Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:01 Pauly is an amazing concept because it's not, it's not only about how we organize ourselves in this exactly what you said, self distributed leadership team, where we are supporting people to take their own decisions, but it's all, it also comes with this mindset of full empowerment and autonomy. Hoy is supporting is, is actually saying that we are a network of professionals that are working together for the same purpose, as easy as that, the beauty of Holocracy moving forward is that it allows you to evolve and change an upgrade based on the chapter of the, and of on the maturity level. Speaker 2 00:00:49 Hello, my name is Luke Eaton and welcome to seeds scaling so far podcast. Uh, in this episode, uh, we have Roxanne dere who is the chief people officer at lambster, uh, lambster help, uh, help thing to empower the next generation of scientists with virtual interactive laboratories. It democratizes stem subjects for people of all kinds of backgrounds. Uh, it's a really cool company. Uh, we veered off into some pretty cool topics. Uh, we're gonna talk about distributed decision making and holocratic environments, if you like that. Um, and also the role of internal comms and employer branding at the earliest possible stage. If you are in an, an early stage business and you're interested in developing those types of things, then this one's definitely worth a listen. Uh, so Roxanne, uh, really, really pleased to be chat with you today. Um, welcome to the podcast. Um, it's that time of the week again, I've got my nice shirt on, so, you know, it's the podcast. Um, so thanks for joining us and great to have you with us before we started getting stuck into the lab, sort of all the, the journey and all of that fun stuff. Why don't you just tell our listeners a little bit about yourself just to, to kick things off? Speaker 1 00:02:02 Absolutely. Look and thank you so much for having me and for the, uh, invite, uh, I, I cannot wait for us to have fun chatting, uh, over hopefully exciting stuff. Uh, well, to tell you a bit about me, like, this is probably the most difficult question question that you are going to ask me today, uh, because it's always difficult to, to speak about you about yourself. Let me see. Um, I would start by, by telling who I am from a like human perspective, like human being perspective and the most important part of, of, uh, of my entire entities. The fact that I am a mom, uh, so I have two fantastic boys and two naughty dogs or the other way around. <laugh> like, like four kids altogether. And I have a very supportive husband. Uh, that's traveled with me and they enabled me to have my career throughout, like specifically the last years where, uh, we we've moved quite, quite a lot. Speaker 1 00:03:04 Um, from a professional perspective, I am, uh, I'm working in HR since like for already, already 20 years right now. And I think interesting is the fact that for me at it's fact that like in all the six, seven companies I worked with, uh, I always changed the industry. So I never worked twice in the same industry. Uh, and this is, this is exciting because I had the opportunity to just get to know new, um, business models and new niche, um, area where I, I could just zoom in fully, um, starting with April last year, I'm chief people officer for, and I'm having a blast leading the people, uh, agenda, uh, while, you know, just, uh, there is a saying that I'm, I'm using it a lot while bill building the plane while, uh, flying the plane while building the plane. Right. So we are in the air and we are already, you know, trying to find tune and build a plane, which is absolutely exciting and, and comes with a lot of fun. Yeah. So I'm from Romania. I'm currently living in Spain. Uh, before that I lived in more, uh, for a couple of years and who knows, what's next <laugh> Speaker 2 00:04:24 Jet set lifestyle, um, around the world. Uh, you, you, you mentioned that sort of having different backgrounds work, working in different industries and models. I've also dig into that at the end. Cause I speak to a lot of people who have found a niche, you know, FinTech or crypto or tech or finance or whatever. Um, I'd love to know the similarities and the differences. Uh, if I could dig into that later, um, in terms of labs, you mentioned your, your, your newest role is, uh, CPO at, uh, at lab. Could you tell us a little bit about lab's business, uh, what their mission is? What, what they're up to just now? Speaker 1 00:04:59 Oh yeah, absolutely. And I can, I can speak date about lobster because that was like the click and how I fell in love with, with our mission and with the purpose of, of the company. So basically what we are doing, we are really working hard and every day to empower the next generation of scientists. Uh, and this means, uh, we are partnering with educators with