Dave Gandy: [00:00:00] it turns out company loyalty's trivial, but you're not gonna like what it costs.

Uh, and money's the second cost, not the first. Uh, the first was you just have to care about people as a human being.

 Welcome to Podcast. Awesome. Where we chat about icon's, design, tech, business, and nerdery with members of the FA Awesome team and the broader awesome verse. I'm your host Matt Johnson, and today I'm joined by FA awesome founder Dave Gandy.

We are digging into what it really means to be a great employee and a great manager, and why the idea of lifestyle business is not an insult. How to spot good leadership and interviews and how healthy autonomy actually works in practice.

All righty, let's jump into the conversation with Dave.

 Dave, thanks for coming on again as we continue our conversation about, uh, what it means to be a, um, how you can be a better employee, how you can be a better boss, maybe some of the [00:01:00] counterintuitive insights of businesses, normal when you go in for interviews, the kinds of conversations to have, uh, how, how you can go in prepared. so one of the things that comes up in our conversations is sort of specific to, I guess, falling off some culture is sort of talk about this idea of a lifestyle company as if it's, um. A slight or a dis, you know,

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: use it like, oh, well, they're just, they're just a lifestyle, um, company.

It's sort of used as an insult. Um, what does that, I mean, what does that actually mean at fallen? Awesome. And, um, I don't know. Were there trade-offs that you chose intentionally? and is, are there things that you refuse to sacrifice even when, um, it's not accelerating the growth of the company?

Dave Gandy: Yeah, so let, let's be clear, uh, 

Lifestyle Business Myth

Dave Gandy: when people are using a lifestyle business in a, a sort of a denigrating way. It's really just a manipulation, it's an attempt to manipulate you into feeling bad because you have other bottom lines besides cash, right? So as soon as there's [00:02:00] anything that you are concerned about that you will actually trade money for, uh, that's the point at which in, by some definitions, that's the point at which you become a lifestyle business.

Uh, boy do I hope that every business on earth would become a lifestyle business. I hope that every business on earth has a set of lines they're not gonna cross, um, decides how they want to care about people and take care of them. 'cause that costs money. Um, it turns out company loyalty's trivial, but you're not gonna like what it costs.

Uh, and money's the second cost, not the first. Uh, the first was you just have to care about people as a human being. Um, but that also isn't very common. Um, so a lifestyle business is a funny term to start with, uh, because when somebody is using it as an insult, uh, which you will. If you, if you live in the, in the VC world at all, uh, this will be a, um, there's all sort of Psych 1 0 1 games, people in that world use to try to motivate people.

Um, well, lifestyle business, it seems like what you're shooting for is just a, is just kind of a way to, to kind of insult and, um, but the funny thing is, uh, I'm not sure if the people who use lifestyle business in a negative way, I'm not sure if they're aware, but every business has a lifestyle. And if you're only right, and if [00:03:00] your only bottom line is cash, that's your lifestyle.

A hundred percent workaholic. Work until you die, die, have a life that meant absolutely nothing outside of yourself. Congratulations, you just found like the lowest tier of success possible for humanity, right?

Matt: ugh.

Dave Gandy: Uh, whenever all you care about is personal success and don't think about the ramifications and the consequences of everything you do.

Yeah, we're, we're, we're gonna be in a much worse place, um, as a society if we're not thinking about all of those things. But, uh, for us, we, we take lifestyle business, uh, as a badge of honor because from the very beginning, we were never about just cash. Uh, yes. We need to make enough money to have a business that survives.

Yes, Travis and I are trying to see if we can do this and make it work. And even, you know, uh, for many years of the business, you know, grow at the speed of a, uh, you know, of a startup. Um, and, uh, and the funny thing is that's still the goal, right? But we've got, uh, we've got bottom lines in addition to money that we care about.

Um, 

Interview For Leadership

Dave Gandy: and what people, I've been thinking a lot more about, uh, when folks are looking for a job, what's the core of what you want to be looking [00:04:00] for? And I think the core of what you want to be looking for, it has to do with kind of, it has to, honestly, you're looking for a lifestyle business. You're looking for a business that considers the lifestyle of their employees to be important.

And that doesn't mean you know that you're doing the dumb perks, right? Like, and you know, it's been ages since we've had the, you know, the foosball tables and other stupid perks like that, that everyone knows are silly. It's been ages since that. Um, but they don't know what the real perks are, right? What, when, when you really genuinely care about people, what does a business look like?

 And so I'm, I'm, uh, I'm increasingly convinced that the number one thing that you wanna look for when you're looking for a new job, uh, is not even the role. It is the leadership that you're gonna be working with. It's your direct boss. It's the boss above them. And so, while a lot of people will ask questions about the job they're gonna be doing, which is very important, right?

Dave Gandy: You gotta make sure this job is a, is a fit for your skills. Um, but keep in mind, uh, the psychology of when you interview, uh, when you have more questions than they do, you flip the script on the interview, you become the interviewer. And the psychology is now, [00:05:00] oh, we need to make sure we keep this person rather than do, what do I think of this person?

You actually flip the script in a lot of ways, psychologically on them. Um. Uh, in addition to, just like, the questions are the important part, right? Like it's, it's sort of like dating in a lot of ways. Uh, if, if, if you're the kind of person that will literally date absolutely anyone, uh, most people are gonna be pretty turned off by that, right?

Right. You have no standards. You don't know what you're looking for. You, you have no lines of your own, right. You have no like, Hey, I'll take anything with two legs and is alive. Okay? Right. Like,

Matt: Yeah.

Dave Gandy: there's a, there's a, there's a signaling that happens when you, when you don't have questions, when you don't have, uh, when you don't know what you're looking for.

So what I think people should be looking for in addition to the position itself, right? So lots of good questions about that, but I think the most important thing that actually matters for how long you're gonna wanna stay somewhere is not the position, it's the leadership. Because the position itself, as you grow, as the business grows and changes, you're gonna be changing positions at any great business, there's a good chance you're gonna be changing some of your role along the way.

Either they're gonna notice that you moved up in your expertise, uh, as you have, uh, or there's gonna be new opportunities that open up and they're like, Hey, we have this, we have this need. I know this isn't what you do right [00:06:00] now. Do you wanna give it a shot? See if it works. Um, there's, that's gonna change on you, but the leadership at a good business doesn't change very much.

That's sort of one of the definitions of a good, of, of, of a good organization is that the leadership is, is very, very, um, static, uh, outside of a, of a few, you know, good. And there are sometimes good reasons for that to change, but in general, you're not gonna have a lot of turnover in that leadership when you're at a good organization.

That's signal number one. 

Managers And Autonomy

Dave Gandy: Signal number two is, um, is. How well this person is gonna let you, your manager is gonna let you do your job, right? Because they say that people, people don't leave jobs, they leave managers. Uh, and a lot of this is, uh, is around, is the work set up in a way that this allows me to execute on what you've asked me to.

Can I do the job I've been hired for? Or is there so much oversight and nanny stating that there's, there's really, it just gets to, it just grinds on you after a point. And most excellent people are gonna be fed up enough. They're gonna wanna move on to somewhere that recognizes their expertise and recognizes that they should be given freedom and just be allowed to execute the things they've been asked without a whole ton of oversight, right?

