1 00:00:00,720 --> 00:00:03,000 Speaker 1: How I Work is having a little break over the 2 00:00:03,040 --> 00:00:06,600 Speaker 1: festive season, so I've picked a handful of my absolute 3 00:00:06,640 --> 00:00:09,600 Speaker 1: favorite episodes from the last eighteen months to play for 4 00:00:09,640 --> 00:00:12,720 Speaker 1: you in this best of series. I hope you enjoy, 5 00:00:12,960 --> 00:00:16,200 Speaker 1: and I'll be back with new episodes twice weekly from 6 00:00:16,320 --> 00:00:17,360 Speaker 1: January twenty eight. 7 00:00:18,840 --> 00:00:22,320 Speaker 2: Do you remember when working from home was a rarity. 8 00:00:23,400 --> 00:00:25,840 Speaker 1: Maybe you knew a couple of contractors who had a 9 00:00:25,840 --> 00:00:28,600 Speaker 1: home office, or you'd heard of a few companies with 10 00:00:28,680 --> 00:00:30,600 Speaker 1: pretty flexible working arrangements. 11 00:00:31,640 --> 00:00:35,000 Speaker 2: Then all of a sudden, it seemed like almost. 12 00:00:34,600 --> 00:00:39,159 Speaker 1: Everyone started working from home thanks to the pandemic, and 13 00:00:39,240 --> 00:00:42,840 Speaker 1: things changed for good when we all realized we could 14 00:00:42,880 --> 00:00:45,479 Speaker 1: get by with things like Zoom and Google Docs. 15 00:00:46,600 --> 00:00:48,440 Speaker 2: But what if we were wrong? 16 00:00:50,280 --> 00:00:54,360 Speaker 1: Adam Nathan is the co founder and CEO of Almanac, 17 00:00:54,840 --> 00:01:01,280 Speaker 1: which has structured collaboration software for remote teams. Worried that 18 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:06,040 Speaker 1: where we work has changed, but how we work hasn't. 19 00:01:07,240 --> 00:01:09,720 Speaker 2: So what needs to change? 20 00:01:10,360 --> 00:01:14,840 Speaker 1: Well, it all starts with Almanax principles of modern Work. 21 00:01:19,720 --> 00:01:23,520 Speaker 1: My name is doctor amanthe Immer. I'm an organizational psychologist 22 00:01:23,520 --> 00:01:27,240 Speaker 1: and the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this 23 00:01:27,480 --> 00:01:30,479 Speaker 1: is how I work. A show about how to help 24 00:01:30,520 --> 00:01:35,959 Speaker 1: you do your best work. So if you visit Almanac's website, 25 00:01:36,240 --> 00:01:39,679 Speaker 1: as well as learning all about the software, there is 26 00:01:39,800 --> 00:01:44,200 Speaker 1: a whole section dedicated to Adam and his team's thinking 27 00:01:44,319 --> 00:01:48,280 Speaker 1: about how teams, and especially teams that don't work in 28 00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:51,440 Speaker 1: the same location five days a week, can think differently 29 00:01:51,760 --> 00:01:55,200 Speaker 1: and a whole lot better about work. And I was 30 00:01:55,280 --> 00:01:59,120 Speaker 1: keen to know why did Adam even create these principles 31 00:01:59,320 --> 00:02:00,240 Speaker 1: in the first place. 32 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:03,920 Speaker 3: We started the company off the pretty simple thesis that 33 00:02:04,040 --> 00:02:07,040 Speaker 3: where we work has changed, but how we work hasn't. 34 00:02:07,400 --> 00:02:09,200 Speaker 3: And I think anyone who's lived through the past three 35 00:02:09,240 --> 00:02:11,760 Speaker 3: or four years knows what I mean. But just to 36 00:02:11,760 --> 00:02:15,120 Speaker 3: put some data on it, before the pandemic, about twenty 37 00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:17,359 Speaker 3: two percent of at least white collar professionals in the 38 00:02:17,440 --> 00:02:20,760 Speaker 3: United States worked remotely or in some kind of distributed 39 00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:23,639 Speaker 3: context to the numbers closer to seventy percent, so you're 40 00:02:23,639 --> 00:02:26,000 Speaker 3: seeing something like a four or five x increase in 41 00:02:26,040 --> 00:02:28,880 Speaker 3: remote work. And the number has actually grown since the 42 00:02:28,919 --> 00:02:32,079 Speaker 3: end of the pandemic. And I don't love the I 43 00:02:32,080 --> 00:02:34,240 Speaker 3: don't love the phrase remote work. I'd rather call it 44 00:02:34,280 --> 00:02:36,440 Speaker 3: internet work, because what I think is really happening here 45 00:02:36,520 --> 00:02:39,560 Speaker 3: is this broader shift from working in the office to 46 00:02:39,639 --> 00:02:42,040 Speaker 3: working on the internet, and this has happened in phases 47 00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:44,000 Speaker 3: over time. Even before the pandemic, a lot of people, 48 00:02:44,120 --> 00:02:45,880 Speaker 3: even if they went into an office, were working in 49 00:02:45,960 --> 00:02:50,200 Speaker 3: Google Docs, communicating on Slack, meeting on Zoom. A lot 50 00:02:50,200 --> 00:02:53,720 Speaker 3: of large companies were distributed. Before was cool because they 51 00:02:53,760 --> 00:02:59,560 Speaker 3: had offices across different cities and even countries. But remote 52 00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:03,160 Speaker 3: work is the pandemic was really a one way door 53 00:03:03,200 --> 00:03:05,240 Speaker 3: inter remote work for a lot of people, and it 54 00:03:05,280 --> 00:03:08,160 Speaker 3: was obviously a surprise and overnight people couldn't go into 55 00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:10,919 Speaker 3: their offices anymore. And it turns out that we could 56 00:03:11,120 --> 00:03:13,160 Speaker 3: kind of get by at work with the basics of 57 00:03:13,280 --> 00:03:15,400 Speaker 3: creating and collaborating with the tools that we had. But 58 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:19,919 Speaker 3: what happened also during the pandemic is that indicators around 59 00:03:19,919 --> 00:03:23,640 Speaker 3: things like burnout and job satisfaction and management efficiency started 60 00:03:23,639 --> 00:03:29,800 Speaker 3: blinking red because we were still all working online as 61 00:03:29,800 --> 00:03:31,240 Speaker 3: if we were in an office from nine to five 62 00:03:31,280 --> 00:03:34,520 Speaker 3: in the same place. So meetings and messages started to 63 00:03:34,520 --> 00:03:38,520 Speaker 3: become overused as tools of getting stuff done when people 64 00:03:38,600 --> 00:03:41,280 Speaker 3: couldn't be around their colleagues anymore. Things like trust and 65 00:03:41,280 --> 00:03:46,960 Speaker 3: connections started to decrease precipitously, and so people started to 66 00:03:47,200 --> 00:03:51,520 Speaker 3: burn out at work and become very dissatisfied, and even 67 00:03:51,560 --> 00:03:56,160 Speaker 3: when before the pandemic that wasn't happening. And we think 68 00:03:56,320 --> 00:03:59,280 Speaker 3: the root cause at Almanac is that we've now changed 69 00:04:00,080 --> 00:04:02,560 Speaker 3: where we work, but we haven't actually evolved yet how 70 00:04:02,600 --> 00:04:05,680 Speaker 3: we work. And so this mismatch between kind of the 71 00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:07,920 Speaker 3: context in which we now all work and live and 72 00:04:07,960 --> 00:04:10,080 Speaker 3: the way that we're doing our jobs is causing a 73 00:04:10,120 --> 00:04:13,320 Speaker 3: lot of pain and frustration to extent that some people 74 00:04:13,480 --> 00:04:15,480 Speaker 3: quit their jobs or take themselves out of the workforce, 75 00:04:15,520 --> 00:04:18,160 Speaker 3: which is obviously not good for them, but it's also 76 00:04:18,200 --> 00:04:19,279 Speaker 3: not good for our economy. 77 00:04:19,279 --> 00:04:20,400 Speaker 4: It's not good for businesses. 78 00:04:20,920 --> 00:04:24,400 Speaker 3: There's actually been a slowdown in innovation over the last 79 00:04:24,400 --> 00:04:26,719 Speaker 3: twenty years, where a lot of the growth we're seeing 80 00:04:26,760 --> 00:04:30,760 Speaker 3: today is actually a byproduct of fundamental innovation that was 81 00:04:30,760 --> 00:04:34,000 Speaker 3: created before nineteen seventy. And so I think in order 82 00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:37,600 Speaker 3: to keep keep our planet spinning and making sure that 83 00:04:37,640 --> 00:04:40,520 Speaker 3: we're solving our greatest challenges and reaping our biggest opportunities. 84 00:04:40,080 --> 00:04:41,560 Speaker 4: That requires great collaboration. 85 00:04:41,680 --> 00:04:44,520 Speaker 3: It requires teams to work well, and that means we 86 00:04:44,560 --> 00:04:46,400 Speaker 3: need to figure out how to work together in this 87 00:04:46,440 --> 00:04:50,600 Speaker 3: new normal. And so when we started the company, we 88 00:04:50,600 --> 00:04:54,200 Speaker 3: weren't just trying to build a better tool. In fact, 89 00:04:54,200 --> 00:04:58,200 Speaker 3: there's I think nothing wrong with document editors like Microsoft 90 00:04:58,200 --> 00:05:00,640 Speaker 3: Word or Google Docs. It's more that people are are 91 00:05:01,200 --> 00:05:03,359 Speaker 3: trying to use a tool that was designed for a 92 00:05:03,400 --> 00:05:05,159 Speaker 3: different world for something entirely different. 