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Speaker 1: Enjoy this throwback episode of Black Tech, Green Moneyvie holiday season.

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Speaker 1: I'm Will Lucas, Mrs Black Tech, Green Money. I'm going

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Speaker 1: to introduce you to some of the biggest names, some

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Speaker 1: of the brightest violence and brilliant ideas. Feel black in

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Speaker 1: building for simply using Texas secure your back. This podcast

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Speaker 1: is for you. Everett Heart per CEO and co founder

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Speaker 1: of Trust, a human center and software development company. He's

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Speaker 1: also author of the new leadership book Moved to the

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Speaker 1: Edge the Player, a Center, which was published by Widey

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Speaker 1: earlier this year. He was previously director of Customer Acquisition

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Speaker 1: and Community at Linden Lab Make Your Second Life, a

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Speaker 1: CEO and technologist who also hits many stages around the

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Speaker 1: world to talk about diversity, equity and inclusion. I asked

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Speaker 1: Effort to speak on this. I get that as a

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Speaker 1: more imperative diversity, but it is all so profitable to hire, fund,

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Speaker 1: promote and support black people. Uh. The quick answer is

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Speaker 1: yes and UH. There is a research um history, both

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Speaker 1: in academia and in practice for the last decade. UH.

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Speaker 1: Cathy Williams, for example, Late Great Kathy Williams Dr Cathy

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Speaker 1: Williams UH documented how that makes UM words that have

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Speaker 1: diverse boards have higher returns. Diverse ship teams returns the

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Speaker 1: UM process of innovation. More diverse teams have better UH

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Speaker 1: they essentially less blind spots when coming up with a solution.

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Speaker 1: So there's any number at different levels for the business

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Speaker 1: case for all those things. And that's before saying, oh,

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Speaker 1: if my customers are diverse, I would need to have representations.

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Speaker 1: So UM, there's a lot of history. At this point,

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Speaker 1: the ship has already sailed. So when you think about innovation,

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Speaker 1: I remember I don't remember which of the founders of

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Speaker 1: Twitter who talked about this, but there was a founder

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Speaker 1: of Twitter who talked about when you're trying to get people,

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Speaker 1: when you're trying to find a success in a startup,

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Speaker 1: the best thing you can do is not try to

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Speaker 1: change what people already do, but make what they do

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Speaker 1: more efficient, because when you try to get people to

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Speaker 1: change habits, you have an uphill, you know, battle to climb.

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Speaker 1: And so can you talk about there was an article

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Speaker 1: I've read that you had um wrote this particular line.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna read it back to you and you may

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Speaker 1: remember writing it. It says, we have a culture of

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Speaker 1: innovation quote unquote is a statement found on crumpled banners,

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Speaker 1: rolled up posters, and trash prochures, failed startups and shuttered businesses.

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Speaker 1: Companies and investors have tried to shift fund or shock

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Speaker 1: their employees into being becoming more innovative. Um. And then

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Speaker 1: you went on to say, an infrastructure for innovation beats

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Speaker 1: a culture of innovation. So those two concepts, the one

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Speaker 1: that I position and what you just wrote, how do

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Speaker 1: we how should we think about innovation when we are

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Speaker 1: black founders, when we have a unique perspective in the

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Speaker 1: marketplace and trying to build something, hopefully that the world

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Speaker 1: has never seen that will you know, provide us some

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Speaker 1: capital that we can build, you know, generational wealth. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: good points. And I guess I was feeling spicy that day. Um,

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Speaker 1: so I think, um, here's how we think about it now.

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Speaker 1: Twitter's culture. I don't know enough in the detail of

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Speaker 1: how they think about culture to be precise about what

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Speaker 1: they did because it may include an infrastructure that I

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Speaker 1: don't know. But I do know is when you talk

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Speaker 1: to BlackBerry, and you talked to Deck, and you talk

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Speaker 1: to folks at companies that Xerox Park that had the innovations. However,

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Speaker 1: they weren't able to put it in a system that

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Speaker 1: enabled those innovations to scale, or to be shared, or

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Speaker 1: to be sustainable. And it's really the system part that

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about to make innovations actually come to light.

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Speaker 1: So a different way to think about it is that um,

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Speaker 1: for example, when we with the with the pandemic and pele, oh,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna grit our teeth through this, and um, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna make it through by sheer will and hard work.

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Speaker 1: Well after a couple of months that bill starts to drop.

