Reframing Potential: A Deep Dive into Intentional Hiring and Evolving Workplace Roles

Jake: 0:45

And action. Get down on all fours. I need a step, sir. They didn't have squarty parties back in the day, so I used my man servant In the vin.

Noah: 1:03

You know, let me veer us off course here for a second no.

Frank: 1:08

No, I'd say, chances are you will veer us, on course, phoenix, you're much stronger than I.

Noah: 1:25

No, I was just thinking. You and I had a nice but short text conversation specific to hiring, which was really interesting.

Frank: 1:31

It started about. You asked me a question about.

Noah: 1:32

You had a product idea or something something. Yeah, you had a product idea, and you would probably be better to explain it than me, because it was your idea.

Frank: 1:38

But I would have to remember it, but it was my notes.

Noah: 1:42

you asked me what I thought about from an od perspective a wearable, or I, I think, brought it to wearable, but you just said some sort of product that would yeah, Aggregate insights about employee health in some way that would help managers to know.

Frank: 2:03

like you just stressed, your whole team out.

Noah: 2:07

Or something did Some event caused everybody on the team to be right, stressed or excited or anything. It doesn't have to be stressed. Definitely, yeah, but just give some sort of sense to leadership that something's going on with your entire impacting your vitals of your team.

Noah: 2:22

Yeah, in some ways, which is an interesting idea. Um, and then it moved into I think the piece that I've thought about a lot recently is the hiring part of this Cause we moved that conversation into hiring from the sort of perspective of how we get it wrong and why we get it wrong.

Frank: 2:50

Yeah.

Noah: 2:54

In that we try to create a role that is inflexible, that doesn't account for human beings and characteristics, and we try to check boxes instead of looking at the potential of a person. I'm interested in this as a topic. I don't know if you guys are, but it's on my mind. It's been on my mind quite a bit the last several weeks. I'm doing some light job searching and every time I do that it frustrates the hell out of me. Yeah.

Noah: 3:28

Yeah, it's definitely, and you, I think you are hiring at your job for for a new position and I think you have frustrations on that side of it.

Frank: 3:39

Yeah, I mean, I don't. They don't frustrate me, it's just a large organizational systems are what they are and I wish they were different, but they can't be. I don't think you think they can't be In large organizations. I think they can't be. They can't be in large organizations.

Noah: 4:13

I think they can't be because they they come together through too many people collaborating or something. Well, Jake, this is interesting because you also just hired. I don't know how that works at your, at your company, but I think you had a large part in, if not the sole decision of the hiring process there. Yeah, Did you? That's the first time you've ever hired somebody.

Jake: 4:39

Yeah, I mean I've taken part in interviews and stuff like that, but I had never really taken it all the way through to to hiring someone.

Noah: 4:47

I'd be interested in knowing where did you start, and I mean really at the beginning. Like you, you identified a need. We need to fill this role or we need to fill these, you know, job duties.

Jake: 5:03

Yeah, yeah, I mean it was really an organizational question to begin with. It's like, hey, how do we want to distribute work throughout the company? And you know, I mean it's pretty typical in a web agency you're going to have project managers, you're going to have account managers, you're going to have something like an SDR or a salesperson, you're going to have a strategist, you're maybe going to have a creative director or a marketing director, like. These are pretty typical roles. What each of those roles do sometimes overlaps and sometimes has very definitive barriers.

Jake: 5:45

But essentially we said, okay, the role that makes the most sense to hire right now would be the one that overarchingly fits the strategist job responsibilities. So we're going to put out a, we're going to develop a job description for a strategist title, and we went through and said this would be all of their responsibilities. And we went through and said this would be all of their responsibilities and we said this would be all of their. Like the the best sort of characteristics for that person to have. Like skills are in there, but more than anything, it was characteristics. This person enjoys this type of work. This person gets a problem and loves to research afterwards and find a lot of solutions.

Noah: 6:36

Yeah.

Jake: 6:37

These are the things that person would exhibit.

