five.
So just quickly kind of catch usup to present day, like how'd
you end up at 15Five.
Jim Morrisroe (12:34):
Yeah, the, so I think I'll make the segue easily
easy because they're directlyrelated.
So about a year into my journeyI was and it was the first year
of Covid, I was mostly doinghomeless outreach work for my
vocation.
I.
In fact, that's all I was doing.
And they were paying me$12 anhour to go into the homeless
encampments in the Bay Area todeliver food and basic services
(12:56):
and friendship.
And I had a kid at USCI had akid at Colorado State and I had
a freshman at Cal Poly and I hada big Bay Area lifestyle and I
was making$12 an hour.
I had gone, quite quite far inmy.
In my journey and the very, andI got tons of recruiter calls,
but I talked to my wife and Isaid, I think I'm ready to put
(13:16):
my new self back into myvocation.
And the very first recruitercall I got at that point was
from the 15Five recruiter DavidHassell, who is this amazing
human.
Another kind of zimbra momentfor me, which is wow.
And David and 15Five werelooking for at the time, a COO
(13:36):
and David had this amazingbusiness that the with a
mission, which is we help humansbe their best selves at work so
they can do the best work oftheir lives.
And the we've evolved.
A lot of our product strategy,we've had to, and we've evolved
our ICP and we've evolved how wehave built products and, but
this, the mission remains thesame, is how do we help
(13:59):
companies motivate, attract, andmotivate people to do the best
selves work of their lives, tobe their best selves and do the
best work of their lives.
And I was like, wow, thatsounds.
One, not like a distressedsoftware company because it
wasn't, we had tons of money.
We had, we were growing, we wereso that was one thing I wanted
to avoid, and two man, how.
(14:22):
How tightly coupled is this to,to the new me, the stoic me, the
the more enlightened, the lessgrinder and more intentional me.
And so, I put those two thingstogether and I told David at the
time, if I ever, I.
Wake up on a Monday morning anddon't want to be here.
I'm gonna tell you, and I canhappily say I'm just about to
hit my four year anniversary.
(14:42):
I've been the CEO for a year.
I have never once woken up onany morning, forget Monday, and
not tried to just jump out ofbed and attack this thing with
passion because it is sointegrated to the life that I've
built.
Dan Balcauski (14:55):
Well that's fantastic.
Glad that you've started thissecond chapter.
Given your position at 15Five,I'm sure you've got some
interesting perspectives on thiswhole employee engagement space.
I guess, what do you see thatleaders really get wrong about
employee engagement?
Jim Morrisroe (15:12):
Yeah, so the the, the beautiful thing about humans
is that we all bring our ownunique capabilities to the
workforce.
The most complicated thing abouthumans is that we all bring our
unique, own unique capabilitiesto the workforce.
And on top of that, there's a,we are in a time that has never
been more difficult for leaders.
(15:33):
We have four fairly uniquegenerations that are in the
workforce.
The boomers are just.
Winding out the uniqueness ofGen Xers like myself and
millennials and Gen Zers arelike, are all have were raised
with radically differentchildhood experiences and come
to the workforce with differentdifferent expectations and
(15:53):
different talents.
And so that combined with.
We've gone to this remote workscenario, which is which is,
slightly going back into thebag, but is now forever a part
of certainly knowledge work.
And on top of that, we havethese amazing opportunities
around to continue to learn andbe better with diversity and
breaking glass ceilings anddoing all these the, these
(16:14):
amazing, positive things withDEI, not these, not the negative
connotations that are coming outrecently.
So these things create thisamazing opportunities for
leadership to look at engagementhistorically, and performance
and retention.
All these topics historicallycompanies have looked at
engagement as a company wide.
(16:36):
And a company wide opportunity.
And the data just doesn't saythat that's what's happening.
Yes, there are some companiesthat need corporate programs
that that that can that, thatcan unite.
But we all bring.
Like we started with theseunique experiences to the
workforce.
Engagement and performance andretention is a target.
(16:59):
It's not a blanket.
And so, so what is critical inthis environment is to
understand your data.
What is the intersection of mypeople data so that I can't, so
that I don't necessarily justtry to use a one size fits all
sledgehammer, that I actuallycan go cohort by cohort.
Manager by manager, person byperson, and feel and identify
(17:24):
what they need to do the bestwork of their lives.
If you don't do that well.
That's a needle in a haystacksearch.
You like that?
Could that, that's not thepurpose of a company.
The purpose of the company is tobuild better widgets and to make
customers happy.
Not to, search for what inspireseach person.
So you have, that's a mean thepeople programs are a means to
the end.
(17:44):
So how do you most effectivelydive into your organization,
understand your data, andinspire people on a cohort by
cohort basis.
Ultimately that's what 15Five'smission is right now, is to help
HR leaders do that.
Dan Balcauski (17:58):
Well, I guess lead me kind of through maybe
the before and after.
'cause I'm not super familiarwith what this looks like from
a, employee engagement sortprogram.
Right?
'cause you mentioned thisblanket versus target approach.
Somebody sort of doing thisblanket approach, I guess, what
were they doing before versus,okay, now that they've sort of
understand this more targetedapproach, what does that look
like?
Jim Morrisroe (18:17):
Yeah, so HR will run a company survey and they'll
realize that they have.
These psychological aspects oftheir organization.
So an engagement survey is verymuch a, an organizational psych
survey.
And they'll realize that at ablended level, at an average
level, they have a goal clarityproblem and a leadership
integrity problem.
And so they're like, okay, weneed to go buy some OKR software
(18:41):
and we need to go to EOS.
And we and oh, by the way, theCEO.
It needs to be softer andgentler in the all hands, and so
they attack these things in, inat a corporate level and those
things.
Might be needed.
But what the real data isshowing you is that your high
performers from your lastengagement survey, they don't
(19:02):
have a goal clarity problem.
They know exactly what they'resupposed to do.
It's the rest of theorganization in a blended
averaged way that has a goalclarity problem.
And what they're really sayingin that instance is.
That they can't keep up with theA players.
And so what do your A playershave from an engagement
(19:24):
standpoint, and how do we attackthat cohort?
Or what is happening in salesversus engineering?
What is happening in aparticular manager like.
Every time, I pull up our peopleanalytics dashboard.
I can see that there's a that,that there are these hotspots
within our organization.
When I talk to our CHROcustomers, we pull up their
(19:46):
people analytics and we say,where do you think your hotspots
are?
They're amazed when they dive inand see that there's certain
managers that are on fire and inmany times they have some of the
top employees in theorganization.
At that point, you start totarget.
Those cohorts with uniqueopportunities, nine outta 10
times that opportunity is todevelop the leadership skills
(20:11):
and develop the tooling of thatcohort's manager.
And so nine outta 10 times, thisleads back to manager
development, but even themanager development.
Is unique.
This manager a, needs to figureout how to be clearer with their
communications manager B needsto know how to have hard
conversations for, inperformance issues in a more
(20:32):
streamlined way.
When HR is outnumbered onaverage 99 to one we need to be
really efficient partners to, tohelp them do this.
And that's ultimately where15Five comes in.
Dan Balcauski (20:45):
Well, you're, as you were talking, it kind of was
making me think of a, of an oldcliche, which, always has a bit
of truth.
Otherwise it would be cliche,which is the people leave
managers not companies.
That was just kind of what wasgoing in the back of my head as
you were talking, right.