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Speaker 1: You can't sustain heroism like that. But if you build

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Speaker 1: a system that enables more people to benefit from that

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Speaker 1: system without the same amount of toil, then you're able

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Speaker 1: to get the innovations or any kind of innovations out

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Speaker 1: into the market where it can be tested in in

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Speaker 1: in with the customers. So I'm of the mind that

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Speaker 1: you don't have to look far for ideas for companies,

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Speaker 1: but that there are problems that exist all around us.

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Speaker 1: And can you talk a little bit about how, if

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Speaker 1: how do you admonish would be entrepreneurs to maybe look

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Speaker 1: more at their story in what is going on in

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Speaker 1: their world to help them come up with concepts or

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Speaker 1: ideas or projects that could ultimately become businesses to UM

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Speaker 1: more authentically practice a new way of doing things that

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Speaker 1: other people can employ. Also, Yeah, So what I tell

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Speaker 1: entrepreneurs with regard to that question is, you know, you

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Speaker 1: start with the problem that you know that your experience,

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Speaker 1: but you're only one person. For the next thing to

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Speaker 1: do immediately is to test it with other people around you.

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Speaker 1: Is this compelling? Is it um memorable? Does it solve

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Speaker 1: a problem? Doesn't accelerate your life? And be real honest

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Speaker 1: about that. That's actually the thing I love to do

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Speaker 1: most UM and UM. You'll get some people who will

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Speaker 1: support you, that's still not good enough that takes you

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Speaker 1: to the next level. Then it's people that you haven't

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Speaker 1: met before. And that's where the iteration and you know,

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Speaker 1: whether it's UM being start up principles or other iteration principles,

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Speaker 1: where you get out and you see whether your idea

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Speaker 1: takes hold, whether people grab it, whether people are doing

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Speaker 1: things on where you develop a platform for it. So

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Speaker 1: UM the ten with people that are around you is

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Speaker 1: only the first step. It's validing that and then it's

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Speaker 1: that might be a good idea, but is it a business?

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Speaker 1: So you have to ask the other kind of tops

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Speaker 1: of questions. Are people going to pay for it? Are

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Speaker 1: they going to devote their time for it? Are they

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Speaker 1: going to build on it? Those are the next level

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Speaker 1: questions that frankly, I find more entrepreneurs step missed that

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Speaker 1: boat than they do with ideas, because I think people

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Speaker 1: are full of different ideas. UM. I'll say the second

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Speaker 1: thing I tell people, everybody has the same tend people

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Speaker 1: the same idea you do right now, whatever it is,

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Speaker 1: six of those people and those people will just be

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Speaker 1: talking about it, thinking about it, whatever, won't even write

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Speaker 1: it down. Seven and eight person might have done a

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Speaker 1: little testing, might have like you know, explored some avenues,

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Speaker 1: but they got busy, got distracted. The ninth person actually

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Speaker 1: is is UM doing something about it? Is actually testing it.

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Speaker 1: Maybe there is a little bit of money. You want

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Speaker 1: to be the tenth person who has done all of

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Speaker 1: that and UM gone and put the diligence in the

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Speaker 1: time into that thing. So the idea is not the

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Speaker 1: original part. It's whether you're able to turn it into

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Speaker 1: something that's a repeatable practice that people will buy. There's

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Speaker 1: this concept of UM, and I think it's like people

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Speaker 1: like Peter til who talk about this like you have

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Speaker 1: to have a unique perspective on things like what is

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Speaker 1: your unique value? Like why should you be doing this thing?

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Speaker 1: If you're going to an investor and they're like, you know, okay,

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Speaker 1: we understand there's an opportunity in the marketplace, but why

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Speaker 1: are you the one to solve this thing? And when

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Speaker 1: I talk to entrepreneurs, sometimes not not of you know,

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Speaker 1: black descent or African American descent or African descent, I

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Speaker 1: should say, um, I find entrepreneurs who maybe in wildly

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Speaker 1: successful businesses, but they have no passion for the business

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Speaker 1: that they're in. Maybe they do you know, street signs, right,

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Speaker 1: whatever it is that they do. And I wonder if

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Speaker 1: you could play the other side of that conversation, like

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Speaker 1: when is it okay for us to just be opportunists

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Speaker 1: and see an opportunity in the marketplace and go do

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Speaker 1: something about it. There's no argument against that, that's for sure.