learners, students, teachers, out there in order to make sure that we built the, uh, most engaging, immersive and fun, uh, stem, virtual laboratories for them. So we are supporting the science students to make sure that, and, and obviously in the science teachers to make sure that they have this pre and post lab experience very similar with the flight, uh, simulators, uh, if, if you would, you know, allow the, the comparison because what we are trying to do, we are really trying to make sure that we democratize education. And it doesn't matter if you are in Stan, in India, in Italy or in, uh, Boston, you have, you can have the same, uh, access and the same level of basic learning space that would, and will support the, the science students to solve the biggest issues of, uh, of our planet. So, yeah, we are on a, on a big quest here. Speaker 2 00:06:26 That's, that's fascinating. I, I just, so you know, I I'm from a science background, I Studi chemistry originally before I got into recruitment, bit of a weird journey. Um, but I, I just found that we're looking through your website. This is not some e-learning platform. This is not somewhere where there's video tutorials, that that is a supplement. This is like a metaverse immersive experience for the laboratory experience. Is that right? Speaker 1 00:06:50 Absolutely. And, and we are offering, um, an amazing product, an amazing platform, but also a very high level quality of content. So we are working, we have, uh, right now, uh, almost 100 content people in working in lobster that are in scientific creators that are day by day, making sure that they are bringing top notch content for, uh, partnering with high level worldwide so that we are not offering only a great product and an amazing tech, uh, experience, but also that level of content that will allow any of our, uh, 5 million students and learners to become the next noble, uh, winner. Um, Speaker 2 00:07:36 That's fantastic. And, you know, I, I see a, of, uh, students who struggle to pay for university or, you know, that is not, it's just not on the agenda for them because of their socioeconomic backgrounds. They, they do wanna go into stem. They will choose things like software development cause it's accessible. Yeah. Uh, compared to a physics, chemistry, pure sciences. Um, this seems to be something that breaks down a barrier, uh, to the people with, with those, uh, who, who aren't able to afford that, that, that traditional, um, that traditional education, is that something that you're seeing in case studies and the use cases of the lab study? Speaker 1 00:08:13 Yeah, we, uh, yeah, absolutely. And we are seeing a massive decrease of, um, student in science, uh, just because the, the interest is not there. The topics are becoming not engaging enough. Yeah. The access to labs ISS, not there. And we can, uh, we have in our current, like we are offering, uh, support for high school and for universities. And there are a, a lot of students right now that are trying out our lobster, uh, simulations that are under 18. And the fact that you can play around with like, you, you graduated chemistry, right? Like with all sort of substances within a free, safe environment. And you can just experiment, uh, with, with, uh, tools that otherwise would be extremely expensive. And obviously, uh, would, would, might, uh, put you in a harm that free immersive, uh, learning space is absolutely amazing. And this is what we are receiving as a human back from our students. Speaker 2 00:09:16 That's again, it harkens back to the, the how software development is exploding. You know, the, these kids, these 13, 14 year olds can spin up an IDE and, and, and learn, right. They just, they have the internet they're able to access that. I think it's wonderful that the, you, you can kind of apply the same thing to more physical sciences using these cool metaverse concepts, you know? Um, okay. And let let's focus in on the, the actual people strategy then. So you are a software organization, highly complex use case, very difficult technical challenges, hyper scale, uh, what, what's the journey? So you you've come in, what, what's your problem space right now? It must be, Speaker 1 00:09:57 Yeah, it it's a bit of everything and we are a tech company, but we are also a scientific company. And, uh, uh, like focusing heavily on the science piece at the same time, we need to understand that we are, uh, like the education and the mission is what gets us going, and this is what you are going to to see it very, very in the people roadmap and in our people strategy as well. So in terms of complexities and what we have to deal with, well, look, um, let, let me put it this way. When I joined last year, we obviously taking a step back. The pandemic was for us, uh, uh, a catalyst enabled us to just like, um, make sure that we support teachers with this, uh, either hybrid or fully remote