July 12, 2022 • 38 mins
In this episode, Laura interviews Lawrence Humphry and Fallon Blossom, the co-founders of Pearl. They talk about finding tech folks from non-traditional backgrounds and creating a better hiring pipeline.
Pearl is a brand new platform for peer based leadership consulting where you can get wisdom and guidance from people you trust.
Drink Pairings: Berry Sparkling Water or an Old Fashioned, depending on time of day
(note from Laura: it's a big world. it's always happy hour somewhere)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
00:04.19
lauraklein
Hello and welcome to what is wrong with hiring the podcast where we talk about why hiring people and getting hired are both absolute nightmares I'm your host Laura Klein please be advised that this podcast may contain drinking swearing and screaming into the abyss so pretty much like most podcasts my guests today and I have. 2 of them I'm very excited are Lawrence Humphrey and Fallon Blossom Lawrence is the co-founder and Ceo of Pearl which we will be talking about and Fallon is the is also the co-founder and Ceo of Pearl and perhaps they will explain to me what the difference is between those two things which I'm very excited about um and pearl. I'm just going to say pearl may be hiring at the time at at the time of recording we are aspiring to hire. So um, you know, check back in because they seem like they would be fun to work for I got to be honest, um today we are going to be talking about a little bit about getting into tech and design specifically from. Non-traditional backgrounds and we're going to go in a lot of places from there. We're also going to be talking a little bit about um for hiring for the hiring managers and the managers out there creating a culture where people from all kinds of backgrounds can flourish and where they actually want to work which I mean I think that's the thing that we should all be aspiring to. So welcome to both of you. Thank you so much for coming so I want to know first of all you mentioned like the funny thing is you mentioned your nontraditional backgrounds and I'm like oh I yes, we all have nontraditional backgrounds I think this is pretty common. Um.
01:21.40
Lawrence
Um, thank you for having us.
01:22.98
Fallon
Thank you.
03:12.83
lauraklein
But somehow weirdly all different so tell me about yours Tell me how you got into tech and design. And yeah, yeah.
02:12.10
Lawrence
Yeah I'll keep it pretty brief my background when I was going into college I didn't know that I wanted to get a tech necessarily was a gamble I Just knew I Love Stem I happen into computer science and from there found you know, happened into design. I am by no means a traditional like classically trained designer I Just you know happened into it. But yeah, it was following that very windy path which I found it took some time to shake the imposter syndrome. But I found that being. A designer without a design background isn't all too uncommon but that's my short story.
04:55.17
lauraklein
And Fallon how about you.
03:40.60
Fallon
Um, very similar so I started off doing video and median stuff in high school and wanted to try to make a career out of that when I graduated from undergrad. It was an None which is a terrible year for anyone going to do anything new. So I couldn't do the thing that I said that I was gonna do so I didn't realize this at the time but I was designed thinking my life and and a winding path through law and Ed Research at Harvard. Um there I realized I'm like okay this video stuff this learning stuff. Design stuff. All can be a thing and then that is what took me to tech because I realized that that was one of the only places that I knew of at the time where I could put all the things that I was passionate about and good at together in None role instead of trying to make something fit in places that weren't really receptive to. The kind of innovation that tech just has.
06:57.35
lauraklein
This is this is so cool because I'm hearing stuff that I hear from folks that I've worked with that I think have so much to offer to tech and to design and I I feel like sometimes they can struggle like we can struggle as hiring managers. To do that putting it together and saying oh you would be perfect for this role because so many hire managers I think are sometimes looking for like oh do you have 6 years with sigma and you know do you have all of these keywords and um, can you? What's your experience been like with that.
06:32.52
Lawrence
And.
06:51.28
Lawrence
Yeah I mean it's it's tricky and you know my disclaimer is I haven't necessarily interviewed in a while but I had done a fair amount of coaching and guiding people through the design transition. So some of my background I work at Ibm for. Several years where I helped build a pipeline into the design program and specifically I was working a lot with coding you ex boot camps and those people tend to correlate with the you know career changes at the time they were disproportionately underrepresented folks and. I found that obviously there is the expectation from hiring managers to get pre-made preveted. You know they see a certain amount of craftsmanship coming from universities and then there was this you know you need to say that all right the craftsmanship is also here but and this is I think one of my general reframings that I'm trying to have just everyone do and trying to codify these candidates offer a diversity of both identities and a diversity of thought through their background in addition to this craftsmanship which you know yes you can have all of these risd scad designers. But. If they all come from None curriculums. You're not getting the most diverse sample of designers no matter what they look like. So um, you know that's been some of my experience of like practically and I mean without getting in all the details you know saying these are high quality candidates delivering high quality work. But. We are doing ourselves a disservice only talking about the work. The very tangible work that they can offer that's high level been my experience. It's been like a reeducation almost.
11:27.13
lauraklein
So yeah, and so trying to talk to folks about the sort of what the potential is of folks. It could be so hard to sell people on potential especially for underrepresented folks. Um I think that so so much potential in in people that you've seen.
(00:32):
10:31.66
Lawrence
Yeah, yeah.
10:45.10
Lawrence
Yeah, but also you know I think that for you know again, if we're just gonna juxtapose the person coming just out of school and the career chains person they have at the.
12:03.99
lauraklein
Walk that path before and suddenly if you're not, you need all the qualifications.
11:18.98
Lawrence
My Undoubtedly more industry experience when it comes to working on teams and collaborating and I hate using this but like navigating politics and just dealing with the people side of the work which is arguably more important than the tangible deliverable work itself. So It's and ah, you know it's. Taking some time to reframe and say like okay this is the value that I get out of this tranche of people. This is the value that I get out of this category of people. But it's not just about the end Deliverable. It's not even about potential.. It's just the different dimensions.
13:33.15
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, well yeah, and it's interesting because I know Lawrence your your background you started in programming is that right or engineering right? and and fellon you mentioned that you were more research and law and.
12:32.00
Lawrence
Computer science.
12:44.26
Fallon
Yeah I was managing case loads and I was managing projects I wasn't creating anything I was just moving things down a pipeline whether it's getting a case from a file to a judge or getting a research project from a grant to some data.
14:06.41
lauraklein
Ah, you know and project. Yeah, um.
14:35.95
lauraklein
Um, yeah, and what I'm here see. Okay, so you say that and yet having worked with lawyers Sometimes you have to get a little creative. Ah.
13:21.20
Fallon
I was the one moving things along not thinking creatively.
13:40.80
Fallon
All those arguments I had to make were imagine trying to convince the United States government that somebody with fibromyalgia and Ray note syndrome can't work for the rest of their life that is a story that is a story.
(00:54):
15:22.41
lauraklein
Um, that that is that is a narrative. Ah yeah, it's content design I think it's also the the progress like you know, getting things through is very much I can be systems design and figuring out how the process works and process and.
14:13.34
Fallon
And that is some content design needed.
15:59.30
lauraklein
Want to be 1 of those people who's all like everyone's a designer. not everyone's a designer well okay not everyone's a good not it's a good designer ah us yeah, very yes.
14:45.56
Lawrence
Um, I mean I think everyone is but not, everyone's a great designer. Yeah.
14:54.64
Fallon
It's like little D versus big D design which one are you Everyone is a little D designer I think and I don't say little to diminish it. But again with every decision that you're making to do a thing. There's potentially some design there.
16:39.50
lauraklein
I Hundred percent agree like almost everyone cooks and not everyone is ah is a chef but sometimes what you need are a lot of cooks and you know they have a lot to to teach us. So anyway, so it's it's interesting here in short of even the the difference in.
15:31.20
Lawrence
Yeah, yeah.
17:11.97
lauraklein
You know? oh we come from nontraditional backgrounds and nontraditional means different from each other too and trying to find the kind of job that fits each of those skills I know I I end up hiring a lot of Ex engineers because I am one and so I Okay I admit to ah a little bias there. Okay, a lot of bias. Yeah, we do.
16:26.00
Lawrence
We all have our biases. Yeah, ah.
16:27.42
Fallon
We we wi.
