Yes, my video is horrible, and Esther’s and Wendy’s is perfect. I had some tech fails 🙁 This is the backup recording.
TL;DR
- Culture Is Behavior, Not Posters: Values must be lived, not just listed. Culture shows up in everyday decisions, interactions, and assumptions—not in idealistic slogans or aspirational metaphors like “we’re a family.”
- Hiring for Cultural Compatibility: Rapid growth often leads to hiring misalignments. Leaders must prioritize cultural fit alongside functional skills to avoid undermining the team’s values and cohesion.
- One-on-Ones Are Culture Builders: Regular, consistent one-on-one meetings are essential for feedback, trust, and retention. They’re not just status updates—they’re relationship and information pipelines.
- Power Dynamics Matter: Leaders often underestimate how their positional power affects team dynamics. Even well-liked leaders can unintentionally inhibit openness or collaboration.
- Appreciation as a Culture Hack: Simple, sincere affirmations can shift culture positively. They build connection, reinforce desired behaviors, and create psychological safety for harder conversations.
- Oblique vs. Direct Approaches: Culture change often works best through indirect reinforcement (e.g., modeling, gratitude, storytelling), but some issues require direct, clear feedback.
- Communication Cadence Is Critical: Who communicates, when, and how matters. People need clarity not just about what’s changing—but also what’s staying the same.
- Rapid Growth Isn’t Always Good: Fast growth is not inherently positive. Leaders must consider its impact on culture, clarity, and cohesion.
Guest Links
Esther Derby: email, LinkedIn, YouTube, X
Wendy Moore: website, LinkedIn
Autotranscript
This transcript was autocreated by AI and has not been edited by a human. Errors may exist.
Michael Hunter 00:00
Michael, welcome to the uncommon leadership round table where we bring smart people together to discuss hard topics in a fun way. I am your host, Michael Hunter, with uncommon teens and joining me today are Esther Derby, who has been called one of the most influential voices within the edge communities when it comes to developing organizations, coaching team, transforming management, she helps people identify the visible and sometimes invisible factors within their environment that contribute to the problems they see so they can adjust the environment and work more actively together. Esther, what is something unique about you?
Esther Derby 00:50
I have blue hair. It’s natural. No, it’s not natural. I love it
Michael Hunter 00:57
these days. It could be natural.
Esther Derby 00:59
It could be, um, I some people don’t know that I have a an art history degree. So I came to software the way many people came to software when I started, which was from from a completely different, completely different background.
Michael Hunter 01:19
I did not know that. I have known you for a long time.
Esther Derby 01:21
Yeah, that
Michael Hunter 01:25
was super cool. Also joining me today is Wendy Moore, the founder and CEO of Elevate talent supporting early stage tech startups to scale intentionally by acting as your strategic talent partner. She is a former startup CEO and operator now working with tech founders to build strong teams and grow without losing clarity or culture. She also serves as vice president of the women’s Investment Network, supporting women led ventures through angel investing and advisory group. Wendy. What is something unique about you?
Wendy Moore 02:06
So I say I was just always a new kid, right? So I grew up moving every three to five years as a corporate rat, not military, but very similar cadence. And so I think that’s what gave me such a love for people and culture, and because I always had to come in and make new friends and then continue that into adulthood, moving all around the country so just love stories and connecting across every aspect of life
Michael Hunter 02:36
that’s really cool and I partner with top tech leadership teams to create extraordinary cultures. For 35 years across six continents, I have helped top tech leaders at companies like Microsoft, Salesforce and Tableau sustain the changes they need to make, whether it’s leveling up the quality of their code, their decision making or their relationship with themselves, I help them welcome change like an old friend, so they can level up themselves and use in a way that is safe for everyone. Something unique about me, I’m going to tack on to each of yours. I came into software from an architecture degree that’s built within architecture, not computer production. And as a pastor’s kid, I also moved around every three to four years for my entire upbringing.
Michael Hunter 03:37
My shared uniqueness isn’t exactly why I brought this group together, since I didn’t know either those things before today, it does one reason why I brought this together, because each of you understand culture and how to sustain culture, and especially change culture in deep and boundaries. I always, and that’s our topic today. How do we shape strong cultures during rapid growth? Let’s start with a couple minutes each on whatever you’d like to say about that topic, whether it’s raising questions you’d like to discuss today or talking about an experience that has really shaped your perspective, or anything else, let’s start with you.
