S2E12: How to Get Better Marketing Results Without Team Burnout -- ft. Pete Sena, Founder of Digital Surgeons

MAIN INSIGHT: Prioritize self-care and employee wellness in the marketing workplace to prevent burnout and foster sustainable business growth.

GUEST BIO:  Pete Sena is a creative entrepreneur and founder of Digital Surgeons, a brand experience consultancy. For nearly 20 years, he has partnered with founders and business leaders to accelerate growth through marketing innovation, branding, and digital-experience design. A human-centered problem solver, Pete focuses on the behaviors and systems that drive people, products, and experiences. His work has impacted leading brands such as Unilever, Microsoft, and LEGO. He leverages expertise at the intersection of design, technology, and consumer behavior to enact positive change and increase business value. His experiences, such as the development of the Four Green Lights system for aligning values with business growth, are published to his blog, petesena.com

RESULTS:

• Enhanced team morale and employee retention
• Healthier work-life balance for staff
• Reduced stress and prevention of burnout
• Increased productivity and creativity
• Improved client satisfaction
• Positive impact on profitability
• More collaborative and supportive work environment
• Holistic business growth valuing individual contributions

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Implement wellness programs and initiatives within the company
• Encourage practices like prioritizing sleep and meditation among employees
• Foster self-awareness and self-care routines
• Create a supportive environment with generous PTO policies and a remote-first culture
• Align business goals with employee wellness using systems like the four green lights
• Reduce unnecessary meetings and promote asynchronous communication
• Set clear boundaries between work and personal time
• Emphasize effective communication and thorough documentation
• Over-communicate to prevent misunderstandings and foster transparency
• Establish a clear vision that includes employee well-being as a core component
• Encourage open communication and provide a wellness budget for staff initiatives

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Chapters

• 0:33 Introduction to Self-Care in Marketing
• 2:06 Balancing Business and Wellness
• 4:41 The Brink of Burnout
• 7:36 Transforming Team Interactions
• 10:11 Implementing Wellness Programs
• 13:43 Comparing Work Cultures
• 23:37 Outcome-Focused Leadership
• 31:37 Measuring Success Effectively
• 38:12 The Four Green Lights System
• 42:57 Prioritizing Team Satisfaction
• 43:18 Action Steps for Implementation

Transcript

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All right. Today, I'm sitting down with Pete Sena,

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and he is the founder of Digital Surgeons,

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and he has a lot of insights on how to promote self-care in your marketing workplace

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and get better results from your marketing team without burnout.

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So I'm super excited to chat with you, Pete, and dig into your background.

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Awesome. Excited to be here as well. fun little platform here.

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Yeah. Thank you. So what got you into marketing, founding your company and all of that?

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Yeah, for sure. So I am a creative tech nerd.

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So I'd say what got me into marketing was I originally thought I wanted to be a game developer.

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And so I taught myself how to code at a really young age.

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And then I got into design because I wanted my apps and the the things that

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I was building to look cool because if you're just writing code,

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they don't have an interface and interfaces are cool.

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And then from there, I stumbled into a job doing sports marketing that I thought

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was going to be like an app job.

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And then I fell in love with marketing. I thought it was really interesting

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to get to know how people think and how people behave and how all those things work.

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And ultimately that's what led me into what brings

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to be here today 

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So one of the things that I wanted to discuss was a little bit of your journey with balancing business growth, with self-care and wellness?

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Why is that important to you and how did you get into doing that?

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Yeah. Well, for one, I love this topic because I was definitely not the poster

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child for self-care for the first 15 years of my career, if I'm being really honest.

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What's interesting is people don't care about self-care until they need to care.

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So it's like we take our health for granted until we don't have it anymore.

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So what I would say for me is I had to learn a lot about just figuring out healthy

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habits with work because I'm definitely a workaholic. I love what I do.

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I love growth. I love business.

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So I think that my journey to self-care really came about when I was having

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a lot of like issues with anxiety and burnout.

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And it really just came down to like, I just needed to rest more.

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I needed to meditate, find some time for hobbies, that sort of thing.

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So now I just really try to make sure that everybody has their own way that

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they take care of themselves.

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And it could be anything. It could be, you know, a hobby, it could be exercise,

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it could be, you know, hydration.

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I mean, it sounds almost trivial, but it makes a huge deal.

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And for me, I found that when I started prioritizing sleep, when I started prioritizing

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meditation, it really made a difference. Sorry, I had this lingering cough.

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It's been with me for two weeks. I'm totally fine. It's just the weirdest thing.

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So to answer the question, I would say.

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On the topic of self-care, you have to know yourself. It's the most important person to know.

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And I think from there, then you can do the things that are right for you.

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But I think it's important to realize that whatever you're doing,

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whether it's a job, a business, a company, it's a series of sprints, but it's a marathon.

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And if you treat the marathon like a sprint, you will burn out.

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No matter how good you are, no matter how much you love what you do,

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there's just a limitation to what a human can do.

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So that's ultimately how I discovered it on my journey.

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I'd say first 10, 15 years.

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First 10, 15 years of my career, I was just like grind mode all the time.

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And now I'm holding a lot more space for myself and others to not have that.

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Oh, awesome. Awesome. So what are,

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I don't know how deep you want to go into to this, but what did it feel like

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or what specifically can you remember about that time where you were just about

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to burn out and what was the difference kind of before and after?

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Well, if you could imagine having crazy tunnel vision, increased heart rate,

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sweating, feeling like you're going to have a heart attack, that's all that felt like.

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I actually thought I I was having a heart attack. I went to the doctor and turned

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out I was just having a massive anxiety attack, which I think was really right

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about from just probably exhaustion, dehydration, and a lack of sleep.

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And I don't share this with you or the audience to glorify it.

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I share it as a cautionary tale because I was loving what I was doing.

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I was pushing myself so hard because I was loving it.

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I was learning every day. I was pushing myself every day. I was building multiple companies.

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And as we get older, when we're not 20 years old anymore, our bodies can't withstand the same type of.

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Constant tension, constant stress over time. So I think at the time I was probably

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drinking, I don't know, four or five cups of coffee a day, wasn't drinking a lot of water.

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I would work out and lift heavy weights in the gym and whatnot,

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but I wasn't sleeping well or a lot, probably because of the caffeine.

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I was working a lot late at night and really just putting the time and putting the grind in.

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And look, this is not me trying to be for or against hustle porn here.

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This is me just saying, this is my journey. This was what worked for me,

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what didn't work for me. I want to share it with others.

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But what it was like was it was a pretty serious medical thing.

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And then what it felt like after I started to incorporate a more healthy hydration

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routine, a more healthy self-care routine with meditation, a little bit of journaling,

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note-taking, it was transformationally different.

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I was thinking more clearly. My moods were more more stabilized.

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I made improvements in my diet. And it was like, I went from being stressed

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out all the time and overworked to feeling like really even and clear.

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I joke around a lot and to the people that still work with me,

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because I have a lot of people that worked with me before and after this.

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And it's like, you know, before meditation, Pete, after meditation,

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Pete, I joke around a lot.

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I mean, I'm still the same person, right? I still bring the same level of energy

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and passion, but I think it's just, it's knowing when you're at the red line,

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that the best thing to do when you're at the red line is not to hit the gas.

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It's actually to let your foot off the gas, not hit the brake,

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but just understand that there is a limit.

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And the best way to build that upper limit is to strive, but also to make sure

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to pause and be present and have self-care. So yeah, that's how I would answer that question.

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Oh, yeah. That's an incredible story. Since you've been kind of of promoting

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this with your team members, like Pete after meditation,

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like how, what was the change in how you like interacted with,

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with them, with, with other people who you work with?

