Speaker 1: It's our three hundred in the interview process for the
Speaker 1: CEO role at Meetup, and David Siegel is getting fed up. Yes,
Speaker 1: you heard that right. David interviewed in one form or
Speaker 1: another for more than three hundred hours before accepting the
Speaker 1: role as Meetups CEO. Now, David probably values the interviewer
Speaker 1: as part of the hiring process more than anybody else.
Speaker 1: But this was getting ridiculous, and he said, so it's
Speaker 1: a bold move to tell your potential employer that you're
Speaker 1: done with the interview process before they are. But David's
Speaker 1: a big fan of bold moves. Now, in his third
Speaker 1: CEO position, David wants to share his expertise on leadership
Speaker 1: and he believes it all comes down to decision making.
Speaker 1: So how do you decide? How do you know when
Speaker 1: it's the right time to nod politely and carry on
Speaker 1: and when it's time to put your foot down and
Speaker 1: say enough is enough? How do you decide who to
Speaker 1: hire and who to fire? David breaks down his decision
Speaker 1: making framework and shares the key lessons he learned on
Speaker 1: the way to building it. My name is doctor Amantha Imba.
Speaker 1: I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science
Speaker 1: consultancy invent him and this is how I work a
Speaker 1: show about how to help you do your best work.
Speaker 1: So David has a pretty long list of things he
Speaker 1: thinks about when it comes to making decisions. I wanted
Speaker 1: to know a few things the feature on that.
Speaker 2: List, you know, I think the most common way that
Speaker 2: people make decisions, first of all, is the typical pro
Speaker 2: cons list, right, And it's very simple, and I think
Speaker 2: probably people have been doing it since like back in
Speaker 2: cave band cave person days, whereas like you know, hunt
Speaker 2: or gather and the pros each of them. The problem
Speaker 2: with that kind of decision framework for a lot of
Speaker 2: people is it assumes that you already know the two
Speaker 2: potential best options to evaluate, and oftentimes you don't. And
Speaker 2: I think what's more important than like a framework per
Speaker 2: se rigid framework is more like guiding principles that are
Speaker 2: particularly important in decision making that you kind of keep
Speaker 2: in the back of your head and move to the
Speaker 2: front of your head. So, you know, I think about
Speaker 2: a number of guiding principles and I'll just share a
Speaker 2: few of them with you without the details. And then
Speaker 2: if you want to weak a riff and go into
Speaker 2: more detail on any of them that you like, but
Speaker 2: here's just a few of them. So Number one principle
Speaker 2: is just transparency and radical candor and sharing as much
Speaker 2: as possible. And the reason for that is because oftentimes
Speaker 2: when people make poor decisions, it's because they don't have
Speaker 2: access to the same information that you have, or they
Speaker 2: don't have access to all the information and they have
Speaker 2: certain opinions that may be very very very different have
Speaker 2: they get access to the right information. So just transparency
Speaker 2: within on a personal level and transparency on a professional
Speaker 2: level is extremely important towards decision making. The second one,
Speaker 2: I would say is a big one for me is
Speaker 2: just the criticality of disagreements in order to drive smart decisions.
Speaker 2: You know, surround yourself by people that disagree. And even
Speaker 2: though it's harder and will lead to more tension and
Speaker 2: more frustration because it makes the decision more difficult when
Speaker 2: you have people around you that disagree, it's so important
Speaker 2: because it ends up resulting in kind of really thinking
Speaker 2: through what's right and what's not right, as opposed to
Speaker 2: surrounding yourself by just kind of like yes people all
Speaker 2: the time. And I could go on and on. Those
Speaker 2: are two and I'm happy to share more, you know,
Speaker 2: as time goes on. I just don't want to talk
Speaker 2: for this long right in the beginning.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm really interested in what you say about speed,
Speaker 1: because being speedy is something that you say is very important,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of people struggle with that.
Speaker 1: So how do you apply being speedy to decision making,
Speaker 1: particularly when you're a CEO and you know this is
Speaker 1: so much at stake?
Speaker 2: Okay, So my favorite quote on speed is the following
Speaker 2: by Teddy Roosevelt, president of the United States, about one
Speaker 2: hundred years ago. And the quote is the following. The
Speaker 2: best decision is a good decision. The second best decision
Speaker 2: is a bad decision, and the third best decision is
Speaker 2: no decision. And I think, Amantha, you know exactly what
Speaker 2: I'm referring to, which is people's propensity oftentimes for inertia
Speaker 2: and for analysis paralysis, and for the lack of comfort
Speaker 2: in just getting out there and making a speedy decision
Speaker 2: and just seeing what happens. People fear failure, people fear mistakes,
Speaker 2: when in reality, the best thing that you could possibly
Speaker 2: do is to get something out the whole, minimum viable product.