Wendy Moore 04:30
Yeah, so when I think about culture, there’s so much. It’s so intangible about it, because it’s the all the little moments that a team has behind the scenes, in front of clients. It’s not one thing, and I think often teams fall into the trap of, we’re going to put our values up on the wall. Here’s our core values, and that’s what drives it. And it’s really about those human interactions on a day to day basis, and the good the bad, often in the. And so when you think about the rapid change, the reason why I fell into change management early in my career and started to love what tech can accelerate, but also the challenges that come with it, is because I love change. I’m one of those people who is wired to embrace it. Are very optimistic about it when it rolls out. I love the new things, but so many people within a team just truly don’t, aren’t wired that way, or are resistant, or just need more data than the people like me who are on the far end of the spectrum. And so I think as we think about how to lead through change and retain that culture, it’s just truly understanding that everybody is going to come at that with their own baggage, their own experiences, their own perspective, and the leadership trying to lead through that change has to embrace that, not resist it, and just understand that each person is going to take their own time come at it with their own way. It’s going to have an impact on different humans differently, and that’s okay, and so that’s typically my big theme is it’s all okay. We just have to figure out how to adjust and adapt as we go. Great. Thank
Michael Hunter 06:17
you. And Pastor. Opening statement, well,
Esther Derby 06:23
I would, I would start by questioning the premise that rapid growth is always a good thing. Don’t think I want to dive into that a lot, but, you know, just put that out there that, you know, it’s, it’s a it’s a very prevalent idea, and it’s always, almost always, regarded as a desirable thing. And I would question that. And I see a lot of companies that are in that in that space, and in my conversations with executives, one of the things that very often comes up is that they fill functional roles with people who are entirely capable of doing those functional roles as the company is growing, but they don’t have an alignment with The values and culture that they’re trying to create, so they might actually be undermining it. And those hiring mistakes, and this came up again. It comes up again and again when I talk to executives, is that once you realize that someone may be, you know, a competent, you know, VP of marketing, but he’s destroying the culture, or she is destroying the culture. You gotta cut ties, right? So So hiring, not just for functional or technical skills, but also looking for people who are compatible with what you’re trying to create, right? Don’t have to be exactly the same. No one’s ever exactly the same, but they have to be compatible, right? The other thing that comes up all the time is that once a company gets past a certain point, knowledge tends to bifurcate, and the people who were there at the start understand the value proposition the business here, they’re in the relationship they want to have with their customers, where they fit into the market and all of that other stuff. And it’s kind of a given, you know. And the newer people coming in may not know that, and when they don’t know that, they have little choice but to wait to be told what to do. Right? So I think it’s super important to always be communicating that contextual information. Why are we here? Why are we doing this? What’s the outcome we’re looking for? How do we treat our customers? How do we treat each other? And one of the best ways I have found to kind of communicate some of those expectations about what behavior we encourage, and what behavior we tolerate and what behavior we discourage is through simple rules, which are just simple aspirational statements that say how we want to act, interact and Make decisions across a broad array of situations. So I read a case study about one company that said, was it department over team? Team over individual? No, company, company. Over Department, Department over team, team over individual. And, you know, I mean, there’s always some subsuming of the individual in a team. I don’t I think there are still boundaries you need to drive. But those three statements helped people make decisions, and they helped guide interactions across all sorts of situations without without a huge policy manual, and it sort of reduced the cognitive load, which is another thing you really have to pay attention to when you are trying to expand and retain a kernel of an important value set, because that’s what culture is. It’s like, what do we value? What do we believe is true and good, and what’s acceptable and not acceptable?
Michael Hunter 10:46
And the more easily we can stick with that culture is especially as simple terms like that, easily people can opt in or out if the company values its company over team over individual, and that’s not going to fit for me, and I know this is not going to be a good place or right for a good fight, which I might really enjoy.
