Decoding the Dynamics of Right and Wrong Fit in the Workplace

We're thrilled to be joined by André Martin, PhD, organizational psychologist, and Chief Talent Officer with an impressive track record at consumer giants like Target, Nike, Google, Mars Incorporated, and Disney.

In our conversation, André uncovers the startling $7.8 trillion in lost workplace productivity and explains why he believes we need a new vision for a 'great place to work' that focuses on fit over traditional cultural norms. He shares the importance of self-reflection and how to recognize different career paths based on Company, Craft, and Cause.

Why You Can't Miss This: 
There's something in here for job seekers & career builders, leaders looking to hire and build a team, and those tasked to develop corporate culture relating to talent acquisition and development.

01:14 Introduction and Focus of Work
02:10 Understanding Disengagement in the Workplace
03:43 Exploring the Concept of 'Fit' in the Workplace
06:28 The Importance of Self-Reflection in Job Seeking
11:17 Overcoming Confirmation Bias in Job Seeking
18:27 Understanding Different Career Paths: Company, Craft, Cause
21:31 The Impact of Company Transformation on Employee Fit
22:29 Re-evaluating Recruitment and Onboarding
23:09 The Cost of Mismatched Expectations
23:57 Redefining Job Descriptions
25:43 The Impact of Job Hopping
26:02 Companies Doing it Right
27:04 The Need for Re-recruiting
27:32 The Role of Leaders in Employee Engagement
29:00 The Future of Career Paths
29:38 The Cost of Job Hopping Revisited
30:45 Rethinking Job Search and Recruitment
35:18 Advice for Job Seekers
38:12 Where to Find More Resources

Two examples of more realistic job previews:

Careers at NOBL
37 Signals

Episode Resources

• Visual Guide
• YouTube

To learn more about André and his work:

• Monday Matters newsletter
• www.wrongfitrightfit.com
• The Book: Wrong Fit, Right Fit: Why How We Work Matters More Than Ever
• "Company, Craft, or Cause Excursion" From the book. Here is the link
• Dialogue Article (Duke Corporate Education Publication) titled "Right Fit, Wrong Fit". Here is the link

To learn more about this podcat, visit:
Labs.newrulesforwork.com

Transcript

André: 0:00

So use that time really wisely as opposed to just, we often put layup questions in there. We're trying to be respectful, but that's your chance to be an investigative journalist. It's the biggest decision we make, right? we will spend 13.5 years at work our adult lives from age 18 to 64, 13 0.5, full years, every day, every hour, every second. It's second only to sleep. And yet I feel like we make these decisions with less information than we Used To buy our next dishwasher

David: 0:40

Welcome to the new Rules for Work labs, where we're rewriting the rules of work. In our lab, we glean insights from the world's foremost minds, exploring leadership, team dynamics, creativity, artificial intelligence, and more. Join us as we dissect, analyze, and incubate ideas shaping the future workplace. Stick around to learn how we turn these insights into practical activities. Get ready for a journey into the future of work. This is the new Rules for Work Labs, where insights meet action Andre, will you, share with us what's got you thinking? What's got you writing

André: 1:18

I'll start with a big Number that's been, keeping me up at night as much as things do. And it was seen a Gallup number about two and a half years ago, which was$7.8 trillion lost productivity in the workplace due to disengagement. I. And it had me sitting there and starting to explore this question of why does work feel harder than it should right now so many people? And I would tell you that question, that idea was really what has sparked, not just the writing the book that, but just the continued writing I do is I feel like there's a better way to do work. I feel like we can spaces that can be both pro productive. and also allow people to potentially maybe way out in future, walk out with much as they walked in with.

David: 2:10

real quickly, what disengagement, what does that mean? I think we've heard different terms, maybe even more recently. Is that the same as quiet quitting? Is it? What, how, what are some signs that people, that individuals or team members might be disengaged?

