Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 If you're trying to four X the size of your organization in 18 months, that's what you need. Um, it's very likely that you need something in that neighborhood to deliver on it. And boy, you, you don't want to be, you know, driving the car down the road while you're still putting the wheels on. You know, so, you know, as you're raising that fee, um, in this case, I would advise that you're, you're hiring that VP of HR very quickly. And then they're building out their team very quickly so that when the round closes, you're able to go execute on it. Otherwise you can very easily burn six months building the HR team to go deliver on the headcount growth that you anticipate. And you, you just miss your targets or you do it in a really awkward, chaotic, slap hazard way.
Speaker 1 00:00:53 If I had slower baby hair, head of growth at seed, um, following a short break and our scaling so far podcast, we are officially back to continue with our candid conversations as some of the brightest minds in the startup and scale-up space. This is my first time hosting the podcast as I'm feeling also excitement, nerves, and anticipation of what I might say I need to edit out later. Um, but Hey, there's no better way to tackle fair than to just get over it. Right. And, um, I'm quite frankly pretty on it to have such an awesome guest here today to, to mark the occasion with me. So someone that I'm delighted to introduce all the way from across the pond is Andrew Bartlett. Andrew has over 25 years of HR and talent management experience and is Coldwell through and scaling for success. People priorities for high growth organizations and lead series B consulting under massive welcome to the podcast. And thank you so much for joining us. How are you doing Laura?
Speaker 0 00:01:54 My, my pleasure I'm, I'm doing better with my tall cup of coffee in front of me. It's before 8:00 AM in the San Francisco bay area.
Speaker 1 00:02:03 So grateful I have coffees lined up. Is there any problem is to try and keep them warm, right. So, but thank you for joining us so early in your day, really do appreciate it. And for our listeners, Andrew, can you just share a little bit more about yourself please? And you know, what your story is?
Speaker 0 00:02:24 Sure, sure. Well, first really pleased to be here. Thank you for hosting me and honored to be your first guest as a, uh, as a host. Um, yeah, I, I guess you've covered some of the highlights, lots of time in the space of human resources and talent management and recruitment. And, uh, I've, I've been in HR leadership roles at companies, large and small from fortune 50 to less than 50 employees and really everywhere in between. Uh that's what a long career gets you, I guess, um, places that, you know, people have heard of like general electric and Pepsi and, you know, places that, you know, startups that have crashed and burned and some startups that are, you know, flying, flying pretty high, uh, as well. My, my, uh, greatest success, you know, really the launching pad for this consulting business that, that I do today and the advising and writing work is a company that's now known as invitation homes, which was, uh, is, is a tech enabled and real estate organizations, single family homes really disruptive and is now publicly traded worth almost $20 billion. So I was the, uh, head of HR as they went public twice. That's a longer story. And, uh, yeah, I, I do work with high growth companies generally from institutional funding series a all the way up through a public offering. And I'm actually an operating partner for a private equity firms. So I, I deal with, uh, uh, mid market firms as well, that are rapidly growing. So that's, that's the key component is rapid growth and things are different in that environment. And so we decided to write a book about it.
Speaker 1 00:04:11 Why not? I mean, such a massive breadth of experience that yeah. As you say, really honing in on that rapid growth phase. So, uh, yeah, I mean, it makes sense. It makes sense to, uh, to write a book about it and obviously start, um, series B consulting your company as well. So that high growth world is, is something that you are super, super familiar with. Um, how's the book launch going so far? It came out just earlier this year, right? Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:04:38 A physical copy is on camera behind me over my shoulder. It just feels so good to have that tangible evidence of the effort of what was almost three years from the first outline and pitch to Columbia university press, um, with which published it for us to actually receiving the physical printed copy. And, uh, and boy here in mid 2021 a lot has happened over the past three years to between the pandemic and, you know, social justice, um, you know, becoming much more of a focal point in the world. Um, a lot, a lot has happened. SPACs, uh, were less popular a few years ago. So, uh, you know, the book launch is going great. It's, uh, it's sold out. I can't get myself a copy. Um, I've, I've ordered a couple of boxes for, uh, you know, friends and contributors and, uh, you know, after my first ship and they, they won't send me anymore. So hopefully if, uh, listeners ordered, uh, they'll, they'll get a copy here and there, but I'm still looking for my next box. I'll send you a copy.