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It's a really good question. I think what I would say is I'm more patient now.

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I recognize that just because something can get done in a day doesn't mean that it has to or it should.

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And I think that what I would also say just to be really, really clear is I've

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never been the kind of person that pushes people to work nights and weekends

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and that sort of thing. I've never been that kind of boss, never been that kind of leader.

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I held myself to that standard as one of the owners. And I think a lot of founders

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and entrepreneurs who might be listening to this understand you pushing yourself

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does not always equal you pushing your team.

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So I want to make sure that there's a direct distinction. distinction,

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I'm speaking primarily for myself.

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I think I've always led my team in a way that created space for them to have

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work-life balance and that sort of thing.

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We've never been known as the you're going to work 80 hours a week kind of company.

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We've just never been that company.

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I've worked at companies like that. I have friends who work at companies like

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that. I don't think that that's healthy.

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And that's a whole separate topic altogether.

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But yeah, Yeah. I mean, I think for me, we have a wellness budget and a learning

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development budget and all of our employees and all my companies,

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people can use that for whatever they deem as growth and self-care.

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We have a really generous PTO policy that we're super flexible about.

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We're a remote-first culture, so we're not forcing people to be in the office five days a week.

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We're really generally flexible as long as the work is getting done.

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So I would say that's just just been my, you know, my thoughts on.

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That aspect of it. But I think for me, just kind of going back to the thread

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that connected you and I around mindful marketing or mindful B2B marketing is,

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I don't think mindful has to always be connected to yoga, meditation,

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and sleep, which it typically is.

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I think mindful means being present and aware of the challenge that we have in front of us.

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And I would say to that end, I've always been a really present marketer in terms

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of understanding who is my team, who's my client, who is their customer, who are we serving?

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So I just want to make sure that we come at it through multiple angles of mindful.

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Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. So you mentioned that you've implemented some

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of these like wellness programs and PTO programs.

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So can you like describe what some of those are and like, have you since implementing

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any of these, have Have you seen like a difference in the people you work with?

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Like say you implemented an employee wellness program, like just have you seen

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any like before and after stories or just like notice that people seem happier, healthier?

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Like what, what, what case studies do you have of this like working anecdotally?

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I have a lot of qualitative case studies. I wouldn't say I have a quantitative

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case study because we, that's not something that I'm super involved in.

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I have a really great leadership team that focuses on those things.

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So I can certainly double back with them and get back to you.

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But what I would say in terms of what I've experienced is we have a relatively

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high retention rate in terms of the amount of time that people have stayed with the company.

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How they've grown with the company over time when compared to our industry benchmarks.

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We use a couple of different softwares where we can get employee net promoter scores or ENPS.

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And those kinds of things, certainly things that come up in one-on-ones with

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managers and leaders. We do 360 reviews.

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So I think we've heard a lot. I think for me...

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The correlation that I would make to it is people feel seen and heard,

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but I think the world is generally a pretty chaotic place right now.

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It's very difficult for some people to work and focus when we have some of the

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atrocities happening in the world that are happening today.

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You know, some people are really emotionally affected by these things,

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whether they're directly or indirectly in their, in their vicinity.

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So I can't pretend to know what's going on people's heads and hearts.

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But what I can say is, you know, by us doing our part,

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you know, when we offered up like meditation app subscriptions,

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and we've heard anecdotally from people in the company that that's been really

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appreciated, that we focus on that.

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We've had a lot of people really surprised by it like wow like i

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didn't know that i could you know that that was a possibility you know

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some people who do a lot of work from home have

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you know bought various amenities that you know

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have made their life or work easier you know like

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one of our engineers has like a special kind of ergonomic keyboard that's really

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special for him and and i think you know makes him feel like heard and appreciated

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you know i think it's different things for different people but again i'm not

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that's not something that i'm super involved in on the day-to-day,

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so I don't want to pretend to be.

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But I would say overall, what I do see come out a lot in the retrospectives,

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so we do retrospectives in our sprints when we close them out.

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And it does seem that people really like when we do different things,

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whether it's any time Friday, which is our summer Friday kind of thing,

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or when we gather and bring people together for different things,

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as opposed to really trying to squeeze out every billable hour we can.

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I feel like it just promotes a happier, healthier workplace.

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And that's just the way that I've felt for a really long time.

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So I wouldn't consider that to be very...

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Avant-garde. I think great companies understand that their greatest assets are

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people. And if you take good care of people, they take good care of you and your clients.

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So I don't know, maybe I'm weird because I'm just biased in that regard.

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Well, yeah. Well, let's dissect some of these biases then

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because you said you might have worked at some previous companies where they

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didn't really have a culture that focused on wellness or where you've encountered

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friends or colleagues who have been in those kind of 80 hour a week hustle and

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grind set type of working environments.

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Can you maybe speak a little bit about friends or anecdotes you've noticed of

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people who've been in that environment and how it might compare to your employees?

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100%. I was at the dinner with a friend the other night. He works at a big four consultancy.

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And he said that on a regular basis, his boss We'll call him at midnight or

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one o'clock in the morning and ask him to deliver things.

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Again, he's at a big four consultancy. He's, he's, you know,

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pretty high up in the organization. He's not a, he's not a leader.

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He's a, you know, individual contributor.

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He'll get a call on a Thursday. He has to be on a plane on a Friday.

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You know, guy's got a family, right? But he's got to do it.

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You know, constant emails, Slack messages, after hours,

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you know, unreasonable project deadlines where things have to get done,

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you know, in hours or days that some people take weeks or months on.

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So, I mean, I've heard a lot of crazy stories.

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I mean, you hear stories of people that, you know, just are working around the

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clock and having to deliver stuff.

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So that's a stark contrast from our team, you know, like at 5.15 on a regular

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day here, where most of our office is empty or virtual office, whatever you call it.

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I think a lot of companies still are counting the hours and counting the watches.

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I think we have to stop counting the hours and start making the hours count.

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It's not to say that we don't work hard. It's not to say that we don't have

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those times where we have to do things.

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But I do think that it's important to recognize people's boundaries,

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to understand those things, and to hold space and hold them sacred. grid.

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One of the things that I do, which I do think made a big difference in my team

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is I used to be in meetings all day and then at night I'd be catching up and I'd be emailing people.

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And I didn't realize that if the CEO is sending an email at eight o'clock at

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night and their phone lights up, they might check it.

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So what I do now is my team knows this. We make jokes about it is they notice

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that almost all the emails they get from me that happened at 8am.

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It's because I use a tool called superhuman and it schedules them for the next day.

00:17:11.572 --> 00:17:16.292
So the benefit to that is if I'm modeling the behavior that I'm working all

00:17:16.292 --> 00:17:21.032
hours of the night, then sometimes that might implicitly set the unspoken rule

00:17:21.032 --> 00:17:23.192
set that they think they have to work those kinds of hours.

00:17:23.312 --> 00:17:26.432
So I think that we encourage use of do not disturb on Slack.

00:17:26.592 --> 00:17:34.252
We encourage away messages on Slack and out of office emails when people are out of the office.

00:17:34.512 --> 00:17:38.472
And we don't bother people when they're on vacation.

00:17:38.712 --> 00:17:42.412
I mean, to me, this is just like good business. So forgive me if I'm kind of

00:17:42.412 --> 00:17:46.012
like, But then I have friends who are at really great companies.

00:17:47.144 --> 00:17:51.584
Or let's say really high performing companies, like brands that you and I know and love.

00:17:51.684 --> 00:17:54.864
I don't want to out any of them specifically, but like main name brands that

00:17:54.864 --> 00:17:59.144
we've all heard of and maybe buy from, and it's not the same for them.

