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Unknown: You're listening to the
humans of DevOps podcast, a

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00:00:06,269 --> 00:00:09,929
podcast focused on advancing the
humans of DevOps through skills,

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knowledge, ideas and learning,
or the SK il framework.

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Matt K. Parker: And one of my co
workers, so I told you, I'm

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gonna go try and interview
there, he stopped me and said,

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Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't
you know, they Peer Program?

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Don't you know you have to share
a computer with somebody else,

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right? It's crazy. It's, it's
like agile on steroids. It's

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nuts. Don't do it. I was like,
Well, I'm miserable. And I have

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nothing to lose. And I went and
did it. And I loved it.

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Jason Baum: Everyone, it's Jason
Baum, Director of Member

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experience at DevOps Institute.
And this is the humans of DevOps

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podcast. Welcome back. Thanks,
as always, for joining us. The

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great resignation. We've all
heard the term. We've discussed

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it on this very podcast. You've
heard various takes on the why.

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Well, let me just read you the
numbers. In 2021 47 point 8

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million workers quit their jobs.
Yes, you heard that right. 47

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point 8 million. Many believe
that number could be higher in

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2022.

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According to a February Pew
Research Center survey, workers

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who quit a job in 2021 gave the
following reasons. low pay, no

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opportunities for advancement,
and feeling disrespected at

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work.

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What are the numbers telling us
now 84% of workers are

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disengaged at work. Nine out of
10 employees would donate 24% of

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their lifetime earnings to have
more meaning at work. 60% of

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workers mistrust their CEO.

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Now, let's revisit that term,
the great resignation.

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Other terms that are being used
today to describe this

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revolution includes the great
reimagination the great reset

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the great realization,

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these descriptions talk not of
the act of departing, but more

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of the mindset and the culture
shift behind

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how we're re examining the role
of work in our lives. That's

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something we're exploring. Now,
it's up to the organizations to

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do the same. And to learn.

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What can we do differently? How
do we reimagine? How do we

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reset?

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My guest today is Matt Parker,
author of a radical enterprise

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pioneering the future of high
performing organizations. Matt

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is a writer, speaker,
researcher, and third generation

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programmer. Over the last two
decades, he's played a variety

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of roles in the software
industry, including developer

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manager, director and global
head of engineering. He

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specialized in hyper iterative
software practices for last

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decade, and is currently
researching the experience of

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radically collaborative software
makers. He lives in a small

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village in Connecticut with his
wife and three children. And you

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can contact him and Learn more
by visiting MattKParker.com.

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Matt, welcome to the podcast.

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Matt K. Parker: Yeah, thanks for
having me. Jason. B y the way,

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that introduction you just ran.
I mean, you should be writing

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books that was like filling. I
got chills listening to Oh,

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thanks. Really amazing.

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Jason Baum: I appreciate it. I
numbers. I mean, the numbers,

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the numbers, really, I mean, do
all the talking. Right. All I

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did was read them. Those numbers
are our I mean, it says it all?

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Matt K. Parker: Yeah, no doubt.

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Jason Baum: You know, when we
were first when I was first

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looking at the book and learning
more about you, there is there's

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a line on the back, I believe of
the book, the fastest growing

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most competitive organizations
in the world, have no

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bureaucracy and bureaucracies,
no bosses, and no bullshit,

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which I love. But it like made
me like, I am a visual person.

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So it instantly put me back in
my like, I'm 17 years old, I'm

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in a punk rock band. I'm the one
drawing the giant A's on my

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notebook. And, you know, I'm
pretty sure it was a no effects

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lyric, you know, that that was
that was me. And then you you

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grow up and you become jaded.
And you go along with the you

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know, I mean, we did  a our last
podcast was about generation

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generations. And we talked about
Gen Z, and we talk and I'm

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always like, the boomers are the
most fascinating to me, because

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these were the hippies. And now
they're the ones basically

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telling you what to do. So it's
like, okay, is it just age or is

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it generation what is it? But I
just love the concept and I

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wanted to say that but also say,
is this real?

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Matt K. Parker: Yeah,  yeah, no.
Yeah, it sounds Yeah, the the

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tagline for the book sounds
revolutionary to some extent,

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right? Like, oh my god, like
what's going on? Like no bosses,

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no bureaucracies no bullshit
like, whoa. And at the same

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time, right it's it's not like
you know, the punk rock band up

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on the stage that's being very
loud and obvious about

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everything right? This is like a
quiet revolution that's been

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happening, right. And over the
past couple of decades, right?

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We've seen the number of
companies that fit this bill,

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which I refer to as radically
collaborative. By the way,

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that's not the only term in that
you can find and organizational

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science, literature and
elsewhere, they can be

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everything from teal to whole
kradic, socio kradic, self

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governing, self managing, etc.
Radically collaborative is

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another name for them. It's the
one I chose. And I'll tell you

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more about why I chose it later.
But anyways, the number of

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companies that fit this bill
have grown from one to three to

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now a percent of companies
around the world, roughly, and,

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and it and they have
demonstrated that that through

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that growth, what's happening is
that there's very clear sort of

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outsized economic results from
this type of company compared to

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other more traditional
organizational archetypes, which

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explains a lot of their growth,
right? It would be one thing to

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say like the sounds good, but
actually, it turns out, it

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doesn't matter economically, but
the actual the two things are

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actually strongly correlating
right, these companies which are

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very focused on creating
environments, which supercharge

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intrinsic motivation, passion,
engagement, meaning purpose,

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fulfillment, right are also
leading to some very clear

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economic results. And a lot of
what I'm doing in the book is

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trying to both trace this sort
of development and explain it.

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Right. And I might, as you said
in the introduction, right, my

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own background is in software
engineering. And so I'm not an

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organizational scientist myself,
I am just sort of trying to

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research, synthesize, and
really, you know, piggyback off

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the work of psychologists,
sociologists, organizational

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scientists, economists, etc. To
help explain why this thing is

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happening, right? To point at it
to say, here's how it's

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happening. But here's some of
the why behind it. And in that,

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I end up arriving at sort of
these four primary imperatives,

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I call them these four things
that seem both present and all

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these companies that are really
succeeding with this way of

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working, and also probably very
necessary to that success. And

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just that a nutshell, they're
called Team autonomy, managerial

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devolution, deficiency need
gratification and candid

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vulnerability. So anyways, I can
go into all that too. But at a

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high level, that's sort of what
this book is about, and what it

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encapsulates.

