Speaker 1: Pushkin. I recently talked with Francis Frye and Anne Morris.
Speaker 2: I'm Francis Frye. I'm a professor at the Harvard Business School,
Speaker 2: and I'm married to Anne. I'm Anne Morris.
Speaker 3: I'm a company builder and a leadership coach, and the
Speaker 3: marriage is mutual and consensual. Thank goodness, we're married to
Speaker 3: each other.
Speaker 1: Francis and Ann also work together. They are the co
Speaker 1: founders of a training and consulting company called the Leadership Consortium.
Speaker 1: They specialize in helping leaders build trust. They also co
Speaker 1: host a podcast called Fixable. And there is this particular
Speaker 1: project that they worked on. In fact, it's the project
Speaker 1: that inspired them to start their company. And I found
Speaker 1: this project so surprising and so illuminating that I wanted
Speaker 1: to have them on the show to talk about it.
Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Goldstein. This is What's your Problem? And Francis
Speaker 1: and Ann are here today to tell the story of
Speaker 1: their work with Uber. It starts back in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: what was maybe the lowest point for the company. Francis
Speaker 1: and Anne got involved when a Harvard Business School a
Speaker 1: lum who was working at Uber came to Francis and
Speaker 1: said the company needed her help.
Speaker 2: He said, will you come and meet my CEO, Travis
Speaker 2: Kalnik And I said no. My first instinct was no,
Speaker 2: and I was like, I read the newspapers. It sounds terrible.
Speaker 2: And then she said, please, as a personal favor, he
Speaker 2: is not the person that you're reading about. Will you
Speaker 2: come and meet with him? And so it was entirely
Speaker 2: as a favor that I flew out to meet Travis.
Speaker 1: And what was before you met him? What was your impression,
Speaker 1: not having met him, of Travis Kalvinick.
Speaker 2: It sounded like he didn't care, was out of touch,
Speaker 2: created a very horrific climate for women and not awesome
Speaker 2: for others as well. So we help good people do
Speaker 2: hard things, but we don't help bad people. And so
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm not going to work with him,
Speaker 2: but I'll come out and meet him as a favorite
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: So you go fly out and what happens.
Speaker 2: Yes, it was a two hour meeting. It lasted three days,
Speaker 2: and I found him thoughtful, rigorous, open, just I adored him.
Speaker 2: By the end, I was down for the count.
Speaker 1: So that is truly surprising.
Speaker 2: You're not kidding because he came across very the two
Speaker 2: things I really like are rigor and optimism and he
Speaker 2: was super rigorous and super optimistic. And then he said,
Speaker 2: and I need help. The last company I ran had
Speaker 2: eight people.
Speaker 1: And how big is Uber at this point?
Speaker 2: Thirteen thousand?
Speaker 1: Wow? Okay, and so so you're in.
Speaker 2: Well he was like, you know, you need to come
Speaker 2: and work here full time. And I was like, I'm
Speaker 2: never leaving Harvard, but I'll consult for you. He's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: we need all of you. So I left there and
Speaker 2: came home and asked, you know, told Anne about it
Speaker 2: and was like, what do you think about my taking
Speaker 2: a leave from HBS and going and working there full time?
Speaker 1: And and what did you say?
Speaker 3: That's a ridiculous idea?
Speaker 1: Go on?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think we sat with it for a
Speaker 3: good week or so. But where we got to is
Speaker 3: if we can make it work at Uber, and if
Speaker 3: we can make some of these ideas that we're kind
Speaker 3: of batting around, if we can really test them at Uber,
Speaker 3: and if they can work there, then they can work anywhere.
Speaker 3: These kinds of issues tend to I don't think I'm
Speaker 3: stating it that paralyze some entrepreneurs who are building great
Speaker 3: companies and get really stuck on this stuff, and so
Speaker 3: the opportunity to show the world not only how to
Speaker 3: make progress on these issues, but that you can make
Speaker 3: progress on these issues was also super energizing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So okay, so you take the job and like, what
Speaker 1: is the problem you're setting out to fix? Eduber or problems?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so two sides. The problems at any organization are
Speaker 2: always only two things, achievement and or sentiment?