Noah: 6:39

That's interesting, I think, and I didn't realize it initially, but I think what sort of pushed me to bringing this up was the we were talking about briefly, intention, or the idea of intention. And I actually think that's what pushed me back to here, because I think your intention, when you set out to hire matters a whole lot to solve some of those problems that we talked about in that conversation, and it sounds like your intention was to find. You mentioned characteristics. Yeah, I don't know if you said personality, but I think about characteristics, personality. I think about desires. When I'm thinking about who would I want to fill this role, I'm not thinking about what are they going to do?

Noah: 7:28

You have to think about that, because you obviously have to know what they're going to do.

Noah: 7:33

And yes there has to be some skill involved. There has to be some experience involved. Probably, depending on what they're doing, I get that, but more than that, are you good to work with? Are you excited to learn things? Are you able to figure things out? Are you positive? Are you, whatever things fit, what you're looking for? That intention matters a whole lot, and I think this is what organizations get wrong. I think they look at a job description and say we need somebody that can do these things Period.

Frank: 8:06

Yeah, I mean I would like if it were up to me and I had no requirements, I would be more likely to put an Enneagram number on a job posting than all the skills and qualifications stuff.

Noah: 8:21

Yeah, I've thought a lot about the Enneagram in work situations and I go back and forth on it, but I probably lean closer to your stance on it than not.

Frank: 8:33

Yeah, I mean I just wrote a posting but I I didn't put an Enneagram number in there.

Noah: 8:36

I don't think it would have made it to the HR site anyways, I don't know that you can probably do that legally.

Jake: 8:44

I don't know what all the well, interestingly enough I mean, we didn't request Enneagram, but there are a few things that we did with our job application process. Number one the job description of every posting we've ever put up starts with our values as a company. And I mean, this is business, is personal, family is worth fighting for. Give away the business. We're not a standard agency. We really are people first. And what has been always fascinating to me when I end up in an interview with someone is I say what drew you to our job posting? And the answer is always, without question, your values.

Noah: 9:23

Yeah, and so this is also something that I've been thinking a lot about. My biggest weakness in job searching 100% is caring enough to do all the stuff that I don't think matters, which is something I probably should get over, but nonetheless, you look at a job description, you look at what they're asking for, you read the often ai generated stuff, you go this isn't exciting. I don't know what this company is. I don't know who they are.

Noah: 9:58

I don't know yeah I don't really believe that they care about me. They're just trying to fill a role, yeah, and so that's the effort I put into applying to it, that's the effort I put into applying to it, that's the effort I put into writing a cover letter. Sure, let's go down this path for a second. I applied for a job the other day. Don't know if I'll get you know, even an interview, but I said this to Frank in our conversation there was something different about the way they presented themselves that made me excited about putting in the work to apply to it.

Jake: 10:29

Okay.

Noah: 10:29

And this is what I mean about intention presented themselves. That made me excited about putting in the work to apply to it. Okay, and this is what I mean about intention, and I think it goes even further. It goes further back from just your intention for the person that you want in this role. Your intention as a company matters, like you're talking about values and and goals and things. But they talked about.

Noah: 10:48

They, of course, had a job description. Wasn't very big. They didn't mention you know that you'll see these job descriptions that have literally 20 bullet points of like. Here are the things that you'll be doing. It wasn't that. It was a short job description. That was a general summary of the position, but everything they led with was here's who we are and here's who what we care about. And then they, they make sure you know every application is reviewed by human being. That's cool. Yeah, we do that as well. Um, and I just went. You know what I'm going to try to tell them about myself. I don't know if it's going to work. I don't know if they're going to. I may still not be the right person for that job. Yeah, but I cared about actually trying and that matters a whole lot. That's a company I want to work for. Theoretically. I don't know much more about them than what I've read. Yeah, but they sold themselves I want to work for. Theoretically, I don't know much more about them than what I've read.

Jake: 11:51

Yeah, but they sold themselves to me.

Jake: 11:53

Well, this I mean, I talk a lot about, like the infinite versus the finite game, and really, if you could put a fine point on it, the difference is that a finite game is interested in dollars and revenue growth and an infinite game is mission driven.