Speaker 2: Lean startup type methodology and that's true on a person level,
Speaker 2: and it's also true on a professional level. Learn from
Speaker 2: it and iterate and make it better. And what people say,
Speaker 2: but what happens if I do a bad job the
Speaker 2: first time I get it? What happens if I don't
Speaker 2: do the right thing? What I usually say is you're
Speaker 2: always going to do it suboptimally, You're always going to
Speaker 2: do it wrong. So you want to learn as quickly
Speaker 2: as possible how wrong you were, so the next time
Speaker 2: you could just be a little bit less wrong. So
Speaker 2: the need for speed is so critical and decision making
Speaker 2: because oftentimes also you miss out on opportunities if you
Speaker 2: don't take that action quickly. And I just one of
Speaker 2: the most important things. Again, I'm not just on the
Speaker 2: professional level, but a personal level as well. You know,
Speaker 2: should I go out with someone or not go out?
Speaker 2: So let's you know, you spend a month ruminating about
Speaker 2: whether or not you should go out with a person
Speaker 2: or not they may already be in another relationship by
Speaker 2: then you lost the option, So it works in both ways.
Speaker 1: Something I think about a lot is like as a
Speaker 1: lad and which decisions should you delegate versus which should
Speaker 1: you cape? And I remember a while ago. Now Id
Speaker 1: Rahul Vora, who's the founder of Superhuman, which I talk
Speaker 1: about on this show probably too much because I just
Speaker 1: love that email software so so so much. And something
Speaker 1: Rahul spoke about was identifying reversible versus non reversible decisions
Speaker 1: as a CEO and how he will he will make
Speaker 1: the non reversible decisions that can't be reversed, they're very
Speaker 1: high stakes, whereas any reversible decision that can be undone,
Speaker 1: he will delegate. And I'd love to know for you, David,
Speaker 1: how do you think about which decisions you will take
Speaker 1: as a CEO versus what you delegate to your team.
Speaker 2: Okay, so, first of all, I love the reversible and irreversible.
Speaker 2: My turn that I tend to use when I talk
Speaker 2: to my teams is the idea of trapdoor decisions and
Speaker 2: non trapdoor decisions. A lot of times most decisions are
Speaker 2: non trapdoor decisions. So deciding to that you want to
Speaker 2: have a child and having a child, that's a trappedoor decision.
Speaker 2: You kind of really aren't going to unwind that decision,
Speaker 2: I hope, And that's not a reversible decision. Most people, however,
Speaker 2: overestimate how irreversible something may be. And underestimate how actually
Speaker 2: reversible something is. Oftentimes and you know, maybe not easily changed,
Speaker 2: but it certainly is more changeable than they may realize.
Speaker 2: Even a company strategy, which is so important for a CEO,
Speaker 2: you know, to not delegate and to own that again
Speaker 2: can be pivoted in many ways. So my first statement
Speaker 2: before going in to delegation, which I will, is to say,
Speaker 2: don't assume that decisions are irreversible. Many decisions are very
Speaker 2: easily reversible. It just may take a little bit of time.
Speaker 2: That's point one. My philosophy on delegation as a CEO
Speaker 2: is the following. I hire functional experts who are all
Speaker 2: better than me in their functions. Are head of marketing
Speaker 2: a heck of a lot more about marketing than I do,
Speaker 2: and our head of knows the same or had a product.
Speaker 2: The head of technology knows the same around tech. So
Speaker 2: the reason I hire them because they are the experts.
Speaker 2: So if there is any area that is a decision
Speaker 2: to be made, that is a clear functional decision, then
Speaker 2: that is one hundred percent delegated all the time. Step one.
Speaker 2: Step two is if I believe that I am the
Speaker 2: one and only, uniquely best person to make that decision,
Speaker 2: which is by the way, extremely rare, maybe one or
Speaker 2: two percent of the time, and I could go into
Speaker 2: what those are, then I should be making that decision,
Speaker 2: But the other ninety eight percent of the time, someone
Speaker 2: else should be making that decision because they will do
Speaker 2: a better job. Now, my role is to challenge the decision,
Speaker 2: is to question it if I think ral's questioning, but
Speaker 2: certainly not to make that decision. So then, per your question,
Speaker 2: what are the things that specifically a CEO should be
Speaker 2: most focused on? Here they are? So number one is,
Speaker 2: as Jim Collins said, first who then what? In his
Speaker 2: book Good to Great, focus on who is on the bus,
Speaker 2: who your executive team is, Who are the people they're
Speaker 2: going to be leading the company underneath you, and make
Speaker 2: sure you have those right people. Don't start focusing on
Speaker 2: what the right strategy is until you have the right
Speaker 2: people in place. That's probably the number one most important
Speaker 2: decision that you have. And agonize, agonize over who those
Speaker 2: right people are and make sure that you're not afraid
Speaker 2: to make changes if they're not the right people. That's
Speaker 2: top priority decision number one. Top priority decision number two
Speaker 2: is what I like to talk about, which is key
Speaker 2: strategic processes to enable smart decisions by a company. I
Speaker 2: know that's a mouthful, sertingly explain what that means. What
Speaker 2: that means is I don't believe that I should decide
Speaker 2: the strategy, because I think it needs to be a
Speaker 2: collaborative process between me, the executive team and also input
Speaker 2: from lots of employees. But what I should decide, however,
Speaker 2: is what processes do we want to set up within
Speaker 2: the company. And it could be OKAYRS, which is a
Speaker 2: common process that are used which says we're objectives and
Speaker 2: key results or what other And it could be quarteral,
Speaker 2: it could be annually, it could be monthly reviews, whatever
Speaker 2: those processes are, to make sure that you're developing what
Speaker 2: the strategy of the company should be, and also more importantly,
Speaker 2: how you're pivoting and how you're adapting that strategy as
Speaker 2: you gain additional data and additional information, and that you're
Speaker 2: not constantly making changes in people's heads are all over
Speaker 2: the place, but you're also not stuck in doing things
Speaker 2: when data and other information proves otherwise. So actually building
Speaker 2: that almost strategic process infrastructure is to be really really
Speaker 2: important to enable success.
