Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio. I got to say, staying
Speaker 1: update on what's going on in the world, it can
Speaker 1: be pretty difficult right now, and the narrative can change
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. I mean, it's an environment where a soft
Speaker 1: landing has quickly dissolved into well maybe not or maybe
Speaker 1: even a US recession or as we just heard with
Speaker 1: David Weston, who talked with former US Treasury and Wall
Speaker 1: Street Week contributor Larry Summers. He talked about the energizer
Speaker 1: bunny for the US economy. It's how he described it,
Speaker 1: especially after that strong non forim payrolls print bottom line.
Speaker 1: A lot coming at US companies, global companies and their leaders.
Speaker 1: We have a great guest to kind of give us
Speaker 1: some perspective and what can help leaders in this type
Speaker 1: of environment. We talked with her about three years ago
Speaker 1: about her then latest book Oncommon Service, joining us once
Speaker 1: again as Francis Fry, Professor of Technology and Operations Management
Speaker 1: at Harvard Business School. Her new book out, Move Fast
Speaker 1: and Fix Things. The Trusted Leader's Guide to Solve the
Speaker 1: Hard Problems. She co authored with Anne Morris. The two
Speaker 1: also co host the ted podcast Fixable. She's joining us
Speaker 1: on Zoom from Boston, Massachusetts. Francis so nice to have
Speaker 1: you back here on Bloomberg, and we do like to
Speaker 1: remind our viewers and listeners. You also worked at Uber
Speaker 1: back in twenty seventeen, your senior VP for Leadership and Strategy,
Speaker 1: and worked on improving the company's culture by really working
Speaker 1: with them when it comes to teamwork. I want to
Speaker 1: start big broad if I may, and that is the world,
Speaker 1: because I feel like the world is this great global
Speaker 1: classroom right now. What fascinates you in terms of whether
Speaker 1: it's Washington, whether it's corporate America, global companies when it
Speaker 1: comes to thinking about how things are getting done or
Speaker 1: not getting done.
Speaker 2: Oh thanks, Carolyn, Jess, I really appreciate being here. So
Speaker 2: what fascinates me is that how much we're in our
Speaker 2: own way. And I actually find that incredibly optimistic because
Speaker 2: we can get out of our own way. So it's
Speaker 2: not that externalities are forcing us to behave one way,
Speaker 2: but that we're either recklessly moving too fast or out
Speaker 2: of fear we're staying still for too long, and so
Speaker 2: our finding the balance of how to move fast and
Speaker 2: fix things. To me, is a really optimistic view of
Speaker 2: the world. Why do you.
Speaker 3: Think the trade off between speed and excellence is false?
Speaker 2: Well, I think that when when Mark Zuckerberg said move
Speaker 2: fast and break things, he convinced people, perhaps unknowingly, that
Speaker 2: you could either move fast and break things or you
Speaker 2: could go slow and take care of things. So he
Speaker 2: presented that you can either take care of people or
Speaker 2: go fast. But we have found that you can actually
Speaker 2: go even faster in accelerating excellence if you build trust
Speaker 2: along the way.
Speaker 1: So when you say trust, is it all kinds of
Speaker 1: trust with your employees, your workforce, with your customers, your suppliers.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I talked with the founder and see of Chabani,
Speaker 1: and you know how he thinks of sustainable business. I know,
Speaker 1: I know, I'm with you. When he thinks about sustainable business,
Speaker 1: it's for his employees, it's for his customer, a surrounding community.
Speaker 1: So come on in on this. When you think about
Speaker 1: when you talk about trust, what it means.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I do think that it's important to think
Speaker 2: about it for all of those stakeholders. And so what
Speaker 2: we find is that whatever problem you're facing, and we
Speaker 2: encourage people to go after their hardest problem. So whatever
Speaker 2: the hardest thing you have to do right now, you're
Speaker 2: going to find that trust is broken down with at
Speaker 2: least one of those stakeholders. And if you build that
Speaker 2: trust first and then you go fast on top of it,
Speaker 2: h you can accelerate excellence. The mistake we find people
Speaker 2: make is that they go fast before building the trust,
Speaker 2: and then very bad things can happen.
Speaker 3: Walk us through some of the five essential steps that
Speaker 3: you talk about as far as moving fast and fixing things.
