Corporate Strategy
Corporate Strategy
163. Bonus Pod: Return of the CACC
We revisit our CACC framework for measuring workplace happiness, breaking down how Culture, Autonomy, Challenge, and Compensation create a personalized score to evaluate job satisfaction.
• CACC stands for Culture, Autonomy, Challenge, with Compensation as an offset factor
• Each person weighs these factors differently based on their individual priorities
• Two years after introducing CACC, we've seen our scores improve through role evolution
• Culture becomes more important when you can handpick and develop your own team
• Monthly CACC evaluation helps identify when it's time to consider other opportunities
• Compensation can offset lower scores in other areas if it's exceptional
• Your CACC priorities may shift as you age and your workplace values evolve
• Scoring below a C might indicate it's time to prepare an exit strategy
Join our Discord community to share your own CACC score and connect with like-minded professionals. Click the link in our show notes to participate in the conversation!
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Welcome back to SportsCenter. I'm Bruce and I'm Clark and I'm Milt.
Speaker 2:It's so good to see you guys here today. Let's do a little vibe check. What are you saying, Ashby? Yeah, so good to see you guys here today. Let's do a little vibe check. What do you guys think? Hey, vibe check. Bruce, Hit me.
Speaker 1:I got a little vibe check right here. I said my vibes are vibing. How about you, Clark?
Speaker 2:I'm vibing all over the place. It's Friday afternoon, I'm getting freaky.
Speaker 1:You know what's real freaky bonus episode. That's right. Get excited. Midweek bonus pod. This keeps us on track for our episode a week since we missed one. We're just throwing it in here because we got to Thought we would do a little revisit of something real quick. Just a quickie in your ears, Clark. What are we talking about today?
Speaker 2:We are talking about one of the most important things in life, which is Cack, cack, say that again.
Speaker 1:Cack Ouch life, which is cack, cack, say that say that again cack ouch, that hurts, you know.
Speaker 2:We, uh, we were going back and forth on do we call it cacko cacaw? We were like how do we add in some of the other factors of your workplace happiness happiness score? And I think we decided we're not changing it yet but this episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we got to keep it pure, but we thought let's do a quick episode. It's been a while since we talked about cack. You're wearing your merch right now. It doesn't say cack on a hashtag cack, but one day we'll make those shirts. I'm excited for it. We thought we'd bring an episode to you guys refreshing you on what is CAC and what is our current state of CAC in 2025.
Speaker 1:I want to make a shirt that just says ask me about. Ask me about my hashtag CAC.
Speaker 2:That's so good, Just all caps. I'm imagining like some Japanese style writing like across, like it's got to have a good shadow on it and colors yeah, a big shadow, and then, just like right in the middle, hashtag CAC.
Speaker 1:Ask me about my hashtag CAC. What is CAC Clark?
Speaker 2:I love to explain CAC. I just love talking about CAC. I love hearing about CAC Saying the word CAC it's just, it's so good, you know, I just love to spew it. So what is CAC? C-a-c-c. So this is our way. We've created this. This is something that came from our brains Pre-AI to measure our workplace happiness. Wasn't this pre-AI?
Speaker 1:We didn't come up with this with AI, modify it with that. We would never use AI for something like this. Why did you say that I totally would.
Speaker 2:That's the reason.
Speaker 1:That hurts me. Yes, this is pre-AI. One of the hosts on this show still lives like it's pre-AI. But continue, Clark. What does CAC stand for?
Speaker 2:CAC stands for Culture, autonomy Challenge, compensation and compensation is an offset. It is an offset.
Speaker 1:We always mention that.
Speaker 2:It's important. We made sure to make an acronym that's so easy and appropriate to say in every possible space ever, which is CAC, and we actually have done a ton of experiments with this in the past and it's become a pretty well-known term. We actually have most people in our Discord bring it up from time to time. We've had people come on the podcast and say, if I had to evaluate my CAC right now, and we basically have found that it's a super useful tool for us to communicate how happy are we at our current workplace. So we've done experiments in the past where we have, hour by hour for a series of two weeks, experiments in the past where we have, hour by hour for a series of two weeks, rated our workday to say what is our score from a one to 10 in culture, autonomy, challenge and compensation, and we actually graded ourselves on that curve to say how happy are we in our current role? Yeah, go, you can go back and listen to that.
Speaker 1:That was what two years ago at this point Two years ago, that was like year one of me at my startup.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So two years ago, your score was pretty good. At the time, mine was abysmal, and I'm still at the same place.
