June 11, 2025 • 34 mins
In this raw and real episode of Salesforce Hiring Edge, we sit down with David Kestenberg — former CIO, startup founder, and transformation leader — to talk about something no one is saying out loud in tech hiring: vulnerability is a weapon.
From building authentic teams to calling BS on fake personas in interviews, David, Josh Matthews, and Josh LeQuire break down how to create a culture where people are safe to be real — and why that leads to better hires, better retention, and better outcomes.
You’ll learn:
- Why saying "I don't know" might be your biggest strength
- How to use vulnerability to create high-performance teams
- The silent cost of inauthentic hires
- How diversity, culture, and transparency create hiring edge in Salesforce orgs
- How to screen for realness, not resumes
🎯 Whether you're hiring, getting hired, or leading a team — this episode is your blueprint for building something that lasts.
👉 Follow us on LinkedIn:
Josh Matthews | David Kestenberg | Josh LeQuire
🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite app.
📺 Watch full episodes on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSmNMZJZbG-cywtt1nVYZWA
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
David Kestenberg (00:00):
The interviewer should say we are
looking for this job because ofthat reason, because the guy
quit, because we are scaling anew system.
If I explain to the candidatewhy am I hiring, not to, what
role am I hiring?
Why am I hiring?
When I explain to the candidatewhy I'm being vulnerable to the
business decision and thepsychology around the job.
(00:22):
Now I've been vulnerable and Iexpect you to pay in the same
currency and saying, okay, Iunderstand.
Josh Matthews (00:29):
Welcome to Salesforce Hiring Edge, the show
for leaders who want to hiresmarter and scale faster with
Salesforce.
Josh LeQuire (00:35):
Whether you're building a team or bringing in a
consulting partner.
We're breaking down whatactually works in the real world
.
Josh Matthews (00:41):
All right, let's get into it.
Josh LeQuire (00:45):
This episode is brought to you by C-Currents at
the letter C currentscom.
Josh Matthews (00:50):
Welcome to Salesforce Hiring Edge.
Today we're joined by DavidKestenberg.
David is a former CIO, techstrategist and startup founder
who's led everything from M&Aintegrations to Salesforce
transformations.
He's also been a guest on ourshow in the past and welcome,
david, it's so great to have youback on the show.
Thank you, happy to be here.
(01:15):
You know we started aconversation in our last episode
with you and the topic came uparound vulnerability.
We were talking about ambiguity, vulnerability and
accountability Lots of it-ities,right, and it got me thinking.
I spent a little time thinkingafter that show about
vulnerability.
This is also something that Ithink about quite a bit, because
I like to think that I'mpsychologically minded or
behaviorally minded, and it'sserved me quite well.
(01:37):
I actually had a therapistyears ago say you know,
whoever's most vulnerable wins.
That really stuck in my headand that it's an interesting
thought.
But there really is somethingabout opening yourself up and
kind of taking the like.
It's basically like a catpulling their claws back and
(01:58):
being a fuzzy little kittenagain.
They're going to get a lot moreout of the communication with
people.
But we had talked about it,david, you and Josh started to
talk a little bit about it.
So on this episode.
I'd like to explore that alittle bit more in terms of how
vulnerability as a leader, orallowing vulnerability to exist
(02:18):
within a team, actually improvesoutcomes for the projects, for
the work at hand and for theculture and the overall vibe of
a team.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?
Josh LeQuire (02:29):
I think the last time we talked, you were really
keying very heavily intobuilding culture, collaboration,
everything from the recruitingprocess to screening for that
and vibe checks, understandingwhat kinds of roles need to be
shaped in a team, how people fitthose roles, not just from a
technical perspective but from acollaboration perspective.
Your notes talk a lot aboutvulnerability as an asset,
(02:55):
owning your mistakes publiclymodeling, reflection and lessons
learned, and you talked aboutyour rituals on Fridays to
celebrate achievements andhaving teammates recognize each
other as well as others.
So help me understand whatvulnerability looks like for you
.
David Kestenberg (03:09):
I think we need to have an opportunity to
bring forward our authentic selfin order to really achieve
greatness.
You know, we can do a job anyday.
To have a career, you have tobe coming from inside you, and
if the environment that you areworking at as a job, as part of
(03:32):
your career, is not nurturingyour ability to be your
authentic self, it's problematicand it's blocking your growth
and it's blocking your abilityto actually perform at your
highest levels.
Be the best version of yourself.
I had one of our leaders inHeimbach was talking about best
(03:53):
version of yourself and it's forme.
Vulnerability is the ability tolower the walls, even if on the
outside life, outside of work,outside of this environment that
we create for ourselves, thereare things that are more complex
, that are more difficult tohandle in our group.
It should be very comfortable.
I'll give you a simple example.
(04:13):
I don't know how, like I'mJewish, I'm very comfortable
about talking about my faith,very comfortable talking about
my dual citizenship.
I'm Israeli, but I also have acitizenship, american
citizenship, citizenship.
I'm very comfortable talkingabout that.
That normalize talking aboutimmigration status.
You know, when you have a lotof you know, post-grad students
(04:34):
that are on h1b and dealing withthat constant fear of like.
If they're gonna get fired,they're gonna get deported and
they can talk about that,because I'm not even talking
about like trump.
I'm talking about, like fiveyears ago, covid Okay, no one
wants to talk about theirimmigration status or personal
fate.
You know, if it's the Ramadannow and you didn't eat all day
(04:55):
and it's four o'clock and you'repissed off not because
everybody's stupid around you,because you didn't eat all day
and if people don't know becauseyou didn't want to say that
you're Muslim, then you have aproblem as a teen.
You know, if you're a singlemother and you need to leave at
3 pm because you need to pick upyour kid, but you're not
comfortable saying that becauseyou don't want to be judged by
(05:17):
your race, by your ethnicbackground, by your whatever,
then you have a very, veryproblematic ecosystem.
Now you can't go and say, hey,what exactly are you to people.
That doesn't work that way.
You need to start with.
Let's talk about cricket, andthen let's talk about your
holidays.
Okay, what kind of food?
Let's talk food.
Let's talk food.
Okay, so it was Passover.
(05:38):
Jews have horrible food.
Share with us that horriblefood that you're talking about.
I don't know what you'retalking about.
I don't know what you'retalking about.
It is the best freaking food.
Josh Matthews (05:50):
You know, I'm just going to say that, my bubby
, I would finish my gefilte fishat PESA and I wasn't a fan.
I'm still not a huge fan, butI'd finish it.
And you couldn't finish it.
You had to leave a tiny littlebit on your plate because if you
blinked there'd be a wholeother piece right on your plate.
David Kestenberg (06:09):
I would always eat my gefilte fish because my
dad used to, and we're PolishJews.
That's it.
You're going to eat that.
My kids know that they need toeat that.
Josh Matthews (06:18):
It is what it is it is what it is If you bring it
to a Friday call and you sayhey, guys, I have this horrible
food.
David Kestenberg (06:24):
And then, all of a sudden, the Indian guy is
talking about this amazing drumthat they have and the music
that he sings, and then theother guy is talking about that.
Then, when it matters, whenit's Friday at 3 pm and the
Muslim guy needs to go pray orthere's a dentist appointment
for the single mother baby,single mother baby, they will
(06:49):
come and say hey, I'm owning thevibe that we created here and
sharing something that in someentities can be weaponized
against me.
But because I modeled it, Istarted with it.
I'm talking about myself, notbecause I'm an egomaniac that
loves to talk about myself,because I want you to talk about
you myself, because I want youto talk about you, because I
want you to talk about you withyour colleagues, not with me.
Josh LeQuire (07:08):
Well, it's like you're celebrating diversity.
You're creating an environmentof open communication and trust,
right, because the people feelclosed off.
I don't know if I can shareeverything.
Josh Matthews (07:19):
And it's compassion.
You know it's compassion andunderstanding.
You know when we think asindividuals decide look, we've
got our three faces right.
We've got our public life, ourprivate life and then we have
our secret life.