tool, while for two years, the kids were not in schools. Speaker 1 00:10:50 And it, it gave us the opportunity to partner with a lot of instructors all over the world, but we are not only offering, um, this innovative solution in, in our state and our product only for pandemic. So, uh, situations obviously. So moving forward, we see a high rate of adoption, and this means for us, a new chapter of growth and the new chapter of growth came obviously with, uh, the, the growth paint mm-hmm <affirmative>. So we hired, uh, 300 around 350 people only last year. And just like only telling you that, uh, you know, we can build on the fact that onboarding 350 people, um, how to onboard, how to motivate, how to make sure that you have the new processes and you keep the momentum going, how to make sure that you keep the culture and, and the full ingrained elements that define who are we as a company, while you having 70% of your company, a brand new company that in itself is probably one of the most challenges that we had to deal with. And we are still, you know, on that path, obviously because it, like, we, we are building together, we are evolving together, our culture right now, it's, it goes back to flying the plane while building the plane. Speaker 2 00:12:12 I gonna say the same thing. It does its a perfect metaphor for that scale environment. And um, it's, there's a huge commonality. I, lot of the, uh, organizations that are in that scale phase were that's the main concern. You know, the people who at the very top who were built this company from person one, um, very proud of a culture that they've built over P and now they're ready for this next phase. This hyperscale is how do you not only not diminish the maintain, but to the, when there's four times as many people in a right. So I'm always interested to yourself's unique problem. Like how, what, what, that, that was the concern, that's the problem? What, what, what actual measures did you put in place to, to mitigate that or to encourage the culture developing and evolving? Speaker 1 00:13:06 Yeah. And obviously it's not one size, uh, fits all. There are multiple answers to this question, but I would like to focus on three main ones, which I believe for us, uh, last year specifically, and we are continuing this year. We're extremely important, talent, acquisition leadership and leadership development and internal communication talent acquisition, because we hire with culture ads and we hire focusing on, on quality more than anything. So hire for performance is one of our pillars in, in the full performance and talent management mm-hmm <affirmative> and how we do that, how we train our, uh, hiring managers, how we are making sure that, you know, we are raising the bar and, and we are welcoming people with very different backgrounds. We focused a lot on, on that piece, like the entry piece. So talent acquisition now it's, it's working absolutely great for us. Uh, and we not have a problem in terms of, you know, like how I, uh, well, let's see how, what this year is going to bring to us, but obviously, you know, like hiring in, uh, tech world comes with a lot of, uh, challenges, let's say challenge that I think, uh, we manage to navigate quite nicely. Speaker 1 00:14:20 So talent acquisition is definitely the first piece. The second one is gonna be having amazing leaders, uh, because role because role modeling because, uh, you know, like looking and seeing and being inspired is the first step in making sure that after the, at, in the entire organization, uh, we just make sure we have a ripple effect of, of how our leaders behave and, and show up every day. So leadership development is definitely a key, uh, uh, process where we put a lot of focus. The third one is internal communication just because it was chaos. <laugh> like, you know, chaos, wasn't good chaos, controlled chaos, but still having people onboarding 20 people every week with a lot of, you know, new practices, expectations what's happening, not everyone having the, the same eye level of access or understanding our experience with the digital tools that we are using. Speaker 1 00:15:14 It was so important to make sure that we have, we have an amazing storytelling that we, you know, like we understand how to put the messages out there, how to take everyone in the same journey with us. It doesn't matter when they joined us, but to have this, you to understand how we link, uh, everything that we are putting out there, either slack or emails or all hands, or like how people are leaders are communicating in their one to ones, this internal communication flow and story, uh, is what, you know, makes us really, uh, rocking it at this point in time. I, I truly believe Speaker 2 00:15:53 Hmm. Rocking it. I like it. Um, you use, you mentioned the leadership and right next to internal communication, and I think that's brilliant cause they're