André: 2:29

I think about it like this. The simplest metaphor I have is imagine if you took a sentence, whatever it is, and you wrote it with your dominant hand and wrote that same sentence. Then with your non-dominant hand, it's harder. It's frustrating. You lose confidence. You lose confidence. Your quality isn't as good. That to me is what disengagement's all about. It's this feeling that work is harder than it should be. It gets in the way of me being brilliant, doing my best, of finding a place that I could be committed to for 20 years. And so for all the other terms, languishing, quiet, quitting, all these things that we hear, I just think about it that simply, I'm like, it's like everybody's riding with their non-dominant hand every day at work.

Elise: 3:16

That's a great example. And I know from looking at lots of management thinkers and being in the practice world myself, that then people look for the fix, right? So what is it we need to do to make our company, the company where everybody belongs and everybody's included and it's wonderful and all of that. Great, fabulous magic pill thing is happening for us now. You looked at it and you took a different tack, you came to a different conclusion. Tell us about that.

André: 3:49

I did. I love the question. It's super generous. So I originally got asked to write this book around this exact premise you're bringing up, which is in this new world of work. Tell us what makes a great company. Tell us what's gonna make the best place to work. And so I did what most researchers do. went out there and I talked to everybody that I knew, right? CEOs, CHROs, new entrants to the workplace, asking a question of what makes What makes a great place to work and what became really clear, really fast is that it's nuanced. There wasn't one answer. I was finding all these different sort of ideas from all these different people, and so it led me to the book. I ended up writing, maybe not the book my publisher wanted me to write, was, Hey, what if this isn't about good or bad culture? What if it isn't about the best practices of a, of the best place to work? What if it's really about this idea of Right or wrong fit. Do I as a talent fit the way that you want to get work done? And when I think about it, it's not just values and all the high level things. It's literally what does it feel like to work there on a random Tuesday morning in November? How do we collaborate, set strategy, solve problems, manage conflict, develop people, give feedback. How do we socialize? What's our relationship with time? All those questions that make up how it feels to work at a place. That was really what came to light to me. And so there's two pieces to it, right? One is I'm actually calling companies to be more distinct about who they are. Don't try to be a place that works for everybody because that's impossible. You end up being average across the board. Be who you are, be the best version of yourself as a company. And then I'm asking talent to say, Hey, maybe talent. We need to pay a little bit more attention. Think a little harder, do a little bit more self-reflection before we jump into a new company.'cause chances are it's probably not gonna work for us. riding with our non-dominant hand.

David: 5:51

And there's two this. There's many sides to jump out as a hiring manager looking for somebody who has fit, but then also as maybe the I'm looking for a new position. Just going way back. I the, when I was looking for a job, I thought industry job title money, and I've learned a lot since then. And I'm guessing. Given your laugh, you, you know why I brought that up: what are other aspects of fit that maybe we're not told about or that, when you're told to go out, look for a job,

André: 6:28

It is a, it's a great question. I think the first thing I would tell job seekers to consider is consider that you know what job interviews are actually more like a first date. I. Than a family reunion. So what we're getting is the company on its best day. It's the most dressed up version. It's the most aspirational version. It's the manager showing up as if they, wish they could be this every day. And so the first thing I tell job seekers just realize that you're walking into a first date. And how many of our first dates were really bad relationships by day two, three, or four?

David: 7:03

Oh,

André: 7:11

that aren't coming directly from the company itself, because those are more marketing than they are reality. And so one of my favorite strategies to give job seekers is to say, Hey. Go through the interview process for sure. There's a variety of questions you could ask to get a little bit deeper, but the thing I love to do is find somebody who worked at this company for at least three years, but is recently left, and go interview them about what it's like to work there every day. that's the first thing. The second thing I'd tell job seekers is we have to do more self-reflection. We have to know what we're solving for beyond Pay, beyond perks. Beyond the brand because none of those things actually aligned to long-term job satisfaction. So what I would tell people is this is, stop and really think about what are you solving for right now? What's the kind of life you're trying to build? kind of manager do you like to work for? What are your superpowers? Do they fit what you're being asked to do? And so we have a variety of questions that I think job seekers need to ask before they ever open a job ad or start doing a search