No one's asking to break intoanybody's secret life here.
Right the thoughts that youdon't share with anybody.
David Kestenberg (07:42):
Yeah, but let's touch on that diversity
thing.
Okay.
So I understand diversity, Iget it.
I am the diverse, I am theimmigrant with the accent, with
all that.
I understand diversity.
I think that in the big picture, because we are building a
high-performing teams, it'sreally not about saving the
seats for that type of you knowminority or that type of
(08:04):
minority.
It's really not about savingthe seats for that type of you
know minority or that type ofminority.
It's really not about that.
It's like I need, as we saidbefore, I need the best snipers
and I need the best swimmers andI need the best basketball
players.
I am biased toward one group.
You know, that's very, veryclear.
I would always prefer to hire aveteran, always, and I will tell
(08:24):
you why.
Veterans has a unique skillthat is different than other
people.
You know, everybody carrytrauma, everybody.
You just need to be alive tocarry trauma.
So it's not just about theblood and whatever.
The under fire situation, it'snot that it's a definition of a
bad day.
The under fire situation, it'snot that it's a definition of a
bad day, the magnitude of baddays, that a veteran experience
(08:50):
is very, very different.
And then, when I needed in myteam, my immediate team, to have
, you know, my number two todeal with a lot of different
problems, including firingpeople, including having
difficult decisions when he'sbeen already in difficult
situations in his life.
That puts me in a situationthat I'm saying, okay, you know,
(09:11):
we're talking about how tobuild a hive and when you build
your hive, there's a seed thatis saved for veteran.
Now, yeah, it's possible thatit will be for someone that grew
up in another privilegedcommunity.
It's possible that it will besafe for other people.
But my sweet spot that's why Ilove that the Salesforce
ecosystem is invested so much inSalesforce Military and all the
(09:34):
beautiful things that they'redoing there Merivest Vets in
Tech there's a lot of DavidNava's military office hours.
I've been on a stage with himseven years ago.
Josh Matthews (09:49):
Vanessa and I were just on this winter.
It's really really wonderful toget to participate.
David Kestenberg (09:54):
So when we're talking diversity, now measuring
a lot of different things, likewhen you look at applying for
jobs and if I need to apply fora job, I'm an Israeli veteran.
(10:18):
So if I'm applying today, Icannot say that I'm a protected
veteran.
But will you take?
I'm a freaking major, but Ineed to say that I'm not a
veteran.
So are you ripping me off formy identity?
Should I?
And then how does that work?
So when I interview people Idon't care about you know what
they had to say on thequestionnaire.
I need to hear who they are andif they will tell me that they
(10:41):
are a soccer player or an artistor that that's create that
level of vulnerability andintimacy.
You know when the team is 300people.
You will not know everybody'scats and kids name.
You will not know they can't.
Josh Matthews (10:54):
You will know top five, loudest and top five
quietest nuts and bolts of this,because the idea is to create,
to allow for vulnerability toexist on a team or, for example,
to allow for vulnerability toexist in the interview and
hiring process, which I think isabsolutely critical.
(11:16):
It's so difficult, it's sodifficult to get to know someone
if they won't open up to you orto someone in the interview
process.
You might have three or four orfive people involved in the
interview process.
They've got to open up to atleast one of them and it's got
to be the person that is trustedby the others to be really good
at being able to pull thatinformation out.
For my clients, it's me and, bythe way, I'm so lucky because
(11:39):
so many of my clients, or manyof my clients, they're really
good at it too, right, sothey're just verifying what some
of the things that I thinkabout an individual.
So, to get someone to open up,there's a real craft to it,
right, and I think you'vealready said it, david.
I mean, the first thing is toopen up about yourself, right,
when you can demonstrate.
(11:59):
Look, not only am I not perfect, I'm also aware that I'm not
perfect, right?
Let me tell you why I suck.
When you can do that, thenpeople can start to share where
they might be challenged right,or where they might be soft
right, that kind of thing.
And, josh, I mean let me justask you directly on this.
(12:22):
I mean, you've hired people,you know, and I imagine that
you've gotten people to open up.
You and I we have very openconversations about what's going
on, not just in a public life,but private life as well.
You know, is there somethingthat you've done, or either of
you or like an opening lead thatyou use to hopefully kind of
(12:45):
gently announce this is okay,it's okay to talk about these
things.
Josh LeQuire (12:50):
Yeah, and I think, david, I'm going to steal some
of your notes on this, leadingby example.
You know, I think if I myselfam willing to show by example
what I feel comfortable talkingabout, other people will follow
suit In the process ofinterviewing, onboarding and,
certainly, retaining employees.
I make a point, david youmentioned this in some of your
(13:12):
comments earlier of openingconversations, just catching up
with people.
How are you doing?
What's going on?
And it's okay to talk abouttough things as much as it's
okay to celebrate the goodthings.
Life is life.
Life is going to life on us,whether it's good or bad.
The good things, life is lifeyou know life it's.
Josh Matthews (13:27):
Life is gonna life on us, whether it's good or
bad yeah yeah, you know, uh,there's, there's a lot of bad, a
lot of good so, yeah, theuniverse doesn't give a shit
about your timeline like whatyou want, yeah, but it's also
like you know some people.
David Kestenberg (13:38):
You go to a meeting and you see someone that
is usually happy and now it's alittle bit sad and quiet and
you can't put them really on thespot in front of 15 other
people and it's like hey, josh,you look sad today, what
happened?
And you're like, listen, mygrandma is in the hospital.
Like it's not.
Sometimes it's really reallydifficult to do that, but if you
(13:58):
send a text message, you knowwhatever Teams or Slack on the
side and say, hey, bro, we'regood, what's going on?
You need the day off Likewhat's Just acknowledging that
you've seen it can be changing,you know, to the positive.
Josh Matthews (14:15):
When Now, you talked in the prior episode,
when you were on before, youtalked a little bit about how
you build that immediate teamaround you.
You surround yourself with thepeople that you already know.
You can look at your networkand you can pull them in.
Not everybody is our age andhas an extra 20 years.
Some people have five years,some people have 10 years.
(14:35):
They still need to hire a team.
Their network's this big andeven if they knew how to build a
network or knew how to identifywho's good, who's not, they
might still have some challengessimply because of time in the
seat.
They just don't have it yet.
So they're going to hire theirfirst team.
For instance, they need to findout how real someone is.
What is your record Like?
(14:57):
What are you looking for?
Do you consider yourself to bepretty good in general at, for
instance I don't even want tosay it, but like lie detection
or like telling when someone'shiding something, I can do
bullshit detector.
David Kestenberg (15:10):
I can do bullshit detector, which is
great, but I'll give you, I'llgive you a short story.
I ran my first startup wasn'treally good, interviewing a lot
of interns.
There was a it's's it's 10years.
There's definitely and and likeit's old, old, old and not
relevant story.
But from a people perspective,but from a daily perspective,
there is, there was an internthat came in and I'm like nice
(15:33):
to meet you, sit down, I readhis resume or whatever.
I'm like what's your name?
And he's like my name is chrisand I'm like what's your name?
And he's like my name is Chris.
And I'm like I'm looking at himand he's Chinese, maybe 22,
maybe 21.
And I'm like you're Chris.
He's like yes, I'm Chris.
And I'm like how's your mothercalling you?
(15:54):
And he's like Yupeng.
And I'm like would you like meto call you Yupeng?
He's like yeah, that would benice.
I'm like would you like me tocall you Yupeng?
He's like yeah, that would benice.
I'm like so why did you tell methat your name is Chris?
He's like because they told usto Americanize ourselves.
And I'm like you don't need to.
You can be whoever you want tobe.
That's the whole point.
You're in an interview you wantto be.
You're coming to a job.
You have the opportunity to bewhoever you want to, yeah right.
(16:17):
You know I am.
You know, don't lie, don't ownthings that you've never done.
But like here's an opportunityto be outgoing, here's an
opportunity to be more laid back, here's an opportunity to focus
on my technical skills.
