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advertising May twenty twenty three. Hello!

1:16

Everybody walk him a radical can Our

1:18

podcast I becomes got. Punches

1:21

off. And I'm Amy Sandler.

1:23

You know, most of us have

1:25

encountered a person at work who

1:27

always has a lot to say

1:29

about those very important projects they're

1:32

working on and how amazing they're

1:34

gonna be. This person is what

1:36

Andre Spicer and Organizational Behavior Professor

1:38

and Dean of Bays Business School

1:41

has called. A. Loud

1:43

labor. Which. Is hard

1:45

to say multiple times quickly loud

1:47

labour would switch. Try it Kim

1:49

Now let's go out. Quite

1:53

a labour, a quarter that around his neck

1:55

of. the behavior isn't

1:57

attention seeking folks who labour loudly

2:00

to talk about the work they're doing

2:02

while actually doing very little of it.

2:04

They're also more likely to gravitate towards

2:06

highly visible tasks that make it easy

2:09

to show everyone how amazing they are.

2:12

Spicer writes for The Guardian that

2:14

quote, loud laborers have learned a

2:16

crucial lesson from performance artists. Performance

2:18

artists take nearly any aspect of their life

2:20

and calls it art. The

2:23

loud laborer takes nearly anything they

2:25

do and relabels it work. There's

2:27

no experience no matter how ephemeral

2:30

that a loud laborer can't turn

2:32

into weighty work. They show their

2:34

unstinting work ethic by making their

2:37

entire life into an

2:39

endless assignment. End quote.

2:41

I think we would only see that in a

2:43

British publication that lovely

2:46

paragraph there. Kim, I think

2:48

you sometimes call this a bloeviating

2:51

BS-er. Just a

2:53

form of manipulative insincerity? What's happening

2:55

here? I think it's a form

2:57

of obnoxious aggression. I

2:59

think the bloeviating and I would

3:01

love to get your thoughts on the different sides. I

3:04

think there's maybe, I don't want

3:06

to try to parse words

3:08

too much, but I think for me

3:10

the bloeviating bullshitter is that

3:14

is slightly different than the loud laborer.

3:16

The bloeviating BS-er is the person who

3:18

just makes stuff up and assumes

3:24

they're right. They

3:26

assume they know more than they

3:28

do. Sometimes they're not pretending to know

3:30

more than they do. They actually think

3:32

they know things they don't even know.

3:34

I think we've talked a couple

3:36

of times about examples

3:39

of me being a bloeviating

3:42

BS-er. A friend

3:44

of mine called this postulatory boldness.

3:46

I think we get rewarded

3:48

for it too often at

3:51

work. I think that it's

3:53

related but maybe slightly different from the loud

3:55

laborer. I don't know. What do you all

3:57

think? I think it is different. I

3:59

think. The point: A Although the

4:02

the end goal might be similar

4:04

which is sort of self aggrandizement

4:06

I've I think. At least as

4:08

it's being described in the article on The

4:10

Guardian and there was another. There is No

4:12

Barnacle that Brandy shared, which will put the

4:14

show notes the way that I understood it

4:17

is. This. Is a person

4:19

who is. Looking. For

4:21

others to give them credit for. The.

4:24

Work that they do and in order

4:26

to get that credit they are sort

4:28

of constantly talking about all of the

4:30

stuff. That. They are doing,

4:32

even if the things that they're doing

4:34

are relatively trivial. They are

4:36

aggrandizing. They're making it seem more

4:39

grand and more importance. By.

4:42

Drawing. Attention to it. But

4:44

in. Theory. At least they

4:47

are. You. Know it's

4:49

not so much about what the person knows, What about

4:51

what the person is doing? Yeah and

4:53

I think that's her. had a me. I was

4:55

just gonna say what was coming up as you

4:57

are talking and Jason reflecting. Was.

4:59

Around you know, radical candor is measured

5:01

not at the speakers' mouth, but at

5:04

the listeners ears. so it's almost like

5:06

blowsy B S might be measured, maybe

5:08

more ethel at the listeners ear. And

5:10

that. I might be experiencing something.

5:12

The person might be saying things that

5:15

might sound like B S or. The

5:17

season. I think the word years with

5:20

self aggrandizing. How is it landing for

5:22

me versus what your intention as I

5:24

can This, I heard you. Correctly.

5:27

You. Self identified as someone who

5:29

sometimes might be in the bloviating

5:31

Bs or camp because you like.

5:34

Tell me what's underneath that behavior. For you

5:36

like what is your. Intention: What

5:38

Is that? experience? Isis but

5:40

before I am a promise I will answer

5:43

your question but I'm a had a thoughts

5:45

which is an animal is at. Which.

5:47

Is I spent. The. Last Labour

5:49

Is is trying to use sort

5:52

of space time the show I'm

5:54

working, I'm working, I'm working with

5:56

like what's behind the loud laboring.

5:59

as is a

6:01

desire to show that the number

6:03

of hours, it's

6:07

the kind of person who says, I worked 12 hours

6:09

on this as opposed to, I

6:11

did this great work and I got it done in an hour. They're

6:14

not worried about efficiency, they're just worried

6:17

about effort only, effort. And

6:19

they're not worried about results, they're

6:21

just worried about activities and showing

6:24

that they're busy creating

6:27

activities. Whereas I think the bloviating

6:29

theesser is sort

6:31

of pretending to know things that they don't

6:33

know in

6:35

order to either make

6:38

up for lack of preparation or

6:40

to sort of appear more

6:42

confident than they maybe feel. Yeah,

6:47

that was actually where I was trying

6:49

to go, which was about intent and

6:51

impact and the potential differences. One thing

6:53

that I'm curious about, and

6:56

I am not an expert in loud

6:58

laborers, apart from having read a

7:00

few of these articles, but I would

7:02

think it's not just people who are sitting

7:04

at the office for 10 hours to show someone, hey, I

7:06

was at the office for 10 hours, but

7:09

also someone exaggerating

7:11

what they're doing for

7:14

self-promotion. So I might be at the, I

7:16

sent one email and like, oh my gosh,

7:18

wasn't this a great email? So it's actually

7:20

less about the sort of non-efficiency,

7:22

but really more about getting exponential

7:24

credit for things that don't warrant it.

7:27

Yeah, focused on getting credit. Yeah, I

7:29

think that's right. And maybe

7:32

taking credit for other people's part too. I

7:34

think that could be a side effect, but one of

7:36

the things that struck me in the article,

7:40

in the Guardian piece was the quotation toward

7:42

the end. And I think we referenced

7:44

it in the intro as well, that

7:47

they have a tendency toward work that

7:49

is very visible. So like in a

7:51

client services organization, they

7:53

might have a tendency toward client

7:56

communication, for example, right? So that,

7:58

because everybody on the, team would

8:00

have a reason to see that work. Even

8:03

though the real work is preparing all

8:05

of the information to share

8:07

with the client, that they would focus on, I want

8:09

to be the one who sends the e-mail to the

8:11

client. That's the work that I want to do. Yeah.

