Episode 7 – Bringing meaning to action, with Jason Mitchell

Henry: 00:00:00

Hi, this is the seventh episode of the Happy Manifesto podcast.

Henry: 00:00:05

Hello from me, Henry Stewart.

Maureen: 00:00:07

And hello from me, Maureen

Henry: 00:00:08

So, and today we have one of our clients talking about how they're put into practice the ideas of the Happy Manifesto, but first of all, moving what brings you joy at work at the moment?

Maureen: 00:00:20

So I was thinking about this and um, not so long ago I wasn't feeling well.

Maureen: 00:00:26

I was under the weather, so it was doom and gloom in the household and I know just, you know, feeling low.

Maureen: 00:00:34

And then I had a knock at the door, a little surprise, a bunch of flowers, and it was from everyone at work.

Maureen: 00:00:42

And it really lifted me up.

Maureen: 00:00:44

You know, it was bunch of flowers.

Maureen: 00:00:46

So I thank everyone.

Maureen: 00:00:47

And I was getting messages on the WhatsApps like, I hope you're feeling well.

Maureen: 00:00:51

So, you know, that really made a difference and really gave me joy, and the moment I wasn't feeling too well.

Henry: 00:00:57

Oh, that's glorious.

Henry: 00:00:58

That's glorious.

Maureen: 00:00:59

And how about

Maureen: 00:00:59

you, Henry?

Henry: 00:01:00

How about me?

Henry: 00:01:01

Well, I, uh, held a Liberating structures, real live classroom event last week with my colleague Natalie.

Henry: 00:01:08

And I dunno if you, uh, people know about liberating structures, but they're, they're how you can give everybody an equal voice, rather than having one or two people dominate and they're absolutely brilliant.

Henry: 00:01:20

And it was so great and engaging and people really took it on board and it was just a great event.

Maureen: 00:01:27

Oh, well done.

Maureen: 00:01:28

Congratulations.

Maureen: 00:01:29

And I know liberating structures is excellent.

Maureen: 00:01:31

I enjoy, I enjoy

Henry: 00:01:32

You do?

Henry: 00:01:33

Yes.

Henry: 00:01:33

It's it's good, isn't it?

Maureen: 00:01:34

it really is.

Henry: 00:01:36

What is one happy nickable?

Maureen: 00:01:37

So, um, a nickable for me at this moment in time, um, was just thinking about a word work product that we created at Happy.

Maureen: 00:01:48

And it was about creating this product, but I had the freedom to do this.

Maureen: 00:01:54

So it's a strategy that we use called Freedom Within Guidelines.

Maureen: 00:01:57

And I really, really, really, really think that this is something that needs to be shared.

Maureen: 00:02:03

It's a to allow your people the freedom within a guideline to show their excellence when they're creating a product, uh, falling through a task, whatever it is.

Maureen: 00:02:13

Because what it is is that you'll get to see how great they are and how excellent they are, rather than them trying to replicate somebody else's idea and what they think will work.

Henry: 00:02:24

What was the product?

Maureen: 00:02:25

So it was our apprenticeship, um, workshop for the global majority.

Maureen: 00:02:30

So, um, it was really good to spend time actually, yeah, just getting down into it rather than being told this is how it should look like or this is how you meant to do it.

Henry: 00:02:41

Cause you built that whole program, the global majority, uh, apprenticeship program over the whole 18 months, didn't you?

Maureen: 00:02:47

Yes, yes.

Maureen: 00:02:48

Looking at how to fit in the idea of making sure that inclusion is at the hearts and given an platform to create leaders of the future, aspiring leaders, taking consideration the challenges that they may face back in the workplace, due to their backgrounds.

Henry: 00:03:05

Absolutely.

Henry: 00:03:06

And we're getting quite a lot of, uh, uh, work on that, aren't we?

Henry: 00:03:09

We're getting, we've, we've got various councils are interested in what used to be called B M E, but is now the global majority.

Maureen: 00:03:16

Yes, totally.

Maureen: 00:03:17

And it's, it's needed.

Maureen: 00:03:19

There has to be a change.

Maureen: 00:03:20

And the only way that we can make a difference and make a change and create great leaders is to actually talk about this subject and also support people to be able to achieve that.

Henry: 00:03:30

Absolutely.

Henry: 00:03:31

Well, I had a little session with some of my colleagues yesterday, and one thing that really came up for, for me was that the teams effectively take their own decisions.

Henry: 00:03:42

So me, and me and Kathy, we, we try and make notices at all.

Henry: 00:03:47

And what happens is the teams make decisions.

Henry: 00:03:48

So Vincent instance, on our, on our four day week, people often say to me, oh, do, do the managers tell people you know, which days they work?

Henry: 00:03:56

Well, of course at Happy they don't do they?

Henry: 00:03:58

It's the teams that work out when they work and how they, how they do their job and everything about their role.

Maureen: 00:04:03

And just talking about that process, it was quite easy.

Maureen: 00:04:07

Because verybody cuz we were all involved, we were happy to make compromises, you know, of that when is the best time?

Maureen: 00:04:15

Making sure that everybody felt that they had an opportunity to choose.