Speaker 1: Is the business working and do people feel good about it?
Speaker 1: Is that what that means? Yes?
Speaker 2: And it had both problems, huh. And the sentiment was
Speaker 2: really rough and the achievement was also they were magnificent
Speaker 2: in some ways, but this was the era when costs
Speaker 2: were greater than revenue.
Speaker 1: They were losing money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's that can seduce you into thinking all
Speaker 2: kinds of things that are upside down are right side up.
Speaker 2: And so that's where the strategy.
Speaker 1: Going really fast? Right, is that complicated Silicon Valley thing
Speaker 1: of like incredible growth, but like they're selling every dollar
Speaker 1: for seventy five cents, and lots of people it turns out,
Speaker 1: will buy a dollar if it costs seventy five.
Speaker 2: Cents, yes, yeah, And I don't know if it's so complicated.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's that complicated either. I think I
Speaker 2: think that if you get venture capitalists that are willing
Speaker 2: to take their money and put it in the pockets
Speaker 2: of riders, it turns out that can last a long time.
Speaker 2: So but that's what we went in is sort of
Speaker 2: we when we talk about study the achievement.
Speaker 1: Achievement problem is they're losing money. What specifically was the
Speaker 1: sentiment problem?
Speaker 2: Oh goodness, the It was a culture of I'll give
Speaker 2: you an example. If one person was going to give
Speaker 2: someone else feedback at uber, it was an arms race
Speaker 2: of how cutting the feedback could be. So they were mean,
Speaker 2: they were they were Yeah, there was a but but
Speaker 2: not with the intention of cruelty. But yes, it came
Speaker 2: across as cruel it. Also, you know a lot of
Speaker 2: people had their first job here, and so when I
Speaker 2: got there and I would talk to women in particular,
Speaker 2: the climate that they were enduring was something like the following.
Speaker 2: Woman's the only woman on an engineering team. She's working
Speaker 2: really hard. She's going to stay late to work on something.
Speaker 2: She asks a colleague if he'll stay late with her,
Speaker 2: and he'll say, yeah, as long as you sleep with me.
Speaker 2: She reacts and he says, just kidding. You know that,
Speaker 2: like the tyranny of just kidding. There was a lot
Speaker 2: of just kidding there, and so no one had taught
Speaker 2: anyone how to manage and how to lead. So if
Speaker 2: I mean there were a thousand problems, literally one thousand complaints,
Speaker 2: and more than ninety percent of them had to do
Speaker 2: with the interaction between someone and their manager. There were
Speaker 2: three thousand managers, so they were either three thousand bad
Speaker 2: people or something systematically was going on that we were
Speaker 2: not setting anyone up for success.
Speaker 1: So when do you start wearing the Uber shirt every day?
Speaker 2: So I got there and I was you know, Anne
Speaker 2: and I were excited, and I was really proud of
Speaker 2: the mission. I was proud of the work ethic. I
Speaker 2: was proud of the intelligence of everyone, and so I
Speaker 2: was proud to be there. And I got there and
Speaker 2: everyone was ashamed to work there. There were all the
Speaker 2: newspaper things like delete Uber, and there was videos on
Speaker 2: the web of the CEO that weren't good, and so
Speaker 2: people were embarrassed. They wouldn't when they got into an
Speaker 2: Uber car, they wouldn't admit that they to the driver
Speaker 2: they worked at Uber.
Speaker 1: Oh so you're saying people who worked at Uber would
Speaker 1: get into an Uber and wouldn't tell the driver they
Speaker 1: worked at Uber because driver would think they're a bad
Speaker 1: person for working at Uber.
Speaker 2: Yes, they would. They stopped going to parties because the
Speaker 2: topic of conversation was always Uber and it was embarrassing
Speaker 2: for them. So they had real shame. And so what
Speaker 2: I said is, I'm so proud of what we're all
Speaker 2: intending to do. I'm going to wear an uber t
Speaker 2: shirt until everyone else regains his pride because there used
Speaker 2: to be the pride in the organization.