Speaker 1 00:05:49 Cool. And do you, would you say you have a favorite anecdote from the book, um, that you'd be happy to share with us today? You know,
Speaker 0 00:05:57 I w I was really, um, honored that a number of people in the high growth community were willing to contribute their thoughts and their quotes and, and chapter four words were, uh, provided by talent partners from venture capital firms, from recruitment experts, from, you know, other people that are way more experienced and far smarter than I'll ever be. Uh, one of those people, um, is Peter Clark. Who's a talent partner from Excel, which is a major VC firm based here in the valley. Um, he talks about how many really smart founders with fantastic products and ideas just get stuck. They have no idea where to start around building their company. So what, what he talks about is having a plan is crucial and compares it to a product roadmap. So figure out your plan, break it down into manageable tasks and ideas. That plan will change over time. Just like you're building a business, just like you're building a product roadmap, just like you're building people's strategies. You just have to have that basic plan and roadmap to get started. So I appreciated that from Peter
Speaker 1 00:07:19 And it's that people as a product approach, or like your people function as a product approach, right? Because as you say, you have a product roadmap, you have a go-to market plan has the same for your people. Like that's just as important. So yeah, definitely, definitely appreciate that point. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:07:37 And it's not a one size fits all approach either. Um, that's one of the things, and maybe we'll talk about this and in our conversation just wrote an article for, uh, Columbia's blog about best practices, how best practices are not necessarily best for all companies. So just because Google did it doesn't mean that it'll be great for your 30 person startup. And so, you know, part of what Peter talks about is that you have to have your own plan, not the plan that everybody else did, which may or may not work for you.
Speaker 1 00:08:13 I always find fascinating with, um, early stage companies, as well as the fact that nobody has done more often than not, nobody has done what you're doing in the way that you're doing it. So you can't expect to take best practices and for them to be best practices exactly. As they were for X company for your company. So like massive responsibility of a founder is to digest advice and digest best practices, and then work out how to apply it to their business and their situation because it's so unique,
Speaker 0 00:08:48 Well said, well said that. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:08:55 Um, so you've directly advised amended dozens of founders and C level execs when it comes to scaling their work from a people perspective, especially yet, as you said before, that, that stage of rapid growth, whether that startup or a little bit later in hyper growth, from your experience, what are the most common pain points that you tend to come across?
Speaker 0 00:09:18 Um, I'll, I'll boil it down to two. There, there are a number of areas where, um, thematically you, you see some patterns of people stumbling, but, uh, let's talk about two. So the first is what we just introduced, lifting and shifting some other places, best practices. You'll, you'll hear anecdotal evidence of, you know, such and such company did this. Or I heard from my friend, who's also a founder backed by the same VC that they did back then. Um, and that anecdotal evidence seems to be over-weighted for, for a lot of folks, keeping up with the Joneses lifting and shifting there's a lot of that that happens. So that's first, um, second, um, I, I see a really common pain point around holding onto the past for too long resisting change. Uh, specifically with founders who started the company, they're leading it through rapid evolution and rapid evolution is growth and the change. Um, I hear all the time and help us keep our culture. Our culture is changing. Some people are unhappy, uh, help us go back to the way things were, um, and would be happy to talk more about that. But boy, that, that is the essence of evolution is change. And so holding onto the past is, is thematically a real difficult thing for founders to get through?
Speaker 1 00:10:48 Yeah, it's a dangerous road, especially with culture, which is like culture is a living organism, right? It's, it's living, it's breathing and yet, so it should constantly change, um, because it evolves with your people. So if that stays stagnant, your people in your company will stay stagnant as well. So. Awesome. And where, where do you see most hybrid companies really falling down when it comes to building their team specifically?
Speaker 0 00:11:17 Um, yeah, let, let's start, um, back with the plan. So to a hell I'll reference Peter, I, I just love the quote around, have a plan. Um, and so I use that a lot, have a plan. So they, uh, many high growth companies tend to fall down around, um, embracing the chaos too much. Um, things are so fast that we don't have time to pause and make a plan well that leads to lots of starts and stops and bad fit hires, and, um, people being for roles that are poorly defined and, uh, folks get pretty upset when you're messing with their job. And so, so have a plan, uh, that, that is one of the, one of the key issues. And, you know, the, the chaos is, uh, is a real challenge. Another piece around building teams, um, as strange as it sounds, um, if you step back a bit in these high growth companies that are trying to hire so rapidly, their selection processes tend to be overly complex and take way too long, lots of steps, lots of hurdles for candidates to go through.