Speaker 1: Now we've talked about what makes good decisions? What about
Speaker 1: bad decisions? Like, when you think about some of the
Speaker 1: really bad decisions that you've made as a CEO, can
Speaker 1: you identify what's led to you making poor decisions?
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh, Okay, So, my everyone has their Achilles heel.
Speaker 2: For some people, their Achilles heels anger. For other people
Speaker 2: that are achilles heel is lack of confidence and imposter syndrome.
Speaker 2: For me, my Achilles heel has been through my career
Speaker 2: is wanting to be liked too much and not upsetting
Speaker 2: people and having people feel as happy and comfortable as possible.
Speaker 2: Which you think, hey, David, that's a great thing for
Speaker 2: a CEO to do. You should do that. But I'll
Speaker 2: give you an example of an enormous mistake that I
Speaker 2: made that that is probably one of the biggest mistakes
Speaker 2: I made in my career. I'll tell you what it is,
Speaker 2: which is I had joined meet up and we were
Speaker 2: really overly bloated. The company was losing twenty million dollars,
Speaker 2: close to twenty million dollars a year. And of course,
Speaker 2: for relative to Rework, that was you know, nothing, but
Speaker 2: relative to us that was meaningful. We were owned by
Speaker 2: we work at the time, I may add, so, so
Speaker 2: I realized we could not. We have too many employees
Speaker 2: and there were too many pet projects that were going on,
Speaker 2: and we had to do a layoff, and then after layoff,
Speaker 2: a lot of employees were well. First of all, I
Speaker 2: did not cut deep enough in that layoff, because I
Speaker 2: didn't want to right start from the beginning and build
Speaker 2: all these enemies and have people dislike me right in
Speaker 2: the beginning, even though we should have cut our costs
Speaker 2: much more significantly. So that was mistake number one related
Speaker 2: to the achilles hell that I have. But the state
Speaker 2: number two, which was unforgivable, I may add, was that
Speaker 2: we did a big Q and a session of course
Speaker 2: with all employees afterwards, and one person asked the question,
Speaker 2: and they said, how can you assure us that this
Speaker 2: is the first of many and that we shouldn't be
Speaker 2: looking for a job right all of us looking for
Speaker 2: a job right now. And I got so nervous that
Speaker 2: everyone's going to start looking for a job if I
Speaker 2: didn't give them the confidence that they didn't need to worry,
Speaker 2: that there wasn't going to be that there was wasn't
Speaker 2: going to be another laugh. And I said we're done.
Speaker 2: We're done. You should not need to worry, because I
Speaker 2: wanted people to feel comfortable and secure that we're done now.
Speaker 2: I wanted that to be the case. But in reality,
Speaker 2: you never know what's going to happen in an organization.
Speaker 2: You never know what kind of situation, You never know
Speaker 2: what pandemic is going to hit, and what kind of
Speaker 2: changes you're going to make. It wasn't three or six
Speaker 2: months later, but still twelve months later, we had to
Speaker 2: do a much larger layoff at that particular time, and
Speaker 2: people remembered that I had said we were done, And
Speaker 2: you know, that's an example of just a really poor decision,
Speaker 2: where the basis for that decision was wanting to be
Speaker 2: liked and making people feel good, and I could have
Speaker 2: said it in a different way that didn't give any
Speaker 2: kind of promise.
Speaker 1: What strategies did you use to help rebuild the trust
Speaker 1: that presumably was a little bit breaken after that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, just on the topic of trust, I'll just
Speaker 2: share with you one day, I had an opportunity five
Speaker 2: years ago, I was the CEO of Investipedia prior to this,
Speaker 2: to sit with the famous Jack Welch who passed away,
Speaker 2: and he was the CEO of the world's largest valued
Speaker 2: company called General Electric for a long time, and he
Speaker 2: actually won Time Magazine's award for Best Manager of the
Speaker 2: Century of the entire twentieth century. And I said to him,
Speaker 2: what's the one piece of advice you would give me?