Jake: 12:09

It doesn't matter what the mission is, but it's a reason that we all do what we're doing, and if a job description puts that sort of thing first, you're going to immediately filter out the people who are only interested in dollars and you're immediately going to filter in the people who are like I want to do something that I care about, that matters, something like that. One of the things that we do with our job description as well, or the application process rather, is we ask for a three to five minute video of yourself just explaining why you think you'd be a good fit, what drew you to this job description. We get and I'm sure this isn't surprising very, very, very few people actually go to the extent of making the video. We don't look at submissions that don't submit a video. We're a remote agency that relies highly on like video chatting and stuff like that being able to present yourself, being able, being comfortable doing it.

Jake: 13:12

If you're not going to submit a video, why would I want to bring you into a position where that's most of what you're doing?

Noah: 13:17

Well, and it does speak at least a little bit to their desire for the job, a hundred percent.

Jake: 13:23

Yep, is this your 78th submission today? Or are you like, intent intentionally, you know, going toward this position Right.

Noah: 13:33

Yeah, I think that's clever. I like that. I would hate to make a video as as a as an applicant, but I would do it if I really wanted the job.

Frank: 13:45

I would do it, yeah, and so yeah, I think it's a very clever idea. I did a horrible interview process like this once, um, and I got to like the very the. You know they picked a candidate out of the last list that I was in, but it was atrocious. So so many steps.

Noah: 14:09

You know what I really hate and I don't have any, I've not done any research on it. It may be super valid in some ways, but the behavioral interviewing stuff I hate it and I'll tell you why. So when I first moved here, I applied for two jobs at Nestle Purina that I think I would have been really good at and I think I could have been at least semi happy in. I moved on to the interview process in both of them, yeah. So they liked me, apparently in some ways because I they pushed me through the interview process.

Noah: 14:51

But every layer of the interview process has behavioral interview questions and they get longer and longer. The interviews get longer and longer and I think one I made it to like the second to last round and one I made it to the final, like it was me and, I think, one other person and they ended up giving it to the other person, which is fine me and, I think one other person and they ended up giving it to the other person, which is fine. But I felt like I wasted so much of my life going through these different layers and not, I didn't make up stories, but this is what I don't like about the behavioral interview questions.

Jake: 15:28

Is you ask me, can you explain me what you mean by behavioral interview?

Noah: 15:30

So behavioral interview questions are the questions that are like tell me about a time that you had to navigate conflict with a coworker, okay. Or tell me about a time where you noticed a problem and you stepped up to fix it or whatever Sure. So I have several problems with this One. Really good manipulative people can make things up and you're never going to know the difference. I could do that too. It doesn't feel good. We talked about Enneagram. I'm an eight. I do not like to lie. It just doesn't feel good, so I'm not going to do. It feels dishonest, but I think a lot of times people who are really good at that piece make it.

Noah: 16:20

They get jobs and they're not very good at the job itself. They were just really good at making you think. Sure that they were suave when they answered and they had a great story and they really pumped it up the right way. Maybe they're, maybe their real gift is that presenting themselves, but they're terrible at whatever the job holds. Yeah, I think that happens a lot, not just in behavioral interviewing, I think in interviewing in general no-transcript.

Noah: 16:58

Once it's gone, it's gone. I move on to the next thing. And so when you go, tell me about a time that you had, I'll bring the eight back up. Conflicts for eights. They rise up and we literally let it go. If you read about an Enneagram eight, we lean into conflict, but once it's done, we are the most forgiving people out there. It's like no, that's done and over. This is how I treat work problems, not just conflict, but anything. I deal with it, I solve it and then I'm on to the next one. So you want me to come up with a really great example that's going to sell you on my abilities. That might have happened 15 years ago. I hate it, it's awful and I don't think it's really telling you. It's all from my perspective. How is this helping you understand better how I'm going to work in purchasing?

Jake: 18:01

Yeah, no, that's interesting. I, I, there's, there's a corollary or something like that. Uh, similar to this that I actually do, like in interviewing I, when I interviewed it for the current job that I have, um, the interviewer asked me questions like hey, this was a situation I ran into with one of our clients.

Noah: 18:21

Two, weeks ago.

Jake: 18:23

Tell me real quick, what would you have done in that situation? I don't mind that I liked it, yeah, and he was like oh yeah, that's great, I did something pretty similar. That's kind of interesting because it says this is a real-life situation, it's not based in a story. It's like problem-solve for me real quick. What are our options and how would you do this?