8:14

So the side effect is they're

8:16

taking credit for it, but

8:19

the goal is to choose the task that

8:21

allows you to be really visible. They might

8:23

say, oh, I spent eight hours crafting that

8:26

e-mail. It wasn't that e-mail so great. I

8:29

think a reaction to that might be, well,

8:32

we spent 30 days preparing all

8:34

the materials. So spending eight hours

8:36

on that e-mail is a minor

8:38

contribution to the overall effort. Yeah.

8:41

I think that's right. I think

8:43

people are motivating the answers

8:46

or loud laborers because

8:48

it works. I

8:50

think the solution is for a

8:53

leader and the whole team to

8:55

not let it work. If somebody

8:58

comes in and says, I

9:00

pulled in all niner, instead

9:02

of rewarding them either with praise

9:07

or sympathy or whatever, like, gosh,

9:10

why did you have to do that? How can

9:12

we make sure that doesn't happen again? Having

9:14

that reaction to the, I

9:18

think we've talked before about the work

9:20

martyr. That

9:23

seems to be part of

9:26

the loud labor. Whereas the

9:28

bloviating BS-er often comes

9:31

in, they do the opposite.

9:33

The bloviating BS-er will come in and say,

9:35

ah, I didn't have to

9:37

spend any time at all studying for the test.

9:39

They were that student and

9:41

I'm going to get an A. I

9:45

didn't prep for that sales meeting at

9:47

all and I just landed the biggest

9:49

deal of the quarter. There's

9:52

a little bit of the

9:55

opposite with the bloviating BS-er. I

9:57

don't have to do any work Because I'm

9:59

great. What? Jason?

10:02

When you were talking about like for example,

10:04

in a client services team and any sort

10:06

of one group doing a huge amount of

10:08

effort and then. Someone. Else sort

10:10

of putting it across the. Finish.

10:13

Line: I'm curious to have any

10:15

examples from your own career weather

10:17

here or elsewhere where you feel

10:19

like there's. Certain roles that. Take

10:21

more of that. Credit. Yeah.

10:24

That's a good question what was coming to mind or

10:26

it is that I. I. I have

10:28

sort of an allergy to people

10:31

who are loud laborers. There's.

10:33

A person on thinking of was like

10:35

very early in my career. Who.

10:38

Had a habit of putting

10:40

together these these sort of

10:42

like lengthy documents. To

10:44

describes. An. Idea. And

10:47

talking about. How

10:49

they're. Postgraduate. Degree

10:51

were like inform dead and all the sub like

10:54

with would like set up this whole thing and

10:56

talk about how long they spent on it and

10:58

the problem was that it didn't deserve like the

11:00

i didn't deserve that much work so like as

11:02

the person looking at your like. You're. Trying

11:05

to take five dollars for the credit for

11:07

a two cents for each kid. I like

11:09

it. It's it's great, like I'm I'm and

11:11

it's good to be proud of it. But.

11:13

It's very clear that. They. Were doing

11:15

this thing, which is they were talking up that

11:17

way that they approached the work in an effort.

11:20

I. Think. To. Make the idea

11:22

see more valuable and out is the problem. To

11:24

tim's point is like there were several situations in

11:26

which it worked in which like you could yeah

11:29

zebra like all. wow I uma the so well

11:31

thought out as other subs are not and I'm

11:33

kind of like. Another. They.

11:35

Said we should add a refund. Button to the

11:38

for shopping cart. like a didn't need

11:40

a ten picking on unchanged gas as.

11:42

Well. As sat there was that kind of a

11:44

third. it was that kind of of a

11:46

thing and it led to a really tense

11:48

relationship. I was at of are in my

11:50

ups early enough my career that I didn't

11:52

quite. Have. The skills like productively deal

11:54

with something like that and so like I

11:57

became. a developed like the sort of

11:59

like our reaction. Anytime he was going

12:01

to present an idea, I had to

12:03

sort of prepare, steal myself. And

12:06

I think that when I read the article, I

12:09

read a little bit of that and the impact

12:11

it can have on other people, is that

12:13

a person who continuously behaves in this way,

12:15

it works for a

12:17

period of time. And if

12:19

it works for the boss, meaning like if

12:21

the boss is sort of

12:24

convinced by this behavior, it

12:26

can work for a long time. And the problem

12:28

is that person is other

12:30

people who are laboring quietly,

12:34

start to become pissed off both at

12:36

the person and at the boss for

12:38

reinforcing the behavior. And so like, that's why I think

12:41

that that's my understanding of why it leads to

12:43

it, it starts to tank morale on a team.

12:45

Because it anyway,

12:48

Kim, I was thinking about your suggestion of like, how

12:50

do you fix it, you fix it by not rewarding

12:52

it. But I think it's especially important for

12:55

the boss not to reward that behavior. Like it's one

12:57

thing for your teammates to call you on it, it's

12:59

quite another thing to make sure that the bot like

13:01

as a manager, you're looking out for this behavior and

13:03

calling it out. And I think it's also,

13:05

I mean, this is

13:08

maybe an overstretch. But I

13:10

have a definite

13:12

preference for a functional

13:15

organization as opposed to an

13:17

organization that is organized

13:19

by business units. Because

13:21

in a functional organization, the person

13:24

who leads a team understands

13:26

the expertise that is required to

13:28

do the work, and

13:31

can call can call BS

13:33

on that kind of loud laboring. Whereas

13:35

sometimes when you have a general

13:37

manager who doesn't understand the actual

13:40

work that people are doing, it

13:43

allows for more loud laboring. I mean,

13:45

this was my big anxiety when I

13:47

started the software company is that, you

13:49

know, I had started, I had

13:52

studied Slavic literature, I had no

13:54

idea what the software engineers were

13:56

doing, really. And it made

13:58

me very nervous, I think. rightly so. So

14:01

Kim, are you saying that what

14:03

guidance would you give then for

14:06

a manager who might feel like

14:08

they don't have enough gravitas perhaps

14:10

in a functional area to draw

14:14

the line on someone that

14:17

might have loud labor

14:19

tendencies? What would you have needed

14:21

to support you in laying that

14:24

down? Well I mean the most

14:26

important thing that I did in

14:28

that situation was build a really good

14:30

relationship with my co-founder and CTO who

14:34

couldn't see through it, you know,

14:36

and make sure that he was

14:38

managing the engineers, not me, and

14:40

not ever allow the engineers to go

14:42

around him to me because I knew

14:44

that they could be asked me because

14:48

I didn't understand enough. I think

14:50

the other thing, and another situation

14:52

where loud labors might get away

14:56

with their loud laboring, was when

14:58

I was leading at the AdSense

15:00

team at Google and there

15:03

were a bunch of people on the team who were

15:05

providing customer support. And because my

15:07

manager, the by-direct reports and

15:09

I weren't in the queues

15:11

answering these customer support questions,

15:14

we often didn't understand what was involved in

15:16

the work. And so actually sitting with them

15:18

and doing the work with them

15:20

on a regular basis was

15:23

really important so that we got it, so

15:25

that we weren't befuddled

15:27

by either loud

15:29

laboring or obliviating BS. And

15:32

I think I would only add to that, I mean, is

15:35

to be sensitive to it. If someone

15:37

tells you that someone

15:39

on the team is engaging in

15:41

this behavior, I would

15:44

take it seriously. That doesn't mean you have

15:46

to like automatically assume they're correct, but it

15:49

would be an opportunity, I feel like that's a

15:51

call to pay closer attention to what might

15:53

be going on. It's

15:55

so interesting, like I'm Flashing back

15:57

a little to a team that I was

15:59

on. Where there were a seal

16:02

of us that we're at a

16:04

certain level in the organization and

16:06

I think I had a belief

16:08

system that. Are as

16:10

good work was rewarded. Of it's own

16:12

accord. And that. You. Know sort

16:14

of internal promotion or Pr for

16:17

your own projects wasn't required. And

16:19

so there was a pure in that

16:21

group who was continually sending emails, saying

16:23

all the things that they had done,

16:25

and sort of continually advocating for themselves.