So this goes back to, you know, number thing you're looking. Another number two other thing you're looking for is, uh, that this business hires adults and then treats them that way. Um, and at the flip side, these are all ways that you [00:07:00] want that, that help you be a good manager. Number one, you're looking for adults.

You're not looking for the person for a position, right? You're not looking for a cog for a machine. You're looking at the whole scope of who this human is. You, we hire for who someone is now, but we have an eye for who they may wanna become, right? This is important, right? There are plenty of people, for whatever reason in life, they're not really interested in growing in their career right now because life is happening and that's where they're gonna put their focus, and that's totally fine.

As a matter of fact, those might be some of your most reliable, uh, people at the office, right, who are just gonna be adults and deliver reliably. They may not have the most ambition at the moment, uh, but when life circumstances change, that also changes too, a lot. Um, you know, somebody goes from, uh, being single to married, you better believe their work output is gonna change.

Right. And for their own mental health, you know, in a good way. But, you know, there's a good chance that's gonna, they're gonna put out a little bit less at work, but at the same time, they're gonna be getting wiser and they're gonna be, you know, there's a good chance their output may not actually change much, but maybe their hours change a little bit.

Same is true for having a kid. Oh my goodness. Um, having a child and having to like, you know, shift into the first time in your life into, uh, oh, please don't die mode. Right. Like, to, to actually have a [00:08:00] project so important that this thing can literally die. It's all on you. There's a level of responsibility that that's gonna take away a little while, but then they're gonna bring that back with them, to work in a whole new way with a whole new kind of level of wisdom that they should be having from that.

[00:09:00] Yeah, this makes me think of a experience I had a very unhealthy organization where, same kind of thing that you're talking about, like, you know, we had our second daughter, there was, you know, she spent time in the hospital and we were

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: and there was a lot going on. And,

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: my, my wife was home with, with my daughter, and I had to, I had to have a pretty rigid schedule to get home to, um, come in, come in and help out.

You know, I mean,

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: there, there was a lot to do at home and there was a lot going on. the way that the culture was at, uh, where I was working, it was sort of like, um. You had to do sort of a bare minimum in order to, uh, to justify your existence at work.

Dave Gandy: Mm-hmm.

Matt: where it was like, if I had to catch the bus at a certain time every day to get home,

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: like, why is everybody clearing out, you know, what's going on?

You know? And,

Dave Gandy: Right?

Matt: it was wild that like there

Dave Gandy: Yep.

Matt: that knew my [00:10:00] life situation, but there

Dave Gandy: Yep.

Matt: sort of like all this bean counting kind of

Dave Gandy: Yeah. So

Matt: And it was for me that I loved the work,

Dave Gandy: yeah.

Matt: but it was the environment that just

Dave Gandy: Yep.

Matt: so gross and it

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: tainted the whole thing, you

Sussing Out Culture

Dave Gandy: Well, and this comes from, uh, another symptom, right? Another, another problem that, uh, when you're interviewing, you're looking to suss out. Sometimes when you're interviewing at a job, you can't ask questions directly, right? So, do you guys overwork, do you, do you spend more than 40 hours a week here?

Do you work too much? Right? Like, if you have that question, they're gonna be like, oh, this person wants to not work, right? Or like, right. But there's lots of, what does an average workday look like for you, um, to be able to suss out, uh, those kinds of things. And you're like, well, kind of, well, you know, when on the days where you need to leave, you know, like.

You know, a little bit early, what is, what's the response? You know, when that happens, kind of a thing, right? You can, you can suss a lot out, um, because there are gonna be days where life happens, right? And if your boss doesn't know that life has happened to you and you don't have a relationship where you can tell your boss and be like, Hey, this is, this is a thing that I've gotta deal with at home.

I'm gonna give everything I can at work, but I, you know, I'm gonna need a little bit of time here in the same way that works. Sometimes it needs a little bit extra time from me. Well now it's gonna flip over and I'm gonna need a little bit of extra from work. Um, and any great job is gonna, is gonna allow you to do that.

So you can, you can suss that out. Um, [00:11:00] the other thing too is that's a symptom, what you just described there, where people are overly concerned about how much your butt is in your seat. Uh, that is a symptom of one thing that you do not have a technical manager that has ever done the work, because if you did, they could look at the quality of your work and tell how good it is without needing to like count how many seconds a day your butt's in your seat.

That's just ridiculous. Yeah.

Matt: right.

Dave Gandy: And that, and this is what happens when you hire the wrong managers. When you hire people who are like, mm, you, you won't work unless I force you to what, what, what planet is this? Have you been around like motivated humans? Have you been around them before? Like, well, you hired them, right?

Number one, you only hired motivated humans, right? So then you can just, like, as an organization, if you're hiring people who, um, take a little bit too much responsibility in life, those people generally have been taken advantage of in their jobs. But if you hire everybody like this, right? Then everything sort of gets double covered and there's like a whole lot and it's never too much, right?

If you let it be. Um, and so, uh, you're really looking for a manager that [00:12:00] has been technical in this position. This is really, really important. Somebody who can actually see how good your work is. If you have a manager who can't tell how good your work is that, then what game do you have to play, right? The game you have to move on to is politics.

That's the game.

Matt: Yep.

Dave Gandy: And, and as soon as,

Matt: isn't it?

Dave Gandy: yeah, yeah. Sorry. And, and

Matt: if we can get

Dave Gandy: No worries.

Matt: or to pass. It's the one drawback for working up from, from home, doing

Dave Gandy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Super true.

Matt: Okay.

Dave Gandy: My mind, my mind wandered, no, my, my mind wandered. I don't know.

Matt: That's all right. Um, just to follow up, and I may, I may sort of stitch this in at the beginning of the conversation

Dave Gandy: Yeah, yeah.

Matt: to back up a little bit. When somebody says. When they use it in a disparaging way and they say lifestyle company,

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: uh, what do you, do you think the common understanding of a lifestyle company is?

When somebody use it, uses it as a slight,

Dave Gandy: When they use it as a slight, what they mean is that, you know, Hey, you're gonna come in late to work, you're gonna leave early, you're gonna take summers off. You're gonna like this. This business exists just to perpetuate a lifestyle. Um, and there's usually the expectation that it's a particular lifestyle that involves not working very much.

Um, and, and it, and it's, it's funny in that way, um, because that's not what it really means. What it really means is that there is something you consider to be success that is not just cash. Um, and so my hope is that every business is a lifestyle business. My hope is that every business has something they consider to be more important than just cash.

Whether it is, uh. Employees that are paid well, whether it is employees that are satisfied in what they do, uh, [00:13:00] whether it is work that's interesting, whether it is work that is never too frantic, whether it's a calm workplace, all these things cost money and they all provide sanity. So if you are not a lifestyle business, there's a good chance you're not providing an acceptable level of sanity in the workplace, and there's a good chance people will know and they may not stick around as long.

And this is why one of the most important things to look for when you're looking for a job is also what's the average amount of time people stay here, right?

Matt: Right.