Like this, Hey, we got thiscorporate level.
Problem.
But you're like, no, like I, mymanager is annoying me for these
specific reasons.
And I can't be here anymore.
(21:06):
So I'm gonna leave.
And, there's, otherwise you'rekind of blind trying to address
it from this top down level.
You did mention at your at thebeginning both the generational
issue, but but also this remotework issue.
And that's obviously taken a lotof press lately.
You got Amazon with their giantRTO push and you have big
debates on, is it just a,backdoor layoff and but you've
got other companies who arelike, yeah, we've.
(21:26):
We're very data driven and,we're not mandating back to
office.
'cause the productivity statsthat don't actually support the
people aren't productive.
I guess.
What have you learned about whatactually drives productivity in
remote environments?
What, like, what companies aredoing well with this?
What companies are struggling?
Like, what have you seen?
Jim Morrisroe (21:42):
Yeah, so I saw an amazing data point a few months
ago, which was that the top 20%of your organization is five
times more productive in aremote work environment.
So you're.
Your top performers aren't justa little bit more productive,
they're five times moreproductive.
And that's what's carrying theultimate company benefits of
remote work because the rest ofthe organization, the other 80%
(22:06):
are only 60% as effective.
So not quite half as effectiveas they were but 60% effective.
And that makes so much sensebecause the top of the
organization.
Are the people that mentor andcarry along and answer questions
and help the rest of theorganization be better.
They're unburdened by that.
So they're just away in thecorner cranking and they're
(22:29):
self-motivated and they don'tneed a lot of guidance and they
understand the companypriorities and they understand
their manager, even if themanager just talks in grunts.
And so those people are crankingalong.
And the rest of the organizationyour younger, less experienced,
less potentially talented teammembers are fluffing along and
struggling.
What remote work ultimately doesis it creates a background level
(22:53):
of stress in a company.
So I talked about engagement,performance, retention, all of
these attributes that you cansee in a people analytics
dashboard.
Anytime the company's understress, those those gaps will
will exacerbate, they'llmultiply.
So if and remote work is one ofthose stresses, it puts barriers
(23:16):
between, people's ability tostay accountable and to people's
ability to communicate well, etcetera.
But there are other stresses.
If the business isn't doingwell, if if the economy goes
into certain scenarios ifthere's a leadership issue if
there's a compliance issue.
So stressors, whether they'rewhether, they're remote work or
(23:37):
generational shifts or whateverare real.
And they can be micro and macro,but they just exacerbate these
challenges of ultimatelyengagement, performance, and
retention and manager pressure.
And so remote work has, its beit's that, we love it.
We're a hundred percent remote.
We don't have a single office.
We have 150 employees.
We love it.
(23:58):
but but we're cognizant of thestress that it puts on us and we
take that into account as webuild our people programs.
I.
Dan Balcauski (24:04):
Yeah.
Well, it's making me think.
How we're such social creaturesand there's all those studies of
like, somebody have somebodyacting like really odd in a
crowd, and then everyone else islike paid actors who's supposed
to respond a certain way.
And then the response is alwayslike, the one person doesn't
know what's going on.
Like, they look around toeveryone else to see like, is
this okay?
Is this normal?
(24:25):
How should I react?
And just in a remoteenvironment.
We're not pinging off of ourother mammals that way like we
normally would, like, Hey, iseveryone else seeing this or is
this just, is Oh, everyone else.
Okay.
Okay.
And then we calm down again andwe just don't have that in our
remote environment.
So I can see how those
Jim Morrisroe (24:41):
I'll give you an example.
Two years ago, 15Five had to gothrough a fairly major
transformation.
We had churn that had increased.
We had product market fitchallenges.
We had an ICP problem.
We had to kind of radicallyreinvent ourselves.
And for the first nine months ofthis reinvention, I was
continually getting frustratedthat.
The organization wasn't puttingour strategic shift into play
(25:04):
fast enough.
We were continuing to do thingsin the spirit of the old 15Five
and not the new 15Five.
And because we were intransformation.
I was naively watching everypenny that we spent.
I was like, cash burn, cashburn, cash burn.
And so any opportunities for usto get together as a team in
(25:25):
person, we locked down andsomebody told me, they said,
Hey, we've been.
We've been trying this for solong, maybe it's time we bring
back in-person meetings.
Let's get together as a companyand let's, unleash a budget that
allows small groups to gettogether.
Just those investments ofbringing back in-person, three,
(25:46):
four day kind of retreat stylemeetings at the company level,
and then small team cohorts adhoc getting together in a
particular city to solveproblems.
It radically shifted, likealmost overnight the company
buy-in and company alignment tothe shift that we were trying to
make.
And, I still have to be thechief repeating officer every
(26:06):
day.
I have to remind people of ofthe what and why of this shift.
But the the energy that isunderneath that is so much more
powerful now that we started tosee each other in person.
Dan Balcauski (26:19):
I, yeah, I love that shift from business as
usual to transformation and aspart, so, so business leaders
who are listening, as you'rethinking through, all the, x's
and o's of the plan for thattransformation, bringing people
together in person to, for the xexecution pieces over time can
have a big impact.
I
Jim Morrisroe (26:36):
I mean the execution piece for sure.
But you can do the executionpiece over Slack and Zoom and
Google Docs.
It's the buy-in, it's thecommitment, it's the it's the
energy that, that we sawsignificantly improved.
Dan Balcauski (26:49):
Well, I, I guess has the shift of remote work in
your way in your mind changed,like how you view or what makes
a high performing team?
I.
Jim Morrisroe (26:58):
I don't think it's, I think back to this stat,
which, which just says, how doyou get your high performers
more entwined with the rest ofthe organization, especially in
r and d?
That is that is just somethingthat, that we're hyper cognizant
of that we have that we haveformal mentorship programs.
If the data.
(27:18):
Presents itself that we need it,that we have extra communication
and standups that we don't letthe high performers isolate
because that because we need thewhole company to be getting
leverage from the whole company.
And the best way to bring therest of the org up is through
the me mentorship andparticipation of the of your top
20.
Dan Balcauski (27:38):
Well, and just the whole time you've been
talking, right?
I have I, if I'd gone back tocollege, I probably would've
majored in statistics or doublemajored in statistics because
the, you're just talking, right?
Like from the very beginningit's this flaw of averages,
right?
It's like we've got average databut.
When you look at thedistributions right across
cohorts, you segment thosedifferent groups out.
You see a very different storyfrom what the average tells you.
(28:00):
And on my side, I have a DDIremember working in open office
environments.
They were terrible.
Especially in a, the type ofroles I was in, you'd always
have, you were in meetings mostof the day when you weren't,
you'd have people come by yourdesk and you're like, alright
your two minute question has nowreset my brain 20 minutes to get
back into what I was trying todo.
Right.
And you don't have 20 minutesbefore you get the next
(28:21):
interruption.
And so, no, that everything youjust said really
Jim Morrisroe (28:25):
And that's why you're so much more productive
in a remote work environment.
But that's why this poor personthat asked you reset your brain
for two minutes, that's whythey're 40% less productive is
because they don't have you totap into as easily.
Dan Balcauski (28:39):
Well, may maybe those roles were flipped.
I'm not gonna put myself oneither side of that of either
side of that, but I appreciatethat nonetheless.
Well, you also mentioned thesegenerational differences and,
one thing that's been, sort ofapparent to me is, kind of.