Henry: 00:04:19

Absolutely.

Henry: 00:04:20

Okay, let's move on then to Jason.

Henry: 00:04:24

This time we have Jason Mitchell, who is VP of customer experience at type I, and is on our level seven, uh, senior leaders course what I like to call the happy MBA.

Henry: 00:04:35

So, Jason, tells a little bit about the idea you have for creating a happy workplace.

Jason: 00:04:40

Okay.

Jason: 00:04:40

Um, Well, thanks for having me, Henry.

Jason: 00:04:42

Um, As you mentioned the Happy MBA.

Jason: 00:04:45

My first tip really is to put people before tasks.

Jason: 00:04:49

At the beginning of the Happy MBA, you very kindly gave all the participants a happy.

Jason: 00:04:55

planner I'll have, you know, that I'm now sorting my third happy planner.

Henry: 00:05:01

Wow.

Jason: 00:05:01

So I guess I must have been using it for 13 months now cuz they're six months in a planner and um, I've really enjoyed it.

Jason: 00:05:07

That's not my tip by the way.

Jason: 00:05:08

That just sounds like product placement.

Jason: 00:05:10

But I've liked the way that it focuses on the eat.

Jason: 00:05:12

Four frogs.

Jason: 00:05:13

They're 3, 2, 1 0 to control your email and really keep you that sort of focused

Henry: 00:05:18

that you'll have to, you'll have to explain to people what to eat four frogs and 3, 2, 1.

Jason: 00:05:23

Well, of course, or the eat four frogs is when you start a day, you think of four things that are the most important things you feel you need to get done that day, and then you do them in priority, rather than just having a gigantic to-do list that drags on forever.

Jason: 00:05:38

And the 3, 2, 1, 0 basically is you check your emails three times a day for 21 minutes.

Jason: 00:05:44

And by the end of the day, you have no emails in your inbox to tame that beast.

Jason: 00:05:49

are,

Henry: 00:05:49

I, I love it when people actually do that.

Henry: 00:05:50

So you are actually, uh, putting that into practice.

Jason: 00:05:53

Yeah.

Jason: 00:05:54

I, I, I'm very religious about it now, actually I.

Henry: 00:05:57

Oh really?

Jason: 00:05:58

Yeah.

Jason: 00:05:58

Yeah.

Jason: 00:05:59

I have one channel where if something's urgent, people can contact me through a direct message in Slack.

Henry: 00:06:03

Mm-hmm.

Jason: 00:06:04

And I will respond live to that, but I won't check an email.

Jason: 00:06:08

I do it first thing in the morning.

Jason: 00:06:11

With Ttypefi our teams all over the world.

Jason: 00:06:14

Yeah, I do it again first thing us, well, not first thing, but sort of nine, 10:00 AM us morning to accommodate any things that might have been asked then.

Jason: 00:06:23

And then I do it once before I sign off.

Jason: 00:06:26

Uh, and that's it.

Jason: 00:06:27

And I try to stay away from it as much as I can.

Henry: 00:06:30

Did you have email overload before?

Jason: 00:06:32

Definitely.

Jason: 00:06:33

Yeah.

Jason: 00:06:34

And I think, um, that forcing myself to actually respond, delegate or turn it into a task to where I know that's something that I need to come back to another day.

Jason: 00:06:44

It is just solved that because you don't have that funny prioritization within your inbox where important things are mixed up with not so important things.

Jason: 00:06:51

Absolutely.

Jason: 00:06:52

Yeah.

Henry: 00:06:52

Excellent.

Jason: 00:06:53

So I've been using that plan, the planner very regularly for the last year, year and a bit now.

Jason: 00:06:58

At the beginning of the summer, I felt like there were a lot of plates spinning in my life.

Henry: 00:07:03

Mm-hmm.

Jason: 00:07:03

I've got the happy MBA.

Jason: 00:07:04

I've got my, the work, of course I'm involved quite heavily in two community organizations.

Jason: 00:07:10

Plus I I've got a young family, so.

Jason: 00:07:12

And things started to feel like they were coming a little bit outta sync.

Jason: 00:07:15

So I did something unusual and I actually booked a cabin by a leg for two days.

Henry: 00:07:20

Oh wow.

Jason: 00:07:20

And, um, I went there the, well, three days, two nights, I went there the first, um, night by myself.

Jason: 00:07:27

My wife joined me at the end.

Jason: 00:07:29

And I'm a big fan of these enormous post-it notes that you can put on walls.

Jason: 00:07:32

You know, they're like the wall chart and I sat in this little cabin, writing down all the different things that just didn't quite feel in sync at the moment.

Henry: 00:07:39

Mm-hmm.

Jason: 00:07:40

And then spent probably a couple of hours doing that.

Jason: 00:07:43

And then sitting in the cabin with cup of tea, I was looking at them and realized there was a bit of a pattern emerging there, that these things, even though there were some to-dos like tidy up the garden or whatever, cuz that was driving me mad, a lot of the things weren't actually tasks.

Jason: 00:07:59

It was that relationships were getting out of sync that I wasn't spending enough time communicating with people, whether that was in the community, organizations, work, family, whatever tasks were getting too much of a high priority.

