Speaker 1: We've had lots of conversation with heads of companies and
Speaker 1: organizations of all sizes, and one common denominator, the fight
Speaker 1: for workers in today's tight labor market. We get another read,
Speaker 1: as you know, on the US employment picture with the
Speaker 1: monthly data release on Friday and a few reports leading
Speaker 1: up to that. Our next guest knows a lot about
Speaker 1: people management and building a company thanks to its people.
Speaker 1: She spent ten years at Google. She is corporate officer
Speaker 1: and advisor to Stripe. She was COO It's Stripe. So
Speaker 1: delighted to have with us. Claire Hughes Johnson. She's got
Speaker 1: a new book out, Scaling People Tactics for Management and
Speaker 1: Company Building. She is here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio.
Speaker 1: Really nice to have you. How are you? Thank you?
Speaker 1: I'm well, it's great to be her, Carol Thing. It's
Speaker 1: great to have you here, and I want to talk
Speaker 1: about your book. I want to ask you, though, I
Speaker 1: feel like Claire, everybody's talking about people management, especially coming
Speaker 1: off the pandemic. What have we all been doing often
Speaker 1: so wrong? And what have we maybe realized as a
Speaker 1: result of the pandemic what we were doing so wrong? Well,
Speaker 1: I think that what we've probably done is thought that
Speaker 1: just people management will come naturally to us and the pandemic. No,
Speaker 1: it doesn't, But I do think it's learnable. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think a lot about scaling people is just like,
Speaker 1: let's break down some of the stuff that happens in private,
Speaker 1: the one on ones, the performance conversations. Let's expose what happens,
Speaker 1: but actually do the work. Because actually doing that work
Speaker 1: and investing in people. And I agree with you and
Speaker 1: the climate we're in right now, if you're not investing
Speaker 1: in yourself as a leader and manager or in your talent,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a problem because you need more out
Speaker 1: of them, and you can't let growth paper over challenges.
Speaker 1: I mean, I do think the pandemic cause more disconnection,
Speaker 1: So if you're not reconnecting, it's going to get worse.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't change when we get into a softer
Speaker 1: labor market. What's your take on that. I think the
Speaker 1: best companies make this investment, no matter what I do
Speaker 1: think though in a softer labor market, sure people start
Speaker 1: taking some things for granted, but I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think one of the things that bothers me often is
Speaker 1: companies Obviously they're obsessed with their business, with their product,
Speaker 1: with their growth, but you're people for a lot of
Speaker 1: companies are what's producing all of that. And the whole
Speaker 1: hypothesis of scaling people is you want great results. This
Speaker 1: is the investment you make because in the long term,
Speaker 1: that's what's going to produce them. I have to say
Speaker 1: it's like a handbook, like as I go through it,
Speaker 1: like I'm assuming that that's what you meant for it
Speaker 1: to be, and you've got some great What I like
Speaker 1: is though great quotes from some leaders. You've talked to
Speaker 1: a lot of people in terms of what it is,
Speaker 1: What is though the biggest mistake that people kind of make,
Speaker 1: or what as you talk to leaders? So, yeah, it
Speaker 1: is more like a reference manual. So scaling people is
Speaker 1: just not really to be red cover to cover. It's
Speaker 1: more look in the table of contents, what is the
Speaker 1: thing you're working on? Is it team development, is it
Speaker 1: company building, operating structures, is it performance feedback? Is it
Speaker 1: your own career? And you'll find a section in the
Speaker 1: book and also, yeah, quotes and excerpts from a lot
Speaker 1: of different material what do people get wrong in management?
Speaker 1: There are two things that I think often happen. One
Speaker 1: is thinking you need everyone to like you and you're
Speaker 1: not your team's best friend. I'm sorry. And the other
Speaker 1: is not you need to manage different people differently. And
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people take the Golden rule. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to manage people the way I like to
Speaker 1: be managed. But guess what, they're different than you. It's
Speaker 1: like the opposite of the Golden rule. What motivates them,
Speaker 1: what kind of challenge? How do they take feedback? You
Speaker 1: need to be studying your team and yourself to understand
Speaker 1: how to adapt and adjust. And I actually think it's
Speaker 1: very doable. But maybe the third mistake is not taking
Speaker 1: the time to do it well. It's interesting too, And
Speaker 1: I think about as you were helping Stripe, as you
Speaker 1: were working at Google, right, building out these incredible companies, right,
Speaker 1: but at some point it's probably crazy. You're running after
Speaker 1: a million different things. The last thing you're like, all right,
Speaker 1: what is Joe need or what is Jay need? In
Speaker 1: terms of an employee? But it's really important, it is.
Speaker 1: It is at the end of I think the longest
Speaker 1: chapter in the book is about hiring. Yeah, and at
Speaker 1: the end of the chapter, I found myself because it's true.