Wendy Moore 11:16
That’s why we’re so go ahead. Well, that’s why we focus so much on that in the hiring process, is sharing the good, the bad and the ugly, right? So not every challenge is for every person, and not every culture is what you know they’re looking for, but if you’re as transparent as possible in that really intentional hiring process, they can make the decision to opt in or out or not, but that does require the team to be have a really clear understanding of what their culture actually is as well. And so having that clarity internally to communicate it externally is really critical. But to your point, then they can opt in or out of that kind of an environment. I think
Esther Derby 12:01
it’s hard to put culture into words, you know, so, so and culture shows up in behavior and assumptions that people make. So I often focus on that behavioral thing rather than, you know, here’s like you referred to Wendy. Oh, here’s our values poster. So, these are our values. How do they show up? Here’s some examples. How would this show up in this situation? How would this value show up in another situation? To make them more concrete, but yeah, it’s very hard to describe culture and and very often people take a very idealistic have a very idealistic take on their the culture that they are native to, or that they are trying to create, and don’t necessarily look at some of the things that might be less desirable or less less wonderful,
Michael Hunter 13:02
anything. One example I see of that a lot is leaders say, our company or my team is a family. Family is great for some people. For other people, that’s not happy consciousness. I
Esther Derby 13:16
almost spit out my tea when you said that.
Wendy Moore 13:19
I You have a head of spin tape that’s one of my least favorite friends that is happening right now, not only because it sets such an unreasonable expectation of what work and a team is supposed to be, and also to your very valid point that is not always a positive or an easy association to make. You’re basically planting work in a very convoluted field of assumptions. And what you can be clear about is, how do we operate as a team? And to me, I use team over employee most of the time because that’s what we are. We’re pushing toward the same goal. It’s unified. Everyone has a role. And that kind of connotation, to me, can be articulated across a pretty diverse spectrum of interpretations, as long as you’re clear and family can mean something very different. And also, we’re not trying to make work family, we’re not trying to replace that additional aspect of people’s lives, and I don’t think companies should pretend to be replacing that aspect.
Esther Derby 14:26
I think that’s a very fraught metaphor for a company. For one thing, it it that reinforces a sort of hierarchy that the leaders are the parents and everyone else is the children. And that’s that’s that’s, can be pretty toxic, and it can also make all sorts of necessary decisions very difficult. I worked with the company that you know, talked about themselves as family. That was one of their primary thing, like a big family here. So when someone did something incredibly. Regis and really needed to be let go. It was like the huge family drama of, oh, we’re we’re kicking our sibling out of the family. And it, it just became such an emotional decision for everybody, and the feelings that came up were, like, amplified in terms of exclusion, cutting someone off, you know, disinheriting someone, you know, it just, yeah, it’s not healthy, yeah. I mean, corporate life is messy enough you don’t need to pretend you’re a fan. That just adds a whole nother. That’s
Michael Hunter 15:48
so as you’re coming into to you what helps you realize the culture people state, however clear that may be aligning with the culture you’re actually experiencing.
Wendy Moore 16:08
I know on my side, every time I take on a new client, or I work with a pretty wide spectrum of teams. I’m typically working with the leadership in the initial kind of intake, but one of the things I require is, once we’re kicking this off, I want to meet hiring managers. I want to meet the direct kind of management tier other employees, and so we’re doing a full team assessment across the board. And typically we’re doing that for capacity planning reasons. But the other thing that very apparently comes through is, how are people articulating how they work with leadership, how they work with their peers, what they’re sharing or not sharing, especially and so it gives us a better feel for how does this actually play out in real life? How are decisions being made? So the same kind of questions we ask for practical reasons from a skills gap assessment kind of approach also really helps us get a feel for what’s the culture really like that can be eye opening it. Most of it is actionable. Most of it is, you know, there’s things that happen in scaling companies that are just a natural part of the progression. And so it doesn’t mean that it’s a bad challenge, but it’s a challenge nonetheless, with growth, but you do have to kind of look under the hood a little bit more. And I always tell people who are looking for new jobs to also ask those kind of questions when they’re assessing whether or not they step into the role or not. Is, how are people making decisions? How are you working together? What was the last hard thing as well as the last good thing? So you can get a feel for the reality, not just the poster version that always looks a little shiny, yeah,
Esther Derby 17:55
yeah, I don’t, I don’t remember Kurt Lewin comes to mind, but it might not have been him that talked about the
Esther Derby 18:05
distance between espoused values and values and action, and the bigger the gap there is between the two,
Esther Derby 18:17
the more cynicism and fear there tends to be so so I look at, you know, what people say, and then what they do. And you know, humans are messy, and we, all, you know, like to think the best of ourselves, and we don’t always act perfectly aligned with that. I mean, that’s a that’s the human condition, and it is in corporations often the gap is very, very big, and, and, and so I look at what they say they do, and what they do, like the leader who said, Oh, I’m all about collaborative teams, and two days later is saying, you know, get in here right now, or you’re fired. You know, that’s kind of a big gap. So, you know, that’s something you need to have a conversation about, saying, Hmm, I noticed this, and I know, what do you make of that difference?