00:17:59.664 --> 00:18:04.444
Where they're getting called into the office, they have to drive two and a half hours to an office.

00:18:05.464 --> 00:18:08.544
They get there and their boss doesn't show up for 45 minutes.

00:18:08.744 --> 00:18:13.104
And then they ended up having a 15 minute meeting with their boss and a two and a half hour drive.

00:18:13.704 --> 00:18:16.624
There's a lot of shit out there. And I think that people are waking up to the

00:18:16.624 --> 00:18:18.284
fact that freedom is the new flex.

00:18:18.764 --> 00:18:21.204
And I think the more you can give people freedom, the more people you can give

00:18:21.204 --> 00:18:25.304
people flexibility, the more that they're going to want to put the energy in

00:18:25.304 --> 00:18:27.664
to make the company successful if there's a purpose behind it.

00:18:27.804 --> 00:18:31.784
So I think people have woken up to the fact that it's not the 1800s anymore.

00:18:31.904 --> 00:18:37.984
People don't have to work in those types of situations because there are other

00:18:37.984 --> 00:18:39.044
options out there for them.

00:18:39.624 --> 00:18:43.324
We have a very... My companies employ mostly knowledge workers.

00:18:43.484 --> 00:18:46.884
So they're all really smart awesome people and

00:18:46.884 --> 00:18:49.544
i think that they know that you know they don't have to be here they can

00:18:49.544 --> 00:18:52.244
be anywhere they want to be really and so i think that when people

00:18:52.244 --> 00:18:55.144
want to be somewhere versus feeling like they have to be somewhere i think it changes that

00:18:55.144 --> 00:19:01.224
the dynamic but again this is these are things that are not new to me we've

00:19:01.224 --> 00:19:05.464
we've believed this for a long time i mean yeah it's not new to you but it's

00:19:05.464 --> 00:19:10.564
new to some people or they just like maybe i've heard of these types But don't

00:19:10.564 --> 00:19:14.264
don't really have it in their company or in their team.

00:19:14.444 --> 00:19:20.024
So, yeah, for these are like marketers and like CEOs who are listening and like

00:19:20.024 --> 00:19:24.244
trying to move towards this type of culture.

00:19:24.244 --> 00:19:29.904
So I want to drill down like a little bit on how you implement some of these things.

00:19:29.984 --> 00:19:34.084
Like, okay, you say, for example, you encourage people that do out of office

00:19:34.084 --> 00:19:37.724
responders and do not disturb Slack messages.

00:19:37.864 --> 00:19:43.564
Like what kind of, do you have any kind of like system for that or like some

00:19:43.564 --> 00:19:47.084
guidelines that are encouraged in specific situations?

00:19:47.244 --> 00:19:49.744
Or is it just kind of like, eh, use it when you need it?

00:19:50.004 --> 00:19:53.844
Yeah. I'll actually, I'll show you actually. Hold on.

00:19:54.924 --> 00:20:02.424
Give me one second, okay? Mm-hmm. I just want to respect people's privacy, so give me one sec. Yeah.

00:20:03.600 --> 00:20:08.160
But I want to show you in the audience so you can see it. It's like an internal

00:20:08.160 --> 00:20:10.520
document with your guidelines.

00:20:10.760 --> 00:20:12.960
Yeah. Give me just one second. I'm going to show you.

00:20:14.100 --> 00:20:18.120
I just didn't want to. I just want to make sure nobody's sensitive information,

00:20:18.360 --> 00:20:21.280
like their names or whatever was there, just because permission,

00:20:21.400 --> 00:20:22.620
I think, is a really important thing.

00:20:22.920 --> 00:20:25.380
And I didn't have the permission to share that. So hold on one second.

00:20:27.940 --> 00:20:30.940
So I will share my screen. this is

00:20:30.940 --> 00:20:33.580
just to share context for you in

00:20:33.580 --> 00:20:36.300
the audience so this is an

00:20:36.300 --> 00:20:41.560
internal slack channel we have called my status so here you see a person leaving

00:20:41.560 --> 00:20:46.840
at 4 45 you know seeing a person leaving for after-school help to help with

00:20:46.840 --> 00:20:52.240
their kids yeah someone's on a little bit earlier you know someone's out for

00:20:52.240 --> 00:20:55.940
pto someone's taking their fall friday so we have these things called fall all Fridays,

00:20:56.020 --> 00:21:00.680
which are basically where you can just elect to take certain Fridays off that you want to take off.

00:21:00.860 --> 00:21:04.540
So you see people like electing that and reacting to that and that sort of thing.

00:21:04.620 --> 00:21:11.540
So it's a very relaxed situation where we look out for each other and people

00:21:11.540 --> 00:21:13.140
just signal what they're going to do.

00:21:13.260 --> 00:21:18.100
And it's not like you have to put in for a time off request and get that approved by your boss.

00:21:18.640 --> 00:21:21.040
We work together, we cover each other. And that's just an example.

00:21:21.040 --> 00:21:25.260
But like you can see there, like, you know, that if I was to scroll past that,

00:21:25.300 --> 00:21:28.440
there's stuff happening all day. I blurred out people's names just for privacy purposes.

00:21:28.580 --> 00:21:33.380
But yeah, I mean, that's it's stuff. It's small stuff. We don't like over operationalize

00:21:33.380 --> 00:21:35.380
it. Right. It's like open communication.

00:21:35.860 --> 00:21:38.580
Typically, people letting each other know when they're not going to be around or not.

00:21:39.140 --> 00:21:42.180
You might have noticed the little emojis next to people's names.

00:21:42.240 --> 00:21:44.540
We use different software that will say, like, if they're in a meeting,

00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:48.140
so you're not like slacking someone there in a meeting or if someone's away

00:21:48.140 --> 00:21:50.780
or in a different time zone because we have people that work all over the world.

00:21:51.240 --> 00:21:55.340
So I'd say it's small stuff like that. It's just like when you act like a human

00:21:55.340 --> 00:21:57.960
being to people, they act like a human being back.

00:21:58.793 --> 00:22:02.353
And i don't know i just don't think it's that hard yeah

00:22:02.353 --> 00:22:05.433
what what app was that you said it's called my status or

00:22:05.433 --> 00:22:10.653
it's a channel within that's just a black channel we have oh okay and so there's

00:22:10.653 --> 00:22:17.033
no company you know where you request the time or you have a spreadsheet or

00:22:17.033 --> 00:22:20.953
whatever it's just oh i want to take tomorrow off i'm taking fall friday tomorrow

00:22:20.953 --> 00:22:24.213
guys and that's it it's it's It's kind of that simple.

00:22:24.473 --> 00:22:31.333
We have an HR workflow system that's connected to all of our payroll stuff called Zenefits,

00:22:31.553 --> 00:22:35.033
where when someone's going to take time off, they do let their manager know,

00:22:35.153 --> 00:22:39.773
and then their manager will put that in so that it's in that system too.

00:22:39.953 --> 00:22:43.873
But I'm saying the way we go about applying for these things is extremely conversational.

00:22:44.133 --> 00:22:48.493
What I found is that the easier and more flexible you can make things for people,

00:22:48.593 --> 00:22:50.433
the more likely that people will use the system. them.

00:22:50.453 --> 00:22:55.713
The harder and more complex, the different. Now, again, we're a much smaller company.

00:22:55.893 --> 00:22:59.633
I work with some of my clients that are 20, 30, 40,000 person companies.

00:22:59.773 --> 00:23:03.173
So obviously those things I think require a little bit more rules.