so intertwined your Mo most, um, hyperscale businesses, more software use transformational leadership, right? That democratizing sort of experience of a, a leader giving you a, and, and communicating it to get people on board rather than sort of command and control, like whipping people from like, you know, the top of the sled type of type of leadership. Um, you can't have one without the other. You can't have good leaders, but then unable to communicate the same vision. Um, now I, I wanna, I have a few questions in mind, but I'm them up a little bit because there was a few, you mentioned internal communications. Um, I know from a previous piece of work that C did that you brought in sort of head of coms for Dix, as I believe. Yes, Speaker 1 00:16:45 Anna. Speaker 2 00:16:48 Um, now we, we support her for the Dix, uh, for some work when she was in Dix and she was awesome. All like seed slack was just exploding how great she was. Um, she's in entirely based. Her entire role is internal com and employer branded. Is that right? Speaker 1 00:17:04 Correct. Yes. Speaker 2 00:17:05 And I, I'm just amazed that most organizations take a long time to have someone dedicat specifically to that. And it sounds like your early on in your journey to, to, to invest in someone like with that level of skill, that, that skillset. So I think it's a Testament to, um, the, the level of, uh, the level of focus that you're putting on in internal coms. What, what does that look like then for the next 18 months, you've got your leadership acquisition, internal coms, what, what does the next 18 months or so look like for you and Ann and, and the rest of, of lambster? Speaker 1 00:17:40 Well, a lot of hard work <laugh>, but, but articulated hard work. So we know exactly where we want to go and how we want to approach this roadmap. And, and we are, you know, like first of all, we agreed what would make sense for the entire organization. And second of all, we are keeping each other accountable each month, each quarter, just to make sure that, does it still make sense? Is it still reasonable to have it as, as our people's strategy? Um, and I will give again, use the magic number of three, just because it happens to be, to have three distinctive pillars where we are concentrating in the next 12, 18 months, uh, as a, you know, like just to take a step back where we really put a lot of energy and, uh, our entire effort is into building this culture of, of success and lasting happiness. Speaker 1 00:18:33 So those two, uh, elements are extremely important for us and what, how we are building the, the strategy around them is on making sure that first our team is fully engaged and fully happy. Uh, and for us, this means, uh, wellbeing, this connection and, uh, that sense of, uh, belonging, which let's face it. We are living in a, in such a changing world, and we have people that are working fully remote. We have people in 33 different countries on three different continents. So how, how do we manage to bring all those people together and to manage this, this sense of, Hey, this is our community. We belong here. We want to be here in, in a, in a full industry where probably each of our, my colleagues receives a one email in their LinkedIn inbox for in every week. Yeah. So how do we manage to, you know, convince them that this is worth it in terms of their time and their energy and how they see each other themselves here for the next years, and this that's why, you know, making sure that team happiness is top one priority. Speaker 1 00:19:49 It it's obvious where doing a lot of things here. First, making sure that we met the flexibility, which for us is very important. And we understand from our people that this is something that is a deal breaker for them as well. So, uh, flexibility, obviously making sure that we foster connection. So we have, uh, we call it lap lifestyle and we are really keen to make sure that at least one per quarter, we connect face to face and we, we see each other, it might be like people that are geographically, but not like, just to give you an example, uh, we are planning now people pow. So the gathering of, of the people team in may, um, in Ireland, so quite close to you. Um, but idea is for us to, to spend that week together, to brainstorm, to work together, to have fun and to build the trust. Speaker 1 00:20:40 So going back to your question, that team happiness, in this sense of belonging, it's one of the key priorities that we are working, uh, entirely in, in the leadership team and the entire organization. The second piece is again, leadership development. And I'm going back to this because I cannot focus enough in saying that probably, you know, uh, I, I I'm speak with, with my peers and with my colleagues. And I understand that is, this is an issue, a situation let's say that we are all facing and it would be absolutely amazing to see how