Speaker 2: Sure, and we organize it by day of the week
Speaker 2: with only a half joke that you can solve any
Speaker 2: hard problem in a week. But Monday is to solve
Speaker 2: the real problem, which is most problems present as one thing,
Speaker 2: but then the root cause is somewhere else. So make
Speaker 2: sure that you're going not addressing the symptom, but actually
Speaker 2: getting all the way down to the cause. Tuesday it's
Speaker 2: to build a good enough plan by solving for trust
Speaker 2: at the at the core of it. Wednesday we call
Speaker 2: it make new Friends Day, and that is whatever your
Speaker 2: plan is, you've probably talked to too many people who
Speaker 2: are just like you. So on Wednesday we encourage you
Speaker 2: to very deliberately make new friends. And the new friends
Speaker 2: of the type that think differently, see differently, have a
Speaker 2: different set of skills. So be inclusive of loads of
Speaker 2: more diverse perspectives. Your plan will become an even better plan.
Speaker 2: Is it by Thursday?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Go ahead?
Speaker 1: Oh no, forgive me?
Speaker 3: No? Keep?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, finish up?
Speaker 2: Okay? All right? So Thursday it is a chance to
Speaker 2: communicate it. And so we have very specific ideas of
Speaker 2: how to communicate well, which the short version is, understand
Speaker 2: something so deeply that you can describe it simply, and
Speaker 2: simply deeply communication is the is the key. And then Friday,
Speaker 2: go as fast as you can. But please, Friday is
Speaker 2: day five, It's not days one through four.
Speaker 1: You know, why did you write this book now or
Speaker 1: why did you want to put it out now? Was
Speaker 1: there something that you saw kind of in real life?
Speaker 1: You do case studies at Harvard. I'm just curious what
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 2: You know, we saw too much what we call responsible stewardship.
Speaker 2: We saw too many people being paralyzed in the presence
Speaker 2: of real problems. There was paralysis and when we investigated
Speaker 2: why are people not moving, it was because they were
Speaker 2: afraid of the reckless disruption of the moving fast and
Speaker 2: breaking things. So we did this to provide the roadmap,
Speaker 2: and it's a playbook. I mean, it tells you exactly
Speaker 2: how to do it. The roadmap so to get out
Speaker 2: of the paralysis to solve our world's most urgent challenges.
Speaker 1: Hey, I wonder you know, in a week where we've
Speaker 1: been obsessed with the fraud trial of Samuel bankmin Freed
Speaker 1: and FTX, there's somebody who moved fast, right, and certainly
Speaker 1: something's got broken, very reckless, right. So I mean when
Speaker 1: you look at that story, that case, that reality, and
Speaker 1: of course only charges will see where this trial ends up.
Speaker 1: I don't know, how do you look at it or
Speaker 1: how is it a teaching moment?
Speaker 2: Well, for me, it's that it looked like sam didn't
Speaker 2: really believe he had to build trust with multiple constituents, right,
Speaker 2: that he he did what he wanted to do and
Speaker 2: it didn't matter. It didn't matter to him because he
Speaker 2: was being lavished so much monetarily. So to me like
Speaker 2: solving the real problem. Probably the real problem was that
Speaker 2: he was building something that maybe didn't make sense and
Speaker 2: then solving for trust at the core of that. So
Speaker 2: I don't know if it was fraud or not, but
Speaker 2: I would It looks to me like he moved very
Speaker 2: fast in the absence of trust, and that's a very
Speaker 2: classic problem.
Speaker 1: Speaking of trust, Frances, it was so quick for the
Speaker 1: world media investors, big name investors, smart people to quickly
Speaker 1: mark him, brand him, you know, the JP Morgan of crypto,
Speaker 1: and believe that he was the go to voice on
Speaker 1: everything in any crypto. You know, how do you think
Speaker 1: about that as well? I mean, you know, for me once,
Speaker 1: shame on you for me twice, like you know, they're always.
Speaker 2: Probably more than twice. Yeah, yeah, what is that about?
Speaker 2: You know? My positives been on It is that we
Speaker 2: are all like it taps into our optimism that there
Speaker 2: is a like, dramatically better way and that it will
Speaker 2: be individuals that bring us there. The pessimistic side of
Speaker 2: me thinks that we're just looking to get in before
Speaker 2: everyone else catches on. So we want early money to
Speaker 2: be benefited, regardless of how it turns out. But it
Speaker 2: is we are in quite a cycle of believing things
Speaker 2: very early without applying the rigor that we show. We
Speaker 2: are a very rigorous people, but we are willing to
Speaker 2: suspend that in an increasing frequency.