We learn so much indirectly andsocially, right?
From observing like oursuperiors and how they act,
(29:01):
right?
Like you overhear people inconversations on, at the desk
next to you right?
And you're just like, oh, that'show they're sort of thinking
about that, right?
It wasn't an intentional, HRcertified training moment, but
like that, like we just sort ofsuck that up from our
environment and.
I do wonder about, the, say thesub 30 group where, maybe
they're, still really earlycareer and they're thrown into a
(29:22):
remote environment.
I.
What, have you seen work wherewe're not leaving those folks
behind?
Where, maybe they're not, it'slike, hey, I'm mid-career, mid
forties, I'm gonna, I know howto do the work, right?
I, there's obviously, I couldalways grow and get better at
what I do, but like, I'm notsort of at like, how does the
business world work at all sortof stage, right?
So how do we not leave thosepeople behind in a remote world?
Jim Morrisroe (29:44):
Yeah, no, I think it's super powerful and in
addition to having a companysomewhat full of folks in the
Gen Z, millennial area, I havefour kids that are in that
bucket as well.
And so here are two things thathave stood out to me number.
Number, and I don't think I'mthe first person to say these,
but when I put'em into practice,they work.
(30:06):
The first thing is because thatgen, these generations have been
raised with a supercomputer intheir hands and and social media
in their hands that that there,that has given them two, two
qualities.
One, if something feels opaqueor non-transparent.
They're gonna freak out'causethey can Wikipedia, they can
(30:28):
google search, they can findinstant access to the world's
information.
And so at a company, if there'sthis concept of, Hey, that's
senior leadership, there's aneed to know basis if this is a,
if you hold your cards close tothe vest and listen, there's
some things that you just can'tbe transparent about.
But being overly anduncomfortably transparent is is
(30:49):
is advice number one.
And I'm good thing is through myjourney, I'm and I'm also like,
Hey, life's too short.
Not to let people know what'shappening.
I am that way by nature, but alot of leaders aren't, and
overly and uncomfortablytransparent, I.
Number two, and it gets back tothis chief repeating officer.
They are, they're naturallyfilters.
(31:11):
Like my kids will get a thousandSnapchats in a weekend.
And and, the human brain canprocess that information, but
only if it triages things veryquickly and says, this is
important, this is notimportant.
And in order to to reach thingsfor them that are important.
You have to continuously repeatit.
You have to re in multiplemediums.
(31:33):
You have to say it in the allhands.
You have to type it in Slackmessages.
You have to insert yourself intoSlack channels.
You have to put it in thecorporate decks like this.
It's an imp.
It's an important thing that ifyou want it to land, you have to
be vulnerable and transparentand you have to say it all the
time.
Dan Balcauski (31:49):
I love this chief repeating officer.
It's like, yes yes.
I said that yesterday.
Yeah, we gotta say it again.
It doesn't matter.
Jim Morrisroe (31:55):
And to some people like that hear it are
like, dude, stop.
You say this way too much.
And it's like, it's not for you,it's for everybody else.
And and there's a reason for,
Dan Balcauski (32:07):
Like, no I know I don't wanna continue saying the
same thing over and over again,but I have to it's part of the
job.
No, I very much appreciate that.
Jim Morrisroe (32:13):
Look just leave you with one last thing too
Dan Balcauski (32:16):
sure.
Jim Morrisroe (32:16):
The upper 10% of these younger generations look a
lot like my career or someone.
In the boomer's generationcareer, the upper 10% is
motivated by career.
They see the American dream ofbuying a house.
They see upward mobility andbeing able to provide a better
life for their family than theirparents provided for them.
(32:38):
And so, the Harvard kids, theStanford kids, the, the Ivy
League kids that, that end up ininvestment banking or in, in
private equity or in the, thetop of Google, those kids look
the same, the other 90%.
And it's not that they don'thave different talent, but they
look at this hurdle that ittakes to buy a house or the cost
of having a family or or thesevarious things.
(33:00):
And they're like, man, my careeris.
Part of my life, but it isn't mylife.
And in order to cater to thatmindset you have to make sure
that mission and purpose of yourorganization is crystal clear to
them that, because if it's not,and they'll just say, Hey.
(33:22):
I'm gonna go to Australia forsix months and live in my van
and see the world because that'sthat, that's their that's not a
bad thing.
I, I think I would've done thatthen if I had to look at a
$800,000, starting price for ahouse at 24 years old.
I would be like, yeah, my careeris second to my personal life
experiences.
So, so making sure that missionand purpose is front and center
(33:44):
to to all of your employees,especially your younger
employees, is a really importantkind of, lesson that, that took
me a little bit to learn.
Dan Balcauski (33:52):
I love that.
Well, and I resonate with thatbecause I went and backpacked
the world for a year and a half,
Jim Morrisroe (33:56):
uh
Dan Balcauski (33:56):
as well.
So I'm somewhere stuck in themiddle.
I'm not part of it.
I'm in that weird middle of twogenerations.
So that don't fit neatly in anycategory.
I did my, did that later inlife.
Look Jim, I could talk to youall day.
There's a whole bunch of topics.
I didn't even have a chance tobroach with you that I was
hoping to maybe we'll have toget you out for part two at some
point.
But I do wanna respect your timeand the audience this time.
This has been fantastic.
(34:16):
I want to finish out with acouple of rapid closeout
questions.
Is that a cool,
Jim Morrisroe (34:19):
Sounds great.
Dan Balcauski (34:20):
Alright.
First one is a fun one.
If we have the chance to get ridthe world of the mosquito,
should we,
Jim Morrisroe (34:27):
Of course,
Dan Balcauski (34:30):
no, no Second order effects that you see
Jim Morrisroe (34:32):
I mean, context.
Live on the west side of theRocky Mountains for a reason.
I hate bugs.
And they exist a little bit onthe west side of the Rocky
Mountains, but nowhere near likethe east side of the Rocky
Mountains.
And so, I've built my lifepartly around avoiding bugs.
Dan Balcauski (34:53):
What is your greatest hope that comes out of
this trend of AI that we'reseeing?
Jim Morrisroe (34:59):
Yeah.
My my hope is that I is that wedon't prematurely freak out like
this.
This ha human innovation has, I.
Radically changed our lives.
And every stage of innovationhas threatened somebody.
And the innovation has overcome.
(35:21):
This one on the surface can bereally scary.
It can also radically changefuture generations quality of
life and life expectancy.
And I, I hope like any of thesetransformations, we don't freak
out too much and we, we let itmake our lives better.
Dan Balcauski (35:39):
Keep calm and carry on.
When you think about all thespectacular people you've had a
chance to work with, interactwith, learn from, is there
anyone that just pops to mindand has disproportionate effect
on the way that you think aboutbuilding companies now?
Jim Morrisroe (35:49):
Yeah I mean I've mentioned them, but um, Satish
Dharmaraj a, managing partner atRedPoint, who was the CEO of
Zimbra.
Changed my life in a major wayas a business person.
And then David Hassell, who wasthe original CEO of 15Five
helped me just become a muchbetter human in the workplace.
I was already on the way throughmy through my journey.
But those two and definitelybookends of my career have been
(36:11):
instrumental.
Dan Balcauski (36:13):
If I gave you a billboard and you could put
anything on it advice for otherB2B Sass CEOs trying to scale
their companies, what would itsay?