we are, you know, coming up with common solutions, not necessarily within an organization, but maybe, you know, being able to work across organizations. We have a lot of leaders that are first time leaders, and it's obvious we are discussing about technology and we are discussing about, uh, you know, like disruption and innovation. Speaker 1 00:21:33 So we have so many brilliant minds that are not only have to deliver, but also have to start building effective teams out of the sudden. So how do we coach them? How do we support them? This is, uh, and how do we make sure we send them, send them up for success? It's definitely, uh, something that keeps me up <laugh> at night. And this is one of the, the key key priorities for us moving forward. The last one is, uh, people development, continuous learning is one of our values and it's highly great who we are. We are an edge tech company. Yeah. So we need to walk the talk and we need to make sure that our people are the first one that are embracing the growth mindset and are having like a full learning agility in, in how they are perceiving and approaching their jobs. So, uh, getting immersed and having, you know, making sure that we have the right practices. And, uh, we set up the right context for people to learn and to innovate constantly is the third priority moving forward. Speaker 2 00:22:38 OK. Uh, that, I mean, that sounds, I could probably talk for an hour on each of those points. <laugh> I wanna make sure that I'm strict with myself and cut off, but that sounds interesting. You're absolutely right. You, you, it's in the DNA of your business by the sound of it, that, that growth mindset. And I, I've never met, um, someone who's in the hyperscale game who isn't focused personally very much and driven very much by growth and, um, seeing changes an opportunity. Um, if you didn't see changes in opportunity and you in a disruptive company, you've, you pretty not enjoy your job. Right. So I think that makes a lot of sense to me. Um, it, it, I'm interested in how you organize that. So we have effective leaders developing themselves with the growth mindset. Um, now I've heard that a lab is what you call Aloy were decision making is, is more dis distributed. So you have lots of little, um, sort of mini startups everywhere. Um, you know, and, and I've seen this before in product of an environment that, that encourages innovation, but I've also seen it's a little bit like herding cats together. So how do you walk that type role between the innovation of this sort of holocratic environment against all pushing towards a common product vision company vision Speaker 1 00:23:56 On this question? <laugh> and this was probably the first question that I tackled with Michael, with our CEO and with the leadership team. It's, it's a recurrent question, right? So like telling you that we found the answer would be lie because we are evolving on, on this front. Uh, Holocracy is an amazing concept because it's not, it's not only about how we organize ourselves in this exactly what you said, self distribute leadership team, where we are supporting people to take their own decisions, but it's all, it also comes with this mindset of full empowerment and autonomy. So basically, you know, like for anyone who, um, is not necessarily familiar with holo, I was not before joining holo C is supporting is, is actually saying that we are a network of professionals that are working together for the same purpose, as easy as that, the beauty of hol moving forward is that it allows you to evolve and change and upgrade based on the chapter of the, and of on the maturity level that you are at that point in time, it's like a coat that can grow or shrink with you, depending on, you know, like if you're go going to put on some weight or <laugh>, or, or getting slim it's, it's us agile and adaptable. Speaker 1 00:25:23 Uh, again, I think what helps us is glass frog, which, which is a platform that's is supporting us to actually visualize the roles. So if you are going to see my team, you'll see that each team member from the people circle and we call the team circles and, and not functions on the four departments, uh, has specific roles attached to it. And that means those roles will come with the decision making powers. So this means that the red tape, we don't have it where like, you know, we are really trying to push out any level of bureaucracy and make sure that people are empowered to take their own decisions. If they, they, this is the, the role that they have. So to own it fully obvious, we have, we are having brainstorming sessions, like a lot of deep dives to make sure that we are aligned, but an important piece to, to have in mind is this autonomy decision making capability that comes with OC. Now, how do you do that while with people it's very it different on how to do it with 400 people, plus. Speaker 2 00:26:31 