Speaker 1:Really that's sad, clark, don't say such things. One thing I love about CAC is before we get into like where we're at today with it, when you look at most business books analysts, consultants they're always coming up with acronyms like CAC to measure the productivity of a business, to measure the efficiency of the profitability of the technology, of whatever Like. It's always something about the business. It is how is business creating more money for business? And the thing I love about CAC it's tied back to why we did this podcast in the first place is while, yes, it's a corporate strategy, business oriented podcast, it's focused on people and CAC is a personal score for you to evaluate your satisfaction with your place in your company. And I don't think that exists with any other consulting firm, any other analyst business model out there. It's always so focused on the whole.
Speaker 1:Cac is focused on the individual because we recognize you are a human being, you matter and you should have a say in your happiness at your workplace. So when you use these four factors I do want to mention, like the reason we say compensation is an offset, it's because that can help turn up a bad CAC right, like if my culture, autonomy and challenge are in the low. You know we rank it one to 10. So if it's a low, like three across the board, but your compensation is a solid 10, like, it might not be so bad for you, right? Because you're getting paid way more than you need, you're happy with your pay and you're willing to suffer through a worse score because it means you get a better quality of life outside of work.
Speaker 1:And I love this measurement system because I think it works. It is interesting how we've had some folks talk about, in both the Discord and on the show, ways that we can change this, bring in other letters, bring in other meanings, but I still stand by. This is a very functional method for measuring happiness and it still works for me. So let's talk about our, let's talk about our cac scores today. Why, why is yours still low? Yeah, yeah, is it low across the border? Has it changed?
Speaker 2:so maybe we should set our, our weighted scores together.
Speaker 2:You know what? What is your ranking for each one of those factors? So I think this is something that's unique to this, too. It's everybody has a different weighting.
Speaker 2:Some people love culture. They're like culture for me is the top. That's all I care about is a great culture. I want to love my coworkers. I want to go out to lunch with them. I want to hang out with them after work, like culture is the top item.
Speaker 2:Some people say I want autonomy, I want to have the freedom to make my own decisions, decide what I do every day, like that's more important than anything. Some people value challenge. I actually still think this is probably my top, but I think it is shifting a little bit, and I love to take on challenging work where I'm learning. I'm around people that are smarter than me and I'm constantly kind of advancing myself and working with people who are frankly, really impressive, and that is kind of how you decide hey, where do I stand? Some people are like equal. They're like hey, I like a balance of all those things.
Speaker 2:And then some people are like you know what, for me, everything can be in the dump and if the compensation is high enough. I don't care how bad it is for across the board culture couldn't be in the dumps. Autonomy in the dumps, challenge in the dumps. But if I'm making buku bucks who cares, like some people, that's all they care about and that's why, to your point, this score can't just be generalized. It's unique to every single person. So I think challenge is still up there for me. What's interesting is I think culture might be rising up a little bit.
Speaker 2:No, I've been thinking about it, I know, can you believe it?
Speaker 1:I don't. I think it's been going up a little bit it's been.
Speaker 2:It's been improving. I'll go to, I'll go into it in a minute, but I want to hear yours. Has yours changed?
Speaker 1:No, I don't think so. My, my score has changed, but the things I value are still like autonomy over everything. I love being able to do my own thing, carve my own path, set my own destiny and be a leader when I can. So that's still my number one. Culture is my number two, and then challenge is number three, and obviously compensation is very important as well. I'm still very much in the same spot that I was Gotcha.
Speaker 2:All those years ago, even from two years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think mine is is shifting a little bit, maybe just because I'm what's the right word Getting older Maybe settling, getting older, compensating say, however you'd like to put it, but I think I mean your bones do look like they're melting. Do they? You'd like to put it, but I think your bones do look like they're melting, do they?
Speaker 1:I am sweating. Your bones are melting in real time. I see it happening.
Speaker 2:It's quite horrendous I mean, I did cut out milk, so my calcium probably is lower. I only drink almond milk. Now, you didn't know you could milk a nut, did you?
Speaker 1:uh, cats have nipples. Can you milk them? That's a great point.
Speaker 2:That's a great point, but, yeah, I think the reason so, for me, challenge is the top. I've talked about that a lot. Like I want that in my workplace and that's what I value is just that constant learning. I think because of my personal situation, I've decided to stay where I'm at, even though the score isn't the best, because the compensation offset does really help that. I think.