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Speaker 1: I think it's funny when you talk about why are

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Speaker 1: you the person? If you're not the person, but you

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Speaker 1: have a hundred thousand people saying that you are the person.

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Speaker 1: That's about it. Whether I think you're the person or

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Speaker 1: where the investor things your person is a hundred thousand

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Speaker 1: people back there and they're buying my service who think

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Speaker 1: I'm the person. They don't care about me, They care

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Speaker 1: about the service. And so if you're trying to get

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Speaker 1: funding and you have a whole bunch of traction, you

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Speaker 1: have a whole bunch of crazy fans. Um that's volumes.

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Speaker 1: Now they may be look other kinds of pattern matching, right,

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Speaker 1: but results talk. So I think that that's the first

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Speaker 1: thing I think about when you're when you're when you

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Speaker 1: were saying um. And in terms of like taking opportunities, yeah,

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Speaker 1: because sometimes you practice that this one fails, but you

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Speaker 1: learn some things. You take another crack at it, a

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Speaker 1: little bit longer, a little bit later, another and then

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Speaker 1: it's the next idea that actually clicks. But waiting for

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Speaker 1: that perfect opportunity probably aren't going to ever start. So

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Speaker 1: if you see something before it tested out and then

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Speaker 1: hit that wall and say, yep, this is not the

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Speaker 1: business I want to be, that's much better than sort

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Speaker 1: of waiting back and hoping for perfect situation, because that's

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Speaker 1: not going to ever happen. Well, describe what that wall

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Speaker 1: could look like. How do you know when it's time

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Speaker 1: to hang it up. How do you know when it's

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Speaker 1: time that yet, I've been doing this long enough, I've

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Speaker 1: been I've spend too much money, or I'm not getting this.

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Speaker 1: How do you know what is the thing that says, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this hand, Yeah, that's a great quie sin because the

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Speaker 1: entrepreneur wants to be persevering and wants to be diligent

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Speaker 1: and like, don't take no for an answer. At least

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Speaker 1: that's the ethos, right, that's the story. The reality is

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Speaker 1: um my. From my experience and talking to other entrepreneurs, partially,

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Speaker 1: there's like pragmatic things. You run out of money, right,

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Speaker 1: that's it. And especially for our audience, we don't come

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Speaker 1: with thats of like historical cash, right, So there's that.

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Speaker 1: I think the more spiritual one. I think the heart

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Speaker 1: of your question is when your kind of soul is

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Speaker 1: no longer fed by this, you don't wake up energized

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Speaker 1: to try and overcome the next obstacle, because there will

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Speaker 1: be obstacles, um and the market is telling you, hey, na,

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Speaker 1: I'm not buying this. I had a nice spike at

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Speaker 1: the beginning and then it flattened out. You might try

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Speaker 1: a whole bunch of stuff and if it's not moving

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Speaker 1: the needle, then stunne UM. I'll tell you a a quick store.

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Speaker 1: When I was starting this company, UM, originally doing a

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Speaker 1: product company it was it was called tether Pad. It

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Speaker 1: was about doing smart calendars for executive assistance. Originally for travel,

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Speaker 1: but you know, it turned into the business thing. And

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Speaker 1: this is around two thousand eleven when smart calendars are

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Speaker 1: starting to come out. And I had this prototype, and

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Speaker 1: I was like, people complicated travel arrangements or whatever. And

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Speaker 1: I went to I said, where where do I find

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Speaker 1: travel people? Where people travel stories when they actually existed? UM?

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Speaker 1: And I went there and I had my little prototype.

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Speaker 1: I went to the travel section and I asked people, hey,

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Speaker 1: excuse me, would you use something like this? They were

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Speaker 1: like pleasant and nice and interested a little bit, but

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Speaker 1: no one said, oh my god, I have to have that.

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Speaker 1: That is the greatest thing in the in the world.

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Speaker 1: I knew that was not going to be a successful

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Speaker 1: UM product because if I can't sell them face to

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Speaker 1: the base, how am I going to do that when

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Speaker 1: I'm competing with millions of other stides to do travel.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes the business case and the lack of response tells

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Speaker 1: you everything you need to know that you need to

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Speaker 1: go back to a drawwood, which is what I did.

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Speaker 1: How do you how did you know that it wasn't

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Speaker 1: just another feature that you needed because we can get

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Speaker 1: feature hungary and have scope creep really really easily. Because okay,

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Speaker 1: maybe my travel app doesn't you know while the people.