Michael Hunter 19:16
How do you help that conversation go productively? That gap is large, as in that case, or tiny, which can sometimes be even worse, the helping someone recognize that reality is bit different than what they believe it is can be a challenge. Yeah.
Esther Derby 19:44
So you do it in as neutral and and kind of way as you can, and come at it from Curiosity. Say, you know, I noticed you talk about collaboration a lot, and then I noticed this, so tell me about that. I. And then maybe they’ll say, Oh, I was just so I was, I was just under so much stress and so much pressure that I just blew up. And say, Well, yeah, that happens to people. What? What do you think about the impact of that, you know? And so you just do it from curiosity and and kindness and help people see and then let them adjust their behavior accordingly.
Wendy Moore 20:31
Helping and I think that’s a good example of
Michael Hunter 20:35
helping them recognize what your experience was and compare that against their experience may have been, so then they can project into what other people’s experience may have been.
Wendy Moore 20:51
Those really tangible examples help a lot. You know, if I’m working with a leader who consistently his team’s interpretation of what he said and what they said is different than all sit in and witness. You know, how do you run a staff meeting? How do you run an all hands? What are you actually saying? And then what are your team members coming back and interpreting? And so often it’s having those really tangible things, like you said, Esther, where it’s in this scenario you stated this. This is the tone. This is what your team took away from that. And just those little micro moments and on repeat of what you say, what is being heard, are not the same, and it’s emotional intelligence training at the end of the day, and by doing that in those micro moments, consistently helps so much more than a full blown 360 once a year where we’re getting the summary and it doesn’t, it doesn’t point out those micro moments. I’m a big fan of the day to day interactions. Those are the moments that are actually going to tell you what that difference is,
Esther Derby 22:05
yeah, waiting, waiting a year to give feedback is, is malpractice. That’s management malpractice. I had a thought, maybe it will come back to me.
Michael Hunter 22:20
I received that malpractice once I at my annual review, there was feedback that clearly was from six months ago, based on what the feedback was on, and I asked my manager, why did you wait so long to get 50 this? There’s nothing I can do about it. Now, if you had, if I had done it six months ago, I could have taken action and turned the whole situation around, instead of this group of people being grumpy with me for all of that time. And he thought about it, he said, Yeah, I see how that could have been helpful.
Wendy Moore 23:01
That’s such a good example of why I think one on one direct report meetings are non negotiable when it comes to companies, and if you have too many direct reports to make that feasible, we need to take a look at that org chart, because anyone who is managing people should keep a consistent one on one check in that never moves, is always prioritized, and it gives that employee the space where they know this is coming. They know I can bring up concerns, challenges, wins, and the manager has a space to consistently bring up those kind of issues. So it doesn’t go for a month, two months, six months, that, to me, is the such a culture, 101, kind of a thing that you can tell the teams that do that, and you can tell the teams that don’t, and that’s what keeps that communication loop. And it doesn’t have to be with the CEO. It shouldn’t be unless you’re reporting directly to them. It should be with whoever you’re directly reporting to, and never move. And that is one of my biggest recommendations to teams, as far as a simple tactical thing that makes the biggest difference to culture.