93 00:05:05,160 --> 00:05:06,480 Speaker 4: And what we. 94 00:05:06,440 --> 00:05:08,840 Speaker 3: Think people really need is a different way of working, 95 00:05:09,600 --> 00:05:11,800 Speaker 3: not just a different tool. And so when we started 96 00:05:11,800 --> 00:05:15,040 Speaker 3: the company, we didn't just sit down and start coding 97 00:05:15,080 --> 00:05:18,080 Speaker 3: away based on philosophy found and other products. We went 98 00:05:18,120 --> 00:05:20,480 Speaker 3: first to talk to the best teams on the Internet, 99 00:05:20,760 --> 00:05:24,800 Speaker 3: people at companies like Amazon and Apple and Netflix and 100 00:05:24,880 --> 00:05:28,160 Speaker 3: get Lab and do is to understand, like how they 101 00:05:28,160 --> 00:05:30,000 Speaker 3: were working so well. In many of these cases, they 102 00:05:30,120 --> 00:05:34,080 Speaker 3: figured out how to optimize their processes, their management styles, 103 00:05:34,120 --> 00:05:36,000 Speaker 3: their norms for the Internet way before the rest of 104 00:05:36,080 --> 00:05:39,320 Speaker 3: us did. And so we've done over five thousand interviews 105 00:05:39,360 --> 00:05:41,320 Speaker 3: at this point with people from these super high performing 106 00:05:41,360 --> 00:05:45,600 Speaker 3: teams to understand, like, how did you figure out how 107 00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:49,559 Speaker 3: to work, what was the initial insight, how's that evolved 108 00:05:49,560 --> 00:05:51,680 Speaker 3: into a best practice, And what we did from there 109 00:05:51,800 --> 00:05:54,880 Speaker 3: was kind of abstract away from specific instances to broad 110 00:05:55,040 --> 00:05:59,000 Speaker 3: generalizable principles that anybody can use, regardless of their company 111 00:05:59,080 --> 00:06:01,720 Speaker 3: or context, to work faster on the Internet. 112 00:06:02,240 --> 00:06:03,240 Speaker 2: That's amazing. 113 00:06:03,560 --> 00:06:08,039 Speaker 1: I love the depth and the research that went into 114 00:06:08,080 --> 00:06:12,200 Speaker 1: creating these modern work principles. I've read through them all, 115 00:06:12,320 --> 00:06:14,760 Speaker 1: and you know, when I was preparing for this interview, 116 00:06:14,800 --> 00:06:17,320 Speaker 1: I thought, I'll just I'll pick up my favorites, But 117 00:06:17,360 --> 00:06:19,320 Speaker 1: really I've picked out most of them because most of 118 00:06:19,320 --> 00:06:21,520 Speaker 1: them are my favorites. So I want to go through 119 00:06:21,560 --> 00:06:23,520 Speaker 1: a few of them because what I'm really interested in 120 00:06:23,920 --> 00:06:26,159 Speaker 1: is what does that look like in practice. So let's 121 00:06:26,240 --> 00:06:29,599 Speaker 1: take principle two, which says the best managers focus on 122 00:06:29,680 --> 00:06:33,400 Speaker 1: outputs and outcomes instead of hours worked or messages sent. 123 00:06:33,800 --> 00:06:37,560 Speaker 1: So I don't think you get much argument from you know, 124 00:06:37,640 --> 00:06:40,039 Speaker 1: forward thinking leaders about that. I feel like a lot 125 00:06:40,080 --> 00:06:43,680 Speaker 1: of leaders and managers say, you know, it has to 126 00:06:43,720 --> 00:06:47,720 Speaker 1: be about outcomes and not ours, but they don't necessarily 127 00:06:47,760 --> 00:06:52,640 Speaker 1: behave in that way when they're, say, evaluating their staff. 128 00:06:53,080 --> 00:06:55,320 Speaker 1: So I want to know, how do you do this 129 00:06:55,520 --> 00:06:56,680 Speaker 1: practically speaking. 130 00:06:57,560 --> 00:06:58,760 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a great question. 131 00:06:59,160 --> 00:07:02,000 Speaker 3: And just for some context here, if you think about 132 00:07:02,040 --> 00:07:06,200 Speaker 3: historical management theory, modern management really came about with the 133 00:07:06,240 --> 00:07:08,920 Speaker 3: advent of the modern factory in the nineteen thirties and forties, 134 00:07:08,920 --> 00:07:11,720 Speaker 3: and the job of a manager there was to measure outputs. 135 00:07:11,720 --> 00:07:13,800 Speaker 3: And the outputs in this case was like stuff coming 136 00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:16,400 Speaker 3: off the factory line, and some managers could sit above 137 00:07:16,440 --> 00:07:19,360 Speaker 3: the factory floor and you know, look at like reports 138 00:07:19,440 --> 00:07:22,680 Speaker 3: essentially of outputs and see how the factory was performing. 139 00:07:22,840 --> 00:07:24,720 Speaker 3: And in that case, workers were kind of like cogs 140 00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:26,240 Speaker 3: in a machine, you know, they were sorting stuff and 141 00:07:26,280 --> 00:07:31,720 Speaker 3: doing specific, single oriented jobs, and so management was I'm 142 00:07:31,720 --> 00:07:34,280 Speaker 3: sure it wasn't simple then, but it was pretty straightforward. 143 00:07:35,120 --> 00:07:38,080 Speaker 3: As work. A lot of work moved from blue collar 144 00:07:38,120 --> 00:07:40,200 Speaker 3: work to white collar work, from kind of factory work 145 00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:44,120 Speaker 3: to creative work. You couldn't see the output of individual 146 00:07:44,280 --> 00:07:47,760 Speaker 3: employees anymore. In many cases they were complex or creative, 147 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:49,800 Speaker 3: and so the job of the manager short to evolve 148 00:07:49,840 --> 00:07:53,040 Speaker 3: to managing presence, which is to say, did the employee 149 00:07:53,040 --> 00:07:55,760 Speaker 3: show up at a specific time, were they in the 150 00:07:55,800 --> 00:07:59,280 Speaker 3: office to another time, did they attend meetings? Even things 151 00:07:59,360 --> 00:08:01,720 Speaker 3: like how how good of a communicator are they, how 152 00:08:01,760 --> 00:08:04,880 Speaker 3: good are they appearing to collaborate, And a lot of 153 00:08:04,880 --> 00:08:07,280 Speaker 3: that I think has been kind of parodied and reviled 154 00:08:07,320 --> 00:08:09,440 Speaker 3: in modern media around kind of how a name that 155 00:08:09,520 --> 00:08:12,200 Speaker 3: is because even in the office, just because you showed 156 00:08:12,280 --> 00:08:15,120 Speaker 3: up wasn't necessarily correlated to whether you were doing a 157 00:08:15,160 --> 00:08:17,960 Speaker 3: good job. But it gave managers the same kind of 158 00:08:17,960 --> 00:08:21,160 Speaker 3: control I think as standing above a factory floor used to. 159 00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:24,360 Speaker 4: And now in modern world where we're not. 160 00:08:24,400 --> 00:08:26,880 Speaker 3: In the same place at the same time, we've removed 161 00:08:26,920 --> 00:08:29,760 Speaker 3: the ability for managers to manage my presence, which I 162 00:08:29,760 --> 00:08:31,240 Speaker 3: think is a good thing because it allows us to 163 00:08:31,240 --> 00:08:33,439 Speaker 3: fill it in with something better. But to your question, 164 00:08:33,880 --> 00:08:37,400 Speaker 3: how do we give managers tools to actually manage outcomes 165 00:08:38,880 --> 00:08:42,640 Speaker 3: rather than just presence? And I think the key to 166 00:08:42,720 --> 00:08:45,680 Speaker 3: the insterercomes down to transparency. And so if you think 167 00:08:45,840 --> 00:08:48,760 Speaker 3: kind of about a spectrum, in order to get to outcomes, 168 00:08:48,760 --> 00:08:52,080 Speaker 3: you first have to measure outputs, because somebody can't be 169 00:08:52,120 --> 00:08:54,000 Speaker 3: doing a good job if they're doing no job at all. 170 00:08:54,080 --> 00:08:57,400 Speaker 3: And so I think the core form of this is 171 00:08:57,520 --> 00:09:00,320 Speaker 3: to actually just look at tasks of the things I've 172 00:09:00,320 --> 00:09:02,880 Speaker 3: asked you to do, did you actually do them? If 173 00:09:02,920 --> 00:09:04,440 Speaker 3: you haven't done them, there's no way that you did 174 00:09:04,679 --> 00:09:06,480 Speaker 3: any any job at all. You could do a good 175 00:09:06,520 --> 00:09:09,760 Speaker 3: or bad job, you've done nothing. And so creating transparency 176 00:09:09,800 --> 00:09:12,360 Speaker 3: around kind of the basic collaborative tasks that people do 177 00:09:12,440 --> 00:09:14,880 Speaker 3: every day, I think is the foundation to starting to 178 00:09:14,920 --> 00:09:17,960 Speaker 3: measure outputs and outcomes instead of things like presence and 179 00:09:18,040 --> 00:09:22,080 Speaker 3: so in our tool in Almanac, we have a concept 180 00:09:22,120 --> 00:09:25,320 Speaker 3: call request, where you can ask someone for feedback or approval, 181 00:09:25,480 --> 00:09:28,040 Speaker 3: or to complete something, or even just to read a document. 