Speaker 0 00:12:34 You know, people forget that we're competing for candidates. You know, this is a, um, employee friendly labor market and it's, it's unbelievable how long it takes good qualified candidates to hear whether an organization wants to, wants to work with them or not. Um, yeah. And then, uh, let's, let's say a third, um, which might be on the other side of the coin once you do hire people, um, I've seen organizations tend to over accommodate early hires. So, um, both with any, any hires, you know, saying yes to everything, any great idea or ask that, that people have, they, they say yes, and there's danger involved in that. It's not always a, um, a situation that you have to say yes to, or that makes sense. Um, but also those folks that help you find success, the folks that were the 10th 15th hire at your organization that led marketing or your were, you know, important to getting your product off the ground, are they really, is that person, really the right person to lead the function when you're at 150 people. So that that's a personal and difficult conversation to deal with, you know, over accommodating, early hires is, is thematically, uh, uh, challenge when building a team.
Speaker 1 00:14:02 Yeah. I think that final points are really interesting one as well, because sometimes it could also be that that employee doesn't feel that they're okay for the stage of growth that you're like, they want to be part of that very early journey. They feel like they have to come along with you. And actually, if you just have an adult conversation and say, how are you feeling this right for years, this is what you said. Like it could be that that employee actually says, no, actually I really wanted to be a part of that build stage. Now I feel like we're past that, maybe this isn't the right place for me. So yeah, I suppose that adult conversation really is key and just keeping things transparent and human at that point. Well,
Speaker 0 00:14:45 And there there's a strong tie back to the culture, uh, evolution of an organization, things are pretty different at 150 people than they were at 15. Right? You have layers, you have people working in all sorts of different places in different time zones. You have more distance between the decision maker and the people that are actually doing the work, and you don't have the same depth of personal relationship and trust. And you have to have, it's, it's a dirty word for so many startups and high growth companies. You have to have some process, you have to have some structure for things to operate at all. Um, and so th the culture changes a bit when you have structure and process versus a band of friends.
Speaker 1 00:15:34 Yeah, yeah. And that point about process processes as well. You know, I think everybody too many processes, this is too process-y, but actually you've got to have those guardrails because otherwise people will either fall or run and just not be on that, on that, the right path. So, uh, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And, and with that, um, and I know we've said obviously, giving advice to founders, do you need to apply advice to their unique situation, but what would your number one bit of advice be for scale-up leaders
Speaker 0 00:16:09 Point number, number one piece of advice? Um, yeah. Well, let's stick with the theme. Um, have a plan period, like map out a simple plan, um, for what hires you want to make over the foreseeable time horizon, uh, what sequence you'll make those hires in and roughly what they'll do. Number one, hire as you're building out your team. Number one piece of advice, as you're building out a team is have a plan, um, in the human resources world, we call that a workforce plan. So maybe it's, uh, a Google sheets document that has all the roles listed, uh, you know, and in your rows and you know, what is, what is the title, but more importantly, some description of what this person will do. Um, and, and generally you, you want to hire managers and team leaders before the team. Otherwise you find these team leaders rebuilding and reworking their entire team once they come on board. So if that's an option, try to bring in the team lead and grow the team underneath them. Um, but, but back to it, number one piece of advice for high growth organizations is have your growth plan
Speaker 1 00:17:33 Mm. And tying in with this, this is a question that is slightly separate, but ties in, well, what if things don't go to plan? Like, what do you do? Do you force them back into that plan? Do you revisit that plan? Like how, how can founders and leaders adapt when that need comes?
Speaker 0 00:17:55 Yeah. Great, great question. And, and I think it is important to put a finer point on that. So w when, when I say a plan, we're not talking about a 50 page technical manual that, um, you know, is, is a hard bound, uh, w we're talking about a general outline that can and should be updated as things change, you know, in a, in a pretty, uh, rapid sense. So as you're raising a new round of funding, as you get a new investor, as you learn more about product market fit and what you need to do to be successful, as you uncover opportunities in the marketplace, that plan absolutely should change. And it should change in a pretty fluid way. But if you don't have a framework to work from, it's just total chaos. So I recommend it's the, it's one of the simplest lightest plans you'll ever put together.
Speaker 0 00:18:50 If you can't put it on one page, there's probably too much to it. Um, and what's interesting is I tend to see, um, the snap-back effect in organizations that are super chaotic, um, at first, and that works because it's innovative and it's creative, and you're just getting stuff off the ground. And it's a small number of people. And then you grow, you grow, you grow such that not everybody knows what everybody's working on at any given time. And things start to fall through the cracks and the investors start to get a little pushy. And then all of a sudden, whack you move over into way too much process way too much struggle. Let's do OKR, let's have every single person say every single thing that they're doing at a morning, standup, that's overkill. Like let's, let's search for a light plan, little bit of structure, tweak it as we go, but I tend to see like the all or nothing approach and the right answer is as usual, somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 1 00:19:51 Yeah. And with, this is another question that ties into this, like when you're putting into, into play some of those newer processes, um, w would you recommend continuous feedback from the team that you're, that you're implementing them with? Like, is that valuable? Is there such thing as too much feedback you don't want to give too much control or actually yeah. What have you seen work?