Noah: 18:43

this is way better, in my opinion, because, like you said, you're being presented a problem and saying okay, now, this is sort of like what you said about the table. Tell me how this table you know how would you suppose this table is made? It's just a problem solving exercise, instead of going tell me about a problem that happened to you and then how you solved it yeah, I hate it.

Frank: 19:04

I do think there's a value in the um self-referential part of that question, but the ones that they can rehearse for suck in my like because you can rehearse for it exactly. But the the question I've been asked that I was like, wow, uh, was tell us about the people at your current or most recent job and how you fit in or don't. Perhaps that I'm like. The answer to that tells me everything about how you see other people, about how you can work together, about I don't mind, and you can't.

Noah: 19:41

How could you make it up? I don't mind that question. No, I don't mind you can't. How could you?

Frank: 19:43

make it up.

Noah: 19:43

I don't mind that question? No, I don't mind that question at all. But behavioral interviewing is specifically what I said. Like they give you a tell me about a time that this happened and then tell me how you dealt with it and it might be a conflict or it might be problem solving, or it might be. Tell me a time that you got you know, praised and how you dealt with that. It could be a positive tilt. Yeah, I still hate it. Yeah, it doesn't. I don't think it's helpful and I think it gives. I think it's only hurting the company that's hiring in the in the long run, because they tell you upfront that they do behavioral interviewing questions. You can find videos online that tell you how to prepare for these things and it's just. It's like studying for a test. Yeah, I hate it. Yeah, and then it made me. I will never apply for another job at Nestle Purina because I went through that twice and I wasted weeks.

Jake: 20:42

I have no interest in doing it again well, yeah, so when you said you went through this twice was were these like video interviews?

Noah: 20:50

yeah, okay, I mean I think the first one's a phone call and even in their phone screen they do behavioral interview questions so even the hr rep.

Jake: 20:57

When they call you, they do three behavioral questions it makes me wonder what the rubric for assessing those is yeah because it seems like that sort of interviewing style does something to offload like. There must be some sort of scoring system. There is, you know that like filters this down so that a real human doesn't actually have to be like. Is this human good for this position?

Noah: 21:24

But you're still requiring those humans to score it.

Jake: 21:30

Yeah, I know that's what seems weird and I would have to understand more about it. There was, while we're talking about this, I read another book by Simon Sinek recently. It's called Leaders Eat Last, and it's basically about how to build strong teams, like, why do some teams band together in hard times and why do others completely fall apart? And he kind of narrows it down to this concept that he calls the circle of safety. He talks about it like in terms of, like the Spartansans, you know, there you could be forgiven for dropping your sword in battle, but it was unexcusable to drop your shield. Yep, the reason being is that your shield was important to the man standing beside you, right, and he's like in companies there's a similar sort of idea, and it's that we all have to feel safe, essentially to explore or adventure or whatever.

Jake: 22:24

And, um, he said, you know, there are companies where you're completely expendable If you're not somehow meeting an arbitrary performance metric. They're like okay, you're gone. And he used this extreme example, though, of another company that went, again like I said, extreme and essentially gave all their employees tenure. If you got a job, you were not going to get fired. It had to be very extreme where you had been talked to like three different times and you were actively hurting the business business and he said they had internal systems for building up employees. If you're underperforming it's because you don't understand something, or you're having a hard time at home or whatever it is, and like, yep, we're going to build you up. And it was like you. You don't understand the amount of effort that goes into that initial hiring when you know you can't get rid of someone yep however, they actually ended up saving money on hiring as opposed to all the turnover that you would have well, it's right.

Noah: 23:33

It's way cheaper to keep employees. Yeah, so if you do the hiring process right the first time, over the long term you're going to save money in that process for sure and the same thing is true for paying employees, giving raises and stuff it. People lose money all the time because they don't like somebody will get a job offer. They don't want to match it, they don't want to work to keep their employee, and then they end up spending more hiring. Yeah, it's unbelievable.

Jake: 24:02

It's interesting, so what's the right way to hire? I don't know.

Noah: 24:08

I don't have the answer to that, but I've searched for enough jobs in my life to just be completely frustrated with the system. Sure, and yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the right way is, but I think I do Go ahead, frank's got it.