Elise: 8:22

That's one of the things I really appreciated as I was working through your book is how many practical exercises and examples there are in there and that whole pyramid. Getting to that question of, what needs to be true for you, right? What do you need to be seeking now from the other perspective, As a team lead? As a team manager, I gotta imagine there are some things that need to be done where pretty much anybody's gonna come in and you're gonna have a hard time finding fit because there are some behaviors that are just not awesome to work for. Are you assuming with this book that those things are not a big issue or that, if those are your problems, we don't need to be talking about it? You've got other things to go to if you're a team leader in those situations, what do you do?

André: 9:11

I think it's, I, it's not that I don't think they're important. There's a variety of workplace issues that are standing in the way of this of engagement. I think the real fundamental thing for me was to say, Hey, if you're a, if you're a leader working in a company. Your experience isn't good. There's a chance that it's a toxic leader, right? Singular individuals can create a really bad environment us. You could be part of a dysfunctional team, Or the third piece, which is really where the book points to is maybe you just don't fit the sensibilities of company, of how they get work done. So I'll give you a really practical example. So every company has a way that they socialize ideas. Some people, Amazon love the two page memo, short, pithy, full sentences. Other companies, like a tech company in engineering might actually want 25 page thought paper. Some marketing based companies just want pithy brand deck with beautiful pictures and poetry. hEre's the deal is if I'm a researcher and I end up in a marketing company where I'm having to build these pithy poetry, visual decks. that may not work for me. And so I think what you have to do is separate. Is this a toxic leader? Is this a dysfunctional team? Or stand back and ask question of, do I really not fit here given the way this company likes to work? And one of the things that came through the book, I did a hundred some interviews with talent. When asked'em the question of, in your wrong fit experience, in those moments where it just wasn't work, you knew you were in the wrong place. When did you actually know? One of the things every interview told me is they would stop. They would giggle or laugh, and they'd say, I knew it during the interview.

David: 10:58

so there was that, I guess the same way first date, even if you're having some, sometimes you just know, but then you might go on with it because, oh, I ha it's this job. I need the money. I need the, I don't want too big of a gap in my resume. So I stay with it. Why don't people trust themselves? Why

André: 11:17

Part of it's just part of it's just our human wiring of our brain, right? There's a thing called confirmation bias that gets in our way in this moment. So if you take the whole truth everything I know about a company during an interview process, then you overlay that with, I'm really motivated to make this decision. it's bigger pay. It's a better title. It's a brand that I love. I need a job. What tends to happen is we only pay attention to the information that con confirms the decision we wanna make. And so that alone is one of the things that when our interviews start talking about is they're like, I knew it. I knew it during the interview process, and I chose to ignore it. Because these other things motivating me to make this decision. And so that's the other thing that I think about with town. I'm like, if you're in a stuck place, two things are happening to you. One, you're under stress, and we know that under stress do not make the best decisions. why those excursions in the book are so important to me, is they allow you just to take a little time. And secondly, just realize that when you're motivated to make a decision. you gotta be real careful to pay attention to full source of information. It's like when we go to the doctor, like anytime you go to the doctor and you get a diagnosis that you don't want to hear, you get back home and you tell your partner, husband, wife, Hey, I got this diagnosis. They're like tell me more about, they're like, I don't remember anything. Your brain sort of shuts down in some of those moments. So I just, I think there's couple things there that just human wiring. it gets in our way. And then, I think secondly is we are relying on sources of information that subjective and aspirational. Often

Elise: 12:59

Sure. So sometimes the thing you're solving for is impressing my buddies. From high school. The what a lot of what you're talking about in that first interview is that trusting the interoception, right? That gut sense of feel. And I have 24 year old son who just said his brain is just, now he can feel his brain starting to become a grownup brain So I think, As that changes over time, people's sense of it, will definitely evolve, what are you solving for now, which is one of the reasons I love the excursions in your book. For anybody who doesn't have the book yet and maybe either trying to recruit or seeking a job, pick it up because these aren't like walkabouts, they're exercises where you can go through and examine, what are your values how do you like to work? And I think those are some really fascinating questions about how you like to work and recognizing. tHat people have very different preferences about these things. How did you pick what to include in those assessments of fit?