Yeah. Speaker 1 00:26:32 And that's the, you know, <laugh> the beauty of being in, uh, in a holocratic company and also the beauty of working in people in a Holocracy because, and I remember when I joined, uh, Michael was asking me like, what do you need? What do you need for, for me and for, for the organization in order for you to like, thrive. And I said, I want you to allow me to innovate. And I had no idea at that point in time that you like to innovate in a Holocracy mind. It ha it's double trouble. It's even difficult. It it's it's, you know, because it comes with a, another level of complexity. So what we're doing right now, we're trying to understand how can we embed the structure, because just to give you an example, uh, we need, we need pay wages in order to make sure that we, we pay in, in a fair and keeping in mind a clear equity, uh, among the team members, right? Speaker 1 00:27:28 In order to have pay wages, we need to have some specific roles and some specific levels. And that comes with an extra structure that we are putting right now in place. So obviously our colleagues are like, Hey, hold on. What are you trying to do here? Because it's really important for us to keep the Holocracy and it's, we are evolving, uh, bringing in structure. It does not mean we, we go against the holocratic mindset of autonomy and, and self distributed leadership is just making sure that we are supporting our people with proper promotion process, with the proper compensation review at proper performance, purposeful performance that we are putting in place, but it has hiss and the beauty of growing and really trying to understand how we do things, not for the sake of the process. This is the, the great challenge that holo brings for me and my team personally, just because it makes us think like, but why do we do that? Do we actually need it? Do we need to go through the traditional ways off? I dunno, like talent management, compensation management. And so we need to look at it from different perspectives and really innovate. Speaker 2 00:28:38 I think that is a, a genuinely wood innovation is used a lot in our line of business, right? It's all over the website, but I think that is a genuinely innovative statement and way of, of, of viewing, um, organizational structure. It, it really does define quite a lot of what, of, of the problem statement of these hyperscale businesses. Um, I I've, I, the bit that I personally find very exciting when I work with these types of organizations is that we, when we're going back to the talent side, you can't just hire like this amount of Java, this amount of this, you have to hire attitude for entrepreneurialism and all of these things that don't quite fit on a CV. Uh, but you know, when you meet those people, you think, how do we define, how do we bottle up what this person has? And those, those are the types of people who really thrive in those, those kind of holistic holocratic, whatever you'd like to call it, environments, people who can see the value of the commercial statement, and then turn it, have the skill to turn it into a technical solution. Speaker 2 00:29:40 So like, I'm just, it's not a question I'm just statement as, as a statement of fact, I super enjoy speaking to those people. So when I get to work with those types of organizations, um, I have a great time personally. <laugh> um, okay. And you mentioned some of the rituals that kind of like keep that, uh, working and that, that sort of iterating, um, how, what do you look for? So I was kind of foreshadowed my next question a little bit. What do you personally look for when it comes to hiring for people who, you know, are gonna really thrive in that type of environment? Speaker 1 00:30:14 Uh, well, there, there are a lot of, uh, like there are several, um, important principles that we guide ourselves when, whenever we are approaching talent acquisition. And obviously we have our scorecards and our values are at the center of how we make sure we break in talent. Um, for if I would like just take a step back and look at all my colleagues and really look at the success. I think dealing with ambiguity, it's one of the most important, uh, competency that we all need to have. It doesn't matter the role, the level, like it doesn't matter anything like, but making sure that you are an adrenaline junkie and enjoy the fact that you have a white canvas and, or we have, you have some priorities that might change, or you'll say, Hey, how are you guys doing this? And we're going to say, uh, well, until now it was like, you know, it was quite chaotic and you'll say, okay, let me try to design it and let me try to give it a flavor. Speaker 1 00:31:20 Let's see how that goes after that. So this sort of, uh, a personality that is really comfortable navigating through, uh, unknown and, and dealing with ambiguity and having fun while doing it, this is