00:23:03.693 --> 00:23:08.613
We're independently owned, right? So we're not beholden to some corporate overlord.

00:23:08.853 --> 00:23:12.233
I am the corporate overlord in this case. So I think we can kind of do things

00:23:12.233 --> 00:23:14.473
how we want to do them. And I'm really proud of that.

00:23:15.693 --> 00:23:22.493
Okay. And how many people are in your company? So right now we're just about 40 full-time people.

00:23:22.873 --> 00:23:28.193
I'm a little under 40. I think 38 was the number as of the screen share I just cleared.

00:23:28.473 --> 00:23:34.193
And then we've got a bunch of contractors and kind of perma lancers that we

00:23:34.193 --> 00:23:37.433
work with on a regular basis. But yeah, the core team is about 38 people.

00:23:38.093 --> 00:23:46.033
Okay. Sounds cool. And there's a topic that you brought up previously in one

00:23:46.033 --> 00:23:55.653
of our conversation that was about outcome-focused leadership versus output-focused.

00:23:56.493 --> 00:24:02.233
Yeah. So can you explain what's the difference between outcomes and outputs

00:24:02.233 --> 00:24:05.473
and why you think leaders should be aware of that?

00:24:05.933 --> 00:24:10.593
Yes, 1000%. I think a lot of leaders focus on what are the tasks and and to-dos

00:24:10.593 --> 00:24:12.113
that their employees are doing.

00:24:12.673 --> 00:24:18.533
And I think that when people focus on counting the hours and counting the tasks

00:24:18.533 --> 00:24:23.073
and counting the outputs, I think that people then start to think that way,

00:24:23.153 --> 00:24:26.153
which is they think that if they do a lot of things and they're really busy,

00:24:26.353 --> 00:24:27.633
they're actually adding value.

00:24:27.973 --> 00:24:29.813
I like to focus on outcomes.

00:24:30.293 --> 00:24:33.993
So for example, I would rather someone come to me and say that,

00:24:34.153 --> 00:24:39.233
I'll take a business development example for a second, and then I'll come around to an engineering one.

00:24:40.141 --> 00:24:45.941
I'd rather someone say, we've got three clients that are about to sign a new

00:24:45.941 --> 00:24:50.881
scope of work to work with the company that they're working on versus them saying,

00:24:50.981 --> 00:24:54.941
I made 100 phone calls today, or I sent 100 emails today.

00:24:55.721 --> 00:24:59.341
Because I think that a lot of times people focus too much on the output and

00:24:59.341 --> 00:25:00.181
not enough on the outcome.

00:25:00.401 --> 00:25:04.041
And I think that when you focus too much on the widget and not enough on the

00:25:04.041 --> 00:25:08.541
why, then in my experiences, your success is different.

00:25:08.541 --> 00:25:14.321
So what I mean by outcome obsessed is like, what are the most important things

00:25:14.321 --> 00:25:19.961
that we need to get done on this creative program that when it goes live is

00:25:19.961 --> 00:25:24.181
going to surprise and delight this particular core audience who we know has

00:25:24.181 --> 00:25:27.381
these needs and wants and that sort of thing? What's the outcome?

00:25:27.941 --> 00:25:31.441
Versus going like, okay, here's the to-do list of 30 things that we have to do.

00:25:31.941 --> 00:25:35.121
And okay, if we get 28 of them done, we feel bad about ourselves because we

00:25:35.121 --> 00:25:38.401
didn't get all 30 done. done versus if we just celebrate the fact that we're

00:25:38.401 --> 00:25:42.081
launching this thing, it meets the criteria, getting some success,

00:25:42.341 --> 00:25:44.601
that's an outcome. So I like to focus on outcomes over outputs.

00:25:44.981 --> 00:25:49.241
I think a lot of companies have the kinds of cultures, the kinds of setup,

00:25:49.461 --> 00:25:55.041
the kinds of people where they focus too much on where the person is,

00:25:55.241 --> 00:25:57.741
did they get this thing done?

00:25:57.821 --> 00:26:02.561
And I just think that when you treat people like adults, they behave like adults.

00:26:02.741 --> 00:26:05.421
When you treat people like Like children, they behave like children, right?

00:26:05.501 --> 00:26:12.361
And what I mean by that specifically is like, give respect, get respect. Give trust, get trust.

00:26:13.541 --> 00:26:15.241
Give distrust, get distrust back.

00:26:16.681 --> 00:26:21.641
So I just think that it's really simple. And it's sad because I work with a

00:26:21.641 --> 00:26:23.341
lot of leaders who don't see it that way.

00:26:23.441 --> 00:26:26.701
Not in my company, in other companies where they're just like,

00:26:26.801 --> 00:26:32.141
they're still living in Frederick Taylorism world from the 1800s where they

00:26:32.141 --> 00:26:33.941
think people are going to be programmed like robots.

00:26:34.221 --> 00:26:37.481
And what I tell people now is if you want robots to work for you, go get an AI.

00:26:37.801 --> 00:26:39.741
If you want people that are going to help you grow your company,

00:26:39.881 --> 00:26:44.061
focus on outcomes and making people feel heard, seen, and loved.

00:26:44.941 --> 00:26:50.821
Yeah. And I think that over-optimization has kind of bled into business culture

00:26:50.821 --> 00:26:59.781
over however many years, like post-internet and remote working and social media culture,

00:27:00.041 --> 00:27:06.941
because I think people, there's maybe then this movement towards like productivity

00:27:06.941 --> 00:27:15.641
and measuring it like digitally through like optimizing the number of hours,

00:27:16.241 --> 00:27:19.041
the amount you can squeeze out of the number of hours you're working.

00:27:19.061 --> 00:27:25.181
And then the amount accomplished per minute, like you get some advice from.

00:27:26.503 --> 00:27:32.483
You know, some famous business CEO that'll say, oh, well, you can compress your

00:27:32.483 --> 00:27:36.583
meetings down from 30 minutes to 15 minutes and you can get just as much done

00:27:36.583 --> 00:27:37.963
if you squeeze in that time.

00:27:38.203 --> 00:27:42.723
But then that... I do agree with that though, but I want to be really clear about something.

00:27:42.863 --> 00:27:47.083
So I just wrote an article that I purposely have been compressing my meetings

00:27:47.083 --> 00:27:49.943
with people for shorter meetings, because I think meetings are generally a waste

00:27:49.943 --> 00:27:52.703
of fucking time, which we're going to cover in just a second, hopefully.

00:27:52.863 --> 00:27:59.703
But what I want to say as a build on what you said, Kira, is I think that productivity

00:27:59.703 --> 00:28:01.183
does not equal progress.

00:28:01.903 --> 00:28:06.543
So I want to be really clear is what people call productive is often not productive.

00:28:06.843 --> 00:28:12.063
For me, I think that people need to focus on effectiveness. They need to focus on progress.

00:28:12.803 --> 00:28:17.743
And I think that productivity oftentimes is measuring quantity, not quality.