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Speaker 1: But if I added just this one other thing and

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Speaker 1: then you find us another thing I had to add

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Speaker 1: at another thing, how do you know it's not just

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Speaker 1: a feature? How do you know when is the feature

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Speaker 1: is not going to do it? Because? Um, I was

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Speaker 1: trying to ask the core value proposition, which was, do

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Speaker 1: you have a problem traveling and arranging things for complex

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Speaker 1: travel or your you know, for your family or whatever.

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Speaker 1: The representation of that was my app, but really it

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Speaker 1: was the question about what the core problem was. And

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Speaker 1: what I got back was that it wasn't that import

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Speaker 1: and a problem to them. So I could add all

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Speaker 1: the features in the world, but if it's not important

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Speaker 1: to the buyer, it doesn't matter. So what I did

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Speaker 1: was actually say, huh, maybe this is the wrong the

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Speaker 1: right product, but it's the wrong audience who actually cares

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Speaker 1: about this and is willing to pay for it. I

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Speaker 1: went to give assistance because they are paid to complex

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Speaker 1: arrangements for their executives. When I presented the same prototype

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Speaker 1: with a little bit of you know, be skinning, they

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Speaker 1: were all over it because I nailed their problem. So

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Speaker 1: that was the difference. I don't care about the features

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Speaker 1: I'm adding until I understand the problem, and I'm trying

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Speaker 1: to solve for the audience in the audience's own, uh words,

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Speaker 1: or their own context. I would consider you, I'm you

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Speaker 1: are a d e I expert and if you would

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Speaker 1: call yourself that, but you're somebody who speaks on d

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Speaker 1: e I and you know are paid to speak on

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Speaker 1: d e I. Uh. What is interesting about the current

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Speaker 1: conversation about d EI we're having, particularly at the corporate level.

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Speaker 1: Let's start there. Like some companies believe if they put

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Speaker 1: some money into some inner city, you know, youth programs,

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Speaker 1: then they're being diverse and you know they're they're doing

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Speaker 1: their job. Other other companies believe if they hired black

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Speaker 1: d e I officer, they're doing their job. Um, what

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Speaker 1: is interesting about this conversation to you? And how do

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Speaker 1: we know if we're doing it right as corporate executives? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would say spicily, Um, most of the conversation interests

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Speaker 1: may be because it's a lot of window addressing UM,

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Speaker 1: which is not to say that investing in a playground

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Speaker 1: in UM community is not a great thing. That's fantastic

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Speaker 1: for the community, but that is not a sufficient d

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Speaker 1: e I response for any corporation of any significant size.

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Speaker 1: It's the initial drop in the bucket, for example. The

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Speaker 1: reason I say that is the question I always ask people,

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Speaker 1: and this is particularly after George Floyd and everybody's getting

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Speaker 1: involved with you know, d I trying to figure out

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Speaker 1: racial injustice and and and what supremacy, etcetera. The question

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Speaker 1: I would ask when people would come to me and say, hey,

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Speaker 1: what can you do? I love your health? I said, well,

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Speaker 1: what are you trying to do it for? How does

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Speaker 1: this connect with your business model? This is a question

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Speaker 1: you started with and then there's like often a silence.

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Speaker 1: I said, yeah, you need to figure out whether how

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Speaker 1: it's connected to your business model. So that's the first thing,

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Speaker 1: is is it connecting your business model? And many people

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Speaker 1: don't have that. Those that do start to start to

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Speaker 1: make progress in ways that others do not. UM. I

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Speaker 1: think the other thing that's interesting to me about the

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Speaker 1: conversation at the moment is the impact of remote work

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Speaker 1: and how the market changes if you are now not

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Speaker 1: just located in particular place, but actually can remote and

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Speaker 1: expansively across the country. We've been promote since the first

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Speaker 1: since two thousand twelve. We wanted to have a diverse company.