Speaker 1: I've been in very high growth environments. I've been part
Speaker 1: of building too, you know, arguably pretty definitional companies Google
Speaker 1: certainly and Stripe we hope to be. And at the
Speaker 1: end of the chapter, I found myself writing, if you've
Speaker 1: gotten to this point, you probably think I'm insane for
Speaker 1: recommending all of these things that you need to build
Speaker 1: and want to build into your hiring and your onboarding process.
Speaker 1: And it's very tactical. They're they're like specific steps, right,
Speaker 1: and how to interview and teach interviewing. I said, but
Speaker 1: you know, if you believe talent is everything you know,
Speaker 1: or that hiring is everything, then talent is everything and
Speaker 1: your hiring process has to reflect that. Well. It's interesting
Speaker 1: because I do feel like in part of the narrative,
Speaker 1: the corporate narratives, certainly coming off the pandemic right, certainly
Speaker 1: coming off of George Floyd and everything, it's people, you
Speaker 1: all matter, and so on and so forth, and you know,
Speaker 1: the working from home, do what you need to do.
Speaker 1: But I do feel like I wonder if the narrative,
Speaker 1: maybe the narratives there, but the actions are right, And
Speaker 1: what are you seeing or what do you think does
Speaker 1: it just that something change. Here's what I worry about
Speaker 1: in that, which is there seems to be something soft
Speaker 1: in saying people investment or people matter, when in fact,
Speaker 1: I think the best places, the best managers and leaders
Speaker 1: have very high standards but also deep devotion. Right, It's
Speaker 1: the marriage of the caring and the expectations. And I
Speaker 1: worry people were like, well, we've got to just take
Speaker 1: our foot off the gas because yeah, there was a pandemic.
Speaker 1: Terrible things have happened in this country and around the world,
Speaker 1: and it is very hard and people are tired. But
Speaker 1: you know what, we want to be inspired. We want
Speaker 1: to be inspired by where we work and the people
Speaker 1: we work with. And if you don't have a high
Speaker 1: standard coupled with that empathy and that devotion and that investment,
Speaker 1: you're not doing your job and you're not going to
Speaker 1: get the results. All right, So, because you're here and
Speaker 1: you have this incredible background, I only have a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes left, so you have to promise you if
Speaker 1: you're going to come back, because but tell me about
Speaker 1: some of the interesting trends that are going on. We're
Speaker 1: talking so much about aim. What is it that you
Speaker 1: find it you're at Google. I mean the Moon's like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's just so much stuff. What is it
Speaker 1: that you find interesting? I love working with founders, and
Speaker 1: I love all of the things that are happening. You're
Speaker 1: absolutely right. It's you just turn around and there's an
Speaker 1: exciting project happening in any in lots of companies of
Speaker 1: all sizes. I think AI is real. It is incredibly innovative.
Speaker 1: But what's really interesting about it to me is it's
Speaker 1: less of a technology that is like there's one or
Speaker 1: two winners ye, kind of a thing, right, like an
Speaker 1: Android and an Apple. Right. This is much more fragmented
Speaker 1: and dispersed, and it's very accessible to a lot of
Speaker 1: different companies. It'll be very interesting to see how people
Speaker 1: how companies sort of innovate around AI as part of
Speaker 1: their core business. And I think a lot of the
Speaker 1: best companies will. We only have about forty seconds left.
Speaker 1: Is it a conversation you guys are having about I
Speaker 1: think every company. I'm a bunch of boards too. I'm
Speaker 1: on the board of HubSpot. Every company is having that conversation.
Speaker 1: Really really fascinating. I have a million more questions working
Speaker 1: from home, is it here going to go away. I
Speaker 1: think some version of it is here, but it means
Speaker 1: you have to be in person on some regular basis
Speaker 1: in my opinion, all right, come back. Scaling People. It
Speaker 1: is her book. It really is a handbook. It's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: It's very dense, but we kind of love that it's
Speaker 1: entitled Scaling People Tactics for Management and Company Building. Our
Speaker 1: thanks so much to our guest Claire Hughes Johnson, Corporated
Speaker 1: officer and advisor to Stripe, former CEO Stripe, joining us
Speaker 1: here in our Bloomberg Business Week studio. Thank you again,
Speaker 1: great to be here. Loved it, loved it. You are
Speaker 1: listening in watching Blueberg Business Week on this Tuesday. Just
Speaker 1: a reminder of how we closed in terms of trading,
Speaker 1: just down about one and a half percent on the
Speaker 1: S and P five hundred, a decline of one point
Speaker 1: seven percent on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the
Speaker 1: Nazik a decline of one and a quarter percent. This
Speaker 1: is Blueberg Radio