17:51.51
lauraklein
But do and but minus minus I like people who think very systematically and who do who cover all the bases and who like and I always find that like the people who actually wrote the programs were on the last they were like the last line of defense for the users like if they didn't handle a.
(01:16):
17:11.56
Lawrence
Um, yeah, and it's yeah I mean I have the same you're in good company. You're in good country.
18:29.53
lauraklein
An Error Nothing went like you know a designer can kind of fake it Anyway. Ah. Yeah, all right? So That's that and again I don't want to go off on a rant there but I just did ah no Yeahll Yeah, oh this is not a thing you want to Encourage. Ah.
17:41.90
Lawrence
Um, this is your podcast look. You can do whatever you need to do a safe space.
17:46.94
Fallon
This is a safes place to rant come on.
18:01.80
Lawrence
Ah, start start sir.
19:25.97
lauraklein
Appreciate it. But you're you're the experts. You're the experts here and um I want to hear. Actually you know what? um we didn't talk about this before I want to hear a little bit about pearl and what pearl does and what but y'all are trying to accomplish um with pearl as well. I I didn't even get into that when I introduced you.
18:35.00
Lawrence
Yeah, so ah, pearl was born out of an org called tech and do better which was founded the week after George Floyd was murdered and it started as an initiative both outlining what systemic equity looked like in the tech industry. As well as making it extremely actionable for everyone from the c-suite leaders to the practitioners software engineers designers hiring managers. Everyone in between and what that looked like was a piece of literature called achieving equity in tech and by and large. Community calls which we brought together people from across the industry basically to share tips and tricks of how to get unstuck how to move the needle within their own companies. Fast forward to January Twenty this past January Twenty Twenty Two we got accepted into a startup accelerator. Where we saw the opportunity to scale what we were doing. Um, basically if you wanted to scale the kind of consultancy work. You know in order to scale a consultancy you kind of have to hire more people but I have a product background and you know tech and design as I mentioned before and the obvious way to scale is. Creating a platform for which you know you can you can scale out without needing to hire necessarily ton new people so that was where pearl was born where we are an on-de demand peer-based leadership consulting platform aiming to bring together diverse leaders from across the industry to see how other leaders are getting things done. And connecting people's and specifically leaders problems. So how to find and hire diverse candidates. For instance, how to manage in an international remote environment. How to manage low performers, etc and connecting them with other people's processes for how to achieve those things. So. That's you know the origin story if you will and the high level ah at a high level what pearl seeks to accomplish.
23:52.91
lauraklein
That sounds amazing I'm I'm very excited to see to see where y'all go with this. Um and so it sounds like you it sounds like you had some literature that you put out already. Um all right? Do you think it's gonna be more of a place where people can go and you know just get. Training that they need is that basically when when when do when do I sign up and and am I the right person to sign up like I'm ah I'm a hiring manager but you know, kind of low level.
23:19.36
Lawrence
Um, yeah, well the? ah.
23:32.68
Lawrence
Oh yeah, absolutely the initial proposal is and always will be in the wild like you can go on tech can do better us and if you go to the proposal section. It's there anyone can look at it and there's the executive summary for you know whether you are quote. A decision maker. Hopefully I didn't drop out um a manager or an employee so there there are actionable items for anyone to do there and the Mvp the pearl solution itself by the time of hearing this. I am assuming that it will be out in the wild for people to join. We're getting kicked off with our pilot programs in the next couple of weeks but that will soon be available and in your hands I mean Laura your hands and hopefully for other the listeners your hands very very soon the next couple of weeks are.
26:26.47
lauraklein
You know my hands my hands.
(01:38):
26:41.17
lauraklein
Excellent. Well I mean considering how slow I am to get actual podcasts out. It will absolutely be available by then but I'm not always you know 100% on top of things as as y'all know. Ah there's there's things going on you know? Um, so that is.
25:25.16
Lawrence
Months.
25:46.94
Lawrence
Um, as anyone is yeah who is.
27:20.89
lauraklein
That is very exciting. You mentioned, um you know, being better about hiring diverse candidates hiring underrepresented underrepresented candidates I mean and this is not the kind of thing that I want to be like hey could you solve that for us in the next ten minutes please um because I think that's um, unfair.
26:39.74
Lawrence
Yeah, and I mean if if I did that I would be sending ah since sending someone an invoice but that's a.
27:58.90
lauraklein
And not possible. Yeah. Yeah, exactly that'd be. But so if folks want to learn more about that. They go to pearl are there other um resources other places we should go to and and what would you and what do you think are the most important things to focus on. Yeah.
27:11.58
Lawrence
Yeah I would still. Yeah I mean I think that you know myself and a ton of other smart and diverse people from across the industry put as much of our brains into that proposal. So I would just have people look into that tech and do better proposal. That's the big one and I definitely have my point of view is to the best starting place and many of them are in that document but Fallon I'm eager to hear what you think about it.
28:04.00
Fallon
I um I think that I agree I would say that that proposal is a really good place to start. It is I joined tech and do better as a part of the community I was not interested I didn't come into it thinking that I was gonna be leading a thing or. Building a product I really it just resonated with me because I was super frustrated I was working at a company that you know was not feeling. It was not necessarily making me feel super supported in my racial identity. So again tech can do better was the none time that in my personal experience as a worker person that I actually. Saw folks trying to put forth actionable solutions to a very big problem that it's gonna take probably a good chunk of time to solve but because you know my bias is towards culture and community I'm thinking my gut is saying that the. Culture is kind of a good place to start codifying it. We talked about values beforehand. Um, you know there's a whole bunch of smarter people than may have done a bunch of research on what's driving you know people leaving work or at least over the past couple of years and it is that culture. You know isn't inclusive. Is it respectful. Is it ethical. Is it cut through you know is it abusive are you actually taking care of people. Um or are you going to continue to put the profits over people to your detriment because again at least in the past couple of years we've been seeing pretty consistently that.
32:22.89
lauraklein
I I think the last couple of years um, have certainly made that evident to to more folks I I think it has been true for much much longer than that just people like me are starting to notice. Yeah no it. So that's yeah, we're but.
31:04.42
Fallon
Something's not working.
31:33.18
Lawrence
Sadly, yeah.
(02:00):
31:34.56
Fallon
Well, you can't ignore it now it's costing money so you can't ignore it now.
32:58.93
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, yeah there you go there, you go? Yeah I'd like to I'd like to fix it for a lot of reasons that is certainly one of them and you know what if that gets more people at a higher level to pay more attention to it. That's great. Let's cost him some money I'm I'm all for it.
32:12.60
Lawrence
Yeah, or I just think you know and much of my bias is you know, seeing how you know being in some of the rooms where some of the decisions are being made I'm realizing more and more just how.
33:35.30
lauraklein
That's fantastic.
32:45.20
Lawrence
Important metrics are for getting anything accomplished and it's important for anyone trying to enact change regardless of whether you're in for profit nonprofit. Whatever to be able to as Fallon set like codify it but specifically codify in a language that people are used to. So. And that and that is metrics and I think that one of my own personal journeys and I know there are a lot of smart people doing this but how do we like turn something so subjective and like qualitative like. Experience at a company like what it feels like to feel like I belong at this company into a metric that we can track over time and disaggregate and say that this group of people are feeling this way. This group isn't and then begin to prioritize it through that lens so and I think that there are a lot of like um. Let's say well intentioned idealist but not a lot of people putting in the paper and saying this is the system that needs to be implemented in order to get there.
36:01.83
lauraklein
Yeah I mean I don't and and Fallon you may you may relate to this as as somebody who's done a lot of qualitative research. That's hard in product that's hard in companies. That's hard and anything that getting that qualitative feedback in a way that. Does feel as actionable as metrics or trying to turn that into metrics. Yeah, so if if you have if y'all are gonna have ah suggestions about that I am I am all for it. I am a huge fan because I agree did that you. Gotta turn it into something and something that doesn't just feel like you know a checkbox that people can game's I you know into my in my design life. We talk a lot about gaming of metrics and how do you you know, keep people from just doing like well but you know we we did all the. We did all the checkboxes and then we happened to hire the person that you know we were gonna hire anyway. Ah, ah you know which doesn't doesn't feel right for anybody. That's not a. It's not a good thing.