Frank: 24:28

It's the same. You should never hire in a large group If you want like an optimal working environment. It's a small group of agile team members associated with a clear goal and they wear whatever hat makes the most sense around the work they have to understand the work.

Noah: 24:51

This is the other thing that drives me crazy. I know hr is there for a reason and there's a role to play, but when? When the first layer of defense, so to speak, is someone who has no idea what that role entails, except for a job description and maybe a quick interview with the hiring manager? Like, how many great candidates are you missing on because they don't understand what goes into the job and what personality might be best for the job and what skill set might be transferable? Yeah, like these things matter and we allow a random hr rep to to do those initial screenings and yeah, they give feedback to the hiring manager, but you're still relying on somebody else's opinion. Yeah, it's.

Jake: 25:39

I'll say that. Go back to the video thing, the three to five minute video. I'll be honest, I'll just admit my bias. I knew before I interviewed this person that they were the person I wanted. Just after that three to five minute video, they had already told me that they had performed every single role around this type of work. They understood the funnel front to back. They understood everything about it. So they they understood the implications of their actions in the role they were applying for, before and behind, and it was like that's it, like you are going to set everyone else around you up for success and we're going to do the same thing for you. So really, it was at that point. It was a, it was a culture fit question, right, right I do think it's.

Noah: 26:32

I know you and I'm sure it's deeper than this, but I think the they've performed the roles can be dangerous, because we've all worked with people who were in this role for 15 or 20 years but they were terrible at it and you pass up on somebody who's got a year and a half of experience but is really good, yeah, because, oh, this person did it for 15 years. Oh, yeah absolutely so I know you and I know that you didn't.

Jake: 27:04

Yeah, it wasn't like this person.

Noah: 27:05

You didn't reduce it that much.

Jake: 27:07

I was a project manager here, I was a strategist there. It was more like they were saying I have done this from building the funnel out to designing wireframes to keeping projects on time and under budget, and like they described what they had done, as opposed to say, I wore this hat once. Sure, those are very different things Makes sense.

Frank: 27:30

Yeah, I mean, I really like people who have been through a progression where they like it's often like they were implementation people, so they had to implement this thing, and then they got good at that so they became a project manager and they got good at that, so they got to work like in a directional role, like product owner or something so that by this time they're like they know the implications of everyone's decisions on each other because they had to live each of their decisions on each other. Those are pretty cool.

Noah: 28:01

these are a couple of other things that drives me crazy that organizations do one is they want somebody who's done that exact thing before instead of being open-minded to other experience being transferable Sure. So saying oh, you were hiring for a product owner. You have to have been a product owner before. I don't sure that's helpful, but I don't think it's necessary depending on the person.

Frank: 28:26

In my experience, it's the worst If you just get someone who was, especially if they're like I was a product owner at Oracle and then I was a product owner at this healthcare company and then I was a product owner at whatever Right, the only thing you know how to do is be a product owner. Yeah, that's the worst product owner, One hundred percent.

Noah: 28:48

But we do this all the time in organizations we go. Now we're hiring for a project manager. You have to have project management experience. Not only that, but you have to have 15 years, 20 years. We really ideal candidates got 25 years of project management experience. You know what I mean. It's just insane yeah and then what was the other one?

Noah: 29:04

that was in my mind oh, the other way that we hurt our people is by the titles we give them because of the systems we put in place where we go. Hey, you have to have project management experience, or else we're not going to hire you, but we hire people and we call them project ninja or something.

Jake: 29:25

Do you know what I'm saying? Yes, I was a digital producer once You're only hurting your people.

Noah: 29:33

Everything you do when you hire should be with the intention of helping that person move on from you. You hope they don't, but you treat them as well as you can to keep them, and that means setting them up for success in their career period.

Noah: 29:49

So, I'm going to set you up to move on in your career and I'm hoping that by treating you well, you're going to stay with me. But when you give people titles that make no sense or don't properly encapsulate the thing, all the things that they do you're holding them back. You're putting the burden of proof on them. Now, when they move on, when they want to apply to another job, you have to go. Yeah, my title was freight merchandiser, but here's all the things that I did and here's why I can be good at this thing.