Jim Morrisroe (36:20):
It would say it would say, be disciplined to
your ICP.
So, there is, we didn't get aton to talk about it, but there
is no better, path there, thereis only one path to success, and
that's a deep product market fitthat gets word of mouth.
(36:41):
And and it's impossible to dothat in a huge market.
And so you have to getdisciplined and win win an ICP
and then expand your ICP fromthere.
And we far too often get.
An allure of a big deal in anenterprise company are we far
too often get get excited aboutself-service and, no, no sales
(37:03):
costs and in reality, none ofthose things matter until you
win an ICP.
Dan Balcauski (37:09):
Be disciplined to your ICP.
Absolutely love it.
Jim, this has been fantastic.
For our listeners, wanna connectwith you, learn more about
15Five, how can they do that?
Jim Morrisroe (37:17):
Yeah, so I you can always reach me on LinkedIn
and I will point you on theright direction.
I'm pretty responsive with myoutreach and even if you wanna
message me and then 15Five.comto get started on everything.
Everything there.
I highly encourage HR leadersCOOs presidents that want to
look at targets and not blanketsfor their people engagement and
(37:38):
performance programs to check itout.
It's a pretty powerful platform.
Dan Balcauski (37:42):
Targets not blankets for increasing your
human performance in yourorganizations.
Love it.
I will put those links in theshow notes for listeners.
Everyone that wraps up thisepisode of SaaS here, it's thank
you to Jim for sharing hisjourney Insights, valuable tips
for our listeners.
You found this conversation asenlightening as I did.
Remember, subscribe so you don'tmiss out on future episodes.
Welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast
that brings you the insidestories from leaders of the best
scale up, B2B SaaS companies.
I'm your host, Dan Balcauski,founder of Product Tranquility.
Today I'm excited to speak withJim Morrisroe, CEO of 15Five.
Jim is a veteran technologyexecutive with over 25 years of
experience building and Scalingsoftware companies.
He has an impressive recordleading four companies to
successful exits.
At 15Five, Jim's helpingorganizations develop their team
(00:40):
through 15Five performancemanagement and employee
engagement platform.
Let's dive in.
Welcome Jim to SaaS ScalingSecrets.
Jim Morrisroe (00:46):
Thanks, Dan.
I'm happy to be here.
Dan Balcauski (00:48):
I'm excited for our conversation today.
I think you're gonna have a lotof good insights around leading,
managing, increasing performanceof teams across organizations
for our audience.
Before we get into that though,I wanna know a little bit more
about you.
We all have these moments in ourlives where, our perspective,
our mindset, our view of whatthe world looks like changes
(01:10):
almost in an instant.
I like to think of it as asuperhero transformation moment.
One day, you're Peter Parker,normal high school student.
You get bit by a radioactivespider.
Next day you wake up yourSpiderman.
What has that been for you andyour journey?
Jim Morrisroe (01:22):
Yeah.
Well, so, so thanks for teeingthat up.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna do aslightly more traditional
version of that answer and thenI'm gonna do a little bit more
vulnerable version.
I'll, and I'll try to break'emup.
So, so the first one that, that.
Transformed me was I wascruising along as an enterprise
sales leader in Silicon Valleyworking for a larger software
(01:43):
and hardware company.
It's a company called CableTron.
I was at Lucent, I was at Cisco,and I got a recruiter call for a
VP of sales at a company calledZimbra.
As an a company, we ultimatelysold to Yahoo and then I spun it
out and sold it to VMware afterthat the company was funded by
Excel and Benchmark and RedPointand had a CEO named Satish
(02:04):
Dharmaraj and a president namedScott Dietzen, who have gone on
to do amazing things.
And the transformation that Iwent through, is it.
Literally felt like I went fromthe minor leagues like not even
triple a ball, like from singlea ball to all of a sudden I'm in
the majors, the the intellectualcapacity of these people.
The the drive, the passion, I.
(02:26):
I'm not a hundred percent surewhat they saw in me because I
was a rookie pitcher coming outof single A, but it, it
absolutely transformed my lifenot only relationship wise, but
what it took to be to have thegrit and determination to build
a company.
Dan Balcauski (02:42):
You mentioned, it felt like all of a sudden you
were in the major leagues.
What was it that you saw thatall of a sudden you're like, oh
these people are operating at adifferent level, or they're
thinking about things adifferent way from where you
were sitting before, as in yourprevious roles.
Jim Morrisroe (02:56):
I mean there, there was no one thing, there
were, millions of small things,but the the concentration of
talent that they had assembledwithin this company, we ha we
have, we all know this conceptof a 10 x engineer.
We had 10, 10 x engineers.
We know the concept of long workweeks, but to do things
organized and in a way whereeveryone's rowing in the same
(03:17):
direction.
I had never seen that type ofpolish in a company and that
just raw collection ofhorsepower.
And so that has stuck with me.
And we, we I have a belief that.
All humans are amazing.
But a company to, to succeed inthis environment it takes really
a group of amazing humans thatare going the same direction.
(03:41):
And we had both of those things.
Dan Balcauski (03:42):
Well, I actually, I wasn't planning on going this
direction, but you did bring upsomething interesting.
I was listening to a podcast theother day and they were talking
about how Patrick Collison atStripe was able to recruit Greg
Brockman who is, distinguishedengineer one of the founders of
OpenAI.
Incredible talent and.
(04:03):
Honestly the sort of lessonlearned there was a little bit
disappointing because they wereasking, well, like, well, look,
how did, how is Patrick and hisco-founder able to, attract, a
talent like Greg Brockman.
'cause I hear a lot, people willbe like, oh man, we, 10 x
engineers, right?
We want the rockstar engineer,right?
How many PO job applicationposts are written with it?
We want the rockstar talent.
And so the answer was, well, itwas basically game recognized
(04:24):
game like Patrick was able toattract Greg because Greg
recognized the, unique talentthat Patrick was, that Patrick,
and vice versa.
Was there something that you sawthat allowed these folks to be
able to bring in those,'cause ita 10 engineer right?
They've got opportunity out thewazoo, so, was there something
that you saw in the way theseguys operated that really
allowed them to pull in thattype of talent?
(04:46):
In mass,
Jim Morrisroe (04:47):
Well, I think that's amazing insights there is
that and it brings us ultimatelyback to, at some point, to what
15Five is trying to helpcompanies do.
But it's that, highly talentedpeople, highly motivated people
want to work with other highlytalented and highly motivated
people.
The net.
Netflix book no Rules, rules isanother great example of that
(05:09):
where, Netflix decided to pay 10x for 10 X engineers and to do
that everywhere and to putactually their money where their
mouth is, and they realized ifthey weren't getting the, that
10 x value.
That that person either had tobe coached up or coached out
because they were going to dragthe rest of the superstars in
(05:29):
the wrong direction.
And I think that ultimately iswhat what I found at Zimbra was
that the collection of thistalent ended up having a
snowball effect for attractingnew pe, new people of that same
flavor.
And the reason it was soformational to me is I must have
had something of that becausethe, these guys know how to
interview these people know howto interview.
(05:51):
But it, my, I, my impostersyndrome immediately kicked in
and I had to it forced me tochallenge myself to a whole
different level of of grit andpassion and and tapping into
things I probably didn't evenknow I had.