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Speaker 1: We're like, well, there isn't a full diversity here in

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Speaker 1: the Bay Area, and those who are here are going

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Speaker 1: to be heavily competed with um for town. And we

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Speaker 1: have Oh, by the way, we have Google and Facebook

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Speaker 1: who can PLoP a bonus um larger than someone's annual

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Speaker 1: sale at our company. So we went to rest of

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Speaker 1: the country and we have people in three states, and

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Speaker 1: we have black folks all over, and Hispanic or Latina,

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Speaker 1: latinos Um and Mina and and and but the located

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Speaker 1: where they and so that gets much more sustainable from

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Speaker 1: our perspective. Now we have to go to the next

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Speaker 1: level because other people have discovered it as well, So

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Speaker 1: we have to figure out the next thing. But we

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Speaker 1: developed this networks of community. I think they're going to

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Speaker 1: be sustainable in the long run. I wanted to go

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Speaker 1: deeper on the remote work thing in a second, but

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Speaker 1: I do want. I don't want to glance past something

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Speaker 1: you just talked about, and that's that corporate commitment to

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Speaker 1: being to actually making real lasting impact. How after you know,

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Speaker 1: the sizzle is gone from that pen after the immediate

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Speaker 1: George Floyd, you know impact or you know, police shootings

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Speaker 1: or elections that have real consequence, after those initial triggers,

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Speaker 1: how do we get corporate commitments to black people, to minorities,

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Speaker 1: to diversity, equity and inclusion, um, how do we get

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Speaker 1: them to last past that moment in time? Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: the way I think about the questions I would ask,

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Speaker 1: and so it's the dialogue that actually kind of starts

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Speaker 1: to spur action. One is is connected to your business model,

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Speaker 1: to who's running it. If it is a initiative within

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Speaker 1: a small marketing team organization, I don't take it seriously.

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Speaker 1: Why don't I take it seriously? Because so it's a

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Speaker 1: budget cut. As soon as there's a downturn, budgets are tight,

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Speaker 1: that discretionary program goes away. It needs to be led

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Speaker 1: by the executive and needs to be led by the

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Speaker 1: C suite, and needs to be led by the CEO.

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Speaker 1: That person needs to come in front and say I

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Speaker 1: believe in this. It's part of our business, even if

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Speaker 1: we don't know specifically what our googals are. I am

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Speaker 1: personally committed to making this happen. And then I have

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Speaker 1: people who are going to execute, so it's got to

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Speaker 1: come from them, and it's got to be on repeat.

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Speaker 1: So that's the question. I would then ask the CEO

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Speaker 1: of Alved how long is their support for that? And

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Speaker 1: then how are you gonna roll that out as a project.

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Speaker 1: I think the other um thing in terms of in

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Speaker 1: terms of asking is um. I'll quote my friend Damian

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Speaker 1: Hooper Campbell, who I interviewed for the book. He said,

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Speaker 1: diversity is measured in quarters and years. Making a dent

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Speaker 1: in diversity and inclusion is measured in quarters and years,

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Speaker 1: not days and weeks. And I absolutely completely agree with that.

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Speaker 1: Even for the well intentioned companies. If it was easy

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Speaker 1: to recruit a bunch of black folks, they would have

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Speaker 1: done it already. But we're heavily competed for or the

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Speaker 1: networks aren't there, or you're changing cultures internally. Anybody knows

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Speaker 1: about culture change. No, that takes that text quarters and years,

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Speaker 1: not days and being even if you're well intention So

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Speaker 1: what's your plan executive for having a year's long strategy

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Speaker 1: where you can actually move the needle. And that's where

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Speaker 1: we get some agreement and some alignment of what's realistic.

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Speaker 1: From my opinion, UM, you probably recognize that there is

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Speaker 1: a quickly moving bt O resurgence. You're like, back to

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Speaker 1: office companies are going back to office AP think Apple

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Speaker 1: announced it yesterday or today, depending on when you're listening

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Speaker 1: to this. Apple recently announced they wanted people back in

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Speaker 1: the office. Um is that dangerous to this conversation of

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Speaker 1: diversity in the in the workplace? I think it's really interesting. Um,

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Speaker 1: there's a couple of different points to it. One, I

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Speaker 1: think the cats out of the bag. Frankly, in terms

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Speaker 1: of people saying, hunt, do I really have two hours

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Speaker 1: of my day or three hours of my day to

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Speaker 1: be commuting In an era where you have housing prices

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Speaker 1: rising and folks can't afford to live near yor city center,

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Speaker 1: that's even more of an issue. And it affects black

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Speaker 1: books in particular. If I'm in Mississippi or if I'm

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Speaker 1: in Georgia, if I'm in Atlanta, not only do I

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Speaker 1: have amazing Atlanta based companies, but I'm attracting attention from

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Speaker 1: all over the country. Why would I want to leave Atlanta? UM?