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Jason Baum: Yeah, and thank you,
and you know, what I should

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have, you know, I have a habit
of going all over the place with

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these with these interviews. So
just so you're warned, but what

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I did just there was I went
right into the middle of the

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book. But I think sometimes,
when you hear things that are

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that sound radical, right, you
kind of need to go to the middle

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to understand it to kind of
break down your initial wall.

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Because I think when you when
you say, an organization of no

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bureaucracy and or an
organization with no bosses,

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instantly the wall goes up. I
mean, it did it for me, and I

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support it. You know, it's just
because well, that's not what

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I'm used to, how do you, but
then you go back to those

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numbers. And when I was when I
was, you know, putting the intro

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together, and I was thinking
about it. All I keep coming back

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to is, well, gee, it's not
working. It's clearly not

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working. So yeah, maybe maybe a
very drastic approach. And just

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saying, Okay, we're going to
pull the, I mean, maybe that is

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the way to go. But you need kind
of start there, right to make

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any progress. You need to kind
of go to the extremes. And so I

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appreciate you kind of just
jumping into the middle with me.

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And now let's back up and kind
of go back to the beginning. And

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tell me, first of all, why did
you write this book? What was

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the wall of why did you feel
like, like you said, you're a

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software engineer. Why did you
feel like this was something

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that you had to write?

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Matt K. Parker: Okay, so I'm a
software engineer. So it was my

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dad. And so it was my dad's dad.
So I'm a third generation

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programmer and growing up, and I
sort of looked up to them heard

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their funny stories about
working in software, I heard

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early stories about what it was
like to carry punch cards around

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and, you know, hand them to the
operator and come back the next

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day and the operator did tell
you, your program doesn't work.

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And that's literally, you know,
the whole error statement. They

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say, What's wrong, you know,
anyways, I looked up to them

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growing up, I had this image in
my mind of how awesome it was

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going to be once I started to
get paid for programs. Right, I

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didn't really start learning
programming until I was in high

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school. But, you know, it was
just such a connection for me so

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much passion I had for it. And
then I went into industry, and

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very quickly realized that what
I thought was going to be the

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case was not at all the case,
right? Like, I thought I was

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going to love doing this job.
And it turned out very quickly,

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I started to hate it, right,
because everywhere I went,

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whether it was a large financial
enterprise, or a small startup,

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it seemed like I was, I was in
an environment in which people

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had said, Hey, how could we take
all that fun out of programming

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all the creativity out of it?
How could we, you know, put

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people together and make them
work on something for two years,

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never deploy it, and then throw
away? Throw it away at the end?

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Like, what would that do to
their souls? I don't know. Let's

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try it. And like, I just kept
having these dystopian

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experiences in which I started
to not even want to program

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anymore, right? I didn't even
want to touch a computer, the

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second I left work, and I really
even got to the point where I

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thought, okay, maybe I just need
to pick a new industry, maybe I

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need to reevaluate my life. As
this was sort of coming to a

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head, I got an email from a
recruiter that worked directly

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for a little company called
Pivotal Labs, which had a few

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offices in the States at the
time, this was late 2011. And

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she reached out to me and said,
Hey, we saw some of your open

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source work. You want to come
interview? We're right around

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the corner from you? Yes, I do.
I'll come interview and all I

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really knew about them was their
Pivotal Tracker, really, you

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know, product management
software. And one of my co

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workers who I told him, I'm
gonna go try and interview

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there, he stopped me and he
said, Don't do it. Don't do it.

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Don't you know, they pair
program? Don't you know, you

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have to share a computer with
somebody else, right? It's

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crazy. It's, it's like agile on
steroids. It's nuts. Don't do

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it. I was like, Well, I'm
miserable. And I have nothing to

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lose. And I went and did it. And
I loved it. Because the

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experience of actually making
software with others on a basis

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of partnership and a quality,
the experience of having

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autonomy of backlog of going
after a goal. But as a team

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having the autonomy to figure
out day to day, what are we

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doing to get there, right? To
put software in the hands of

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users to quickly validate or
invalidate what we thought was

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true, to turn that around into
something else, right to go

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through that learning cycle over
and over again, and to see some

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pretty amazing results, right?
To not only feel good, like,

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Hey, I'm having fun programming,
again, with people I work with.

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But also, we're doing some
pretty awesome stuff. And we're

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quickly getting results like
that really turned my life back

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around. It made me it sort of
made me reimagined so many

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things were possible in the
world of software development.

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And that experience of radical
collaboration I had for many

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years, I played many different
roles, as you alluded to. And I

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began to eventually ask myself,
why did this work? What made it

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work? What's good about it? Why
did it feel good for me? Why did

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it lead to good things for
customers? And is it just

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software? Or is this experience
happening in other industries,

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right, and through a lot of
trial and error and eventual,

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like a lot of research and going
out to companies and

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interviewing them and in a
reading my eyes out and trying

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to synthesize all that back
together, I eventually sort of

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stumbled into this whole world
of radical collaboration, all

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the research around it, how it
manifests in many different

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industries, and a lot of sort of
the, you know, theories about

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what makes us all sort of fit
together, tie together and lead

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to the result that it does.

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Jason Baum: I'm not sure if
you're a fan, but as you are

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describing the early days there
of your experience in the

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software industry. There's one
movie in particular that comes

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to mind. I think that Mike Judge
is probably one of the smartest

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filmmakers, television creators
of all time. And he had the

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movie back in the 90s office
space. And and they they capture

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that what you're describing, I
think perfectly. You know, did

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you put your cover on the TPS
report and like to find 10

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different bosses ask you did you
put the TPS cover on your TPS

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report? And like, yeah, like
you're saying like, needless,

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like, senseless bureaucracy
that, like, doesn't make it's

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there to drive you insane. I
think that's its only purpose. I

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think that's, that's so great
that like how you just described

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it. So tell me more about
collaborative organizations,

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radically collaborative
organizations. You know, what

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are they and why are they
growing and preference

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prevalence around the world?