182 00:09:28,280 --> 00:09:30,319 Speaker 3: And this is really similar about how software engineers have 183 00:09:30,400 --> 00:09:33,960 Speaker 3: been working largely asynchronously for twenty years, where even when 184 00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:36,080 Speaker 3: they're on the same place as software engineer, through tools 185 00:09:36,080 --> 00:09:38,760 Speaker 3: like GitHub, can ask another engineer to review their code 186 00:09:38,880 --> 00:09:42,200 Speaker 3: or approve something. And in GitHub there's basically like a 187 00:09:42,200 --> 00:09:44,400 Speaker 3: lot like ann activity feed from Facebook where you can 188 00:09:44,400 --> 00:09:47,679 Speaker 3: actually see did the person first like see my request, 189 00:09:47,800 --> 00:09:51,000 Speaker 3: kind of like a red receipt in I message, You know, 190 00:09:51,080 --> 00:09:53,160 Speaker 3: have they looked at it? What comments have they made 191 00:09:53,200 --> 00:09:56,040 Speaker 3: that they're attached to the request, What metafeedback have they given? 192 00:09:56,080 --> 00:09:59,080 Speaker 3: And so there's a lot of clarity around like where 193 00:09:59,120 --> 00:10:02,240 Speaker 3: the request is improp And if you think about like 194 00:10:02,400 --> 00:10:05,720 Speaker 3: even basic task management tools from the office culture era, 195 00:10:06,400 --> 00:10:08,480 Speaker 3: you may ask somebody in an office to do something, 196 00:10:08,520 --> 00:10:11,360 Speaker 3: but even then you really have any clarity like where 197 00:10:11,480 --> 00:10:12,400 Speaker 3: is this work with Susan? 198 00:10:12,480 --> 00:10:13,800 Speaker 4: You know digjo complete the task. 199 00:10:14,840 --> 00:10:17,040 Speaker 3: And so I think for managers to start to manage 200 00:10:17,679 --> 00:10:21,000 Speaker 3: by outcomes, you have to dis understand is your team 201 00:10:21,080 --> 00:10:23,719 Speaker 3: doing the things you ask them to do, and that 202 00:10:24,040 --> 00:10:26,600 Speaker 3: starts to get you a sense of kind of quantity 203 00:10:26,640 --> 00:10:29,640 Speaker 3: of output, and then you can start to layer on quality. 204 00:10:29,800 --> 00:10:31,679 Speaker 3: And I think ways to measure that are to look 205 00:10:31,720 --> 00:10:37,640 Speaker 3: at again through transparency and analytics. What was how many 206 00:10:37,679 --> 00:10:40,520 Speaker 3: comments did people put on their work? How many comments 207 00:10:40,520 --> 00:10:42,320 Speaker 3: did they put in other people's work? How do you 208 00:10:42,960 --> 00:10:45,000 Speaker 3: did people react to those comments? Where their threads, where 209 00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:47,240 Speaker 3: they're things like reactions. If you think about kind of 210 00:10:47,240 --> 00:10:50,520 Speaker 3: the consumer world as a parallel for enterprise, if you 211 00:10:50,559 --> 00:10:52,640 Speaker 3: go on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, you can generally 212 00:10:52,679 --> 00:10:54,480 Speaker 3: tell the quality of a post by the amount of 213 00:10:54,480 --> 00:10:56,079 Speaker 3: reactions that it's getting, the number of likes, amount of 214 00:10:56,080 --> 00:10:59,440 Speaker 3: comments that engagement in other words, and I think starting 215 00:10:59,440 --> 00:11:02,160 Speaker 3: to apply a lot of the same principles to enterprise 216 00:11:02,200 --> 00:11:06,840 Speaker 3: collaboration on comments and tasks and reviews, and then aggregating 217 00:11:06,880 --> 00:11:09,960 Speaker 3: those analytically so that a manager can see how did 218 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:12,120 Speaker 3: Adam actually do this week? Did he complete his tasks? 219 00:11:12,280 --> 00:11:15,160 Speaker 3: Did people think they were good? Was he responsive to 220 00:11:15,160 --> 00:11:16,920 Speaker 3: what other people on the team need you can start 221 00:11:16,920 --> 00:11:19,520 Speaker 3: to get a picture of kind of quality and quality 222 00:11:19,559 --> 00:11:20,559 Speaker 3: of output. 223 00:11:21,760 --> 00:11:22,880 Speaker 4: By individual, and. 224 00:11:22,800 --> 00:11:25,360 Speaker 3: That starts to give managers the tools they need to 225 00:11:25,440 --> 00:11:28,280 Speaker 3: understand is the team doing their jobs? 226 00:11:28,360 --> 00:11:29,680 Speaker 4: Is the team moving the needle? 227 00:11:30,559 --> 00:11:32,600 Speaker 3: And that I think in the end builds trust and 228 00:11:32,640 --> 00:11:36,080 Speaker 3: a sense of connection between managers and their teams, because 229 00:11:36,080 --> 00:11:37,560 Speaker 3: even if they're not in the same room, the manager 230 00:11:37,640 --> 00:11:40,319 Speaker 3: is a sense of is the ball moving forward, who's 231 00:11:40,360 --> 00:11:43,240 Speaker 3: contributing to the work, who's falling behind? And I think 232 00:11:43,280 --> 00:11:46,640 Speaker 3: that lack of that lack of trust that exist today 233 00:11:46,640 --> 00:11:49,440 Speaker 3: for a lot of teams comes from a lack of transparency. 234 00:11:49,840 --> 00:11:54,679 Speaker 1: It's interesting, like the distinction between outputs and outcomes. And 235 00:11:55,360 --> 00:12:00,760 Speaker 1: I know at Almanac you use okay as so objectives 236 00:12:00,760 --> 00:12:01,600 Speaker 1: and care results. 237 00:12:01,600 --> 00:12:03,920 Speaker 2: That's correct, isn't it, Adam, We built our. 238 00:12:03,840 --> 00:12:06,640 Speaker 3: Own system because I think all cars can be kind 239 00:12:06,640 --> 00:12:10,360 Speaker 3: of like a dark art or r magic for a 240 00:12:10,400 --> 00:12:13,280 Speaker 3: lot of teams where they're actually quite I think they 241 00:12:13,280 --> 00:12:15,000 Speaker 3: take a lot of work to implement, and many teams 242 00:12:15,040 --> 00:12:16,920 Speaker 3: don't do them very well. So we've actually designed our 243 00:12:16,960 --> 00:12:22,280 Speaker 3: own system at Almanac that's largely based on setting a 244 00:12:22,320 --> 00:12:25,959 Speaker 3: strategy every quarter, translating that down into goals per month 245 00:12:26,040 --> 00:12:30,040 Speaker 3: than to goals per week, so that everybody understands how 246 00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:32,199 Speaker 3: we plan to get to the long term place we 247 00:12:32,240 --> 00:12:36,240 Speaker 3: want to go. And then having individuals in their work 248 00:12:36,280 --> 00:12:39,040 Speaker 3: streams list their own goals for the week in a 249 00:12:39,040 --> 00:12:40,840 Speaker 3: public document and at the end of the week grade 250 00:12:40,840 --> 00:12:43,160 Speaker 3: themselves and if they got that work done, and so 251 00:12:43,280 --> 00:12:46,040 Speaker 3: on this output point I was talking about before, understanding 252 00:12:46,120 --> 00:12:47,800 Speaker 3: like did you do the thing you said you were 253 00:12:47,840 --> 00:12:50,320 Speaker 3: going to do? We built a system at Almanac largely 254 00:12:50,320 --> 00:12:54,600 Speaker 3: based around these weekly tasks just to understand like are 255 00:12:54,640 --> 00:12:57,640 Speaker 3: people doing their jobs? And you know there are cases, 256 00:12:57,640 --> 00:12:59,520 Speaker 3: of course where people are doing their work but it's 257 00:12:59,520 --> 00:13:02,280 Speaker 3: not very good. But there's a very strong correlation between 258 00:13:02,320 --> 00:13:05,400 Speaker 3: people who aren't completing their task and people who aren't 259 00:13:05,400 --> 00:13:09,040 Speaker 3: producing outcomes in other words, moving the needle on an 260 00:13:09,080 --> 00:13:09,960 Speaker 3: important project. 261 00:13:10,840 --> 00:13:16,880 Speaker 1: The outcomes almost like the quality and outputs sort of 262 00:13:16,920 --> 00:13:19,400 Speaker 1: the quantity or is that simplifying it too much? 263 00:13:20,320 --> 00:13:23,600 Speaker 3: It's basically it's about impact on the spectrum, and so 264 00:13:24,080 --> 00:13:28,600 Speaker 3: outputs I think of as a as something that happens 265 00:13:28,640 --> 00:13:30,320 Speaker 3: as a direct result of your activity. 266 00:13:30,559 --> 00:13:32,720 Speaker 4: And so if. 267 00:13:34,280 --> 00:13:37,120 Speaker 3: Let's say we're playing a sport and we're playing baseball, 268 00:13:37,160 --> 00:13:39,480 Speaker 3: and output is you know, the number of times that 269 00:13:40,720 --> 00:13:43,360 Speaker 3: I am batting and I swing and I connect with 270 00:13:43,400 --> 00:13:46,160 Speaker 3: the ball. You know, it's a verifiable activity where my 271 00:13:46,320 --> 00:13:49,360 Speaker 3: action led to a direct result. Everybody can see it. 272 00:13:49,360 --> 00:13:52,160 Speaker 3: It's pretty easy to measure whether or not I'm hitting 273 00:13:52,160 --> 00:13:54,760 Speaker 3: the ball. How is how much is that correlated with 274 00:13:54,920 --> 00:13:55,880 Speaker 3: my team winning the game? 275 00:13:56,920 --> 00:13:57,400 Speaker 4: Who knows? 