Jake: 30:23

I think you're going to find those phenomena to be mutually arising, though. Why I can be good at this. I think you're going to find those phenomena to be mutually arising, though You're going to overload a role in an organization that also isn't actually employee first minded Sure, you know what I mean. Like that person is going to take on more responsibilities than their job title actually entails in those types of organizations, you know. But at the same time, like in a, in an agile team where you can hold and wear multiple hats, you may also do that, but it's in a different way. Again, it's mission driven as opposed to anything else, and I don't know, I think that stuff comes through, sure, yeah.

Frank: 31:10

Yeah, I mean I I'm on a relatively small mission driven team in a very large organization which is almost impossible to find. But it's not that bad, it's not that hard to find. But it is hard to find. At the level of one that aligns with the passion that I have was hard to find. That's what I mean. Um, I think generally the two things sort of are exclusive of each other. If you have 80 000 employees, then it's going to be very hard to let them do whatever they want, sure, and if you want a super high functioning team, you should let them do what they want. They should do what they think is cool. It doesn't frustrate me because it just feels like it's the systems and the way they must function. It's the systems and the way they must function, but I do think there are people who fit in the 80,000 people organization and like it.

Jake: 32:13

Yeah, I was thinking that, as you said, in the 80,000 person organization you're essentially a giant machine and when that level of sophistication gets hit, you specialize roles more than any other place. And it's essentially like a person is a piston in an engine and it's your job is to pump up and down Go.

Frank: 32:35

Exactly, and if you pump up and down on cue, then we'll let you be factory worker two. Exactly, and then factory worker three gets to manage the other pistons and make sure they pump up and down.

Noah: 33:10

And for some people this structure is amazing, yeah, and there are some people that truly just want to go to work and do a job they don't hate so they can pay their bills and live their life. There's nothing wrong with that either. Yeah, my conversation here is specific to people who want more than that. Yeah, and this is not to denigrate people who want more than that. Yeah, and this is not to denigrate those who don't at all. But I'm just saying when you, at any organizations, large or small or somewhere in between, are always going to benefit from doing their best, no matter the systems, to take care of the people that they're hiring and setting them up for success.

Frank: 33:55

Yeah, it just looks different. I think I mean there are very large employers that take incredibly good care of their people despite having role titles that are madness. Sure, um. But I sometimes I think they can't do personal attention like um. I think my role title should be this like there's no way to do that like sure, uh, it just doesn't work there are companies out there that allow people to make up their own title yeah, I don't think they have 80 000 employees though probably not, but there are some that are decently large that do it yeah, I'm not saying that's the right thing to do.

Frank: 34:40

I'm just saying once you get so large, then you have like people in risk and they're like we're not going to take the risk on giving people their own titles or their own pay bands or anything like that.

Noah: 34:50

We don't want to be attacked, yeah I mean, I think it all comes down to how you think as an organization and how your leadership thinks specifically yeah, and if it is but the problem, I agree with you totally.

Frank: 35:01

But once you get so large, you offshore your thinking to collaborative groups in their own departments and they produce reliable results which are. We're not going to take the risk on something like that.

Frank: 35:15

Um and I mean sometimes it's slightly different if the mission is really really specific about letting personal attributes be you know, really important in an organization, then maybe you get to pick your own title but the salary bands are set, or we have, like a official HR title that you're under but you can put whatever you want on your email signature or something like that.

Jake: 35:35

Yeah, there's something. There's something very interesting going on here, I think. And it's like trying to I don't know take a code snippet that was written in one language and just apply it to another. It doesn't work. And I think that's what's going on here is like you have the finite 80,000 person machine organization and they have specific titles, and then you have this mission driven, agile, creative, you know sort of team driven organization.

Jake: 36:07

Yeah, and in the latter my title is almost more associated with my ability to work as a team than it is project manager. Like I am a team leader, I am a mission driver, I am part of a production engine and we do what we need to do. And if I go and interview for another role, I'll say, yeah, I was a project manager, but here's what I did and here's how we work together. And if I'm applying for an 80 000 person machine type of industry, they're going to be like yeah, that's not really what we're looking for. If I apply for another team that's similar, then they're going to be like yeah, we want apples and the other one's like we want oranges. You know 100, that's similar. Then they're going to be like yeah, we want apples and the other one's like we want oranges.