Speaker 2: And his answer was, it's all about building employee trust.
Speaker 2: If you have employee trust, then all those areas that
Speaker 2: are gray neither clearly good nor bad people will perceive positively.
Speaker 2: And if you don't have it, then everything that's in
Speaker 2: that gray area, and there's most things are in that
Speaker 2: care area, people are going to see negatively. And you're
Speaker 2: The most important that you could do is bill trust,
Speaker 2: you know, in terms of your decision and your work.
Speaker 2: So I'm glad you asked that question. So the answer
Speaker 2: is is that I followed Jack Welsch's advice because then
Speaker 2: I said to him, what's the most important thing I
Speaker 2: could do to bill trust? And he said, be as
Speaker 2: transparent as possible. So what did I do after doing that?
Speaker 2: The previous founder never shared financials every single month. We
Speaker 2: shall share one hundred percent of our financials with the
Speaker 2: company so they can see exactly how we're doing from
Speaker 2: a financial perspective. Every time we have a board presentation,
Speaker 2: we share the full board deck with all the information
Speaker 2: that we're sending to the board. Every employee gets to
Speaker 2: see the exact same thing, and then we have a
Speaker 2: Q and A session with me or with our CFO
Speaker 2: or others to go through any questions that people can have.
Speaker 2: We had we have on listening sessions with all employees
Speaker 2: where people can ask question Q and A. At one
Speaker 2: point we were doing that every other week and then
Speaker 2: different times we're doing it once a month, but give
Speaker 2: people that forum. We have manager Q and A sessions
Speaker 2: where it just managers asking those kind of questions. So
Speaker 2: a lot of it just comes down to as much
Speaker 2: communication as possible and creating the forum for people to
Speaker 2: feel comfortable asking you those questions and when people ask
Speaker 2: you a tough question, to thank them for asking it
Speaker 2: and to not shy away for those tough questions either.
Speaker 2: That to me is the most important thing in building trust.
Speaker 1: What do you do at that one on one level,
Speaker 1: like you know, particularly with your direct reports and perhaps
Speaker 1: that level below to build trust.
Speaker 2: Good. Okay, so first of all, let's talk about the
Speaker 2: level below first, which is the importance of skip meetings.
Speaker 2: So many leaders exclusively meet one on one with their
Speaker 2: direct reports. I set up a cadence of meetings with
Speaker 2: every single person who reports to one of my direct
Speaker 2: reports on a periodic basis. Sometimes it's once a month,
Speaker 2: sometimes it's just once a quarter, and I'm talking to
Speaker 2: them four times a year for thirty minutes each time,
Speaker 2: so it doesn't have to take a lot of time.
Speaker 2: But those SKIP meetings are very important, and I would
Speaker 2: probably say I spend a third to a half of
Speaker 2: those meetings just getting to know the person, building a
Speaker 2: personal relationship, talking about the personal, not just the professional,
Speaker 2: because a great way to build trust is to make
Speaker 2: sure that people get to know you, get to know
Speaker 2: you as a human, get to know you as a
Speaker 2: person with fears and concerns, and speaking of that. The
Speaker 2: more that you're able to share your personal challenges, your vulnerabilities,
Speaker 2: your concerns about the company, your thoughts, that really tends
Speaker 2: to build much greater levels of trust because it builds
Speaker 2: a deeper, closer relationship than just more superficial type conversations
Speaker 2: or business only type conversations. And then it's important for
Speaker 2: SKIP levels, and it's also important for direct reports. The
Speaker 2: other thing that I tried to do with direct reports
Speaker 2: in one on ones is their religion to me, meaning
Speaker 2: I will never cancel one on one without saying to
Speaker 2: someone first, is that okay if we cancel this week
Speaker 2: one on one? Or is it okay if we shorten
Speaker 2: the amount of time for our one on one? Those
Speaker 2: one on ones are very important, and I think oftentimes
Speaker 2: leaders don't realize how the important they are to their
Speaker 2: direct reports, and they get canceled, they get moved. They
Speaker 2: shouldn't be. The second next thing that we do is
Speaker 2: we often but not always, have agendas prior to those
Speaker 2: one on ones, but we make sure not to just
Speaker 2: stick to only the agenda, and at the end of
Speaker 2: the one on one, oftentimes I'll say something like, what
Speaker 2: did we not talk about that's on your mind, that's
Speaker 2: really important to you, and people tend to appreciate that.