Esther Derby 24:10
Yeah, I am also a big, a big proponent of consistent one on ones, and they don’t have to be every week. It depends a lot on the context the person, their maturity in their role, their maturity in life, but it does need to be consistent for all sorts of reasons. So my thought came back to me, Wendy, because I was really struck by this. When you were talking about the difference between how people think they come across and how people perceive them. This is something I’ve also observed over many, many years is that people are often kind of oblivious to the impacts of power. And power is an artifact of hierarchy. You know, just the higher you are in the hierarchy, the more power you have over. Over people’s lives, right, over how, how their work is going to what their work is going to be like, what their work environment is going to be like, whether they get a raise, whether they get hired, whether they get fired. And so I think that often mitigates how people experience behavior, right? And it’s hard, it’s often hard for people to recognize that, oh yeah, the fact that I have power influences how people respond to me, because they do think they’re a good guy for the most part, good, you know, good person for the most part. I one situation A friend told me about where a CEO wanted to attend retrospectives, and they said, No, that’s not a good idea, but I’m a cool CEO. Everybody loves me, which was true. And my friend who was coaching the team said, well, let’s just take a vote. So you go out of the room and we’ll vote. Nobody wanted him there, even though they loved him, right? Because of the power, because of the power difference,
Wendy Moore 26:07
and the purpose of that meeting. The purpose of that meeting isn’t to report to the CEO, it’s to get things done down in the trenches and doing the work. And then a different, you know, kind of reporting structure could be made to, you know, bring him into the mix on bigger goals. But I yep, that’s a great example.
Michael Hunter 26:30
When I am down in the trenches and I see a mismatch in fresh culture versus experience, or some aspect of culture isn’t working for me, and I’d like to initiate discussions about that. How can I do that in a way where I can be safe and I have some expectation of, at least hopes, of this being a productive patient?
Wendy Moore 27:01
I think that question is very much influenced by Esther’s power dynamic as well. If I’m the one bringing up a concern or challenge about culture, and I’m an employee individual contributor, it really my path to do so depends on is my direct manager and my leadership open to hearing that is about the team and vice versa. You know, top down, kind of culture statements resonate and hit very differently as well. So it’s definitely not an easy question to ask, because it depends on where you sit and the structure and what your pre existing relationships and trust has been built on, or if there isn’t trust that’s built on. So I always recommend, if you’re trying to bring up a really sticky situation that you’re concerned about, starting with whoever you’ve built the most trust with, and getting that input, ideally, it’s whoever you report to, and that foundation exists already. But if it doesn’t, building a foundation of trust, good intentions, and giving the benefit of the doubt when you’re bringing up challenges is really important, because if you’re already going uphill against those things, and there isn’t a layer of trust there. Routing through avenues like human resources and people leaders is a good avenue. That’s the resource that exists and should exist. Leadership exists, but trying to escalate too quickly can be a challenge, so using the paths that exist is typically my first step, but it’s easier said than done, depending on how toxic that situation actually is.
Esther Derby 28:47
No Well, in HR is there to protect the company and the company’s interests, not not the individual employees, so that that can be fraught. Um, I would say my favorite culture hack to move culture in a more humane direction is appreciations, where you know, you just say to someone directly and you know, I really appreciate that you picked up that task when I was a little overwhelmed, or whatever it is, you know, something that goes in the direction of how you would like things to be, and it works on a multiple levels. I mean, it’s a little it’s a little bit of affirmation for the person you’re giving it to, so they might feel a little better. It really, it makes them realize that they are making a difference, that they, you know, something they did matter to you enough that you noticed it and said something about it, which creates a little bit of a bond. And that tends to be reciprocal. Yeah. Um, and they’re more likely to do more of that, right? So that’s one approach I take, rather than, you know, frontal assault on culture, because frontal assaults seldom work with humans. I came across this super interesting book that I hadn’t thought about. It’s probably in this stack here somewhere, called the image by Boulding. And he talks about how, you know you have to come into some of these things obliquely, because if you, if you challenge someone’s beliefs and ideas directly, they depend. But if you can introduce something obliquely, you can shift things. So I like to sometimes come at it that way, depending on the, you know, the magnitude of the issue.
