Unicorn Leaders

Ep.21 - Scaling Through Chaos: Why Startups Need Clarity, Not Corporate Playbooks with Ali Farrell

• Unicorn Labs - Fahd Alhattab • Season 2 • Episode 1

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In this episode of the Unicorn Leaders podcast, host Fahd Alhattab sits down with three-time Chief People Officer Ali Farrell, currently CPO at Apprentice, to unpack what it really takes to build high-performing teams in fast-growth startups. Ali brings a rare blend of corporate, VC-backed, PE-backed, and bootstrapped startup experience—and she’s not afraid to challenge outdated HR norms.

From navigating chaos to ditching performance improvement plans, Ali shares hard-won insights on what works (and what absolutely doesn’t) when leading through scale. You'll learn why clarity is more powerful than complexity, how to bring “just enough” structure to support growth, and why ownership and curiosity matter more than credentials.

Whether you're a founder, people leader, or scaling operator, this episode is packed with tactical advice, real talk, and fresh perspectives on how to grow teams that actually thrive in the messy middle.

Ali Farell:

To me, the most talented and most impactful leaders are those who are the most self-aware. I don't care where you went to school. I don't care your pedigree. I care about your level of self-awareness. So those two things, super important. Really huge red flag when someone says, well, when I was at, and it's a huge kind of organization. Well, we did it this way. And I'm like, yeah, but super cool. Very impressive. I love that experience for you, but it needs to be applicable to our reality. And there's art really in knowing that. how to apply that and where to get curious. So to me, I think curiosity is the most important thing.

Fahd Alhattab:

Hello and welcome to our Unicorn Leadership Podcast. We're officially kicking off season two. Ali, I'm excited to have you here. I am equally excited. It's going to be awesome. Ali, this is the podcast where we interview startup leaders, whether they're CPOs or CEOs or founders, about how to build high-performing teams and high-performing cultures. So we're going to ask Ali all about her stories, her journey, some tools, like specifics, some mistakes. I love when we get into like, you know, where did we mess up? up and so that our audience and our leaders that are listening to this and our founders can learn from it. The podcast is brought to you by Unicorn Labs. I'm Fahad Al-Hattab, the founder of Unicorn Labs, also the host of this fun podcast. And you can learn more about us at unicornlabs.ca where we will host the podcast, but it is available everywhere. So today's guest is Ali. Ali Farrell. All right. So Ali, you've led a lot. You've led teams.

Ali Farell:

Done some things.

Fahd Alhattab:

You've done some things. So you did some You didn't work in corporate. You didn't work in startups. Now you're a CPO of a much more mature and growing company. So this is all really exciting. You're three times chief people officer. And you're currently the CPO at Apprentice. Tell me a little bit about Apprentice.

Ali Farell:

Yeah. So Apprentice is a cloud-based manufacturing execution software and really digital transformation platform. And so most of our clients are in the pharmaceutical and cell and gene therapies area. and really our mission is to produce a large portion of the world's therapeutics. And so we're really super mission-driven as an organization and we're doing some pretty cool stuff. So a lot of exciting things coming to our roadmap.

Fahd Alhattab:

I feel like your CMO would be really happy with that pitch right there. Like you just nailed it. Like that was crisp. So you've come, you know, The Apprentice with a lot of different experiences, leading teams, building strategies for people from fast-growing startups to larger companies, major restructuring, That is one of

Ali Farell:

my special talents. I do tend to run a little bit towards the fire, so I think I can bring order to it. It is kind of a cycle I find myself in for one reason or another. Yeah.

Fahd Alhattab:

So this episode, we're going to really unpack what it really takes to build and scale a team to the top. And we're going to talk about the difference between the Davids and the Goliaths, the difference between the corporate HR, that is, and the Davids and how these small but mighty teams really grow. So without further ado, Ali, I want you to introduce yourself to our audience. Tell me a little bit about yourself. Where are you calling in from? Where'd you go to school? Where'd you grow up? I'd like to know a little bit more.

Ali Farell:

Yeah, so I grew up in upstate New York in a really, really tiny town called Frankfurt, which nobody knows about by any means, but it was a really good place to grow up for that reason. But I ended up going to college at Marist, which is in Poughkeepsie, New York. I thought I would be a journalist. I thought I would be a lawyer. I thought I would be so many things. And I have kind of ended up in HR for a lot of different reasons, but it's actually a path that makes a lot of sense given all of the things I thought I would be doing in my life. So today I live in... at Bucks County, Pennsylvania. My career trajectory has been a little unusual, think for a two people officer, because I have large publicly traded company experience. I've got PE backed experience. I have bootstrapped SaaS startup experience, which was really amazing. And I also have high growth VC backed experience. So I've kind of done a lot of different things. And it's not often I think you find a CPO who finds success in each of those different operating models.