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Matt K. Parker: Yeah. Okay. So
what are they? They are

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organizations that I think
broadly speaking, we can say,

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they've sort of looked out and
said, Wow, people can do really

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amazing things when they
actually care about what they

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do, and they love what they do
and they enjoy doing it and

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doing it with the people around
them. It's a How can we design

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an organization in which we are
you know, supercharging this

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power of intrinsic motivation,
right. How are we creating an

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organization in which we are
supercharging the ability for a

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group of people to come together
and collectively innovate in

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ways that no single person could
have done on their own. Right?

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And what stands in the way of
that? Right. So a lot of

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companies around the world have
come to the conclusion that

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there's fundamentally two things
that stand in the way that that

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most traditional companies have.
And it's domination and

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coercion. Right? Most companies
are structured in what

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sociologists refer to as a
dominator hierarchy. And that's

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really just a statement for a
system in which people are

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ordered by rank, right in which
power privileges, resources,

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judgments, etc, are privileged
and distributed by that rank and

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concentrated at the top. Right.
And so that static sort of

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privileging of that power leads
to an important corollary, which

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is coercion, right? It gives
people within that hierarchy

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coercive power over the people
beneath them in the hierarchy.

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Those two things are what
sociologists and psychologists

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refer to as a growth inhibiting
environment. They're an

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environment that actively
undermines security, autonomy,

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fairness, esteem, trust,
belongingness, meaning purpose,

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right, just by design, they're
there every day, inhibiting

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those things. And those things
are really what stand at the

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human level, the human sort of
foundation of radical

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collaboration, right?
environments that are rich, and

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trust, security, autonomy,
fairness, esteem, etc, are the

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kinds of environments that we
want to create, because those so

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strongly correlate with these
outsize economic outcomes with

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innovation with collective
performance, etc.  And so these

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companies have said, Okay, what
does it mean to create an

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organization, which is still
structured? Right, and yet, it's

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not structured as a hierarchy?
Well, the term for that is

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called a heterarchy. Right? I
heterarchy. The difference

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between heterarchy and
hierarchies, hierarchies are

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structured on a basis of
linking, as opposed to a

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hierarchy was structured on the
basis of ranking. Right. So how

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are the roles within the
organization linked together?

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How are they complementary? What
does success mean for any given

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role? And what does that roles
domain have authority? In other

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words, what does that role have
autonomous decision making

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rights about? There's a lot of
thought that goes into? How do

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we create that for each role
within the company? And how do

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we make sure these roles are
complementary, not

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contradictory, that they're
clear that anyone who accepts a

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role within this organization or
organization has a clear domain

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of authority that empowers them
to make meaningful decisions

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because that's what autonomy it
is. Tanami is the process of

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making meaningful decisions
having choice. That's what it

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00:17:29,710 --> 00:17:33,550
really boils down to, both for
individuals and for teams. Okay,

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so then what you end up seeing
sort of at a high level on the

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00:17:36,580 --> 00:17:39,040
structural side, in these
radically collaborative

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organizations is Team autonomy
and managerial devolution team

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00:17:43,540 --> 00:17:46,660
autonomy is probably what it
sounds like, to all of your

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00:17:46,660 --> 00:17:50,290
listeners, right is is teams
that have autonomy, a backlog,

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00:17:50,290 --> 00:17:53,320
right teams that are going after
a goal but decide day to day how

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00:17:53,320 --> 00:17:55,990
they get there, right? It's
teams in which authority has

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00:17:55,990 --> 00:17:58,030
been pushed to information,
right, the people on the

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00:17:58,030 --> 00:18:00,520
frontlines getting all the
information about what's

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working, and what's not also
have the appropriate domains of

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00:18:03,070 --> 00:18:05,770
authority to make decisions
based on that information,

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instead of running it up the
hierarchy and flagpole and

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hoping somebody at the top makes
a decision for them. Okay? And

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then managerial devolution
really refers to a process of

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decentralizing those power
structures, really taking the

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00:18:18,580 --> 00:18:22,360
process of how do we iterate on
this business, right? And the

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business of how we do business,
right? How do we iterate on our

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structure, on our roles, on our
relationships, on our teams, on

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00:18:28,300 --> 00:18:31,240
our practices, processes, et
cetera? How do we do that in a

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00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:33,610
way that's not based on
domination and coercion, but

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based on partnership and
equality. And so there are many

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different ways these companies
have developed and experimented

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with decentralized forms of
governance. And so at a high

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level, that's sort of what you
can see. And I just want to give

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00:18:45,010 --> 00:18:48,400
you a couple of companies as an
example. Yeah, it'd be great.

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00:18:48,850 --> 00:18:51,850
Yeah, so I was gonna say, what,
what is the like real world

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application? Yes. Doing this?
Yeah. Okay. So I'll give you an

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example of a large company for
so hire is the number one

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appliance manufacturer in the
world and they're increasingly

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the number one smart home
appliance manufacturer in the

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world. Ha, i e, Rs, how they're
spelled higher. They're actually

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00:19:09,910 --> 00:19:12,550
the parent company of GE
Appliances. That's how big they

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are. They own GE Appliances.
Okay, so higher over the past 40

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00:19:17,380 --> 00:19:21,070
years, went from a very command
and control top down and very

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00:19:21,100 --> 00:19:24,970
ineffective bureaucratic
organization, to a pioneer and

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00:19:24,970 --> 00:19:28,210
radical collaboration, right.
And the way they structure the

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00:19:28,240 --> 00:19:31,360
80,000 people that work at
higher now is through something

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that they refer to as micro
enterprises. So they took those

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00:19:34,420 --> 00:19:38,050
80,000 people and they said,
actually, what we need to do is

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to break all of this up into
small teams of entrepreneurial

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00:19:43,750 --> 00:19:47,560
units, right micro enterprises,
teams that own their own p&l,

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00:19:47,650 --> 00:19:50,260
right teams that own their own
balance sheets, teams whose pay

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is derived from the value that
they generate, right and that we

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need to create a sort of
marketplace or a sort of

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incubator for being able to spin
up these micro enterprises.