Speaker 1: And so you're wearing it Monday to Friday, you're wearing
Speaker 1: it Saturday and Sunday. And tell me, tell me as
Speaker 1: the partner of the person.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this wasn't an ideal part of the commitment. I'm
Speaker 3: not sure you had. I did not clear it with
Speaker 3: this many moves ahead and a chessboard. Now, yeah, there
Speaker 3: were a couple of awkward family moments. We went to
Speaker 3: a fancy party where you had to dress up and
Speaker 3: Francis woarren uber T shirt.
Speaker 2: Underneath a jacket. But indeed I did no. I promised
Speaker 2: to wear any like you could see it like, ah,
Speaker 2: for sure, for sure the commitment was real.
Speaker 1: So okay, we've got the shirt, We've got the problems.
Speaker 1: After the break, solving the problems and getting to the
Speaker 1: point where Francis finally feels like she can stop wearing
Speaker 1: an Uber shirt every single day. Now back to the show. So, okay,
Speaker 1: you got your shirt, you're fired up. What's the first
Speaker 1: sort of key thing you do to try and make
Speaker 1: people like Uber better?
Speaker 2: Yes, So the first thing was to teach the entire
Speaker 2: organization how to build and more importantly in their case,
Speaker 2: rebuild trust and how to do it quickly. So in
Speaker 2: the presence of trust, everything goes faster and higher. So
Speaker 2: if you get trust, nobody's going to relitigate the decision afterwards,
Speaker 2: you get to stay on one things, and in the
Speaker 2: absence of trust, people are going to ask you to
Speaker 2: compromise way more than you should otherwise. So when we're
Speaker 2: teaching about trust, what we're doing is delivering on the
Speaker 2: promise that you can go faster and further. So our
Speaker 2: collaboration will be better, our innovation will be better. In
Speaker 2: the presence of trust, everything is better. In the absence
Speaker 2: of trust, it's a miserable place to be. It starts
Speaker 2: it stops. We go one step forward, two steps back.
Speaker 2: So trust is we find trust is the foundation for
Speaker 2: all human progress.
Speaker 1: So that's the abstraction. What is a specific thing you
Speaker 1: do to that end?
Speaker 2: Well, you determine is trust breaking down for one of
Speaker 2: three reasons. Turns out there's three pillars of trust, and
Speaker 2: in Uber's case, the reason was empathy at every turn.
Speaker 2: So you can be awesome, but if you're not empathetic,
Speaker 2: we're not going to trust you.
Speaker 1: And I mean, you say there's three pillars of trust,
Speaker 1: I got to say, okay, if empathy is on, what
Speaker 1: are the other two?
Speaker 2: Logic and authenticity.
Speaker 1: So if you think about it in terms of a
Speaker 1: person's relationship to their manager, they are thinking, does what
Speaker 1: my boss says make sense? Is it logical? Is my
Speaker 1: boss a phony? Are they just giving me a smoke
Speaker 1: screen that's authenticity? And does my boss care about me?
Speaker 3: I mean it's not exactly okay, and care about my
Speaker 3: success in this job.
Speaker 1: And so the people at Uber, in your estimation, in
Speaker 1: your finding, were logical and authentic. They just didn't care
Speaker 1: about the people they worked with.
Speaker 2: And it was for the employees, it was also for
Speaker 2: the regulators. It was also for the investors, so they are.
Speaker 1: Caring about the regulators. Was sort of Uber's brand, right,
Speaker 1: like that was I don't quite want to say their
Speaker 1: secret sauce, but kind of right. Well, it was going
Speaker 1: into cities where, you know, to be fair to Uber,
Speaker 1: it seemed like the taxi cab cartels had the regulators
Speaker 1: kind of in their pockets in a lot of places.
Speaker 1: So in a way, being not empathetic to the regulators
Speaker 1: there was a logic to it.