Speaker 2: The other thing I try to do is make sure
Speaker 2: that one on ones are not just a tactical list
Speaker 2: of check check check, check check, did you do this,
Speaker 2: do this, do this kind of thing, but that we're
Speaker 2: stepping back and kind of talking bigger picture questions and
Speaker 2: we're pulling ourselves out of kind of the day to day,
Speaker 2: and I think that's oftentimes motivational for leaders to be
Speaker 2: able to do and hard and important, hard to do
Speaker 2: because they're oftentimes so stuck in the day to day,
Speaker 2: but very important in a one on one type dialogue.
Speaker 1: We will be back soon with David talking about what's
Speaker 1: involved in a typical CEO's day that would surprise people,
Speaker 1: along with his approach to building company culture. And if
Speaker 1: you're looking for more tips to improve the way that
Speaker 1: you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains
Speaker 1: three cool things that I've discovered that help me work better,
Speaker 1: ranging from interesting research findings through to gadgets and software
Speaker 1: I'm loving. You can sign up for that at Howiwork
Speaker 1: dot co. That's how I Work dot co. I'd love
Speaker 1: to know more about, like what's involved in the day
Speaker 1: to day work of being a CEO of a huge
Speaker 1: company that you think would surprise people.
Speaker 2: How non glamorous it is. Start with that. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's really so funny people to think, oh gosh, it
Speaker 2: must be great you're CEO and you're doing the glamora.
Speaker 2: I'm usually shoving food down my face and like you know,
Speaker 2: five to seven minutes while I'm on another meeting with
Speaker 2: someone running downstairs and grabbing something tuna fish and whenever
Speaker 2: I could grab leftovers, you know, running back upstairs to
Speaker 2: you know, a typical zoom meeting because we're there today.
Speaker 2: So first step I would say is it has incredibly
Speaker 2: non glamorous. I think people you know, watch shows and
Speaker 2: cee CEOs jetting off and first class or private jest
Speaker 2: to you know, do all these amazing activities, and that's
Speaker 2: definitely not the case. That's one Two is I spend
Speaker 2: personally an enormous amount of my time on kind of
Speaker 2: h R and people related activities, and I think most
Speaker 2: CEOs spend a lot more time than most people realize, frankly,
Speaker 2: So what do I mean by that? Helping to recruit
Speaker 2: top talent? So for example, just today, there was a
Speaker 2: director of data science who were trying to recruit and
Speaker 2: the person wasn't sure. So I reached out to the
Speaker 2: person to have a zoom meeting and get to know
Speaker 2: that person a little bit better to try to persuade
Speaker 2: them to potentially join working with different hiring managers to
Speaker 2: make sure that they're really thinking about whom to hire.
Speaker 2: So that's one part helping to motivate people, train people.
Speaker 2: Those are very you know, typical HR people related practices,
Speaker 2: But you spend a lot of time, at least I
Speaker 2: spend a lot of time on those types of activities
Speaker 2: and communication. Like what I like to say is, unless
Speaker 2: you're sick of hearing the same thing over and over again,
Speaker 2: you haven't said it enough, and you have to say
Speaker 2: it in lots of different venues. So I'll send a
Speaker 2: message in slack that's not good enough, then I need
Speaker 2: to follow it up potentially an email that's not good enough.
Speaker 2: Then we have an all hands meeting every other week
Speaker 2: and we want to have a slide on that that's
Speaker 2: not good enough. Like, you need to repeat the same
Speaker 2: messages over and over again. And it's not people's fault
Speaker 2: that they need that repetition. It's just human nature. Everyone's
Speaker 2: very busy, and also people need clarity, and by repeating
Speaker 2: messages over and over again, it drives that clarity, which
Speaker 2: is so helpful for people. So I would say tremendous
Speaker 2: amounts of time spent on communication and on the people
Speaker 2: aspects of work, and very little time on decision making,
Speaker 2: as funny as it sounds, because I'm talking about decisions
Speaker 2: a lot. But the best decision oftentimes is knowing who
Speaker 2: the right person is to make a decision, and it's
Speaker 2: you know, people reaching out to me all the time
Speaker 2: and saying, hey, can you do you know? Can we
Speaker 2: do this? Can we do that? And usually my response
Speaker 2: is I don't have any ability to make that decision
Speaker 2: at all. You have to talk to our head of.
Speaker 3: Product or head and I shouldn't be because if I'm
Speaker 3: making that decision, that's a great way to piss off
Speaker 3: people on my team and not have they want to
Speaker 3: work with me because that's their responsibility to make those decisions.