Noah: 36:54

You know 100%, that's true. I think it'd be interesting for us all to talk about at another time something like holacracy, or I don't know if you guys know anything about some of these different organizational setups. I don't even want to call it, it's not a hierarchy, that's why I almost said hierarchy. But, um, like, holacracy has agreed upon rules put in place that govern the way that people work and they all. Everything is very clear. Like roles are clearly defined.

Noah: 37:31

If they run across something new, like a oh, this should probably be a new role, they get together, they have. They have defined meetings for the or defined rules for the meetings, define times for the meetings. They're very quick, it moves it's talk about agile. It moves very quickly and seamlessly and they will create a role for it, and so all the structure itself is built in such a way that it can help itself grow and maintain operating limits. It's very interesting. Zappos did that for a long time. I think Zappos is no longer a holacracy, but I think they're the sort of the biggest success story of holacracy I think it'd be interesting to talk about sometime. Yeah, we don't have the time or the background of the moment to do it, but yeah.

Noah: 38:29

I think there are ways to do. It is what I'm saying, but it's not easy and it takes a lot of work and it takes buy-in and it takes hiring the right people who want to do those things.

Noah: 38:46

Yeah, I don't know, it's interesting. Yeah, I also think this is this conversation is the do what you think is cool? Conversation from an organizational standpoint, definitely. So that's why I get a little bit surprised when I say I just don't think you can change it. When you're talking about large organizations, coming from you, it seems I would just wouldn't expect it.

Frank: 39:13

Oh, I don't think you'd want to change it if you thought it was cool right?

Noah: 39:19

I don't. I guess when you're talking about an organization, you'd have to figure out who thinks it's cool and who doesn't, because I can tell you a lot of the employees don't they should leave, sure, um, I, I mean, I on some level think it would be super cool to like be a part of car manufacturing.

Frank: 39:44

I there are things I think are cooler than that, but on some, like basic, just show up to work, hang out with your friends, put cars together, watch them go down the line. It's totally fine and I think people who want to do that should do it. I don't think it should change, even though they're going to be factory worker one and then factory worker two, factory worker three.

Noah: 40:15

um, I personally would rather have so much variability in my experience that I would much rather work around short duration projects yeah, I think this conversation is a little bit different than than you're laying it out, and again, I don't know that we have time for it, but I I hear you talking more about what you do to make cars and less about how you do it from an organizational standpoint. The things I'm talking about are how we do it, how we treat people, how we organize, how we structure, how we do it, how we treat people, how we organize, how we structure how we regulate.

Frank: 40:56

Yeah, I mean, I'm not very authoritarian, I don't have much. I think the people should figure out the how.

Noah: 41:02

Right, which is? I mean how lockers, who is exactly that?

Frank: 41:07

Yeah, so it was agile. That's what agile is Right.

Noah: 41:17

I just don't think that it's. I think I think just saying, well, car manufacturing has to be done this way is a little short-sighted from that standpoint. That's all I'm saying.

Frank: 41:24

Are you saying it shouldn't be done on an assembly line?

Noah: 41:29

No, I'm saying, that is assembly lines are what we do. We are, we're putting cars together. That's not what I'm talking about. We're having different conversations. So you're saying how we govern is different than a job role. Yeah, how we govern, how we make decisions, how we relate to it one another, how we get things done.

Frank: 42:05

Um, and what would you? What would you say? That's different, it's different. It's different between what and what.

Noah: 42:16

I hear you saying this. I don't know what you call them Car assembler three or something. Factory worker. Factory worker one, two and three FW for short.

Noah: 42:24

You're talking. Yeah, fw, I hear you talking about what they do, what their job role is, and I'm talking about how the organization functions from a governance standpoint. Okay, so, like I'm a project manager and I'm, my role includes managing projects, so scoping and tasking and all whatever, all these different things that are included in a project manager, but that's just what I do how we work as an organization, as a living thing together. That's what I'm talking about, not what my independent role is or what era's independent role is or anybody else. Like, I'm talking about how we move together. Sure, I just think we're having a different conversation. I'm not saying what you're saying is wrong. I think we're talking about different things. I could be wrong. Telling you what I hear.