Fahd Alhattab:

So Ali, you told me you've had a winding career career, a little few different things. You wanted to be a journalist. This is your moment as a journalist, Allie.

Ali Farell:

Honestly, I thought I would be a journalist. I love interviewing people. I like talking to people. I like digging into things. I'm super curious. And so really in this job, not only do I get to do this and hang out with you all, but I get to talk to different people every day and learn different things. And so it makes a lot of sense. Like the things I learned in school and things I learned in my internships and all of that, really I use today, honest to God. It's crazy how it all works out, really.

Fahd Alhattab:

That's awesome. You still get Gathering all the stories. So where... Yes. What was the first job out of university? And then what was the first pivot into HR? Do you remember those?

Ali Farell:

Yes, I do. So my first job, I always had multiple jobs. But my first job out of university, I was a TV news producer at my local TV station in upstate New York. So that was my first job out of college. I was a news producer. Yeah. And I did a little copywriting.

Fahd Alhattab:

Okay.

Ali Farell:

As well. I did a little copywriting.

Fahd Alhattab:

And what was the pivot into HR? What was the pivot into that world?

Ali Farell:

Yeah. So I was a copywriter at a really super small agency in the Philadelphia suburbs. And I ended up leaving there and going to a company at the time that was called Avenue A Razorfish. So it was an advertising agency based in Philadelphia. I was really doing outbound selling SEO and I hated it. I was like, this is soul sucking. for so many reasons. And there just so happened to be a recruiting coordinator job open at Avenue A. And I moved into that. And that was kind of where I started. And that was really where my love for this function took off. And it was a company I loved. And I ended up being there for almost 10 years. So I grew really quickly. So that was my first entrance into HR.

Fahd Alhattab:

So your first entrance, how would you describe that company? Were they larger? Were they startup? Were they like, what would you classify them under? Sort of you got your chops underway What category of...

Ali Farell:

I would call it corporate. So Avenue A was part of a large corporate organization called AQuantive. And AQuantive was actually acquired some point in my tenure by Microsoft. Microsoft kind of acquired us, separated us for parts, kept the ad tech platform, sold off the advertising agencies to publicists. So that I would consider large corporate company experience, but advertising.

Fahd Alhattab:

Yeah. So... let's talk about the lessons from corporate. So those are some of the first lessons. What works in HR and corporate? So if I'm in a bigger company, I'm doing some HR. What are some of the stuff that you're like, hey, this stuff works here. We did well. We had some successes. And I'm sort of maybe foreshadowing to, you know, did you try and apply some of those to when you started transitioning and where were the challenges? So what worked at the corporate HR level?

Ali Farell:

Yeah. There are so many challenges going from a big corporate. One of the greatest challenges comes down to unlearning. So when you move from a big corporate environment, As a leader, you have to unlearn a lot of things. There's so much. There's plenty. You have resources. You have processes. You have programs. SMEs. You have corporate functions who just focus on one thing in a really powerful way. And they move a lot slower, for sure. There's less ambiguity in roles and in levels. And it's so rare in that kind of organization where you find somebody wearing multidisciplinary hats. It's like, there are jobs. There are people. There are resources. Almost all of that gets stripped away. When you go to a startup, that's it, right? And you can take some of what you learn from like a best practice conceptual perspective, but you have to build from scratch when you're at a startup. And you have to work at so many different altitudes. I've been a builder, an ideator, an operator. I've had to, in the morning, be a really strategic business partner and talk about strategy. But in the afternoon, I'm rolling up my sleeves and sourcing candidates. You're just at these different altitudes. And I think that is really energizing. And I really, really love that. But it is very different. When you come from corporate and you go to a startup, you really need to be mindful about showing a little bit of restraint. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Fahd Alhattab:

Yeah, yeah. So actually, I wanted to dig in that, Ali. So what are some of the mistakes here that happen often where an HR person coming from corporate might be trying to copy paste something over or a founder who isn't sure what to expect either is sort of, you know, that often founders are making mistakes because they're first time building their company and they don't know what to expect of the role. So they let the new HR person lead, which is great. But if that HR person is sort of copy paste from corporate, then we're leading them down a more rigid path.