276 00:13:57,440 --> 00:13:59,920 Speaker 3: Probably not that much. I think about an outcome though, 277 00:14:00,040 --> 00:14:03,880 Speaker 3: as my team winning the game. You know, it's something 278 00:14:03,920 --> 00:14:06,240 Speaker 3: that happens that I'm contributing to, but it's not a 279 00:14:06,280 --> 00:14:09,760 Speaker 3: direct result of my activity. And so out outcomes for 280 00:14:09,840 --> 00:14:12,839 Speaker 3: businesses are things like we want to grow this quarter, 281 00:14:12,960 --> 00:14:15,800 Speaker 3: or we want to improve profitability, or we want. 282 00:14:15,640 --> 00:14:18,640 Speaker 4: To produce new products. An output might be if. 283 00:14:18,480 --> 00:14:20,600 Speaker 3: I'm an engineer, you know how many lines of code 284 00:14:20,600 --> 00:14:23,520 Speaker 3: I've written, if I've completed a feature. If I'm a marketer, 285 00:14:24,040 --> 00:14:26,680 Speaker 3: you know how many ads I've released or how many lines, 286 00:14:26,840 --> 00:14:27,400 Speaker 3: how many. 287 00:14:27,240 --> 00:14:28,920 Speaker 4: New tweets I've sent. 288 00:14:29,480 --> 00:14:32,000 Speaker 3: If I'm a you know, salesperson, it's the number of 289 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:34,320 Speaker 3: calls I've made or number of demos I've booked. Just 290 00:14:34,320 --> 00:14:36,080 Speaker 3: because I've you know, done it a bunch of demos 291 00:14:36,080 --> 00:14:38,320 Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily mean that the company will grow, but they 292 00:14:38,400 --> 00:14:41,400 Speaker 3: are correlated, and so there's this relationship between the work 293 00:14:41,440 --> 00:14:43,600 Speaker 3: that I'm doing, how much of it I do, the 294 00:14:43,680 --> 00:14:47,200 Speaker 3: quality that I do it at, and the long term 295 00:14:47,240 --> 00:14:49,280 Speaker 3: goal of the company that many people are contributing to 296 00:14:49,480 --> 00:14:54,200 Speaker 3: that is also affected by outside factors. And so outcomes 297 00:14:54,240 --> 00:14:57,640 Speaker 3: are often what companies say their goals are. And the 298 00:14:57,680 --> 00:14:59,640 Speaker 3: trick is how you tie that to the actual work 299 00:14:59,640 --> 00:15:01,000 Speaker 3: people are doing every single day. 300 00:15:01,720 --> 00:15:04,880 Speaker 1: And so is what you're saying that the goals that 301 00:15:04,960 --> 00:15:08,840 Speaker 1: individuals are setting, they're the outputs, and then they ladder 302 00:15:08,920 --> 00:15:14,200 Speaker 1: up to company outcomes. Yes, okay, interesting, And so in 303 00:15:14,240 --> 00:15:19,440 Speaker 1: the language of okas, the outputs the key results like 304 00:15:19,480 --> 00:15:23,240 Speaker 1: the quantifiable, measurable things that the people are ultimately assessed on. 305 00:15:24,400 --> 00:15:24,600 Speaker 4: Yeah. 306 00:15:24,640 --> 00:15:28,360 Speaker 3: So in ok ours okay stands for objectives and key results. 307 00:15:28,400 --> 00:15:31,040 Speaker 3: An objective is kind of a qualitative big idea, something like, 308 00:15:31,520 --> 00:15:34,320 Speaker 3: you know, this quarter, we'd like to grow the business, 309 00:15:34,920 --> 00:15:37,280 Speaker 3: and a key result is attached to that objective. That's 310 00:15:37,280 --> 00:15:40,280 Speaker 3: a quantifiable metric that will help the team understand if 311 00:15:40,280 --> 00:15:43,280 Speaker 3: they achieve that objective. So, if our goal is to grow, 312 00:15:43,360 --> 00:15:45,280 Speaker 3: if our objective is to grow the business, a key 313 00:15:45,280 --> 00:15:48,600 Speaker 3: result might be, you know, revenue increases fifty percent within 314 00:15:48,680 --> 00:15:51,360 Speaker 3: three months, and so you're measuring the key results to 315 00:15:51,480 --> 00:15:55,040 Speaker 3: understand if you've reached the objective, and then those often 316 00:15:55,120 --> 00:15:57,760 Speaker 3: ladder down. If that's, for example, a company goal, those 317 00:15:57,800 --> 00:16:00,760 Speaker 3: could ladder down to team goals. So product team is 318 00:16:00,760 --> 00:16:03,160 Speaker 3: thinking about how do we build new features, the sales 319 00:16:03,160 --> 00:16:04,800 Speaker 3: team is thinking about how do we sell those features. 320 00:16:04,800 --> 00:16:05,480 Speaker 4: Marketing team is. 321 00:16:05,480 --> 00:16:07,800 Speaker 3: Thinking about how do we increase top of funnel awareness, 322 00:16:07,840 --> 00:16:10,880 Speaker 3: and that can let it down even further to individuals 323 00:16:11,200 --> 00:16:13,800 Speaker 3: objectives and key results. So the system is meant to 324 00:16:13,800 --> 00:16:16,800 Speaker 3: scale from what a company sets all the way down 325 00:16:16,840 --> 00:16:20,680 Speaker 3: to what individuals are doing every day, so that there's 326 00:16:20,920 --> 00:16:23,480 Speaker 3: broad alignment and clarity through the organization. 327 00:16:24,720 --> 00:16:27,640 Speaker 1: One of my other favorite principles, As I said, they're 328 00:16:27,680 --> 00:16:29,320 Speaker 1: all kind of favorites, but I really like this one. 329 00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:33,400 Speaker 1: Principle seeks collaboration should always start with a document instead 330 00:16:33,440 --> 00:16:37,120 Speaker 1: of a mating and I feel that that is completely 331 00:16:37,160 --> 00:16:42,880 Speaker 1: conjurary to how most organizations run things. So can you 332 00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:45,880 Speaker 1: tell me if it starts with a document, what does 333 00:16:45,920 --> 00:16:46,920 Speaker 1: that document look like? 334 00:16:47,920 --> 00:16:50,520 Speaker 3: That's a great question, and I agree with you that 335 00:16:51,080 --> 00:16:55,840 Speaker 3: it sounds simple write everything down, but it's very unintuitive 336 00:16:55,880 --> 00:16:58,160 Speaker 3: to a lot of people and not often followed in 337 00:16:58,200 --> 00:17:02,480 Speaker 3: practice of what to write down. I think the best 338 00:17:02,520 --> 00:17:05,000 Speaker 3: practice here is to use templates. And so if you 339 00:17:05,040 --> 00:17:08,960 Speaker 3: think about every document, not as a lot of people do, 340 00:17:09,040 --> 00:17:11,200 Speaker 3: as kind of a place to store like a final 341 00:17:11,320 --> 00:17:13,639 Speaker 3: version of a contract or an agreement, something that happens 342 00:17:13,680 --> 00:17:16,560 Speaker 3: at the end of a largely informal process that's being 343 00:17:16,560 --> 00:17:19,880 Speaker 3: conducted in meetings, but really as the process itself, as 344 00:17:20,160 --> 00:17:22,440 Speaker 3: the place where you write down the initial idea, where 345 00:17:22,440 --> 00:17:25,080 Speaker 3: you get feedback on it, where you get formal approval, 346 00:17:25,440 --> 00:17:27,680 Speaker 3: where you then distribute it as knowledge to the rest 347 00:17:27,680 --> 00:17:30,160 Speaker 3: of the team, even something that then gets updated over 348 00:17:30,200 --> 00:17:33,720 Speaker 3: time into future versions. The document isn't just kind of 349 00:17:33,760 --> 00:17:35,800 Speaker 3: like a piece of paper that goes in a filing cabinet, 350 00:17:35,800 --> 00:17:38,520 Speaker 3: as we used to regard them, but really as the 351 00:17:38,520 --> 00:17:42,400 Speaker 3: core collaborative surface for the team. And so the best 352 00:17:42,440 --> 00:17:44,600 Speaker 3: way to kind of codify a process so that people 353 00:17:44,600 --> 00:17:46,520 Speaker 3: follow it is to use a template. And so I 354 00:17:46,560 --> 00:17:49,920 Speaker 3: think the best practice here is to have document templates 355 00:17:49,920 --> 00:17:53,240 Speaker 3: for different types of processes. So, for example, a PRD 356 00:17:53,680 --> 00:17:57,439 Speaker 3: is a great template use for creating and aligning as 357 00:17:57,440 --> 00:18:01,080 Speaker 3: a team on product requirements for a new feature. Using 358 00:18:01,119 --> 00:18:06,399 Speaker 3: a sales template is essentially a form of starting a 359 00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:09,480 Speaker 3: process where you go through negotiation with a potential customer, 360 00:18:09,840 --> 00:18:12,120 Speaker 3: agree on terms, get them to sign it, and. 361 00:18:12,080 --> 00:18:12,840 Speaker 4: Then distribute it. 362 00:18:12,920 --> 00:18:13,200 Speaker 1: And so. 363 00:18:15,359 --> 00:18:19,719 Speaker 3: The simple but hard answer is that creating good templates 364 00:18:19,760 --> 00:18:24,199 Speaker 3: for the key processes that your company is doing is 365 00:18:24,280 --> 00:18:28,040 Speaker 3: the best way to make sure that those processes begin 366 00:18:28,160 --> 00:18:30,960 Speaker 3: with a document rather than a meeting, And by starting 367 00:18:30,960 --> 00:18:35,120 Speaker 3: with basically like a plug and play document, you can 368 00:18:35,160 --> 00:18:38,000 Speaker 3: actually not just reduce the number of meetings, but reduce 369 00:18:38,560 --> 00:18:40,560 Speaker 3: the amount of hours you're spending on the work, because 370 00:18:40,880 --> 00:18:43,600 Speaker 3: most of what companies are doing every day aren't like 371 00:18:43,760 --> 00:18:47,280 Speaker 3: totally new creative processes. Even if the point of a 372 00:18:47,320 --> 00:18:49,199 Speaker 3: process is to come up with a creative idea, the 373 00:18:49,200 --> 00:18:51,960 Speaker 3: process itself is often codified and structured in some ways, 374 00:18:52,119 --> 00:18:54,000 Speaker 3: and what a lot of companies are spending time doing 375 00:18:54,400 --> 00:18:57,600 Speaker 3: is reinventing the wheel on the process itself, and templates 376 00:18:57,600 --> 00:18:59,520 Speaker 3: are a great way to prevent. 