Wendy Moore 30:55
I love that affirmations kind of gratitude approach. It’s that positive reinforcement of instead of coming in with the negative reinforcing the positive, I think Michael your and I’s last conversation was all about how to build trust, and for me, it’s celebrations and gratitude and just let’s celebrate the wins together. It doesn’t always have to be working through mud, although that happens, it’s also the the little things that work, let’s notice them, celebrate them. And that kind of win together builds trust so much, and in the micro moments, they’ve shown that in team strategy on if you tackle a project and you win, and then you tackle the next project and you win, those are the things that a team actually can have a foundation of to then tackle the tricky stuff. So love that absolutely.
Esther Derby 31:46
So when you build that sort of base, and I think appreciations do build a connection between people. When you have that connection and you realize, oh, I’m valued as a person, this person does value me, when a conflict does come up, you’ve got some ground to stand on, right? It’s not some person coming to criticize you, it’s someone who is values you, who is interested in having a conversation about making something work better for both of you. So it really changes the dynamic of things. It’s and it’s free,
Wendy Moore 32:25
it’s free and it’s, it’s, it’s available to you. And I actually, I really like how this oblique approach really could work at every level. Because if I’m wanting to reinforce behavior, even to leadership, that I want to see more of, I’m trying to find those things that if I’m an employee who wants to be heard more, if the one time my leader calls on me in a meeting and asks for my opinion, I then, after the fact, say thank you for that opportunity. I really appreciate being able to share that that just plants the seed that maybe there’s more of that in the future. So I think that that advice works peer to peer, manager leadership level. It really works no matter where you are in the organization and where that power dynamic lays.
Esther Derby 33:09
So I want, I want to make a distinction here, just so, because I’m talking about oblique approaches, there are, there are obviously things you need to approach very directly, right? And I think, you know, feedback situations are often like that. You just have to be, you have to be direct. You know, another friend of mine had a situation a company, where someone was picking his nose and then, you know, so nobody wanted to pair program with them and share the same keyboard. It was, you know, it’s like, it was lot of lovely habit, and until, you know, people were like, you know, they’d bring a box of Kleenex with them, or they’d, you know, put Lysol on the spray, the keyboard of Lysol, and all of these little, oh, we have to pay attention to hygiene and bring being A topic in in team meetings. And these are oblique approaches, but they were utterly useless and just prolong the situation. So, I mean, it takes some discernment to know when, when to use an oblique approach and when to, you know, you just have to, you know, tell, tell someone or ask about it. In this case, they said, are you aware that you pick your notes, and he was It was outside his awareness. Yep,
Wendy Moore 34:25
so. And those are the awkward, uncomfortable conversations that can often come up, you know, if it’s how they dress tone or a personal hygiene issue, or whatever that is, and that does come from if you’ve built that layer of trust already that the team can talk to them, the managers can talk to them, and it can doesn’t hit quite as hard as that might, if that that layer isn’t already built. And, you know, and you mentioned, you know, I understand the human resources has a has a tough kind of layer in there where they have. To protect the interests of the company. And, you know, ideally, our resource to the employees. I moved from the ops, finance side of the house into people, because I felt like that resource is so necessary, but so either Miss misused often, or doesn’t speak the language of business, but also how to how to advocate for people, and I think that that’s, it’s a tricky layer. I think that that’s something every leader in the organization struggles with, is, how do we protect the interests of the business and also our team? Yes, but I like to think that we’re moving in the right direction to at least have a relatively neutral space to being up the sticky things that I don’t have another path to do so and in the right world and in the right team, that person can navigate those really awkward conversations as well.
Esther Derby 35:52
Yeah, there’s definitely a tension there. And I would also say that, you know, I didn’t I. I did not. When I was starting out as a manager, my first management role, I didn’t know how to give feedback to people. I didn’t know how to do that. And I think, you know, I don’t think I’m alone in that. And and, and. So, I mean, I talked to an HR person once who said, Well, we have to have annual reviews because it forces people to get feedback once a year. And it’s like, okay, well, that’s one way to approach it. The other way is to teach people how to do it in a way that is kind of congruent and and likely to be effective.
Wendy Moore 36:39
Yeah, I think the most forever taught is the compliment sandwich, and that is so misused. And, you know, and so that’s, that’s not the way to
Esther Derby 36:49
deliver, yeah, that just, that just confuses people. Like, what is it you’re happy with me or I, you know, you’re not. That’s just, it confuses people, yeah,
Michael Hunter 37:00
this takes us back to the power dynamic discussion. If I’m farther up the hierarchy and I’d like to use appreciations or one on ones, where the process for giving direct and compassion back to the people reporting up through me, how do I do this in a way that isn’t me laying down abandonment and people are doing this because they have to, versus understanding the value and how to do it with people.