Dan Balcauski (06:04):
There's something uncomfortable and comforting at
the same time about feeling likeyou're in the wrong room, like
you somehow snuck in the backdoor among all these talented
people.
But it could also probably beunnerving.
And there's, I guess, I guessthe flip side is the Groucho
Marx.
I would never be part of anyclub that would, I have me
Jim Morrisroe (06:20):
Right.
Exactly.
That's, that's the feeling I hadevery day for the first, six
months probably.
Dan Balcauski (06:26):
Well, at the beginning you said you had two
takes on my question.
What was your second take?
Jim Morrisroe (06:30):
The last one is, as I mentioned, is very
vulnerable and it it's on theother end of that journey.
So a after zimbra I had a chanceto become a CEO and I had, and I
will, I'll give your audience alittle bit of a glimpse when
you're the enterprise salesleader.
The venture capitalists do notnormally give their best
companies to the sales leader tobe the CEO.
(06:53):
So, they usually try to hang onto the founder for as long as
they can.
And if if they have superstarsin their portfolio, they bring a
Frank Slootman in or somebodylike that, that has an
engineering and productbackground.
And I didn't know any of this.
And so when a enterprise salesleader is off to get his CEO
wings, whether that's smart ornot the most likely candidate is
(07:14):
a distressed company.
And that was clearly where Ilanded.
And I built a be of, bit of atrack record taking distressed
software companies, SaaScompanies.
Polishing them up and ultimatelyselling them.
And, some of my companies afterafter Zimbra were exactly like
that.
In addition to that, my wife andI had four kids in the East Bay
(07:35):
of the Bay Area and they wereall growing and playing sports.
And my company, my distresssoftware companies were
somewhere in Palo Alto or SanFrancisco or San Mateo.
And the.
The internal tension of adistressed software company, a
family of six.
A horrible journey between a awork meeting and a JV basketball
(07:59):
game.
Literally could take four hourson some days and having to leave
early or miss a game.
That whole just life showing up.
I ended up dealing with that ina really unhealthy way.
Mostly having to do with copiousamounts of vodka.
And so my stress release was wasalcohol and that almost killed
(08:21):
me.
And so, what what ultimatelyhappened just about five years
ago now, just before Covidstarted is I needed to make a
decision.
Either I find.
A way to deal with life onlife's terms, or I die and my
family helped me get to thatpoint.
But it's I'm happy to say afterfive years I haven't touched a
drop.
I'm happier.
(08:41):
I'm more mentally healthier, I'mmore physically healthy.
I do the best work of mylifetimes 10.
And so, as I've approached15Five in four years with, no
nothing but healthy stressrelease.
Techniques and a whole newenergy.
I, it literally feels like Ihave a superpower at this
(09:01):
company because I don't havethat burden of how I used to
deal with life.
Dan Balcauski (09:06):
I really appreciate the vulnerability and
authenticity in that.
And I know that, being a leaderof, in any role, a CEO
especially could be a lonely,very stressful job.
And, was there anything.
I guess that you've been able apro, usually I ask this sort of
at the end, but given thatyou've sort of outlined the
story, like, are, were theresort of ways that you're you've
(09:28):
developed practices group, likegroups, like how did like how
have you sort of managed outsideof that?
Jim Morrisroe (09:33):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, listen, anybody that weall in the US or in the world
have addiction is a unfortunate,story in, in a lot of our lives,
either firsthand or through ourfamily members.
And, it's not a happy ending forthe most part.
90% of people that becomesubstance addicted end up on a
path that leads to death.
(09:53):
Recover is is really, reallyhard and ultimately, my.
Initial path was through 12 stepprograms and and those type of
things.
But it led me to a couple oftechniques that that are in play
every day.
The first one is to be ofservice.
So there's nothing I.
Worse for our mental health thanto be stuck in our own head.
(10:16):
And there's nothing that helpsus get out of our own head more
than being of service to otherhumans.
And that can be just the oldtradition of holding the door
open at the grocery store.
That can be doing somethingextra for your wife or your
family.
But I actually put it in playby, volunteer work primarily in
the homeless areas.
So I do a set of homelessoutreach and food kitchen type
(10:38):
stuff in some of my spare time.
That helps, but it's, it has tobe a daily practice and that's
just not practical for me inthis age.
So that's number one.
And then number two, if if anyof you get a chance to spend any
time with Marcus Aurelius's me,meditations, or stoicism in
general there is some amazingwisdom, whether you are trying
(11:00):
to improve your mental health orjust, be a better executive.
And so, Ryan Holiday's, dailyStoic is a ex or Twitter follow
that I highly recommend and anyof those practices around being
present not reacting emotionallybecause that's only going to
compound things and make themworse.
Those two things.
(11:21):
So of service.
And then being, staying curiousand, about, about the works of
kind of the stoics is, has beena big part of my journey.
Dan Balcauski (11:30):
I appreciate you sharing both of those and for
yes I've, at one point nolonger, but I used to subscribe
to the Daily STO as well.
And for those who aren't awareof Marcus Realis or meditations,
Marcus Realis Roman Emperor so,this is not a woowoo guy wrote
a, basically his journal.
Of how he was dealing with thedaily stresses of ev all the
pressures put on him and, wasable to apply this philosophy.
(11:52):
And if you think there's anyonewho would have, absolute control
over their environment, it couldmake the world bend to their
wishes.
You would think it'd be a Romanemperor at the height of Rome's
power.
But we find out even in fromthose personal writings that
even that is not the case.
So, we are all on this sharedjourney together and.
The more, nobody gave us ahandbook when we were born to
drive this incredibly complexmachine.
(12:14):
So appreciate you sharing thosetips.
I'm gonna make a hard pivot backto the business world after that
one.
So I don't, I have, I don't haveany good segues to move back
into the business world afterthat, but I appreciate you
sharing those stories.
So, you were running a couple ofdistressed companies and now
you're at 15Five.
So just quickly kind of catch usup to present day, like how'd
you end up at 15Five.
Jim Morrisroe (12:34):
Yeah, the, so I think I'll make the segue easily
easy because they're directlyrelated.
So about a year into my journeyI was and it was the first year
of Covid, I was mostly doinghomeless outreach work for my
vocation.
I.
In fact, that's all I was doing.
And they were paying me$12 anhour to go into the homeless
encampments in the Bay Area todeliver food and basic services
(12:56):
and friendship.
And I had a kid at USCI had akid at Colorado State and I had
a freshman at Cal Poly and I hada big Bay Area lifestyle and I
was making$12 an hour.
I had gone, quite quite far inmy.
In my journey and the very, andI got tons of recruiter calls,
but I talked to my wife and Isaid, I think I'm ready to put
(13:16):
my new self back into myvocation.
And the very first recruitercall I got at that point was
from the 15Five recruiter DavidHassell, who is this amazing
human.
Another kind of zimbra momentfor me, which is wow.
And David and 15Five werelooking for at the time, a COO
(13:36):
and David had this amazingbusiness that the with a
mission, which is we help humansbe their best selves at work so
they can do the best work oftheir lives.
And the we've evolved.
A lot of our product strategy,we've had to, and we've evolved
our ICP and we've evolved how wehave built products and, but
this, the mission remains thesame, is how do we help
(13:59):
companies motivate, attract, andmotivate people to do the best
selves work of their lives, tobe their best selves and do the
best work of their lives.
And I was like, wow, thatsounds.
One, not like a distressedsoftware company because it
wasn't, we had tons of money.