36:45.86
Lawrence
Um, yeah, and and that's a trickier and I by no means will pretend to be the expert on matters that big but I mean I think that that's where it comes down to just the. Truly subjective it. It comes down to the leaders values themselves and like do you have the right people in the right places who truly care and will not allow or will you know will not allow the system to be gamed effectively. So and that's the tricky part is how do we encourage.
39:08.67
lauraklein
Yeah, and.
38:04.20
Lawrence
And build systems to get those right people in the right places.
39:24.23
lauraklein
Right? And how and how are you communicating those values I know I know Fallon you have a you have some opinions about this what what kinds of things like if you're working with the team or if you're you know, even looking for a job. Um, what are you? What are you looking for in that.
38:35.60
Fallon
And I'm looking for belonging and I'm looking for obvious markers that people feel like they belong not necessarily groupthink because I think in tech it's very easy to just put it bluntly drink the kool-aid right. We don't really work in tech for products that we might not use or we might not love. So again, it's very very easy to kind of get into and get excited about the idea of a company but then like what are the values look like in action. So those are the types of things that I try to suss out when I'm trying to work with somebody. It's just like. Okay, can you tell me an anecdote of a time where somebody actually exemplified showcased your values in action. How did that work when someone does something that's not aligned with the values of the organization. What does that look like how do those people are those people brought in or those people pushed out. What is the worst part of your job that you hate like I am that person that you don't want to interview because I'm going to ask you these things because as a black cis head woman when I come into these places when I hop on these Zoom calls I'm automatically a threat to some people and I'm going to feel it. And whether or not they say it whether or not they feel comfortable saying I'm going to feel that you don't want to tell me the truth I'm going to feel like you actually don't think that I'm good at my job but maybe what that will look like is I'm getting a lot more questions than everybody else because maybe that's what you do here.
(02:22):
42:26.29
lauraklein
And he.
42:42.21
lauraklein
I.
42:54.47
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah.
41:42.56
Fallon
And so trying to do that interrogation as early and often as possible about what do these values look like in action and trying to make sure that the words align with the action because a lot of times they won't.
43:23.85
lauraklein
And and ah yes, yes, all of that and also trying to make sure that the folks I think it's a great question to ask by the way because I think it's a great question to see if the folks who are interveking. You can't actually talk about the values of the company like yeah yeah.
42:30.46
Fallon
And when you're talking to 8 different people if there is no consistency between the answers run because it's not codified or it is but in silos.
44:09.65
lauraklein
Um, yeah, yeah, and it's always itch I Always I always find it fascinating when you find out that like well on our team. It's X But what everyone says is Y and that's always a fun thing to get out because's like well ok, that's that's you.
43:13.00
Lawrence
And.
44:49.13
lauraklein
Full does that mean that I want to go to this team or but really be in maybe a toxic larger organization or vice versa like do I Want to see if there's something someplace else trying to kind of figure that out.
43:51.24
Lawrence
Yeah, and None thing that and you know being the the systemic I mean I can't that my brain works in systems I guess that's like my my engineering brain but I'm now seeing in the world of startups that. You know the kind of people giving you money like I consumers kind of care about it and customers kind of care about it but investors far less so they don't really care about your values. They care about ah Roi like are you growing are you growing are you growing so and inherently it becomes you know it. It becomes second priority if not none or fourth priority to to just profits and I mean this is where my exercise in you know, can we x more existentially what Pearl is to me. Is an exercise of building a better way of running business without compromising just building an effective business because conventionally I mean just looking at the system producing these outcomes ceos founders are not even remotely incentivized to build or codify culture. It is. Make me money. So ah, there is a bigger exercise and you know being able to articulate a new better system which I didn't realize to what how palpable that is until I started doing this.
48:11.39
lauraklein
The thing that makes me so angry and again I promise I will not start ranting this is your time but the thing that makes me so angry is that there is a lot of research that shows that those 2 things are actually correlated. They are not in conflict.
(02:44):
47:27.66
Lawrence
Earth.
48:48.95
lauraklein
It's not like you can have one. It's not like you can have a diverse group of folks who you know work on things differently and come from different backgrounds so you know it's not like you could have that or you can have profit. It turns out that. Ah.
47:49.78
Lawrence
Um, yeah I mean the there are a ton of Mackenzie studies. Yeah.
48:00.46
Fallon
I But it doesn't feel good but it makes me uncomfortable but I'm not nor it doesn't feel right and that's where that culture and those feelings and all those soft mushy gushy things either help or hurt it right? because again.
49:48.79
lauraklein
But then they would have to admit that they have feelings too and that their decisions are driven by emotions and it's not just people who aren't like them who are being emotional and irrational. It's actually the ones who are saying.
48:44.94
Lawrence
Yep.
50:21.61
lauraklein
So I need a safe space and by a safe space I mean everybody needs to look and feel exactly like me. Yeah.
49:07.80
Lawrence
Exactly and I mean it's just the you know that we live in a society moment where everything gets politicized and obviously any critique against the system is ah kind of a classist critique I mean not to you know, just get really heady with it. But.
49:39.68
Fallon
Oh.
49:45.98
Lawrence
There are groups of you know Identities groups identity groups who have long benefited from it and a critique against that as a crique critique against something more foundational something ickier. Um that brings out the some pretty dark feelings and a lot of people.
51:32.29
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no I would say it's interesting because um I I am extremely not optimistic about some of this stuff. Um, and I felt brutally honest, having been around some of these guys for 25 years now um and yeah I mean I think that there very much is a um, feeling that like I know who gets I know who gets the benefit of the doubt I know who is presumed competent I know who um gets seen as rational and I know who gets seen as irrational and hysterical. Know who gets told that their tone is not right? Um, you know I don't know it as much as some other folks but I certainly have seen it you know over 25 years and and I think when we talk about that sort of systemic and actionable approach to to fixing. These problems I don't know I want to I don't I don't know if the right answer is to try to fix those guys or if the answer is just to try to get more different folks in like I'm so excited about the new generation of designers and product folks.
(03:06):
52:17.32
Lawrence
Yeah.
52:31.58
Lawrence
Yeah I think that my my point of view is very much the latter and I think again going back to the existential existential purpose of pearl. It is my experiment to mobilize and amplify. More of the people with good intentions more of the diverse leaders than necessarily try to change the one who have vested interest in not changing it just doesn't seem like a productive use of anyone's time so on the platform I mean even in our pilots Fallon and I have been very intentional about. Making sure that our values and again we're codifying these but the obvious one is the community of people on our platform will be diverse. You are coming to pearl to get a diverse perspective on leadership and what that looks like not just from you know, just to say it like straight white dudes and it's like this is what. You know, young black leaders are thinking this is what middle managers who are latin x are thinking about certain things and begin to amplify the long overlooked leaders at the middle of companies that probably don't look like the leaders we're used to seeing so again I'm I'm pretty. Cynical about a lot of things. But I think that the best avenue for change at least right now is just building something better as opposed to trying to change people's minds who probably don't want to or at the very least do not benefit from things changing or overtly. So.
56:45.83
lauraklein
Yeah, may I know I those are gone.
55:30.56
Fallon
And what I'll add to that is that it's kind of this idea of giving folks credit for what they do to I think that is the biggest thing that excites me about pearl as as a documenter person as a doer. I Can go here and write down what I did show you exactly the results of my efforts and if you look at that over time you can know and see exactly what I can do I can get credit from my work and the value that I added versus again as we all Know. We're on design we're on a team. It's a team. It's everybody's idea. Yeah, but not so much exactly exactly exactly so like for me, that's the biggest thing that gets me super super excited about Pearl The idea.
58:09.83
lauraklein
It's we we all did it? Yeah except for the person who took credit. Yeah, ah.
57:13.30
Fallon
Ah, giving credit to the doers for doing as they're doing it.