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Their CEO refers to this, by the
way, as a host of dragons

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without a leader. He says that
every, every micro enterprise is

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like a dragon. And the dragon is
the mightiest animal and Chinese

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culture. And all of these teams
can sort of start their own

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00:20:16,120 --> 00:20:20,920
products and services on this
internal marketplace, right

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without the guidance of a
leader. And he says that's the

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highest level of human
governance. And that's what they

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all have created at higher.
Okay, so that was the process of

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00:20:30,130 --> 00:20:32,260
getting there. By the way, since
they didn't start with it was

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like all over the place, right?
They tried many different

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varieties of organizational
structures before eventually

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pioneering this approach. One
other example that I'll give you

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is a company called Morningstar.
Now, Morningstar is quite

356
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different. But it's still
radically collaborative, unlike

357
00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:52,060
Haier, which is all these sort
of autonomous micro enterprises

358
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that can relate to each other at
will, or go outside the company.

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And, you know, it's sort of
almost like a mini free

360
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enterprise, right? Or an
internal free enterprise.

361
00:21:00,520 --> 00:21:03,340
Morningstar is quite the
opposite. Morningstar has a very

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specific thing they do. They
take tomato, raw tomatoes, and

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00:21:07,030 --> 00:21:10,060
they turn them into tomato
products, like dice to moves,

364
00:21:10,180 --> 00:21:13,600
puree, right, all the kinds of
stuff that eventually winds up

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00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:16,510
in like your Heinz ketchup
bottle, or your Canada tomato

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00:21:16,510 --> 00:21:19,720
sauce, probably came from this
company Morningstar, because

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even though they were only
started 30 years ago, they were

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start. They're the number one
tomato processor in the world,

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the largest tomato processor in
the world by volume.And their

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00:21:29,470 --> 00:21:32,290
entire structure is radically
collaborative. The founder

371
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started it with the belief that
all of these companies out there

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doing tomato processing were
overly bureaucratic, were not

373
00:21:38,590 --> 00:21:41,680
giving people any sort of
autonomy or sense of equality in

374
00:21:41,680 --> 00:21:44,380
the job, not letting people make
meaningful decisions. They said,

375
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Guess what? We're all going to
be equals. And we're all going

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to start every year without
titles. And every year, we're

377
00:21:49,660 --> 00:21:53,080
going to say to ourselves, how
are we going to take this year's

378
00:21:53,080 --> 00:21:56,080
tomato crops and turn them into
products for our customers,

379
00:21:56,170 --> 00:21:59,920
dyes, tomatoes, puree, etc? What
are we going to do? Who's going

380
00:21:59,920 --> 00:22:02,200
to do what what commitments are
we making to each other? He

381
00:22:02,200 --> 00:22:05,260
said, we can all do this in the
real world. We are all adults

382
00:22:05,260 --> 00:22:08,020
out there. We're all buying
homes, having families doing all

383
00:22:08,020 --> 00:22:10,840
kinds of things, buying cars,
right? We're all collaborating,

384
00:22:10,840 --> 00:22:14,320
cooperating or competing with
each other, right? Through

385
00:22:14,320 --> 00:22:16,900
autonomy. Well, why can't we do
that within our company, it

386
00:22:16,900 --> 00:22:19,210
turns out you can and they
became the number one tomato

387
00:22:19,210 --> 00:22:22,210
processor in the world by doing
this. They call them Colleague

388
00:22:22,210 --> 00:22:24,520
Letters of understanding. That's
what they write every single

389
00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:26,800
year. And they've maintained
them throughout the year two is

390
00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:29,170
their understanding of what they
need to do changes. But they're

391
00:22:29,170 --> 00:22:32,380
basically encapsulating the
commitments that each individual

392
00:22:32,380 --> 00:22:35,200
makes to some other individual
or group of individuals in the

393
00:22:35,200 --> 00:22:38,350
company. Here's what I'm doing
for you this year. And that's

394
00:22:38,350 --> 00:22:40,600
how we're going to make this
happen this year. So anyway,

395
00:22:40,600 --> 00:22:42,400
it's a very different sort of
structure for radical

396
00:22:42,400 --> 00:22:45,130
collaboration. But I think it
just sort of paints a picture of

397
00:22:45,130 --> 00:22:47,320
the breadth that we have in this
whole spectrum,

398
00:22:47,840 --> 00:22:50,540
Jason Baum: and very different
companies that you just gave

399
00:22:50,540 --> 00:22:55,310
examples. Okay, I look, I want
to say this. I think this is

400
00:22:55,310 --> 00:23:01,340
fascinating. And I am I love
this. I am a fan of this. Now

401
00:23:01,340 --> 00:23:06,740
let me put the host devil's
advocate hat on. Okay, so it's

402
00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:10,370
it's a company where everyone's
kind of in the same same boat,

403
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:15,920
leadership wise, they're all the
same level. They're all working

404
00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:23,360
collaboratively. And there's not
necessarily a hierarchy yet. I'm

405
00:23:23,360 --> 00:23:26,360
assuming they're like you said,
there's a CEO. So there's some

406
00:23:26,360 --> 00:23:32,150
type of hierarchy. This sort of
sounds like communism, Matt.