00:28:18.303 --> 00:28:21.423
And I think that, yes, we absolutely want high quality, high quantity,

00:28:21.423 --> 00:28:24.443
but low quantity high

00:28:24.443 --> 00:28:28.523
quality there's value there so you have to look at yourself you have to look

00:28:28.523 --> 00:28:30.683
at your business you have to look at your customer and you have to ask yourself

00:28:30.683 --> 00:28:35.223
like well what is success and then move into that but i do think there's a lot

00:28:35.223 --> 00:28:40.363
of waste in organizations so i think that like i applaud the ceo of shopify

00:28:40.363 --> 00:28:42.683
who got rid of meetings that were recurring meetings

00:28:43.123 --> 00:28:46.143
most of them are a waste of time if you ask the people how they really felt

00:28:46.143 --> 00:28:49.163
no one wants to go to a fucking 60 person

00:28:49.163 --> 00:28:51.963
zoom meeting and listen to somebody wonk on it's like that could have

00:28:51.963 --> 00:28:54.883
been an email that could have been a loom message right that's

00:28:54.883 --> 00:28:58.703
why loom got built bought for almost a billion dollars because the

00:28:58.703 --> 00:29:01.083
amount of times i have to say something to someone but rather than writing an

00:29:01.083 --> 00:29:06.243
email i'll send them a five minute loom watch the loom respond to the loom when

00:29:06.243 --> 00:29:09.103
you get a chance right i don't need it right this second but if i call a meeting

00:29:09.103 --> 00:29:12.463
with you and add all this pressure you know some people like to process things

00:29:12.463 --> 00:29:16.323
go through them a few times so i I think that like what I've learned about synchronous

00:29:16.323 --> 00:29:18.123
and asynchronous communication is that.

00:29:19.328 --> 00:29:25.788
The way you communicate, where you communicate, how you communicate is super important.

00:29:26.668 --> 00:29:31.668
And it's something I've struggled with a lot. I have a particular company that

00:29:31.668 --> 00:29:37.828
I am an owner in, and that company is really struggling with meeting culture right now.

00:29:38.888 --> 00:29:44.588
And it's so ingrained in that company's DNA, it's really hard to change.

00:29:44.588 --> 00:29:47.668
So that's a situation where I feel bad for that company because,

00:29:47.728 --> 00:29:49.508
and it's one of my companies,

00:29:49.648 --> 00:29:54.308
and I feel bad because it's really difficult when someone's so used to for multiple

00:29:54.308 --> 00:29:58.608
years having a meeting about a meeting, and then we go and replace that with

00:29:58.608 --> 00:30:01.808
a loom and people have free time and they're like, oh my God, what do I do with this?

00:30:01.808 --> 00:30:06.808
You actually have to give people permission to then use that free time for things that are valuable.

00:30:07.028 --> 00:30:09.788
And I think that that's a culture change. That's a behavior change.

00:30:09.988 --> 00:30:14.928
I have so much respect for change management people because one,

00:30:14.988 --> 00:30:19.908
I just think like every change management person needs like a lifetime supply

00:30:19.908 --> 00:30:25.448
to THC because like it's hard to make people update behaviors and change, right?

00:30:26.088 --> 00:30:30.208
And if you historically look at the leaders in change management,

00:30:30.448 --> 00:30:34.428
it's been the companies that go in and fire and reward companies, right?

00:30:34.768 --> 00:30:38.808
But if you really look at the sustained progress around change management companies,

00:30:38.968 --> 00:30:40.208
I am not a change management expert.

00:30:40.288 --> 00:30:44.388
But what I will tell you is the data tells you that it's about understanding

00:30:44.388 --> 00:30:47.888
the change, understanding the transition, and understanding how to communicate

00:30:47.888 --> 00:30:49.748
and work with that throughout those stages.

00:30:50.428 --> 00:30:54.728
I got a little bit of an expertise in change management during COVID because I'm like, Like, fuck,

00:30:55.008 --> 00:30:59.508
like the world just did a 180, but I have so much respect for smart change management

00:30:59.508 --> 00:31:04.128
people that do this for a living people, ops people, like God bless their beautiful

00:31:04.128 --> 00:31:05.488
souls and their patients.

00:31:06.869 --> 00:31:07.669
They're special people.

00:31:09.829 --> 00:31:15.029
Yeah, I agree with that. I think people maybe, especially in certain company

00:31:15.029 --> 00:31:21.029
cultures, have a default of just relying on meetings or they're not thinking

00:31:21.029 --> 00:31:24.249
through what's the best way to communicate this ahead of time,

00:31:24.409 --> 00:31:29.629
especially if that's not set by the CEO or baked in from the beginning that,

00:31:29.709 --> 00:31:32.589
oh, we use Slack for this purpose, and then we use email for

00:31:32.589 --> 00:31:35.749
this purpose and then we use video meeting or in-person

00:31:35.749 --> 00:31:39.169
meetings for this purpose at the same time like there

00:31:39.169 --> 00:31:43.769
might be some like over

00:31:43.769 --> 00:31:46.809
optimization like when people

00:31:46.809 --> 00:31:50.069
when people get too much in this productivity mentality in my

00:31:50.069 --> 00:31:53.089
opinion they can sometimes like focus too

00:31:53.089 --> 00:31:56.289
much on the times and like ted out things that are

00:31:56.289 --> 00:31:59.909
important like for example it

00:31:59.909 --> 00:32:03.269
might not make dollars and cents

00:32:03.269 --> 00:32:08.869
on the surface to spend two days bringing everybody to a company retreat where

00:32:08.869 --> 00:32:13.789
they get to know each other but then that extra time that you're spending you

00:32:13.789 --> 00:32:20.109
can't measure it in like hour-by-hour output on your balance sheet,

00:32:20.229 --> 00:32:27.829
but it has some profound impacts on company cultures and people's productivity

00:32:27.829 --> 00:32:33.449
and people's well-being and overall coordination and efficiency at their jobs

00:32:33.449 --> 00:32:37.269
if they actually take the extra time to do something like that.

00:32:38.029 --> 00:32:46.969
So I disagree with those people because I think that they don't understand how to measure it.

00:32:47.369 --> 00:32:50.069
Just because you don't know how to measure something doesn't mean it can't be

00:32:50.069 --> 00:32:51.529
measured. So I'll give you a perfect example.

00:32:52.209 --> 00:32:58.289
Why a two-day retreat is valuable for a company is that you can do a before,

00:32:58.409 --> 00:32:59.489
during, and after retreat.

00:33:01.360 --> 00:33:06.440
Survey, conversation, emoji reaction with people.

00:33:06.960 --> 00:33:12.760
And you can get a felt sense of people on how that will improve clarity of vision,

00:33:13.100 --> 00:33:17.580
improve people's alignment towards a particular mission, bring people together

00:33:17.580 --> 00:33:21.720
in a time now where people really need... A lot of people are lonely, right?

00:33:21.860 --> 00:33:25.260
Not everybody at the company has family and children. Some people are lonely.

00:33:25.400 --> 00:33:26.220
Some people are by themselves.

00:33:26.520 --> 00:33:29.600
Some people want to be in the presence of other people.

00:33:30.800 --> 00:33:34.820
Some people want to have their ideas be heard. Some people want to contribute in a different way.

00:33:35.020 --> 00:33:38.840
So I think knowing... So in that case, that two days, yeah, you can look at

00:33:38.840 --> 00:33:41.020
the productivity hit that you would have for those two days.

00:33:41.040 --> 00:33:43.420
But then what you can realize is that when people understand each other and

00:33:43.420 --> 00:33:46.240
speak each other's language, things are going to move a lot smoother.

00:33:46.720 --> 00:33:51.480
Things are going to move a lot faster. So that two-day hit in productivity might

00:33:51.480 --> 00:33:53.940
actually create a massive increase in two-year of productivity.

00:33:54.080 --> 00:33:54.880
I'll give you a perfect example.

00:33:55.760 --> 00:33:59.560
We've done similar things where we would do customer interviews with our clients,

00:33:59.680 --> 00:34:02.840
where we'd go out, we would talk to some of their core customers,

00:34:03.040 --> 00:34:06.480
we would survey them, we would do specific things, and we would do before and

00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:10.500
after studies of net promoter score, specifically on the client side.