Like, if you're coming andintroducing yourself by the
illusion and the assumption ofwhat the end viewer wants to see
(16:41):
, you're not going to get thejob because it's going to get
the original.
If I was looking for a Chrisfrom Harvard, I wouldn't hire a
Eupeng from CMU.
So be you and you are way morehigh likely to get the job just
by being yourself.
Like we have this idealZuckerberg mask.
(17:04):
Like I need to behave, I needto have a certain accent, I need
to go to a certain school, Ineed to leave a certain school.
I need to have a no On yourjourney.
Be very comfortable with whoyou are and what is the next
step.
Don't go with it for 10 years.
Just where's north?
Where's north?
Keep going to your personalNorth and if you're moving and
growing and learning,everybody's going to want to
(17:26):
hire you because you're adaptingto the future and not just
creating some persona that doesnot exist.
Like I would never be able tocome across as a you know, as a
Princeton MBA with like on therowing team, I'm not, I'm just
not, you know.
Josh Matthews (17:48):
Just it's very apropos.
I was watching this video byChris Hughes.
I'm not sure if you guys knowwho Chris Hughes is.
He's a former uh uh psyops guy.
I think he did about 20 yearsin the CIA and he's a big
behavioralist and got a PhD inneurology.
He's one of my favorite YouTubeguys to follow and he was
talking in this recent episodeabout how there's so much crap
on YouTube and on the internetaround, like how to appear
(18:10):
confident, how to look likeyou're confident, how to speak
like an authority figure, andit's just like slapping a bunch
of band-aids on stuff.
He said confidence is abyproduct.
It's a byproduct of what youare, of your knowledge, your
ability.
It's a quality.
It's a byproduct To pretendthat you're confident when
you're not.
He said that's no differentthan taking some duct tape and
(18:32):
an orange and taping it to anoak tree and calling it an
orange tree.
I just love that I thought, ohmy God, yeah, that's good, it's
solid.
Isn't that perfect, right?
I mean, anybody in Salesforcerecruiting and hiring is going
to talk to a lot of people whoare some citizens, some foreign
nationals, some people who areon H-1B or working through
(18:53):
third-party firms and so on, andthere is this sort of cultural
emphasis to de-emphasize theirown culture and that can be
painful and just sort of havingthem live.
It's like dressing up inclothes that aren't comfortable.
You're not going to be at yourbest.
Josh LeQuire (19:14):
The problem is when people feel like they have
to play a role, or play to theinterviewer or play to the
company, the reality is they'renot going to last right.
Like I've hired people who, youknow, taught the talk, look
good on paper, interviewed well,I thought we're going to be
fantastic in a given role, camein and had to let go two or
three weeks later because theact, you know, eventually the
(19:36):
gig was up, you know, youfigured out what was going on
and that's the worst.
You know.
The false positive hire, Ithink, is the most painful.
You know I try and screen asbest as I can, but they get
through sometimes, you know.
Josh Matthews (19:47):
I'll tell you there's a trick here.
It's when you fall in love witha candidate really fast, you
have to then try really hard toprove why you're wrong.
This is how we get rid ofconfirmation bias, right, like?
I'll give a short story.
I had a gal come in.
Now I had a massive need.
I had to make this hire.
I had four or five days where Iwas going to lose the
(20:08):
requisition.
This was when I was incorporate America, so I had to
make the hire.
Gal came in.
She was super friendly, supercasual.
We got along great.
She said all the right things.
I wanted her to be the one.
I wanted to like her.
I had two other people came in.
They met with her and at thetime I was a fairly new manager,
so I wasn't as good as I amright now.
(20:29):
This was a hard lesson learned.
She came in a couple of weekslater for her first day and by
lunch not only did I know itwasn't going to work out,
everyone on my team knew itwasn't going to work out, Like
everybody knew it's like oh myGod, I wanted this hire to work
out so badly.
I just dropped all of thistalent and skill set that I
(20:50):
developed over years to screenpeople because I needed it to
work.
I wanted it to work.
And so when you fall in lovewith that candidate, you're like
, oh, we got along great,because they're asking questions
about you and they're doing allthose Like anyone who's ever
gone to a party.
And you meet someone and youwalk away and you're like, oh my
God, I just met the mostincredible person.
They were fantastic.
And then, you know, someonesays, well, what's up with them?
(21:12):
What are they all about?
You're like, oh, I don't know,because the reason you like them
is all they did was ask aboutyou.
Right, you just got played.
David Kestenberg (21:20):
Yeah, you just got played.
The military equivalent to thatis with navigating, when you
look at the map and then you gothrough the desert and you go up
the hill and down the hill andup the hill and down the hill,
and then you look at the map andyou see the mountains in front
of you and you look at the mapand you force the map to match
the mountains and they're notthere.
You're looking the wrongdirection.
(21:43):
This is north and and.
But you're looking at the mapand you're like, yeah, it makes
sense.
It's like you see this peak,this peak, is this peak?
You see, but it's not.
Yeah, and sometimes you can'tforce the map to reflect on on
reality and you know, and if youcame to your team and said,
brothers and sisters, I waswrong and I will correct it as
fast as I can and I will earnyour trust again, or whatever
(22:07):
needs to happen, becausesometimes it's not.
Everything is like a globalcolossal chaos.
Sometimes it's like, hey, Iscrewed up.
Josh LeQuire (22:15):
Let me fix it, David, you're kind of pointing
to.
We're talking a little bitabout immigrant culture,
American culture, corporateculture.
I've worked big companies,small companies, clients, all
over the place.
I would say the majority ofcompanies and the majority of
American corporate culture haveleadership that don't
necessarily come out and say Iwas wrong or own their mistakes.
(22:38):
You know there's a lot of pride.
I think what you're touting ismore probably the minority or
the exception and not the rulein this country, right?
I mean, feel free to disagreebut I don't know.
David Kestenberg (22:50):
I think that, yes, it's true, in organizations
they're going to die.
That's as simple as that.
If you're looking onfast-growing organization
technology that evolve rapidly,you will see people that say,
well, we push to testings, 80fail, let's do it again,
whatever.
And and they're very, veryclear about the cycle of
(23:12):
decision making and asking thequestions and the lesson learned
and the five l's of uhoitte.
You know, what did we learn?
What do we need?
What do we need from leadership?
What do we lack of All those?
You know there's frames intothat cycle of feedback and that
(23:32):
big picture lesson learned, butthose that don't own their
shortcomings will fall behind.
As simple as it happened to me,happened to better than me and
the more capabilities here.
Now here's the thing you can'tcome every day to the office and
say I screwed up yesterday.
(23:53):
Eventually it's your last day.
More wins than losses right.
You do More strategic wins andmore minor losses.
Show growth, show that youlearn, show that you improve.
Do not hide anything.
That's the most important thing, because if someone in the
(24:13):
chain of our building the fruitbasket is not putting the right
banana in the right place, it'sgoing to explode in production.
It's going to explode inproduction.
And if they will not have theculture of saying, hey guys, I
didn't finish testing, or Itested, but something doesn't
feel right on the integrationlayer, or something like that,
if they're not going to feelcomfortable to say it, it will
(24:35):
bite them and then we will needto deal with discipline.
You don't want to deal withdiscipline, you want to deal
with training.
You want to deal with, you know, adoption and onboarding to new
ways of doing things.
But in a lot of the corporatelife you have to deal with
discipline because it's a jobbyjob.
Josh Matthews (24:53):
I think too, it's one thing to come out like.
The best thing that someonecould do when they screw up is
just come out and say, hey, Iscrewed up and this is on me and
you got to do it so that itdoesn't land on your boss or on
your coworker and they hadnothing to do with it.
If the shit's going to landsomewhere, it should land on you
.
If you're the cause of it, youshould own it.
(25:14):
Ideally you're owning it beforeanybody else is either
uncovering it or after they'veuncovered it but hasn't like
kind of tried to find out.
But the number one thing thatyou absolutely have to do is, if
you are asked, did you screw up?
You have to own that.
You can't lie On the ethicalscale of behavior as a society.
David Kestenberg (25:38):
we have the common law.