Ali Farell:

Yes, yes. If you are a new founder, a new CEO, a first-time CEO, or really any CEO, I do think it's hugely beneficial to find yourself two different types of coaches. One who has built and been there before, who can be a sounding board for you externally, unrelated, right? And

Fahd Alhattab:

that's not a plug. That's not a plug to Unicorn Labs, guys. That's just, you know, she said it. I didn't tell her to say it.

Ali Farell:

You really did it. But I think it's, I think it's so, so important to have a very neutral sounding board. Somebody who's been there, done that to be kind of like a sharp up for you. I think that's really important. And the other really important resource to have early on is a personal executive coach for you. One who can guide you on your path to self-awareness. To me, the most talented and most impactful leaders are those who are the most self-aware. I don't care where you went to school. I don't care your pedigree. I care about your level of self-awareness. So those two things, super important. Really where I've seen it, this notion of like copy and paste, right? Coming from where you were somewhere large to coming from going to somewhere very small. Everyone's susceptible to it. HR people, leaders, new hires, all of that. Really huge red flag when someone says, well, when I was at, and it's a huge kind of organization, insert whatever mega enterprise you want, Well, we did it this way. And I'm like, yeah, that's super cool. Very impressive. I love that experience for you, but it needs to be applicable to our reality. I think curiosity is the most important thing. When you are starting at a startup, regardless of what your experience, you just have to be a sponge. You have to ask more questions. Then, you know, you have to listen more and ask more than than share. I think that's really important. And I think you have to be really focused on building a scalable and intentional foundation and what works somewhere else isn't going to work there.

Fahd Alhattab:

One of the things that you're saying here, Ali, that I'd love to just like, you know, focus on for a moment is that the HR person in a startup cannot be solely an HR person. Oh, yeah. I see and maybe you can comment on it is like so an HR person comes in to startup and startup is chaos because like startups are chaos right like there's no process for this there's no this is done through a random spreadsheet I can't find a file for this and they go oh my god we need to build some processes into this team and they over index the other way so you need processes but they over index with this like extreme rigid like we're gonna build a process for everything but because of the pace and growth of a startup the processes become outdated, which is often why startups struggle with this process. This is the sort of tension between the explore and the exploit is that if you over process something too early without knowing what the right process is, you over process into the wrong way. I would say you can be more efficient, but you could efficiently do the wrong thing.

Ali Farell:

Right, right. Well, that's the chaos piece, right? I do think I have this innate ability to identify what is noise and what is music, right? There are just two, there are different ways of thinking about that. And chaos can actually be a competitive advantage if it doesn't turn into panic. So that's really important. When I think about being a chaos whisperer, to me, it's not about eliminating chaos. Like that's part of the fun. So it's my job how to know how to operate within it, but then how to bring other people along and to turn some of that in momentum, into momentum. And like you were saying, you know, sometimes process is too much. For me, operating kind of at an early stage, it's bringing just enough, not about perfection. It's not about robustness. It's not about being inflexible. And it is about just enough. It's knowing so much about the business to bring just enough process and just enough policy and just enough structure. It's about creating just enough so people aren't paralyzed. And I think one of the ways I do this is by imagining the company that I'm at as a living, breathing thing. It's a system. And this is one of the things my coach taught me is like this place, it is a living breathing system and it could speak. What would it tell you it needed right now? And I promise you there is almost no high growth startup that's like, I need a lot of process. I need a lot of like tools. That is, I would be shocked if that was what the system said very early on.

Fahd Alhattab:

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this is, this is, so this is part of the challenge, right? So when, when, when we're, we're talking to startup CEO, they're trying to figure out, I think, as you said, what is enough? What is the right balance? How much do I need? And it depends on their size and it depends on where they are on their stage for sure. Right. What are some of the, you know lessons you've taken away as you've shifted from corporate to startup

Ali Farell:

yeah for me it's clarity there's almost nothing more important when you're at a startup when people are wearing multiple hats than clarity like startups require speed for sure but speed without clarity is is chaos that's what creates chaos right and so clarity is critical it's foundational for me that means over communicating the mission the vision the values and the priorities so put the those up front every single day in every single way, make them public, make them accessible at any point in time early on. My hope is that every person within a high growth startup can list them, can say those words, list the critical KPIs, list the critical OKRs, like list them, put them up front always. It is worthwhile work to build a vision, to build values really early on and anchor to those. And that helps with clarity, right? That's really important. I think it's also though about definitions in my experience really focusing on what good looks like and defining that is really important some HR people will come in and I have done this I have been like victim to this and it's like no no we gotta measure performance like I'm gonna build these crazy competency models and we're gonna do this like robust process and everyone hates you because it doesn't make sense right so like

Fahd Alhattab:

I love I love that you've brought this up Ali because like so we do leadership development unicorn labs right and the amount of time we have companies that are like, we just need to do a full competency study. I'm like... Honestly, we've studied your startups. I can tell you what the top competencies you're looking for are. They probably shared across most companies what high performers are. The studies have been done. Here's a report. Let's not spend six months identifying competencies. Please, please.