00:34:11.100 --> 00:34:15.280
And we saw that when you invest in customer experience, when you invest in human

00:34:15.280 --> 00:34:17.580
experience, you see an increase in net promoter score.

00:34:17.800 --> 00:34:21.800
Then you were able to actually back in, what's the difference of a one or two

00:34:21.800 --> 00:34:24.300
on a net promoter score, how does that affect lifetime value?

00:34:24.520 --> 00:34:27.660
How does that affect churn rate? So in the case internally for a company,

00:34:27.880 --> 00:34:32.520
lifetime value is equivalent to the time that they spend with an organization

00:34:32.520 --> 00:34:33.860
or the value that they contribute.

00:34:34.160 --> 00:34:38.800
So now you can actually largely affect your attrition rate or your contribution

00:34:38.800 --> 00:34:44.340
rates simply by bringing people together around shared value, around shared visions.

00:34:44.440 --> 00:34:47.360
I think that a lot of people think that they can't measure things.

00:34:47.480 --> 00:34:50.860
They think that there's not going to be a big difference, but the reality is

00:34:50.860 --> 00:34:52.500
they're just not looking at the right things in my opinion.

00:34:52.580 --> 00:34:56.060
So that's where I think that people need to add more creativity to the way that

00:34:56.060 --> 00:35:00.060
they lead because humans are not robots. We're not machines to be.

00:35:01.045 --> 00:35:06.385
Optimally optimized. I think we can get a lot more out of our people if we let

00:35:06.385 --> 00:35:10.885
them focus, if we eliminate distractions for them, because the world is a distraction device, right?

00:35:10.945 --> 00:35:14.945
These rectangles we have in our pockets, we get enough distractions every day

00:35:14.945 --> 00:35:18.825
from our lives and families and all that, much less like Slack notifications.

00:35:19.145 --> 00:35:22.485
And hey, do you just have one minute? Do you just have one minute?

00:35:22.625 --> 00:35:27.065
How many times do you hear that in a company, right? And then it takes 30 minutes

00:35:27.065 --> 00:35:32.425
on average to get back on task and break that context switch.

00:35:32.605 --> 00:35:34.745
I mean, I don't know about you, Kara, but you ever finish a day up and you're

00:35:34.745 --> 00:35:35.945
like, what did I actually do today?

00:35:36.545 --> 00:35:41.305
Like a million, just one minute interruptions. So I think it becomes more difficult as you scale.

00:35:41.845 --> 00:35:47.045
And I think when you're a remote company or remote first, it gets even harder

00:35:47.045 --> 00:35:49.225
because you have to design the interactions.

00:35:49.285 --> 00:35:52.785
You have to design the gathering in a meaningful way. and going right back to

00:35:52.785 --> 00:35:56.965
the outcome focused leadership, right? Is like, how do you focus on what are we trying to achieve?

00:35:57.125 --> 00:36:00.025
Like what's the unit of value that this employee needs to create?

00:36:00.605 --> 00:36:04.585
And just sharing that, like really transparent, like Kira, let me tell you,

00:36:04.625 --> 00:36:07.025
like you're on the team. This is the role that you provide.

00:36:07.565 --> 00:36:10.685
This is how you're compensated. This is what drives your compensation for the

00:36:10.685 --> 00:36:14.125
role. This is how we look at your measurement of success.

00:36:14.665 --> 00:36:18.085
Did you know that? And you're like, no, I didn't know that. So did you know

00:36:18.085 --> 00:36:21.905
why we need you to be on these particular things for these reasons? know.

00:36:22.305 --> 00:36:26.365
So I think when people understand those things, they're so much more empathetic.

00:36:26.485 --> 00:36:29.825
I think a lot of times we as leaders take for granted what people actually know.

00:36:31.365 --> 00:36:35.825
And that's why I think communication is so important. And that's been a huge weakness of mine.

00:36:36.005 --> 00:36:41.145
I would assume people knew things or I would try to over-communicate or under-communicate.

00:36:41.345 --> 00:36:45.205
And the truth of the matter is, there is no such thing as over-communication.

00:36:45.805 --> 00:36:49.505
It doesn't exist. Because even when you think you're saying too much,

00:36:49.505 --> 00:36:51.085
which you're not saying enough for some people.

00:36:51.545 --> 00:36:55.005
So I think it's just like over-communicate. And then the one big learning I'm

00:36:55.005 --> 00:36:59.025
having, which is like kicking me in the ass, document, document, document.

00:37:00.217 --> 00:37:04.157
Because it's like what happens from our lips gets generalized,

00:37:04.237 --> 00:37:05.257
deleted, and distorted.

00:37:05.777 --> 00:37:08.857
What gets put to paper, a loom video that someone can go back and watch,

00:37:09.017 --> 00:37:15.737
a document, an artifact, a design, a thing, people can anchor that in a much

00:37:15.737 --> 00:37:20.217
more memorable way versus like, we just talked for an hour, like, what did he say?

00:37:20.597 --> 00:37:23.297
And then if you're in a bad mood, maybe you hear it one way and I'm like,

00:37:23.397 --> 00:37:24.597
no, Kira, I didn't mean it that way.

00:37:24.677 --> 00:37:26.997
What I really just meant was this. And you're like, but you were just having

00:37:26.997 --> 00:37:29.597
a tough day that day and you just heard it a certain way.

00:37:30.177 --> 00:37:32.837
But if you went back and you're like, oh, Pete was saying we have to agree on

00:37:32.837 --> 00:37:34.997
these three items. I know Pete's this kind of person.

00:37:35.637 --> 00:37:39.937
Oh, if I had just written that down, if we had just agreed on that.

00:37:40.337 --> 00:37:45.017
So that's where I think that companies can do things like recording meetings, right?

00:37:45.077 --> 00:37:48.577
Because when people have access to meetings, they feel like things are more

00:37:48.577 --> 00:37:50.877
open. They feel like there's things aren't being hidden, right?

00:37:51.157 --> 00:37:54.697
I think the death of most modern companies comes from information asymmetry.

00:37:56.497 --> 00:38:00.377
Okay. So like the leaders having way more information than everybody else or

00:38:00.377 --> 00:38:03.317
just different pockets of people having, yeah.

00:38:03.437 --> 00:38:09.377
Yeah. It's not even leaders. I think that like the more open information is,

00:38:09.477 --> 00:38:10.717
the more people can contribute.

00:38:11.097 --> 00:38:13.837
Right. And I don't think people ever meet, it's not malice, right?

00:38:13.897 --> 00:38:17.277
It's like, I'm DMing you because I don't want to bother the whole group in Slack

00:38:17.277 --> 00:38:19.777
or whatever comms tool you use.

00:38:19.857 --> 00:38:24.617
But by doing that, we make a decision. we make an agreement and the team doesn't

00:38:24.617 --> 00:38:27.177
know about that. And if you or I forget to close that loop, then,

00:38:27.998 --> 00:38:31.518
Now the whole team is either doing something to step up and now that's extra

00:38:31.518 --> 00:38:34.798
work that they shouldn't have to be doing or if we just communicated it.

00:38:35.258 --> 00:38:40.118
So what I say is almost nothing should be private.

00:38:40.638 --> 00:38:43.338
Yeah, one-on-ones, of course, should be private.

00:38:44.498 --> 00:38:48.898
Things that are sensitive should be private. But if we're all working on a project

00:38:48.898 --> 00:38:52.118
together and we're a project team or we're a product team or whatever kind of

00:38:52.118 --> 00:38:57.058
company you are, what is the harm in doing that in in the open.

00:38:57.478 --> 00:39:00.378
I would argue doing it in private is actually creating more harm.