Dave Gandy: question to ask and how to phrase it correctly. Um, but really, really important.

Matt: Yep. I think too that there's sort of a, um, there's a diminishing returns if you just sort of do business as usual and you, you know, you have management, management that is like counting the hours in a seat and

Dave Gandy: Mm-hmm.

Matt: of this restricted, like kind of strict feeling work environment or

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: You can get good results from that for a little while. You, you, you can, um, it's not sustainable, you know? And [00:14:00] so I wonder if sometimes, like folks that are in leadership, if they're feeling spooked by thinking in these terms

Dave Gandy: Yeah,

Matt: to create a good, I know it's an overused word, a good work culture or whatever, for lack of

Dave Gandy: yeah,

Matt: of putting it. They, it's hard to really measure. Um, and so they get a little bit anxious about. Heading in that direction in terms of like

Dave Gandy: yeah.

Matt: version of lifestyle company because

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: you maybe can't exactly measure all of that. But like you said, how long does somebody stay there? And when somebody feels satisfied in

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: well wouldn't you know it?

They can get a lot done and they can be very efficient, um, without all those extra layers of pressure maybe.

Dave Gandy: Mm-hmm.

Matt: that make sense?

Dave Gandy: it absolutely does. And it's, and it's the reason why I'm convinced now that the number one thing people need to be looking for when they're looking for a job is the leadership. It's not how interesting the work is. [00:15:00] It's not even necessarily the, the pay o ob obviously pay matters, but if you're just after cash in what you're looking for, you're also not what any good company's looking for.

Any good company's looking for people that for themselves. In addition to that company, you want a company that cares about more than just money. You're looking for a teammate. Right. That cares about more than just money. Um, and there are lots of people out there. I, I would say most people are that way, right?

Most people have things in life they consider to be more important than money. As a matter of fact, one of the most important things to suss out when you're interviewing someone is a time when in their life they gave up money for something they thought was more important. Uh, and that's, that's our you again, another question you can't just ask, right?

Can you tell me a time when in your life you didn't? And if somebody's asking that question, then they don't, like, you're, you're gonna get a dumb answer, right? Like, but you have to like dig forward over time. You have to get people out of their interview game and into their, like, who they really are.

You've got get talking about life, and you've got to get to know them as a human being in a way that you can suss some of these things out. Because I think you can also suss that out in, in the same way that any [00:16:00] expert in a field can suss out in less than five minutes if they're talking to another expert.

Um, you can suss that out if you're someone who, um. Who cares deeply about the study of character and who people are and how they, how you develop the, how you develop character, you can suss out, I think, I think you can suss out character in about a, in a similar amount of time. Uh, but just like with the, you know, your, that's your hunch.

And then you wanna spare, spend the, spend your time, uh, trying to be proven wrong. Like if it was negative, try to be proven wrong. If it was positive, try to be proven right And, and to try to really, um, get a reliable understanding of who this person is and whatever amount of time you need in that interview,

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Dave Gandy: because yeah, that, that's the thing that's gonna determine whether other people stick around.

It's the management and the people they get to wake up and work next to, right? So all these things are, are, it's like this whole pair. It's, it's what do you look for in the people you're gonna be working next to? What do you look for in the management? And if you, if you come in, if you come in with a series of questions for who would be your boss?

And you've got questions that are above their head that they can't even necessarily answer. That's a good thing, right? Like, so, uh, you know, necessarily that they can't answer. But, you know, ask asking questions that are way higher up the food chain because you know that they matter. Questions like, uh, when was the last time there was a layoff here?

Right? Some hard questions. How, how did management respond? How did they choose? Uh, when was the last time, uh, there was a hiring boom, right? When was the [00:17:00] last time things were going so well? How did they handle that? Right? Did they hire too quickly? Did they hire right at an appropriate speed? What did they do?

How did they respond? And if you start asking, uh, how does, you know, how does management think about the craft of leadership? And if you get a blank stare interviews done, just stand up and walk out, right? If you, if you, if you get a blank stare interview's done, um, I, I, you know, you know, you don't, you don't necessarily have to be super rude and stand up and go, but you know what?

If you've got a busy time, busy day, just do it. It's fine. It you, it seems like whatever. Um, yeah,

Matt: Yeah.

Dave Gandy: that one, that one may, may backfire depending on, depending on a few things. But, uh. If you're really busy and you got other stuff to do, then you know, don't need to waste their time. You don't need to waste yours and you move along.

Matt: yeah. 

Retention Without Perks

Matt: so along with this, you know, we've talked a little bit about in, I don't know, the last decade plus, there's sort of this idea of, uh. You know, the perks of a forward moving company, it's kind of progressive or whatever. You've got your foosball table, you've got the Red Bull fridge, and you can, you know, they have the, uh, of snacks on hand, all that stuff.

And, and that's,

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: It's nice little perks, but, folks it turns out are looking for something a little bit deeper than that. Um, beyond those sorts of perks, how do you, create real value for a potential employee that is beyond the surface level of that kind of stuff?

Dave Gandy: yeah. The very first time I ever got promoted to manage the one thing I knocked outta the park was, um, creating a team where people. Wanted to stay where they wanted to stick around. And the way that you do that, number one, is care about your employees first as humans, and second, uh, as employees, right.

Second for the work they're gonna do for you. Um, and that's, that's the most important thing. Number one, treat people, uh, like a person. Uh, and, you know, lots of little ways to sus that out. Um, tell me the question again.

Matt: Yeah. Um, so we can restate it. So how do

Dave Gandy: Yeah,

Matt: do you design a company where people wanna stay without bribing them with sort of surf surface level

Dave Gandy: yeah, yeah. The, the first way [00:18:00] is, uh, and this goes back to, um, loyalty, right? People who wanna stick around at a job. Uh, this first and foremost is before there's anything else that happens. You, as a manager have to care about your employees as humans first and employees second, right? Even to describe them as your employees.

They're not, they're employees of the company you happen to be at. They're not your employees, The first, uh, time I ever got promoted to manage this was the one thing I intuitively understood from the very beginning.

Um, so we would even, especially for like little side projects, when we had to do a little little side project where there is more freedom in how we execute it, I would let the team decide, is there a new, new tool you're wanting to use, right? Is there a new thing that you're, how do you wanna grow in your career, right?

Like, if your manager does not know how you're looking to grow. And then help provide a path for that. You're looking for a manager that's gonna be able to do that for you. Who's gonna know that? Who's looking for the opportunities for you to grow? Right? In the same way that if they provide the opportunity that you're an employee that's looking for a way to take those opportunities, because there's a lot of opportunities in life that show up, then it'll stick around for long and then they're gone.

Um, and it's [00:19:00] really important to grab those whenever you see them, just in the same way that as a manager, it's really important to see them coming and to provide them to folks who want them. I'd say that's, that's number one. Um, and that is something so, so number one, care about us humans first. Number two, um, think about how they're gonna, how they're gonna want to be doing the work and how they're gonna wanna grow in their career.

And try to find out where you can make those things meet, um, and. Uh, create an environment where the work is never too much, right? If everything's an emergency, nothing is. That's just the normal work culture, right? You can't every time. Well, guys, we got a special push, and every, every time it's, well, we gotta push, then it's always the same thing, right?