André: 14:01

That's a great question. So yeah, there's eight excursions in the book. And they land in getting you to this place you have really strong and clear narrative who you are and really you're perfect company. And so then you can go into the interview process thinking about those things. would say there were really two sources. One is, hey, 25 years of working as talent officer in some of the biggest companies in the world, right? You do this work as a coach and as a as someone who's helping talent to continue progress. So some of those came from there. Others came from the interviews I would ask, Hey, if you could go back. Yeah, all the way back before you picked up that first job ad for that wrong company, what would be some things you wish you would've done to get yourself more prepared? And some of these came from that, things like the ideal manager getting clear about what I value in big decisions. was a big one, right? always talk about values, and if I asked you what you value, you would give me a laundry list of things, right? But when you think about what do actually value in the biggest decisions you've made in your life. That list is small. It's narrow, and it's probably very different than the things that would come outta your mouth if you were just asked Point blank.

David: 15:13

So you do? If are again, employed or the employer the the leader who's there, or, and then maybe the team member, when you find yourself in a bad fit situation, there anything that can do to remedy it? is the only alternative to bail out and apply these principles, go on these excursions and find a better fit.

André: 15:42

I, I actually believe there, there are some things you can do, right? If we go back to the first part of the interview, we talked about, hey, sometimes you fit company, but you might be working for toxic leader or in a dysfunctional team. So in the book we put a number of what we call buffers, things that can allow you to make a hard fit experience better. Or just keep a wrong fit experience good enough until find the next thing you wanna do. I would never tell anyone to, when you start feeling bad, just jump Job hopping costs you it. It's, there's as many drawbacks as there are benefits. So the buffers were in there to say, give it some time. So there's inspirational buffers. Connect yourself to the purpose of company every day. Find a customer in need. Try to find more meaningful work that's high impact to the company and also work that is meaningful to you. Get a more legitimate relationship with time. One of the things that we heard often is that people, when they're in these stuck places, they tend to work harder and harder. And by doing that we, we actually yard sale the parts of our lives that give us energy. And so then on the relationship side, there's a number of buffers there as well that have to do with people find a meaningful mentor. Again, look for or create, which I believe you can, a more supportive manager. One of my favorites though is find your workplace doppelganger. So a doppelganger we know is your twin, right? In the world, someone looks like you. In this context, it's actually find someone in the company that has your same experiences, your same education. You're saying even basic jobs. So they work like you work, they know the things. They're different on one variable. And that is they seem to find success here while you don't.

David: 17:27

All right.

André: 17:28

And why is that important?'cause if you can find them, then you know that there's probably a place in this company where you can be happy, you can be committed, and you can do better work. It's just not the current environment you're in. And so I really love that idea of Of just use those buffers to start and maybe they'll help you through just a tough spot, but absolutely don't just jump every time you're feeling bad. pretty heavy.

David: 17:54

I've seen many times myself and I've seen other people when they get a new assignment or maybe there's reorganization and they move to a new leader, there's so much about the circumstance. That then changes whether or not they feel like there's a good fit and changes their mindset as to whether they're going to jump or not. So it can, it certainly can happen within the company. If they just, they find a better fit with a manager. You talk about company craft and cause how do we look through those lenses?