377 00:18:59,200 --> 00:19:00,320 Speaker 4: That from happening. 378 00:19:03,880 --> 00:19:06,680 Speaker 1: We will be back with Adam soon where we talk 379 00:19:06,720 --> 00:19:10,880 Speaker 1: about what actually deserves a meeting at Almanac and what 380 00:19:11,080 --> 00:19:15,439 Speaker 1: is best done asynchronously. If you're looking for more tips 381 00:19:15,480 --> 00:19:18,200 Speaker 1: to improve the way you work can live. I write 382 00:19:18,280 --> 00:19:21,720 Speaker 1: a short weekly newsletter that contains tactics I've discovered that 383 00:19:21,760 --> 00:19:24,399 Speaker 1: have helped me personally. You can sign up for that 384 00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:34,480 Speaker 1: at Amantha dot com. That's Amantha dot com. So at Almanac, 385 00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:36,040 Speaker 1: what deserves a meeting? 386 00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:40,119 Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's two types of meetings that I 387 00:19:40,160 --> 00:19:42,600 Speaker 3: have found really valuable. One type of meeting that we 388 00:19:42,680 --> 00:19:45,119 Speaker 3: have often that I think is worth the time is 389 00:19:45,119 --> 00:19:48,520 Speaker 3: when we have a problem to solve that is a 390 00:19:48,520 --> 00:19:51,840 Speaker 3: complex problem that has a complex answer, where you can't 391 00:19:51,880 --> 00:19:54,000 Speaker 3: just send a document to somebody and say. 392 00:19:53,840 --> 00:19:54,760 Speaker 4: Do you approve or not? 393 00:19:55,480 --> 00:19:58,000 Speaker 3: And to be clear, there are a lot of processes 394 00:19:58,400 --> 00:20:01,080 Speaker 3: where there are simple answers, simple questions that can be 395 00:20:01,160 --> 00:20:05,679 Speaker 3: automated and completed asynchronously. And so you know, things like 396 00:20:06,280 --> 00:20:11,720 Speaker 3: approving marketing copy or redlining contracts or getting feedback on 397 00:20:11,840 --> 00:20:13,919 Speaker 3: new product proposals. Those are all things we don't have 398 00:20:13,960 --> 00:20:18,639 Speaker 3: meetings for out Almanac. But when we're, for example, trying 399 00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:20,639 Speaker 3: to figure out, you know, what's our approach to AI 400 00:20:21,119 --> 00:20:25,320 Speaker 3: or what should our growth goal be this month? Those 401 00:20:25,320 --> 00:20:29,200 Speaker 3: aren't things that are easily done asynchronously. They often require 402 00:20:29,840 --> 00:20:32,920 Speaker 3: lots of input from diverse stakeholders. A bit of conversation 403 00:20:33,440 --> 00:20:35,959 Speaker 3: where I think the conversation can lead to a better 404 00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:38,520 Speaker 3: outcome or answer than we could ever get to if 405 00:20:38,520 --> 00:20:41,840 Speaker 3: we were just communicating linearly and for example at comments thread. 406 00:20:41,920 --> 00:20:44,919 Speaker 3: So those types of complex problems with complex answers I 407 00:20:44,920 --> 00:20:48,639 Speaker 3: think require a meeting. I think a second type of 408 00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:51,840 Speaker 3: meaning that we have that's helpful is something that's urgent, 409 00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:54,280 Speaker 3: where you actually just need to get something done now, 410 00:20:55,560 --> 00:20:59,840 Speaker 3: and we often that's where often people are in slack 411 00:20:59,920 --> 00:21:02,199 Speaker 3: or another communication channel and we're just getting on the 412 00:21:02,200 --> 00:21:04,760 Speaker 3: phone can actually get to an answer faster. And the 413 00:21:04,800 --> 00:21:08,640 Speaker 3: third important type of meaning is to create a sense 414 00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:11,600 Speaker 3: of connection and reinforce the culture of our team. And 415 00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:14,879 Speaker 3: that's less from like we have a business objective to 416 00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:18,399 Speaker 3: complete and more we're a bunch of humans working together 417 00:21:19,160 --> 00:21:21,680 Speaker 3: every day and spending a majority of our working hours 418 00:21:21,720 --> 00:21:24,680 Speaker 3: together and recognizing that we are people. 419 00:21:24,800 --> 00:21:26,160 Speaker 4: And that we need to connect with each other. 420 00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:30,840 Speaker 3: And part of the joy of work is working with 421 00:21:31,280 --> 00:21:32,840 Speaker 3: is getting to spend time with people that you like 422 00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:35,400 Speaker 3: and respect and trust. And I think a great way 423 00:21:35,440 --> 00:21:37,280 Speaker 3: to reinforce that is through meetings where you get just 424 00:21:37,280 --> 00:21:40,800 Speaker 3: so much more information by seeing somebody their body language, 425 00:21:40,800 --> 00:21:42,680 Speaker 3: how they react to what you're saying. And we actually 426 00:21:42,720 --> 00:21:45,960 Speaker 3: spend a lot of time in our kind of weekly 427 00:21:46,240 --> 00:21:49,879 Speaker 3: or even daily stand ups starting with a kickoff question. 428 00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:51,720 Speaker 3: We have a whole library of them at this point, 429 00:21:51,800 --> 00:21:53,920 Speaker 3: like a thousand questions that we figured out over time, 430 00:21:53,960 --> 00:21:55,840 Speaker 3: things like what did you want to be when you 431 00:21:55,840 --> 00:21:56,159 Speaker 3: grow up? 432 00:21:56,240 --> 00:21:59,520 Speaker 4: Or what you're perfect Saturday? Or you know, what do 433 00:21:59,560 --> 00:22:00,160 Speaker 4: you serve. 434 00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:06,600 Speaker 3: On Christmas Evening? That help people understand more like who 435 00:22:06,640 --> 00:22:09,239 Speaker 3: they're really working with, because we're all so much more 436 00:22:09,280 --> 00:22:11,960 Speaker 3: than our jobs, and I think spending synchronous time to 437 00:22:11,960 --> 00:22:15,000 Speaker 3: get to know each other and build culture ultimately leads 438 00:22:15,040 --> 00:22:22,160 Speaker 3: to better work, more satisfied teams, and faster business value. 439 00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:25,600 Speaker 1: I want to talk about principal seven, which is the 440 00:22:25,640 --> 00:22:28,720 Speaker 1: more you ask for feedback, the better your end work 441 00:22:28,760 --> 00:22:32,960 Speaker 1: will be. I've got a few questions around that. Firstly, 442 00:22:33,080 --> 00:22:36,080 Speaker 1: when do you ask for feedback at what point in 443 00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:36,760 Speaker 1: a project? 444 00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:42,440 Speaker 3: All the time, And we've learned as the principle has 445 00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:46,760 Speaker 3: gone it and we should have learned this sooner, judging 446 00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:48,919 Speaker 3: from all the researchery done where people talked about the 447 00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:53,600 Speaker 3: importance of feedback that you know, essentially you know if 448 00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:57,120 Speaker 3: you think about I think one a lot of the universes. 449 00:22:57,160 --> 00:23:01,600 Speaker 3: Compounding that progress over time becomes greater and greater because 450 00:23:01,600 --> 00:23:03,879 Speaker 3: you're actually just building on the progress of the past, 451 00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:05,800 Speaker 3: and so that it turns into a log curve, which 452 00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:08,440 Speaker 3: looks like you know, technology growth, but that's also how 453 00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:11,399 Speaker 3: growth works for people and their behavior and teams and 454 00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:15,080 Speaker 3: their actions. You know, it often starts looking pretty incremental, 455 00:23:15,160 --> 00:23:19,399 Speaker 3: but over time that that reaches an inflection point. And 456 00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:21,720 Speaker 3: so if you believe in compounding, what that means is 457 00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:25,600 Speaker 3: that you know, in a given period of time, if 458 00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:28,760 Speaker 3: you were to only iterate once, let's say you you know, 459 00:23:30,359 --> 00:23:32,159 Speaker 3: your version was so good that it was twice as 460 00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:33,520 Speaker 3: good as the thing you did before, then now you 461 00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:36,160 Speaker 3: have a two x improvement. But if in that same 462 00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:39,400 Speaker 3: period of time you were to iterate let's say ten times, 463 00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:41,840 Speaker 3: but each of those times only make like ten to 464 00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:44,840 Speaker 3: twenty percent progress, you'd end up with a byproduct at 465 00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:45,439 Speaker 3: the end of that. 466 00:23:45,280 --> 00:23:47,160 Speaker 4: That's something like eight to ten x better. 