Speaker 0 00:20:16 Yeah, I think having an ongoing two-way dialogue, um, between the decision makers at an organization and the broad worker base is really important. Uh, the single most valuable management tool is a one-on-one and ensuring that one-on-ones are happening regularly. Um, as a leader, you'll, you'll want to have your team meetings, you'll want to have your one-on-ones you'll want to have skip levels. So, um, everybody seems to be paying employee engagement surveys and doing that on a annual or quarterly basis. Like, that's fine, that's great. That's useful, but it can't replace regular two way communication, human communication in units that make sense, which is a manager and the, and the person that they're, that they're leading that said, um, I, I think there's more risk than reward in crowdsourcing, your management processes. If you're the leader you need to lead, you need to make decisions. Not all of those decisions will be popular. It's not a popularity contest, running a high growth organization. Um, so if everybody wants something that doesn't necessarily make it right. So that's where you, as the leader need to apply your critical thinking and your best business judgment and take into account opinions and perspectives. Don't ignore it, discard it, or avoid asking, but also don't let those opinions and perspectives control the outcome.
Speaker 1 00:21:54 Yeah. Super, super interesting. Um, I'd love to know if there is more of a mindset piece that you find yourself regularly advising on. I know in your book, you speak about a couple of those real archetypes of founders and leaders. Can you tell us a little bit about those?
Speaker 0 00:22:12 Yeah. It was a little bit of a tongue in cheek, uh, archetype, uh, description, um, that, that I've, I've found to be, um, common in, in startups and, and those, the two archetypes that I talk about in the book scaling for success are that of the profit and the mule driver. And, uh, um, the, the profit, imagine the wise leader who stands on the mountaintop with the stone tablets and the beard flowing, who has people gathered around them, listening to, um, their wisdom. Uh, that's the prophet, um, w we'll talk a little bit about like the, the aspects of that. I, I I'll come back to it. The other is the mule driver, which is, you know, someone sitting on a wagon, cracking a whip at the mules that are pulling the wagon down the road. Um, all right. So I'll unpack those briefly, but the profit in a startup or a high growth environment is somebody that is a great visionary that can attract talent that, uh, can, can get funding, can get support for their ideas, but rarely comes off that mountain top to actually do the work and often has trouble getting into the details and executing.
Speaker 0 00:23:38 So, um, in, in a startup environment, and I've seen a number of very successful profits. I'm very successful at building a team and raising funding. Um, but unfortunately I've seen the vaporware that they failed to create and, and companies crumble around that lack of execution. So there are some real benefits to having some profit aspects. You want to be a visionary, you want to attract talent and attract capital, but you need to balance that with some level of executional discipline, making tough decisions. And, and, uh, you can't just delegate that to a COO or somebody else you, as the leader need to have a role in it. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the profit. The mule driver on the other hand is the controlling founder is the founder that wants to be involved in every single detail, builds a team of workers that are intended to get that mule driver to the goal that only they know they will make every decision along the way they will decide how fast they go.
Speaker 0 00:24:47 And when the mules get fed, um, they might offer carrots and, you know, pet pet mules, and be very kind to the workers. Uh, it doesn't mean they're a terrible person, uh, but it does mean that decisions often get bottleneck with a mule driver, a founder who's overly controlling, often the workers, uh, feel disempowered. Um, and you can, you can have higher turnover in those environments. You have great execution on whatever the bat mule driver founder can keep in their head. Um, but it's very difficult for mule driver founders to scale beyond a certain stage because they are typically unwilling to delegate and empower other leaders. So, so those are two examples. Um, I'm, I'm sure that each of us have aspects of both in that.
Speaker 1 00:25:47 Well, that sounds like me. No, actually that sounds a bit, I have learned tendencies
Speaker 0 00:25:58 Challenged in the past to create some sort of a quiz like which, which are you here are the 10 questions and maybe it's a continuum of, you know, somewhere between, um, and so I I'm, I'm not trying to, um, you know, cast shade on all founders and you know, of course not, not everyone falls into those extremes, but the point I think that is worth making is that it it's valuable to be aware of those extremes and try to attend towards the positive aspects and 10, uh, avoid overdoing, um, those, those aspects of someone's natural tendencies.