You break the law, you go tojail.
But we expect everybody to beat the volunteering level, at
the ethical level.
But everybody lives around thatyou know, close to the law,
just not breaking the law.
So if you break the law, if youlied, you can't, you're done,
pack your stuff, we'll see you,you know somewhere else.
But you can't expect everybodyalways to be volunteering,
(26:00):
always raising their hands towho want to do deployment on
Friday at midnight.
It's not.
They're going to behave alittle bit above what asked to
be able to have a cushion tosurvive.
But if there's bad intent andsomeone lies, they deserve the
full hammer.
This is not where we are.
This is not where we are.
(26:24):
And when we're talking back intothe value of me as an
interviewer to be able toidentify someone into 20 minutes
conversation because he'swearing a Manchester United
shirt or has an album on hiswall behind him, no, we can't
predict the future.
We get more experience with thevibe check and when the
candidate is authentic tohimself, then he's making our
(26:45):
life easier, because then Idon't need to swim through the
bullshit.
I just like okay, I understand,you have an accent, I have an
accent.
It's great, awesome.
All right, let's move on abovethat.
Can we actually do the work youknow?
Josh Matthews (26:55):
so this has been this has been a very good
conversation.
Guys, we're gonna wrap it.
I want to just do a quick roundrobin, if I can.
Yeah, so I'm going to go withyou first, josh.
Again, the main topic has beenaround vulnerability Ideally,
vulnerability in the process ofhiring Also to David's credit,
(27:16):
of course like keeping a team,building the right team, making
sure that the culture of thatteam is solid.
What's your number one piece ofadvice, or one of your top
pieces of advice, for people whoare working either as a
Salesforce customer or aSalesforce partner?
What's something they can do todemonstrate vulnerability and
(27:40):
also get or allow candidates tobe more vulnerable with them
more open?
Josh LeQuire (27:46):
I think while David was talking earlier, the
first thing that came to my mindnot just the folks making
mistakes and not fessing, but Ithink one of the biggest
mistakes in our business is notsaying I don't know.
I think a lot of people areafraid to say I don't know, I
don't understand, and makeassumptions and move forward and
work on bad assumptions or tryand hide it or try and mask it
(28:08):
in certain ways.
That's dangerous, you know,that's another variation.
I think I wouldn't call thatlying.
But I mean you're not reallyvolunteering that.
I'm taking on a task.
I don't know that's a prevalentproblem.
I'm taking on a task.
I don't know.
That's a prevalent problem.
When you look at failedimplementations in our world,
man, I can't begin to tell youhow many firefights I've been in
to rescue failedimplementations.
I think 80%, 90% of theprojects I pick up these days
(28:30):
I'm having to refactor a ton ofwork.
You know there's a lot of badstuff and that comes 10 times
out of 10 saying I don'tunderstand the business
requirements, I don't understandhow to implement the solution
you're asking me to implement.
I'm not talking about thedocumentation.
Josh Matthews (28:45):
So what you're talking about is not imposter
syndrome, we're talking justimposter well, that and like
come on man, I'm just being cutewell, no, no, I.
Josh LeQuire (28:55):
I don't agree with that fully, because I think
some people are just afraid tosay I don't know, uh, and look
stupid.
Or perhaps you know, I'm gonnafigure this out, I'm gonna go on
my own, and a lot of times it'sjust better to say I don't know
, maybe I can get some help, andso yeah know, one of the things
(29:15):
that I wrote in the notes thatyou didn't talk about is the I
know a guy policy.
David Kestenberg (29:20):
Yes, so the I know a guy policy is one of my
favorite ones.
I like that People are expertsin their domain.
If you don't know, don't tellme you don't know, ask for the.
I know a guy who is the experton Capado.
Push to Prod that versus that.
Talk with that guy.
So once you leverage that Iknow a guy all of a sudden you
don't need to say I don't knowon a forum of 50 people on a
(29:41):
call.
You can just talk with the dude.
Josh LeQuire (29:43):
I think it's okay, like I slightly disagree with
you, david, because I don't havea problem if somebody comes to
me saying I don't know, becausethen I can say, well, I know a
guy, you know, or maybe you knowa guy right.
David Kestenberg (29:53):
Yeah, yeah, no , I'm saying like achieve that
ability to, without saying Idon't know, saying I need help
on that.
I need help and then youconnect them to the guy.
I love it.
Josh LeQuire (30:05):
That's so important and I think that you
identify that early, you couldsave people three, four weeks of
major headaches andcatastrophes.
Right, little things snowballinto bigger things all the time
and it always, I found in myexperience.
Sometimes 10 times out of 10,it's from somebody just not
raising their hand.
Josh Matthews (30:22):
Yeah, Well, again , keeping it about the hiring
process right, I happen to thinkthat it's very good to say I
don't know.
When they don't know, they cansay, I don't know, but I do know
a guy and I'm close to them andthey've already offered to help
me ramp up on that.
It sounds like this, maybe, isa critical piece of the role.
(30:42):
Would that be accurate?
Okay, because if it's reallycritical, then that's something
I can spend time getting betterat and ramping up on off hours.
I still think I'm a greatcandidate for this job, so
there's an opportunity there toleverage both of them, but have
a solution that includes somesort of off hours effort.
All right, same question foryou, david.
David Kestenberg (31:04):
So my answer is a little bit different.
It's from the perspective ofthe interviewer, not from the
candidate.
The interviewer should say weare looking for this job because
of that reason, because the guyquit, because we are scaling a
new system.
If I explain to the candidatewhy am I hiring, not to what
(31:25):
role am I hiring, why am Ihiring, the guy quit.
You're going new system, you arethinking about new products you
need to support now whateverbusiness from other unit,
whatever it is, when I explainto the candidate why I'm being
vulnerable to the businessdecision and the business
psychology around the job whichwill be the ecosystem of that
(31:48):
individual, and he's the finish.
He's here's the finish ofsuccess.
Now I've been vulnerable and Iexpect you to pay in the same
currency and saying, okay, Iunderstand, I understand that
they quit after three monthsbecause it was stressful.
I'm good with stress or I uh,this is, I'm a little bit early
in my career.
I don't know if I have that,that type of longevity stuff
(32:09):
like that.
So opening with an uh, uh, avulnerable statement by
explaining why we're hiring andnot what we're hiring, creates
the right tone and vibe to thecontinuation of the conversation
.
Josh Matthews (32:19):
I love both of your responses.
I think it's terrific.
I'm going to throw in the thirdone here in the hat, which is
simply to give them a way thatthey can't back out, and the way
I like to do that is positionthem with what I call the
three-month question.
And, by the way, you can do itas a candidate.
You can ask this as a candidate.
You can also ask it as aninterviewer.
(32:41):
As an interviewer, it wouldsound like this David, you seem
really good for this job.
I can't offer you the job justyet because we're not through
the process, but I want you toimagine that you're offered the
position and you're reallyexcited about it and you start
I'd like to know what we'regoing to know about you three
months from now, that we'll havewanted to know about you today.
And just so you know this isreally important.
(33:03):
Okay, because we will know.
So tell us what that is rightnow.
David Kestenberg (33:09):
You will get emails from me at 2 am.
Yeah, there you go.
Josh Matthews (33:16):
I've gotten texts from you at midnight, so close
enough Maybe not.
David Kestenberg (33:20):
I could be confusing you with another
question.
Josh Matthews (33:21):
You're probably right.
Wonderful session, guys.
Thank you both of you, Davidespecially for being a terrific
guest here now twice on the show.
You're always welcome back.
We really appreciate you here.
David Kestenberg (33:36):
I would love to Thank you so much.
Josh Matthews (33:38):
You bet Great insights, david, absolutely,
thank you.
Make sure that you're followingJosh LaQuire and David
Kestenberg and myself, joshMatthews, on LinkedIn.
Check out Josh Force on YouTube.
If you're listening to this ona podcast, you might enjoy the
video of this program.