Frank: 43:30

It sounds like we're talking about different things. I just don't know what you're talking about. Different things? I just don't know what you're talking about.

Frank: 43:34

Yeah, as it applies to a factory worker sure, and I don't think we have time to get into it at the moment I mean like the how might be that you know, I play on my phone while I do this to pass the time and those people over there like to talk to each other while they work. But, like in a factory setting where there's a clear scope and a clear units per hour and a very piston like work output, it's a productivity driven organization rather than an intention goal. I mean, there's goals, but uh, I don't know what the how would be.

Noah: 44:10

Yeah, I don't know what the how would be. Yeah, I don't know if I have. I don't know if I have this laid out in my head enough to go deep on this at the moment. Sure, that's fair, but I think it would be fun to come back to it.

Frank: 44:26

Definitely Any closing thoughts, Jacob I don't know.

Jake: 44:33

I mean my overall thoughts are just that. Any closing thoughts, jacob, I don't know. I mean my overall thoughts are just that everything is sort of survival of the fittest, everything is sort of natural selection. The system that hires inside of the 80,000 person organization is probably going to get candidates who want to be in those positions or are willing to do that, and the opposite is true for the sort of mission driven, smaller, agile, creative type of agency or organization.

Jake: 45:16

And I think that there is probably some real conflict, tension, friction. When a person who is really leaning more toward one type of thing goes and steps foot into the other. They're like wow, this doesn't feel right and I think that's a lot of what's happening for you. But I also think that you know, I mean you have a passion for like change, management and organizational development and it's like I think you're saying I see a reality in which we can take this giant corporation ship and actually make it steer and be a little bit more people first and you want to see that sort of like humanity thrive in those larger places and I think there's there's room for that for sure.

Noah: 46:00

Not only do I think it's possible, I think it's better for everyone literally everyone even the organization. They just have a really hard time seeing and understanding that. And there to Frank's point, are so many people that have to see and understand it for it to actually happen. It's not a one-person thing in those organizations. That's why it's so hard to turn the ship.

Frank: 46:22

Yeah, no, I mean, those organizations are usually no people. They have layers and layers of no's in hopes of keeping everyone on mission, and it's well-intentioned. But you can't use that because it's not the approved product for this thing. We're not doing the thing that product does, so it doesn't work for us. Well, you've got to use one of our approved things.

Jake: 46:51

What's really interesting and I'll just say this other thing is in that same book he goes through and looks at this use case of a giant corporation who their owner realized very early on, um, that things started to break down when groups got above 150 people, which is something we know from just a human perspective, anthropologically. But he would basically section off, I mean large areas that are doing redundant tasks, but it's like hey, factory number one, you're 150 people, you're operating almost independently.

Noah: 47:26

And then factory number two it wasn't.

Jake: 47:29

It wasn't. It was something it started back in like the 1940s or something similar to. It's a nonstick adhesive? Obviously not an adhesive. It's a nonstick type of thing, like Teflon but not Teflon, and they've put it on surgical tools and NASA uses it and all this different stuff. But anyway, the idea is that factory number one and factory number two their goals are the same, Output this, but the way they go about actually achieving those goals is different, because the 150 people groups are different. Yeah, and that's pretty interesting to me.

Frank: 48:04

Yeah, I have seen that work. If you have anybody that's truly devoted to Agile, where the things they structure are, this is when retrospective meetings are. This is when scrum is and you guys do whatever you want with your people. Like you know, our sprints are every two weeks. Your next work is due this day.

Frank: 48:35

That works for sure for letting the team sort of be small while the organization is big but short of that uh, and like just weird organizations like that don't really, you know, like this team doesn't fit in the that. That sort of works too. But I have seen that work. At our one we had like well defined methodologies and everything else didn't matter. They let you do whatever you wanted. And we had software engineers who were like I really like to test and they didn't have to write software, they just did all the testing for the team or something and then the test people might be like I really want to learn how to do software engineering.

Jake: 49:14

So they just did. Yeah, but I see a better world. We're making it today, oh my God.

Frank: 49:25

We'll talk about intention versus productivity someday.

Jake: 49:29

Let's talk about talking about that Next time on the Tupps.

Frank: 49:35

Come back, tuppies. It'll be better next time, I hope.