467 00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:51,879 Speaker 3: So what matters, just based on kind of math, is 468 00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:53,800 Speaker 3: not like how good you are a version of a 469 00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:56,320 Speaker 3: version on something, but really the amount of times you try, 470 00:23:56,359 --> 00:23:58,240 Speaker 3: and by trying me the amount of times you put 471 00:23:58,280 --> 00:23:59,800 Speaker 3: something out there and get feedback on it. And I 472 00:23:59,840 --> 00:24:04,480 Speaker 3: think that's true for basically every function. The amount of 473 00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:07,960 Speaker 3: times you show a prototype or a new feature to 474 00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:12,320 Speaker 3: customers and get their feedback. Often people want to hold 475 00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:14,480 Speaker 3: it and try and make it perfect, but it's actually 476 00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:16,399 Speaker 3: better to get it out there get feedback, because you're 477 00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:18,560 Speaker 3: going to learn so much more about what's good and 478 00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:21,040 Speaker 3: what's bad and be able to improve on the good 479 00:24:21,080 --> 00:24:23,240 Speaker 3: things and get rid of the bad things. It's true 480 00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:25,920 Speaker 3: in marketing where you're testing copy. It's true in sales 481 00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:28,480 Speaker 3: where the number of times you kind of pitch something 482 00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:31,720 Speaker 3: to potential customers. It's true in management, where you're asked 483 00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:34,800 Speaker 3: feedback from the team. People don't like asking for feedback 484 00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:39,359 Speaker 3: because it's really uncomfortable to expose yourself and to potentially 485 00:24:39,359 --> 00:24:42,240 Speaker 3: be wrong and to hear things you don't want to hear. 486 00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:47,600 Speaker 3: But I think that's if you can learn how to 487 00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:50,840 Speaker 3: do that and be comfortable with the discomfort, you end 488 00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:52,800 Speaker 3: up gaining so much more and you end up winning 489 00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:56,360 Speaker 3: so much bigger because the end result is so much 490 00:24:56,359 --> 00:24:58,960 Speaker 3: better than anything you could have done in the echo 491 00:24:59,040 --> 00:24:59,960 Speaker 3: chamber of your own thought. 492 00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:06,359 Speaker 1: Some Beliefs Principal three says creating a calm, sustainable team 493 00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:10,520 Speaker 1: culture with no surprises and few fire drills leads to 494 00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:17,679 Speaker 1: faster velocity and better work. I feel like in like 495 00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:21,840 Speaker 1: all the different organizations that I've worked with in terms 496 00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:25,440 Speaker 1: of clients of Inventium and even within Inventium, you know, 497 00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:28,879 Speaker 1: I can I can think of so many surprises and 498 00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:30,800 Speaker 1: things that come up that you just could never have 499 00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:35,399 Speaker 1: planned for, like that are outside of our control, like 500 00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:39,239 Speaker 1: a client requesting something at the last minute, or a 501 00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:41,960 Speaker 1: supplier changing the terms of a contract or something like that. 502 00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:48,119 Speaker 1: How again, how does this actually work in practice at Almanac? 503 00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:51,160 Speaker 3: I think if I were to boil the modern work 504 00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:55,040 Speaker 3: method down to six words, it would be more structure, 505 00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:58,960 Speaker 3: more transparency, I fewer meetings. And with this idea that 506 00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:03,159 Speaker 3: a lot of the work that humans I think are 507 00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,480 Speaker 3: meant to do should be creative work. But we are 508 00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:12,560 Speaker 3: spending a lot of time on repetitive processes that aren't 509 00:26:12,560 --> 00:26:15,719 Speaker 3: at all creative, and we are dedicating time. We are 510 00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:20,040 Speaker 3: treating things that happen continually as if they are creative processes, 511 00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:23,520 Speaker 3: as if they're new phenomena when maybe it's near the 512 00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:25,960 Speaker 3: first time it happens, but if it happens a second 513 00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:28,760 Speaker 3: or third, or tenth or thirty at time. It's something 514 00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:30,600 Speaker 3: that we have seen, it's something that we have done. 515 00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:32,920 Speaker 3: We may have been good at solving it or bad 516 00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:35,240 Speaker 3: at solving it, but we certainly have experience, and so 517 00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:38,840 Speaker 3: we can start to codify a process around it, learn 518 00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:41,480 Speaker 3: from what happened, and if we apply structure to it 519 00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:44,399 Speaker 3: and intentionality to it, we can take it from something 520 00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:47,080 Speaker 3: that takes creative brain power and turn it into something 521 00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:48,959 Speaker 3: that's more automated, something that we don't need to meet 522 00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:52,600 Speaker 3: about or talk about, but something that just runs smoothly 523 00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:56,400 Speaker 3: in the background of the organization. And so I think 524 00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:59,600 Speaker 3: a lot of what we are advocating for is even 525 00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:01,720 Speaker 3: things i'd be surprises upfront or things that. 526 00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:05,040 Speaker 4: Might be unpredictable, and when they start. 527 00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:08,720 Speaker 3: For at Almanac, it's things like customers filing tickets for 528 00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:11,240 Speaker 3: bugs or asking for future improvements, or the site going 529 00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:12,920 Speaker 3: down god for a bit. You know, those aren't things 530 00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:16,280 Speaker 3: we can predict. But everything that happens after that moment 531 00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:19,560 Speaker 3: is something that we can handle. And even we can 532 00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:23,520 Speaker 3: design a system to account for the unpredictability and the risk. 533 00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:26,560 Speaker 3: There's that something humans do all the time with systems design. 