And if you're watching thevideo and you'd like to just
have some audio on your drivehome or what have you, or during
(33:58):
your workout, you can follow uson Spotify or Apple Podcasts or
any of your favorite platforms.
Thanks so much for joining us.
We'll be back next week.
Bye for now.
This episode is brought to youby our amazing partners.
First up, ccurrentscom,laquire's powerhouse for its
Salesforce implementations andservices.
And, of course, thesalesforcerecruitercom, your
(34:21):
go-to hub.
If you're hiring, job huntingor just trying to get ahead in
the Salesforce ecosystem, goahead and reach out to us.
Let's all win together.
The interviewer should say we are
looking for this job because ofthat reason, because the guy
quit, because we are scaling anew system.
If I explain to the candidatewhy am I hiring, not to, what
role am I hiring?
Why am I hiring?
When I explain to the candidatewhy I'm being vulnerable to the
business decision and thepsychology around the job.
(00:22):
Now I've been vulnerable and Iexpect you to pay in the same
currency and saying, okay, Iunderstand.
Josh Matthews (00:29):
Welcome to Salesforce Hiring Edge, the show
for leaders who want to hiresmarter and scale faster with
Salesforce.
Josh LeQuire (00:35):
Whether you're building a team or bringing in a
consulting partner.
We're breaking down whatactually works in the real world
.
Josh Matthews (00:41):
All right, let's get into it.
Josh LeQuire (00:45):
This episode is brought to you by C-Currents at
the letter C currentscom.
Josh Matthews (00:50):
Welcome to Salesforce Hiring Edge.
Today we're joined by DavidKestenberg.
David is a former CIO, techstrategist and startup founder
who's led everything from M&Aintegrations to Salesforce
transformations.
He's also been a guest on ourshow in the past and welcome,
david, it's so great to have youback on the show.
Thank you, happy to be here.
(01:15):
You know we started aconversation in our last episode
with you and the topic came uparound vulnerability.
We were talking about ambiguity, vulnerability and
accountability Lots of it-ities,right, and it got me thinking.
I spent a little time thinkingafter that show about
vulnerability.
This is also something that Ithink about quite a bit, because
I like to think that I'mpsychologically minded or
behaviorally minded, and it'sserved me quite well.
(01:37):
I actually had a therapistyears ago say you know,
whoever's most vulnerable wins.
That really stuck in my headand that it's an interesting
thought.
But there really is somethingabout opening yourself up and
kind of taking the like.
It's basically like a catpulling their claws back and
(01:58):
being a fuzzy little kittenagain.
They're going to get a lot moreout of the communication with
people.
But we had talked about it,david, you and Josh started to
talk a little bit about it.
So on this episode.
I'd like to explore that alittle bit more in terms of how
vulnerability as a leader, orallowing vulnerability to exist
(02:18):
within a team, actually improvesoutcomes for the projects, for
the work at hand and for theculture and the overall vibe of
a team.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?
Josh LeQuire (02:29):
I think the last time we talked, you were really
keying very heavily intobuilding culture, collaboration,
everything from the recruitingprocess to screening for that
and vibe checks, understandingwhat kinds of roles need to be
shaped in a team, how people fitthose roles, not just from a
technical perspective but from acollaboration perspective.
Your notes talk a lot aboutvulnerability as an asset,
(02:55):
owning your mistakes publiclymodeling, reflection and lessons
learned, and you talked aboutyour rituals on Fridays to
celebrate achievements andhaving teammates recognize each
other as well as others.
So help me understand whatvulnerability looks like for you
.
David Kestenberg (03:09):
I think we need to have an opportunity to
bring forward our authentic selfin order to really achieve
greatness.
You know, we can do a job anyday.
To have a career, you have tobe coming from inside you, and
if the environment that you areworking at as a job, as part of
(03:32):
your career, is not nurturingyour ability to be your
authentic self, it's problematicand it's blocking your growth
and it's blocking your abilityto actually perform at your
highest levels.
Be the best version of yourself.
I had one of our leaders inHeimbach was talking about best
(03:53):
version of yourself and it's forme.
Vulnerability is the ability tolower the walls, even if on the
outside life, outside of work,outside of this environment that
we create for ourselves, thereare things that are more complex
, that are more difficult tohandle in our group.
It should be very comfortable.
I'll give you a simple example.
(04:13):
I don't know how, like I'mJewish, I'm very comfortable
about talking about my faith,very comfortable talking about
my dual citizenship.
I'm Israeli, but I also have acitizenship, american
citizenship, citizenship.
I'm very comfortable talkingabout that.
That normalize talking aboutimmigration status.
You know, when you have a lotof you know, post-grad students
(04:34):
that are on h1b and dealing withthat constant fear of like.
If they're gonna get fired,they're gonna get deported and
they can talk about that,because I'm not even talking
about like trump.
I'm talking about, like fiveyears ago, covid Okay, no one
wants to talk about theirimmigration status or personal
fate.
You know, if it's the Ramadannow and you didn't eat all day
(04:55):
and it's four o'clock and you'repissed off not because
everybody's stupid around you,because you didn't eat all day
and if people don't know becauseyou didn't want to say that
you're Muslim, then you have aproblem as a teen.
You know, if you're a singlemother and you need to leave at
3 pm because you need to pick upyour kid, but you're not
comfortable saying that becauseyou don't want to be judged by
(05:17):
your race, by your ethnicbackground, by your whatever,
then you have a very, veryproblematic ecosystem.
Now you can't go and say, hey,what exactly are you to people.
That doesn't work that way.
You need to start with.
Let's talk about cricket, andthen let's talk about your
holidays.
Okay, what kind of food?
Let's talk food.
Let's talk food.
Okay, so it was Passover.
(05:38):
Jews have horrible food.
Share with us that horriblefood that you're talking about.
I don't know what you'retalking about.
I don't know what you'retalking about.
It is the best freaking food.
Josh Matthews (05:50):
You know, I'm just going to say that, my bubby
, I would finish my gefilte fishat PESA and I wasn't a fan.
I'm still not a huge fan, butI'd finish it.
And you couldn't finish it.
You had to leave a tiny littlebit on your plate because if you
blinked there'd be a wholeother piece right on your plate.
David Kestenberg (06:09):
I would always eat my gefilte fish because my
dad used to, and we're PolishJews.
That's it.
You're going to eat that.
My kids know that they need toeat that.
Josh Matthews (06:18):
It is what it is it is what it is If you bring it
to a Friday call and you sayhey, guys, I have this horrible
food.
David Kestenberg (06:24):
And then, all of a sudden, the Indian guy is
talking about this amazing drumthat they have and the music
that he sings, and then theother guy is talking about that.
Then, when it matters, whenit's Friday at 3 pm and the
Muslim guy needs to go pray orthere's a dentist appointment
for the single mother baby,single mother baby, they will
(06:49):
come and say hey, I'm owning thevibe that we created here and
sharing something that in someentities can be weaponized
against me.
But because I modeled it, Istarted with it.
I'm talking about myself, notbecause I'm an egomaniac that
loves to talk about myself,because I want you to talk about
you myself, because I want youto talk about you, because I
want you to talk about you withyour colleagues, not with me.
Josh LeQuire (07:08):
Well, it's like you're celebrating diversity.
You're creating an environmentof open communication and trust,
right, because the people feelclosed off.
I don't know if I can shareeverything.
Josh Matthews (07:19):
And it's compassion.
You know it's compassion andunderstanding.
You know when we think asindividuals decide look, we've
got our three faces right.
We've got our public life, ourprivate life and then we have
our secret life.
No one's asking to break intoanybody's secret life here.
Right the thoughts that youdon't share with anybody.
David Kestenberg (07:42):
Yeah, but let's touch on that diversity
thing.
Okay.
So I understand diversity, Iget it.
I am the diverse, I am theimmigrant with the accent, with
all that.
I understand diversity.
I think that in the big picture, because we are building a
high-performing teams, it'sreally not about saving the
seats for that type of you knowminority or that type of
(08:04):
minority.
It's really not about savingthe seats for that type of you
know minority or that type ofminority.
It's really not about that.