And so you're looking, you want to, you wanna provide, uh, a calm work culture. 37 Signals is great about this, right? Um, they're great about, they've got a great book on this. What does a calm workplace look like? How do you create it? Um, you, you wanna know what you're looking for. Read, read that book, right?

Like, that's, that's, that's one of the main things you're looking for. Um, and then here's the other one. All of those you, you do all the time as a manager, you should be doing all of those all of the time, constantly. And then here's the big one. In the same way that when you've got a deadline coming up and you need employees to.

Right calendar doesn't [00:20:00] move. Reality's happening. And you've gotta get something done and you've gotta say, Hey guys, we need to put a little, a little bit of extra effort on this. And it really shouldn't happen more than a couple times a year at most, at a job. Um, but when, when they do that right, to be there for your job and to, and to, and to be the reliable person that can be dependent on, um, and that, again, that shouldn't happen very often.

And then there's the flip side of this. The flip side of this is for every employee at some point in life, if, if you're, if you're a job good enough to stick around for, then this will happen for every employee at some point. And that is where life will happen to them. Life will happen to them in a new and a special way.

Uh, they get sick, a family member gets sick, somebody's gonna have a baby, there's the good and the bad, but life happens, they've gotta take care of a family member because X is happening and. Right there. There's, there's stuff that goes down all the time, right?

That this happens. There's a new situation in life that is an enormous thing to cope with and deal with. And right now you need your work to flex for you, And that's what you're looking for. So as a manager, you've gotta watch out for these [00:21:00] situations because the correct answer is always yes, take the time.

You need to sort this out, and we will figure it out on our end, and the same way when you're on a team and it happens to a teammate, you step up too. You step up, you help out, right? Like, because, um, while I wouldn't, uh, while I would never call, you know, font awesome. A family, because I think that's, there's usually a con job going on when somebody tries to call work a family.

They're trying to take too much from you. Um, but you, you, you want a, a group of people that you want to be around, right? Like you want, you want, you want some buddies that you enjoy showing up to work with, that you know that when someone goes down, uh, they're gonna be there for you. Um, you know, the, the old adage is, uh, is, um, you know, uh, friends help you move.

Real friends help you move bodies. Um, the reality though is that's backwards. You know, normal friends, they'll help you move bodies. Only real friends help you move. Nobody wants to do that stuff, right? Nobody wants to deal with that stuff, right? When it comes down to it, that's really, really rare. And so be the kind of manager, be the kind of, uh, teammate and be the kind of employee that like, is there to, when those real life situation comes up, that's way more important than whatever work needs truthfully, right?

That's way more important. You want, somebody's gonna stick around for a while. You do that [00:22:00] once, find out what happens, Be loyal to them, right? Loyalty, loyalty's a funny thing because it's trivial to get, but most people don't wanna do what's required and it costs something. Loyalty always costs you something to have employees that are loyal to you.

It costs you something, whether it's a little bit of extra pay, right? Where whether you pay a little bit better, uh, and maybe you can't, right? For whatever reasons, your job, right? Like the business model, all of it, like you just can't pay more, right? Then you do it in other ways. You do it at number one, the, the free way to improve retention at work is care about the employees on your team, like humans first, Genuinely care about them like they're humans first. Second, it's, you know, it was the job, but like, how are you doing? Right? Like, know who they are, know who, like, know what's going on. And at some point it's, it's hard to do that with a lot of people, but you've, you know, with the, the five, you know, closest people that are around you, that's, that's, that's really, really important.

Uh, and then other places that you know that are gonna cost you right, are when real life happens. Uh, when, um, somebody, you got a new side project that's kind of fun and exciting and you ask the team, okay, you know, this is a little greenfield. What do you guys wanna do? What do you, you guys wanna get a new platform?

You've been thinking, is there, is there a new language you wanna play around with? Hey, you wanna try some vibe coding for this? Like, what do you, what do you. How do you wanna do [00:23:00] it? Right? You got, you get, we got some room to play here to play and dream a little bit more than usual here. What do you wanna do?

Um, and providing those opportunities for growth, those opportunities for the opposite Right. To just like sit for a little bit. 'cause life's happening to you. The opportunity to uh, to, yeah. To just be a normal human being that's treated like a normal human being. You want loyalty. It's really not trivial.

You gotta act like a human first.

Matt: Yeah. Yep. Uh, I, what comes to mind is, um. When folks are like overeager to sort of prove themselves, or there's sort of a, I think what comes to mind is kind of

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: attitude of, hang on a second, while I think of the word. It's, um, why am I blanking on c What's the word When you,

Dave Gandy: Oh yeah. Um,

Matt: when you're,

Dave Gandy: is it when, when you think,

Matt: when

Dave Gandy: yeah, go ahead.

Matt: it, trying to like, um, give somebody a

Dave Gandy: Imposter syndrome. Oh, no. Oh, um,

Matt: it's when you're, uh, it's like surface level. Um, compliments why, why am I,

Dave Gandy: brown nosing.

Matt: sort of, uh, oh, why am I drawing a blank on this word?

Dave Gandy: Ask Google. Ask chat. Flattery. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matt: And, and

Dave Gandy: Yep. You're good.

Matt: when it comes to finding really solid talent for a role, I, I notice that, and I've been, again, going back to my like, firsthand experience. Um, and this is

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: pat myself on the back or whatever, but I came into a role once where the manager who hired me, introduced me to the team, you know, in the first couple weeks. Something along the lines of like a rock star such and such. And even at, even at the moment, um, before you and I have had conversations like this.

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: and, and we will get to like the rockstar ninja unicorn. You know,

Dave Gandy: Right.

Matt: terms or whatever.

Dave Gandy: [00:24:00] Yeah.

Matt: there was a, there was a form of flattery to that, that felt gross to me, to where I

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: I think I knew right away.

And it turned out I was only at the

Dave Gandy: I,

Matt: a year. It

Dave Gandy: yeah.

Matt: it just wasn't, uh, the

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: or whatever, and I

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: But, I think that was an early sign to where I was like, I don't know if this is gonna be the right fit. Not because I, I couldn't deliver on what it is that they needed, but it was, there was something

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: using that kind of, um, flattery in the company to where something felt misaligned.

So, and, and so that's sort of from my perspective. So when you,

Dave Gandy: Yeah,

Matt: about this idea, when you hear people using terms that sort of like flattery, like, oh, so and so's the rockstar Ninja, such and such unicorn. We're not.

Dave Gandy: yeah.

Matt: uh, really highly talented people is great to have those kinds of folks in your company, it's maybe also a sign that there's something that's like a little bit off in the culture of the [00:25:00] company and what, what

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: do you see with those when people are using those terms or whatever that is

Dave Gandy: Yeah,

Matt: an indication there's something a little toxic in the culture of the company.

Dave Gandy: absolutely. I mean, I,

Matt: I don't know what the comp, the question is there. It was sort of

Dave Gandy: yeah,

Matt: up, but I

Dave Gandy: I, I, I would say it's, it's honestly, when we interview, it's probably one of the things we look for is people who use empty words. Um, people who are using words to try to get a result rather than just being genuine with what they think. Right? When somebody's trying to use words as a form of control or a form of trying to get something out of someone.