Speaker 2:Actually, what I've been doing with my schedule more and more at work, since I'm not getting challenge, I kind of lean into well, I love my team, I'm just going to spend more time with them, helping them work through problems, and that's why I think culture is now going up, because I'm like, dang, I love my team. Like my team is so good, I love just sitting around them and asking questions, like about what they're working on, what kind of challenges there are, brainstorming with them, and so I'm kind of using that as an offset because I'm not getting the challenge. I'm like, well, I'm just going to lean in with my great team and we're just going to try to have a good time and do productive things together.
Speaker 1:It's a cacomorphosis. Say it with me now.
Speaker 2:Cacomorphosis. Cacomorphosis A cac evolution A cac evolution.
Speaker 1:Your acceptance of your situation has caused you to reevaluate the cac score and you realize that you could actually be satisfied with different metrics on different weights. I mean that's super interesting. It's super interesting. Yeah, I kind of love that this is happening to you because I'm very much still in the same boat and I think my challenges today are the same challenges I had two years ago when we started talking about this. I do feel, personally, my score is higher. I do feel like I have more autonomy now I do have, I would feel personally, my score is higher. I do feel like I have more autonomy now I do have, I would say, challenge.
Speaker 1:For me, challenge is not, it's just not. I don't care about it, I don't value it and if I do have a challenging thing, I'll persevere and get through it. But I I don't feel like I have those enough that it is impacting my, my happiness. So I would say challenge is right where it needs to be. Culture has actually improved significantly for me as a. I think the culture of my team, my business unit, just tremendously good and I'm even though I don't value culture as highly as I do autonomy I am very happy that I have, like it's maxed out right, like it's a maxed out stat on that sheet. So, even though it's not the most important thing, like it is nice to have that pumping up, uh, where there might be things that are deficient that's's great.
Speaker 2:I mean, it sounds like your situation like if I had to generalize it be your situation is improving is what it sounds like Absolutely is, and I mean you can.
Speaker 1:You can also see the difference in I think you know I've been at this company literally over three years now startup I was employee number four. Now there's 240 employees. So obviously things are either going to get better as you add more people or they're going to get worse. Unfortunately, in my case, they did get better. So having more people definitely helps, having shared responsibility helps, but the culture and maybe this is going to change the way I think about culture right, Like the culture of the people we brought on.
Speaker 1:I interview a lot of people and I do grade them on their culture, like are you going to work here? And that's a big part of like the feedback I give to the hiring managers when we hire people. I was like I think this person's a great cultural fit and it matters because you know when they come in they can either add or subtract from your personal CAC based on how their culture is. And in my business unit, with my team and with the larger unit as a whole, I feel like we have really, really good culture and we keep adding people with good culture, so it's only helped in that regard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think that's the cool thing. I think, actually, both you and I have gone through I've hired my whole team and so, like that's the coolest thing, it's like I've picked, I've handpicked the people that are on my team and I've gotten to. I've had to lay some people off as well that were not a good fit, but it's allowed me to form this team that like we are all aligned and we are working really well together and I genuinely like spending time with them and I think you're kind of in the same boat, it's like, if you have a small company and you can keep on bringing on good people, you're going to keep on hiring people that contribute to that good culture, and it sounds like you guys have done that, which a lot of companies don't, which is great.
Speaker 1:It's. It's funny too, cause in my case, as a manager of my team, because I value autonomy so much, I value their autonomy as well. So I always like to kind of let them run wild and do their own thing and only really step in when leadership or someone else says hey, I need this thing out of this individual. Then it's my time to come in and say, all right, but like for the most part, like I know how much I care about it, so I don't want to be in any way shape or form dictating, micromanaging to them what they need to be doing. It's very much a here's, here's a project. Go solve it. I'll talk to you in a week.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Yeah, that's. That's really cool.
Speaker 1:I should check in with their cacks, in all honesty, yeah.
Speaker 2:It never hurts. Just to you know, put a couple of feelers out there in your one-on-ones. Be like hey, how are you guys doing? Do you like working here? Um?
Speaker 1:I think they all know I have a podcast so they could listen and judge me back if they wanted to. All right, it's not a secret.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, fair enough, do you? I think for your case too, compensation has increased over the last two years. It has. That always helps, yeah, and like, not the 3% increase, that's like just accounting for inflation.