Speaker 2: From absolutely, and so the question is is what got
Speaker 2: you here, what's going to take you there? And they
Speaker 2: were magnificent at not being empathetic to the regulators. And
Speaker 2: that's spilled over to many aspects of the organization.
Speaker 1: So you've identified now in more detail. Okay, this is
Speaker 1: what's wrong. How do you fix it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So two things. One, we created a curriculum, So
Speaker 2: I got friends of mine from Harvard and we created
Speaker 2: a remote curriculum. Half of it leadership, half of its
Speaker 2: strategy to teach people how to do things. And it
Speaker 2: was for the three thousand managers. We thought, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe five hundred people would show up. People took it.
Speaker 1: Six thousand out of three thousand mandagers, so all of
Speaker 1: the managers basically and a lot of other people. Yes, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, Like it seems like the problem is everybody
Speaker 1: was being mean essentially to each other. How does like
Speaker 1: online courses actually get people to not be mean?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: It seems weird to me. Maybe I've just had bad
Speaker 1: online courses in my work life.
Speaker 3: Well, let me let me, let me add a little
Speaker 3: let me add a little context, which I think is
Speaker 3: material here into a lot of the organizations we work in.
Speaker 3: It was very clear to the organization that plan A
Speaker 3: wasn't working, Yeah, and that they had not collectively built
Speaker 3: a culture where people were thriving. And so the motivation
Speaker 3: for behavior change is partly why we like. We like
Speaker 3: working with organizations that are at this point in their
Speaker 3: life cycle there's some kind of crisis because people are
Speaker 3: really leaning into changing and are very in touch with
Speaker 3: the potential payoff.
Speaker 1: Huh. Is there a particular time you remember and when
Speaker 1: you were talking to Francis about what was happening, Like
Speaker 1: any specific conversations come to mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Francis had do you remember the robot we had
Speaker 3: experimented with an It was actually called the Wanatron. It's
Speaker 3: difficult product name, but the Wanatron was the height of
Speaker 3: a human sitting in a chair essentially, so it would
Speaker 3: wheel up to the dinner table. Francis would join us
Speaker 3: for dinner, and then we would.
Speaker 1: And it had a little like a like an iPad
Speaker 1: for a face or something.
Speaker 3: Exactly, so Francis would could could be there friends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would take maybe three minutes for you and
Speaker 2: the boys to stop interacting with like a robot, and
Speaker 2: it was as if I was there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I do remember coming home, you know, a little
Speaker 3: bit late at night, keeping the babysitter a little late,
Speaker 3: cats away Jacob, you know, uh, and pulling into the driveway,
Speaker 3: the wanatron was just waiting in the waiting in the window.
Speaker 3: And but you were super excited. I mean I can
Speaker 3: I can remember the image. You were super excited and
Speaker 3: you had just finished a class and it had gone
Speaker 3: really well, and you can tell, I mean, you can
Speaker 3: tell in the classroom when there's an the energy of
Speaker 3: engagement and that can get really infectious, even in these
Speaker 3: digital classrooms. And it had worked, and you basically were like,
Speaker 3: you know, honey, I think we're onto something.
Speaker 2: That's when I knew it was it was fixable.
Speaker 1: So at some point Travis Kalanick gets I don't know
Speaker 1: if he was fired pushed out. He definitely gets pushed
Speaker 1: out of the company.
Speaker 2: Nine days in.
Speaker 1: So say that again. Nine days in, nine days after
Speaker 1: you took the full time job, he sweet talked to
Speaker 1: you and that he was gone.
Speaker 2: It wasn't his idea to leave, No, it was it
Speaker 2: was really of a sudden and a surprise. And he
Speaker 2: said to me, he said, you know, in my absence,
Speaker 2: please do this act in the best because I was like,
Speaker 2: what can I do to be helpful to you? And
Speaker 2: he said, you can be helpful to me by doing
Speaker 2: things in the best interest of Uber. And so that's
Speaker 2: what I did.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what else you did. There's there's
Speaker 1: the course. There was one detail that I read about
Speaker 1: that was really interesting to me, and it was about
Speaker 1: how people behaved in meetings. Yeah, tell me about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think this was illustrative of the large
Speaker 2: empathy wobble we would say at the organization. So in
Speaker 2: the senior team, it was not a safe place. And
Speaker 2: by that I mean when people were speaking, they were
Speaker 2: like nervous and looking around and I.