16:27

And I'm aware as I reflect back

16:30

that I. I. Didn't engage in

16:32

that would I would consider sort

16:34

of self promoting urge, self aggrandizing

16:36

behavior and probably to my detriment.

16:39

And. So I know, and, and

16:41

a recent podcast, I believe

16:43

we had talked about managers

16:45

advocating may be more for

16:47

their quite as laborers. You.

16:49

Know, just do some. For example, that

16:52

the situation that you talked about earlier

16:54

New Yorker you might not have seen

16:56

that it was happening. What would you

16:58

ask or think about someone who notices

17:00

this like how do you bring that

17:02

to your manager in a way that

17:04

doesn't feel like you're complaining in a

17:07

way that feels like it's It's helpful

17:09

to the manager. I will say

17:11

that several people including me tried

17:13

to find ways to talk to

17:15

this person directly to him like.

17:18

We. we tried to and again

17:20

like. Skill. System skill that

17:22

matching will. I feel like we could have

17:25

been more direct like you are we we

17:27

I could have used a lesson in core

17:29

array of like a be really clear about.

17:32

The. The impact it was having a we

17:34

would say things like pay you know you

17:36

don't have to like wrap everything and a

17:38

presentation about how much work to took you

17:40

to get to that particular answer. Like it

17:42

you can just present like we know you're

17:44

working hard just like present for answer to

17:46

us. But. I don't think he. Understood

17:49

what we're saying. I don't. The he

17:51

on the other was like frustrating and

17:53

distracting was actually making it less likely

17:55

the people are going to listen to

17:57

him all it's. it's so funny as you say that

17:59

because actually what was coming up was Kim

18:01

often talking about needing to show your

18:04

work, right? Like to show how

18:06

you got there. So how do you balance sort

18:08

of showing your work without being really annoying? Like

18:10

23 hours on this email, there's

18:13

a big difference between showing your work and

18:15

like nailing your diploma to the wall. Yeah.

18:17

Yeah. And I would say like, this

18:20

is a silly example of this, but like,

18:23

and I'm, I may be projecting a little bit because

18:25

this is sort of how it felt to work with

18:27

this person, but I feel like it was the kind

18:29

of thing where I'd walk by his office and he'd

18:32

always be like big side. He'd have like a big

18:34

side. Oh, I've been working. So like, like I've been

18:36

here since 6am. Like it was one of those things

18:38

where everything started with exasperation

18:41

followed by like, uh, I should

18:43

get credit because kind of a

18:45

thing. So it's in my mind,

18:47

it's not even so much like self

18:50

promotion, like the sort of idea of confidently

18:53

talking about the work that

18:55

you're doing or the results. But

18:57

Kim, you said this earlier in the episode,

19:00

it's like an obsessive focus on

19:02

effort and how much you are suffering to put

19:06

forth that effort. It's a meta commentary

19:08

as opposed to a specific commentary about

19:10

the work. Yeah. And I

19:13

think it's, there's also like, uh,

19:15

there's a belief, which I think

19:17

is that the more we

19:19

suffer, the better our work and the, and,

19:21

and I, I would love to have

19:25

that belief replaced with what I think is

19:27

more accurate reflection

19:29

of reality, which is when

19:31

we're doing our best work, usually

19:34

it's a joy, not a, you

19:36

know, uh, I mean, there's, there's

19:38

always a, an aspect of work

19:40

that is unpleasant, but overall

19:43

work should be a great

19:45

expression of who we are as people. And

19:48

when, when I have been doing my best work,

19:50

I haven't felt martyred to it. I felt like

19:52

I'm enjoying it. I'm lucky to be able to

19:54

do this work. And, and

19:57

that's the kind of work environment that we're

19:59

trying to create. Not this, the

20:01

martyrs or. You. Know get

20:03

paid the most. Yeah. I.

20:06

Think that point about. almost like really.

20:08

And packing the cultural context that were

20:10

in is so important. Brandy had bubbled

20:12

up a a Rice Krispies commercial thing

20:14

from the late Nineteen eighties. I think

20:16

rice krispies are still around so people

20:19

know what it is, sensitive less lay

20:21

offs. But that summer, so it was

20:23

really. You know this mom courses mom.

20:25

Ah, who had these rice krispies and

20:27

didn't want the kids to know that

20:29

she had not in fact sort of

20:31

toiled all day making the rice krispies

20:34

because there were so easy to make.

20:36

And so delicious and so had to like

20:38

pretend and spray like flower on her face.

20:40

that in fact is I'm these rice krispies

20:42

certainly long time. But the reason why think

20:44

that's so interesting that what is the cultural

20:46

message underneath at him in Kim it's sort

20:48

of what you're saying which is that. If.

20:51

I got like a great output if

20:53

I made rice krispies in thirty seconds.

20:55

Like, that's not enough. What actually matters

20:57

is that I sort of tortured myself.

21:00

For twenty four hours to be on these Refs

21:02

Krispies. Is that true and accurate?

21:04

Cultural like? Are we still in that colorized

21:06

that audience? I definitely think like

21:08

hustle culture as a just some

21:10

of the modern manifestation of that

21:12

same phenomenon. Which. Is like everybody talking

21:15

about their side hustle and how they did

21:17

like they're doing ten things of the same

21:19

time ends isn't It's like it's so it's

21:21

so tough and I'm so tired. I.

21:24

Feel like. There. Is there's

21:26

still that undercurrents? Still a from my

21:28

perspective, still very presence in in our

21:30

culture. Yeah, what? One one extreme or

21:32

the other? Either pretending it's easier than it

21:34

is are pretending it's. Harder than it

21:36

is now can to save and

21:38

really going off and mice sometimes.

21:41

As easy as one of the things that

21:43

idea that ah on one team that I

21:45

worked with as I said we're let's identify

21:47

all the work that we're doing that we

21:49

can stop doing that, can just quit doing

21:52

it you know. All the work

21:54

that we can outsource that we can get

21:56

other people to do, and all the work

21:58

we can automate. and That

22:00

was really helpful in terms of

22:03

taking the wind out

22:05

of the sails of the loud labors

22:08

and also the bloat-eating BSers.