Speaker 1:Like, both you and I have gotten raises, which helps that curve me is I'm invested in the success of the company, because if the company is successful, I too am successful. So you know that's it's compensation, but it's also like weirdly not a direct compensation, right Like it's a. It's a little bit of a gamble, it's long-term, but it certainly motivates me to do my day-to-day work because I want the company to succeed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's one of the coolest things about working at a startup and not at enterprise or big corp. It's because you know you. You can make or break your business based on what you do over a short period of time and your inputs contribute very tangibly to the end result. And in big corp sometimes you don't see like I'm doing this. I have. I have no idea how this affects you know my company. In the long term I'm just doing this thing right Because the company is so big. But as a startup, to your point, it's like you kind of have to be a little bit intrinsically motivated, or compensation is one of your highest, where it's like if I do well, if I push people to do well and work their hardest, we could all get a massive payout, which could be incredible for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool. It's also something where I can see the change in real time and maybe this is something that's not on the CAC score at all, but I've gone. I just got back from San Diego last week working our big event. I've been going to this event. I've gone to this event four times now. I've been going to this event. I've gone to this event four times now. I've been in the company three years, gone to this event four times.
Speaker 1:This is like the beginning of my fourth year and what's crazy is like year one, no one knew who we were, no one knew what we were doing. No one knew anything. Year two, it's like okay, maybe 10 of people knew who we were, knew what we're doing still small. Year three, maybe 40. Last week I would say 100 of the people I talked to knew who we are and they had a basic understanding of our product and it was just like filling in the gaps, which that's my work, right, like that's my job. My job is to create awareness about this company and to like to know that the work me and my team and my my business unit have done to make this successful it's. It is just super motivating and it also shows like what we're doing is working. So yeah, it also helps with the CAC in that way too. Is you see the business actually grow and become a real big boy? Grow from a little baby to a big boy that's awesome Into a mighty Oak.
Speaker 2:That's great. So I mean for both of us. I feel like our Cac has improved. Then I think when we you'll have to remind me, I think in our last ratings that we did your compensation curve got you to like a c or a low b, if I remember right, like it was like a low b rating, meaning like in the 80s with the spreadsheet that we did. Is that right for sure? Probably like mid 80s which we talked about is like a pretty great score.
Speaker 1:It was I would actually say like if I just did the quick mental math, I'd be at a low, a high b now for sure. Wow, that's awesome, do you?
Speaker 2:anticipate in the near future anything drastically changing with that.
Speaker 1:I mean, what's crazy is the pendulum can swing in either direction overnight, because that's just the name of the startup, right, like we make a drastic change to our leadership. We make a drastic change to our business model, our product. Like, when you're small, you can take big swings and big turns. So, yes, things could get tremendously worse or tremendously better, but I think one of the neat things about my company specifically is we do act like an enterprise. We're trying to sell an enterprise, so it does afford us the ability to move a little slower and be a little more corporate in our actions, and I don't foresee big swings happening. I think it's going to continue to either creep up or creep down, based on how we hire and how we hold ourselves accountable for the work we do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's interesting, that's awesome, that is really cool, so yeah, yeah, we talked about. Yeah, mine is, mine is still, I think, pretty low. I think when we last did it I was a C minus like 71. I was like right on the borderline.
Speaker 2:We talked about that, still passing, like still okay, it's not. We talked about anything below a C that's like not passing. In that regard Probably means you need to pull plan E, plan exit like quick. And so I was kind of on the borderline of that.
Speaker 2:I think for me, because I've been really kind of gearing the schedule towards leaning in more, with my team and culture going up a little bit, because I tend to enjoy those activities more and I do feel like they do provide value, I think it's a little better. I don't think it's, you know, largely better. I think maybe two, three points higher, which means the situation's improving and compensation has improved, which means overall like not a terrible score, not great, you know, probably still open, looking for other opportunities, but not terrible, it's doable. However, I think in the next and that's the reason why I asked you the question the next couple months for me there's been an organizational change, rules open that I think I should fit into. I think that could drastically change my feelings for where I'm at now and I think that would push it into that D category. I think it'd still be a high D because of the compensation, the team aspect and everything like that, but still not great.
Speaker 1:I think it's pushing me to the edge here he's, on the edge, the edge of glory.
Speaker 2:I'm to the edge.
Speaker 1:Here he's on the edge, the edge of glory, teetering. I'm teetering. I mean it could go a really great the other way, right, could, yeah, it could, it could, and I think that's it's so interesting. You know, what I love about cac is it is very evaluative, evaluational, I think you have it right.