Speaker 1 00:26:38 Yeah. Oh, even having that sort of devil and angel thought of, okay, how, like, which, which way am I going this this time? Like, should I actually go more the other way? Should I, should I be more profit? Should I be more meal? And having that awareness, as you say, if those two extremes allows you to say, I'm being a bit too, this, let me bring myself back to the middle, let me reset. And I did. My next question was, is there a, is there a middle ground between the two or,
Speaker 0 00:27:08 I don't know if there's a true middle ground, but you know, as, as you just described it, there's awareness, there's, there's a bit of critical thinking rather than just defaulting back to your natural style, natural tendencies that feel most comfortable with whatever your natural tendencies are. As a founder can take you very far can lead to lots of success. Um, but often what got you here, won't take you there. And as your company grows and scales, um, that, that puts stress on some of those natural tendencies,
Speaker 1 00:27:42 Right? Suppose as well, when you look at the stages of growth that companies can be at that profit founder is super valuable at like stealth seed series a when you need to get buy in, like you're, you're, you're looking for funding. You need people to believe in your product. You need people to believe in your company and join your team. That's super valuable. But then when you get to the more process-driven stages, maybe yeah. Series a series B and later you need to be more mule in some aspects. So yeah, I suppose the different, the different, um, personas lend themselves to different stages. Cool. That's super interesting. I love that. Um, so let's talk a little bit about ideal HR people functions for a high growth company. What does that look like for you let's say at the series B plus sort of hyper-growth stage?
Speaker 0 00:28:41 Um, it, it depends, it depends on a lot more than what round you've raised. And, um, but, but let's, let's, let's go with the example and maybe we'll include a few more assumptions. So let's, let's say you just raised your series B uh, this company is at a hundred ish employees at the moment. And with that B they are on their way to about 500 before they plan to close on a C uh, within about 18 months. So, um, actually let's, let's unpack a couple of those factors along the way. So hypergrowth, um, in our definition of the book is 50% or greater headcount growth in a 12 month period. What we just described is four X head count growth in an 18 month period. Each organization is dealing with that. You know, you'll, you'll have your pace of growth matters, uh, base where you're at today and how much you're growing matters.
Speaker 0 00:29:46 Um, whether you have a profit or a mule driver at the, at the helm matters, um, leadership, um, if you're making hiring decisions, how strong is your management and leadership to be able to accommodate that growth? That'll that'll impact how you staff your HR function as well, um, burn rates, uh, matter. And so all of these factors matter, I won't belabor it anymore, but it's not, it's not as cookie cutter as at series B a hundred people. Here's what your org chart looks like. And that goes back to the best practicing, which is lifting and shifting and trying to apply something without really understanding the elements that matter most. So put that all right off the soap box, put that all aside generally at about a hundred ish on the way to, um, 500 after a B round, you should have a professional experienced leader of human resources.
Speaker 0 00:30:49 You can call that person a head of you can call that person a VP. Most often. I see that being a VP reporting into the CEO, um, that HR leader has a short list of key direct reports. You are starting to break out the human resources function into a few important elements, uh, namely a head of talent acquisition. Uh, there's been a tendency in some cases to have HR and recruitment sit as peers. If you're growing, if you're scaling that doesn't work in most cases. Um, so you'll want to have a leader on top and a specialist who has led teams in recruitment and talent acquisition in the past. Maybe that's a director level, senior director level. Um, and if you're trying to grow as fast as what we just described, you know, chances are, you'll want to have about a half dozen internal recruiters, uh, work for that person.
Speaker 0 00:31:54 Um, second channel under the head of human resources is a leader for your people ops function. So that's your systems, your tools, your internal processes, um, surveys, compensation, uh, job descriptions compliance, you name it, maybe payrolls in, maybe it's out. Um, you know, generally you'll have a, uh, senior experienced person directors, senior director level with two, three, maybe four people on their team, uh, caring for that work, um, at about a hundred people you will have hopefully transitioned off of in the states. We call it a PEO a professional employer organization that often runs a lot of your back office and consolidates benefits and provides the technology. If you're on your way to 500 people, you should be off that PEO and be running more of your own systems and tools. And so you need people again to care for and configure those systems. Um, third and, and last major function under that HR leader would be, um, one, maybe two seasoned HR business partners, um, those business partners.