Speaker 3: We have about a minute left in this segment. But
Speaker 3: what are some examples of leaders who use speed to
Speaker 3: their advantage to solve their problems? Oh?
Speaker 2: Well, I would say Microsoft is my favorite current example.
Speaker 2: And this is an organization that is so big it
Speaker 2: should be able to move fast and yeah, and yet
Speaker 2: look how it has catapulted everyone in the field of AI.
Speaker 2: And that's just its latest marvel that it's been able
Speaker 2: to do. And they're getting there. They build trust with
Speaker 2: all of their stakeholder if they communicate beautifully, they make
Speaker 2: loads of new friends. So I would say that they
Speaker 2: are a role model of doing it.
Speaker 3: Well, we're continuing our conversation with friends. Is Fry, professor
Speaker 3: of Technology and Operations Management at Harvard Business School, on
Speaker 3: her book Move Fast and Fix Things, The Trusted Leader's
Speaker 3: Guide to Solving Hard Problems that she co authored with
Speaker 3: Anne Morris. The two also co host a tied podcast
Speaker 3: called Fixable. So she's still joining us on zoom from Boston, Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: You were just speaking with us and talking with us
Speaker 3: about the five essential steps to moving fast and fixing
Speaker 3: things for corporate leaders. I'm curious about how challenging is
Speaker 3: it for executives to successfully create a culture where everyone
Speaker 3: can thrive and try to prevent top talent from leaving.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's within our capacity. I find that we're
Speaker 2: not all born with knowing how to do it, and
Speaker 2: so we try to provide secret memos in the book
Speaker 2: of here's how to do it. But the prescription we
Speaker 2: would give for how to do it is that you
Speaker 2: have to create an environment where, regardless of any difference
Speaker 2: that any of us represents, our job is to make
Speaker 2: one another feel safe and welcome. And then, because of
Speaker 2: our unique skills, and I think this is really important,
Speaker 2: because of our uniqueness, we should celebrate and champion one another.
Speaker 2: When we do that, Oh, your top talent will stay.
Speaker 1: One of the things that got my attention because I'm
Speaker 1: always thinking about this is run better meetings. You have
Speaker 1: a little notation in your book about it, and I
Speaker 1: feel like the art of running a good meeting. I
Speaker 1: will tell you here, we've had conference rooms that don't
Speaker 1: have chairs in them at times because to make it
Speaker 1: go quickly, or are reducing like not everybody needs to
Speaker 1: be here, it's only some you know. So what's your
Speaker 1: thinking on that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, meeting?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like where we were having tons of zoom meetings.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So first I would say that every meeting has
Speaker 2: to be have an agenda. If it doesn't have an agenda,
Speaker 2: you should take that as an invitation not to attend.
Speaker 2: That's the first thing. The second thing is that whatever
Speaker 2: the objectives are of the meeting, don't put time stamps
Speaker 2: next to them. Don't say, oh, this and we'll do
Speaker 2: for the first third, then the next third and the next third,
Speaker 2: because we will fill the allotted time. So let us
Speaker 2: be done when we're done, like, let us be achievement oriented.
Speaker 2: The third thing is I do think it's useful to
Speaker 2: not invite as many people, but you don't want people
Speaker 2: to feel left out. So I encourage people to tape
Speaker 2: meetings and encourage people to watch it on two x
Speaker 2: the speed because that's just about the right speed to
Speaker 2: do it. That automatically saves half of your time in meetings.
Speaker 2: And indeed, I would encourage you to go for a
Speaker 2: walk while you're listening to the meeting. It's a very
Speaker 2: intimate way to consume it. And then my last tip
Speaker 2: is if we're not careful, what will happen in a
Speaker 2: meeting is you'll say something, then I'll say something similar,
Speaker 2: and someone else says something similar and similar, and then
Speaker 2: we all just want to like it. We're just done. Instead,
Speaker 2: after you say something, the facilitator should say the following phrase.
Speaker 2: Can someone articulate an alternate point of view? I've now
Speaker 2: just sent the message, no more redundancy. Now somebody else
Speaker 2: is going to say something different, and then one more
Speaker 2: point of difference. So if we diverge early, we'll converge
Speaker 2: higher and faster. The problem is, most meetings converge early
Speaker 2: have loads of redundancy, and we don't actually end up
Speaker 2: accomplishing very much.