Wendy Moore 37:37
I mean to me, modeling behavior is always the best start, and less so about, hey, we’re going to start a great attitude. You know, process for our team. I think tools help. I’m a big fan of tech tools that do a lot of these things, whether they’re anonymous or they’re noted, and you can call out people, and it becomes a part of the like an easy, easy way to do it. If it’s a Slack channel, just thanks and gratitude, if it’s in person, there’s there’s tech tools you can leverage that just make it a part of making it easy and notable. And then there’s the behavioral I’m just going to model this. And people that report to me and people that work with us are just going to see that this is a part of it. I do think maybe explicitly stating it at some point with your values is always important. But you can say all day if, if the Leadership isn’t actually showcasing it themselves, it’s not going to translate down. But make it easy and do it yourself.
Esther Derby 38:39
Yeah, I think modeling is so powerful and like, if you’re, if you’re trying to introduce one on ones or or induce other people to do one on ones, you can talk about how valuable it is to you. You know, I think one of the big values of one on ones is it, it’s a part of your information pipeline, you can ask, you know, what’s keeping you up at night? You know, do you have any concerns about what’s going on? So it’s, you know, you get, you get a lot of useful information about how people are feeling about working there, but also about how the system is working right? So it can be an early warning system about problems or about issues that are coming up. And I think that’s invaluable for managers. You know, it’s a it’s also another way to maintain another relationship with employees, because that connection to the company is in in the notion that somebody cares about me enough to, you know, sit, spend some 45 minutes a week with me, or 45 minutes, whatever the cadence is that’s really important for retention.
Wendy Moore 39:53
Yeah, and I would add, I mean, I don’t think it’s too directive to require. If you manage people, you have a one on one. With them. That’s just good management practice. And so saying we have to tiptoe around if you require this, it sounds too directive. It it’s business management, and if you have direct reports, you should be meeting with them. To me, setting that as a non negotiable if you’re going to be a people manager is perfectly within the rights of a leader to require of their their company, and anybody who wants to step up into that. And the business ROI is very clear. So I don’t think that piece of it even needs to be debated. Now, the cadence maybe that can be played with according to how many and the process itself. But to me, one on ones aren’t directive. They’re just good team.
Esther Derby 40:45
Well, I I think it’s part, it can be part of the culture, right? If it’s just part of the culture that this is what we do and someone isn’t doing it, then you get curious, and you ask why. I did have an interesting conversation with a CEO who they’ve gotten really bad employee engagement results in their every two year survey. And one of the things that came up was that people feel blind sided at review time, and people don’t feel supported. And so I had the conversation with, you know, should we require it? And what should we require and should everybody do it weekly? I said, Well, no, there’s context. You know, you’re seeing senior, very senior, people working with situations where, you know, they’re not facing anything particularly novel that they can’t handle. Maybe you don’t talk to them more than a one on one. Have a one on one more than once a month. But new people in a challenging situation are people who might seem a little wobbly about something that you do it more frequently. And so she said, Well, we should have a spreadsheet. No, we don’t need a spreadsheet. You need people to make discernment. And so what we ended up doing was, when she communicated this to people, was, I want to hear more stories about people who feel like they they are supported by their manager. Their manager cares about them, and if something’s going wrong, they hear about it first from their manager, close to the time it happened. I want to hear fewer stories about people who feel like they’re hearing about a problem the first time, six months after it happened, or at the review when they can’t do anything about it, or feel like they’re struggling alone. And that was enough of, you know, set of boundary conditions so that people figured out how often to have the one on one conversations without it being a directive, right? And, you know, so that that kind of thing can work, and it, I think, creates more responsibility than than a directive. Sometimes, yeah, and
Wendy Moore 43:17
I know when we were always planning for large change, rollouts. And again, the principles translate whether you’re a large organization or small. It’s that how to communicate, and who communicates, what and when. And it seems simple and basic, but those are the kind of things that make such a difference. If something’s going well, something’s about to change, something’s not going to change. You know, sometimes we get these a lot of what this theme was about is, you know, rapid change, rapid growth, what’s inevitably going to happen in a team. And so often people need to hear what doesn’t change about their job as much as they do, and then they need to hear it from the right person. And so I’m a big fan of, again, to your point, Esther, of just if it needs to come from that direct reports manager, it needs to come from them. If it needs to come from the top, it comes from the top. If it needs to come from a peer or a team lead, it should come from them. But that communication cadence of when and who is so critical, because then people don’t feel as blindsided or they’re asked for their input when they’re supposed to be asked ahead of time or proactively, so that that buy in can be bought, and all these things are the type of things that build trust and belief in it, so that as you’re experiencing growth and change, inevitably, the biases toward Okay, I think that the company actually does have my best interest in mind. I’m not just here floating in the wind and nobody cares about my input or how I’m affected, and so that who and when is just so consistent in the check ins, updates, communication,
Esther Derby 44:58
who and when, and more than one.