Um, and that's different from, right, like if you're a manager and your day's been busy introducing a new employee, and you use that word as a rockstar in Ninja, just because your brain doesn't have a lot of room in it, fine. Right? Like, uh, o okay. Right. But like, uh, generally we want to be as, as, as managers, we want to be as engaged.

With people as we possibly can be, and we want to use words for what they mean. We want to talk like a human. Um, 

Flattery as a Red Flag

Dave Gandy: I'm never going to talk about another human as a rock [00:26:00] star. Um, because honestly, if there were literally a rock star sitting next to me, I'm not gonna call 'em that, right? And I mean that literally, like someone who's a musician and is literally like an actual rock star, right?

Like you say you got Bono sitting next to you, you're not gonna call him a rock star. Um, you're gonna talk about other things, but it's, it's, it's also sort of an excuse to, uh, disengage in a way and to try to manipulate. Um, so flattery is absolutely sort of a negative signal, uh, when someone is trying to say something to get a result.

That's a form of manipulation. And that's, um, that's, that's negative signal, right? Again, when you're interviewing both, 

Bad Interviewer Psychology

Dave Gandy: when you're interviewing for a job and when you're interviewing someone for a job, you're looking for positive and negative signals the entire time. Bad interviewers. When they find a a bad thing, they're like, gotcha.

We don't want you. Right? Because they're looking to feel certainty about their decision. They're looking to feel, right? That's not a person who's comfortable with realities and complexities of life that you might be right, you might be wrong. Make your best guess and move forward with confidence, right?

It's actually a person who doesn't have confidence that needs an absolute answer. Um, so the, the correct response to this is when you hear an answer you don't like, is to note it, right? Pay attention to it, but [00:27:00] then give them a chance to work their way out of it, Sometimes somebody just, you know, misses something and doesn't even think about how like, oh, this actually could mean this, this, this, and this.

Um, 

Inductive vs Deductive Reads

Dave Gandy: another really a really big thing to be, um, aware of that as nerds, we are trained in this very much scientific method sort of mode of thinking that you get all of these facts. And you distill them down and all of these many facts mean this one thing. Aha, now I have my answer, I can move. Um, and that works in anything in the scientific realm.

Looking for a job is not the scientific realm, right? Looking for a job is a whole lot more going on. You're looking for how do you wanna spend your time? You're looking for, you know, you've only got one life, where do you wanna spend it? You're looking for meaning, uh, not in the capital M but in like, you know, some, some, some real way.

Who you work with, how you work, what you do. There's meaning in this, right? Like the actual, like coding, there's, there's no actual meaning in the coding, right? Like, that's, that's the funny thing. We tend all of our time thinking about like the job, the doing and the meaning part is sometimes we, we, we lack a little bit in.

And so we're very [00:28:00] used to this, um, uh, this mode of thinking, lots of facts down to one thing, right? We're looking, we're, we're very, very used to deductive reasoning and almost to the point of like not even realizing that there's something else out there. And the inverse of this is inductive reasoning.

Where you find one single fact that actually means a thousand different things, right? Because this fact can only be true when these thousand things are actually present. This is what you're looking for, right? As an interviewer, interviewing for a job, as an interviewer, interviewing someone for a job, you are constantly in inductive reasoning mode, searching for the little things that actually mean a thousand others.

And it doesn't mean that you think it blanketly, it's a good piece of information. You're gonna look to re reaffirm it, right? To confirm whether this is correct or not, and that's why you have a longer interview. But most of the time, that's that initial read from that initial, um, inductive reasoning is really, really true, right?

Those one fact that you find out means these 12 things, this is a fantastic workplace. This place is toxic, right? That one thing you said when he described you as a rockstar, you're like, this probably means way more than he chose a bad [00:29:00] word, right?

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Dave Gandy: way more than he think, or he means way more than that.

And not just, not just in terms of facts, but in terms of meaning. The meaning of where you're putting your time, the meaning of that one piece of information. Um, 

The Photo Wall Story

Dave Gandy: I was working a job same place that I got promoted to manage the first time ever. And I had gotten really into photography during that decade.

Carried an SLR around my neck everywhere I went. Took an average of a hundred photos a day for a decade. And I found that putting my work around myself really helped with the creative process of everything I did, including my work. And so I asked if I could put a couple of my photos up on the wall thinking like, obviously this is not a big deal.

And I was told, no, those are company specific colors and we're not allowed to cover them up. And we're like, and I, and I got like the nanny state answer. Right. When, when reality, they're like, I don't know your photo's any good, we're gonna have to, we're gonna impose those on everybody else around you.

That's the real answer. Right. Like, but they wouldn't, they gave me the, the nanny state kind of answer the, the, you know, sort of the, the chicken answer. [00:30:00] Like, uh, when we don't really want to talk to somebody like you, Humana. Just be honest. Uh, and that was, I, I, I, I, I, I, I considered quitting on that day, not because of that thing, be because of what it meant.

And absolutely confirmed in that job. Absolutely confirmed that that was correct in that job. That was a correct assessment of how generally shortsighted, uh, that organization was gonna be to work with and how, you know, just not good for me. Right. Great. You sold for a billion dollars. Great. Was it a good place to work?

Matt: Yeah. If you, so to back that up a little bit, like you're talking about sort of surface level communication and what is,

Dave Gandy: Mm-hmm.

Matt: uh, literally being said, but then sort of the meaning behind that and how you, like, how did you suss that out? Was that more like, oh, they're being just like petty about something? What, what was it that, what was

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: you heard from that?

Dave Gandy: Yeah. I mean, I wanted to put some pictures up on a wall,

Matt: Yeah.

Dave Gandy: right? And as a matter of fact, I now in, in my career, I know that no, I'm just gonna do it. I'm not gonna ask permission. 'cause that gives dummies a chance to write, it gives a sad little king of a sad little hill, a chance to be on top of the hill and to everybody else and shove everybody else down.

Right? Um, just don't do it. Just [00:31:00] do it first and then ask for, you know, ask for forgiveness later. And then if somebody has a real problem with it, um, yeah, fine.

Matt: Yep.

Dave Gandy: Um, but I, I think it's, uh, you know, for instance that the, the, the, what it meant that they're not gonna, let me put up, let's think about this, right?

Like, what does it actually mean that they, they don't want me to put photos up. Is that a, like a real actual problem to me on a daily basis? No, I got a cubicle. I can still just, you know, put 'em right there in the cubicle, whatever. It's fine. Um. Yeah, but what it means is there's a level of control of ideas that might be ones they don't like.

And it turns out the entire organization mimicked this response to ideas my deal, what, what, what I'm, what I'm good at, um, is, uh, wonder and invention. Those are my, uh, two types of working genius. And it's not even close. The other ones aren't even close. Um, and if I don't have a chance to wonder and invent, um, I'm, I'm just not gonna be satisfied at my job.