407
00:23:33,710 --> 00:23:37,250
Matt K. Parker: Yeah, I can see.
Yeah, you know, and I sort of

408
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:42,110
had these. I guess you could
say, fears going into it, like,

409
00:23:42,110 --> 00:23:46,520
what is this office really, and,
and what I came out was sort of

410
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:51,290
the opposite. I think a lot of I
mean, like, actually, I think

411
00:23:51,290 --> 00:23:53,660
what you could say is
Morningstar is sort of the

412
00:23:53,660 --> 00:23:58,250
opposite of communism. It's like
libertarianism, right? Hire, as

413
00:23:58,250 --> 00:24:01,640
a company said, hey, you know,
what's awesome about the free

414
00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:05,660
market, its ability to scale.
And its ability to do that

415
00:24:05,660 --> 00:24:08,330
without any centralized command
and control, right? There's no

416
00:24:08,330 --> 00:24:11,270
five year plans, there's no
like, you know, crazy budgeting

417
00:24:11,270 --> 00:24:14,180
that goes on to run a free
market, right? It's actually all

418
00:24:14,180 --> 00:24:17,060
these autonomous agents that are
contracting with each other

419
00:24:17,060 --> 00:24:20,060
competing with each other
collaborating all at will,

420
00:24:20,090 --> 00:24:22,490
right. And it's leading to these
amazing things that we see

421
00:24:22,490 --> 00:24:25,820
around the world. Can we take
that? Can we take that sense of

422
00:24:25,820 --> 00:24:29,810
freedom, right, that sense of
agency, ownership,

423
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:33,650
accountability, that that we see
in those sorts of systems,

424
00:24:33,650 --> 00:24:35,750
right, those sort of free
enterprise systems, and can we

425
00:24:35,750 --> 00:24:38,990
bring them down to our company
level? Right? And so I know why

426
00:24:38,990 --> 00:24:41,420
you would, you would say like,
Hey, this sounds like communism.

427
00:24:41,420 --> 00:24:43,940
But I think actually, when you
look into it more and more, you

428
00:24:43,940 --> 00:24:46,310
realize it's sort of the
opposite i Here's another

429
00:24:46,310 --> 00:24:49,790
example. By the way, Matt Black
systems is a small case study

430
00:24:49,790 --> 00:24:53,150
that they do in the book, and
they are a small manufacturing

431
00:24:53,150 --> 00:24:57,110
company. They make instruments
that go in like the cockpits of

432
00:24:57,110 --> 00:24:59,900
airplanes, right and they went
through their own radically

433
00:24:59,900 --> 00:25:02,330
colaborative transformation,
they were trying all kinds of

434
00:25:02,330 --> 00:25:04,940
stuff to turn the business
around, they tried lean, they

435
00:25:04,940 --> 00:25:07,130
tried agile, they did all these
things they brought in all of

436
00:25:07,130 --> 00:25:10,250
these consultants, nothing was
working. And they sort of came

437
00:25:10,250 --> 00:25:13,640
to the same realization. Like,
what if it was just very clear

438
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:16,130
to everyone the value they
created, the commitments they

439
00:25:16,130 --> 00:25:19,520
were making to each other. And
what if the money they took home

440
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:22,400
with them at the end of the day
was related to that, right there

441
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:24,650
related to their ability to all
collaborate and create,

442
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:27,710
ultimately value for our
customers. And so they created a

443
00:25:27,710 --> 00:25:30,320
fractal organization that's yet
another sort of radically

444
00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:33,230
collaborative organizational
type. And so at matte black

445
00:25:33,230 --> 00:25:37,070
systems, every single person is
a virtual company, every single

446
00:25:37,070 --> 00:25:40,190
person has their own individual
profit and loss statement, every

447
00:25:40,190 --> 00:25:42,770
single person has their own
balance sheet. The second they

448
00:25:42,770 --> 00:25:45,800
did this, by the way, the second
day, just distributed a balance

449
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:48,470
sheets into the company, the
workers got together and said,

450
00:25:48,620 --> 00:25:51,650
Wow, you know, what we should
do, we should sell off 50% of

451
00:25:51,650 --> 00:25:54,170
the manufacturing equipment on
our work floor that's just

452
00:25:54,170 --> 00:25:57,230
sitting there collecting dust,
because as long as it sits here

453
00:25:57,230 --> 00:26:00,260
on our balance sheet, right, we
have all this debt hanging over

454
00:26:00,260 --> 00:26:02,510
us, right, we should sell it
off. And we will all be more

455
00:26:02,510 --> 00:26:05,480
profitable as a result, right.
And so you can think about like

456
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:09,830
that as sort of making it very
clear, and giving a lot of sort

457
00:26:09,830 --> 00:26:13,190
of both decision making power,
but also making it very clear

458
00:26:13,190 --> 00:26:17,990
with what the consequences of a
decision is, to people right to

459
00:26:18,020 --> 00:26:18,860
a group at large.

460
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:22,860
Jason Baum: The tools we use as
a team have a direct influence

461
00:26:22,890 --> 00:26:26,130
on how we work together. And the
success we create. We built

462
00:26:26,130 --> 00:26:29,580
range with that in mind, by
balancing asynchronous check ins

463
00:26:29,580 --> 00:26:32,700
and real time collaboration,
branch helps remote and hybrid

464
00:26:32,700 --> 00:26:35,400
dev teams build alignment and
baton back on the calendar

465
00:26:36,120 --> 00:26:39,540
branch connects dozens of apps
like JIRA and GitHub, in one

466
00:26:39,540 --> 00:26:42,450
place, so everyone can share
progress and updates on work,

467
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:46,770
making standups more focused and
engaging for everyone. Visit us

468
00:26:46,770 --> 00:26:50,340
range.com/devops To learn more,
and try arrange for it.

469
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:55,850
Anyway, I think that's
fascinating, you know, when a

470
00:26:55,850 --> 00:26:58,730
company gives you like shares,
for example, that's their way of

471
00:26:58,730 --> 00:27:00,800
saying, Well, you have a stake
in the company, and it's like,

472
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:04,190
okay, but it's gonna take you
four years to be vested, you

473
00:27:04,220 --> 00:27:06,800
might not get that there's a
percentage taken out of this.