It's like I need, as we saidbefore, I need the best snipers
and I need the best swimmers andI need the best basketball
players.
I am biased toward one group.
You know, that's very, veryclear.
I would always prefer to hire aveteran, always, and I will tell
(08:24):
you why.
Veterans has a unique skillthat is different than other
people.
You know, everybody carrytrauma, everybody.
You just need to be alive tocarry trauma.
So it's not just about theblood and whatever.
The under fire situation, it'snot that it's a definition of a
bad day.
The under fire situation, it'snot that it's a definition of a
bad day, the magnitude of baddays, that a veteran experience
(08:50):
is very, very different.
And then, when I needed in myteam, my immediate team, to have
, you know, my number two todeal with a lot of different
problems, including firingpeople, including having
difficult decisions when he'sbeen already in difficult
situations in his life.
That puts me in a situationthat I'm saying, okay, you know,
(09:11):
we're talking about how tobuild a hive and when you build
your hive, there's a seed thatis saved for veteran.
Now, yeah, it's possible thatit will be for someone that grew
up in another privilegedcommunity.
It's possible that it will besafe for other people.
But my sweet spot that's why Ilove that the Salesforce
ecosystem is invested so much inSalesforce Military and all the
(09:34):
beautiful things that they'redoing there Merivest Vets in
Tech there's a lot of DavidNava's military office hours.
I've been on a stage with himseven years ago.
Josh Matthews (09:49):
Vanessa and I were just on this winter.
It's really really wonderful toget to participate.
David Kestenberg (09:54):
So when we're talking diversity, now measuring
a lot of different things, likewhen you look at applying for
jobs and if I need to apply fora job, I'm an Israeli veteran.
(10:18):
So if I'm applying today, Icannot say that I'm a protected
veteran.
But will you take?
I'm a freaking major, but Ineed to say that I'm not a
veteran.
So are you ripping me off formy identity?
Should I?
And then how does that work?
So when I interview people Idon't care about you know what
they had to say on thequestionnaire.
I need to hear who they are andif they will tell me that they
(10:41):
are a soccer player or an artistor that that's create that
level of vulnerability andintimacy.
You know when the team is 300people.
You will not know everybody'scats and kids name.
You will not know they can't.
Josh Matthews (10:54):
You will know top five, loudest and top five
quietest nuts and bolts of this,because the idea is to create,
to allow for vulnerability toexist on a team or, for example,
to allow for vulnerability toexist in the interview and
hiring process, which I think isabsolutely critical.
(11:16):
It's so difficult, it's sodifficult to get to know someone
if they won't open up to you orto someone in the interview
process.
You might have three or four orfive people involved in the
interview process.
They've got to open up to atleast one of them and it's got
to be the person that is trustedby the others to be really good
at being able to pull thatinformation out.
For my clients, it's me and, bythe way, I'm so lucky because
(11:39):
so many of my clients, or manyof my clients, they're really
good at it too, right, sothey're just verifying what some
of the things that I thinkabout an individual.
So, to get someone to open up,there's a real craft to it,
right, and I think you'vealready said it, david.
I mean, the first thing is toopen up about yourself, right,
when you can demonstrate.
(11:59):
Look, not only am I not perfect, I'm also aware that I'm not
perfect, right?
Let me tell you why I suck.
When you can do that, thenpeople can start to share where
they might be challenged right,or where they might be soft
right, that kind of thing.
And, josh, I mean let me justask you directly on this.
(12:22):
I mean, you've hired people,you know, and I imagine that
you've gotten people to open up.
You and I we have very openconversations about what's going
on, not just in a public life,but private life as well.
You know, is there somethingthat you've done, or either of
you or like an opening lead thatyou use to hopefully kind of
(12:45):
gently announce this is okay,it's okay to talk about these
things.
Josh LeQuire (12:50):
Yeah, and I think, david, I'm going to steal some
of your notes on this, leadingby example.
You know, I think if I myselfam willing to show by example
what I feel comfortable talkingabout, other people will follow
suit In the process ofinterviewing, onboarding and,
certainly, retaining employees.
I make a point, david youmentioned this in some of your
(13:12):
comments earlier of openingconversations, just catching up
with people.
How are you doing?
What's going on?
And it's okay to talk abouttough things as much as it's
okay to celebrate the goodthings.
Life is life.
Life is going to life on us,whether it's good or bad.
The good things, life is lifeyou know life it's.
Josh Matthews (13:27):
Life is gonna life on us, whether it's good or
bad yeah yeah, you know, uh,there's, there's a lot of bad, a
lot of good so, yeah, theuniverse doesn't give a shit
about your timeline like whatyou want, yeah, but it's also
like you know some people.
David Kestenberg (13:38):
You go to a meeting and you see someone that
is usually happy and now it's alittle bit sad and quiet and
you can't put them really on thespot in front of 15 other
people and it's like hey, josh,you look sad today, what
happened?
And you're like, listen, mygrandma is in the hospital.
Like it's not.
Sometimes it's really reallydifficult to do that, but if you
(13:58):
send a text message, you knowwhatever Teams or Slack on the
side and say, hey, bro, we'regood, what's going on?
You need the day off Likewhat's Just acknowledging that
you've seen it can be changing,you know, to the positive.
Josh Matthews (14:15):
When Now, you talked in the prior episode,
when you were on before, youtalked a little bit about how
you build that immediate teamaround you.
You surround yourself with thepeople that you already know.
You can look at your networkand you can pull them in.
Not everybody is our age andhas an extra 20 years.
Some people have five years,some people have 10 years.
(14:35):
They still need to hire a team.
Their network's this big andeven if they knew how to build a
network or knew how to identifywho's good, who's not, they
might still have some challengessimply because of time in the
seat.
They just don't have it yet.
So they're going to hire theirfirst team.
For instance, they need to findout how real someone is.
What is your record Like?
(14:57):
What are you looking for?
Do you consider yourself to bepretty good in general at, for
instance I don't even want tosay it, but like lie detection
or like telling when someone'shiding something, I can do
bullshit detector.
David Kestenberg (15:10):
I can do bullshit detector, which is
great, but I'll give you, I'llgive you a short story.
I ran my first startup wasn'treally good, interviewing a lot
of interns.
There was a it's's it's 10years.
There's definitely and and likeit's old, old, old and not
relevant story.
But from a people perspective,but from a daily perspective,
there is, there was an internthat came in and I'm like nice
(15:33):
to meet you, sit down, I readhis resume or whatever.
I'm like what's your name?
And he's like my name is chrisand I'm like what's your name?
And he's like my name is Chris.
And I'm like I'm looking at himand he's Chinese, maybe 22,
maybe 21.
And I'm like you're Chris.
He's like yes, I'm Chris.
And I'm like how's your mothercalling you?
(15:54):
And he's like Yupeng.
And I'm like would you like meto call you Yupeng?
He's like yeah, that would benice.
I'm like would you like me tocall you Yupeng?
He's like yeah, that would benice.
I'm like so why did you tell methat your name is Chris?
He's like because they told usto Americanize ourselves.
And I'm like you don't need to.
You can be whoever you want tobe.
That's the whole point.
You're in an interview you wantto be.
You're coming to a job.
You have the opportunity to bewhoever you want to, yeah right.
(16:17):
You know I am.
You know, don't lie, don't ownthings that you've never done.
But like here's an opportunityto be outgoing, here's an
opportunity to be more laid back, here's an opportunity to focus
on my technical skills.
Like, if you're coming andintroducing yourself by the
illusion and the assumption ofwhat the end viewer wants to see
(16:41):
, you're not going to get thejob because it's going to get
the original.
If I was looking for a Chrisfrom Harvard, I wouldn't hire a
Eupeng from CMU.
So be you and you are way morehigh likely to get the job just
by being yourself.
Like we have this idealZuckerberg mask.
(17:04):
Like I need to behave, I needto have a certain accent, I need
to go to a certain school, Ineed to leave a certain school.
I need to have a no On yourjourney.
Be very comfortable with whoyou are and what is the next
step.