22:11

If somebody was complaining about something, the

22:14

question was, well, can we stop doing

22:16

that work altogether? Often, the answer was, yes,

22:19

we don't even need to do that. In

22:22

other words, there's a

22:24

company called Joyus where

22:28

when there's some aspect of their work

22:30

that is bothering

22:33

them or irritating them, rather

22:35

than becoming a martyr to those irritants,

22:40

they file a ticket that's almost

22:43

like a software bug

22:45

ticket. The

22:47

goal is to figure out what are the

22:49

irritants that we can eliminate from your work

22:52

so that you can work more joyfully. That's,

22:56

I think, what you want to do. You

22:58

don't want to silence complaints, but

23:01

you want to air them in a

23:03

way that says, the goal is if

23:05

there are inefficient things or irritating things

23:07

about your work, let's figure out how

23:09

to get rid of those things. I

23:12

feel like we're touching

23:14

up against something

23:17

that we wanted to talk about,

23:19

which is, what if your job is actually BS?

23:22

Yeah. In

23:25

fact, Jason, Kim

23:28

loves the word BS, I think,

23:31

whether it's bloviating. In fact,

23:33

there was a book written, it

23:36

came out in 2019, I believe, by a professor at the

23:42

London School of Economics, anthropologist

23:44

David Graber, who passed

23:46

away in 2020. There

23:50

was a Vox interview, we'll put it in the show notes,

23:52

where Professor Graber, in this

23:55

book that Was called Bullshit

23:58

Jobs, a Theory, And

24:00

and he was a leader of the

24:02

early occupy Wallstreet. I believe this book

24:04

came out of an essay that he

24:07

had written a earlier cope bad jobs

24:09

are bad because they're hard. Or.

24:11

They have terrible conditions are the pay

24:13

sucks but us and these jobs are

24:15

very useful. In. Fact: In our

24:17

society, often the more useful the work

24:19

is, the less they pay you were

24:22

is bullshit. Jobs are often highly respected

24:24

and pay well, but are completely pointless.

24:26

and the people doing them know this.

24:29

Yeah. So always an example of a.

24:31

Whole. Said well one of them with

24:34

corporate lawyer. I saw this but it

24:36

was it was. It was also a

24:38

lot of folks that might be more

24:40

white collar jobs and middle management jobs

24:43

where people feel like they're not actually

24:45

doing things works. If you start doing

24:47

your job, nobody would really notice. An.

24:50

What I thought was really interesting because I

24:52

was. I was really curious. I hadn't heard

24:54

about this book and so I was trying

24:57

to see Will how how did the thinking

24:59

that perhaps change post covered and now where

25:01

we are with a I And that's where

25:03

I learned that he in fact passed away

25:05

in in Twenty twenty because it he seemed

25:08

quite prescient about yeah sort of their certain

25:10

jobs that we must have and I think

25:12

we saw that you know in In In

25:14

Cove it and sort of who are are

25:16

sort of most important members of the workforce.

25:19

Ah and are we. In fact, Reimbursing.

25:21

Them accordingly to the value that's that's

25:23

being provided in. There was actually something

25:25

also quite poignant that people in some

25:28

of these be as jobs. You.

25:30

Know felt the pain of feeling

25:32

like you're actually not doing something

25:35

that's really contributing very much to

25:37

society for has the Superfluous Man

25:39

very important. snow sims flowing through

25:41

all of Russian literature is that

25:44

are not needed you know, and

25:46

my work is not needed. That

25:48

and that was a. Source:

25:50

Of great anxiety but these are

25:53

these of. A. Minute. I

25:55

think I think it is a source of

25:57

great anxiety as we are to be touched

25:59

by it. The on the motivations a

26:01

at at the top of the show.

26:04

Right? I think that this is

26:06

a a high The this is

26:08

a. A. Motivation.

26:11

That. We we didn't include in that

26:13

discussion which is the fear of. It.

26:15

Being discovered that you and like your work actually

26:17

doesn't matter. See, talk about it. all that awesome

26:19

and you say although at a you're putting into

26:21

it because do a fear that you have is

26:24

that people realize that the work they are doing

26:26

is. Is. Not meaningful. Actually,

26:30

Add a moment where. As how I that

26:32

had a ball said job so let me. Describe

26:34

in New York and tell me if. If

26:37

what I'm talking about is what David. Graber

26:39

was talking about so. I.

26:41

Was working. I had a site was

26:44

just some summer internship but I was

26:46

working at Mackenzie. And

26:48

I was sort of

26:50

spending the summer. I.

26:53

Making. Beautiful.

26:56

Sex. They they had

26:58

some special program it wasn't even a power

27:00

point I think of. called solo. And

27:02

it was a really cool program. I do things would

27:04

look really good. And. The

27:07

I'm. At. But it really

27:09

felt to me like the work. I was doing

27:11

was sort of. Highly. Paid

27:13

and meaningless. Er. And not gonna

27:15

ever help any but we were working

27:18

really hard. We will super. Long hours

27:20

with this ah. But sort of

27:22

changing fight. I mean, I'm exaggerating.

27:25

And at for those of our listeners who

27:27

work in Mackenzie, I apologize some of the

27:29

work either, I'm sure. as my vardy of

27:31

or ended corporate lawyers the I was

27:33

voting to down there i'm I'm I'm

27:35

speaking from my my best friends or

27:37

korea of but i was a else

27:39

an outlet that by. Two. I

27:41

jokes at all my worst days I

27:43

felt like I was changing pie. Charts

27:46

to bar charts and back again. You know

27:48

that. Is what I for and I

27:50

was getting paid really really well for

27:52

doing it. It's the hero's journey Yeah,

27:54

and I charted at her and back

27:57

again or then. My sister, meanwhile was

27:59

teaching Adam. The Old School. And

28:01

that there was a child

28:04

who was suicidal and she

28:06

passed. This child. Out of

28:09

committing suicide. so so. Like.

28:11

That to me with someone

28:13

important works that the only

28:15

really profoundly mattered. And.

28:18

She was getting paid very, very little

28:20

to do that work. And. I

28:22

was getting paid a whole lot to

28:24

change. Pie charts to Bar charts. And back

28:26

again. And that experience. that moment of

28:28

talking to her that summer. Is. Kind

28:31

of what prompted me to write a

28:33

book called the Measurement Problem. Which.

28:35

Is about how capitalism is really good

28:37

at rewarding when it can measure but

28:39

really bad. Him: Or. Warning: What is

28:41

valuable. And I'm and and

28:44

I think you know, maybe some

28:46

of these vs jobs. Maybe.

28:48

They aren't actually be as maybe they're

28:50

important, but I do think there's a

28:52

lot of jobs. For. Which people

28:54

get grossly over compensated and alive and

28:56

in in an increasing I mean I

28:59

think like the one for some problem

29:01

is getting worse and worse. and worse.

29:03

An increasingly there's a lot of jobs

29:05

for which. That that

29:07

are really mattered for which people are

29:10

not getting paid a living wage. Sand.

29:12

And says that is a big

29:14

from have enough like from capitalism

29:16

into a snake eating its tail.

29:18

Some. So yes, It's

29:21

happening in education. It's happening himself. Care by?

29:23

Yeah it it is as good as the

29:25

sake of eating its own tail like it's

29:27

all is already. Yes, it is manifesting itself

29:29

so it's not even like a what if

29:31

it is a thing that is happening. In.

29:34

The World. And I think. To. Your

29:36

points. Of the measurement

29:39

problem and health care. What? Do.

29:41

You know? what they're measuring

29:43

is the profitability. Of

29:45

the healthcare company, not the health

29:47

outcomes, yeah, of the community that

29:49

they serve. We're not measuring what

29:51

matters, correct, and the people who

29:54

are delivering those health outcomes. In.