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Speaker 1: If you enjoy that community. I think the other side

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Speaker 1: of it gets interesting is UM. Oh yeah, And what

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Speaker 1: I think the other side of it is UM. How

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Speaker 1: do companies that used to be in office and who

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Speaker 1: are going hybrid or fully remote, how are they managing

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Speaker 1: the mentorship and sponsorship of new employees, particularly black and

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Speaker 1: brown employees. Here's how it works. If it's always if

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Speaker 1: it had been in an office and it's a little

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Speaker 1: bit of dry by and so forth, meetings or lunches

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Speaker 1: or whatever. Hey, I'd love to get like a coffee

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Speaker 1: with you and you get some informal mentoring and so forth.

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Speaker 1: That's awesome. If you move to hybrid, how does that happen?

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Speaker 1: It doesn't just automatically. Has to have an intention, and

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Speaker 1: so a company would have to say, we understand that,

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Speaker 1: and we're committed to either having identifying our star folks

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Speaker 1: or emerging talent and getting them back in that office

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Speaker 1: for a week a quarter so that we can kind

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Speaker 1: of get that that trust building that happens person to

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Speaker 1: person or a place of place to face UM, or

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Speaker 1: we do some other rotation system if as a remote

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Speaker 1: person who isn't getting that kind of manatorship and the

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Speaker 1: culture supports it face to face, they are at a deficit.

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Speaker 1: So what I would have to be thoughtful about setting

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Speaker 1: that up. So what do you say to employ you know,

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Speaker 1: black and brown employees who want to work at the

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Speaker 1: biggest companies in the world. Um, but it's you know,

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Speaker 1: all to live in the Bay is not the chiepest

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Speaker 1: place in the world live, you know, But I may

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Speaker 1: be talented enough and the engineer. Um. And then now

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Speaker 1: you know, six months ago I had this opportunity. What

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Speaker 1: happens when I want to work in some of the

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Speaker 1: biggest places to have some of the biggest impact on

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Speaker 1: the world via the technology perspective, And now they want

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Speaker 1: me to uproot my family and I got to bring

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Speaker 1: all of us to the Bay or to New York

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Speaker 1: or you know, think of a place. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: what I would say is too broaden. Actually the landscape here.

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Speaker 1: You said, we will don't work at the biggest companies.

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Speaker 1: I say, why do you want to work at the

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Speaker 1: biggest companies? There are lots of amazing companies with great

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Speaker 1: brands that don't have to be the fan companies and

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Speaker 1: in fact, I think there's probably many, many opportunities that

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Speaker 1: go under the radar for making impact, for propelling your

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Speaker 1: career to having a great sense of culture. So I

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Speaker 1: would broaden the broadeness the scale to other sorts of companies.

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Speaker 1: The second thing I'd say is negotiate um enable sorry

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Speaker 1: first create optionality. Right, that one company wants you to move,

401
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:41,800
Speaker 1: that's a great time to look are other companies may

402
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Speaker 1: be looking for me and allowing me to to to

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Speaker 1: stay at home. I bet there are. Now you have

404
00:23:47,400 --> 00:23:52,080
Speaker 1: some negotiating leverage, um. And I think the other thing

405
00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:55,320
Speaker 1: is upgrading the family is a big deal, and that

406
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Speaker 1: support from a family is a big deal to one's happiness. UM.

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Speaker 1: That serious consideration. The last thing I did today is

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Speaker 1: they are definitely conversations I've had with folks. And the

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Speaker 1: market is now kind of a little soft, right, there's

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Speaker 1: some some layoffs happening, slowing down hiring. I think it's

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Speaker 1: an opportunity to sort of take stock and say, what

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Speaker 1: is it that I'm trying to do with my career,

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Speaker 1: and how can certain companies advance the ball in this situation?

414
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Speaker 1: Because sometimes it might be great to take that one

415
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:33,000
Speaker 1: year think up your family for a year, get the brand,

416
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Speaker 1: get the money, and then go to another company. UM.

417
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Speaker 1: So I think broad in the opportunities is the is

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Speaker 1: the message, and broaden your options so you're not just

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Speaker 1: locked into one way of advancing your career. There are

420
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Speaker 1: many ways to advance career. UM. A couple of years ago,

421
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Speaker 1: you guys embraced salary transparency and and one I want

422
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Speaker 1: you to talk about why, why that's important or was

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Speaker 1: important for you guys, and steps to doing that well,

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Speaker 1: because I imagine there's um a large opportunity there to

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Speaker 1: cause more ruckis in the beginning, you know, especially in

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Speaker 1: the beginning. But what are the lasting implications of doing that,

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Speaker 1: both on the positives high and negative side, and steps

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Speaker 1: to doing it well? Yeah, So just for context, we

429
00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 1: did it in two thousand SEVENTEAM, so it's been in

430
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 1: place since then. The reason we did it was for equity,

431
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:29,880
Speaker 1: for racial and gender equity. Lots of great companies, lots

432
00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:33,399
Speaker 1: of bad companies. We're paying people different depending on their gender.