Ali Farell:

Like I've done that. I have done that. But I have refined it again from the corporate to startup.

Fahd Alhattab:

Yes, because there's different competencies that's needed also from corporate to startup. P.E., adventure. And so, but again, it's funny because we can spend so much time on it and like doing a bit of it. And I always joke, I said, okay, we don't want you to do it, but if you want to do it, I have a consultant for you. But it's like hone in on what you're really looking for and let's make it quick. Let's make it dirty. Let's find some key pieces. Now, you know what? Maybe that's an interesting discussion. What are some of the characteristics of the high performing teams, the small, nimble, the Davids that are different than some of what makes high performing teams? Yeah.

Ali Farell:

So I think it's about, I will always go back to curiosity. It's something I value and I think it's really important when you're building. So I think there's just an innate curiosity that is different in the Davids and the Goliaths. I think it's listening. I think it's default to velocity. I think there's a greater need to pivot confidently, to be like, okay, I tried this, like to know when to call it. You know, there's like to be mindful of that kind of sunk cost bias that exists in humans. I think at a startup, you need to think 10 steps ahead. You need to, you know, risk mitigate on the fly. You can't really be egotistical. It exists. So everyone has an ego that helps us survive. And I do think startup leaders and CEOs, Not pretty big egos, but like that's distracting. We've got to just get that in check.

Fahd Alhattab:

I think it's key because it's sort of, I've talked about this before. It's like you need to be delusional enough to start.

Ali Farell:

Yes. Yeah. You need to believe your own stuff.

Fahd Alhattab:

Because then you're not going to start. So I need just enough delusion for you to actually start, but not too much delusion that your ego gets in the way for you to be able to bring other people along.

Ali Farell:

That's a hard balance. And that is why you need people. You need a team. You need a villain. External. But that is one of the things. Also, I think in a startup, you don't have all the data always at all. So you need to be really confident in decisioning without having all the data and you need to be really cool with failing. That's important. Like you can't internalize failure. It's not a characteristic of you that you are a failure. It's like, hey, I tried to say it didn't work. And I think one of, honest to God, one of the characteristics that I just crave in a startup is someone who takes an extreme level of ownership. In a startup, if I hear someone say to me or to somebody else, well, that's not my job. I cringe. I cringe. It doesn't mean you should be in everyone else's business, but... It might not be your job to do, but if there is a need, if there's an opportunity, if there's a gap, take it, internalize it, think about it. brainstorm about how to solve it. Like it's your job. Sorry. It's your job. I don't.

Fahd Alhattab:

Every big problem in the business and a startup is your problem. And I think that's a key shift. And that's a big shift between the corporate and the startups, the Goliaths, the Davids. So let me shift you here for a moment, Ali. So in a startup and in the explore side of the business, in the Davids, they, you know, success is product market fit. Success is we got customers. Success is we're getting traction. You know, MRR is growing. Our ARR is growing. Invest are giving us a bit more money. Like it's humming, it's going. As you start to grow out of the only measure of success being revenue, you start to look at additional measures of success. and some of our corporate hr that get plugged into our startups start to look at all of these different measures right get employee engagement we look at performance we look at you know some like revenue per employee is good for startups and at some level you know you get diversity scores you get just all of these different there's like 12 different potential people metrics and It becomes, as you said, it becomes noise and the music isn't clear. So in your opinion, how should leadership, how should the C-suite look at measuring or understanding performance in their teams as they're growing, as they're growing between this startup to scale