Don't go with it for 10 years.
Just where's north?
Where's north?
Keep going to your personalNorth and if you're moving and
growing and learning,everybody's going to want to
(17:26):
hire you because you're adaptingto the future and not just
creating some persona that doesnot exist.
Like I would never be able tocome across as a you know, as a
Princeton MBA with like on therowing team, I'm not, I'm just
not, you know.
Josh Matthews (17:48):
Just it's very apropos.
I was watching this video byChris Hughes.
I'm not sure if you guys knowwho Chris Hughes is.
He's a former uh uh psyops guy.
I think he did about 20 yearsin the CIA and he's a big
behavioralist and got a PhD inneurology.
He's one of my favorite YouTubeguys to follow and he was
talking in this recent episodeabout how there's so much crap
on YouTube and on the internetaround, like how to appear
(18:10):
confident, how to look likeyou're confident, how to speak
like an authority figure, andit's just like slapping a bunch
of band-aids on stuff.
He said confidence is abyproduct.
It's a byproduct of what youare, of your knowledge, your
ability.
It's a quality.
It's a byproduct To pretendthat you're confident when
you're not.
He said that's no differentthan taking some duct tape and
(18:32):
an orange and taping it to anoak tree and calling it an
orange tree.
I just love that I thought, ohmy God, yeah, that's good, it's
solid.
Isn't that perfect, right?
I mean, anybody in Salesforcerecruiting and hiring is going
to talk to a lot of people whoare some citizens, some foreign
nationals, some people who areon H-1B or working through
(18:53):
third-party firms and so on, andthere is this sort of cultural
emphasis to de-emphasize theirown culture and that can be
painful and just sort of havingthem live.
It's like dressing up inclothes that aren't comfortable.
You're not going to be at yourbest.
Josh LeQuire (19:14):
The problem is when people feel like they have
to play a role, or play to theinterviewer or play to the
company, the reality is they'renot going to last right.
Like I've hired people who, youknow, taught the talk, look
good on paper, interviewed well,I thought we're going to be
fantastic in a given role, camein and had to let go two or
three weeks later because theact, you know, eventually the
(19:36):
gig was up, you know, youfigured out what was going on
and that's the worst.
You know.
The false positive hire, Ithink, is the most painful.
You know I try and screen asbest as I can, but they get
through sometimes, you know.
Josh Matthews (19:47):
I'll tell you there's a trick here.
It's when you fall in love witha candidate really fast, you
have to then try really hard toprove why you're wrong.
This is how we get rid ofconfirmation bias, right, like?
I'll give a short story.
I had a gal come in.
Now I had a massive need.
I had to make this hire.
I had four or five days where Iwas going to lose the
(20:08):
requisition.
This was when I was incorporate America, so I had to
make the hire.
Gal came in.
She was super friendly, supercasual.
We got along great.
She said all the right things.
I wanted her to be the one.
I wanted to like her.
I had two other people came in.
They met with her and at thetime I was a fairly new manager,
so I wasn't as good as I amright now.
(20:29):
This was a hard lesson learned.
She came in a couple of weekslater for her first day and by
lunch not only did I know itwasn't going to work out,
everyone on my team knew itwasn't going to work out, Like
everybody knew it's like oh myGod, I wanted this hire to work
out so badly.
I just dropped all of thistalent and skill set that I
(20:50):
developed over years to screenpeople because I needed it to
work.
I wanted it to work.
And so when you fall in lovewith that candidate, you're like
, oh, we got along great,because they're asking questions
about you and they're doing allthose Like anyone who's ever
gone to a party.
And you meet someone and youwalk away and you're like, oh my
God, I just met the mostincredible person.
They were fantastic.
And then, you know, someonesays, well, what's up with them?
(21:12):
What are they all about?
You're like, oh, I don't know,because the reason you like them
is all they did was ask aboutyou.
Right, you just got played.
David Kestenberg (21:20):
Yeah, you just got played.
The military equivalent to thatis with navigating, when you
look at the map and then you gothrough the desert and you go up
the hill and down the hill andup the hill and down the hill,
and then you look at the map andyou see the mountains in front
of you and you look at the mapand you force the map to match
the mountains and they're notthere.
You're looking the wrongdirection.
(21:43):
This is north and and.
But you're looking at the mapand you're like, yeah, it makes
sense.
It's like you see this peak,this peak, is this peak?
You see, but it's not.
Yeah, and sometimes you can'tforce the map to reflect on on
reality and you know, and if youcame to your team and said,
brothers and sisters, I waswrong and I will correct it as
fast as I can and I will earnyour trust again, or whatever
(22:07):
needs to happen, becausesometimes it's not.
Everything is like a globalcolossal chaos.
Sometimes it's like, hey, Iscrewed up.
Josh LeQuire (22:15):
Let me fix it, David, you're kind of pointing
to.
We're talking a little bitabout immigrant culture,
American culture, corporateculture.
I've worked big companies,small companies, clients, all
over the place.
I would say the majority ofcompanies and the majority of
American corporate culture haveleadership that don't
necessarily come out and say Iwas wrong or own their mistakes.
(22:38):
You know there's a lot of pride.
I think what you're touting ismore probably the minority or
the exception and not the rulein this country, right?
I mean, feel free to disagreebut I don't know.
David Kestenberg (22:50):
I think that, yes, it's true, in organizations
they're going to die.
That's as simple as that.
If you're looking onfast-growing organization
technology that evolve rapidly,you will see people that say,
well, we push to testings, 80fail, let's do it again,
whatever.
And and they're very, veryclear about the cycle of
(23:12):
decision making and asking thequestions and the lesson learned
and the five l's of uhoitte.
You know, what did we learn?
What do we need?
What do we need from leadership?
What do we lack of All those?
You know there's frames intothat cycle of feedback and that
(23:32):
big picture lesson learned, butthose that don't own their
shortcomings will fall behind.
As simple as it happened to me,happened to better than me and
the more capabilities here.
Now here's the thing you can'tcome every day to the office and
say I screwed up yesterday.
(23:53):
Eventually it's your last day.
More wins than losses right.
You do More strategic wins andmore minor losses.
Show growth, show that youlearn, show that you improve.
Do not hide anything.
That's the most important thing, because if someone in the
(24:13):
chain of our building the fruitbasket is not putting the right
banana in the right place, it'sgoing to explode in production.
It's going to explode inproduction.
And if they will not have theculture of saying, hey guys, I
didn't finish testing, or Itested, but something doesn't
feel right on the integrationlayer, or something like that,
if they're not going to feelcomfortable to say it, it will
(24:35):
bite them and then we will needto deal with discipline.
You don't want to deal withdiscipline, you want to deal
with training.
You want to deal with, you know, adoption and onboarding to new
ways of doing things.
But in a lot of the corporatelife you have to deal with
discipline because it's a jobbyjob.
Josh Matthews (24:53):
I think too, it's one thing to come out like.
The best thing that someonecould do when they screw up is
just come out and say, hey, Iscrewed up and this is on me and
you got to do it so that itdoesn't land on your boss or on
your coworker and they hadnothing to do with it.
If the shit's going to landsomewhere, it should land on you
.
If you're the cause of it, youshould own it.
(25:14):
Ideally you're owning it beforeanybody else is either
uncovering it or after they'veuncovered it but hasn't like
kind of tried to find out.
But the number one thing thatyou absolutely have to do is, if
you are asked, did you screw up?
You have to own that.
You can't lie On the ethicalscale of behavior as a society.
David Kestenberg (25:38):
we have the common law.
You break the law, you go tojail.
But we expect everybody to beat the volunteering level, at
the ethical level.
But everybody lives around thatyou know, close to the law,
just not breaking the law.
So if you break the law, if youlied, you can't, you're done,
pack your stuff, we'll see you,you know somewhere else.
But you can't expect everybodyalways to be volunteering,
(26:00):
always raising their hands towho want to do deployment on
Friday at midnight.
It's not.
They're going to behave alittle bit above what asked to
be able to have a cushion tosurvive.