433
00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:37,040
Speaker 1: Lots of well intentioned companies didn't want to do that,

434
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 1: but they allowed for some negotiation. And so for example,

435
00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:45,119
Speaker 1: of you are are if you negotiate a five percent

436
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:48,879
Speaker 1: higher salary than I do right for the same position,

437
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:53,040
Speaker 1: same work. Five years later, you've done fantastic work, You've

438
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 1: both gotten promotions, and both got a twenty percent bump

439
00:25:56,119 --> 00:26:01,160
Speaker 1: every single year. That difference than amplifies, right that the problem.

440
00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:03,280
Speaker 1: And then five years later you have a company that

441
00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 1: says the employee says, wait a minute, I'm being paid

442
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 1: how much less? Now the company has lost a valuable

443
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 1: employee with all the institutional memory that problem. So we

444
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 1: wanted to avoid that, and the quickest way we wanted

445
00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:21,520
Speaker 1: to do it was say, let's make it transparent, let's

446
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:26,399
Speaker 1: make internally transparent, and then let's go through a process

447
00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:31,400
Speaker 1: for engaging our employees to make that happen so that

448
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:35,119
Speaker 1: there isn't a ruckus. So what we did, basically, I

449
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 1: just it's it's actually in the book fairly explicitly. There's

450
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 1: a step by step process that we use that anybody

451
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 1: can follow. But the first thing we did was really simple,

452
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:46,800
Speaker 1: are you going to leave if we make our salaries transparent?

453
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:50,639
Speaker 1: At nine down? People said no, we'll not and one person,

454
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 1: I'm a little uncomfortable, but let's go for it, right,

455
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:57,480
Speaker 1: So that's the first thing. The second thing was we

456
00:26:57,520 --> 00:27:00,800
Speaker 1: involved them in the solution, so was lots of research

457
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:04,240
Speaker 1: to do. Is this the right solving? Are there other alternatives?

458
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 1: What other companies are doing this? But we had a

459
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:11,639
Speaker 1: committee based on leadership and employees that participated. Why does

460
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 1: that matter because they're gonna bring different perspectives than I

461
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:18,760
Speaker 1: would and whatever solution we come up with they're going

462
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:22,640
Speaker 1: to participate in. That's going to enable people to feel like, yeah,

463
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:27,200
Speaker 1: I designed this. Finally, the big actually the big part

464
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 1: of the work. We didn't have our leveling and we

465
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:33,560
Speaker 1: didn't have our rubrics very well laid out. That took

466
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:35,920
Speaker 1: of a seven month process. That took about four and

467
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 1: a half months to do that. Right, any companies should

468
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:41,760
Speaker 1: have that anyway, regardless of whether good and salary transparent

469
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:45,439
Speaker 1: or not. By the time we announced it for seven months,

470
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 1: the reaction was basically a whole hump because we brought

471
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:53,800
Speaker 1: everybody along for the ride. Um. We also did one

472
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 1: other thing that is a fun piece. It's called the

473
00:27:57,400 --> 00:28:00,240
Speaker 1: pre mortem. I talked about it in the book as well,

474
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 1: and it's basically a technique to basically it's a technique

475
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:07,680
Speaker 1: to enable you to project into the future and try

476
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:10,280
Speaker 1: and avoid problems So the quick question you ask is

477
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: we did this, okay, team, it's three months, three weeks

478
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:17,920
Speaker 1: before launch. I want you to project nine months down

479
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:23,159
Speaker 1: the road, the thing is launched, it reached all the people, etcetera, etcetera.

480
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:29,359
Speaker 1: In nine months, it is a complete disaster. Everything's gone wrong.

481
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 1: Everybody hates us, We've lost customer. Blah blah blah blah blah.