474
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:10,010
And you know, when we go public,
it's not going to be. So that's,

475
00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:13,550
it's like, that's always a nice
to have, but it's not like I

476
00:27:13,550 --> 00:27:16,070
don't think anybody's gotten a
share. And it's like, I own the

477
00:27:16,070 --> 00:27:19,910
company. You know, but your own
balance sheet. Yeah. And all of

478
00:27:19,910 --> 00:27:23,240
a sudden, you're thinking, how
can I save us some money, like

479
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:25,460
there's some ownership there,
because there's some true

480
00:27:25,460 --> 00:27:28,340
ownership there. That's, that's,
that's really interesting. I

481
00:27:28,340 --> 00:27:31,160
also love that you are giving
examples of companies that are

482
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:34,040
larger, because the thing that
was always said to me when I you

483
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:38,270
know, sometimes I I talk too
much. And I'm like, sometimes

484
00:27:38,270 --> 00:27:40,400
the one who like says, oh, we
should do this. And it's like,

485
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:45,080
some align those so told to me
once is Do you know how long it

486
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:51,050
takes to turn a cruise ship. And
it's I, I get it. But the fact

487
00:27:51,050 --> 00:27:55,730
that you are giving these really
like these, in hires case, like

488
00:27:55,730 --> 00:27:59,330
these enormous, massive
companies, and they're doing it

489
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:03,920
to me, there's no excuse why? No
one can say, well, yeah, that

490
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:07,880
works for maybe a small company
that can be lean. But you know,

491
00:28:07,910 --> 00:28:11,270
for a big organization that
doesn't a big company, I can't

492
00:28:11,270 --> 00:28:17,090
really work. So I, you know,
gosh, there are so many places

493
00:28:17,090 --> 00:28:21,500
we could go here. Because I
think you're making this sound

494
00:28:21,500 --> 00:28:26,300
much more real to me, which is,
which is good. So how do we make

495
00:28:26,300 --> 00:28:29,900
people understand this? How do
we get more companies to say,

496
00:28:30,260 --> 00:28:33,950
you know, do more people need to
leave jobs. I actually said

497
00:28:33,950 --> 00:28:36,560
once, when we were first talking
about the grit break

498
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:39,470
resignation, I'm worried that
all these people leaving the

499
00:28:39,470 --> 00:28:43,520
jobs that they hate are just
going to these new companies

500
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:46,880
that just lost someone because
they hated their job. And now we

501
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:49,460
are just constantly going for
back company by company by

502
00:28:49,460 --> 00:28:52,520
company. No one's actually
changing anything. So how do we

503
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:53,360
change it?

504
00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:59,000
Matt K. Parker: Yeah, well, all
right. So this is a question

505
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:01,310
that I tackle in the book. I
mean, on the one hand, we can

506
00:29:01,310 --> 00:29:04,880
say, why has it grown in the
first place? Right? How why have

507
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:07,640
we gone from 1% to 8% of
companies around the world,

508
00:29:07,790 --> 00:29:10,850
somehow fitting this bill?
Right. And I think there's many

509
00:29:10,850 --> 00:29:14,150
different things that we can
point to. But I don't want to

510
00:29:15,500 --> 00:29:19,880
undersell the fact that a lot of
this ultimately does come back

511
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:22,940
to the fact that these companies
are economically successful,

512
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:27,980
right, that they are actually
having outsize sort of outcomes

513
00:29:28,070 --> 00:29:31,190
in the marketplace, right? That
they are out competing, much

514
00:29:31,190 --> 00:29:34,940
more traditional and much more
slow competitors, right. So that

515
00:29:34,940 --> 00:29:38,960
alone, right, I think leads to
an an element of growth, because

516
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:42,290
all right, people may be stuck
in their ways. People may want

517
00:29:42,290 --> 00:29:44,300
things to be a certain way or
don't want to give up certain

518
00:29:44,300 --> 00:29:47,510
sorts of sorts of power. But at
the end of the day, companies

519
00:29:47,510 --> 00:29:51,620
want to succeed, they want to
compete, they want to make

520
00:29:51,620 --> 00:29:55,010
money, right? They want to grow,
right? And so if you care about

521
00:29:55,010 --> 00:29:57,530
those things, you are naturally
going to be looking at certain

522
00:29:57,530 --> 00:30:00,530
competitors coming at you and
saying what Are they doing

523
00:30:00,530 --> 00:30:03,710
different? And when one of those
competitors is hire, right, or

524
00:30:03,710 --> 00:30:07,250
Morningstar, or you know, any
other company, like even some

525
00:30:07,250 --> 00:30:09,620
smaller, like startups, right,
that are doing these sorts of

526
00:30:09,620 --> 00:30:12,500
things, too. And suddenly having
success in the marketplace in

527
00:30:12,500 --> 00:30:14,750
bigger companies are like, what
are we doing wrong? You know,

528
00:30:14,750 --> 00:30:17,150
you're going to ask yourself
those kind of questions, and

529
00:30:17,150 --> 00:30:21,470
you're going to either start to
emulate what they're doing, and

530
00:30:21,530 --> 00:30:24,440
thereby trying to like, have the
same success that they're

531
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:27,650
having, or you're going to just
continue to see your

532
00:30:27,650 --> 00:30:32,300
marketplace, your position in
the market, erode, etc. So

533
00:30:32,330 --> 00:30:34,610
there's that aspect to it that I
think is just working in our

534
00:30:34,610 --> 00:30:37,370
favor. That being said, I don't
think it's enough. And you asked

535
00:30:37,370 --> 00:30:39,440
me in the beginning, why did I
write a book? It's partly

536
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:41,990
because I don't think it's
enough, right? I think

537
00:30:42,110 --> 00:30:44,900
conversations like this books
like the one I've written,

538
00:30:44,900 --> 00:30:47,480
which, by the way, is just one
of many in this whole genre,

539
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:50,330
looking at this sort of
phenomenon that's happening now.

540
00:30:50,570 --> 00:30:53,690
Right, but I just want to make
my own contribution to it and

541
00:30:53,690 --> 00:30:57,530
point it at my own peers, right.
I've talked about manufacturing

542
00:30:57,530 --> 00:31:00,890
companies and stuff so far, but
I also looked at many technology

543
00:31:00,890 --> 00:31:04,280
companies that are doing this,
and trying to understand what it

544
00:31:04,310 --> 00:31:07,190
what makes it work in the world
of technology, right? Not just

545
00:31:07,190 --> 00:31:10,880
the one I came out of but and
others that are doing radical

546
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:14,720
collaboration as well. And and I
want people to be able to look

547
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:18,110
at those take inspiration from
it, and be able to start to

548
00:31:19,370 --> 00:31:22,130
begin radically collaborative
experiments and transformations

549
00:31:22,130 --> 00:31:26,330
within their own space. Yeah,
I'll stop there.