André: 18:28

I love this is, again a favorite part of the book. In doing all this work with talent around helping them build a A more purposeful career. One of the things that stood out really quickly is we don't actually know the type of career we're trying to build, right? So sometimes you're of company, which means you love the place you are. so much you can't imagine working somewhere else. You love the products. You love the people, you love the office, like those people that are gonna be at a place for 20 years. You know them, you've worked with them. There's a really important set of things you need to build a of company career. For instance, you can't stay in one function, right? Because the more functions you've been in, the larger your network, the more you know about how the company makes money, the more valuable you are. Now, another type of career is of craft. People who are just going deep in a very narrowed area or arena I'm of craft, right? I probably was of craft, I might be of cause now. So I'll talk about that. But those individuals actually need to see as many different companies or systems as they can in order to be one of the best in their craft. Because if you just practice your craft, like talent work in one company, you only know a small set of how to do job. So the more companies you're a part of. The better you are. And then there's people that are of cause right? And of cause they see a injustice or opportunity or problem in the world that they are just dedicating every single day, every single moment to fixing or realizing a better solution for. And so when you're of, cause you have to go where the energy is, right? So imagine trying to do work on coastal erosion from St. Louis, Missouri. Super hard to do, right? And so if you're of, cause and that's your passion, you gotta get to where the energy is, where the thought leadership is, where the work is happening. And so you have this more nomadic sense of how you drive your career. But each of those are very distinct careers. We can't do all three at once maybe, but that's a unicorn. And so we have to think about what kind of career am I building right now? What does that mean for the next choice or next spot I might need to go to?

David: 20:45

Are people one these three for forever or do you switch between them? Cause I could see you, I could see like somebody is a company person, maybe not as popular as it used to 30, 40 years ago, you were, you just stayed at the same company. But I certainly feel like I've rotated between the three, but do people tend to have one, one shade or do they switch?

André: 21:11

It's a great question, Dave. I would tell you this. You tend to have one that's primary at any given moment in time, you can switch and often, we don't realize that we're moving the type of career we're building before we make our next choice. So that's why, other thing about the book that was really important to me is I wanted to be something that people go back to. Again and again. To your point, we might change what kind of career we're trying to build. You also might be in a company that changes, goes through a big transformation, a big disruption. You might have a reorg that happens. It's important to assess fit. How well do I fit the way the company works every year, if not every quarter? Because I think we constantly evolving and as long as we're continuing to do that deep self-reflection along with our Evolution will be in a really good place and end up, feeling good about how spending our days,

Elise: 22:03

So that brings up another Just Whole angle that you cover in the book about, there are companies, especially in the last decade that have done a fabulous job recruiting based on the halo of their brand, And really designing the employee experience, at least from a marketing perspective which can attract people who then may land and find that, oh, wait a second, behind the curtains. And for who I am, this may not have been the fit that I thought it was. So if you find yourself as a team leader or an HR manager looking at the way in which you recruit and onboard people and you realize that your employees and your existing team leaders are re are reading this book, assessing their individual fit, whAt do you do to start re-recruiting? and helping that fit adjustment be stronger in that onboarding and then management cycle.

André: 23:04

Yeah, you're bringing up a really important point, right? So couple of pieces of data that I think the, the listeners will enjoy. One is, MIT just did this great piece of research where they found zero correlation between the espouse values of company leaders, what they say their company's about, the felt experience of their employees, So that just says, Hey, that aspiration, the reality gap is really big. And Here's the cost of it, is up to 34% of new joiners. Are leaving their new job within 90 days, one out three. And so citing three things as the reason why. The first reason is a mismatch of expectations. Second one is no chance to develop. And third is no career progression. And so when you think about that, I'm sitting there as a, I love hr, I've been an HR practitioner my whole life. A few things I'd tell'em to do. One is you have to get really clear about how the company works at its best and be authentic and honest about what it looks like to work there, right? One of the things I, tell my HR counterparts is we need to move away from job descriptions. And start giving people realistic job previews, job descriptions are like these long, bulleted lists of all the things you might get to do at some point in your career. They're they're crazy making, because the reality is your real job is only gonna be three of those things,

David: 24:28

It's never, it never matches up on, You go back and you're like, know this doesn't anything like,

André: 24:34

so here's a realistic prob preview, and I know this is a long way off, but what I would love to see companies do is this. Imagine if the first thing that we put in a job description, a realistic job preview, is here's how we work, here's how we solve problems. Set strategy, manage conflict, develop. People, give feedback. Here's how we gather, here's our strategy around location. you like to work this way? If so, then the next piece of information is we're missing these key capabilities, experiences, or skill. Do you have them? If you do come here and we have these three projects that need done in the next 12 months, are these superpowers of you or in your wheelhouse? Or if you've done them before, imagine if that was how you hired people, because then you're hiring people that fit the way you work, so they can do a variety of things. You're bringing in skills that you know you're missing. And the projects that people are doing match what they love to do or what they find meaningful. That would be a game changer in my mind.