Speaker 1: How do you train people, like, how do you train
Speaker 1: people to stop asking you for permission? Because you know,
Speaker 1: it's something I encounter a lot as well, and even
Speaker 1: when I transition to out of a CEO role, it
Speaker 1: required training for people not to come to me to
Speaker 1: make decisions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So so much comes down to building a culture
Speaker 2: within a company where people understand that again at meetup
Speaker 2: not this isn't true necessary of all companies, but the
Speaker 2: culture that we want to build is asking for forgiveness,
Speaker 2: not for permission. And so much comes down to having
Speaker 2: certain values as a company that are at the center
Speaker 2: of everything that you do, and we have six values,
Speaker 2: you know, as a business. And you know, one of
Speaker 2: those values, for example, is called step up. And what
Speaker 2: we say when we say tell people that the value
Speaker 2: is about step up, stepping up is saying, I don't
Speaker 2: care what your job description is like, we want you
Speaker 2: to step up and take on more responsibility. Then you
Speaker 2: feel comfortable taking on because that's how you're going to
Speaker 2: also move up in your career, and that's how better
Speaker 2: decisions are going to get made. And we take this
Speaker 2: six values, and I can share all six if you
Speaker 2: want it, but we take those six values and embedded
Speaker 2: in everything we do. It's part of the recruiting process,
Speaker 2: who we hire, as part of promotion process, who we
Speaker 2: decide to promote. It is part of our performance review
Speaker 2: process or three and sixty three feedback process. Everything kind
Speaker 2: of is anchored in those six values. And if you're
Speaker 2: able to anchor it in those things, then systemically it's
Speaker 2: going to become much more part of the company.
Speaker 1: And you, like you've said that one of the key
Speaker 1: roles of a CEO is around company culture, and I'm
Speaker 1: assuming that you see like that as one of the
Speaker 1: biggest parts of your role.
Speaker 2: Yes, very much so.
Speaker 1: But like culture is something that can be such a
Speaker 1: nebulous term, So like, what does company culture mean to you?
Speaker 2: Well, here's what I like to say a lot of times,
Speaker 2: which is when you know, when some people say in
Speaker 2: a company, oh my god, the culture of this company
Speaker 2: just sucks. Terrible culture, right, people say that all the time, right,
Speaker 2: hopefully not about your company and my conomy, but people
Speaker 2: say that, what they really mean is, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: the leadership of this company just sucks. The leadership of
Speaker 2: this company is just how there's so little difference between
Speaker 2: it's just a euphemism between culture and leadership, because the
Speaker 2: leadership of a company will help to drive a culture. Now,
Speaker 2: I inherited a certain culture at meetup from the founder
Speaker 2: because I was the first CEO to take over from
Speaker 2: a founder who is leading the company for sixteen years
Speaker 2: prior to my joining, So there wasn't existing culture, of course,
Speaker 2: But it's important to recognize. Step one is that who
Speaker 2: you are as a leader, how you choose to lead,
Speaker 2: is directly related to what the company's culture specifically is.
Speaker 2: And when you talk about a culture, what you mean
Speaker 2: are what's ultimately rewarded within an organization and what ultimately
Speaker 2: is do people perceive as something that is a negative
Speaker 2: and shouldn't be done. It's not like, oh, we have
Speaker 2: a great culture because go barbecuing all the time. Like
Speaker 2: that's not a culture. That's just like a fun thing
Speaker 2: that employees enjoy. What's ultimately rewarded and what's ultimately you know,
Speaker 2: frowned down upon? That to me is really representative of
Speaker 2: a company culture.
Speaker 1: And so how do you as a CEO go about
Speaker 1: shaping that culture, and particularly when you've inherited one that
Speaker 1: maybe you do want to change.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, when I inherited meetup. Meetups culture was
Speaker 2: extraordinarily mission focused, and the mission is an amazing mission.
Speaker 2: The mission is about curing the loneliness epidemic that exists
Speaker 2: in this world. Forty six percent of people regularly feel lonely,
Speaker 2: and community and building community and helping people to build
Speaker 2: community is an incredible noble cause. But our employee base
Speaker 2: were there because of the mission and was almost like
Speaker 2: a nonprofit mentality, and we were losing a lot of money,
Speaker 2: but it was it was an anti business actual culture
Speaker 2: where if I stood up there on my first day,
Speaker 2: I remember I stood up there and I said I
Speaker 2: care about a whole bunch of things. One thing I
Speaker 2: care about is revenue. Let's here it for revenue, and
Speaker 2: people are like boo. Now, of course people didn't understand.
Speaker 2: You get your paycheck because you have good revenue. And
Speaker 2: I liked I'd said over and over again until I'm
Speaker 2: nauseated by the statement. But I really deeply believe it.
Speaker 2: Revenue gives oxygen to our mission, and if you don't
Speaker 2: have revenue, you can't really fulfill the mission that we
Speaker 2: have as a company. So it was a very precarious
Speaker 2: situation that I had to change, and ultimately the way
Speaker 2: that I changed it is what I was referencing earlier.
Speaker 2: We changed out near the my twelve direct reports. Only
Speaker 2: one of them was still there. Six months later, eleven
Speaker 2: of the twelve people were no longer part of the company,
Speaker 2: and within a year we had an entirely new kind
Speaker 2: of leadership team that resulted in many employees saying, I
Speaker 2: liked our old culture where we spent one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars on a holiday party. That's nice, but we can't
Speaker 2: afford to do that. We want meet up to continue
Speaker 2: forever and not to be shut down because you know,
Speaker 2: we're losing so much money, So you have to be
Speaker 2: comfortable making some people kind of less comfortable and changes
Speaker 2: that you're making. But it all stems from the top.