definitely, uh, you know, uh, something, something that would complement the success, uh, of our new colleague at the same time, we are a company. And if you would meet our CEO, you will, you'll definitely see it from the first two minutes. Uh, caring is our middle name. So we, this psychological contract that we have with our colleagues, it's real, it's, it's vivid. It's they keep us accountable every month where we have the all hats and not only the feedback is flowing, you know, the direct, which is amazing because this is Michael and Michael is, is one of our co-founders. And he is, you know, like, uh, he's our CEO as well. And this emotional intelligence, this piece all around really honestly, caring is another point that, uh, we have in our score cards. And we look at it when, whenever we have new your colleagues, making sure that the no asshole's policy stays alive no matter what. Speaker 2 00:32:32 OK. It's always painful. Isn't it dealing? I suppose, if dealing with ambiguity is very, very hard by nature of it being ambiguous to recruit for, uh, and, and to, to scrutinize, you know, in an interview or any kind of traditional sense. So I suppose if, if, if, if it was that easy, we probably wouldn't pay us for it. So I suppose it's a blessing in disguise. We need ambiguous, so people can deal with ambiguity Speaker 1 00:32:57 For us. It's really important manage the expectations correctly. And honestly, since the beginning, right? Because that, the moment when we are discussing for the first time, that's the moment when our psychological contract starts and kicks in. And, and we are really making efforts not to paint the wall. So whenever we are engaging in a selection, uh, process, you will know to expect, uh, for good or for bad, but you will know that, Hey, okay, like I'm getting in, I'm getting dirty on this and this, I will take advantage on those projects. And I will, I might have some, some hurdles going into those initiatives, but, you know, upfront. And that helps a lot in us, you know, mitigating and supporting you while dealing with this. Speaker 2 00:33:41 I suppose that links into actually quite perfectly into the next set of questions I wanted to ask you, which was around that sort of hum. You, you mentioned about humanized companies or your initial intro was as a human. Speaker 1 00:33:54 Oh, on my LinkedIn, <laugh> on my profile. Speaker 2 00:33:58 So like what, what does that look like for you today? Like what, what is a humanized company to you and how does that, how is that a benefit compared to a non, non, or a more traditional organization that is maybe sees people more as that list of value statements, you know, on a CV? Speaker 1 00:34:16 For me, it's like it obviously when, I mean different things for different people for me, uh, working in, in a humanized organization means that I can bring my, my true self to work. And, and I like the best momentum for me to like check if I'm still at that moment is every three weeks when we are organizing our all hands and I'm preparing, you know, like I'm preparing to speak and, and to engage with, with all my colleagues and obviously I'm nervous, but, uh, it, it's, it's a fun excitement, and it's a fun, nervous because I, you know, we are okay to bring, uh, the dogs, the kids I'm okay to say, I, I guys, I reallyt no. So it's just a matter of being very authentic and being very honest and bringing my best self at the same time, what, what I was discussing before about the psychological contract. Speaker 1 00:35:13 I think it, it really fits into this humanized organization because there are expectations and there are responsibilities that each of us have. And if this contract speaks with, for, you know, and has a purpose, us building the community, uh, that I feel I, I belong, I have a purpose, I have a role here. And that's why, that's why I, I, I hope I'm speaking in, in, on behalf of my colleagues as well. This is so fun. And it's so engaging and reassurance. Uh, and we have this reassurance on the fact that we have each other's back and we are, we are having this community and, and it says of belonging. Uh, um, I personally I'm preaching around the fact that we do not have taboo topics in lobster. So like ask me anything because that's part of me being honest and being authentic and being, making sure that I am supporting you. Um, so going back to your question, being you, working and supporting and building those humanized organizations, I think are just in it's us, enabling our colleagues to bring their best self to work. Speaker 2 00:36:28 That's really interesting. You know, a lot of our, we have a lot of founders and people in early stage organizations listening to this podcast, just to get a view, get a little bit of a, a, a, you know, learn from people who've already been through that experience. Right. And I think that would be, there's a lot of really