Jason: 00:08:14

And funnily enough, this week reading a book, I came across a quote that really spoke to this, uh, and it's Action has meaning only in relationship and without relationship action on any level will only breed conflict.

Jason: 00:08:30

The understanding of relationship is infinitely more important than a search for any plan of action.

Jason: 00:08:36

So I came back after this long weekend at the cabin.

Henry: 00:08:40

Right.

Jason: 00:08:40

And Henry I've made an adjustment to your happy planner.

Jason: 00:08:44

The, um, where you've have, have the appointments.

Jason: 00:08:47

Um, I've turned that into a little box with a person drawn at the top of it.

Jason: 00:08:53

And I, and I start off each day thinking about the people on my team and the wider company, but especially the people on my team who I need to talk to.

Jason: 00:09:01

Uh, and I split it up to cuz the time zones, the ones that I'll, I'll prioritize talking to in the morning and the ones I'll prioritize talking in in the afternoon.

Jason: 00:09:11

And by talking to you, I mean really reaching out to them and having a conversation to check in on something.

Jason: 00:09:16

These aren't scheduled one-on-ones, which might occur anyway.

Jason: 00:09:19

It's more of maybe.

Jason: 00:09:21

Maybe there was an awkward meeting and I think something didn't sound quite right with this person.

Jason: 00:09:25

So I'm gonna check in with them tomorrow in the morning and see what's going on with them.

Jason: 00:09:29

And sometimes it could just be because we are remote and we work in so many different time zones.

Henry: 00:09:34

Yeah.

Jason: 00:09:34

Maybe it's been a couple of weeks since I've actually had a proper conversation with someone in the team.

Jason: 00:09:39

So I'll just reach out to them.

Jason: 00:09:41

And I, and I, and that reaching out bit's really important, cuz nothing's scarier than someone who you perceive as your boss saying.

Jason: 00:09:47

Do you have a minute because, um, of course people think, oh my God, what's about to happen.

Jason: 00:09:52

So it's always a very jovial kind of, I haven't spoken to you for a while, or just wanted to catch up with you based on the meeting yesterday to, to hear, hear what's going on with you now.

Jason: 00:10:02

Uh, so they feel, you know, they don't feel any tension about that sort of catch up.

Jason: 00:10:07

So that would be one of my first tips for, uh, my first kind of nickle of the thing that you can do as a leader, prioritize those conversations with people, even if it's just a conversation when someone's come back from holiday over the tasks, which we always feel are so important, like finishing the budget or, um, finishing their report.

Jason: 00:10:25

Cuz I think those five or 10 minute conversations where you're reaching out to someone, um, it builds a great foundation within a team, and it ensures that there's that flow of information.

Jason: 00:10:36

The channel's open that there's no bad conversation, cholesterol clogging everything up.

Jason: 00:10:40

And you, you feel on the same page as someone.

Henry: 00:10:42

How, how often do you typically have a conversation with somebody?

Jason: 00:10:45

um, if I'd gone more than two weeks, without speaking to someone, I would definitely reach out to them.

Jason: 00:10:51

We have a very complex matrix of projects.

Jason: 00:10:54

So I normally cross paths with people two to three times a week, I would say.

Jason: 00:10:58

There's about 12 to 15 people in the, in the team.

Jason: 00:11:01

And, um, and about half of those would also report to someone else with other responsibilities.

Henry: 00:11:07

And I, you are not telling them what to do?

Henry: 00:11:09

You're, you're

Jason: 00:11:10

No, not at all.

Jason: 00:11:11

And, and that's interesting cuz I didn't actually make that clear it's it's these catch ups really aren't about have you done this by Wednesday?

Jason: 00:11:18

Cuz now it's Wednesday.

Jason: 00:11:20

It's not about that.

Jason: 00:11:20

A lot of it's about checking in with workload, noticing that suddenly a lot of work's going to one person.

Jason: 00:11:25

So let's, you know, checking in and seeing are they handling all of that?

Jason: 00:11:27

Okay.

Jason: 00:11:28

Is there anything I can do to help them?

Jason: 00:11:30

A lot of it, if I feel like maybe there was a point of tension between um, and a meeting of some sort checking in with that.

Jason: 00:11:38

Or also just thinking if.

Jason: 00:11:40

Maybe not quite sounded themselves.

Jason: 00:11:42

And one of, one of the big drivers of this at the moment, as you've probably seen in the news, um, we have an office in Sri Lanka and they're having an extraordinarily tough time at the moment.

Henry: 00:11:52

Wow.

Jason: 00:11:53

And so I check in with everyone in the team there pretty regularly, because they really are dealing.

Jason: 00:11:58

They're not dealing with work problems.

Jason: 00:11:59

They're dealing with serious life problems and, and doing a phenomenal job of still, um, delivering all of the work.

Jason: 00:12:07

If, if some auditor or some sort came into Typefi and looked at the delivery rate of what that team's been producing, they, they would not be able to find a drop off and, and that's just amazing.

Jason: 00:12:23

Um, because they are all dealing, especially the ones who've got young kids, they're dealing with a lot there at the moment.