482
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:37,920
Speaker 1: What went wrong? Yeah, And I usually start by saying, yeah,

483
00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 1: it was me. I wasn't paying attention, I didn't answer

484
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 1: that phone call. Was slot respawn Right. It loosens people

485
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:44,239
Speaker 1: up a little bit because what you're trying to do

486
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 1: is have people to be creative. Dan, it starts to

487
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 1: come out, well, we didn't that stakeholder, we didn't talk

488
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 1: to this person, we didn't talk to Oh, we forgot

489
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: this step. Once you gather a bunch of those you

490
00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:59,520
Speaker 1: work backwards. So how could we mitigate that possibility? It

491
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 1: is an amazing how many things come up that you,

492
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: even the most diligent person did not think of because

493
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 1: they didn't imagine the failure case down the road. So

494
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: that's what we did with the salary recordees. But I'm

495
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:15,640
Speaker 1: sorry pay transparency as well. Um So we tested this

496
00:29:15,680 --> 00:29:17,680
Speaker 1: thing and we iterated it, and we continue to iterate

497
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 1: to this day. UM. I liked what you just brought

498
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: up the pre mortems because it blends very well into

499
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:29,480
Speaker 1: this next question. Is you know you guys were remote

500
00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:32,800
Speaker 1: even before COVID you talked about twelve you guys were

501
00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 1: fully remote. Um, and there was obviously some forward thinking there,

502
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:40,280
Speaker 1: and so others can be forward thinking. What was the

503
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 1: insight you had back then about being fully remote hiring

504
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 1: people from all over the world so that other people

505
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: can try to figure out ways they can be UM

506
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 1: successful when they actually write that pre mortem. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

507
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 1: that's a great question. Um, we decided to go fully

508
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:02,120
Speaker 1: remote just solve a problem. Kind of going back to

509
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 1: your entrepreneur opportunity question. My first co founder and I

510
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 1: Mark invited our third co founder to be part of

511
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:13,240
Speaker 1: the team, to be official co founder. She gave us

512
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 1: an answer that we didn't expect. I'd love to join,

513
00:30:16,480 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 1: but my husband just got a fellowship to be in

514
00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 1: the Balkans and in Western Europe and in Scotland for

515
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 1: the next eighteen months on a fellowship. Can we work

516
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 1: that out? And I'm like, that is that what I expected?

517
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:30,360
Speaker 1: But Okay, let's start to figure it out. The solution

518
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:34,320
Speaker 1: we came up was really straightforward, um, show up on time,

519
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:39,120
Speaker 1: get get an Airbnb or a place you're renting that

520
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:43,840
Speaker 1: has great WiFi, and make our work transparent. Those are

521
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 1: three things, and then we just said let's roll with

522
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 1: it and see what happens from there. We started to develop, Oh, okay,

523
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 1: here's better ways to display the work, and then we

524
00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:58,040
Speaker 1: started to say, how can we involve other people in

525
00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 1: the solution. Well, all of those things are scalable. Show up,

526
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 1: but show up on meetings on time. Okay, we're using Pivotal,

527
00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 1: track displayer work. Now there's mirror, and there's all this

528
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 1: Asana and all these other places. Um, and get good WiFi.

529
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 1: So it was sort of a problem solving exercise that

530
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:17,960
Speaker 1: we then could scale and that we could share and

531
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 1: it's sustainable and that's really where it started from. And

532
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: we've had to build things, of course in the meantime,

533
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:26,560
Speaker 1: but I think that's with the corporate So I think

534
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:29,680
Speaker 1: the message entrepreneurs is what are problems that you can

535
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:34,240
Speaker 1: solve simply and quickly and make them experiments And it

536
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 1: could be anything from HR to remote to a product

537
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 1: idea and then just try it out and then learn

538
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 1: and trash it and do the next thing if if

539
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 1: that doesn't work. Black Tech Green Money is a productive

540
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 1: of Blaviti fro Tech on the Black Effect podcast Network

541
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 1: and I Heart Media. Is produced by Morgan Dubon and

542
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 1: Me with Lucas, with additional productive supported by Love Beach

543
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:12,480
Speaker 1: and Rose mc lucas. Especially thank you to Michael Davis

544
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 1: if that's Serrano. Learn more about my guests and other

545
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 1: tech this focus and innovatives at afro tech dot com.

546
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 1: Video version of this episode. We'll drop the Black Tech

547
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 1: Green Money on YouTube next week, so tap in, enjoy

548
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:29,120
Speaker 1: your Black Tech Green Money, Share us with somebody, Go

549
00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 1: get your money. Peace and love