29:56

Most cases they're not even doctors

29:59

their their nurse practitioners. There there

30:01

are people who are closer to

30:03

the sort of metal. They're like

30:05

front line mental health professionals that

30:08

are actually like. Delivering.

30:10

These health outcomes, but the pay

30:12

is disproportionately distributed. To. The

30:15

people who have business, my

30:17

and responsibility. Who are

30:19

responsible for the profit of of of of of

30:21

the business unit. I'm. As opposed to that

30:23

for health outcomes are I I think like. A

30:26

I. Guess in a world where capitalism exists

30:28

that it's other, that job doesn't matter. But.

30:30

The. It's over compensate as

30:32

it is overcrowded Plated Grassley.

30:35

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30:37

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See what's up for details. Correct. Well,

32:23

that's why I'm wondering, you know, Kim and

32:25

Jason, as you're talking and thinking about the

32:28

measurement problem, if you

32:30

were co-founders of a

32:33

startup, if you were creating

32:35

a company now that you wanted to

32:38

reward people whose work was valuable

32:41

or that we weren't giving incentives

32:43

for people to behave loudly, laboriously.

32:45

I'm not sure if that's the

32:48

right way to do it. How

32:50

would you think about creating incentives

32:53

in an imaginary new co

32:56

that would reward the kinds of

32:58

behaviors you want to see rewarded?

33:01

Well, I think, I mean, Jason, we

33:04

talked about this when we started the company.

33:06

One thing that we decided we didn't want

33:08

to do was follow

33:10

the venture capital growth at all

33:13

costs model. And

33:16

we also, you know, I think

33:19

we talked a lot about equity

33:22

and kind of talked about how

33:24

equity is the ultimate inequity in

33:27

terms of how people get paid

33:30

and making sure that we do something that

33:32

is more fair to

33:34

people. Yeah. I think like

33:37

from a compensation

33:40

perspective, there's a bunch of

33:42

things that you can do. One

33:45

of them is to ensure

33:48

that in the world, like in

33:50

this, this is a, this has a chance to

33:52

reinforce some of the things that are out there,

33:54

but you don't want to make, there's like multiple

33:56

layers of mistakes that you can make when you

33:58

think about incentives. you can

34:00

make is you can pay someone unfairly for

34:02

the job that they do, even given the

34:05

unfair way that money is

34:07

distributed in the world. You don't want to do that. So

34:09

at the very least, you want to be aware of what

34:11

a job is worth and have some kind of

34:13

process for making sure that the extrinsic rewards of

34:16

a job match the value of the work that that

34:18

person is doing as far as the world is concerned.

34:20

And then you have a second thing to figure out,

34:22

which is how do you want,

34:24

what extrinsic rewards or how do you want

34:27

to structure the extrinsic rewards inside the company

34:29

so if it feels like you

34:32

are able to reward people equitably

34:34

for the value that they

34:36

actually deliver. So not what their job

34:38

is worth, but for the value that they actually deliver. And

34:40

I think we should not necessarily say

34:42

what their job is worth, but the

34:44

market value of their job. That is a better

34:47

way to say it. Their job may

34:49

be worth much more than the market

34:51

value of their job. So that's,

34:53

I mean, that's somewhat of an inherent

34:55

friction, right, of if the market is

34:57

valuing certain jobs, you know, are

34:59

you beholden then to following

35:01

those market valuations? No,

35:04

I'm not a slave to the market. I shouldn't

35:06

say slave. I am not, I

35:08

am not, nobody is forcing me to

35:10

obey what the market says. Yes.

35:13

And I would say that there is

35:16

like a, there

35:19

is a pressure that exists to

35:23

be able to, from like a

35:25

labor law perspective and things like that, to be

35:27

able to justify the choices that you've made. This

35:30

is a place where like the

35:32

law reinforces the economic system because,

35:36

yeah, and like I

35:39

think there aren't many other

35:41

great models other than

35:43

like a pure, like one

35:45

way you could think about it is like everybody works

35:47

on commission. You know what I'm saying? Like everybody, like

35:49

we do some calculation where you say like your job

35:52

brought in was responsible for X

35:54

amount of the revenue and therefore your

35:56

compensation is Y, like a pure commission

35:59

model. is maybe one way to

36:01

get away from this. So it's less about your

36:03

title and it's more about your job, but there's

36:05

still a judgment call to be made. Often called

36:07

the eat what you kill model, which

36:10

is horrible. Going back to violent language.

36:12

Yeah. But there's still a judgment

36:14

call to be made, because there are some

36:16

activities that people are doing that are clearly

36:18

adding to the bot, adding to the money

36:20

that the company is making. But there's not

36:23

a really clear way to assign a specific

36:25

value to it. There's a measurement problem. There's

36:27

a measurement. Well, but it goes back to

36:29

Jason, your initial thing of like, you know,

36:31

your operations team is working like days and

36:33

days and months and months on building this

36:36

relationship. Then someone swoops in and sends the

36:38

email that seals the deal and

36:40

now they're the hero. Yes. And

36:43

I guess what I would say is like,

36:45

I don't think there's a perfect system for

36:47

extrinsic. I want to talk about

36:49

extrinsic rewards first. I

36:51

don't think there's a perfect system

36:53

for getting extrinsic rewards to exactly

36:55

match the

36:57

value of an individual's labor

37:00

or the contribution of an

37:02

individual's labor, which is why

37:04

you need some sort of

37:07

semi-flexible system, like bonuses or

37:09

like profit sharing or whatever else. You need

37:11

some flexibility to be able to say, well,

37:13

this year, we want

37:15

to recognize that this person, that's going to be

37:17

a fuzzy calculation. And that's the place where I

37:19

feel like strict

37:22

market valuing of jobs really falls

37:24

on its face because there are

37:26

years where some people are going

37:29

to do something that far

37:31

exceeds what the market

37:33

value of their job is. But the

37:35

intrinsic thing, I think, is what's more interesting to

37:37

me. And that's what we were talking about before,

37:39

Kim. That's what you were talking about when you

37:41

were saying stopping these behaviors. So like the question

37:43

is, what kinds of behaviors,

37:47

what are you trying to intrinsically motivate in people?