00:39:00.818 --> 00:39:05.758
And lack of information breeds distrust. When people think that things are happening

00:39:05.758 --> 00:39:08.598
outside of them, distrust happens.

00:39:08.898 --> 00:39:12.718
And I've seen the good and the bad of that across both sides of the aisle.

00:39:13.238 --> 00:39:18.618
Yeah. That makes a ton of sense. You're making me rethink how I structure my

00:39:18.618 --> 00:39:24.338
Slack channels now. Now, so you switching gears a little bit,

00:39:24.358 --> 00:39:27.998
you have this four green lights system.

00:39:28.198 --> 00:39:33.478
So can you explain what that is and what it means for your team and your working

00:39:33.478 --> 00:39:35.038
culture? A hundred percent.

00:39:35.618 --> 00:39:38.018
This is a system that I've rolled out in a lot of my clients.

00:39:38.258 --> 00:39:40.738
I've rolled it out with a couple of my companies.

00:39:41.018 --> 00:39:44.778
And I think that it works for a lot of different type of companies.

00:39:44.878 --> 00:39:48.078
I'm not saying it's a panacea, but I'm saying this is our system, right?

00:39:48.518 --> 00:39:54.598
One, I think that visual, actionable, clear systems are important, right?

00:39:54.678 --> 00:39:59.618
So nothing, in my opinion, has been more memorable for the human experience

00:39:59.618 --> 00:40:00.678
than a traffic light, right?

00:40:00.778 --> 00:40:04.138
If you're an adult and you can drive a vehicle, you've probably seen some kind of a traffic light.

00:40:04.418 --> 00:40:08.258
You understand that red means stop, green means go, and some other version of

00:40:08.258 --> 00:40:10.158
a color means something else, right?

00:40:10.478 --> 00:40:13.678
So I think that, and obviously, if.

00:40:14.927 --> 00:40:16.147
Many of these tools, the way they

00:40:16.147 --> 00:40:21.267
present themselves also have different affordances for different colors.

00:40:21.387 --> 00:40:24.667
So obviously, if someone has a color blindness, they can see the version of

00:40:24.667 --> 00:40:26.847
what that red is. So I want to just be clear, I don't want to come at it from

00:40:26.847 --> 00:40:29.347
an ableist mentality so I don't get attacked later.

00:40:29.527 --> 00:40:32.067
But what I would say is four green lights.

00:40:32.527 --> 00:40:36.087
First green light is about our team. Take care of your team,

00:40:36.187 --> 00:40:37.427
they take care of your company.

00:40:38.307 --> 00:40:41.167
So the first green light is team. Are we green, are we yellow, are we red?

00:40:41.327 --> 00:40:43.847
I'll go back into detail on each of these in a second. So that's the first green

00:40:43.847 --> 00:40:46.207
light. The second green light is our client or our customer.

00:40:46.347 --> 00:40:47.527
In our case, it's our client.

00:40:47.747 --> 00:40:50.227
In your case, it might be your customer. It depends on how you structure.

00:40:51.387 --> 00:40:54.847
Third green light is the impact, the positive impact we're making on their business.

00:40:54.947 --> 00:40:58.627
We get paid to do something. Are we delivering value for that thing we're getting paid?

00:40:58.907 --> 00:41:03.527
Whether we sell expo markers or agency services, same kind of thing.

00:41:03.567 --> 00:41:04.207
Are we delivering impact?

00:41:04.947 --> 00:41:08.907
Value exchange, mutual value exchange. Last but not least is profit.

00:41:09.047 --> 00:41:11.147
I believe profit is not a goal, all profits are result.

00:41:11.767 --> 00:41:14.627
At the most simple level, if you take care of your people, your people take

00:41:14.627 --> 00:41:15.827
care of your clients and customers.

00:41:16.387 --> 00:41:18.747
If your people are taking care of your clients and customers working together,

00:41:18.947 --> 00:41:21.207
you're probably going to have a positive impact on the business, hopefully.

00:41:21.407 --> 00:41:23.887
And if everything's working together in unison, there's transparency,

00:41:24.047 --> 00:41:26.767
you're probably going to have a profitable company in both situations.

00:41:27.087 --> 00:41:30.527
So I'd say rolling that out has been the single greatest thing that I've seen.

00:41:31.546 --> 00:41:36.986
As a founder, as a CEO, as a leader in helping to push things up and to the right.

00:41:37.366 --> 00:41:40.366
And by having the traffic light system, by being openly transparent,

00:41:40.626 --> 00:41:41.806
writing about it publicly.

00:41:42.166 --> 00:41:45.106
So I wrote this article. It's 100% public. You can read about it.

00:41:45.126 --> 00:41:45.966
Anyone can read about it.

00:41:46.626 --> 00:41:49.766
It's a public declaration statement. And everyone that works at this company,

00:41:50.166 --> 00:41:52.046
every month, we go through the four green lights.

00:41:52.386 --> 00:41:55.126
So we know that it's a staple in the organization.

00:41:55.686 --> 00:41:58.686
And what I ask in almost every meeting is, how are you doing today, Kira?

00:41:58.826 --> 00:42:01.986
Green, yellow, red. and it's a qualitative test to understand,

00:42:02.166 --> 00:42:05.606
you know what? Maybe you had a pipe burst in your house and you're having a really tough day.

00:42:06.286 --> 00:42:09.006
Maybe I shouldn't be super hard on you today. Maybe I can help you out a little

00:42:09.006 --> 00:42:13.186
bit. Maybe I could take something off your plate because then it's reciprocal.

00:42:13.426 --> 00:42:16.926
Then if I have a tough day, which everyone does, then people trust each other

00:42:16.926 --> 00:42:17.626
to have each other's back.

00:42:17.846 --> 00:42:20.326
So I think that those green lights or yellow lights, red lights.

00:42:21.906 --> 00:42:23.706
Signals, in my opinion, save companies.

00:42:24.486 --> 00:42:30.526
Signals save companies. Lack of signals creates stress, Too much stress breaks the system.

00:42:30.626 --> 00:42:32.946
A broken system leads to a broken company.

00:42:33.866 --> 00:42:37.606
Yeah, it's real interesting how you think about that holistically and not just

00:42:37.606 --> 00:42:40.746
like, you know, the short term direct impact,

00:42:40.926 --> 00:42:44.746
but the longer term, you know, this is how what I'm doing right here,

00:42:44.886 --> 00:42:49.526
checking in on all of my team members on a regular basis or having everybody

00:42:49.526 --> 00:42:53.826
check in with each other, you know, changes all the downstream effects of the

00:42:53.826 --> 00:42:56.066
system and affects the whole business.

00:42:56.686 --> 00:42:59.486
Yeah. And let me go one step deeper, right? It's not just about talking the

00:42:59.486 --> 00:43:01.126
talk about walking the walk this year.

00:43:01.246 --> 00:43:07.846
We fired over four clients because they were directly resulting in lack of team satisfaction.

00:43:08.866 --> 00:43:15.206
So we, we have turned down or fired millions of dollars worth of business this

00:43:15.206 --> 00:43:18.686
year alone, specifically because it was not good for the team.

00:43:18.746 --> 00:43:21.026
It was not good for the vision. It was not good for the company.

00:43:21.967 --> 00:43:27.127
In a very general sense, what were they doing that was impacting team satisfaction?

00:43:27.627 --> 00:43:33.047
No, you don't want to call out any clients, but just a vague, overarching summary.

00:43:33.727 --> 00:43:36.767
I'll give you a really good example without sharing anything proprietary.

00:43:37.247 --> 00:43:41.487
So they were making promises and commitments to us that they weren't delivering on.