I know it other about me. Can I be a, is this a place where I can be that or not? And the answer was thoroughly, no. This is not a place you can do that. Um, and then, uh, my experience with management later was, uh, that we, we uh, we sort of had this funny, impossible problem. We had what management wanted, wanted us to do, but we thought that we could get more out of it.

We thought we could actually answer another question that they'd been trying to find out for a very [00:32:00] long time. And we thought. That these two goals were opposites and there was no way to solve it. And then one night I wake up in the middle of the night, flip the problem, literally backwards, solve them both at the same time.

No risk to the primary thing management wanted us to do. And we were likely to get a solution to something that had been wondering for a long time. And it was actually pretty important too. Um, so excited. Like biggest win I feel like I'd ever done at this company. Brought it in, brought it to my manager.

He was like, nah, nah. Is there a reason? Nah, just don't do it.

Uh, why? Just don't do it. Okay. Right. And so, so the, and this is where that, you know, the, the inductive reasoning comes in a lot of times is it, it turns out little things, uh, on their own don't mean too much. And it, and it's important to, um, to be levelheaded and not overly responsive. Um, which is the reason why when somebody gives a really, really horrible answer, it almost certainly means this interview is over.

Be polite, stick around and smile, uh, and, you know, continue to look for your confirmation. You get three or four of those, you're like, okay, I really, really know this [00:33:00] now. Um, yeah, that's probably, I, I feel like this is the greatest tool in an interview when you're normally looking, when you're normally using a different mode of reasoning, you're really looking for like the intuitive side of your brain to be on the inductive reasoning side rather than the deductive reasoning side.

Matt: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And to bring it sort of full circle from the first. Uh, the first part of this conversation, somebody using terms, rockstar, ninja unicorn or whatever, whatever. That doesn't necessarily mean anything. Like you said, it could just be somebody being lazy or like, it's the first thing that kind of comes to

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: and everybody kind of knows what that means,

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: but there is a deeper meaning.

There can be a deeper meaning behind that. If you're

Dave Gandy: Right,

Matt: and you're

Dave Gandy: right,

Matt: sort of intuition, like,

Dave Gandy: right.

Matt: they use this term, it's kind of like whatever. It's a cliche. big deal.

Rockstar Culture Warning

Dave Gandy: Well, and let's,

Matt: that sometimes, but what does it, what do they mean by that?

Dave Gandy: well, let's be clear here. It's almost certainly a sign of bad leadership, and here's why. If there is someone that you treat like [00:34:00] a rock star, you've got some experience with this, Matt. How do real rock stars behave when they are treated like rock stars?

Matt: They throw hotel room mattresses down, uh, into the pool

Dave Gandy: Right? I, I probably, probably one of the more tame things that they get up to as well. Right? So when you're at a company and basically when you call somebody a rock star, what you're signaling here is this person is more important than all the rest of you. And no matter what they do, uh, I'm not gonna care.

I'm not gonna provide any accountability. No matter how bad they behave, no matter how big a mess is they, they make because this is a rockstar. I called them a rockstar. In order for me to be right about myself and have been a hundred percent right about my assessment, because I'm not comfortable with recognizing, hey, I might be right, I might be wrong.

Maybe I should make decisions accordingly. I am instead going to brand this person a rockstar and let them do whatever they want from now on to the company, however they want to do it, and you all are gonna suck it up and deal with it and live with it. Good. Right? We're all good here. Right? Right. That's what that word actually means, right?

That's I. It can mean if somebody's just, you know, it means one of two things, right? It's either that which is, which is, you know, [00:35:00] run screaming from the room, uh,

Matt: Yeah.

Dave Gandy: it's, you've got somebody who's slightly thoughtless about words. May not be that big of a problem, honestly, like right now, watch throughout the right, throughout the interview process, hopefully it's gonna last a while.

You get a chance to be around with them and stick with them and be around them in non-interview situations. You want to make sure you're out at lunch. You wanna make sure you're in social situations if you can in interview. Um, keep in mind when you're interviewing, you should be interviewing more than they are, right?

You know, what you're looking for so well that you can find these things, right? Um, and again, the funny result of this is it tends to flip the psychology of the interview on its head where they immediately are trying to convince you to come to them. Um, and you don't do it to manipulate to do that. But that's a really funny result that often happens when somebody's like, oh, this is a person that has standards and options, and we would be lucky to have them.

Oh, we, we gotta turn it on. We gotta like, we, we've gotta move it. Okay. So what other questions do you have instead of, I've got questions for you. Okay. What others do you have? Because I'm gonna try to answer them, right. I'm gonna try to give you the best impression that we can of what we've got here, so that hopefully [00:36:00] maybe you'll come here.

Matt: Yeah.

Interview Like Dating

Dave Gandy: it's like dating and if you're a nerd and you suck at dating. Yeah. I always sucked at dating. I, I, I was great at interviewing and I sucked at dating. Oh yeah, that's 'cause I, I cared overly much about, I, I just cared too much about dating somebody more than I, you know, cared about a job. The job seemed fun and I treated the job.

Like, dude, I get to meet some people today. I get to find out what they do and just like, connect with humans. Awesome. Let's do this, right? Like, if you wanna nail an interview, forget the interview part. Connect with a human being across from you. The table, number one, again, it's, it's like the manager thing, right?

Like, if you, if you wanna be a great manager, care about your employees more than the work. If you wanna nail an interview first, care about the person sitting across the table. That's not you. Right? Care about them. Ask them questions about them, um, you know, in a, whatever an appropriate way for a, for an interview.

Um, but yeah, like, find, have fun with it, right? Like, have fun, uh, meet people, connect with them as humans first because there's a kind of person across from you that if they can't connect as a human. That's another really bad [00:37:00] sign, right? If you're trying really hard, uh, and there are people who, like, I, I've, I I, I've had an interview at FAU before, um, that I called the person.

I said, we're we doing this interview? Right? Somebody had gotten into interview mode and they were in interview mode, and they would only answer in interview mode, which is disingenuine right? Answer. Kind of like responses to things like, what would you say your, your greatest weaknesses is? Well, my greatest weakness is that I work too hard.

Right? That's the right answer to a dumb question.

Matt: a, I'm a perfectionist. I don't

Dave Gandy: I'm a perfectionist. I'm, and actually the funny thing is, if somebody answers, I'm a perfectionist. That's probably job there. That's probably game that we're, we're probably done with the interview. When you say that, because I know you don't get anything done if you're serious, but if you're not serious, you're looking for the right answer.

We'll keep at this, but like, if you're serious about that, we got a real problem. And I don't need any perfectionist at the company. I need people who ship. Right. That's what we need, you know? Um, and. Yeah. Interviewing can be fun, right? Get into your head that this is fun because you get to meet and connect with other humans first.

You get that in your head. You can change your own psychology sometimes with that.

Matt: Yep.

Botching When You Want It

Dave Gandy: only interview I ever botched was, well, they, they [00:38:00] actually botched it. It was a really bad, uh, CEO, but I wanted it too much too, so I couldn't be my best self because I wanted it too much. And that's hard.

Matt: Right?

Dave Gandy: that, that's a thing that you've gotta figure out for yourself.

How to get your yourself in a better place to interview. Show your best.