Ali Farell:

up? I think there are ways you can do that at a company-wide level. And I think there are really simple ways to do that at a team level that don't feel so heavy. I think what you were just describing, I consider vanity metrics. Like, oh, employee net promoter score. Yes. I want to know that. I want to know that our team likes it so much here that they want to bring their colleagues. That is literally one sprinkle in metrics that matter, in my humble opinion. I always ask it, but I'm not that interested in it, if I'm being really honest with you. So my preference is to get really curious about organizational health. So I read somewhere at some point years ago that organizational health is a competitive advantage. And it really is. And there are a million different inputs into organizational health. But for me, it's... and really kind of creating a baseline and measuring things like structure, right? And its influence on someone's ability to work. So it's, you know, does the structure support collaboration? Does it support communication? Is it actually ineffective in that way? I want to know whether people have autonomy and decision-making. I want to know, When someone wants to do a good job, what challenges exist that limits their ability to do that? They have the will and the skill, but they can't. I want to know what that is. Clarity, curiosity, and restraint are so important when you're structuring a startup. To me, that's the data I want. I want it at an organizational level. I want it at a team level. I want heat maps. I want that data. because there's such insight to be gained and to build from. So I'm looking at organizational health. ENPS, like, cool, that's one of them, but that's not meaningful to me.

Fahd Alhattab:

When you mention organizational health, it reminds me of, I mean, the team dynamics assessment that we've developed over the years, which is sort of looking at, you know, do you have psychological safety in the team? Do you have empowerment? Are people actually being empowered to make decisions? How is conflict handled? Is leadership fluid or is it the same people always leading, right? Is there a sense of meaning and purpose? We're sort of looking at these different pieces. But Ali, we still end up at surveys. We still end up at the challenge.

Ali Farell:

You don't even need to.

Fahd Alhattab:

Okay. Okay. So tell me, cause here's the challenge. Okay. So I'm a CEO. My team's under 20. That's fine. I can get a pulse. My team is under 50. I start losing a little bit of the pulse. My team is 50 to a hundred and you develop what we call CEO disease, which means bullshit filters upwards. I think it's Daniel Goldman,

Ali Farell:

right? Everything's amazing. Right?

Fahd Alhattab:

Because the individual contributor tells their manager, oh my God, we messed this up. This isn't working. The manager tells their manager, oh, we messed something up, but like, it's okay. We're fixing it. Like telephone. It's like the

Ali Farell:

game of telephone. It's like BS telephone.

Fahd Alhattab:

Correct. And it just gets more positive. And then at the top, they're like, everything's working. We're on it. Like some, you know, we're fixing everything. And then six months in, you know, you're not hitting metrics. The only thing you're looking at is is revenue, customer churn, and you're like, what is going on? Why aren't we hitting these metrics that I'm looking at from a business perspective? So as the company grows, and I can't always just get the pulse from walking around and being in some meetings.

Ali Farell:

Yeah, well, especially in a remote world, right?

Fahd Alhattab:

Especially in a remote world. What are leadership teams doing to, or what do you think they can do to really get a sense of understanding success?

Ali Farell:

So I have to say, I have a lot of empathy for CEOs in growth mode because of that. people are afraid of them people are you know the bigger you are the more kind of like on this philosophical pedestal CEOs like they don't get the real real and they still desperately want it and they're like why isn't anyone talking to me it's like they're not probably not going to like so I do have a lot of empathy for that but I do think there are ways that leaders even at a functional level can kind of measure the health and the strength of their teams like you're saying without really arduous surveys and I think it's kind of three things right so Leaders have more at their disposal to check in frequently. Sure, you can do surveys, you can do reviews, you can do skip levels. I think having conversations and when you are together, really using that time meaningfully makes a big difference. But I also think you have the great skill of observation as a human being. And so surveys are really heavy, but it's about getting that awareness. And if I am a leader in a team that is scaling and my team's getting a little bit bigger, I really want to understand a So does your team feel comfortable telling you the truth even When they know you are not going to like it, you'll know. You'll know if they are because you will find out something that you wish you knew earlier. You will find it out very late. You will find it out when you don't have time to impact it positively. And so that is your cue to build a safe place, to really work on trust. So measuring trust and truth doesn't have to come through a survey. It comes through communication channels naturally. I think decisioning is another signal. You can get this data through really human signals, not software. surveys right so like are you leader an obstacle like are you the problem do you micromanage so hard that your team is paralyzed to move in your absence like You need to work on that. If you are telling me that every decision requires three meetings and there's a follow-up meeting, then there's like a, you know, too long, don't read Slack channel. And then it's like, throw another 30 on. Like, are you not, do you realize how many resources you've wasted getting to decisioning? Like if your team is afraid to make the wrong call or to make any call, they're not gonna, they're not even gonna make any calls. They're just gonna wait. They're gonna freeze and they're gonna wait. And so you as a leader have an opportunity to, That's hard. That's