550
00:31:26,750 --> 00:31:29,510
Jason Baum: Ya know, it's, I
keep going, I hear you talk

551
00:31:29,510 --> 00:31:35,840
about this all day. So where I
want to go next is to my

552
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:38,510
question, because you said, you
know, companies, it's the money,

553
00:31:38,510 --> 00:31:41,930
right? It's if the money it's
talking, though, listen, you

554
00:31:41,930 --> 00:31:44,060
know, obviously we're
capitalists. At the end of the

555
00:31:44,060 --> 00:31:46,940
day, if you're a capitalist
communist doesn't matter. Right?

556
00:31:46,940 --> 00:31:51,740
We're all motivated by by
capitalism. So and ourselves to

557
00:31:51,740 --> 00:31:54,110
write those numbers that I read
at the beginning, why do people

558
00:31:54,110 --> 00:31:57,650
leave? They're not getting
enough money? There are is no,

559
00:31:57,680 --> 00:32:01,070
no advancements, no opportunity
for advancement, and they're

560
00:32:01,070 --> 00:32:04,850
feeling disrespected. Okay,
feeling disrespected. I think in

561
00:32:04,850 --> 00:32:07,520
some ways with this, we can
understand how that would

562
00:32:07,580 --> 00:32:10,670
change. Right? opportunities for
advancement? Well, that's

563
00:32:10,670 --> 00:32:15,470
certainly taken care of, what
about the pay? So in these these

564
00:32:15,470 --> 00:32:21,470
types of structured, where we're
so used to you climb the ladder?

565
00:32:21,830 --> 00:32:25,970
If the ladder is not there
anymore? How do you climb from a

566
00:32:25,970 --> 00:32:29,450
PayScale? Because I'm still
interested in climbing. I don't

567
00:32:29,450 --> 00:32:34,100
necessarily care if I'm called
a, you know, Chief, you know,

568
00:32:34,250 --> 00:32:39,050
creative couch potato, but like,
how am I making money? You know,

569
00:32:39,050 --> 00:32:41,180
like, is that still part of it?

570
00:32:41,570 --> 00:32:44,180
Matt K. Parker: Yeah. Yeah. No,
it's it's a great question, too.

571
00:32:44,180 --> 00:32:47,330
And it's one that I devote a
fair amount of words to in the

572
00:32:47,330 --> 00:32:52,280
book, because when when you look
at systems of domination and

573
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:55,430
coercion and traditional
companies, a lot of it does

574
00:32:55,430 --> 00:32:59,750
revolve around the way people
are paid. The way people get

575
00:32:59,780 --> 00:33:02,900
raises, or don't get raises,
right, the way compensation

576
00:33:02,900 --> 00:33:05,840
happens, and performance reviews
around etcetera, etcetera,

577
00:33:06,050 --> 00:33:08,240
right. And promotions,
obviously, are tied up into it.

578
00:33:08,450 --> 00:33:10,550
So many of us want to climb the
ladder, because we need more

579
00:33:10,550 --> 00:33:13,010
money, we want more money for
our families for a better life,

580
00:33:13,010 --> 00:33:16,010
etc. send our kids to a better
college, all that kind of stuff,

581
00:33:16,250 --> 00:33:20,510
right? And so, if you if you
eliminate coercive forms of pay,

582
00:33:20,540 --> 00:33:26,660
right, then how do you actually
grow your own pay within a

583
00:33:26,660 --> 00:33:29,060
radical collaborative company,
if it's not pretty pleasing the

584
00:33:29,060 --> 00:33:32,060
boss and trying to win that
promotion right over your peers?

585
00:33:32,060 --> 00:33:35,270
Right? So you get a bigger piece
of the pie? What is it? All

586
00:33:35,270 --> 00:33:38,000
right? Well, actually, there's
many different answers here. One

587
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:40,130
of them I already sort of have
pointed to, right, when we talk

588
00:33:40,130 --> 00:33:43,970
about backpack systems and hire,
they both have forms of pay,

589
00:33:44,150 --> 00:33:47,000
that are very tightly
correlated, and they're

590
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:49,430
essentially a function of the
value created either as

591
00:33:49,430 --> 00:33:52,820
individuals or as teams, right?
Either as a fractal company,

592
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:55,670
right, a virtual company of one
like in the matte black systems

593
00:33:55,670 --> 00:33:58,940
example, or as a micro
enterprise, right, a small team

594
00:33:58,940 --> 00:34:01,790
who's basically saying our pay
is derived from the amount of

595
00:34:01,790 --> 00:34:04,760
profit that we can point to that
we're generating on our own sort

596
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:09,290
of internal free market. Okay,
so that's one form of pay, but

597
00:34:09,290 --> 00:34:13,190
there are many others. Who
Gore's another company I should

598
00:34:13,190 --> 00:34:16,190
mention, right, it's, you know,
15,000 people around the globe.

599
00:34:16,190 --> 00:34:20,300
Now, it's doing several billion
dollars worth of revenue every

600
00:34:20,300 --> 00:34:22,580
year. They're the people behind
like, coretec, waterproof

601
00:34:22,580 --> 00:34:25,550
fabric, glide dental floss,
elixir guitar strings, right.

602
00:34:25,670 --> 00:34:28,550
They're an innovation and r&d,
manufacturing innovation

603
00:34:28,550 --> 00:34:31,970
organization, right? They've
been doing this since 1958.

604
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:34,640
Guess what they were started by
four chemists who got together

605
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:37,340
and said, We hate working for
this big bureaucratic company

606
00:34:37,340 --> 00:34:40,160
that we work for. They're
they're squashing all of our

607
00:34:40,160 --> 00:34:42,320
innovation. Why don't we get
together and do something

608
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:45,290
different? And why don't we make
a company that makes innovation

609
00:34:45,290 --> 00:34:48,470
and supporting that, like the
goal here, right? They got

610
00:34:48,470 --> 00:34:51,710
together and they made a radical
collaborative organization. And

611
00:34:51,710 --> 00:34:53,900
it's really one of the longest
lived experiments in America

612
00:34:53,900 --> 00:34:57,440
that we can point to in this way
of working. Okay, so the way

613
00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:00,830
they do pay is that your peers
decide your pay. Whatever team

614
00:35:00,830 --> 00:35:03,950
you're on, you decide your peers
pay and they decide yours.