Speaker 2: And if at the top you don't have the right
Speaker 2: people that are the embodiments of the culture and the
Speaker 2: priorities that you're instilling within a company, you're not going
Speaker 2: to be able to instill them just by yourself.
Speaker 1: Now. You mentioned, of course that made Up used to
Speaker 1: be owned by Way Work, and the tale of Adam Newman,
Speaker 1: one of the founders and see of We Work is
Speaker 1: a pretty crazy one. What was your approach when working
Speaker 1: with a leader who is so unpredictable?
Speaker 2: I guess okay, So I just started watching re Crashed
Speaker 2: on Apple TV that just came out this past week,
Speaker 2: and wow, do they do a good job of portraying Adam.
Speaker 2: They didn't even exaggerate much, to be honest. So you know,
Speaker 2: you have to decide as a leader whether or not
Speaker 2: a person that you're going to come in contact with
Speaker 2: and need to work with is someone that you can
Speaker 2: potentially find a working relationship or not, And almost always
Speaker 2: you can. And you shouldn't just wave the white flag
Speaker 2: and give up and say I can't. I know that
Speaker 2: I'm not going to be able to work effectively with
Speaker 2: this person, so I'm not What I did with Adam
Speaker 2: is not something I would suggest doing, and I don't
Speaker 2: believe it's a I'll repeat that what I did with
Speaker 2: Adam is not something that I would suggest doing and
Speaker 2: is not a best practice. But to be very honest,
Speaker 2: what I did is I said I need to minimize
Speaker 2: as much contact with Adam as possible because he is
Speaker 2: unable to be pulled in and rained in and he
Speaker 2: has so many strong opinions that are not found. Not
Speaker 2: that there's no necessarily data driven basis that I need
Speaker 2: to minimize attractions. So what I did right for the
Speaker 2: day one is I told the person I was reporting to,
Speaker 2: and his name is Artie Minson, who was the president's
Speaker 2: CFO we work at the time, I said, I want
Speaker 2: the first three months to have zero contact with Adam.
Speaker 2: Zero contact, and he's like, really, I said, I need
Speaker 2: to learn about the business and to come up with
Speaker 2: my own opinion. And only after three months, well, am
Speaker 2: I interested? And then really getting Adam's perspective. But week
Speaker 2: one he's going to have a lot of opinions of
Speaker 2: things that we should be doing. And I'm just going
Speaker 2: to be on the defensive and I'm not going to
Speaker 2: really be able to say, here's actually my suggestions of
Speaker 2: what we should do. So I remember I felt so
Speaker 2: great about this. One month in to me being the
Speaker 2: meet up, I get a call and it's from Adam,
Speaker 2: and the first thing he says, David, I know I'm
Speaker 2: not allowed to talk to you, but I just had
Speaker 2: a question about some that used to work for you,
Speaker 2: just to get your quick perspective on whether or not
Speaker 2: you think they're strong. And I was like, wow, kudos
Speaker 2: to Adam that he acknowledged and realized that. And then
Speaker 2: sure enough, only after three months of me being in
Speaker 2: the role do we then start engaging in more back
Speaker 2: and forth dialogue, each of which only further cemented why
Speaker 2: it was good to have taken that three month break
Speaker 2: to have come up with a strategy. But you know,
Speaker 2: when we first finally met, I said, Adam, here's a strategy,
Speaker 2: here's a document, here's there's here's the financial basis for it,
Speaker 2: here's what the opportunity for growth is for it. And
Speaker 2: it made for a lot easier conversation of me sharing
Speaker 2: a plan that he would react to than having him
Speaker 2: share his plans and having me kind of react to those.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious about that because Adam is notorious for
Speaker 1: setting pretty insane wild goals, and in your book you
Speaker 1: say that you prefer not to set wildly ambitious goals.
Speaker 1: So what is your approach to goal setting? Like, how
Speaker 1: do you know if you're stretching the company enough but
Speaker 1: not being too crazy?
Speaker 2: Okay, I love that question. So I think small wins
Speaker 2: are extraordinarily motivating to teams. And setting a goal of
Speaker 2: I'm making this up fifty percent growth and you only
Speaker 2: grow fifteen or twenty percent, let's say in the previous
Speaker 2: year group by ten percent, but now you double that growth,
Speaker 2: but you're still far behind what the goal was is
Speaker 2: so debilitating and so demotivating that people feel that they're
Speaker 2: in a no win situation. When people feel like they're
Speaker 2: in a no win situation, they will leave a company.