Fahd Alhattab:

hard. Let me see. Because like, so I say founders are delusional in their ego at first. They also have another superpower that becomes a bit of a weakness. And the other superpower is that... As a founder, you actually don't make a lot of data-based decision-making. You make gut-based decision-making because there's no data in the beginning. You don't have enough customers. You're just making gut-based instinct decisions. You are an artist and you go, I have a vision and I'm going to paint this picture and I'm going to make people love it. And then you iterate the picture and so on and so forth. Because they've got such a visceral, instinctual decision-making process, when people don't make a similar quality of decision. They jump down. They jump in. It's

Ali Farell:

a judgment. It's a judgment in how someone's doing something. But it's like, did you get the desire to result? Like, did it happen?

Fahd Alhattab:

That's important. Yeah. And that's it. That's it. And that's, I mean, it's funny. You know, we're talking about levers earlier. I thought the number one lever in startups is managers. Managers are so important in a startup. Even more so. Even more so than in a corporate. I say in a corporation, they've professionalized so many parts of a manager's role that if you put someone that's mediocre, they're sort of caught. They're not going to. impact too much, right? But in a startup, so much is dependent. Everything HR is the manager, right? Yeah. So how good the quality of your managers is a direct volatile impact, whether positive or extremely

Ali Farell:

negative. Huge, like huge. Early on, I was talking about like, you know, the challenges from going from corporate to startup. And I talked a little bit about copy and paste. But the other thing is leadership accountability. Like in a large organization, like you're saying, ineffective leaders can hide, like they can hide behind systems and processes. And typically there's succession plans and workforce plans and internal mobility. And so talent management in hiring feels less consequential. Like, you've got to back stuff. Like, you're cool, less consequential. And it is like there is such this tolerance for mediocrity that it doesn't make sense to me, right? Because you can be. You don't have to, like, try that hard, honestly.

Fahd Alhattab:

You can get away with it. If you just do your part, the machine still runs. Nothing's broken. There's nothing wrong. They tell me nothing's broken. It's like, That's how the Goliath gets bloated. That's how the Goliath becomes less nimble, right? Like an inability to change because you've got all of these cogs in the machine that are just like...

Ali Farell:

I'm status quo. I'm okay being mediocre. Like I'm cool being a C plus. But... At a startup or at a much smaller, more nimble organization, every single manager matters. Every single hire matters. Every person is consequential. I find that I have taken talent selection way more seriously in the startups and approached it through such a cutthroat lens, which I didn't and likely wouldn't think about doing at a large organization. It doesn't mean you always get it right. People are dynamic. Things change so fast. But the process is very deliberate in hiring and in talent and manager training and things. It's about being thoughtful and very deliberate. That is a process or a conversation that I do think is actually really important. In the world where it's just enough, I do think you need to be very deliberate about hiring, being thoughtful about the personas you're going after, managing that so tightly. I don't think you have a great margin of error when you're hiring leaders in a startup. You kind of got to... And when you accept mediocrity at a startup that you might see in a large organization, that's a precedent. You, my friend, have now set a precedent for what you're willing to tolerate. So don't be shocked when six to 12 months down the line, you and I are having a conversation about like, I don't know, everyone's just like mailing it in. Well, like, did you expect something different?

Fahd Alhattab:

Yeah,

Ali Farell:

yeah. It's a precedent. It's so important.

Fahd Alhattab:

Let's talk about that and then managing performance in a startup because this... is always fun. Performance reviews in a startup, career conversations in a startup. I feel like everyone gets them wrong. So, because I think they're a bit of a copy paste. I think we get a lot of copy paste in performance management when people are trying to do pips or they're trying to, you know, just like, what are your thoughts? I'm very opinionated. I'm going to try to keep my opinion. I think people know my opinion by now. What is your thoughts on how we do performance management in startups and maybe where we get it wrong?

Ali Farell:

So, I have like so many, hot takes and I hope they're connected. I can't wait to hear what yours are. So I don't believe in performance improvement plans. I haven't done one in years. I do not believe in them. I do not find them effective at all. They don't measure performance. It's more of like a CYA and there, and there is a need for that for both the employee and the business, but there are ways that you can kind of amicably part ways with a pip. So I don't, That's not a process I will take with me. That is an odd take. I'm

Fahd Alhattab:

in agreement. I think performance management should be done regularly in your one-on-one.