We had, we were growing, we wereso that was one thing I wanted
to avoid, and two man, how.
(14:22):
How tightly coupled is this to,to the new me, the stoic me, the
the more enlightened, the lessgrinder and more intentional me.
And so, I put those two thingstogether and I told David at the
time, if I ever, I.
Wake up on a Monday morning anddon't want to be here.
I'm gonna tell you, and I canhappily say I'm just about to
hit my four year anniversary.
(14:42):
I've been the CEO for a year.
I have never once woken up onany morning, forget Monday, and
not tried to just jump out ofbed and attack this thing with
passion because it is sointegrated to the life that I've
built.
Dan Balcauski (14:55):
Well that's fantastic.
Glad that you've started thissecond chapter.
Given your position at 15Five,I'm sure you've got some
interesting perspectives on thiswhole employee engagement space.
I guess, what do you see thatleaders really get wrong about
employee engagement?
Jim Morrisroe (15:12):
Yeah, so the the, the beautiful thing about humans
is that we all bring our ownunique capabilities to the
workforce.
The most complicated thing abouthumans is that we all bring our
unique, own unique capabilitiesto the workforce.
And on top of that, there's a,we are in a time that has never
been more difficult for leaders.
(15:33):
We have four fairly uniquegenerations that are in the
workforce.
The boomers are just.
Winding out the uniqueness ofGen Xers like myself and
millennials and Gen Zers arelike, are all have were raised
with radically differentchildhood experiences and come
to the workforce with differentdifferent expectations and
(15:53):
different talents.
And so that combined with.
We've gone to this remote workscenario, which is which is,
slightly going back into thebag, but is now forever a part
of certainly knowledge work.
And on top of that, we havethese amazing opportunities
around to continue to learn andbe better with diversity and
breaking glass ceilings anddoing all these the, these
(16:14):
amazing, positive things withDEI, not these, not the negative
connotations that are coming outrecently.
So these things create thisamazing opportunities for
leadership to look at engagementhistorically, and performance
and retention.
All these topics historicallycompanies have looked at
engagement as a company wide.
(16:36):
And a company wide opportunity.
And the data just doesn't saythat that's what's happening.
Yes, there are some companiesthat need corporate programs
that that that can that, thatcan unite.
But we all bring.
Like we started with theseunique experiences to the
workforce.
Engagement and performance andretention is a target.
(16:59):
It's not a blanket.
And so, so what is critical inthis environment is to
understand your data.
What is the intersection of mypeople data so that I can't, so
that I don't necessarily justtry to use a one size fits all
sledgehammer, that I actuallycan go cohort by cohort.
Manager by manager, person byperson, and feel and identify
(17:24):
what they need to do the bestwork of their lives.
If you don't do that well.
That's a needle in a haystacksearch.
You like that?
Could that, that's not thepurpose of a company.
The purpose of the company is tobuild better widgets and to make
customers happy.
Not to, search for what inspireseach person.
So you have, that's a mean thepeople programs are a means to
the end.
(17:44):
So how do you most effectivelydive into your organization,
understand your data, andinspire people on a cohort by
cohort basis.
Ultimately that's what 15Five'smission is right now, is to help
HR leaders do that.
Dan Balcauski (17:58):
Well, I guess lead me kind of through maybe
the before and after.
'cause I'm not super familiarwith what this looks like from
a, employee engagement sortprogram.
Right?
'cause you mentioned thisblanket versus target approach.
Somebody sort of doing thisblanket approach, I guess, what
were they doing before versus,okay, now that they've sort of
understand this more targetedapproach, what does that look
like?
Jim Morrisroe (18:17):
Yeah, so HR will run a company survey and they'll
realize that they have.
These psychological aspects oftheir organization.
So an engagement survey is verymuch a, an organizational psych
survey.
And they'll realize that at ablended level, at an average
level, they have a goal clarityproblem and a leadership
integrity problem.
And so they're like, okay, weneed to go buy some OKR software
(18:41):
and we need to go to EOS.
And we and oh, by the way, theCEO.
It needs to be softer andgentler in the all hands, and so
they attack these things in, inat a corporate level and those
things.
Might be needed.
But what the real data isshowing you is that your high
performers from your lastengagement survey, they don't
(19:02):
have a goal clarity problem.
They know exactly what they'resupposed to do.
It's the rest of theorganization in a blended
averaged way that has a goalclarity problem.
And what they're really sayingin that instance is.
That they can't keep up with theA players.
And so what do your A playershave from an engagement
(19:24):
standpoint, and how do we attackthat cohort?
Or what is happening in salesversus engineering?
What is happening in aparticular manager like.
Every time, I pull up our peopleanalytics dashboard.
I can see that there's a that,that there are these hotspots
within our organization.
When I talk to our CHROcustomers, we pull up their
(19:46):
people analytics and we say,where do you think your hotspots
are?
They're amazed when they dive inand see that there's certain
managers that are on fire and inmany times they have some of the
top employees in theorganization.
At that point, you start totarget.
Those cohorts with uniqueopportunities, nine outta 10
times that opportunity is todevelop the leadership skills
(20:11):
and develop the tooling of thatcohort's manager.
And so nine outta 10 times, thisleads back to manager
development, but even themanager development.
Is unique.
This manager a, needs to figureout how to be clearer with their
communications manager B needsto know how to have hard
conversations for, inperformance issues in a more
(20:32):
streamlined way.
When HR is outnumbered onaverage 99 to one we need to be
really efficient partners to, tohelp them do this.
And that's ultimately where15Five comes in.
Dan Balcauski (20:45):
Well, you're, as you were talking, it kind of was
making me think of a, of an oldcliche, which, always has a bit
of truth.
Otherwise it would be cliche,which is the people leave
managers not companies.
That was just kind of what wasgoing in the back of my head as
you were talking, right.
Like this, Hey, we got thiscorporate level.
Problem.
But you're like, no, like I, mymanager is annoying me for these
specific reasons.
And I can't be here anymore.
(21:06):
So I'm gonna leave.
And, there's, otherwise you'rekind of blind trying to address
it from this top down level.
You did mention at your at thebeginning both the generational
issue, but but also this remotework issue.
And that's obviously taken a lotof press lately.
You got Amazon with their giantRTO push and you have big
debates on, is it just a,backdoor layoff and but you've
got other companies who arelike, yeah, we've.
(21:26):
We're very data driven and,we're not mandating back to
office.
'cause the productivity statsthat don't actually support the
people aren't productive.
I guess.
What have you learned about whatactually drives productivity in
remote environments?
What, like, what companies aredoing well with this?
What companies are struggling?
Like, what have you seen?
Jim Morrisroe (21:42):
Yeah, so I saw an amazing data point a few months
ago, which was that the top 20%of your organization is five
times more productive in aremote work environment.
So you're.
Your top performers aren't justa little bit more productive,
they're five times moreproductive.
And that's what's carrying theultimate company benefits of
remote work because the rest ofthe organization, the other 80%
(22:06):
are only 60% as effective.
So not quite half as effectiveas they were but 60% effective.
And that makes so much sensebecause the top of the
organization.
Are the people that mentor andcarry along and answer questions
and help the rest of theorganization be better.
They're unburdened by that.
So they're just away in thecorner cranking and they're
(22:29):
self-motivated and they don'tneed a lot of guidance and they
understand the companypriorities and they understand
their manager, even if themanager just talks in grunts.