Speaker 2: Great people can leave a company. So in my mind,
Speaker 2: it is far better, far better to set small, achievable
Speaker 2: goals that you feel good about and they keep compounding
Speaker 2: one upon the other to make for you know, a
Speaker 2: lot of success over time and have people build that
Speaker 2: momentum and feel good about the momentum to take to
Speaker 2: the obviously next level of the next level. When you
Speaker 2: set over the outrageous goals like we work did and
Speaker 2: you don't have the infrastructure to support those goals, well
Speaker 2: that's how we work in crashing down from forty seven
Speaker 2: billion of vealuation at one point two five billion valuation
Speaker 2: today like close to a ninety percent decrease. When you
Speaker 2: set goals and you build the foundation and the infrastructure
Speaker 2: to support growth, that's when you ultimately it's going to
Speaker 2: be sustainable and not like a house of cards. So again,
Speaker 2: in goal setting previous to me, Adam told my predecessor
Speaker 2: what the goals needed to be. So, for example, one
Speaker 2: of the goals was maximize the number of people you
Speaker 2: could hire as quickly as possible. That was literally a goal.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's not the way to run a company,
Speaker 2: and that doesn't make much sense as a key goal.
Speaker 2: Let's just hire lots of people. So we had I
Speaker 2: think twenty people in the human resources department. I mean,
Speaker 2: it just really was was head scratching. And what I
Speaker 2: did is I said, here are the goals that we're
Speaker 2: going to be focusing on. Here are the financial goals,
Speaker 2: and we're going to focus on how and I'm just
Speaker 2: going to tell you what we need to do in
Speaker 2: terms of these goals. But at times we actually had
Speaker 2: to present two different financial projections to we work. There
Speaker 2: was the regular budget financial statements that we have to present.
Speaker 2: Then there was the atom financial projection that we had
Speaker 2: to present where we would get from you know, thirty
Speaker 2: forty billion dollars into a billion dollars in three years,
Speaker 2: and kind of have to show both of those two
Speaker 2: scenarios depending on the meetings. I mean, you know, that's
Speaker 2: how it was.
Speaker 1: Now, David. For people that want to get their hands
Speaker 1: on to side and conquer or consume other things that
Speaker 1: you're putting out into the world, what is the best
Speaker 1: way for people to connect and consume?
Speaker 2: Okay, so you can find Decide and Conquer Amazon or
Speaker 2: book Depository or any kind of online forum in anywhere
Speaker 2: really in the world. The audio version and is phenomenal,
Speaker 2: So I'm a big recommender of the audio version, as
Speaker 2: is the Kindle version is quite great as well. We
Speaker 2: have a website called Decide in Conquer book dot Com.
Speaker 2: But you could go to really any bookseller and you know,
Speaker 2: find that book outside of the book terms of Meetup.
Speaker 2: If you don't know it, download the meetup app, look
Speaker 2: at Melbourne or Sydney or Perth, or any city that
Speaker 2: you might be in outside of Astore or anywhere around
Speaker 2: the world, and you will find some interesting event to
Speaker 2: go to our app or of course online. But I'm
Speaker 2: partial to our app, and if you want to contact me,
Speaker 2: check me out on LinkedIn. I'm easy to find, or
Speaker 2: you can even email me David at meetup dot com.
Speaker 2: Pretty simple.
Speaker 1: Amazing, David. I have loved chatting to you and hearing
Speaker 1: all your amazing stories and just how openly and transparently
Speaker 1: you talk about these things. I feel like time has
Speaker 1: just flown by, so thank you so much for giving
Speaker 1: me some of your time. I found it so fascinating
Speaker 1: to hear David's approach to goal setting. It's so easy
Speaker 1: for companies to have these crazy, big goals, especially if
Speaker 1: you are a big tech business, but it's so demotivating
Speaker 1: when you don't hit those goals. At invent here, what
Speaker 1: we do we have an achievable base and then five
Speaker 1: levels of goals all the way out to something that
Speaker 1: feels relatively unachievable at the time that we set it,
Speaker 1: But as we approach the end of this financial year,
Speaker 1: it's actually looking like we might hit that big, crazy goal.
Speaker 1: But if that was the only goal we started with,
Speaker 1: I suspect that the first half of the year would
Speaker 1: have been pretty rough going with such a big goal
Speaker 1: in front of us. Now, if you have not subscribed
Speaker 1: or followed How I Work wherever you're listening to this,
Speaker 1: you might want to do so, because next week I'm
Speaker 1: so excited to have Brian Koppelman, who was the creator
Speaker 1: of Billions, the TV show, talking about his process for
Speaker 1: writing and creativity. How I Work is produced by Inventium
Speaker 1: with production support from Dead Set Studios. The producer for
Speaker 1: this episode was Liam Ridan, and thank you to Martin
Speaker 1: Nimber who does the audio mix for every episode and
Speaker 1: makes everything sound much better than it would have otherwise.
Speaker 1: See you next time.