Ali Farell:

Yes. I build a really robust performance review. It's like, we're going to do it annually. Here are these beautiful competency models and here's this 360 feedback and here's this thing. And it took so long. And because I think our people are so great, they're kind of just really flexible. Like they're going to do it. but not enough people got benefit from it. And so I said, okay, I hear you. Let's not do that again. That was super distracting.

Fahd Alhattab:

They use a lot of time and a lot of resources also away from the problems that they, our managers and our teams need to be doing.

Ali Farell:

And they're delayed. Like, so I'm asking you to give me feedback about stuff that happened six months ago. Like I moved on. I've lived 18 lives, a recency bias activity, and it just gets messy. So I've done that.

Fahd Alhattab:

One of my thoughts is like, there's probably like 5% of the company that actually needs this performance conversation. And most of us are just avoiding a conversation with those people. So then we build out this whole entire robust system to get to talk to like five people that should have been talked to. So like my recommendation, is usually when people come to me like we want to do performance management I go who's the problem who's the problem just like make a list and let's just talk to those people about what the problem is and then you know but the only the only argument I've gotten on that I've sort of agreed with that that resonates is it is a backstop it's a backstop for the managers and the people who are not giving feedback but you should know who your managers are that are not giving adequate

Ali Farell:

feedback it shows up in the results Like, I'm sorry. You don't need a performance review system. You don't need to waste resources and time. Make sure you're giving your team feedback at any point in time. I should be able to talk to any employee. Yeah. And say, do you know how you're doing right now? Do you know how you're performing? I should be able to say that at any time to any employee and they should answer me. But this time around, we're trying something where we said, employee, if you want feedback, ask for it. Here's the tool. Here's the framework. You schedule it. You want

Fahd Alhattab:

it. Because high performers actually want it. want it at times and they're not getting it and so you've sort of given

Ali Farell:

you employee like ask for it you want feedback ask for it so we kind of put it on the team put it on the team we're trying it i don't know we're right probably love it so i don't know how it's gonna work

Fahd Alhattab:

i think there's a There's always real power when we democratize something, when we shift the balance of power and the balance of power here, you're redistributing it to the employee saying it's in your hands. This is your power. If you want to learn about how you can get better, ask for it and your manager will then engage. And then that way it's not this once a year thing where it feels like the whole company stops just to like try and do this one thing. And then

Ali Farell:

do you think whether you have a performance review or not, you need to be having talent conversations like here. we look at talent really on this performance continuum where it's like, it's about achievement. So results in behavior. So you can have somebody who's a high achiever, but an absolute nightmare to work with. That's one kind of, you know, you can have somebody who is like the soul of the organization, but they just aren't contributing. Like those conversations still need to happen. So it's not an excuse to not talk about talent.

Fahd Alhattab:

Those are the two hardest. Those are the two hardest,

Ali Farell:

right? I know.

Fahd Alhattab:

The asshole that performs or the, kind one that is lovable but doesn't perform you're like I don't want either no because they actually both are not meeting the expectations and I think that's when people say it And it's a precedent. And they attract more people like them. Or people go, okay, so I can get away with this?

Ali Farell:

Right. Like, okay, I can be a huge jerk. And as long as I'm, like, you know, checking the box, all is forgiven. So, you know, I don't think you just throw people away. You need to coach. You need to give feedback. You need to be, like, radically clear and really supportive. Like, I don't think it's just like, whoop, you're out.

Fahd Alhattab:

All right, Allie, let's end it with one big question here for you, which is, what's your biggest mistake? What did you copy-paste? What did you try? I mean, you told me a little bit about your performance management, how you've shifted from it. But where have you learned a lesson on this one?

Ali Farell:

There's so many things. I do think the copy and paste of process is pretty catastrophic. And I've done it now a couple times. Like I do think that is really detrimental. I think it impacts your brand as an HR leader. I think it impacts, you know, a team's ability to believe you understand what's going on in the business. I think that's probably my greatest learning is really the copy and paste of process. pace of process, which is why I have such a visceral reaction to it today. And I think, too, the one thing, it's classic. It's promoting too fast, firing too slow. I've done that. I've seen that. I've kind of watched it happen.

Fahd Alhattab:

We give away C-suite titles like candy and stuff.

Ali Farell:

It's so interesting. And even VP titles, which I actually think is worse, possibly, because that's within reach.

Fahd Alhattab:

Six VPs. There's like six VPs in a startup of 50 people.