David: 25:38

It sounds really cost inefficient. It just sounds like it's exhausting that one out of every three people I, as a hiring manager is going to leave.

André: 25:51

Yeah,

David: 25:51

sure there's very hard financial costs, but then there's the, Oh, I gotta go through this again. I gotta go through interviewing these people. That's, then maybe a disproportionate part of my, my job, which, I'm hiring, I'm hiring tasks. Then I should be is any company doing this right? Is there an example where we could go to and see, Oh, this is what a good a working scenario looks like versus a job description.

André: 26:16

I, I would tell you this, Dave. I think there's companies that are doing pieces and parts of this, right? There's companies that are very clear about how they work. There's a small consulting firm called Noble and OBL, and their job descriptions are almost written exactly right, like that. They do a really good job of saying, Hey, this is who we are. This is what your day is gonna feel Is this kind of crazy? You're crazy.'cause this is who we there. There's others like the makers of Basecamp, They actually have a blog that talks about all the different ways that work gets done, how they work in sprints, how they design teams, how people socialize ideas. So they put all that on a blog so people can see it. Not just current, not just Prospective employees, but actually employees that are already there. Because the other thing, and we brought this up earlier is you gotta re-recruit people more often, right? With social media, with the amount of information we have, everyone is sitting there with their head up Thinking maybe the grass is greener over there. Maybe that person is having a better experience than I am. And so we used to just be able to hire somebody onboard'em, then say Go and do your job now. You gotta re-recruit people every quarter, every month, every day. And there's a few fundamental questions that I believe we have to answer as leaders for our employees every day. The first one is, why is the world better with us in it? That gets to purpose and cause Secondly is, how do we make money? The number of employees that don't how a company makes money and how they fit in it blows my mind. Third one is, how do we get work done? What are our principles, practices, and platforms that we get work done through? And then the last one is, what's our promise to you for being here? And if leaders just answer those four questions for employees in every single touch point they have. I think we'd see engagement go up, we'd see commitment go up. And honestly, I think we could see longer careers at fewer companies

Elise: 28:17

I it to what you're asking, For many companies,'cause I, the work that I do is helping companies put in some of those systems and you can point to something like Noble or GitLab, which has all of their work practices publicly, um, accessible, updated, ev, in real time. and it's terrifying. That takes really some amazing courage. to be that clear. But one of the things you mentioned earlier is that, that touch point and that re-recruiting, do you see this, being courageous and putting it out there and continuing to re recruit to be a way to provide a career portfolio path In these organizations that are getting Flatter and flatter, where the The career journey and the working up the ladder no longer makes sense in the way it used to.

André: 29:07

100%. And here's what I would tell you is you're, when I look at the generation, gen Z coming in, the biggest thing they care about is learning, growth and development. They are actually living and breathing examples of they want that career portfolio. They're less worried right now of moving up through the company. They want meaningful work and they want to have these experiences that start to round them out as individuals. And so I think you can build that sort of career. I believe the 20 year career, it's possible and it's needed. Think about this. Every time you hop companies, every time you change companies, yes, there's benefits. Usually it's higher pay. Usually it's a better title. might be that you're in an environment that works for you, but there's also unseen cost, right? Every time we jump, you reset your network to zero. Those relationships you built over time that allow you to do work more effectively, they're gone. You're rebuilding those from scratch. Secondly is you lose your credibility or reputation, right? You're a stranger to a new group of people, which means you gotta invest all this energy in that. And third, but certainly not least, is you lose the, um, the language and the knowledge of how a company works day to day. When you think about having to rebuild all those things, guess what? Your creative energy, which is finite, it all goes to building those things as opposed to your craft. So every time you job hop, you actually are losing speed on your craft because you're putting your creative energy into all these other areas allow you then to be successful over time.

elise-keith_1_11-14-2023_071109: 30:45

We have This basically a whole rethink of how you look for jobs, how you if you are recruiting, how you recruit for jobs, and then how you onboard people

André: 30:58

onboard

Elise: 30:58

to get there. There's some stuff that's got to stop.