Speaker 1:It gives you the ability to evaluate on the fly and I don't think this is something that you just do once a year and you're done. It's not a quarterly, it's not a yearly review, it's not a quarterly review. I think CAC is like a monthly review, at least right. Because if, month after month, your score is is going down, you need to be thinking about, like, what's this doing to my, my mental well-being, my emotional well-being, my physical well-being, and like stress and unhappiness does take a toll on you physically. Uh, like, you have to think about you and I know the market's not great right now and maybe it's never going to be great again, I don't know.
Speaker 1:It just seems like we're constantly in the state of like things getting more expensive, things getting worse. It's hard to think about like do I leave my company because I'm not happier, because my CAC isn't where I need it to be? But when you're doing the monthly evaluation, it allows you to check in and say, hey, if I get reached out to you by a recruiter, maybe I should just take that conversation. I'm on a downward. I'm on a downward slope right. Like I, things could get better, there were golden times, but would it hurt for me to have a conversation with another company that I could find a better time at.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, I think in and we talked about this a little bit, I think, even with our corporate correspondent, alex Reschrepo it's like In a lot of situations, for most people you don't want to just jump because you're really frustrated or times are hard, like you want to ensure there's something else lined up. Yes, and to your point, it's like that's when you know if you are evaluating. You're constantly looking at your CAC and you're like man, I felt burnt out lately. I don't generally feel happy going back to my family, like sometimes I just don't bring good vibes to them. Then you should be open to other opportunities, either you looking for them, depending on how dire the situation is, or, to your point, like if a recruiter is reaching out, you should take that call Because that could drastically change your situation, especially like if the economic times are not great. Obviously, if the economic times are great, you can be a little riskier, but right now, to your point, it's like things are fluctuating so much you should probably have something lined up before you make the jump.
Speaker 1:Bounce around like a ping pong ball. It all depends. It really does depend on the environment truly, uh, internal environment to the company, external environment to the, the place you're working in uh place, I mean country of residence. So it's it's interesting. I I love that we're doing this check-in. I know this is a quickie, I know I know we've got a dip here, but I want to throw it out to our listeners. If you're in the Discord, get in there. How's your CAC? What's your check-in? Let us know, go to the Corporate Strategy channel in the Discord. I want to hear about everyone's CAC and how they're doing, how they're feeling about it right now. Do your evaluation. Then we'll do another check-in second half of the year and see how we're doing then, because I think by then things will change for you, clark, and things will change for me, and it's worth us checking back in with each other and saying, hey, cack better, cack worse.
Speaker 2:I agree, yeah, I think it's. It's a great idea. It's like maybe we should do a poll or something like that where we find a way to like grade.
Speaker 2:it's like a, b, c, e, like, depending on whatever our score is. And I would encourage to your point. It's like, first, the first and easiest thing to do with your, with your CAC, is say, just prioritize them. What's top? Is it culture, is it autonomy, is it challenge, is it compensation? And just give it a, one, two, three, four and depending on that score, you can know, okay, how happy am I in these areas, in these respects. And if you just look at it over a week, you can really judge day by day how was my culture today, how was my autonomy today, how was my challenge today? Compensation is an offset. So it's like, even though it was in the dumps, I made awesome sales numbers and my salary or my bonus track is going to be great. So that kind of offset everything. And I think that's the easiest way to do it, to get your score everything.
Speaker 1:And I think that's the easiest way to do it, to get your score. That's how you can know where you stand. Yeah, just give yourself that school grade and uh, d, c, b, a, f. If we get any Fs, it's going to become a counseling session where we tell you to leave your job. But uh, do that. Join our discord. And the way you do that. Click on the show, click on the show notes, go to link tree. Join the discord. It's our open community. You can lurk, you can post, you can participate. We love everyone in there. It's a great way to get in touch with us as well as other like-minded individuals like ourselves. Uh, send the show to your friends. Share it widely, share it largely, share it bigly, bigly. Share the discord. The big podcast, the biggest, the biggest. Uh, we are.
Speaker 2:we are bigly evaluative of this CAC and maybe we'll do another quickie where we talk about CAC and how you evaluate it for future potential opportunities. That's a good one.
Speaker 1:That's a follow up quickie. I like it All, right, ok, well, we've got our follow up. We're going to put that on the books Schedule, that on the Cal, Going to make a sort of a long-term deep-dip dive into the topic, double-clicking into it, if you will. But until then, I'm Bruce and I'm Clark and you're on mute. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 2:Bye.