37:50

What kind of behavior do you do? So

37:54

for example, I think in our organization,

37:56

something we value quite highly is people

37:58

helping each other. And helping

38:01

each other is sort of in my mind is

38:03

like the opposite of loud laboring, right? But you

38:05

can turn it into loud laboring if you're always

38:08

talking about how much you're helping everybody else But

38:10

by rewarding people for helping each other as opposed

38:13

to just getting their own work done I think

38:15

that's the kind of thing that can

38:18

start to create intrinsic motivation to

38:21

move away from From

38:23

some of the things that would make

38:25

a job BS right because like theoretically

38:27

that BS job That

38:29

was being described is one in which going

38:31

away tomorrow It would have no impact But

38:34

if you are actually helping other people accomplish

38:36

their work even though you might not

38:38

be doing a ton of the work yourself

38:40

you're still creating a lot of You're

38:43

adding a lot to the organization both

38:45

culturally and and from an output perspective

38:48

I think also it's interesting to think

38:50

about sales in this respect because for

38:53

example at one point I

38:55

was I had started a company and One

38:59

of the venture capitalists who had invested in

39:01

the company wanted me to

39:03

hire this salesperson and this venture capitalist

39:05

sent me an email that said this

39:07

guy sold a $24,000

39:10

product for $500,000

39:13

and to me that's a

39:15

BS job Like like basically what you're

39:17

telling me is that I should hire

39:20

this person because they screwed the customer

39:22

and I said no That's not the kind

39:24

of salesperson that I want to hire and it's

39:26

not the kind of company that I want to

39:28

run I want people to to

39:30

I want a more consultative sales Model

39:34

and at Apple in fact for the

39:36

for the stores They don't pay

39:38

on commission which was a controversial decision

39:41

But they said, you know people are

39:44

gonna that that is an it's an

39:46

unpleasant experience to be

39:48

sold to in general and So

39:52

so we're gonna pay people

39:54

to be helpful actually and

39:56

we're gonna pay people enough that we're gonna take

39:59

money off the table They'll make about as

40:01

much as sales people in these jobs as

40:03

they would if they were on commission somewhere

40:05

else. There was this concern, oh,

40:07

people are lazy, you know? And so

40:10

they won't really try to sell stuff

40:12

if you pay that way. But that's

40:14

not what the data shows. They actually

40:17

enjoy the jobs more and the customers avoid

40:19

being in the store more. In

40:22

fact, here's another idea. I

40:24

just got an email from someone who is creating

40:27

an AI technology

40:30

that will help salespeople create

40:32

pitches. And I'm like, okay, don't

40:34

create that unless you also create

40:37

an AI product that will

40:39

talk to that

40:41

person. So my robot can talk to your

40:43

robot and you can

40:45

keep me out of

40:47

the conversation. They're pitching to each other.

40:50

Our robots are... I wish that

40:52

we could get the video on that with Kim's

40:54

robot talking. Well, I think that is what is

40:56

so interesting. One of the

40:59

threads in the loud labor articles

41:01

that we were seeing was that

41:04

there were often folks who were

41:06

either underemployed or what was called

41:08

funemployed, where you really didn't have

41:11

anything to do or enough to do. And

41:14

so one of the ways to

41:16

prove your existence was through this loudly sort

41:18

of extolling all the things that you're doing.

41:21

And there was a quote from Vox that said, there

41:23

are endless reasons why people at work wind up with

41:26

little, if anything, to do. Maybe the project they were

41:28

hired for is no longer a priority. The tasks

41:30

they were in charge of by and large are

41:32

now handled by technology. I guess their AI is

41:34

talking to Kim's AI. Maybe

41:37

they never should have been hired in the first

41:39

place. They were brought on board too soon. Maybe

41:41

they're super fast at their jobs or they're really

41:44

good at being secretly lazy, hiding in plain

41:46

sight. Kim just talked about that

41:49

laziness isn't as common as we

41:51

assume. What was your reaction, Kim,

41:53

to that? I was trying to

41:55

think of someone I've

41:57

ever worked with who...

42:00

meets that description and I can't, I

42:03

can't, maybe I'm just naive

42:05

but I can't, I've never actually.

42:08

Brandy looks like she wants

42:10

to jump in. No, no, but

42:13

Brandy maybe you've worked with people

42:15

who are in jobs like this. I've just

42:17

never seen this. I've seen

42:19

it often. These are the people that would take

42:21

credit for the work that I did and get

42:23

awards for it. In my

42:25

experience they had usually been white men.

42:27

They do a lot of glad handing,

42:29

back patting, making people

42:32

feel good, but there's

42:34

no work actually being done unless the job

42:36

is actually glad handing and back patting and

42:38

managing up to saying I'm doing all these

42:41

amazing things. But they're not

42:43

doing the things. Their team's doing the things

42:45

and they're just talking about it and they're

42:48

having drinks with people. And they're not

42:50

giving the team any credit. No,

42:53

other people are getting awards for work that they don't even

42:55

know who's doing the work. I

42:58

mean I had done a bunch of work and

43:01

this person, somebody else, took

43:04

credit for my work and was invited to

43:06

the headquarters and given an award for work

43:08

that I did. And I remember being on

43:10

the phone with his boss like crying. I was

43:12

new to the company. I

43:15

said something to him about it like four years later. But

43:19

nobody else, like nobody's

43:22

terrified there. So

43:24

no, nobody said anything. Yeah,

43:28

I would say I have seen

43:30

this kind of thing happen,

43:33

but not in a way that the company just

43:35

sort of ignored it. So at Khan

43:38

Academy one of the things about

43:40

being donor funded is that sometimes a donor

43:43

doesn't re-up. And so there's like work that

43:45

was going on that was being funded by

43:47

a particular stream of income and that income

43:49

doesn't dries up. And then the question

43:51

is like, what does that person, like what

43:54

do we do now? Like there's a person or

43:56

a team or a group of people who are

43:58

working on a thing. And very soon. They're

44:00

some combination of they're not going to

44:02

have anything left to do because we're

44:04

wrapping that program up or we're not

44:06

gonna have any money to pay them To

44:09

do the thing that they're doing But

44:11

I think the reason why we didn't run into

44:13

it is like one of the things that

44:15

we were obsessed with was like using The

44:17

money that we got as efficiently as

44:19

possible, right because we were always limited

44:22

we were donor funded So we're like resources were

44:24

always limited and we were obsessed with being efficient

44:26

and so that it would never last There

44:29

might be a period of time Where someone would

44:31

be in a bit of limbo as we were trying

44:34

to figure out like do we keep this person

44:36

on and change their job? In order to make sure

44:38

that they have something to do or do

44:40

we let the person go because we're wrapping

44:42

up the project like we'd Have to make decisions like

44:44

that But so I could see it

44:47

happening and in a company that's big enough

44:49

where money is not as Tight

44:52

I could easily imagine a situation in which

44:54

you have people who are just sort of

44:57

like in these ghost jobs That

44:59

like we're relevant, you know eight

45:01

or nine months ago But there

45:04

hasn't really been anything going on in that area for a

45:06

while and it takes a while I mean, I can

45:09

imagine it being it happening

45:11

pretty easily So Brandy I

45:13

think in the in the situation that you were

45:15

describing What I know what

45:17

I would advise like the CEO to

45:19

get rid of this This

45:22

layer of people who is just claiming credit

45:24

for other people's work But

45:26

then I want to kind of brainstorm about what you

45:29

could have done because that is much

45:31

harder problem But I think like if

45:33

a leader if a CEO doesn't want

45:35

these glad-handers getting in between the people

45:37

doing the work and the credit So

45:40

that the people actually doing the work or

45:43

be motivated I think I

45:45

think it's really important to define

45:47

the role of manager very carefully

45:50

and expect

45:52

managers to

45:55

to communicate to

45:58

their bosses doing

46:00

what and to like give credit. Your job

46:02

as a manager is not to take credit

46:04

but to give credit. And if I see

46:06

you taking credit, then I'm gonna all the

46:08

time then I'm gonna say, oh, you don't

46:10

need a team because you're doing all the

46:12

work. And to

46:15

almost come at it from

46:18

that point of view. I think

46:20

the people who get away with it are almost like cult

46:23

leaders. You know, they could be, not that they

46:25

super are cult leaders, but how people become

46:27

cult leaders. They make you feel good.