Speaker 1: I love that idea of diverging.
Speaker 3: How has working from home because of the pandemic ended
Speaker 3: up affecting leader's ability to try to solve some of
Speaker 3: these problems when you have a little bit of a
Speaker 3: barrier if not everybody is in the office with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I find that having the ability to be
Speaker 2: remote like we are right now, or to be in
Speaker 2: person is better than hiving to either only be remote
Speaker 2: or only be in person. So I think hybrid dominates
Speaker 2: the other two and that we should figure out when
Speaker 2: to use each one. But we want to optimize how
Speaker 2: we use each one. So people tell me that in
Speaker 2: Zoom meetings they worry that it doesn't have as much caricatures,
Speaker 2: have as much character as in person. I'm like, but
Speaker 2: in Zoom we have chat, we can courage one another,
Speaker 2: we can share thoughts, we can use those beautiful emojis
Speaker 2: that float around in between. So there's many more degrees
Speaker 2: of dimensionality in Zoom that we just don't often take
Speaker 2: advantage of. So I encourage people to just as much
Speaker 2: as you think about how to meet in person, think
Speaker 2: about how to meet remotely, and I think some beautiful
Speaker 2: things will happen.
Speaker 1: You work with a lot of companies, you write case studies.
Speaker 1: Are there companies you look at and you're like, God,
Speaker 1: I just would like a week with them?
Speaker 2: Oh yes, So Chabani, who you have on the previous one,
Speaker 2: like longtime fan, longtime fan of them. I'm also I
Speaker 2: like hypergrowth, and so I think the company's stripe has
Speaker 2: done remarkable things in a very short period of time
Speaker 2: and maintained the dignity of its workforce along the way.
Speaker 2: So I like them as well. And then for outside
Speaker 2: of the US, there is a company in Peru called
Speaker 2: a Noova Schools. It's the best educated education model I
Speaker 2: have ever seen anywhere in the world, and they designed
Speaker 2: a system where people in the emerging middle class they
Speaker 2: educate them in dramatically awesome ways for a very low fee,
Speaker 2: and it's for profit. So they've learned how to do
Speaker 2: this in a way that can be scalable to other countries.
Speaker 2: So that's where I go for inspiration.
Speaker 3: Love that, what does inclusiveness mean to you?
Speaker 2: Setting the conditions for everyone to thrive despite any differences
Speaker 2: that they have, and realizing that we really like people
Speaker 2: who are really like us, and so we should try
Speaker 2: to learn the behavior of how to set the conditions
Speaker 2: for people who are not like us to be to
Speaker 2: also thrive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love in your book, You're right, make it
Speaker 1: physically and emotionally safe to be different, and that despite
Speaker 1: all the conversations and commitments and goals maybe put out
Speaker 1: by companies, there's one thing to say it, and then
Speaker 1: there's one thing to really make an environment where if
Speaker 1: your view and even the viewpoint, like I love what
Speaker 1: you said about meetings right to present a different viewpoint, I.
Speaker 2: Just let's Yeah, if we just emphasize difference, we will
Speaker 2: achieve so much more than our instinct to emphasize sameness.
Speaker 1: Hey, listen in this final thirty second speaking of difference,
Speaker 1: the division in politics, is there a fix? There?
Speaker 2: There is, but it would require we only know how
Speaker 2: to help people who want to change. And so if
Speaker 2: the requirement is that they want to improve, if they
Speaker 2: wanted to improve, I actually think we could fix it
Speaker 2: in a week. But what they would have to want
Speaker 2: to improve and they haven't convinced me of that?
Speaker 1: Well, great way to end in such a timely conversation.
Speaker 1: I love it, Francis, you always make it real and relevant.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, have a great weekend and look
Speaker 1: forward to checking with you once again. Francis Fryes. She's
Speaker 1: professor of Technology and Operations Management at Harvard Business School.
Speaker 1: Her new book out, as just mentioned, co authored with
Speaker 1: Anne Maurice, Move Fast and Fixed Things, The Trusted Leader's
Speaker 1: Guide to Solving hard problems. Joining us on zoom from Boston, Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: And as we mentioned, they also do a podcast called Fixable.
Speaker 1: It's a ted podcast and so just interesting right common sense.
Speaker 1: Love it. This is Bloomberg