And so those people are crankingalong.
And the rest of the organizationyour younger, less experienced,
less potentially talented teammembers are fluffing along and
struggling.
What remote work ultimately doesis it creates a background level
(22:53):
of stress in a company.
So I talked about engagement,performance, retention, all of
these attributes that you cansee in a people analytics
dashboard.
Anytime the company's understress, those those gaps will
will exacerbate, they'llmultiply.
So if and remote work is one ofthose stresses, it puts barriers
(23:16):
between, people's ability tostay accountable and to people's
ability to communicate well, etcetera.
But there are other stresses.
If the business isn't doingwell, if if the economy goes
into certain scenarios ifthere's a leadership issue if
there's a compliance issue.
So stressors, whether they'rewhether, they're remote work or
(23:37):
generational shifts or whateverare real.
And they can be micro and macro,but they just exacerbate these
challenges of ultimatelyengagement, performance, and
retention and manager pressure.
And so remote work has, its beit's that, we love it.
We're a hundred percent remote.
We don't have a single office.
We have 150 employees.
We love it.
(23:58):
but but we're cognizant of thestress that it puts on us and we
take that into account as webuild our people programs.
I.
Dan Balcauski (24:04):
Yeah.
Well, it's making me think.
How we're such social creaturesand there's all those studies of
like, somebody have somebodyacting like really odd in a
crowd, and then everyone else islike paid actors who's supposed
to respond a certain way.
And then the response is alwayslike, the one person doesn't
know what's going on.
Like, they look around toeveryone else to see like, is
this okay?
Is this normal?
(24:25):
How should I react?
And just in a remoteenvironment.
We're not pinging off of ourother mammals that way like we
normally would, like, Hey, iseveryone else seeing this or is
this just, is Oh, everyone else.
Okay.
Okay.
And then we calm down again andwe just don't have that in our
remote environment.
So I can see how those
Jim Morrisroe (24:41):
I'll give you an example.
Two years ago, 15Five had to gothrough a fairly major
transformation.
We had churn that had increased.
We had product market fitchallenges.
We had an ICP problem.
We had to kind of radicallyreinvent ourselves.
And for the first nine months ofthis reinvention, I was
continually getting frustratedthat.
The organization wasn't puttingour strategic shift into play
(25:04):
fast enough.
We were continuing to do thingsin the spirit of the old 15Five
and not the new 15Five.
And because we were intransformation.
I was naively watching everypenny that we spent.
I was like, cash burn, cashburn, cash burn.
And so any opportunities for usto get together as a team in
(25:25):
person, we locked down andsomebody told me, they said,
Hey, we've been.
We've been trying this for solong, maybe it's time we bring
back in-person meetings.
Let's get together as a companyand let's, unleash a budget that
allows small groups to gettogether.
Just those investments ofbringing back in-person, three,
(25:46):
four day kind of retreat stylemeetings at the company level,
and then small team cohorts adhoc getting together in a
particular city to solveproblems.
It radically shifted, likealmost overnight the company
buy-in and company alignment tothe shift that we were trying to
make.
And, I still have to be thechief repeating officer every
(26:06):
day.
I have to remind people of ofthe what and why of this shift.
But the the energy that isunderneath that is so much more
powerful now that we started tosee each other in person.
Dan Balcauski (26:19):
I, yeah, I love that shift from business as
usual to transformation and aspart, so, so business leaders
who are listening, as you'rethinking through, all the, x's
and o's of the plan for thattransformation, bringing people
together in person to, for the xexecution pieces over time can
have a big impact.
I
Jim Morrisroe (26:36):
I mean the execution piece for sure.
But you can do the executionpiece over Slack and Zoom and
Google Docs.
It's the buy-in, it's thecommitment, it's the it's the
energy that, that we sawsignificantly improved.
Dan Balcauski (26:49):
Well, I, I guess has the shift of remote work in
your way in your mind changed,like how you view or what makes
a high performing team?
I.
Jim Morrisroe (26:58):
I don't think it's, I think back to this stat,
which, which just says, how doyou get your high performers
more entwined with the rest ofthe organization, especially in
r and d?
That is that is just somethingthat, that we're hyper cognizant
of that we have that we haveformal mentorship programs.
If the data.
(27:18):
Presents itself that we need it,that we have extra communication
and standups that we don't letthe high performers isolate
because that because we need thewhole company to be getting
leverage from the whole company.
And the best way to bring therest of the org up is through
the me mentorship andparticipation of the of your top
20.
Dan Balcauski (27:38):
Well, and just the whole time you've been
talking, right?
I have I, if I'd gone back tocollege, I probably would've
majored in statistics or doublemajored in statistics because
the, you're just talking, right?
Like from the very beginningit's this flaw of averages,
right?
It's like we've got average databut.
When you look at thedistributions right across
cohorts, you segment thosedifferent groups out.
You see a very different storyfrom what the average tells you.
(28:00):
And on my side, I have a DDIremember working in open office
environments.
They were terrible.
Especially in a, the type ofroles I was in, you'd always
have, you were in meetings mostof the day when you weren't,
you'd have people come by yourdesk and you're like, alright
your two minute question has nowreset my brain 20 minutes to get
back into what I was trying todo.
Right.
And you don't have 20 minutesbefore you get the next
(28:21):
interruption.
And so, no, that everything youjust said really
Jim Morrisroe (28:25):
And that's why you're so much more productive
in a remote work environment.
But that's why this poor personthat asked you reset your brain
for two minutes, that's whythey're 40% less productive is
because they don't have you totap into as easily.
Dan Balcauski (28:39):
Well, may maybe those roles were flipped.
I'm not gonna put myself oneither side of that of either
side of that, but I appreciatethat nonetheless.
Well, you also mentioned thesegenerational differences and,
one thing that's been, sort ofapparent to me is, kind of.
We learn so much indirectly andsocially, right?
From observing like oursuperiors and how they act,
(29:01):
right?
Like you overhear people inconversations on, at the desk
next to you right?
And you're just like, oh, that'show they're sort of thinking
about that, right?
It wasn't an intentional, HRcertified training moment, but
like that, like we just sort ofsuck that up from our
environment and.
I do wonder about, the, say thesub 30 group where, maybe
they're, still really earlycareer and they're thrown into a
(29:22):
remote environment.
I.
What, have you seen work wherewe're not leaving those folks
behind?
Where, maybe they're not, it'slike, hey, I'm mid-career, mid
forties, I'm gonna, I know howto do the work, right?
I, there's obviously, I couldalways grow and get better at
what I do, but like, I'm notsort of at like, how does the
business world work at all sortof stage, right?
So how do we not leave thosepeople behind in a remote world?
Jim Morrisroe (29:44):
Yeah, no, I think it's super powerful and in
addition to having a companysomewhat full of folks in the
Gen Z, millennial area, I havefour kids that are in that
bucket as well.
And so here are two things thathave stood out to me number.
Number, and I don't think I'mthe first person to say these,
but when I put'em into practice,they work.
(30:06):
The first thing is because thatgen, these generations have been
raised with a supercomputer intheir hands and and social media
in their hands that that there,that has given them two, two
qualities.
One, if something feels opaqueor non-transparent.
They're gonna freak out'causethey can Wikipedia, they can
(30:28):
google search, they can findinstant access to the world's
information.