00:43:41.647 --> 00:43:48.267
And then they would send us what I like to call late-night angry emails days

00:43:48.267 --> 00:43:50.987
later, trying to get the teams working nights and weekends.

00:43:51.967 --> 00:43:56.607
You know, they're just, they were trying to let our dysfunction be their dysfunction

00:43:56.607 --> 00:43:57.687
become our dysfunction.

00:43:58.447 --> 00:44:01.587
And at the end of the day, I was not, you know, shit rolls downhill,

00:44:01.667 --> 00:44:03.487
as they say, it's a stereotype for a reason.

00:44:03.767 --> 00:44:07.027
And I was not allowed to, I was not about to let their shit roll downhill just

00:44:07.027 --> 00:44:08.187
because their dollars were green.

00:44:09.227 --> 00:44:12.267
Now, a lot of CEOs might hear this and say, you know what, that Pete guy,

00:44:12.327 --> 00:44:13.607
I would never want to be on my company.

00:44:14.327 --> 00:44:18.087
And cool. Bye. A lot of people might hear that and say, you know what,

00:44:18.107 --> 00:44:19.247
I really liked the way this guy thinks.

00:44:19.247 --> 00:44:25.927
Hi so i think that's that's where i'm at great people are really hard to replace,

00:44:26.607 --> 00:44:31.807
great clients are really hard to replace bad people bad clients not hard to

00:44:31.807 --> 00:44:40.367
replace in fact i would argue you should replace them yeah that makes sense so generally i like to,

00:44:41.307 --> 00:44:46.667
turn this translate this into action steps so let's do it you know suppose we're

00:44:46.667 --> 00:44:56.787
like talking into a B2B marketing leader or CEO and they want to start implementing self-care and better.

00:44:57.887 --> 00:45:04.947
Wellness programs into their culture, as well as things like your four green lights system.

00:45:05.227 --> 00:45:09.147
Step-by-step, what would you have them do in order to see that through?

00:45:09.727 --> 00:45:13.727
First, you have to start with the real goal of the organization.

00:45:14.007 --> 00:45:16.907
Why do you exist? What are you trying to do? Where are you trying to get to?

00:45:17.447 --> 00:45:23.647
I think you have to design a company around the vision, not the vision around the culture.

00:45:24.087 --> 00:45:29.247
I think in a lot of ways, the first place to start is what does success look like?

00:45:30.087 --> 00:45:33.787
Paint that picture, define what that success looks like, and then figure out

00:45:33.787 --> 00:45:38.327
a way to make that success happen in a way that creates a healthy,

00:45:38.427 --> 00:45:40.467
contributory, participatory environment.

00:45:41.167 --> 00:45:46.007
And then from there, depending on the company, the region, whatever they're

00:45:46.007 --> 00:45:51.147
doing, then from there, you start to design a program. You can't start with a wellness program.

00:45:51.647 --> 00:45:55.447
You have to start with a vision. You have to start with success criteria and a roadmap.

00:45:55.707 --> 00:45:59.587
And then you have to back into, okay, well now, in order to make this happen,

00:45:59.647 --> 00:46:03.547
we have to have the greatest team of X, Y, and Z types of people. Okay, great.

00:46:03.647 --> 00:46:06.367
How do we attract the greatest team of X, Y, and Z type of people?

00:46:06.447 --> 00:46:09.207
Okay. hey, what does that mean for our competition, our benefits,

00:46:09.367 --> 00:46:11.427
our structures, our flexibility?

00:46:12.467 --> 00:46:13.627
How do we...

00:46:15.324 --> 00:46:18.344
Contribute to creating the kind of culture the kind of environment that

00:46:18.344 --> 00:46:21.164
we believe that needs to happen to support this initiative or

00:46:21.164 --> 00:46:23.884
goal because if you try to do that then you're

00:46:23.884 --> 00:46:28.164
just like benefit washing right where you're just trying to be like like there's

00:46:28.164 --> 00:46:30.664
been places remember back in the day that we used to try to hire me like years

00:46:30.664 --> 00:46:35.224
ago when i was like on the market and it was like they would promise you the

00:46:35.224 --> 00:46:38.944
foosball table and the stock kitchen and every possible thing you can think

00:46:38.944 --> 00:46:43.784
of dry cleaning services and you know chair massages and all this other stuff.

00:46:44.004 --> 00:46:48.984
And like those kinds of perks, the one thing that you don't see written is we're

00:46:48.984 --> 00:46:53.484
going to literally work you until you're dead because we do not want you to leave this building.

00:46:54.604 --> 00:46:58.744
That's what a lot of companies have done historically is, you know,

00:46:58.744 --> 00:47:04.884
they, they try to over perk or overpay because they're going to crush you in the process.

00:47:05.444 --> 00:47:08.444
So I think that that's where like the, you know, it's like greenwashing, right?

00:47:08.484 --> 00:47:12.904
Like let's make everything green, but really, are you really green?

00:47:13.044 --> 00:47:13.724
Do you really believe in that?

00:47:13.964 --> 00:47:15.984
So I just think that it's important to go a little bit deeper,

00:47:16.204 --> 00:47:19.944
be a little bit more conscious capitalist, as you see the book here in the back.

00:47:20.104 --> 00:47:23.504
So yeah, again, I don't pretend to have all the answers.

00:47:23.944 --> 00:47:27.364
What I can tell you is what's worked for me and what helped me sleep well at night as a leader.

00:47:27.804 --> 00:47:31.604
But I just want to get 1% better every day. And I think the best way to do that

00:47:31.604 --> 00:47:37.164
is by asking questions, listening into my teams, talking to smarter people than I am in different areas.

00:47:37.604 --> 00:47:41.204
So I can get as diverse as possible with my team and my experience.

00:47:41.684 --> 00:47:45.284
I've got a lot to learn. I think every company does, but I think I'm committed

00:47:45.284 --> 00:47:48.904
to growth, committed to being 1% better every day.

00:47:49.004 --> 00:47:51.704
And that, I hope my team knows and believes about me.

00:47:52.164 --> 00:47:56.464
Oh, awesome. Yeah. I really, really appreciate this conversation, Pete.

00:47:56.644 --> 00:48:01.064
And as we're wrapping up, I'd just like to shine a spotlight on you and your

00:48:01.064 --> 00:48:06.644
projects and like to know what, where people can get in touch with you or how

00:48:06.644 --> 00:48:09.284
they can find out more about what you guys do.

00:48:09.544 --> 00:48:14.184
I appreciate that. So what I would say is if you want to find out more about

00:48:14.184 --> 00:48:17.424
me specifically, I'm just Pete Sena on every channel, LinkedIn,

00:48:17.724 --> 00:48:21.584
Twitter X, PeteSena.com is my personal site.

00:48:21.704 --> 00:48:26.544
I do a free newsletter that I launched, which is like where I publish my wins

00:48:26.544 --> 00:48:29.464
and losses and successes and failures, just because I want to share with of

00:48:29.464 --> 00:48:31.284
the world what's working and not working for me.

00:48:32.324 --> 00:48:35.904
If you're looking for an amazing group of people to help you transform or grow

00:48:35.904 --> 00:48:39.124
your business or brand, head on over to digitalsurgeons.com.

00:48:39.284 --> 00:48:42.424
Digitalsurgeons.com is the company I started 20 years ago.

00:48:42.624 --> 00:48:46.224
We've got a great leadership team running that, great team contributing on a daily basis.

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They use the Four Green Light system, among other things we talked about today.

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So those are the things I would say. And what I would say, just stay curious,

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stay creative, and hopefully this is valuable for you and the audience that

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us into this now in the future.

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All right. Thank you so much, Pete. See you next time.