Matt: Yep. Uh, we are a, over time. I just want to just sort of put a, do you want to keep going? Do you wanna, um, do

Dave Gandy: got about

Matt: trucking?

Dave Gandy: more minutes. We could do a couple more questions. I've got, I've got probably 20 more minutes.

Matt: Okay, cool. Um. Let's see here. Um, okay, I, I'd like to ask this sort of word for word 'cause I think the, the details kinda matter.

Dave Gandy: Okay.

Matt: Um, 

Management Is a Craft

Matt: why is managing people a skill and not just a promotion and how do you train it in a small company?

Dave Gandy: Hmm. It's, I mean, it's the same as the way that you do at a large company because teams are always, ideally, you know, no longer, no larger than eight people typically. Um. This was the question I had when I got promoted to manage the team I was on. I said, Hey, how do I learn how to do this management thing?

And my boss's answer was, I don't know. You just do it. Right? More, more signs,

Matt: stuff

Dave Gandy: more, more signs that this person has no idea what they're doing at all, like, right? Um, and the answer I will tell you is, um, I think a great place to start. Uh, number one, [00:39:00] it's a craft in the same way coding is, it's an absolute craft.

In the same way that coding is, there will be challenges that are the nature of the job, right? The nature of being in charge of something means that it's, everything is your fault. No matter what happens, it's all your fault. Um, when you're a good manager, you pass along the positives and you take responsibility for the negatives.

You pass down the accolades and you. Uh, take responsibility at the top, number one. That's, that's very, very hard to do. Um, but the biggest way that you treat this like a craft and you learn it like a craft, is to recognize first and foremost, other people have done this before and they've gotten good at it.

So in, in true engineering form, you never try to solve a problem on your own first. You always go and find out how other people are solving a problem first already. 

Books and Frameworks

Dave Gandy: And this is what books are great at. Uh, my favorite, my favorite resource for this is unquestionably, uh, Patrick Lencioni. Patrick Lencioni has a whole series of books [00:40:00] on what a healthy organization looks like, and this is the way that you get a place you want to stay.

Right? The reason why no one has ever, uh, left F awesome is because. We have purposely considered this really important, right, to be a place where people can do their best work. Where we set up an environment where people cannot just survive but thrive. Um, this is a craft, right? How, how do people work, right?

How does Maslow's Hierarchy of seven needs work? How do, how do other theories of human flourishing work, right? Because reality is almost certainly some mix of a lot of these things. It's no one is gonna be perfect, so you really want to go and find as much as you can about there. Um, but Patrick Lencioni has some great frameworks, uh, around number one, uh, to find out what's right with people.

Uh, and I'm, I'm a big fan of the, um, the StrengthsFinder from the Gallup organization, but I think, and I use that for about 20 years, but I think, um, that now the, um, the six type of working genius from the book written by Patrick Lencioni, the assessment from his organization, the Table Group, I think the six types of working genius is absolutely the way.

Number one, you wanna figure out what's my job as a manager? [00:41:00] Well, sure. I got, I gotta get the work done right, and I've gotta manage up and I've gotta manage down. I've gotta deliver the work I'm asked, ideally, better than expected, faster than expected, you know? Right. All those things. And then I've gotta deliver down.

I've gotta be a place where people want to be. I've gotta be a place where I get the best out of the people that I already have. Um, and so, uh, uh, so six types of working genius to find out how great those people are, what makes them different to maximize who they can become. Right. Um, uh, death by meeting another good book.

Um, uh, basically the entire catalog. Start there. there are, right? There's, there's lots of them. There's, you know, there's learning about jobs to be done as a like, well, great, we got the work done. What's the right work for us to be working on?

Uh, there's uh, there's just this endless craft of really good books, but I think that Patrick Lynch's are especially. 

Organizational Health Signals

Dave Gandy: Excellent for, um, organizational health, um, because it turns out why, why does organizational health matters? It turns out when people on a team trust each other, they can be comfortable having, um, healthy conflict, right?

When [00:42:00] somebody on your team knows exactly what the problem is. But because of politics, they're not speaking up. They know they're not gonna get anything out of it. They know the situation's not gonna get better, better. Nobody's gonna listen. That, that's what happens when you have, uh, when you're, when you're organizationally unhealthy, when it's healthy, you've got a great deal of conflict in meetings and it's all healthy.

Nobody's ever taken it personally. They recognize it's the problem that we're all trying to solve here, and we're all on the same team. We're all aligned in what we're moving towards, right? Uh, you're in an interview. Uh, so what's, what is the one thing your team is working on right now? If they don't know it instantly, that's a bad sign, What are your, um, you know, what does your organization stand for? What makes it. Right. That's, that's the way I would answer it. Right? It's, you know, mission, vision, values kind of a thing like, um, Like, well, for Phau it's to be a place where people are, where our employees are fulfilled in life and work, 

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Dave Gandy: what we consider the most important for our organization. It's why we started it. We wanted to work with the best human beings we've ever known, uh, and we wanted to see, yeah, but can we run a business that way? Can we run a business in a way that doesn't just value money, but values people as well?

Um, so all of those books from Patrick Lencioni there's, there's a whole laundry list of them. Um, those are, [00:43:00] every single one of them is excellent. Um, uh, the advantage, um, the Motive And so what's really cool about the way he writes most of the time, he writes in these parables. So every book is actually like a story.

It's like a fictional story that just really shows the reality of why these things are important, how you solve them, and how this stuff works. Um, death by Meaning I think is one of his only ones that's really just kind of like a straight business book, but it's only because there's so much great.

Concrete content to work through, right? How many business books do you read and you're like, okay, that was like a sentence idea that somebody turned into a book, right? Um, his stuff is much more substantive and, uh, and also pretty compact. You're not gonna spend a ton of time on it, but you're gonna get it all pretty quick.

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Dave Gandy: so Patrick Ly is who I would say to start with. Um, and then ask other managers that you respect, how did you get good at this, right? Was it just innate and born in you? And the answer is, most people probably not. Uh, right? Like, you gotta, you gotta screw some things up before you get a lot of things right.

Um, but treat it like a craft. The same way that if you treat coding like a craft, you're gonna go out, you're gonna go grab books, you're gonna try things, you're gonna talk to others, you're gonna find out what works for them. Same exact thing. Treat it like a craft. It is not something, uh, that you, uh, are gonna be great at the second you do it.

The same with coding. You kind of can't be [00:44:00] right.

Matt: Mm-hmm. Yep. Pardon me? Still getting rid of this flu, cough. one more question we can be done for this session. Hmm. So a, uh, a, a big value at Fawn. Awesome. And sort of building trust with one another in the workplace would be autonomy. Autonomy and

Dave Gandy: Mm-hmm.

Matt: And, um, which totally goes against the sort of standard micromanaging practices or,

Dave Gandy: Mm-hmm.

Matt: What do you think autonomy looks like in a healthy way in practice?

Dave Gandy: Yeah. 

Autonomy With Shape Up

Dave Gandy: So in a healthy way. So one of the reasons we like, uh, the Shape Up methodology pioneered at 37 Signals and from Ryan Singer is really because we think it's the right balance of. The reason you have a job is because your workplace has work that needs to be done, and you're there to do it, right?