58:38.89
lauraklein
Yeah I don't know Fellon Are you saying that I as a design manager can no longer just take credit for all the stuff that my team is doing I mean that's that's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt. My review is what I'm saying. Ah.
57:32.28
Fallon
I mean you could you here's the thing here's the thing you can reframe that and say I am able and facilitated this amazing team of designers to do all of these wonderful things. Let me tell you exactly how Lawrence contributed let me tell you exactly how Fallon contributed let me tell you exactly how.
57:34.48
Lawrence
You can try.
58:09.94
Fallon
Joe Schmo over here contributed and and I facilitated and drove all of that amazing right? You enabled it come on and that in and of itself should get you a cookie. It should get you a cookie because look what you did.
59:36.70
lauraklein
Um I I made it possible I made it possible mostly by mostly by getting the hell out of their way. Ah yeah I mean that's that's all that's that's all I ever want is a cookie. Yeah.
(03:28):
58:24.88
Lawrence
Um, yeah, yeah, and and bringing it full circle. Yeah, and it's you know I think it takes. Does take tremendous skill to be a good coach or orchestrator knowing that it's not just about the craft. You know we talked about at the beginning. It's like this is the kind of you know we need someone who is very conceptual and is the visionary and we also need someone who will get the job done and. Need the personalities to work between them. But oh we also need this other person in the mix and I have to be the one to organize them and keep them moving that is hard and I think that in the same way that design and writing and cooking because anyone can technically do them. There is this deception that they're easy. But I think that leadership is very very hard and it's very nuanced and with pearl I'm Beginning. You know this is beginning to make the as balances all the time implicit explicit and try to tease out a lot of the nuance that makes a great leader. So. And I think that for that in that sense. Yes, you should be celebrated for bringing all these people together and getting the hell out of their way.
01:00:52.98
Fallon
You should and that is how we should talk about leadership right? Not necessarily look at me look at me. It's look at us. Sometimes it's look at me sometimes it's look at us. Sometimes it's look over there but being able to pivot.
01:02:18.25
lauraklein
You're you're You're both very sweet but ah. Yeah I mean um. Yeah, look at look at what they did. Ah, yeah.
01:01:22.82
Lawrence
Me.
01:01:27.50
Fallon
Right? that that idea of making leadership more and like less inflexible.
01:02:56.11
lauraklein
Like like a hundred percent so I I I absolutely agree with all of that. Um I think like honestly the only thing that I actually do is hire and um I have found it to be challenging. Um, what he. Because I think that you have some related ideas here about like I like to ask people what they think the hardest thing is about either hiring or getting hired.
01:02:30.20
Lawrence
Um, do you want to go fail I have my point of view. But.
01:02:38.32
Fallon
Yeah I think yeah cause mine comes like for like in the beginning. It's really trying to suss out using poorly written job descriptions whether or not this is even worth my time I find that the last time that I was doing this was. Ah, couple months ago and you know thankfully I had personal relationships so I could hear from people who were there about what it was like but the last time it was ah it was kind of a research project all ah you know on its own I'm reading this I'm not really inspired. It's not really clear I don't really know what I'm going to be doing. So Maybe I can go to the blog or maybe I can go watch a video or by the time I'm done I'm like an hour in and I haven't even put an application in so we should try to figure out a better way to write job descriptions because they are not great.
01:05:36.91
lauraklein
And I think that ties in so well with a lot of the stuff that we've been talking about about like you said making making the implicit explicit like about saying this is what you're going to be doing this is who you're going to be doing it with this is the kind of outcome. This is the kind of team. These are the values. This is what we want. This is what we're looking for.
01:04:47.82
Fallon
This is how we're measuring success that is the biggest thing but again um I've also been on the inside where somebody just quit but we need to hire somebody. We are not thinking creatively right? right? It's copy Pasta spaghetti like it's gross. But.
01:06:14.59
lauraklein
Oh God I Love that.
(03:50):
01:06:29.15
lauraklein
Copy paste copy Pastte. Ah.
01:05:15.50
Lawrence
We.
01:06:38.11
lauraklein
Ah, yeah, we will take we will take somebody who has the title designer yes or engineer or whatever. Yeah, that's that is hard how how about you Lawrence what's what's the hardest thing for you about hiring or getting hired.
01:05:27.42
Fallon
It's what end them happening.
01:05:36.92
Lawrence
Um, ah.
01:05:52.94
Lawrence
Yeah I think mine is I mean plus one to everything that was talked about and you know my head goes kind of to where it's been a lot of this time and it's more conceptual but capturing and then you know also articulating.
01:07:15.11
lauraklein
Other than everything we've talked about.
01:06:27.96
Lawrence
More the full spectrum of a candidate so of what someone has to offer beyond just can you use figma. Do you do you know? what? a cloud storage is. It's like what is. Your identity and how you see the work. Not only diversity of identity but diversity of thought and I think you said it before Laura but value fit culture ad and you need far more than just skills and capabilities I think that it is helpful to see track record to see. And a high level. Obviously they're imperfect those psychometric assessments of like are you detailed versus? are you high level? Are you extroverted versus are you introverted not to preclude anyone from specific things but it does give you some correlation with all right? What am I roughly. You know, roughly? How does this person fit into the to the equation and you know doing that in a ah way a quick way is really really hard. So I yeah I think that that's the crux of it. All.
01:09:48.65
lauraklein
Yeah, if we could get hiring to even start to uncover some of those questions like the kit would be enormously better. Um, any just sort of as a last thing any any great stories or cautionary tales as I like to call them Of. Um, ah of of hiring the hiring bloopers real if you will.
01:09:22.20
Lawrence
Fallon has 1
01:09:20.66
Fallon
I do ah, if you find yourself on a Zoom or a call with someone who does not look like you do not lean into trying very very hard to relate because None times out of 10 it will have the um. Opposite effect I was talking to a person um interviewing them to potentially be my manager in an effort to relate to me as I said earlier black says had woman over here. This person was not. They told a story about growing up on a farm and doing some manual labor with folks who. Do did not look like them I'm not going to go into any further detail to further traumatize. Ah the listeners. But ultimately that made me feel unsafe disrespected and I just wanted to run screaming off that call because I'm like okay. Not only do I now have doubts about your ability to do the job I have doubts about your character as a human and I don't know if this would be ah, a value. Add a culture fit none of it and unfortunately they didn't get thorough.
(04:12):
01:12:53.85
lauraklein
I mean it would certainly be a. It would certainly be a value add I'm not sure that that's the value that you were looking to add though I I Never really thought that I'd hear a story that was that was significant. You know that that was that was worse than the like Oh let me tell you about my black friends but and yet some.
01:11:50.30
Lawrence
Are.
01:11:50.64
Fallon
No.
01:12:11.66
Fallon
Honestly, this is adjacent. It's it's kind of it's It's under the same umbrella of of disrespectful as far as I'm concerned.
01:13:32.79
lauraklein
Help. Yeah yeah.
01:13:41.25
lauraklein
Yeah, no, that's um, yeah, let's all let's in terms of the tech can do better.
01:12:32.70
Fallon
Like the kernel I'll give him this the kernel of the nugget of the intention was good, but right intent versus impact your intention was to connect with me the impact was you pushed me so far away. You could never, You're never gonna see me again.
01:14:23.41
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, and and because it was done in such a completely ham handed way that just you know like you are if that is what you are doing to try to connect with another human being. That's yeah.
01:13:32.32
Fallon
Yeah, we need more practice in the connection we need we we like maybe you're being in the beginnings of your journey and maybe you know after a couple more swings and misses. You'll get it but not all my time and time.
01:14:59.23
lauraklein
That's not great.
01:15:16.65
lauraklein
I I do I do not blame you big. Thank you for sharing that was um, definitely in the ah in the cautionary tales ah can't category. Um, listen this has been so fantastic. Thank you both so much for coming on. Um.
(04:34):
01:14:22.64
Fallon
Yep.
01:15:54.47
lauraklein
That is all the time that we have for today. Um I want to thank Lawrence and Fallon for for joining us I also want to thank everybody out there for listening and I want to wish everybody the yeah thanks I want to wish everybody the best of luck with your own search whether it's for a new job or a new employee. Um I am rooting for you.