Jason: 00:12:28

so, um, put people first.

Jason: 00:12:30

I know that's a bit of your mattress.

Jason: 00:12:31

I don't think you can Nick that one.

Jason: 00:12:32

Cause I can.

Henry: 00:12:33

It's a good one though.

Henry: 00:12:34

Isn't it?

Henry: 00:12:34

But yeah.

Jason: 00:12:35

It really is.

Jason: 00:12:36

And another, another, one of the bigger changes I've implemented doing this.

Jason: 00:12:41

Um, the Happy MBA is, well, maybe it's not something I've implemented, that's the wrong way around.

Jason: 00:12:47

Cause that makes it sound like I really thought this through.

Jason: 00:12:50

And it's more something that I've learned, which is, um, that actually it's really powerful to step away from making the decision.

Henry: 00:12:57

Mm-hmm.

Jason: 00:12:57

And to let people in your team make those decisions, even if you feel a little bit uncomfortable with them.

Jason: 00:13:03

I think as a company we're still working through this, I think it's not something that comes naturally to all of us.

Jason: 00:13:09

And I'll probably say that, cuz for me it definitely didn't come naturally.

Jason: 00:13:13

For me, I think up until recently I thought a good manager was someone who got a lot of things done.

Jason: 00:13:19

Right.

Jason: 00:13:19

And, and now I think actually a good manager is someone whose team gets a lot of things done.

Jason: 00:13:23

It's it's not about

Henry: 00:13:24

absolutely where I got that.

Henry: 00:13:26

That's quite a difference, isn't it?

Jason: 00:13:27

Yeah.

Jason: 00:13:28

It is a huge difference.

Jason: 00:13:29

It's a huge difference.

Henry: 00:13:31

And you give a story of where, where, where you have stepped back and somebody has, um?

Jason: 00:13:36

Yeah, of course.

Jason: 00:13:37

Yeah.

Jason: 00:13:37

one of the biggest things was someone expressed, um, a real keen interest in doing project management.

Henry: 00:13:44

Mm-hmm.

Jason: 00:13:45

Which is something that I'd been doing for our projects for the last six or seven years.

Jason: 00:13:51

And for me, I always knew I wasn't quite given it the attention that preserved.

Jason: 00:13:56

And so she qualified, um, did an online course, uh, with the, um, Institute of project management and we slowly transitioned projects, a couple to begin with, and now it's, it's completely in her hands managing all the projects within the team.

Jason: 00:14:12

Sometimes there's some exceptions if she gets over for workload gets too much and now, and I'll handle one or two every now and then, but 95% of them are hard now.

Jason: 00:14:21

And it's just so much better, I can't even tell you.

Jason: 00:14:24

And it shows the difference between someone taking on a responsibility when they're really passionate about it, versus someone taking on a responsibility when they know it needs to be done and it's important.

Jason: 00:14:33

And there's a huge difference there.

Jason: 00:14:35

The quality of work that she produces, if I'm being honest, I would never be able to do that.

Jason: 00:14:40

It's just not something that I have that passion to put that extra 10% in that she does.

Jason: 00:14:48

Um, and I know the clients like it.

Jason: 00:14:51

I can see the difference immediately.

Jason: 00:14:53

Actually just this week, she got a bit more involved and a long term client and running the meetings a bit more and straight away the tone of the meeting changed.

Jason: 00:15:01

It felt more active, uh, and had more momentum.

Jason: 00:15:05

And it's brilliant.

Jason: 00:15:06

And the other interesting thing about that, um, often with these project calls, I'm often still in, in, in the room, not always, but normally in the, in the virtual room.

Jason: 00:15:18

But if she's the one asking the questions around deadlines or tricky situations and, and, and she has seen 100% as a peer of everyone else in the team.

Jason: 00:15:30

There's a whole lot more, um, psychological safety and transparency there.

Jason: 00:15:34

People feel a lot more comfortable saying, I really don't feel comfortable with us being able to meet this deadline to her than they would've to me, or even maybe some of the senior sales people or the, with the CEO, because there's that always that hesitation with someone of you don't wanna let your boss down.

Jason: 00:15:52

There are certain stages, which we seem to, to be at at the moment with quite a few projects where we're finalizing the initial stages where I'm involved.

Jason: 00:16:01

Um, but I am trying to pull back even more from that, to where it's on, I'm only involved when, when it's critical and, and she feels, or one someone else on the team feels that it would be helpful if I'm involved.

Henry: 00:16:12

And what have you, what have you seen as the benefits of, of stepping back?

Jason: 00:16:16

Well, I think there's, there's a couple of angles there, really.

Jason: 00:16:18

I think for me, , I've done something that I should be doing for my team, which is I've, I've made my role a little bit more suitable for me.

Jason: 00:16:27

Um, so I'm, I'm spending more time doing things that I'm passionate about.

Jason: 00:16:31

Hopefully that's improving things in the company in other ways.

Jason: 00:16:35

Um, but the other angle of course is for, especially with her, I know for sure she enjoys her role a lot more now.

Jason: 00:16:42

So she's highly engaged.

Henry: 00:16:43

Mm-hmm.