But if there's bad intent andsomeone lies, they deserve the
full hammer.
This is not where we are.
This is not where we are.
(26:24):
And when we're talking back intothe value of me as an
interviewer to be able toidentify someone into 20 minutes
conversation because he'swearing a Manchester United
shirt or has an album on hiswall behind him, no, we can't
predict the future.
We get more experience with thevibe check and when the
candidate is authentic tohimself, then he's making our
(26:45):
life easier, because then Idon't need to swim through the
bullshit.
I just like okay, I understand,you have an accent, I have an
accent.
It's great, awesome.
All right, let's move on abovethat.
Can we actually do the work youknow?
Josh Matthews (26:55):
so this has been this has been a very good
conversation.
Guys, we're gonna wrap it.
I want to just do a quick roundrobin, if I can.
Yeah, so I'm going to go withyou first, josh.
Again, the main topic has beenaround vulnerability Ideally,
vulnerability in the process ofhiring Also to David's credit,
(27:16):
of course like keeping a team,building the right team, making
sure that the culture of thatteam is solid.
What's your number one piece ofadvice, or one of your top
pieces of advice, for people whoare working either as a
Salesforce customer or aSalesforce partner?
What's something they can do todemonstrate vulnerability and
(27:40):
also get or allow candidates tobe more vulnerable with them
more open?
Josh LeQuire (27:46):
I think while David was talking earlier, the
first thing that came to my mindnot just the folks making
mistakes and not fessing, but Ithink one of the biggest
mistakes in our business is notsaying I don't know.
I think a lot of people areafraid to say I don't know, I
don't understand, and makeassumptions and move forward and
work on bad assumptions or tryand hide it or try and mask it
(28:08):
in certain ways.
That's dangerous, you know,that's another variation.
I think I wouldn't call thatlying.
But I mean you're not reallyvolunteering that.
I'm taking on a task.
I don't know that's a prevalentproblem.
I'm taking on a task.
I don't know.
That's a prevalent problem.
When you look at failedimplementations in our world,
man, I can't begin to tell youhow many firefights I've been in
to rescue failedimplementations.
I think 80%, 90% of theprojects I pick up these days
(28:30):
I'm having to refactor a ton ofwork.
You know there's a lot of badstuff and that comes 10 times
out of 10 saying I don'tunderstand the business
requirements, I don't understandhow to implement the solution
you're asking me to implement.
I'm not talking about thedocumentation.
Josh Matthews (28:45):
So what you're talking about is not imposter
syndrome, we're talking justimposter well, that and like
come on man, I'm just being cutewell, no, no, I.
Josh LeQuire (28:55):
I don't agree with that fully, because I think
some people are just afraid tosay I don't know, uh, and look
stupid.
Or perhaps you know, I'm gonnafigure this out, I'm gonna go on
my own, and a lot of times it'sjust better to say I don't know
, maybe I can get some help, andso yeah know, one of the things
(29:15):
that I wrote in the notes thatyou didn't talk about is the I
know a guy policy.
David Kestenberg (29:20):
Yes, so the I know a guy policy is one of my
favorite ones.
I like that People are expertsin their domain.
If you don't know, don't tellme you don't know, ask for the.
I know a guy who is the experton Capado.
Push to Prod that versus that.
Talk with that guy.
So once you leverage that Iknow a guy all of a sudden you
don't need to say I don't knowon a forum of 50 people on a
(29:41):
call.
You can just talk with the dude.
Josh LeQuire (29:43):
I think it's okay, like I slightly disagree with
you, david, because I don't havea problem if somebody comes to
me saying I don't know, becausethen I can say, well, I know a
guy, you know, or maybe you knowa guy right.
David Kestenberg (29:53):
Yeah, yeah, no , I'm saying like achieve that
ability to, without saying Idon't know, saying I need help
on that.
I need help and then youconnect them to the guy.
I love it.
Josh LeQuire (30:05):
That's so important and I think that you
identify that early, you couldsave people three, four weeks of
major headaches andcatastrophes.
Right, little things snowballinto bigger things all the time
and it always, I found in myexperience.
Sometimes 10 times out of 10,it's from somebody just not
raising their hand.
Josh Matthews (30:22):
Yeah, Well, again , keeping it about the hiring
process right, I happen to thinkthat it's very good to say I
don't know.
When they don't know, they cansay, I don't know, but I do know
a guy and I'm close to them andthey've already offered to help
me ramp up on that.
It sounds like this, maybe, isa critical piece of the role.
(30:42):
Would that be accurate?
Okay, because if it's reallycritical, then that's something
I can spend time getting betterat and ramping up on off hours.
I still think I'm a greatcandidate for this job, so
there's an opportunity there toleverage both of them, but have
a solution that includes somesort of off hours effort.
All right, same question foryou, david.
David Kestenberg (31:04):
So my answer is a little bit different.
It's from the perspective ofthe interviewer, not from the
candidate.
The interviewer should say weare looking for this job because
of that reason, because the guyquit, because we are scaling a
new system.
If I explain to the candidatewhy am I hiring, not to what
(31:25):
role am I hiring, why am Ihiring, the guy quit.
You're going new system, you arethinking about new products you
need to support now whateverbusiness from other unit,
whatever it is, when I explainto the candidate why I'm being
vulnerable to the businessdecision and the business
psychology around the job whichwill be the ecosystem of that
(31:48):
individual, and he's the finish.
He's here's the finish ofsuccess.
Now I've been vulnerable and Iexpect you to pay in the same
currency and saying, okay, Iunderstand, I understand that
they quit after three monthsbecause it was stressful.
I'm good with stress or I uh,this is, I'm a little bit early
in my career.
I don't know if I have that,that type of longevity stuff
(32:09):
like that.
So opening with an uh, uh, avulnerable statement by
explaining why we're hiring andnot what we're hiring, creates
the right tone and vibe to thecontinuation of the conversation
.
Josh Matthews (32:19):
I love both of your responses.
I think it's terrific.
I'm going to throw in the thirdone here in the hat, which is
simply to give them a way thatthey can't back out, and the way
I like to do that is positionthem with what I call the
three-month question.
And, by the way, you can do itas a candidate.
You can ask this as a candidate.
You can also ask it as aninterviewer.
(32:41):
As an interviewer, it wouldsound like this David, you seem
really good for this job.
I can't offer you the job justyet because we're not through
the process, but I want you toimagine that you're offered the
position and you're reallyexcited about it and you start
I'd like to know what we'regoing to know about you three
months from now, that we'll havewanted to know about you today.
And just so you know this isreally important.
(33:03):
Okay, because we will know.
So tell us what that is rightnow.
David Kestenberg (33:09):
You will get emails from me at 2 am.
Yeah, there you go.
Josh Matthews (33:16):
I've gotten texts from you at midnight, so close
enough Maybe not.
David Kestenberg (33:20):
I could be confusing you with another
question.
Josh Matthews (33:21):
You're probably right.
Wonderful session, guys.
Thank you both of you, Davidespecially for being a terrific
guest here now twice on the show.
You're always welcome back.
We really appreciate you here.
David Kestenberg (33:36):
I would love to Thank you so much.
Josh Matthews (33:38):
You bet Great insights, david, absolutely,
thank you.
Make sure that you're followingJosh LaQuire and David
Kestenberg and myself, joshMatthews, on LinkedIn.
Check out Josh Force on YouTube.
If you're listening to this ona podcast, you might enjoy the
video of this program.
And if you're watching thevideo and you'd like to just
have some audio on your drivehome or what have you, or during
(33:58):
your workout, you can follow uson Spotify or Apple Podcasts or
any of your favorite platforms.
Thanks so much for joining us.
We'll be back next week.
Bye for now.
This episode is brought to youby our amazing partners.
First up, ccurrentscom,laquire's powerhouse for its
Salesforce implementations andservices.
And, of course, thesalesforcerecruitercom, your
(34:21):
go-to hub.
If you're hiring, job huntingor just trying to get ahead in
the Salesforce ecosystem, goahead and reach out to us.
Let's all win together.
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