And so at a company, if there'sthis concept of, Hey, that's
senior leadership, there's aneed to know basis if this is a,
if you hold your cards close tothe vest and listen, there's
some things that you just can'tbe transparent about.
But being overly anduncomfortably transparent is is
(30:49):
is advice number one.
And I'm good thing is through myjourney, I'm and I'm also like,
Hey, life's too short.
Not to let people know what'shappening.
I am that way by nature, but alot of leaders aren't, and
overly and uncomfortablytransparent, I.
Number two, and it gets back tothis chief repeating officer.
They are, they're naturallyfilters.
(31:11):
Like my kids will get a thousandSnapchats in a weekend.
And and, the human brain canprocess that information, but
only if it triages things veryquickly and says, this is
important, this is notimportant.
And in order to to reach thingsfor them that are important.
You have to continuously repeatit.
You have to re in multiplemediums.
(31:33):
You have to say it in the allhands.
You have to type it in Slackmessages.
You have to insert yourself intoSlack channels.
You have to put it in thecorporate decks like this.
It's an imp.
It's an important thing that ifyou want it to land, you have to
be vulnerable and transparentand you have to say it all the
time.
Dan Balcauski (31:49):
I love this chief repeating officer.
It's like, yes yes.
I said that yesterday.
Yeah, we gotta say it again.
It doesn't matter.
Jim Morrisroe (31:55):
And to some people like that hear it are
like, dude, stop.
You say this way too much.
And it's like, it's not for you,it's for everybody else.
And and there's a reason for,
Dan Balcauski (32:07):
Like, no I know I don't wanna continue saying the
same thing over and over again,but I have to it's part of the
job.
No, I very much appreciate that.
Jim Morrisroe (32:13):
Look just leave you with one last thing too
Dan Balcauski (32:16):
sure.
Jim Morrisroe (32:16):
The upper 10% of these younger generations look a
lot like my career or someone.
In the boomer's generationcareer, the upper 10% is
motivated by career.
They see the American dream ofbuying a house.
They see upward mobility andbeing able to provide a better
life for their family than theirparents provided for them.
(32:38):
And so, the Harvard kids, theStanford kids, the, the Ivy
League kids that, that end up ininvestment banking or in, in
private equity or in the, thetop of Google, those kids look
the same, the other 90%.
And it's not that they don'thave different talent, but they
look at this hurdle that ittakes to buy a house or the cost
of having a family or or thesevarious things.
(33:00):
And they're like, man, my careeris.
Part of my life, but it isn't mylife.
And in order to cater to thatmindset you have to make sure
that mission and purpose of yourorganization is crystal clear to
them that, because if it's not,and they'll just say, Hey.
(33:22):
I'm gonna go to Australia forsix months and live in my van
and see the world because that'sthat, that's their that's not a
bad thing.
I, I think I would've done thatthen if I had to look at a
$800,000, starting price for ahouse at 24 years old.
I would be like, yeah, my careeris second to my personal life
experiences.
So, so making sure that missionand purpose is front and center
(33:44):
to to all of your employees,especially your younger
employees, is a really importantkind of, lesson that, that took
me a little bit to learn.
Dan Balcauski (33:52):
I love that.
Well, and I resonate with thatbecause I went and backpacked
the world for a year and a half,
Jim Morrisroe (33:56):
uh
Dan Balcauski (33:56):
as well.
So I'm somewhere stuck in themiddle.
I'm not part of it.
I'm in that weird middle of twogenerations.
So that don't fit neatly in anycategory.
I did my, did that later inlife.
Look Jim, I could talk to youall day.
There's a whole bunch of topics.
I didn't even have a chance tobroach with you that I was
hoping to maybe we'll have toget you out for part two at some
point.
But I do wanna respect your timeand the audience this time.
This has been fantastic.
(34:16):
I want to finish out with acouple of rapid closeout
questions.
Is that a cool,
Jim Morrisroe (34:19):
Sounds great.
Dan Balcauski (34:20):
Alright.
First one is a fun one.
If we have the chance to get ridthe world of the mosquito,
should we,
Jim Morrisroe (34:27):
Of course,
Dan Balcauski (34:30):
no, no Second order effects that you see
Jim Morrisroe (34:32):
I mean, context.
Live on the west side of theRocky Mountains for a reason.
I hate bugs.
And they exist a little bit onthe west side of the Rocky
Mountains, but nowhere near likethe east side of the Rocky
Mountains.
And so, I've built my lifepartly around avoiding bugs.
Dan Balcauski (34:53):
What is your greatest hope that comes out of
this trend of AI that we'reseeing?
Jim Morrisroe (34:59):
Yeah.
My my hope is that I is that wedon't prematurely freak out like
this.
This ha human innovation has, I.
Radically changed our lives.
And every stage of innovationhas threatened somebody.
And the innovation has overcome.
(35:21):
This one on the surface can bereally scary.
It can also radically changefuture generations quality of
life and life expectancy.
And I, I hope like any of thesetransformations, we don't freak
out too much and we, we let itmake our lives better.
Dan Balcauski (35:39):
Keep calm and carry on.
When you think about all thespectacular people you've had a
chance to work with, interactwith, learn from, is there
anyone that just pops to mindand has disproportionate effect
on the way that you think aboutbuilding companies now?
Jim Morrisroe (35:49):
Yeah I mean I've mentioned them, but um, Satish
Dharmaraj a, managing partner atRedPoint, who was the CEO of
Zimbra.
Changed my life in a major wayas a business person.
And then David Hassell, who wasthe original CEO of 15Five
helped me just become a muchbetter human in the workplace.
I was already on the way throughmy through my journey.
But those two and definitelybookends of my career have been
(36:11):
instrumental.
Dan Balcauski (36:13):
If I gave you a billboard and you could put
anything on it advice for otherB2B Sass CEOs trying to scale
their companies, what would itsay?
Jim Morrisroe (36:20):
It would say it would say, be disciplined to
your ICP.
So, there is, we didn't get aton to talk about it, but there
is no better, path there, thereis only one path to success, and
that's a deep product market fitthat gets word of mouth.
(36:41):
And and it's impossible to dothat in a huge market.
And so you have to getdisciplined and win win an ICP
and then expand your ICP fromthere.
And we far too often get.
An allure of a big deal in anenterprise company are we far
too often get get excited aboutself-service and, no, no sales
(37:03):
costs and in reality, none ofthose things matter until you
win an ICP.
Dan Balcauski (37:09):
Be disciplined to your ICP.
Absolutely love it.
Jim, this has been fantastic.
For our listeners, wanna connectwith you, learn more about
15Five, how can they do that?
Jim Morrisroe (37:17):
Yeah, so I you can always reach me on LinkedIn
and I will point you on theright direction.
I'm pretty responsive with myoutreach and even if you wanna
message me and then 15Five.comto get started on everything.
Everything there.
I highly encourage HR leadersCOOs presidents that want to
look at targets and not blanketsfor their people engagement and
(37:38):
performance programs to check itout.
It's a pretty powerful platform.
Dan Balcauski (37:42):
Targets not blankets for increasing your
human performance in yourorganizations.
Love it.
I will put those links in theshow notes for listeners.
Everyone that wraps up thisepisode of SaaS here, it's thank
you to Jim for sharing hisjourney Insights, valuable tips
for our listeners.
You found this conversation asenlightening as I did.
Remember, subscribe so you don'tmiss out on future episodes.
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