Jason: 00:16:44

She, she's definitely gone into that learning and growth zone now, 100%.

Jason: 00:16:48

And because she is so much more effective at it.

Jason: 00:16:51

And given it so much more energy projects are smoother now than they were when someone who is trying to balance project management with managing the team and culture, plus whatever the leader, other leadership responsibilities, and so it's been one of the biggest improvements in the company, I think in the last nine months, I think it's about when we started it towards the end of last year.

Henry: 00:17:14

Excellent.

Jason: 00:17:15

Yes.

Jason: 00:17:15

So stepping back from those decisions, I think a really practical thing people can do if they're a leader to do that, is even if they feel like they need to be in the room for those meetings,

Henry: 00:17:26

Yeah.

Jason: 00:17:26

Don't be the chair.

Jason: 00:17:28

And if it's a project appoint someone else to manage that project, because it just creates a different level of psychological safety.

Jason: 00:17:35

I, I know you're really familiar with this phrase, hippo, the highest paid person's opinion.

Henry: 00:17:40

Yes.

Jason: 00:17:40

And there's something about asking someone else in the team to be the chair, of the meeting that mm-hmm somehow slightly deflates, that hippo opinion, because it just becomes one of the other people in the meeting.

Henry: 00:17:50

Mm-hmm.

Jason: 00:17:51

And obviously it's still a little bit there, but I think it's, um, it's easier for everyone else to, to join in the conversation, I think.

Henry: 00:17:58

Yeah.

Henry: 00:17:59

Because it's absolutely true.

Henry: 00:18:00

I mean, Liz Wiseman said this in Multipliers that, uh, you need to, if you are, if you are the, the manager you need speaking for less than 10% of the time.

Jason: 00:18:10

Yes.

Jason: 00:18:10

That's really interesting that 10%, I mean, that seems really low, but I, I think that direction is 100% correct.

Henry: 00:18:18

Yeah.

Jason: 00:18:19

You know, it reminds me, we've been redesigning a website for the, for the last few months.

Jason: 00:18:23

And there was a really interesting correlation between the three companies that pitched to us.

Jason: 00:18:28

And the correlation was the one that we liked the most was the one who spoke the least.

Henry: 00:18:34

Oh, really?

Jason: 00:18:35

Yeah.

Jason: 00:18:35

And it's interesting cuz now of course you're not meeting in a room, you're doing something like this.

Jason: 00:18:39

And then, so you can go back and watch the recording and really observe this factually that actually with them, they just kept asking questions and we kept talking about ourselves.

Jason: 00:18:49

80% of it at least was us talking about us and we all left going.

Jason: 00:18:52

They're brilliant.

Jason: 00:18:54

was that the other spectrum, the one who was giving us a slide presentation and telling us how great they were and how they had all these clients.

Jason: 00:19:02

And they, they, you know, all this experience to reassure us, we kind of left and thought, well, they do seem good, but I did somehow didn't have that spark.

Jason: 00:19:11

And I think that's an interesting correlation.

Henry: 00:19:13

There's, there's a great book by Patrick.

Henry: 00:19:14

I think it's Patrick and Nancy, who, who, uh, explores these consultancies where, or at one level they give a big slideshow, they talk all about themselves and don't get the work, and this other, this other company comes along and just ask questions like, like, like they did and, and they get the work.

Jason: 00:19:31

It's really interesting.

Jason: 00:19:31

Isn't it?

Jason: 00:19:32

Should I talk a little bit about our new review process that we've implemented?

Henry: 00:19:36

Definitely

Jason: 00:19:36

this started at the beginning of the year.

Jason: 00:19:39

Um, we are coming to that point in the calendar where it's time for the annual reviews again.

Jason: 00:19:44

Now this was a decision that I made.

Jason: 00:19:47

I'm, I just thought I'm not gonna do another annual review cycle.

Jason: 00:19:50

Um, I'm just not going to.

Jason: 00:19:52

Um, part of it was I've never really felt that comfortable within myself.

Jason: 00:19:55

I think all the reading and the learning from, from the Happy MBA just solidified that.

Jason: 00:20:01

And it was, it was almost one of those things of like, your head goes into a different space and you just, you just think there is just no way of going back physically.

Jason: 00:20:08

I would not be able to sit down.

Jason: 00:20:10

And do annual reviews with a clean conscience ever again.

Jason: 00:20:14

So I got the team together to talk this through and decide how we would, what we would do instead.

Jason: 00:20:21

Cuz there needs to be some sort of feedback loop.

Jason: 00:20:23

Yeah, you can't go on without a feedback loop.

Jason: 00:20:25

You've gotta have something.

Jason: 00:20:28

I provided a few materials, a couple of links to like corporate rebels, where they were talking about different companies and what they did.

Jason: 00:20:34

Um, but we ended up coming out with something that I feel is fairly unique to us.

Jason: 00:20:38

Um, it combines different things though.

Jason: 00:20:41

but once a quarter, the entire company has an all hands bulletin.

Jason: 00:20:44

So we all get together the leadership team and, and about half of the speakers are lead from the leadership team, talking about what's going on in the different departments.