Speaker 0 00:33:19 Um, I, I, that's another topic of discussion as to what a business partner really does. Um, in a high growth context, you'll probably call them a business partner, but what those business partners will do is handle more of the manager, human resources, interaction, um, advise mid-level managers, help them with performance management and employee relations issues, uh, coordinate across the operations and recruitment groups. So you could use one or two of those people. And so, you know, that adds up to a team of 10, almost 12 people, including recruitment at a company with about a hundred people. Um, that's, that's a high ratio for sure, but if you're trying to four X the size of your organization and 18 months, that's what you need. Um, it's very likely that you'd need something in that neighborhood to deliver on it. And boy, you, you don't want to be, you know, driving the car down the road while you're still putting the wheels on. You know, so, you know, as you're raising that B um, in this case, I would advise that you're, you're hiring that VP of HR very quickly. And then they're building out their team very quickly so that when the round closes, you're able to go execute on it. Otherwise you can very easily burn six months building the HR team to go deliver on the headcount growth that you anticipate, and you, you just miss your targets, or you do it in a really awkward, chaotic, you know, slap hazard way.
Speaker 1 00:34:58 Yeah. And I think that that final point that you made is something that we've spoken with previous guests about, because sometimes it can be the, you know, you wait for that milestone round and then you start, but actually that's all a bit too late. You needed to start at this process much further prior. Um, because now you're behind and actually you will start to need to retrofit the staff, which is just inefficient and much more time consuming in the long run. So, yeah, I mean, we've had, um, one of our guests described it as exactly as us. Sometimes it can, like you're driving a car while was trying to change the wheels at the same time, which is quite frankly dangerous. Um, but yeah, yeah. I
Speaker 0 00:35:48 Just want to acknowledge that, you know, cash burn is a real thing, and you're not sure when your round is going to close and making significant investments and head count and payroll costs is a big deal. Um, and so there are ways to jumpstart building the function, like bringing in, uh, contractors, consultants and advisors before you're committing to long-term head count. Um, so, so that that's okay. And you know, that that's some of the work that I've done in the past. I'm not doing it today, where you can find an interim HR leader that sometimes you can get to come in house, but at the very least would help, would help you get it set up before you have to commit to the full time permanent, permanent headcount.
Speaker 1 00:36:37 Definitely. And someone who's experienced and is able to say like, you're not hiring somebody who needs to ramp up, like you're hiring somebody to come in and advise in that moment. Um, and, and just, yeah. Consultants. So, and that makes total sense, um, kind of tying in with that question as well. How can people balance the need to iterate processes, launch initiatives, roll out new progression frameworks, whatever that is, how can they balance that? Um, you know, whilst also hiring
Speaker 0 00:37:11 There's a lot to do isn't there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It goes back to the building and the car while you're trying to make progress towards your, towards your destination. I think there's a mindset around it. And, and again, that basic critical thinking and good business judgment, you know, awareness that change and evolution needs to happen for your company to thrive and, and even survive. So, um, recognizing that the, the, the processes or lack thereof that helped you find success at 15, people will need to be different at 150, um, and different yet again at 1500 or pick your numbers, but it's, uh, you know, there, there definitely some, some predictable stages where, you know, things change and break down, and it's often related to management, layers and gaps in communication and trying to align larger and larger groups of people. So how, how do you balance the need?
Speaker 0 00:38:15 Um, I'm trying to go back to your question. How do you balance the need around evolving these processes and actually doing the work? Um, I think awareness is the most important factor that, um, you know, just like the archetypes of the founders, if you just default back into what feels right, that's not always healthy. So apply three heartbeats to thinking about, does this really make sense? Um, you don't need to pause and have an all hands meeting and a six day offsite to think about, like, does this selection process for, um, our engineering team makes sense today, um, and, and apply that critical thinking, good business judgment, understand your own context, get advice from experts. Um, it's not what the company down the road is doing. It's what the diagnosis is for your particular patient, which is your organization. Um, now, um, one, one, uh, predictable trigger point is a funding round.
Speaker 0 00:39:25 So when you get a funding round that typically results in that hyperspeed growth. So the investors are dumping money on you for you to hit your next stage of growth. So that's, and that in the valley, well, really in, in startup world is typically happening every 12 to 24 months. I I've actually heard of some folks raising rounds and in six months in eight, nine months, it's unbelievable the way that the capital is flowing right now, but those are good trigger points to evaluate whether the management and people processes that you have are the right processes for the next plateau. Yeah. Um, so w as you're raising around, spend a little bit of time thinking about what should change.
Speaker 1 00:40:17 Yeah. Yeah. And, and as we said before, you don't necessarily have to wait until that round happens, but actually if you know, you're going to know that it's happening, so start thinking about it nice and early on.
Speaker 0 00:40:31 And you can decide when to pull the, when to pull the lever to make the change.