01:14:47.34
Lawrence
Yeah, thank you, Thank you.
01:14:49.46
Fallon
Thank you so much.
00:04.19
lauraklein
Hello and welcome to what is wrong with hiring the podcast where we talk about why hiring people and getting hired are both absolute nightmares I'm your host Laura Klein please be advised that this podcast may contain drinking swearing and screaming into the abyss so pretty much like most podcasts my guests today and I have. 2 of them I'm very excited are Lawrence Humphrey and Fallon Blossom Lawrence is the co-founder and Ceo of Pearl which we will be talking about and Fallon is the is also the co-founder and Ceo of Pearl and perhaps they will explain to me what the difference is between those two things which I'm very excited about um and pearl. I'm just going to say pearl may be hiring at the time at at the time of recording we are aspiring to hire. So um, you know, check back in because they seem like they would be fun to work for I got to be honest, um today we are going to be talking about a little bit about getting into tech and design specifically from. Non-traditional backgrounds and we're going to go in a lot of places from there. We're also going to be talking a little bit about um for hiring for the hiring managers and the managers out there creating a culture where people from all kinds of backgrounds can flourish and where they actually want to work which I mean I think that's the thing that we should all be aspiring to. So welcome to both of you. Thank you so much for coming so I want to know first of all you mentioned like the funny thing is you mentioned your nontraditional backgrounds and I'm like oh I yes, we all have nontraditional backgrounds I think this is pretty common. Um.
01:21.40
Lawrence
Um, thank you for having us.
01:22.98
Fallon
Thank you.
03:12.83
lauraklein
But somehow weirdly all different so tell me about yours Tell me how you got into tech and design. And yeah, yeah.
02:12.10
Lawrence
Yeah I'll keep it pretty brief my background when I was going into college I didn't know that I wanted to get a tech necessarily was a gamble I Just knew I Love Stem I happen into computer science and from there found you know, happened into design. I am by no means a traditional like classically trained designer I Just you know happened into it. But yeah, it was following that very windy path which I found it took some time to shake the imposter syndrome. But I found that being. A designer without a design background isn't all too uncommon but that's my short story.
04:55.17
lauraklein
And Fallon how about you.
03:40.60
Fallon
Um, very similar so I started off doing video and median stuff in high school and wanted to try to make a career out of that when I graduated from undergrad. It was an None which is a terrible year for anyone going to do anything new. So I couldn't do the thing that I said that I was gonna do so I didn't realize this at the time but I was designed thinking my life and and a winding path through law and Ed Research at Harvard. Um there I realized I'm like okay this video stuff this learning stuff. Design stuff. All can be a thing and then that is what took me to tech because I realized that that was one of the only places that I knew of at the time where I could put all the things that I was passionate about and good at together in None role instead of trying to make something fit in places that weren't really receptive to. The kind of innovation that tech just has.
06:57.35
lauraklein
This is this is so cool because I'm hearing stuff that I hear from folks that I've worked with that I think have so much to offer to tech and to design and I I feel like sometimes they can struggle like we can struggle as hiring managers. To do that putting it together and saying oh you would be perfect for this role because so many hire managers I think are sometimes looking for like oh do you have 6 years with sigma and you know do you have all of these keywords and um, can you? What's your experience been like with that.
06:32.52
Lawrence
And.
06:51.28
Lawrence
Yeah I mean it's it's tricky and you know my disclaimer is I haven't necessarily interviewed in a while but I had done a fair amount of coaching and guiding people through the design transition. So some of my background I work at Ibm for. Several years where I helped build a pipeline into the design program and specifically I was working a lot with coding you ex boot camps and those people tend to correlate with the you know career changes at the time they were disproportionately underrepresented folks and. I found that obviously there is the expectation from hiring managers to get pre-made preveted. You know they see a certain amount of craftsmanship coming from universities and then there was this you know you need to say that all right the craftsmanship is also here but and this is I think one of my general reframings that I'm trying to have just everyone do and trying to codify these candidates offer a diversity of both identities and a diversity of thought through their background in addition to this craftsmanship which you know yes you can have all of these risd scad designers. But. If they all come from None curriculums. You're not getting the most diverse sample of designers no matter what they look like. So um, you know that's been some of my experience of like practically and I mean without getting in all the details you know saying these are high quality candidates delivering high quality work. But. We are doing ourselves a disservice only talking about the work. The very tangible work that they can offer that's high level been my experience. It's been like a reeducation almost.
11:27.13
lauraklein
So yeah, and so trying to talk to folks about the sort of what the potential is of folks. It could be so hard to sell people on potential especially for underrepresented folks. Um I think that so so much potential in in people that you've seen.
(00:32):
10:31.66
Lawrence
Yeah, yeah.
10:45.10
Lawrence
Yeah, but also you know I think that for you know again, if we're just gonna juxtapose the person coming just out of school and the career chains person they have at the.
12:03.99
lauraklein
Walk that path before and suddenly if you're not, you need all the qualifications.
11:18.98
Lawrence
My Undoubtedly more industry experience when it comes to working on teams and collaborating and I hate using this but like navigating politics and just dealing with the people side of the work which is arguably more important than the tangible deliverable work itself. So It's and ah, you know it's. Taking some time to reframe and say like okay this is the value that I get out of this tranche of people. This is the value that I get out of this category of people. But it's not just about the end Deliverable. It's not even about potential.. It's just the different dimensions.
13:33.15
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, well yeah, and it's interesting because I know Lawrence your your background you started in programming is that right or engineering right? and and fellon you mentioned that you were more research and law and.
12:32.00
Lawrence
Computer science.
12:44.26
Fallon
Yeah I was managing case loads and I was managing projects I wasn't creating anything I was just moving things down a pipeline whether it's getting a case from a file to a judge or getting a research project from a grant to some data.
14:06.41
lauraklein
Ah, you know and project. Yeah, um.
14:35.95
lauraklein
Um, yeah, and what I'm here see. Okay, so you say that and yet having worked with lawyers Sometimes you have to get a little creative. Ah.
13:21.20
Fallon
I was the one moving things along not thinking creatively.
13:40.80
Fallon
All those arguments I had to make were imagine trying to convince the United States government that somebody with fibromyalgia and Ray note syndrome can't work for the rest of their life that is a story that is a story.
(00:54):
15:22.41
lauraklein
Um, that that is that is a narrative. Ah yeah, it's content design I think it's also the the progress like you know, getting things through is very much I can be systems design and figuring out how the process works and process and.
14:13.34
Fallon
And that is some content design needed.
15:59.30
lauraklein
Want to be 1 of those people who's all like everyone's a designer. not everyone's a designer well okay not everyone's a good not it's a good designer ah us yeah, very yes.
14:45.56
Lawrence
Um, I mean I think everyone is but not, everyone's a great designer. Yeah.
14:54.64
Fallon
It's like little D versus big D design which one are you Everyone is a little D designer I think and I don't say little to diminish it. But again with every decision that you're making to do a thing. There's potentially some design there.
16:39.50
lauraklein
I Hundred percent agree like almost everyone cooks and not everyone is ah is a chef but sometimes what you need are a lot of cooks and you know they have a lot to to teach us. So anyway, so it's it's interesting here in short of even the the difference in.
15:31.20
Lawrence
Yeah, yeah.
17:11.97
lauraklein
You know? oh we come from nontraditional backgrounds and nontraditional means different from each other too and trying to find the kind of job that fits each of those skills I know I I end up hiring a lot of Ex engineers because I am one and so I Okay I admit to ah a little bias there. Okay, a lot of bias. Yeah, we do.
16:26.00
Lawrence
We all have our biases. Yeah, ah.
16:27.42
Fallon
We we wi.
17:51.51
lauraklein
But do and but minus minus I like people who think very systematically and who do who cover all the bases and who like and I always find that like the people who actually wrote the programs were on the last they were like the last line of defense for the users like if they didn't handle a.