Ali Farell:

And employees, like I'm saying, like VPs seem within reach to employees. And then that kind of goes back to the precedent, right? It's like, oh, this person was director, senior director, VP in like six months. You're like, I can do that too, but you can't. Counter offers, don't do it. I don't believe in them. Like I am a hard no to a counter offer. I have done it and it has bitten me every single time.

Fahd Alhattab:

So what do you mean by counter? Let's just get clear on that.

Ali Farell:

So when someone says, hey, I'm leaving for X, Y, and Z job, you're like, oh my God, no, please don't. We need you. Here's this whatever it might be. Again, it's precedent, right? It's all these things I'm really saying are precedent. Process, in precedent.

Fahd Alhattab:

Because then they just start. That's interesting. I think that's when people try and copy-paste because Netflix overpays significantly. But you're not Netflix.

Ali Farell:

Right. We don't have the cost structure for that. And I don't think there's a need. What does the business need to do

Fahd Alhattab:

that? What's interesting is Harvard is known for the opposite. So Harvard overpays their professors, saying that if you want to work here, you know, if you're like, yeah, so they're sort of saying, we only want the people that really want to work with us and want the Harvard brand. So there's an interesting, when you have a, yeah, you know, are you, yeah. So that, I mean, that's, it's, it's interesting. I'm going to summarize some of the points that you said here. And as I summarize them, I want you to give us the last hot take. So I'm going to kind of summarize and then you give us the last hot take. So one, I got nine really good points. I wrote out that, that I really liked throughout conversation. Yeah. Yeah. One of the first ones you talked about was altitude. So knowing as a startup leader that you've got to be able to work big picture in the morning potentially and then detailed and so the successful ones are able to shift altitudes really well curiosity you brought that up over and over again you gotta get really curious what are we actually building here what do we need to create don't try and copy paste figure out solutions for the specific problems that are happening at your startups I really like what you said learn to listen to the music through the noise what is the actual music through all that noise what are we you know what are we looking for what is the right metrics for Not just the metrics I can copy-paste. Clarity, clarity, clarity, over-communicate, clarity. That was the other one. You talked about velocity and, and being 10 steps ahead and really being able to pivot your ability to change. It's funny. You know, I work with some corporates. We do leadership development. We will leadership development, obviously across industries and startups and scale ups primarily, but here and then we do some larger corporates. Corporates always talk about change management, but startups never talk about change management because the reality is your every day is change management. Your every day is a pivot and your ability to actually deal with that change. So I really, really like that. You talk about, Extreme ownership. That if someone doesn't have extreme ownership, they can extremely get out.

Ali Farell:

That's true. Yes, yes, yes. Move really fast out the door, please.

Fahd Alhattab:

Understand organizational health and the pulse of where things are instead of measuring like NPS employee engagement. Really try and get a pulse of your organizational health. Always have talent conversations. Do not wait and save them for performance reviews. Always have talent conversations regularly and just deal with the problem. Yes, yes. So these are some really good takeaways. But Ali, give me the last hot take.

Ali Farell:

I feel like this might be career limiting to say, but I'm going to say it because I do believe it. I think in startups, it is so easy to think that you have a talent problem. I truly believe that it's not a talent problem. It's a leadership problem. Founders, CPOs, you know, new hires in a startup environment are like, oh, we just need to hire the right people. Yeah, maybe. And you need to build the right environment. Like, That's on you. You need to be clear. You need to be accountable. You need to build the right environment. Hiring strategy is not going to save you if the leadership strategy is broken. That is so important. So it's like, it's me. Hi, I'm the problem. It's that. That is so true. But I know that and I try to work on that and I welcome all the feedback that comes with that. But that I think is going to be my...

Fahd Alhattab:

That's your hot take. I love it, Ali. That was amazing. That was awesome. Ali, thank you so much. Thank you for sharing with our Unicorn Leader audience and everyone that's going to benefit from this. This was lovely, fun conversation. You've got such great energy. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being a part of this. Thank you for

Ali Farell:

having me.

Fahd Alhattab:

For the folks listening, you can find our episodes on unicornlabs.ca, but you can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube. Ali, where can people find you? Are you on LinkedIn? Yeah. Yeah.

Ali Farell:

Find me on LinkedIn I'd love to chat about any of these things.

Fahd Alhattab:

Fantastic. We'll find Allie on LinkedIn. Thank you, folks. Thank you.

Ali Farell:

Thank you so much.

Fahd Alhattab:

And that's all for now.