Speaker 1 00:40:35 Yeah. Yeah. But you've got your plan in place and you have that awareness. So getting it, this plan stuff, um, something that you touched on earlier is, um, how important one to ones where the greatest tool for people managers out there, um, how especially being remote, um, do you make them as effective as possible? How do you, you know, continue to build relationships that are authentic and, you know, have tough conversations? How can HR leaders, people, leaders really handle, handle those conversations and especially across distributed teams, which a lot of us are in right now.
Speaker 0 00:41:17 Yeah. Um, well, it's, it's not paying for fancy online trivia contests or mailing people, uh, practices
Speaker 1 00:41:30 Done enough. Yeah. I mean, th
Speaker 0 00:41:33 Th that's nice. It's it's okay. But does that meaningfully bill trusted relationships? No. So there's just, yeah, there's just really no substitute for the basics. And the basic is human contact. And is it better to do that in person? Yes. Is that possible given the pandemic and the nature of distributed teams not often or not frequently? Anyway. So go ahead and plan the outdoor off sites. Go ahead and do the online trivia nights. Those are fine, but I would point people back to the fundamental building blocks of management processes, which is a regular team meeting, whole team or project group talking about what you're working on and regular one-on-ones do it. If it's, if it's gotta be over phone or video, that it's gotta be over phone or video. And, um, uh, friction builds familiarity. So the more contact you have with someone, the more you get to know them, the more they get to know you.
Speaker 0 00:42:44 Um, you know, even if you operate very differently and have a different look on life, like you will get to know each other just based off of that friction of being around each other. Uh, so make the time for regular one-on-ones and regular team meetings. Um, and again, it doesn't need to be accompanied by fancy software, lots of people subscribed to lattice or reflective, or you name it, uh, the various tools. I just point people back to make sure your one-on-ones are happening. Um, and, and that that'll go a really long way towards keeping the human element and the workforce, and for leaders that are managing larger teams, do some skip levels periodically as well. That's, that's useful. So you have a pulse on people, deeper in the work.
Speaker 1 00:43:32 Yeah. That's an awesome bit of advice. Um, I'm very mindful of your time. Do you need to drop off now?
Speaker 0 00:43:39 I'm good. I'm good for another, uh, 10 or 15.
Speaker 1 00:43:43 Perfect. All right. Are you all right if we go through a few of those last questions? Yeah. Sure. Cool. Perfect. Um, so do you see any real differences when it comes to successful scale-up people practices globally? Um, especially I suppose, between Europe and the us, um, when you've operated most, right.
Speaker 0 00:44:04 Yeah. Yeah. My, my experience is concentrated in the United States. However, I've, I've done more than a bit of work, um, with, uh, uh, UK organizations and media organizations got pretty deep into LATAM, um, back with the Pringles acquisition coming out of Procter and gamble, uh, hugely global, where there's nothing more global or more shelf stable with a can of Pringles. Oh my goodness. They're everywhere. Um, so the, yes, there are massive cultural differences depending on where you're operating there. Massive compliance differences, thank goodness for outside legal counsel and, you know, in country, uh, experts to help identify a lot of that. Um, but the, the rapid growth issues are pretty similar. So the, the people management frameworks and concepts, again, don't lift and shift your us concepts and drop them on Japan or vice versa belt. Belgium is a very different place to do business in that you would ever expect unless you've actually done business there. Um, but when you're scaling up and you're in the midst of hyper growth, many of these basic principles still apply, have a plan, expect it to evolve, um, have regular contact with your teams, uh, evaluate your processes to see whether they're sufficient or appropriate for what you're trying to accomplish. Um, you know, the, the basic still holds.
Speaker 1 00:45:41 Yeah. And I think it goes without saying, but if you're launching a scallops launching, um, you know, in a new market, invest in counsel or advice from that market, like get local experts, um, because you shouldn't go over there and make assumptions like, yeah, there are people who know it better. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:46:03 Yes, yes. Um, yeah. Thank goodness for other experts and advisors. We don't need to do it all ourselves.
Speaker 1 00:46:10 Yeah. Brilliant. And a couple of lighthearted questions just to finish us up. Cause, uh, yeah, we're getting to the, to the end of our time, but is that a thought value or a phrase that you live by Andrew?
Speaker 0 00:46:25 Um, there's, there's one on my website. I included the, at the bottom of every page and it's a Leonardo DaVinci quote, and boy, it sounds like so snobby. Um, uh, but it, it ties back to a lot of what we talk about simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. So it doesn't need to be complicated to be good or work. In fact, things work better when they're simple and elegant. So I like to turn back to that and I weave that into, you know, be brilliant at the basics and that'll take you take you far. Um, so that that's one and maybe the most used phrase that I use, uh, um, with, with my advisory and consulting clients is there's no better teacher than a hot stove.