Jason: 00:20:53

And the other half are people within the company who maybe have made a change or developed a new product, or have an interesting story to tell.

Jason: 00:21:02

But one of the purposes of their all hands bulleting clearly is to let everyone else know this is, this is what we're doing, and this is what our key goals are for the next quarter as a company, uh, and a bit of an updated performance and all of that.

Jason: 00:21:15

So the day after that, I check in with my team and there's about 15 of us.

Jason: 00:21:21

and the first thing is.

Jason: 00:21:23

See if there's anything that anybody really wanted to talk about in that all hands bulletin, but maybe we're a bit hesitant to put their hands up when the whole company was there.

Jason: 00:21:31

Um, happily there's not often too much of that.

Jason: 00:21:34

And then we look back at kind of, what's gone well in the last quarter as a team and we, we do a lot of, um, kind of liberating structures and breakout rooms to get people, to talk about things and share information when they come back about what, what went really well.

Jason: 00:21:51

And then we do some sort of brainstorming exercise and I must admit the last one I did was a catastrophic failure.

Jason: 00:21:58

Um, but the first one worked with a lot more, was a lot more successful where we tried to get everyone to come up with an idea.

Jason: 00:22:05

At the moment, a lot of it seems to be about removing pain points.

Jason: 00:22:09

Um, so one, one of the ones at the moment we're working on is re reorganizing our internal Wiki, so that it's easier to find information.

Henry: 00:22:17

Okay.

Jason: 00:22:17

Kinda fallen outta shape.

Jason: 00:22:19

And people are saying, this is, you know, these things just to drain on the time, you know, so trying to improve things like that.

Jason: 00:22:26

And we are making plan a realistic plan over the next quarter.

Jason: 00:22:30

So two or three things that we're going to do, um, those are delegated who does what and win.

Jason: 00:22:35

And we focus on that as a team for the next quarter.

Jason: 00:22:39

This process is still evolving and I'm going to Nick, your idea that you shared on LinkedIn recently about.

Jason: 00:22:45

Asking the team about a, the, you know, how happy are they in the roles?

Jason: 00:22:49

Mm-hmm cause this is an area I really want to dig into, you know, how can we make people's roles more suitable to those skills and interests?

Jason: 00:22:57

But I think it's the, the review cycle is overall, is working really well.

Jason: 00:23:00

I think we've got a good sense of momentum, that things are constantly evolving,

Jason: 00:23:04

I think one of the downfalls of these annual cycles are that people make these really ambitious goals.

Jason: 00:23:12

And then they do them for about three weeks and then everything just kind of slides back to normal for the next 49 weeks.

Jason: 00:23:18

Whereas we're making these consistent step changes and it, I'm hoping that, um, this makes everyone feel that their ideas are really properly being listened to, that they're owning part of resolving these problems and they're moving forward.

Henry: 00:23:34

Excellent.

Jason: 00:23:35

I did also have three very quick tips for bringing joy to work.

Jason: 00:23:40

The first one really ties into the idea, uh, of the quarterly review, support your team to pursue their ideas for improvement, not yours.

Henry: 00:23:51

Okay.

Jason: 00:23:51

My rationale behind that is that there are so much more likely to succeed, because it's something that they really want to do.

Jason: 00:23:59

And if you support them, they'll, they'll push on you get this momentum.

Jason: 00:24:02

And if that worries you as a leader, don't be worried because there are endless opportunities to influence and improve these suggestions and, and coach and support to help them accomplish those goals.

Jason: 00:24:15

And those goals are going to be easier for them to accomplish than the ones you tell them to do.

Jason: 00:24:20

And then my mantra at the moment at work is, and again, there's a lot of this is because we are a remote team in lots of different places.

Henry: 00:24:28

And you've always been a remote team haven't?

Jason: 00:24:30

Yeah, always.

Jason: 00:24:31

Is embrace asynchronous working.

Jason: 00:24:35

You just can't have this notion that people getting up earlier, staying up late to attend a meeting, shows a dedication in a drive, cuz really it just leads to burnout.

Jason: 00:24:45

I've come as close as I can to banning status updates in any meeting.

Jason: 00:24:53

We use Slack and all of that I feel should just go on Slack.

Jason: 00:24:57

People can see what the status update is.

Jason: 00:24:59

We prioritize that sort of communication in an asynchronous way so that whenever I wake up, I can see what the updates are from people in the states overnight, and I don't have to wait until they wake up to have a conversation about that or get five people together.

Jason: 00:25:13

And one of the really positive outcomes of this is you get such better feedback than you do in meetings.

Jason: 00:25:21

To me it feels like people take time to think about it.

Jason: 00:25:25

They've actually thought This is something I need to sit down and think about.

Jason: 00:25:27

Perhaps it's one of their frogs they've put in their happy planner and, um, they've got a cup of coffee down.

Jason: 00:25:32

They've got a spit of silence and they're really looking at, say the draft banners for a conference or something.

Jason: 00:25:38

And they're providing really positive feedback.

Jason: 00:25:40

Whereas if you're doing that live, there can often be this situation where people feel, they must say something.

Jason: 00:25:47

And so they say, well, the first thing in their head is, and maybe aren't quite as thoughtful.