(01:16):
17:11.56
Lawrence
Um, yeah, and it's yeah I mean I have the same you're in good company. You're in good country.
18:29.53
lauraklein
An Error Nothing went like you know a designer can kind of fake it Anyway. Ah. Yeah, all right? So That's that and again I don't want to go off on a rant there but I just did ah no Yeahll Yeah, oh this is not a thing you want to Encourage. Ah.
17:41.90
Lawrence
Um, this is your podcast look. You can do whatever you need to do a safe space.
17:46.94
Fallon
This is a safes place to rant come on.
18:01.80
Lawrence
Ah, start start sir.
19:25.97
lauraklein
Appreciate it. But you're you're the experts. You're the experts here and um I want to hear. Actually you know what? um we didn't talk about this before I want to hear a little bit about pearl and what pearl does and what but y'all are trying to accomplish um with pearl as well. I I didn't even get into that when I introduced you.
18:35.00
Lawrence
Yeah, so ah, pearl was born out of an org called tech and do better which was founded the week after George Floyd was murdered and it started as an initiative both outlining what systemic equity looked like in the tech industry. As well as making it extremely actionable for everyone from the c-suite leaders to the practitioners software engineers designers hiring managers. Everyone in between and what that looked like was a piece of literature called achieving equity in tech and by and large. Community calls which we brought together people from across the industry basically to share tips and tricks of how to get unstuck how to move the needle within their own companies. Fast forward to January Twenty this past January Twenty Twenty Two we got accepted into a startup accelerator. Where we saw the opportunity to scale what we were doing. Um, basically if you wanted to scale the kind of consultancy work. You know in order to scale a consultancy you kind of have to hire more people but I have a product background and you know tech and design as I mentioned before and the obvious way to scale is. Creating a platform for which you know you can you can scale out without needing to hire necessarily ton new people so that was where pearl was born where we are an on-de demand peer-based leadership consulting platform aiming to bring together diverse leaders from across the industry to see how other leaders are getting things done. And connecting people's and specifically leaders problems. So how to find and hire diverse candidates. For instance, how to manage in an international remote environment. How to manage low performers, etc and connecting them with other people's processes for how to achieve those things. So. That's you know the origin story if you will and the high level ah at a high level what pearl seeks to accomplish.
23:52.91
lauraklein
That sounds amazing I'm I'm very excited to see to see where y'all go with this. Um and so it sounds like you it sounds like you had some literature that you put out already. Um all right? Do you think it's gonna be more of a place where people can go and you know just get. Training that they need is that basically when when when do when do I sign up and and am I the right person to sign up like I'm ah I'm a hiring manager but you know, kind of low level.
23:19.36
Lawrence
Um, yeah, well the? ah.
23:32.68
Lawrence
Oh yeah, absolutely the initial proposal is and always will be in the wild like you can go on tech can do better us and if you go to the proposal section. It's there anyone can look at it and there's the executive summary for you know whether you are quote. A decision maker. Hopefully I didn't drop out um a manager or an employee so there there are actionable items for anyone to do there and the Mvp the pearl solution itself by the time of hearing this. I am assuming that it will be out in the wild for people to join. We're getting kicked off with our pilot programs in the next couple of weeks but that will soon be available and in your hands I mean Laura your hands and hopefully for other the listeners your hands very very soon the next couple of weeks are.
26:26.47
lauraklein
You know my hands my hands.
(01:38):
26:41.17
lauraklein
Excellent. Well I mean considering how slow I am to get actual podcasts out. It will absolutely be available by then but I'm not always you know 100% on top of things as as y'all know. Ah there's there's things going on you know? Um, so that is.
25:25.16
Lawrence
Months.
25:46.94
Lawrence
Um, as anyone is yeah who is.
27:20.89
lauraklein
That is very exciting. You mentioned, um you know, being better about hiring diverse candidates hiring underrepresented underrepresented candidates I mean and this is not the kind of thing that I want to be like hey could you solve that for us in the next ten minutes please um because I think that's um, unfair.
26:39.74
Lawrence
Yeah, and I mean if if I did that I would be sending ah since sending someone an invoice but that's a.
27:58.90
lauraklein
And not possible. Yeah. Yeah, exactly that'd be. But so if folks want to learn more about that. They go to pearl are there other um resources other places we should go to and and what would you and what do you think are the most important things to focus on. Yeah.
27:11.58
Lawrence
Yeah I would still. Yeah I mean I think that you know myself and a ton of other smart and diverse people from across the industry put as much of our brains into that proposal. So I would just have people look into that tech and do better proposal. That's the big one and I definitely have my point of view is to the best starting place and many of them are in that document but Fallon I'm eager to hear what you think about it.
28:04.00
Fallon
I um I think that I agree I would say that that proposal is a really good place to start. It is I joined tech and do better as a part of the community I was not interested I didn't come into it thinking that I was gonna be leading a thing or. Building a product I really it just resonated with me because I was super frustrated I was working at a company that you know was not feeling. It was not necessarily making me feel super supported in my racial identity. So again tech can do better was the none time that in my personal experience as a worker person that I actually. Saw folks trying to put forth actionable solutions to a very big problem that it's gonna take probably a good chunk of time to solve but because you know my bias is towards culture and community I'm thinking my gut is saying that the. Culture is kind of a good place to start codifying it. We talked about values beforehand. Um, you know there's a whole bunch of smarter people than may have done a bunch of research on what's driving you know people leaving work or at least over the past couple of years and it is that culture. You know isn't inclusive. Is it respectful. Is it ethical. Is it cut through you know is it abusive are you actually taking care of people. Um or are you going to continue to put the profits over people to your detriment because again at least in the past couple of years we've been seeing pretty consistently that.
32:22.89
lauraklein
I I think the last couple of years um, have certainly made that evident to to more folks I I think it has been true for much much longer than that just people like me are starting to notice. Yeah no it. So that's yeah, we're but.
31:04.42
Fallon
Something's not working.
31:33.18
Lawrence
Sadly, yeah.
(02:00):
31:34.56
Fallon
Well, you can't ignore it now it's costing money so you can't ignore it now.
32:58.93
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, yeah there you go there, you go? Yeah I'd like to I'd like to fix it for a lot of reasons that is certainly one of them and you know what if that gets more people at a higher level to pay more attention to it. That's great. Let's cost him some money I'm I'm all for it.
32:12.60
Lawrence
Yeah, or I just think you know and much of my bias is you know, seeing how you know being in some of the rooms where some of the decisions are being made I'm realizing more and more just how.
33:35.30
lauraklein
That's fantastic.
32:45.20
Lawrence
Important metrics are for getting anything accomplished and it's important for anyone trying to enact change regardless of whether you're in for profit nonprofit. Whatever to be able to as Fallon set like codify it but specifically codify in a language that people are used to. So. And that and that is metrics and I think that one of my own personal journeys and I know there are a lot of smart people doing this but how do we like turn something so subjective and like qualitative like. Experience at a company like what it feels like to feel like I belong at this company into a metric that we can track over time and disaggregate and say that this group of people are feeling this way. This group isn't and then begin to prioritize it through that lens so and I think that there are a lot of like um. Let's say well intentioned idealist but not a lot of people putting in the paper and saying this is the system that needs to be implemented in order to get there.
36:01.83
lauraklein
Yeah I mean I don't and and Fallon you may you may relate to this as as somebody who's done a lot of qualitative research. That's hard in product that's hard in companies. That's hard and anything that getting that qualitative feedback in a way that. Does feel as actionable as metrics or trying to turn that into metrics. Yeah, so if if you have if y'all are gonna have ah suggestions about that I am I am all for it. I am a huge fan because I agree did that you. Gotta turn it into something and something that doesn't just feel like you know a checkbox that people can game's I you know into my in my design life. We talk a lot about gaming of metrics and how do you you know, keep people from just doing like well but you know we we did all the. We did all the checkboxes and then we happened to hire the person that you know we were gonna hire anyway. Ah, ah you know which doesn't doesn't feel right for anybody. That's not a. It's not a good thing.