Speaker 1 00:47:17 That's brilliant. I don't know who came
Speaker 0 00:47:19 Up with that, but I use it all the time. And boy, when you don't listen, you don't listen. You want to do whatever feels, right, whatever your natural instinct is, whatever the loudest voices tell you to do. And then when you get burned by whatever that is now you've learned, and that just speaks to the power and the value of experience and experienced advisors offering suggestions, but sometimes, you know, your, your, uh, clients or your founders or whoever you're advising, they get to make the decision. So they get to go in their own direction and maybe they get burned by the hot stove. Maybe they don't, but they'll learn if they do get burned.
Speaker 1 00:48:00 And I'm guessing more often than not, it's the profit that gets burned a little bit more. Uh, I dunno, I think, uh,
Speaker 0 00:48:07 Yeah, there's, there's certainly some, some burning, uh, that could, that could accompany the mule driver as well, where the team decides that they, they want to work with somebody else.
Speaker 1 00:48:18 Yeah, no, I absolutely love that last point. And just the fact that yeah. Making mistakes, you have your biggest learnings from mistakes being made. So, um, yeah, if you can tap into somebody who's seen those mistakes being made and you don't have to make them then definitely do. Um, awesome. Thank you, Andrew. And just as our final point, is there a people leader, a founder or a source of inspiration that you have someone you admire that has a pretty unique or impactful approach to scaling, especially from a people perspective?
Speaker 0 00:48:52 Um, the, the human resources guru that I, that I turned to is, uh, Dave Ulrich, uh, and, and his work with the RBL group. And, you know, he's known as the father of modern HR has wrote a dozen plus books on the topic. He was incredibly kind. And actually blurbed my book. Um, I can't can't believe he ever responded to an email and LinkedIn reach out from me. Um, yeah, so he, he really is the, um, I think the strongest and original voice around tying human resources and people management efforts to the business. And that's, it continues to write and speak on, on that topic. And he was kind enough to shout out, you know, our book as being, um, as filling. These are my words, filling the donut hole around small high-growth business practices. There's been a lot more written about giant organizations. Um, so Dave, they've all riches is my, uh, um, you know, HR guru of choice.
Speaker 0 00:50:01 Um, and then there's the, there's the cadre of venture capital talent partners that see scores of organizations. Most of these big VCs invest in 200, 300, uh, high growth startup, uh, organizations and, and the talent partners that support their founders and support their heads of HR. They see. So, uh, uh, Luke Bisetta, uh, Katie, uh, Halimi at Sapphire Darcy <inaudible> and EA say to Howard at IVP, like the list goes on and on many of these folks were contributors to the book. Um, and they are just at the, uh, hub of so much of this work. And, um, they're, they're amazing partners are amazing connectors. And so if you're part of an institutionally backed high growth organization, make sure that you're leveraging the talent partners. Uh, they'll, they'll help you through just about any bump in the road you could imagine.
Speaker 1 00:51:06 Yeah. Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing those with us. And, um, yeah, I mean, the, the insights that you've, uh, spoken through today with us, Andrew have been amazing. Um, I really loved your point on friction builds familiarity. I think that's, yeah, that's a fantastic quote is one thing that I'll definitely take away myself. So, um, yeah. Thank you so much for joining us. Um, before we close out, I mean, where can people get your book when it's back in stock?
Speaker 0 00:51:38 Yeah, it's on, it's on Amazon. Um, there, there's a website for the book scaling for success, book.com. Um, and if you want to, you know, reach out to me directly, LinkedIn is great. Uh, my, my primary website is series B consulting.com. Then I run a, a executive education program for HR leaders. That's based on the book and that's called people leader accelerator.
Speaker 1 00:52:08 Amazing. I'll pop those, uh, URLs into the show notes as well, so that people can access them at any time. And they can just go into Amazon and keep hitting refresh until your books back and stuff. Please, please do it sounds like a fantastic read and yeah, definitely want to keep it your side if, uh, if you're going through a scaling journey, planning, thinking about it. Um, yeah. Sounds really awesome. And, uh, we'll definitely link link through to, to the URLs that you mentioned. So Andrew, it's been an absolute blast. Thank you so much. My first guest, and then, yeah, I just, I really enjoyed our conversation, so yeah, really appreciate your time today and for your openness and for sharing the insights that you have. So thank you.
Speaker 0 00:52:53 Thank you. Well, I really appreciate it. You're already a pro at this. Yeah.