46:30

They look you in the eye. Everything feels

46:32

exciting when you're around them. So this is

46:34

the kind of person that's managing the team

46:37

and they're making everyone from the CEO to

46:39

the bottom feel like, oh, I'm

46:41

a part of this great experience, but

46:44

they're not actually doing anything but manipulating.

46:46

Yeah, they're kissing up and then they're

46:48

taking credit. It's Kim, some of your

46:50

favorite words like charisma, executive presence. Exactly.

46:54

I mean, it's almost like sleight of

46:57

hand. You know what I'm saying? It's almost

46:59

like a magic trick or

47:03

an illusion that they're doing. Yeah,

47:05

but like at least in

47:08

a culture, in a good culture, if you

47:11

were to have said, actually,

47:14

I did that. That person

47:16

would have experienced some

47:19

really immediate and severe

47:21

consequences for taking credit for your work.

47:23

I mean, it's one of the things. But

47:25

you have to feel safe enough to say that.

47:27

Well, you have to know that there will be

47:29

consequences for taking credit for someone. I mean, at

47:31

Google, if that had happened, that person would have

47:34

been taken down several matches. Yeah,

47:36

so it actually happened to me twice when

47:39

I first started and then actually right after

47:41

I resigned, but I was still there for

47:43

another month. And I did confront the

47:45

second person and that

47:47

actually, no, I told HR and

47:50

then they told her or told my boss and then

47:52

she skied to me and was like yelling at me.

47:54

And she's like, I thought

47:56

we were one team. Like one team

47:58

does not mean that you. credit for

48:00

my work, it means you

48:02

say, look at the work that Brandy's

48:04

team did. Yeah. This,

48:06

you know, versus saying like, I did all

48:09

this work. That's not,

48:11

you know, that's how that went down. But

48:13

I had nothing to lose. I had already resigned. Yeah.

48:17

That is unbelievable. I have, that is

48:19

an interesting way to weaponize the one

48:21

team thing. And I'm sure that happens

48:23

to all the, all the

48:25

family. Yeah. We're a family. So

48:27

what's yours is mine and what's

48:29

mine is mine. Family

48:32

works. Well, before

48:35

we get into our tips, I just

48:37

wanted to bring something else into this

48:39

conversation about folks that

48:41

might land in this, whether it's under

48:43

employed, fun, employed, loud, laboring

48:46

one team. This was from

48:48

the Vox article and this person

48:50

that was being interviewed said, quote, I don't have

48:52

a problem with being asked to do work. It's

48:54

just, I'm not really being asked. He said maybe

48:57

he could take more initiative, but he gets good

48:59

performance reviews and raises. So figures why bother? Plus

49:02

it's not like he can waltz up to his boss

49:04

to announce there's no real business reason for his existence.

49:07

How do I initiate that conversation? That's quote, Hey, I

49:09

haven't been doing much of anything this whole time. I

49:11

need more to do. You don't really want to draw

49:14

attention to it. And it was

49:16

interesting because in this article it said strongly suspecting

49:18

that a certain person isn't doing much or

49:20

not nearly enough to fill up what is

49:22

ostensibly an eight hour day seems to be

49:25

a near universal work experience. You know, sometimes

49:27

we're the less than occupied worker and sometimes

49:29

that's just how things have happened.

49:31

And you know, just this is not data, but

49:33

just one anecdote. I have a friend who is

49:36

in an organization where there were a lot of

49:38

layoffs and they actually don't have

49:40

very much work because a lot of the people that

49:42

they were doing the work for no longer there.

49:45

And so I'm just curious, like, what would,

49:47

again, that advice be if someone comes to

49:49

you and says, how can you make it

49:51

safe for someone to say, Hey, I don't

49:53

really have much work without feeling like, well,

49:55

why are we paying you? Well, I think,

49:58

I mean, if we go back. So one

50:00

of the things I want to take, you

50:02

said a bunch of different interesting things there,

50:05

Amy. So before I, once again, I'm not

50:07

answering your question right away, because this

50:11

thing happens in companies, the

50:13

handshake problem. So the handshake

50:15

problem, if there are two people,

50:17

they shake hands once. And

50:20

then with every person you add, the

50:22

number of handshakes that have to happen

50:24

go up exponentially or geometrically

50:26

or a lot. And

50:29

I don't know. The technical, this is why

50:31

it's the measurement problem. It's

50:34

the correct mathematical term. But

50:36

by the time there's a hundred people, Yeah,

50:39

by the time there's a hundred people, think of

50:41

how many handshakes have to happen. So

50:44

you can't even ever get to your work because

50:46

you spend the whole damn day shaking hands. And

50:49

that's a problem. That's sort of a

50:51

coordination cost of a big team. And

50:54

so one of the jobs of a good

50:57

manager is to reduce the number

51:00

of handshakes that have to happen. And

51:02

that's by breaking work down into its

51:04

component parts. And so

51:07

if you're in a

51:09

situation where you've laid off a lot of

51:11

people and a

51:16

couple of things can happen. One, you can find

51:18

out you are very inefficient. Two, there

51:20

may be in about six months, you'll

51:22

realize you've killed the business. You've cut the

51:25

cost, but you've cut revenue more.

51:27

And I don't know what's happening in

51:29

that situation. So I think that's an

51:31

important thing to consider. But if you

51:33

think about what helps

51:35

an economy be healthy,

51:39

you don't want to rely only on

51:41

the growth of the population because then

51:43

we will overpopulate the work. You also

51:45

want total factor productivity. And that is

51:47

what managers are responsible for, is figuring

51:49

out how to do

51:52

things more efficiently. And when

51:54

you do that very often, when you're focused

51:56

on that, then what you're doing, and this

51:58

is part of the reason why I said what What

52:00

can we stop doing? What can we eliminate? What

52:02

can we automate? I promise to

52:04

the team was once we've gotten more

52:06

efficient, I'm not going to reduce head

52:08

count, but I'm going to do

52:10

is help you all figure out what

52:13

you're, you know, take a step in the direction of

52:15

your dreams. Like, what are you interested in doing? What

52:17

do you think would help us grow the business now

52:19

that we've eliminated all this grant

52:21

work and that was what

52:23

they cared about. And there was a

52:25

lot of excitement around. They

52:28

wanted to grow the business and we

52:30

wanted them to grow the business. And

52:32

you know, our incentives were aligned. Once

52:35

we, once we made it

52:38

exciting to say, I've got

52:40

some extra time and I want to do this project, special

52:43

projects. Yeah. And I was, I

52:45

was going to say, if I was speaking to that individual,

52:47

I think there's a way to approach

52:49

your manager and say, look, I'm eager

52:51

to grow. I'm eager for new opportunities.