36:45.86
Lawrence
Um, yeah, and and that's a trickier and I by no means will pretend to be the expert on matters that big but I mean I think that that's where it comes down to just the. Truly subjective it. It comes down to the leaders values themselves and like do you have the right people in the right places who truly care and will not allow or will you know will not allow the system to be gamed effectively. So and that's the tricky part is how do we encourage.
39:08.67
lauraklein
Yeah, and.
38:04.20
Lawrence
And build systems to get those right people in the right places.
39:24.23
lauraklein
Right? And how and how are you communicating those values I know I know Fallon you have a you have some opinions about this what what kinds of things like if you're working with the team or if you're you know, even looking for a job. Um, what are you? What are you looking for in that.
38:35.60
Fallon
And I'm looking for belonging and I'm looking for obvious markers that people feel like they belong not necessarily groupthink because I think in tech it's very easy to just put it bluntly drink the kool-aid right. We don't really work in tech for products that we might not use or we might not love. So again, it's very very easy to kind of get into and get excited about the idea of a company but then like what are the values look like in action. So those are the types of things that I try to suss out when I'm trying to work with somebody. It's just like. Okay, can you tell me an anecdote of a time where somebody actually exemplified showcased your values in action. How did that work when someone does something that's not aligned with the values of the organization. What does that look like how do those people are those people brought in or those people pushed out. What is the worst part of your job that you hate like I am that person that you don't want to interview because I'm going to ask you these things because as a black cis head woman when I come into these places when I hop on these Zoom calls I'm automatically a threat to some people and I'm going to feel it. And whether or not they say it whether or not they feel comfortable saying I'm going to feel that you don't want to tell me the truth I'm going to feel like you actually don't think that I'm good at my job but maybe what that will look like is I'm getting a lot more questions than everybody else because maybe that's what you do here.
(02:22):
42:26.29
lauraklein
And he.
42:42.21
lauraklein
I.
42:54.47
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah.
41:42.56
Fallon
And so trying to do that interrogation as early and often as possible about what do these values look like in action and trying to make sure that the words align with the action because a lot of times they won't.
43:23.85
lauraklein
And and ah yes, yes, all of that and also trying to make sure that the folks I think it's a great question to ask by the way because I think it's a great question to see if the folks who are interveking. You can't actually talk about the values of the company like yeah yeah.
42:30.46
Fallon
And when you're talking to 8 different people if there is no consistency between the answers run because it's not codified or it is but in silos.
44:09.65
lauraklein
Um, yeah, yeah, and it's always itch I Always I always find it fascinating when you find out that like well on our team. It's X But what everyone says is Y and that's always a fun thing to get out because's like well ok, that's that's you.
43:13.00
Lawrence
And.
44:49.13
lauraklein
Full does that mean that I want to go to this team or but really be in maybe a toxic larger organization or vice versa like do I Want to see if there's something someplace else trying to kind of figure that out.
43:51.24
Lawrence
Yeah, and None thing that and you know being the the systemic I mean I can't that my brain works in systems I guess that's like my my engineering brain but I'm now seeing in the world of startups that. You know the kind of people giving you money like I consumers kind of care about it and customers kind of care about it but investors far less so they don't really care about your values. They care about ah Roi like are you growing are you growing are you growing so and inherently it becomes you know it. It becomes second priority if not none or fourth priority to to just profits and I mean this is where my exercise in you know, can we x more existentially what Pearl is to me. Is an exercise of building a better way of running business without compromising just building an effective business because conventionally I mean just looking at the system producing these outcomes ceos founders are not even remotely incentivized to build or codify culture. It is. Make me money. So ah, there is a bigger exercise and you know being able to articulate a new better system which I didn't realize to what how palpable that is until I started doing this.
48:11.39
lauraklein
The thing that makes me so angry and again I promise I will not start ranting this is your time but the thing that makes me so angry is that there is a lot of research that shows that those 2 things are actually correlated. They are not in conflict.
(02:44):
47:27.66
Lawrence
Earth.
48:48.95
lauraklein
It's not like you can have one. It's not like you can have a diverse group of folks who you know work on things differently and come from different backgrounds so you know it's not like you could have that or you can have profit. It turns out that. Ah.
47:49.78
Lawrence
Um, yeah I mean the there are a ton of Mackenzie studies. Yeah.
48:00.46
Fallon
I But it doesn't feel good but it makes me uncomfortable but I'm not nor it doesn't feel right and that's where that culture and those feelings and all those soft mushy gushy things either help or hurt it right? because again.
49:48.79
lauraklein
But then they would have to admit that they have feelings too and that their decisions are driven by emotions and it's not just people who aren't like them who are being emotional and irrational. It's actually the ones who are saying.
48:44.94
Lawrence
Yep.
50:21.61
lauraklein
So I need a safe space and by a safe space I mean everybody needs to look and feel exactly like me. Yeah.
49:07.80
Lawrence
Exactly and I mean it's just the you know that we live in a society moment where everything gets politicized and obviously any critique against the system is ah kind of a classist critique I mean not to you know, just get really heady with it. But.
49:39.68
Fallon
Oh.
49:45.98
Lawrence
There are groups of you know Identities groups identity groups who have long benefited from it and a critique against that as a crique critique against something more foundational something ickier. Um that brings out the some pretty dark feelings and a lot of people.
51:32.29
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no I would say it's interesting because um I I am extremely not optimistic about some of this stuff. Um, and I felt brutally honest, having been around some of these guys for 25 years now um and yeah I mean I think that there very much is a um, feeling that like I know who gets I know who gets the benefit of the doubt I know who is presumed competent I know who um gets seen as rational and I know who gets seen as irrational and hysterical. Know who gets told that their tone is not right? Um, you know I don't know it as much as some other folks but I certainly have seen it you know over 25 years and and I think when we talk about that sort of systemic and actionable approach to to fixing. These problems I don't know I want to I don't I don't know if the right answer is to try to fix those guys or if the answer is just to try to get more different folks in like I'm so excited about the new generation of designers and product folks.
(03:06):
52:17.32
Lawrence
Yeah.
52:31.58
Lawrence
Yeah I think that my my point of view is very much the latter and I think again going back to the existential existential purpose of pearl. It is my experiment to mobilize and amplify. More of the people with good intentions more of the diverse leaders than necessarily try to change the one who have vested interest in not changing it just doesn't seem like a productive use of anyone's time so on the platform I mean even in our pilots Fallon and I have been very intentional about. Making sure that our values and again we're codifying these but the obvious one is the community of people on our platform will be diverse. You are coming to pearl to get a diverse perspective on leadership and what that looks like not just from you know, just to say it like straight white dudes and it's like this is what. You know, young black leaders are thinking this is what middle managers who are latin x are thinking about certain things and begin to amplify the long overlooked leaders at the middle of companies that probably don't look like the leaders we're used to seeing so again I'm I'm pretty. Cynical about a lot of things. But I think that the best avenue for change at least right now is just building something better as opposed to trying to change people's minds who probably don't want to or at the very least do not benefit from things changing or overtly. So.
56:45.83
lauraklein
Yeah, may I know I those are gone.
55:30.56
Fallon
And what I'll add to that is that it's kind of this idea of giving folks credit for what they do to I think that is the biggest thing that excites me about pearl as as a documenter person as a doer. I Can go here and write down what I did show you exactly the results of my efforts and if you look at that over time you can know and see exactly what I can do I can get credit from my work and the value that I added versus again as we all Know. We're on design we're on a team. It's a team. It's everybody's idea. Yeah, but not so much exactly exactly exactly so like for me, that's the biggest thing that gets me super super excited about Pearl The idea.
58:09.83
lauraklein
It's we we all did it? Yeah except for the person who took credit. Yeah, ah.
57:13.30
Fallon
Ah, giving credit to the doers for doing as they're doing it.
58:38.89
lauraklein
Yeah I don't know Fellon Are you saying that I as a design manager can no longer just take credit for all the stuff that my team is doing I mean that's that's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt. My review is what I'm saying. Ah.