Speaker 1: Couldn't been in like c Sweitel people even in C suite.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, even in C suite. Then what I
Speaker 2: found out is that they were texting one another about
Speaker 2: the person who was speaking.
Speaker 1: In the room, in the room, and they all knew
Speaker 1: that they were doing it.
Speaker 2: And they all knew it, which was creating, Like, if
Speaker 2: you want to create an environment that's not safe, just
Speaker 2: start doing that. That's that guaranteed to make it not safe.
Speaker 3: That it was shocking, super common you came to discover.
Speaker 1: Yeah, super common.
Speaker 3: Wait, and super tech industry.
Speaker 1: Everybody does that and everybody knows everybody's doing that.
Speaker 3: I don't think that's an unfair statement. It was at
Speaker 3: that time, at.
Speaker 2: That time, it.
Speaker 1: That's so weird, it's so weird.
Speaker 2: I have to say I had exactly the reaction that
Speaker 2: you did. So set a norm because I was facilitating
Speaker 2: the senior team. The board asked me to do it
Speaker 2: in between the CEOs, and I said, for our meetings,
Speaker 2: we're gonna have technology off in a way. Now we
Speaker 2: do that in the.
Speaker 1: Harvard classroom, meaning no phones, no laptops.
Speaker 2: It turned out that when you remove the distraction, we
Speaker 2: actually got an unprecedented amount of work done. Like we did.
Speaker 2: We I don't think Uber ever got more done than
Speaker 2: over that summer, so it started an incredible improvement trajectory.
Speaker 2: So I'll give you another example of something that we did.
Speaker 2: They were not very good at giving each other feedback,
Speaker 2: and that I know as an operations professor, if I
Speaker 2: give you effective feedback, you will improve at a dramatically
Speaker 2: improved rate. So my ability to give you feedback is
Speaker 2: actually going to be a great, big influence on your improvement.
Speaker 2: The way they gave feedback often made people worse. So
Speaker 2: not only did it not make them better, well once
Speaker 2: we taught them how to do it, and not only
Speaker 2: did it help other people improve, but it improved the
Speaker 2: culture what we did.
Speaker 1: Is there an example of helping people give better feedback?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like one specific thing.
Speaker 2: Sure. So if I want you to improve the ideal
Speaker 2: ratio of positive reinforcement, that is, do more of this
Speaker 2: to constructive advice, do it differently. The ideal ratio is
Speaker 2: five to one, huh.
Speaker 1: So you say five good things that the person did
Speaker 1: and one thing they could improve on, and.
Speaker 2: At uber it was zero to ten. And so by
Speaker 2: doing that it unleashed all of this amazing improvement and
Speaker 2: we were catching people doing things right in sincere and
Speaker 2: specific ways. It can't be performed at ever you lose
Speaker 2: that authenticity thing. So the culture improved and the improvement improved,
Speaker 2: and this happens overnight.
Speaker 1: Was there a moment when you felt like you had
Speaker 1: done it? Was there a moment when you took off
Speaker 1: the shirt? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I took off the shirt nine months in.
Speaker 1: And was there some thing? Was there? What was the
Speaker 1: last thing? What was the thing that why didn't you
Speaker 1: take it off eight months? What was the last thing
Speaker 1: you had to do to take off the shirt?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean the thing that was most gratifying to you,
Speaker 3: if I recall, is seeing uber t shirts on this
Speaker 3: everywhere of San Francisco.
Speaker 2: Everywhere, everywhere you just walk in, and it would have
Speaker 2: to be like a nighttime horror story to tell people
Speaker 2: what it used to be like, because you couldn't imagine
Speaker 2: it being like that anymore.