Wendy Moore 45:00
Sense, yeah. And different methods, different types,
Esther Derby 45:03
yeah. And I think, I think you hit on something really important Wendy, which is what isn’t going to change, because that gives people some sense of someplace to stand on, someplace where they can be a little rooted. And very often, that’s the things about the culture, right? You know, we’re changing this, that and the other thing, but what’s not going to change is our commitment to our customers and how we treat our customers, right? What’s not going to change is our standards for how we treat each other.
Michael Hunter 45:49
This is highlighting for me is how all of these things take flex together, that if one on ones aren’t happening as CEO, I may be instructing my directs and to instruct all the way down that one on ones happen on some regular basis, and maybe actually suggest a framework to use until you find something that works better for yourself. At the same time, I may, as CEO, be in all hands and other public situations, celebrating the learnings I’ve had from one on one is both people above me of how that has helped me, and also what I’ve gained from having one on one people being in the hierarchy is that also shows that to go back to the power dynamic, that it’s not a one way thing with one on ones that I, as the quote giver of the one on one, lose as much value from that as a person that I’m meeting with, and then later on, I can explain in specifics of this is why We’re doing this, not just how I get value from it personally. Yes, is the value we’re expecting to get for the company and how it moves forward, things that the company cares about.
Esther Derby 47:14
Yeah, and it’s not just a status update meeting.
Michael Hunter 47:21
So in our last few minutes, start with you, Ezra, what have you learned today and what are you taking away to very much.
Esther Derby 47:35
I want to go second on that question, because I need to think about
Wendy Moore 47:38
it. I was so happy you were going first.
Wendy Moore 47:46
That’d be great. Michael,
Michael Hunter 47:52
reminding me of appreciation. Esther, I appreciate this is a tool I’ve learned from you and others and always find useful and also sometimes forget insist or to employ. So I appreciate you for being reminding me of that, bringing it back to the top of my toolbox what I’ll be experimenting with is many different How’s we can do it indirectly. We can work on things directly. We can work on things through appreciations, through celebrations, through directives, and that these can all be happening at the same time in not necessarily complexly.
Esther Derby 48:54
So I’m reflecting on on one on ones, which I think are just an essential part of management for any number of reasons, but I am reflecting today about how important they are in culture building.
Wendy Moore 49:21
And I, I believe one of the things you said at the top of this Esther was rapid change is not always a positive, and that’s something that I learn and relearn on a regular basis as someone who is more wired for change and tend to skew optimistic on it, I always have to relearn and re like spend some time with the fact that that’s perceived differently, and that that is a natural human reaction to change, and I would say, especially in an era that we are right now where we’ve been next. Experiencing unprecedented change now for over five years, and it’s not slowing down. And so knowing that and living that as a leader, as a manager and coaching teams are two different things, so I’m walking away with that very critical reminder and also some great tips on things to continue to experiment and implement with the teams we’re working with.
Michael Hunter 50:28
This has been a super successful Round Table gaged by we’re each walking away with learnings and things to experiment with. Thank you for great conversation today. Esther and Wendy,
Esther Derby 50:40
yeah, it’s a lovely conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you Applause.