534 00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:29,359 Speaker 3: Every system has a bit of ambiguity in it, and 535 00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:34,879 Speaker 3: so there are ways to mitigate or plan for that 536 00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:39,240 Speaker 3: that uncertainty. And the way he started just by recognizing 537 00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:41,520 Speaker 3: their's uncertainty and talking about it and coming up with 538 00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:45,159 Speaker 3: a process. As I'm sure you have an inventium on 539 00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:48,400 Speaker 3: things like you know, customer fire drills. I think where 540 00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:50,960 Speaker 3: a lot of teams go wrong is they don't something 541 00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:54,960 Speaker 3: happens the first time and it is truly a fire drill, 542 00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:56,840 Speaker 3: and then it happens the second time, and they treat 543 00:27:56,880 --> 00:27:59,320 Speaker 3: it as if the first time didn't happen, rather than 544 00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:03,120 Speaker 3: after it happens, doing a quick retrod and saying. 545 00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:06,080 Speaker 4: Hey, hey, what what just happened? How did it go? 546 00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:07,159 Speaker 1: Like? 547 00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:08,480 Speaker 4: Do we think it's going to happen again? 548 00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:11,199 Speaker 3: And you know, should we build a process for it? 549 00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:13,560 Speaker 3: And I think the more structure you have and how 550 00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:17,840 Speaker 3: your team works, the more fire drills don't have to 551 00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:20,280 Speaker 3: be fire drills, and you can spend that time instead 552 00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:23,359 Speaker 3: on creative and meaningful work that is really moving the needle. 553 00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:25,600 Speaker 3: The reasons people actually wake up in the morning to 554 00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:27,720 Speaker 3: do their jobs and the reason the company exists, which 555 00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:29,480 Speaker 3: is to serve customers and add value. 556 00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:33,640 Speaker 1: I'm reflecting on the last couple of weeks that Inventium, 557 00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:37,359 Speaker 1: where I feel like we have had fire drills in 558 00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:42,120 Speaker 1: the form of consultants or inventeologists who were booked into 559 00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:47,440 Speaker 1: deliver workshops. One got COVID, another got really sick with 560 00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:52,960 Speaker 1: a flu like bug, and they were down and we 561 00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:56,120 Speaker 1: were like struggling to find replacements. 562 00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:58,280 Speaker 2: And I kind of I look back on. 563 00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:01,200 Speaker 1: That now and it's like, that is happened many times 564 00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:03,720 Speaker 1: in the sixteen years that I've been running in Ventium. 565 00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:09,400 Speaker 1: We've never actually sat down and said, Okay, what is 566 00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:12,360 Speaker 1: our process for when this happens, despite the fact that 567 00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:16,240 Speaker 1: it has happened many many times in the time that 568 00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:20,600 Speaker 1: I've had this business. So it's yeah, for me, that's 569 00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:23,040 Speaker 1: really interesting hearing you, because I'm like, yeah, what about humans. 570 00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:25,120 Speaker 2: You can't predic humans, But it's like, no, you can 571 00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:25,720 Speaker 2: predict that. 572 00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:29,160 Speaker 1: Humans will get sick and they will need some sort 573 00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:31,720 Speaker 1: of a replacement in the thing that they were meant 574 00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:32,720 Speaker 1: to be doing that week. 575 00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:36,280 Speaker 3: Yeah, you can certainly account for the uncertainty. There's whole 576 00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:39,160 Speaker 3: industries around this management. 577 00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:39,520 Speaker 4: That are about that. 578 00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:42,840 Speaker 3: Most of our legal and governance systems are really about 579 00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:46,880 Speaker 3: accounting for risk and uncertainty and just two anecdotes for you. 580 00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:47,480 Speaker 4: One. 581 00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:49,600 Speaker 3: When we started this work, I used to think that 582 00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:54,400 Speaker 3: people got satisfaction from work, from spending time on deep work. 583 00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:56,560 Speaker 3: There's whole books that are really great written about this, 584 00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:59,520 Speaker 3: and I thought it was all about flow and focus 585 00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:02,440 Speaker 3: and that's where people find meaning. And when we talked 586 00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:09,200 Speaker 3: to these amazing professionals, what people evaluated whether a week 587 00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:11,720 Speaker 3: was effective based on if they got stuff done on 588 00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:14,800 Speaker 3: their to do list. And the enemy of getting stuff 589 00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:18,200 Speaker 3: done is a fire drill, and so what people hated 590 00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:21,320 Speaker 3: them most wasn't that they sometimes are just processing cast 591 00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:23,560 Speaker 3: but it's when something got in the way of them 592 00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:25,440 Speaker 3: being able to cross stuff off their to do list. 593 00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:29,520 Speaker 3: So it shifted our thinking from how do we enable 594 00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:32,320 Speaker 3: through our tool time for people to do deep creative work, 595 00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:34,440 Speaker 3: to how do we help people just get through their 596 00:30:34,440 --> 00:30:37,320 Speaker 3: to do list faster so that they can and get 597 00:30:37,320 --> 00:30:39,080 Speaker 3: done with their days get back to other things that 598 00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:43,320 Speaker 3: might matter them. Because everybody hated ending a week feeling 599 00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:47,160 Speaker 3: like they weren't able to get important work done for 600 00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:50,760 Speaker 3: themselves and their teams, and so this idea of minimizing 601 00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:53,120 Speaker 3: fire drills became an important principle to this end, because 602 00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:56,200 Speaker 3: it's not just about something that makes the team faster, 603 00:30:56,280 --> 00:31:00,160 Speaker 3: but it's also directly correlated to people feeling like like 604 00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:02,640 Speaker 3: their week was a success and getting meaning and value 605 00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:05,160 Speaker 3: from work. The second idea to your point is that 606 00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:10,240 Speaker 3: we love this slogan from the US Marines. Slow means 607 00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:12,560 Speaker 3: smooth and smooth means fast. Where a lot of teams 608 00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:16,440 Speaker 3: go wrong isn't that they had to respond quickly to 609 00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:20,440 Speaker 3: a new event that they've never seen before. 