interesting, applicable, um, sort of pieces that you've mentioned there that, you know, you could take to an early stage organization and, you know, plant the seeds early of bringing your best selves to work, not being afraid to do that, setting up a culture that allows for that. Um, which I think is fantastic. I think it is, it really is you, you see those types of organizations naturally thriving and being more innovative and attrition being lower, and it's so much down to curve for the individual. Speaker 2 00:37:14 Right. And, and building that into a community. Um, again, I feel like every topic we bring a up, I could go for a whole hour, so I <laugh>, uh, we are getting towards the end of our chat, but I always like to kind of get a, um, a kind of a final thought, like, for me, like, what is your, well, two, two things let's finish on two, number one, maybe a slightly more professional one, which is what, what's your one piece of advice to either your younger self or to a founder, or to, you know, Michael, the CEO before he hired you, what would your one piece of advice be to that, those founder CEO level people, um, when it comes to building the best possible organization it can build. Speaker 1 00:37:55 Huh. That's, that's an interesting question. Um, I, I need to admit that, you know, like, I, I I'm, I'm discussing with more and more founders and I discover the fact that they are bringing in people, resources, people in the traditional way of human resources very early on, uh, which is amazing, uh, even from the, because they are focused on how they will build the culture moving forward. It's very difficult to change the culture and to like after 100 plus, uh, employees and a couple of years on the stage, it's very different, difficult to say, oh, we're not going to go to go left. We're going to go, right. So having this intentional effort since you like, uh, the series E a it's really, really what will make it or break it, uh, in terms of, um, in terms of advice to my, a younger self <laugh>. Speaker 1 00:38:57 I, I have a lot, I do not have regrets, but I would definitely have learnings. I think that, um, I would look for the chemistry with the CEO as you know, in the first, um, and the most important element in, in me being successful in, in really shining, uh, and in supporting the culture and the company to the best, uh, of my attributes, because this partnership it's fundamentally based on the click and the values alignment, and making sure that you like the people, uh, leader and the CEO are very much a aligned in their life philosophy. So I would say that, uh, this, I would look for this criteria first. Let's say <laugh>, uh, yeah, Speaker 2 00:39:47 That makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. And I suppose, yeah, building that initial relationship and being comfortable on a psychological level, that you're gonna almost be friends, you know, you, you could see something well gonna be easy to work with. That makes a lot of sense. And finally, just the one thing that really brings you a little bit of internal joy, like it could be inside of work, it could be outside of work. It could be something you do at work. It could be something you specifically don't do at work, but just something that just gives you an inordinately huge amount of, Speaker 1 00:40:20 Well, uh, there are so many things, so many things, uh, I will <laugh>, I will tell you what, because I do have a personal ambition plan, uh, at this point in time. And, uh, I, I love writing. Uh, I use, I like, I have a blog for a couple of years, but in the, the last month I, you know, like pandemic and unfortunately now aware it's not necessarily the proper time to, uh, just take a, a cup of coffee and try it. So I, I would, this brings me joy and I would love to go back to it. Uh, but what I'm actually practicing, I accept that is go long, walks with my dog. So that is my moment of my day time, uh, with myself, uh, just to reflect and meditate and just get a better in shape that that's definitely the highlight of, uh, of my day <laugh>. Speaker 2 00:41:15 And that's the same for every parents. Isn't it? The pie chart of your life, like the, the meantime, just get smaller and smaller and smaller. And then after a while, a small walk with the dog is just the best thing ever. And the same way, like the walk, walk to the shop, to the podcast, <laugh> over the moon, that's me for the day. I'm happy. Um, fantastic. Well, uh, Roxanne has been an absolute pleasure speaking to you. I wish we could have had another couple of hours and I would've bored you to tears with more questions, but, um, I really enjoyed that. I really got a lot out of it. And, uh, thank you so much for coming onto the podcast Speaker 1 00:41:48 And Luke, thank you. I, I, I literally do not know how time this went by. It was, it was great. And we definitely to do this again. Thank you so much for.