Jason: 00:25:52

Not that they're trying to be rude or anything.

Jason: 00:25:53

It's just, I think when you're giving, give people that space to give feedback in their own time, the feedback really improves.

Jason: 00:26:00

And the, the final one, especially for remote teams is celebrate, celebrate, celebrate, celebrate, celebrate.

Jason: 00:26:08

Absolutely.

Jason: 00:26:09

Anything, everything you can.

Jason: 00:26:10

So whether it's a work anniversary, right.

Jason: 00:26:13

Finding a new client.

Jason: 00:26:15

Getting good ratings on the support site, um, new releases of product, uh, really just about anything.

Henry: 00:26:21

And how does that work?

Henry: 00:26:22

Is that, is that you send it out to people or you do it in meetings or how does it, how does it work?

Jason: 00:26:26

We do, the overwhelming majority of that is done through Slack, in an asynchronous way.

Jason: 00:26:33

Definitely all birthdays and anniversaries are done there.

Jason: 00:26:37

I make a point of giving a bit of a stat summary every week on what our ratings are on from customers, which I'm proud to say are always excellent.

Jason: 00:26:47

I mean, I can honestly point in the number of times in the last five years, they haven't been excellent and it's because where software company, sometimes a new release comes out and there's something a little bit buggy and a couple people get upset about that.

Jason: 00:26:57

It can

Henry: 00:26:57

and tell me what does what Typefi does.

Jason: 00:27:00

Now, as I've just provided feedback on the marketing banners I should be able to do that very easily.

Jason: 00:27:05

What Typefi does is we very quickly in an automated fashion create highly designed documents from structured content.

Jason: 00:27:16

So.

Jason: 00:27:17

Translating that to a real case scenario, the World Health Organization store all of their information and Word documents, right.

Jason: 00:27:25

They push a button and they run them through Typefi and they create these fantastic reports that look like they've paid a designer to spend days designing it, but really it's made in Typefi in 15 minutes maybe?

Jason: 00:27:37

I'm sure you've picked up a Lonely Planet or a Rough Guide or.

Henry: 00:27:40

Yeah.

Jason: 00:27:40

Many other travel guides.

Jason: 00:27:41

A lot of those are produced using Typefi as well.

Jason: 00:27:44

I'm gonna have to ask for feedback from the marketing person.

Jason: 00:27:46

Now, if they listen to this podcast to see how well I summarize that there I'm feeling a bit under pressure now.

Henry: 00:27:52

I think you summarize it very well there, JAson.

Henry: 00:27:55

And let ask another thing is, as I say, you've been, you've been remote for, for, because you're all around the world forever.

Henry: 00:28:03

What do you feel about the ideas that people should go back to the office?

Jason: 00:28:07

Well, that's interesting.

Jason: 00:28:08

I have, I have, um, a couple of thoughts about that.

Jason: 00:28:11

I don't think it's so much about where you work.

Jason: 00:28:14

It's about how you work.

Jason: 00:28:16

And I think I'm, I might have mentioned this to you in a previous conversation.

Jason: 00:28:19

I think being in a room with people suit a certain type of an individual and, and social style better than others.

Jason: 00:28:28

Whereas this sort of environment being on Zoom, I think allows a different sort of person to, to step up a little bit.

Jason: 00:28:35

I think what's been really interesting, it's hard for me to say anything about this with Typefi.

Jason: 00:28:40

Cause I've been here for nearly eight years and it's always been remote.

Jason: 00:28:42

But it's been really interesting with the level seven MBA, because it's all been remote.

Jason: 00:28:48

And as you know, we, we met for the first time, couple of months ago.

Jason: 00:28:53

And it was really noticeable people who have quite a big presence on Zoom sometimes got a bit quiet in real life.

Henry: 00:29:00

Oh really?

Jason: 00:29:01

And some people who, um, I was gonna say some people who are quite loud in real life were really quite on zoom, but I'm not sure if it goes the other way.

Jason: 00:29:08

I think some people feel more comfortable on Zoom than, or Teams or whatever that might be.

Henry: 00:29:13

Wow.

Jason: 00:29:14

I think this drive to get people back into the workplace is because the people who were in charge of most companies a few years ago, all those personalities who operate a lot better and influence people a lot better when they're all in a room together.

Jason: 00:29:32

They have a presence, um, or something that comes across.

Jason: 00:29:36

Whereas on zoom, you have to communicate.

Jason: 00:29:40

Effectively in a different way.

Henry: 00:29:42

Right.

Jason: 00:29:42

And I wouldn't be surprised if they feel less influential on Zoom.

Jason: 00:29:47

And so I think that's part of the drive.

Henry: 00:29:49

So do you think it's a different set of if we, if we, our Zoom based a different set of leaders will emerge?

Jason: 00:29:54

I think so.

Jason: 00:29:55

I think there would, I mean, 100% there would, I think there are people who have an enormous amount of empathy, which is great for a leader, uh, are very thoughtful people, um, which is great for a leader.

Jason: 00:30:09

And that comes across.

Jason: 00:30:11

And for a lot of them, I think it's easier for them to, to do that when they're in this sort of environment.