610 00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:21,280 Speaker 4: It's that they. 611 00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:25,240 Speaker 3: Don't stop afterwards, take a breath and say, like, what 612 00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:27,600 Speaker 3: just happened, how did it go? How do we make 613 00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:30,960 Speaker 3: sure that the next time this happens that we have 614 00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:35,880 Speaker 3: some smoothness in how we respond. Because this, when you 615 00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:40,960 Speaker 3: have calmness and order and structure, it's not just a 616 00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:44,480 Speaker 3: more enjoyable experience, it actually increases business and team velocity, 617 00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:48,040 Speaker 3: and so you can actually go faster while it feels 618 00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:52,360 Speaker 3: like everybody is moving at a sustainable pace. If you 619 00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:57,040 Speaker 3: look at paddling races, what you'll see is that the 620 00:31:57,040 --> 00:32:00,760 Speaker 3: teams that win aren't the teams with the strongest men. 621 00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:03,240 Speaker 3: They're the teams that are putting their paddles into the 622 00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:06,360 Speaker 3: water at exactly the same time, because when everybody is 623 00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:09,000 Speaker 3: moving together, you get more momentum behind the boat, and 624 00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:12,600 Speaker 3: that's much more important than just like chaotic strength throwing 625 00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:15,120 Speaker 3: stuff into the water that actually ends up working at 626 00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:17,640 Speaker 3: cross purposes. And so what's critical is that a team 627 00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:21,320 Speaker 3: is working together with some structure, with some transparency, so 628 00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:24,720 Speaker 3: that in the end everybody feels like they're doing work 629 00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:28,560 Speaker 3: that's sustainable for them, but the whole boat is moving 630 00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:29,880 Speaker 3: faster as a result. 631 00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:33,520 Speaker 1: Adam, For the listeners that want to connect with you, 632 00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:37,160 Speaker 1: what is the best way to do so and also 633 00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:38,560 Speaker 1: to connect with Almanac. 634 00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:43,040 Speaker 3: Yeah, So if you're interested in everything we've talked about today, 635 00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:45,960 Speaker 3: go to Modern work method dot com. I think we 636 00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:48,760 Speaker 3: have hundreds of free templates on there that help you 637 00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:50,880 Speaker 3: take a lot of these ideas and turn them into 638 00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:54,560 Speaker 3: practices your organization can use now. And if you're interested 639 00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:57,480 Speaker 3: in actually adopting a lot of these behaviors, the whole 640 00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:00,000 Speaker 3: point in building Almanac is to make a seen less 641 00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:01,920 Speaker 3: for your team, just to start to work faster and 642 00:33:01,960 --> 00:33:03,880 Speaker 3: better without you having to spend time on it. And 643 00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:07,360 Speaker 3: you can get a demo and try the product at 644 00:33:07,400 --> 00:33:09,320 Speaker 3: almanac dot io and I think. 645 00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:14,680 Speaker 4: I'm on Twitter and LinkedIn at Adam p Nathan Adam. 646 00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:16,320 Speaker 2: I have loved this chat. 647 00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:19,600 Speaker 1: I feel like I've had quite a few penny drop 648 00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:24,320 Speaker 1: moments that's really making me rethink how we do things 649 00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:25,880 Speaker 1: at Inventium. 650 00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:27,720 Speaker 2: So I just want to say thank you for. 651 00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:33,320 Speaker 1: You for putting such deep thought into how work can 652 00:33:33,360 --> 00:33:34,960 Speaker 1: be done better in this new world. 653 00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:35,640 Speaker 2: Of work that we're in. 654 00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:39,680 Speaker 1: I've personally just found our chat so incredibly valuable, So 655 00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:41,320 Speaker 1: thank you well. 656 00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:42,520 Speaker 4: Thank you very much. This has been fun. 657 00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:46,000 Speaker 1: I hope that you got as much as I did 658 00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:47,520 Speaker 1: from this chat with Adam. 659 00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:49,760 Speaker 2: I know that it gave me so. 660 00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:54,120 Speaker 1: Many ideas to think about how we work at Inventium, 661 00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:57,880 Speaker 1: where we've been a remote first organization since twenty twenty. 662 00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:01,880 Speaker 1: And if you know someone who's currently in the process 663 00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:06,200 Speaker 1: of maybe rethinking how they approach their work, maybe you 664 00:34:06,280 --> 00:34:08,600 Speaker 1: might want to share this interview with them to help 665 00:34:08,680 --> 00:34:12,719 Speaker 1: spark some thinking. Thank you for sharing part of your 666 00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:15,000 Speaker 1: day with me by listening to How I Work. 667 00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:16,359 Speaker 2: If you're keen for. 668 00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:18,840 Speaker 1: More tips on how to work better, connect with me 669 00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:21,200 Speaker 1: via LinkedIn or Instagram. 670 00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:22,520 Speaker 2: I'm very easy to find. 671 00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:27,680 Speaker 1: Just search for Amantha Imba How I Work was recorded 672 00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:31,680 Speaker 1: on the traditional land of the Warrenery people, part of 673 00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:35,120 Speaker 1: the cool And Nation. I am so grateful for being 674 00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:38,000 Speaker 1: able to work and live on this beautiful land, and 675 00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:40,960 Speaker 1: I want to pay my respects to Elder's past, present 676 00:34:41,080 --> 00:34:45,200 Speaker 1: and emerging. How I Work is produced by Inventium with 677 00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:47,319 Speaker 1: production support from Dead Set Studios. 678 00:34:47,680 --> 00:34:49,120 Speaker 2: The producer for this episode 679 00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:51,839 Speaker 1: Was Liam Riordan, and thank you to Martin Nimba who 680 00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:54,359 Speaker 1: did the audio mix and makes everything sound better than 681 00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:55,680 Speaker 1: it would have otherwise.