57:32.28
Fallon
I mean you could you here's the thing here's the thing you can reframe that and say I am able and facilitated this amazing team of designers to do all of these wonderful things. Let me tell you exactly how Lawrence contributed let me tell you exactly how Fallon contributed let me tell you exactly how.
57:34.48
Lawrence
You can try.
58:09.94
Fallon
Joe Schmo over here contributed and and I facilitated and drove all of that amazing right? You enabled it come on and that in and of itself should get you a cookie. It should get you a cookie because look what you did.
59:36.70
lauraklein
Um I I made it possible I made it possible mostly by mostly by getting the hell out of their way. Ah yeah I mean that's that's all that's that's all I ever want is a cookie. Yeah.
(03:28):
58:24.88
Lawrence
Um, yeah, yeah, and and bringing it full circle. Yeah, and it's you know I think it takes. Does take tremendous skill to be a good coach or orchestrator knowing that it's not just about the craft. You know we talked about at the beginning. It's like this is the kind of you know we need someone who is very conceptual and is the visionary and we also need someone who will get the job done and. Need the personalities to work between them. But oh we also need this other person in the mix and I have to be the one to organize them and keep them moving that is hard and I think that in the same way that design and writing and cooking because anyone can technically do them. There is this deception that they're easy. But I think that leadership is very very hard and it's very nuanced and with pearl I'm Beginning. You know this is beginning to make the as balances all the time implicit explicit and try to tease out a lot of the nuance that makes a great leader. So. And I think that for that in that sense. Yes, you should be celebrated for bringing all these people together and getting the hell out of their way.
01:00:52.98
Fallon
You should and that is how we should talk about leadership right? Not necessarily look at me look at me. It's look at us. Sometimes it's look at me sometimes it's look at us. Sometimes it's look over there but being able to pivot.
01:02:18.25
lauraklein
You're you're You're both very sweet but ah. Yeah I mean um. Yeah, look at look at what they did. Ah, yeah.
01:01:22.82
Lawrence
Me.
01:01:27.50
Fallon
Right? that that idea of making leadership more and like less inflexible.
01:02:56.11
lauraklein
Like like a hundred percent so I I I absolutely agree with all of that. Um I think like honestly the only thing that I actually do is hire and um I have found it to be challenging. Um, what he. Because I think that you have some related ideas here about like I like to ask people what they think the hardest thing is about either hiring or getting hired.
01:02:30.20
Lawrence
Um, do you want to go fail I have my point of view. But.
01:02:38.32
Fallon
Yeah I think yeah cause mine comes like for like in the beginning. It's really trying to suss out using poorly written job descriptions whether or not this is even worth my time I find that the last time that I was doing this was. Ah, couple months ago and you know thankfully I had personal relationships so I could hear from people who were there about what it was like but the last time it was ah it was kind of a research project all ah you know on its own I'm reading this I'm not really inspired. It's not really clear I don't really know what I'm going to be doing. So Maybe I can go to the blog or maybe I can go watch a video or by the time I'm done I'm like an hour in and I haven't even put an application in so we should try to figure out a better way to write job descriptions because they are not great.
01:05:36.91
lauraklein
And I think that ties in so well with a lot of the stuff that we've been talking about about like you said making making the implicit explicit like about saying this is what you're going to be doing this is who you're going to be doing it with this is the kind of outcome. This is the kind of team. These are the values. This is what we want. This is what we're looking for.
01:04:47.82
Fallon
This is how we're measuring success that is the biggest thing but again um I've also been on the inside where somebody just quit but we need to hire somebody. We are not thinking creatively right? right? It's copy Pasta spaghetti like it's gross. But.
01:06:14.59
lauraklein
Oh God I Love that.
(03:50):
01:06:29.15
lauraklein
Copy paste copy Pastte. Ah.
01:05:15.50
Lawrence
We.
01:06:38.11
lauraklein
Ah, yeah, we will take we will take somebody who has the title designer yes or engineer or whatever. Yeah, that's that is hard how how about you Lawrence what's what's the hardest thing for you about hiring or getting hired.
01:05:27.42
Fallon
It's what end them happening.
01:05:36.92
Lawrence
Um, ah.
01:05:52.94
Lawrence
Yeah I think mine is I mean plus one to everything that was talked about and you know my head goes kind of to where it's been a lot of this time and it's more conceptual but capturing and then you know also articulating.
01:07:15.11
lauraklein
Other than everything we've talked about.
01:06:27.96
Lawrence
More the full spectrum of a candidate so of what someone has to offer beyond just can you use figma. Do you do you know? what? a cloud storage is. It's like what is. Your identity and how you see the work. Not only diversity of identity but diversity of thought and I think you said it before Laura but value fit culture ad and you need far more than just skills and capabilities I think that it is helpful to see track record to see. And a high level. Obviously they're imperfect those psychometric assessments of like are you detailed versus? are you high level? Are you extroverted versus are you introverted not to preclude anyone from specific things but it does give you some correlation with all right? What am I roughly. You know, roughly? How does this person fit into the to the equation and you know doing that in a ah way a quick way is really really hard. So I yeah I think that that's the crux of it. All.
01:09:48.65
lauraklein
Yeah, if we could get hiring to even start to uncover some of those questions like the kit would be enormously better. Um, any just sort of as a last thing any any great stories or cautionary tales as I like to call them Of. Um, ah of of hiring the hiring bloopers real if you will.
01:09:22.20
Lawrence
Fallon has 1
01:09:20.66
Fallon
I do ah, if you find yourself on a Zoom or a call with someone who does not look like you do not lean into trying very very hard to relate because None times out of 10 it will have the um. Opposite effect I was talking to a person um interviewing them to potentially be my manager in an effort to relate to me as I said earlier black says had woman over here. This person was not. They told a story about growing up on a farm and doing some manual labor with folks who. Do did not look like them I'm not going to go into any further detail to further traumatize. Ah the listeners. But ultimately that made me feel unsafe disrespected and I just wanted to run screaming off that call because I'm like okay. Not only do I now have doubts about your ability to do the job I have doubts about your character as a human and I don't know if this would be ah, a value. Add a culture fit none of it and unfortunately they didn't get thorough.
(04:12):
01:12:53.85
lauraklein
I mean it would certainly be a. It would certainly be a value add I'm not sure that that's the value that you were looking to add though I I Never really thought that I'd hear a story that was that was significant. You know that that was that was worse than the like Oh let me tell you about my black friends but and yet some.
01:11:50.30
Lawrence
Are.
01:11:50.64
Fallon
No.
01:12:11.66
Fallon
Honestly, this is adjacent. It's it's kind of it's It's under the same umbrella of of disrespectful as far as I'm concerned.
01:13:32.79
lauraklein
Help. Yeah yeah.
01:13:41.25
lauraklein
Yeah, no, that's um, yeah, let's all let's in terms of the tech can do better.
01:12:32.70
Fallon
Like the kernel I'll give him this the kernel of the nugget of the intention was good, but right intent versus impact your intention was to connect with me the impact was you pushed me so far away. You could never, You're never gonna see me again.
01:14:23.41
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, and and because it was done in such a completely ham handed way that just you know like you are if that is what you are doing to try to connect with another human being. That's yeah.
01:13:32.32
Fallon
Yeah, we need more practice in the connection we need we we like maybe you're being in the beginnings of your journey and maybe you know after a couple more swings and misses. You'll get it but not all my time and time.
01:14:59.23
lauraklein
That's not great.
01:15:16.65
lauraklein
I I do I do not blame you big. Thank you for sharing that was um, definitely in the ah in the cautionary tales ah can't category. Um, listen this has been so fantastic. Thank you both so much for coming on. Um.
(04:34):
01:14:22.64
Fallon
Yep.
01:15:54.47
lauraklein
That is all the time that we have for today. Um I want to thank Lawrence and Fallon for for joining us I also want to thank everybody out there for listening and I want to wish everybody the yeah thanks I want to wish everybody the best of luck with your own search whether it's for a new job or a new employee. Um I am rooting for you.
01:14:47.34
Lawrence
Yeah, thank you, Thank you.
01:14:49.46
Fallon
Thank you so much.
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