André: 31:02

Yep.

Elise: 31:03

So if you are talking to let's start with the leader, And the hiring manager. What is something they're doing right now that they just need to drop like a hot rock to make space to take on this new work.

André: 31:17

new work. I would tell them to stop selling an unrealistic aspiration for who the company is. Let's just start being honest about who we are, about how we get work done, about all the great parts and all the tough things that you're gonna run into. Because the truth is, as soon as I take that job, I'm running into'em anyway.

David: 31:38

Mhm.

André: 31:38

So why not let me know so I can choose whether or not your brand of crazy is my kind of crazy, right? And that's an important, we gotta stop selling the aspiration we have to make these interviews less like first dates and more like family reunions you just get to see people how they work and what they're gonna show up as every day. So I

Elise: 31:59

All of their jello salad everywhere.

André: 32:01

All of jello salad everywhere. I love that. I think the second thing that leaders could do is do a better job on getting clear about how work gets done at the company, right? As we grow. So take Google for example. When I was at Google, I think we hired one year, 27,000 people in a single year. Think about that. We're bringing all that beautiful technical skill, right? You know what else we're bringing in is all their inherited work practices. All of the ways that they like to do work, all of their favorite platforms to do work on. And if we don't reset those, if we don't say no, hey, this is the way we do work here, it all disappears, right? We become this amalgamation of all these individual preferences for how work gets done, and it's a hairy, messy ball of chaos. that's the second thing is get really clear on how you work and then teach people it and reteach people it. Reteach them again, that re-recruiting piece of bring them back to this is the way we do work. So we keep that special sauce alive from five people when we're this little entity all the way up to 70,000 people as we grow.

Elise: 33:08

You said, just said something there really important that I would love to just hammer on for one second, which is, There is a sometimes a mistake we can make when we think we're gonna bring people in aNd, make a place where they can fit, where they get a freedom of choice,

André: 33:24

people.

Elise: 33:24

Right? Of course, we're self organizing, we're self-directed, we're results oriented. You use what platform that works for you set your vacation when you want and that it can feel really great as an employee, but it creates, a total lack Of interoperability. Like you get no mobility, you can't move from team to team because

André: 33:45

everything feels different.

Elise: 33:46

it's a, yes, it's the goat rodeo. It's completely mad balls with everybody coming in with all their things and you don't take that step to harmonize'em. So that's,

André: 33:53

that's,

Elise: 33:54

an incredibly important point.

André: 33:56

it's a really important point and 20 years ago when everything was done in a function, when we were moving widgets through a system, that was fine. Now all the work happens on horizontal. I remember an interview with a creative marketing director, right? So these folks love their individuality and this person told me, I'm like, tell me about your right fit experience. And she said, you know what? I never thought this was true, but I was working at ACPG company they had a standard operating procedure for everything. I first got there, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna be totally constrained. I'm not gonna be able to do the stuff I wanna do in the way I wanna do it. but she learned quickly that having a single template for a presentation

David: 34:35

Mhm.

André: 34:35

meant that she could just put her craft into that deck

Elise: 34:40

Yes.

André: 34:41

to worrying about how to create the thing. And she's

Elise: 34:43

Yes.

André: 34:44

I was doing the best work in my life because I wasn't putting my creative energy into context or figuring out how work gets done. It was purely going to the thing I was there to do. and she said it changed my whole orientation on work. And so flexibility in the things that I might want as perks or, in vacation time, in my medical benefits, in my hours even. But not flexibility in the way that we work. then it's a goat rope to your point.