Jason: 00:30:16

Whereas if they're in a room and there's a lot of big personalities there, then maybe they go in, in the, in the shell a bit, they're quite as confident to speak out.

Jason: 00:30:26

I think it changes the dynamic of a workplace completely.

Jason: 00:30:29

And I speak this personally thinking of all these sort of remote kind of conferences and other things that I've done since the pandemic, I can tell you, my networking abilities are times 50 on Zoom versus in real life.

Jason: 00:30:43

When I think the conferences in the past, I, I was always someone who, okay, coffee break, lunch break, find someone I know, and very hesitant to talk to someone else.

Jason: 00:30:53

But on Zoom, if I'm suddenly in a breakout room with two strangers, I feel very comfortable sort in a conversation.

Henry: 00:30:58

Now they have to be breakout rooms, don't they?

Henry: 00:31:00

And men, there I've been to so many conferences where there aren't any breakout rooms.

Jason: 00:31:03

Yeah, which is really crazy cuz breakout rooms, I actually think breakout rooms are great fun.

Jason: 00:31:08

I think it's, I think it's really interesting to go to these conferences and just suddenly have two or three people potentially in different countries.

Henry: 00:31:17

Yeah.

Jason: 00:31:17

Completely different sort of professions and given some sort of maybe even silly topic to talk about.

Jason: 00:31:22

It's really exciting.

Jason: 00:31:24

And I, you know, I've met so many people through different ones and it's really excellent.

Henry: 00:31:29

Yeah.

Jason: 00:31:30

For me though.

Jason: 00:31:30

I think I've transferred that a bit into real life now as well.

Jason: 00:31:34

I'm less reserved about starting conversation.

Jason: 00:31:38

It's demystified it for me a bit soon, I think.

Henry: 00:31:41

Okay.

Henry: 00:31:42

Well, thank you, Jason.

Jason: 00:31:43

Thank you.

Jason: 00:31:43

It's been a pleasure Henry.

Henry: 00:31:44

Those three top tips and, and those examples of, uh, how to create a happy workplace.

Jason: 00:31:49

Thank you so much.

Maureen: 00:31:53

I could feel you smiling when Jason started to talk about the 3, 2 10, know, because I know that's one of your favorite strategies.

Henry: 00:32:01

Absolutely.

Henry: 00:32:02

This is.

Henry: 00:32:03

I have, I have, for five years, I have not suffered from email overload thanks to 3 2 1 0

Maureen: 00:32:08

Well, I could say I've tried, Henry, I've tried, so I might just do the 3 2 1, but I haven't got to the 0 as yet, but I'm still, I'm still on it.

Maureen: 00:32:18

But, um, it was good to hear how it's worked, um, for Jason.

Maureen: 00:32:23

I really like the part where he decided just to take time out to time away to actually for him to reflect where he's at, you know, and what's going on for him.

Maureen: 00:32:32

And I don't, I think that's something that we don't do enough of.

Maureen: 00:32:35

Like we may have annual leave, but we don't actually use time to actually just take a step back,

Henry: 00:32:39

What I really loved is when he said that previously, he thought a good manager was someone who got a lot of things done.

Henry: 00:32:45

But now he thinks a good man is someone whose team gets a lot of things done.

Henry: 00:32:50

And that it's, it's in line with multipliers, it's in line with, with all those kinds of things.

Henry: 00:32:54

And he said it's really powerful to step away from making the decision.

Henry: 00:32:58

Instead, you let people and your team make those decisions, which is exactly what it, what we, we talked about earlier, isn't it?

Maureen: 00:33:04

And what was that?

Maureen: 00:33:05

He said referred to people like, um, H P P O, the Hippo.

Henry: 00:33:09

The hippo.

Henry: 00:33:10

Do you know about the hippo?

Maureen: 00:33:11

I do, but I always get it wrong.

Maureen: 00:33:13

So tell me Henry.

Henry: 00:33:15

The hippo is, the highest paid person's opinion and, uh, generally in any meeting or any event, it is the highest paid person who gets the most credence, but actually, The highest paid person is normally the per furthest from the front line and the person who should have the least credence.

Maureen: 00:33:34

Yeah.

Maureen: 00:33:34

I think we need to let people know more about the hippo.

Maureen: 00:33:37

Okay.

Henry: 00:33:39

Are you the hippo?

Henry: 00:33:39

That's the key question.

Henry: 00:33:41

Not you, not you

Maureen: 00:33:42

No.

Maureen: 00:33:42

I was gonna say,

Henry: 00:33:44

listeners, are you the hippo in the, in, in the meeting or the event?

Maureen: 00:33:47

Sorry, and one of the last things that he said to finish it off on is like, to celebrate, everybody says, celebrate, celebrate, celebrate.

Maureen: 00:33:56

You know, we don't do enough about celebrate.

Maureen: 00:33:58

Let's not keep looking at the negatives, celebrate the things that go wrong.

Henry: 00:34:02

Absolutely.

Henry: 00:34:03

Absolutely.

Henry: 00:34:04

So, on,

Maureen: 00:34:05

Let's keep creating more joy at work, henry.