52:54

You know, I know there's a lot that's been changing in

52:56

the business. Um, and I just

52:58

want to, I'm putting you on notice that I'm

53:01

open to, to opportunities to,

53:03

to do other things inside the company. I don't think

53:06

you have to talk about how little you're doing. I

53:08

think you can talk about how open you are to

53:10

doing new things. My guess

53:12

is like, interestingly in

53:14

that situation, I'm guessing managers are freaked out that

53:16

people are going to quit. You know what I'm

53:18

saying? Like if you've been on the other side

53:20

of a layoff, like your manager is probably like

53:22

petrified of losing anybody at this point because they'd

53:24

have no idea how they're supposed to get the

53:26

work done that they're going to get done. And

53:29

so someone raising their hand and saying like, Hey,

53:31

I'm here to help. If there are opportunities

53:33

for me to do different things, like I'm excited about that,

53:35

please point me in the direction of a thing that I

53:37

can do that's going to help grow the company. I

53:40

feel like managers would probably take that pretty well. I

53:42

think that's so, so helpful. Last

53:45

point, which is actually an invitation for

53:47

us to continue this conversation. What I'm

53:49

really curious about is how this conversation

53:52

is going to evolve. Going back to

53:54

people wanting to have work that has

53:56

meaning, uh, if not

53:58

joy, going back to joy. joyous. But

54:01

now in a world with ever advancing

54:04

AI doing a lot more automation and

54:06

other tools, how are we going to

54:08

find meaning as our roles might be

54:10

changing? So I think that's going to

54:12

be a topic that I

54:14

suspect we will be continuing to explore. And

54:16

I'm curious in six months or a year

54:19

where we'll be on that. I think the

54:21

important thing there is that everybody's got to

54:23

find meaning in their own way. It's not

54:25

the manager's job to tell the employees what

54:27

gives their work meaning because then

54:30

the manager becomes the bloviating BS'er

54:32

of all time. The messianic

54:35

bloviating BS'er, which is

54:37

the worst of all possible, bloviating BS'er.

54:40

Well on that note, let's

54:44

get into some practical

54:46

and tactical. Kim, over

54:48

to you for tip one. All

54:50

right, tip number one, remember the measurement

54:53

problem. Too often we reward what we

54:55

can measure and

54:58

we do not reward what we

55:00

actually value. So this all goes

55:02

back to radical Kim, or like

55:04

have those development conversations hook into

55:06

the sort of

55:09

two minute impromptu radical conversation hooks

55:12

into a person's intrinsic desire to

55:14

get better. And I think

55:16

that is the

55:18

sort of atomic building block of

55:20

a great team. It's more important

55:23

than performance management. I'm not saying

55:25

performance management is unimportant, but

55:27

focus on that intrinsic motivation. Tip

55:30

number two, stop rewarding

55:32

loud laboring. This

55:35

kind of behavior is rampant because it works. You

55:37

should know as a manager what's going on with

55:39

your team well enough to see through loud

55:41

laboring, which isn't actually producing real results.

55:44

And you can only do this if

55:46

you've taken the time to build

55:48

relationships with the people on your

55:50

team and get really curious about

55:52

what's happening. Tip number three,

55:55

it's going to be a throwback to

55:57

a recent episode. We want to

55:59

remind managers that that it's part of their job

56:01

to acknowledge and celebrate the work of the

56:03

quiet laborers on their team. Make

56:06

sure that you are sending up

56:08

the chain. There's no

56:10

boss that I've ever had that regretted receiving

56:12

an email from me talking about the great

56:14

things that people who don't typically boast

56:16

about their work had done on my team. So

56:19

take the time to do that. It's gonna help you and

56:21

it's gonna help them in their career. Can

56:23

I add a tip number four and impromptu tip

56:26

number four? Let's do it. All

56:28

right, so there's an interesting

56:30

thing that happens where sometimes the

56:32

loud labor or the bloviating BS

56:35

or it's pretending like you're

56:37

doing all this work that they're not actually doing, but

56:40

other times they're not talking about

56:42

activities. You're talking about results. But

56:46

sometimes those results just sort of happen, not

56:49

as a result of anything that

56:52

anyone did. And so

56:54

I think that the conventional wisdom is

56:56

focused on results, not on activities. But

56:59

sometimes you need to ask some questions

57:02

about the results. I mean, I'll give

57:04

you an example from my career. People,

57:06

when they're writing, they're publishing a book,

57:09

they'll often come to me and they'll say, how

57:11

did you, why was radical candor, why did

57:14

it sell so well? What did

57:16

you do? And unfortunately,

57:18

the answer is I

57:20

have no idea. It just

57:23

happened. It just took off. It's

57:25

not because of any brilliant

57:27

marketing strategy on my part.

57:30

I mean, I did some stuff, but

57:32

I also did that stuff for Just

57:34

Work and Just Work just didn't sell

57:36

that well. So I don't

57:38

know sometimes. And

57:41

I think creating space, it's easy for

57:43

me to be honest about that. It's harder

57:45

for a person to be honest about that

57:47

with their boss, but create space

57:49

for people to say, well, this great thing

57:51

happened and I don't even know

57:54

why it happened. Help

57:56

me figure it out. I love that, that

57:58

humility and curiosity and. I

58:00

will just say there is so much good

58:02

stuff in radical candor. Of course it's That's

58:09

true, I don't

58:11

know I've created space and not know

58:14

I'm not knowing I don't know either But

58:17

everybody could help us change that by

58:19

buying a right now Everybody

58:22

who listens to this podcast by five

58:24

copies of just work. It'll be on

58:27

the bestseller list. So there you go

58:29

It's that easy it is

58:31

apparently it's that easy. That's how books sell just

58:33

have Kim talk about it and we'll go buy

58:35

some books Well, that

58:37

is not a helpful tip on Book

58:41

sales, but for other tips related

58:43

to feedback and culture go

58:45

ahead visit radical candor comm slash

58:47

resources We've got free learning guides

58:50

Radical candor on master class or

58:52

lit video book our

58:54

workplace comedy series the feedback loop so

58:57

much more show notes radical

58:59

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59:02

Praise in public and private and

59:05

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59:07

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59:22

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59:25

Do we have a favorite thing for

59:27

today? Yes today's favorite

59:29

thing Every

59:42

day's every day not every day

59:44

but today's say last week it

59:46

was my Deodorant without

59:49

any plastic this week it

59:52

is I'm gonna sell my own things Just

59:54

work buy a copy of just

59:56

work if you want to buy an

59:58

environmentally sound copy of just work, you

1:00:01

can buy it electronically. You can listen

1:00:03

to it or you can buy

1:00:05

it in paper. Really, it's not

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that many trees were killed in the printing of

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this work. That is

1:00:12

our new tagline. Minimous

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number of trees. Just

1:00:17

really a small bush. All

1:00:20

right. And with that, it's

1:00:24

a wrap. The Radical Candor podcast

1:00:27

is based on the book, Radical

1:00:29

Candor, via Kick Ass Boss Without

1:00:31

Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott.

1:00:34

Episodes are written and produced by

1:00:36

Brandy Neal with script editing by

1:00:38

me, Amy Sandler. The show features

1:00:40

Radical Candor co-founders, Kim Scott and

1:00:42

Jason Rose off and is hosted

1:00:44

by me, still Amy Sandler. Nick

1:00:46

Perissimi is our audio engineer. The

1:00:49

Radical Candor podcast, the music

1:00:52

was composed by Cliff Goldmacher.

1:00:54

Follow us on LinkedIn, Radical

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us at radicalcander.com. Hello,

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