Speaker 1: You didn't need to wear the shirt anymore because everybody
Speaker 1: else was worthing.
Speaker 2: Everybody else did everyone. And that, by the way, is
Speaker 2: when I stopped working their full time because I also
Speaker 2: didn't need to be there full time anymore.
Speaker 1: And what'd you think when what do you think when
Speaker 1: Francis first took off the shirt, there was Jacob.
Speaker 2: There was great relief.
Speaker 3: As her spouse, as her collaborator, which I think it
Speaker 3: was by the end of this story that you had
Speaker 3: sold me, and about midway through that you were really
Speaker 3: putting the pressure on we should go and do this together.
Speaker 2: I was intrigued.
Speaker 1: Tell me more about that. So you're saying this story
Speaker 1: when Francis was working at uber was when and you
Speaker 1: really decided that you and Francis should go work together
Speaker 1: as consultants.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, we started a company that was very informed
Speaker 3: by this experience, that was focused on removing barriers to
Speaker 3: impact and advancement for people, particularly in tech, and the
Speaker 3: mission has expanded and so that and particularly.
Speaker 2: For women, people of color, LGBTQ, like the people for
Speaker 2: whom the harms were most likely to be done. What
Speaker 2: we decided to do is instead of going and helping
Speaker 2: one company at a time, we started a company where
Speaker 2: we could bring people in and help many companies at once,
Speaker 2: and that exists until today, all focusing on the education part,
Speaker 2: and has been enormously successful in unleashing individuals and the organizations.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a minute with the lightning round.
Speaker 1: That's the end of the ads now we're going back
Speaker 1: to the show. Let's do a lightning round.
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, what's one tip for teaching your kid how to fish?
Speaker 2: If the birds aren't there, go come back another day.
Speaker 1: A good one, because the birds eat the fish, and
Speaker 1: if there's no fish, there won't be birds. Fish where
Speaker 1: there are fish, A fisherman told male.
Speaker 2: Fish where there are fish.
Speaker 1: I know you talk on your show about the lesbian
Speaker 1: can do attitude, which is an attitude that I would
Speaker 1: love to have. So, like, tell me one thing I
Speaker 1: need to have the lesbian can do attitude.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, it's our it's our affectionate way of saying
Speaker 3: getting in touch with the fixer inside you.
Speaker 2: And I think it's.
Speaker 3: Fundamentally about mindset. So it's getting in touch with the
Speaker 3: agency you have to solve problems.
Speaker 2: That's it. That's your inner lesbian. We all have one. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And you know this is interesting. I don't know if
Speaker 2: I've ever taught anyone how to have can do lesbian spirit.
Speaker 2: What I do is encourage people to surround themselves with
Speaker 2: people that have this inner spirit. So it's quite infectious.
Speaker 2: I think the answer, I think that's the answer, which
Speaker 2: is be around people who in the presence of a
Speaker 2: problem walk towards it. They neither freeze nor do they
Speaker 2: walk away.
Speaker 1: What's the best thing about working with your spouse?
Speaker 3: I get to know her more every day, and I
Speaker 3: fall in love with her more every day.
Speaker 1: Francis Fry and Anne Morris are the co founders of
Speaker 1: the Leadership Consortium and the host of the Fixable podcast.
Speaker 1: If you want a chance to be on their show,
Speaker 1: call their hotline at two three four Fixable. That's two
Speaker 1: three four three four nine two two five three, and
Speaker 1: you can leave a voicemail for Annon Francis with your
Speaker 1: workplace problem. Today's show was produced by Edith Russolo, edited
Speaker 1: by Karen ch Kergie, and engineered by Amanda k. Wall.
Speaker 1: Special thanks today to Isabelle Carter, Constanza Gayardo, and Sarah Yis.
Speaker 1: You can email us at problem at Pushkin dot fm.
Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Goldstein and we will be back next week
Speaker 1: with another episode of What's Your Problem.