Elise: 35:14

Yep. Absolutely. I can love that.

André: 35:17

Yeah.

Elise: 35:18

So as just to cycle back on things to kill, as the person seeking a job,

André: 35:26

you should stop making your first move looking at job ads or job openings, because once you do that, you're in the marketing machine, right? You're seeing new titles, you're seeing bigger pay, you're seeing better brands, and you're gonna get caught by the shiny things that won't actually allow you to be more satisfied. So the first thing is stop looking at job ads as your first step. Make your first step, those excursions. Do self-reflection. Think about what you value, what you're solving for, the kind of career you want, where you wanna live, the kind of superpowers you want to use or craft. You wanna practice, what kind of career you're building. All those questions. I think the second thing we gotta kill is, and this with respect, is our trust that the information we're hearing from a company is the truth. It's a version of the truth. It's companies aren't being malicious, they're in a war for talent. There's two jobs for every one job seeker still today. And so when you think about that, we are pulling out all the stops to try to get talent to come our way. So I would say just make sure that you're paying attention to a broader set of information. Find objective information where you can utilize your network. Look for people who have left the company, ask a deeper set of questions. And that's probably the last one is don't let your five minutes that you get to ask questions about the company. Be something like, what do you love about working there? Ask a deeper set of questions like, gimme the profile of the person that's the greatest success. Show me your calendar and what your day looks like. talk to me about how you collaborate or solve problems. Develop people. Get real specific and deep about things that matter to you so you have a little bit clearer idea. If you're doing an interview with someone who's outside your team, ask them the reputation of your team or your manager, right? So use that time really wisely as opposed to just, we often put layup questions in there. We're trying to be respectful, but that's your chance to be an investigative journalist, to get deeper into what the company's that you're joining. It's the biggest decision we make, right? we will spend 13.5 years at work our adult lives from age 18 to 64, 13 0.5, full years, every day, every hour, every second. It's second only to sleep. And yet I feel like we make these decisions with less information than we Used To buy our next dishwasher

David: 37:56

To that point, there's a lot of career advice out on the internet that is Very much, I think, focused on how do you get the shiny new thing? What are some of those superficial, what will make you sound good in an interview to play the same game that the interviewer is

André: 38:13

Yeah.

David: 38:14

People can buy the book. Where else can they find, where else can get your advice? Find these questions learn what they should be looking for and how to cut through the shiny veneer that a lot of these companies are putting out there.

André: 38:29

yeah so one of the things after writing the book I didn't wanna lose was just how smart I felt and how much I was growing. And so I start a weekly newsletter. It's called Monday Matters. It's at monday matters dot sub stack.com. And literally it's practical tips to make your week better that you can read with your first cup of coffee on Monday morning or tea or whatever your beverage of choice is. And covers everything from energy to time to the next generation coming in the workplace to gratitude. And so it's just meant to be really simple, really practical. I do some book reviews through Haiku. There's some gifts in there. It's a fun little read. It'll give you a little energy walking into Monday morning.

David: 39:13

Is that the best place to find you? Monday matters.

André: 39:16

Se second place is, I have a website. It's www.wrongfitrightfit.com that's got additional resources. It's got links to the book. It's got some videos, um, from keynotes. It's another source you can go To find if you want.

David: 39:32

That's great.

André: 39:32

That's great.

David: 39:33

Andre, thank you for helping us establish some new rules for work.

André: 39:39

I appreciate, having me on.

David: 39:49

Thank you for joining us in the lab. We appreciate our guests for contributing to the thoughtful discussions on the future of work. A quick nod to Padraic, our behind the scenes maestro, for making each episode possible. If you've enjoyed the ideas we've explored today and want to put them into action, check out our companion newsletter at labs. newrulesforwork. com for the practical activities and additional resources. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback is the catalyst for our ongoing journey into the future of work. Thank you once again for joining us. We'll see you next time in the lab.