It's not so that you can go and have a play place and do whatever you feel like, right? Like there's work that has to be done. But the cool thing is when you, again, this gets back to that, that satisfaction piece, right? When your manager is trying to solve problems that have to be solved and have been laid out for the team, and this is the job of the team, but they're trying to solve them [00:45:00] in a way that is interesting to you, that is gonna help you grow in your career.

Like all of these kinds of things that is gonna result in better outcomes, right? Because sometimes the way, that's the most interesting way to solve the problem results in the worst outcome for the job, right? Um, but, um, this is what's so great about Shape Up is that it allows you, uh. Freedom and autonomy.

You spec out exactly what has to be here for successful delivery. And then you let somebody deal with as much of the freedom within that box as you possibly can. Um, and that's what's so fun about this. That's what's so fun about it, is if you find, oh, actually guys, look at this. I think if I flip this problem backwards, we can get done this done in a quarter of the time, Or all you do that at work, guess what's gonna happen? You'd think they're gonna be like, oh, well let's, well, what else are we gonna do for the next week and a half? No. A good place is gonna be like, oh, sweet. Let's get it done. Let's move on to the next one. Nice work. Right? As a matter of fact, maybe we'll even call out how quickly you're able to get this done to everybody else because wow, what a great job you figured out the work you didn't need to do.

Because the best engineering in the world, a junior engineer, they're gonna take a certain amount of time to solve a problem, right? A senior engineer is gonna take, you know, half the time or maybe even a third of the time to solve that same problem, [00:46:00] and it's probably gonna be better done. But the architect, right?

The, the principal level, um. Isn't gonna spend no time because they recognize this wasn't a problem we ever needed to solve. Nope. Turns out we don't need to do it. Here's why. Oh, okay. Even better. And so we're always looking for ways to delete code. We're looking for ways to remove things that's the most satisfying.

Right. I've the Lego League team, I've been coaching too. Like I, I point out every time we like remove pieces off the robot, this is when we get to be most excited when we get to take a piece, countdown for an attachment or we get to, you know, like whenever we get to make things simpler, this is when we get, uh, most excited as a team and.

Shape Up puts the freedom of executing with excellence in the hands of the employee. So really this is, this is what it also is for management is number one, it provides a flexible way to make sure that people execute the work. Because with Shape Up, you lay out the core of what needs to be done. You don't, you don't like over spec this thing too much, right?

Because you, you wanna, you wanna depend on the, the good engineer in there to determine which problems never needed to actually be solved anyway. But if you were in your preliminary understanding, had this whole thing specked out and they're just supposed to go [00:47:00] blindly build it, that's dumb. That's gonna result in a worse product.

But you hire the people who know the thing, you know their level and what they're gonna be able to recommend and how likely you are to gonna be able to trust it to be able to move ahead and do the work. And, you know, people build a track record for this stuff. And, um, at a work, at a workplace where you are allowed to execute with excellence, it's crazy how rare that actually is.

Right. To let you do the best job you possibly actually can, um, is a rare thing. Um, I think that's, that's another thing you're looking for, right? What does excellence look like? What does, what does the, you know, what does a work rhythm of this company look like? Um, how do you guys assign and prioritize work?

Um, for as much of the mechanics as the secret piece, it teaches you about how good is their answer, how deep does their answer go on the philosophy of why they've chosen this? When you ask that question, you ask for the mechanical ways they do it. Great. Now ask the why's and the better answers you get, the more likely you've got great leadership sitting in front of you.

Matt: Well, thanks Dave for coming on again. Yep.

these conversations, talking about, um, how to grow as an employee, [00:48:00] find a good workplace, being a good leader. Uh, it's all great stuff and we will have more, uh, coming into folks' ears soon. So thanks again.

Dave Gandy: Thanks Matt.

Matt: Mm-hmm. Great. Excuse me. All right, well, thanks Dave. I think, um,

Dave Gandy: I, I, I've, I, the more I've been thinking about this in the last few weeks, I think the center of this entire book is great leadership. Actually.

Matt: Mm,

Dave Gandy: That's what you're looking for. That's what you're looking for, and that's what you're looking to be. You wanna attract the right people, be a great leader. You wanna find the right job.

Look for great leadership.

Matt: Yep. Yep. That's good stuff.

Closing Thoughts

thanks again, Dave, for coming on the podcast. This one's a masterclass in the stuff people wish they learned before taking their first job or their first management role. If this episode helped you, you can share it with a team. If this episode helped you, you could share it with a teammate or a colleague, somebody who's interviewing.

Just copy the URL and send it to 'em right now. And if you want, and if you want more of this series, we'll be back with the next conversation soon. Thanks for listening to podcast. Awesome. And you know what to do next? Go make something awesome.

Matt: Cool. Right on man.

Well, um, hopefully I'll keep getting my gear more and more dialed here. It's

Dave Gandy: Yeah, it's great.

Matt: um, there's always like one more bit that like, makes it just a little bit better. Like,

Dave Gandy: Mm-hmm.

Matt: a little bit of lighting here, a little bit of

Dave Gandy: Uhhuh.

Matt: of that. So.

Dave Gandy: Yeah. No, it's super fun. It takes a little while and this is why, like the hardest thing, like when we were trying to do this, one of the hardest things is the setup of a space. And so trying to get as like, get it as lo get it as like simple as possible for the setup you need so that there are fewer variables to screw up, means that you're more likely to be able to dial him in over a phone call to Jared

Matt: Yep, yep. Exactly.

Dave Gandy: go okay with him.

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. No, he's great. He's great.

Dave Gandy: Great.

Matt: there's limitations to like, doing it on a screen, but we got

Dave Gandy: Yep.

Matt: we needed to get

Dave Gandy: That's great. And you've got like a really small space too, right?

Matt: yeah.

Dave Gandy: Yeah. Yeah.

Matt: I have still haven't decided, I, I really should take some time to, actually, this might be a good time to, the, the launch of, um, build.

Awesome. It might be a good time to experiment in my buddy's studio 'cause he's given me sort of a,

Dave Gandy: Oh, sweet.

Matt: offer.

Dave Gandy: Oh.

Matt: And it's, it's an but pretty open space and I think aesthetically it's, it's pretty, it, you know, the background will be decent and stuff, so

Dave Gandy: Yeah.

Matt: with that so it can be a little bit more plug and play.

'cause as it is now, this is in my bedroom, I'm, I have to move stuff around all time and it's a pain. So,

Dave Gandy: Got it.

Matt: but, but we'll see.

Dave Gandy: Cool, man. Looking better.

Matt: right on. So, uh, every other week, is that a decent cadence for you?

Dave Gandy: Yeah, it should be. Um, and let's, let's try to, any, any ones that I have to miss, let's try to just bounce it to the next week so that we can keep to, so that we can keep to a month.

Matt: Yep. That, that sounds good.

Dave Gandy: Cool. Cool.

Matt: Thanks Dave. Um, I'm

Dave Gandy: Yep. Thanks dude. Do I need to stick around or anything? Let's see. Peep.

Matt: not.