615
00:35:03,950 --> 00:35:06,650
That's how they do it. It's
called peer set salary. Right?

616
00:35:06,650 --> 00:35:09,350
That's their approach to doing
it. Here's another approach to

617
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:13,220
self manage pay grant tree. For
instance, in the UK, which I

618
00:35:13,220 --> 00:35:17,720
talked about in the, in the, in
the book, as well as peer group,

619
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:21,290
are both companies that do self
managed PE, where essentially

620
00:35:21,290 --> 00:35:25,670
you say, how much money you want
to make you say openly to the

621
00:35:25,670 --> 00:35:28,460
rest of the company, you give
yourself that amount of money,

622
00:35:28,550 --> 00:35:30,860
you give yourself a raise if you
want to, but you do it

623
00:35:30,860 --> 00:35:33,830
transparently. Right? Keep in
mind, too, that the checks and

624
00:35:33,830 --> 00:35:36,320
balances within these companies
are real. And many of these

625
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:40,640
companies hiring and firing have
been devolved into the

626
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:43,730
organization as well, like
nirsoft. Now, calling Corp is a

627
00:35:43,730 --> 00:35:47,120
great example of this. Anyone in
the company, right? Any team can

628
00:35:47,120 --> 00:35:50,030
get together and decide this
person's gotta go, and they can

629
00:35:50,030 --> 00:35:53,240
fire you. Well, okay, so if
you're standing there and

630
00:35:53,240 --> 00:35:55,580
saying, I'm going to make a
million dollars, now, I deserve

631
00:35:55,580 --> 00:35:58,130
that kind of salary, your peers
could turn back to you and say,

632
00:35:58,310 --> 00:36:02,240
ha, you're done. Now, that's
insane. You can't do like being

633
00:36:02,240 --> 00:36:10,160
in a co op. It is. Co Ops, co
ops, are another form of radical

634
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:13,010
collaborative structure that is
gaining prominence now in the

635
00:36:13,010 --> 00:36:16,580
world. In fact, one of my
friends who used to work at

636
00:36:16,580 --> 00:36:19,220
Pivotal Labs left created his
own consulting company and has

637
00:36:19,220 --> 00:36:22,130
turned it into a co op. Right?
And so he and all the other

638
00:36:22,130 --> 00:36:25,160
consultants in the company
collectively own it. Right. So

639
00:36:25,190 --> 00:36:28,790
anyways, there's all these
fascinating approaches. One more

640
00:36:28,790 --> 00:36:30,830
I'll mention by the way that
your audience might find

641
00:36:30,830 --> 00:36:33,500
interesting is called the Deming
taste system. It's named after

642
00:36:33,500 --> 00:36:35,840
W. Edwards Deming, right, the
forefather of lean

643
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:40,010
manufacturing, and certainly a
progenitor for systems thinking.

644
00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:42,800
Right. Really fascinating thing
here. Well, one of the things he

645
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:46,700
thought a lot about was pay,
right. And based on his approach

646
00:36:46,700 --> 00:36:50,570
to thinking in systems, he said,
Actually, we shouldn't pretend

647
00:36:50,570 --> 00:36:53,600
that our companies are a
meritocracy, right, we shouldn't

648
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:57,350
pretend that we can figure out
what it is that we can say this

649
00:36:57,350 --> 00:37:01,070
person's contribution is due to
them this amount, and therefore

650
00:37:01,070 --> 00:37:04,430
they should make this amount of
pay. He said, actually, a bad

651
00:37:04,430 --> 00:37:07,940
system will be a good person
every time. Right. And so our

652
00:37:07,940 --> 00:37:11,360
focus has to be on improving the
system. Right? That has to be

653
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:14,720
our primary focus, let's create
a pay system that reflects that

654
00:37:14,720 --> 00:37:18,500
primary focus, right? Let's make
sure that everyone knows coming

655
00:37:18,500 --> 00:37:23,030
in how much money this role
makes day one, what, how much

656
00:37:23,030 --> 00:37:26,030
raise you get every single year
that you're in that role? Right?

657
00:37:26,030 --> 00:37:28,460
And let's also take profit
sharing and distribute that

658
00:37:28,460 --> 00:37:31,370
equally. So that quarterly
dividend distributed equally to

659
00:37:31,370 --> 00:37:34,580
every single member of that
organization? Right, okay. Well,

660
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:37,790
despite the fact that he won,
like the one of the Coppa

661
00:37:37,790 --> 00:37:42,800
economic freedom medal from
Ronald Reagan, right, he not a

662
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:46,220
lot of companies were keen on
his idea around pay at the time,

663
00:37:46,490 --> 00:37:49,370
right. But companies now a lot
of companies are doing this.

664
00:37:49,370 --> 00:37:51,980
They're creating their own
versions of the Deming pace

665
00:37:51,980 --> 00:37:54,680
system, they're making it open
and transparent, and

666
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:57,830
collectively also deciding the
numbers themselves. Here's what

667
00:37:57,830 --> 00:38:00,710
this rule makes, here's how much
raise you get every year, we

668
00:38:00,710 --> 00:38:03,050
don't pretend like we can look
at you and say what your

669
00:38:03,050 --> 00:38:05,570
performances and give you a
raise based on that we're

670
00:38:05,570 --> 00:38:08,030
actually focused on the system
itself. And that's how our pay

671
00:38:08,030 --> 00:38:08,600
works.

672
00:38:08,870 --> 00:38:12,530
Jason Baum: I love that version,
what you just said it actually

673
00:38:12,530 --> 00:38:16,670
and the fact that you, you kind
of ended on that one is, I'm so

674
00:38:16,670 --> 00:38:18,980
glad because I was actually
going to go back to the

675
00:38:18,980 --> 00:38:22,610
performance review real quick.
But also, before I get that

676
00:38:22,730 --> 00:38:27,680
pure, manage pay, that's
terrible. By the way, my peers

677
00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:30,320
are going to tell me what to me.
I don't know, I better be very,

678
00:38:30,470 --> 00:38:34,070
I guess it encourages you to be
be nice to everybody. That's

679
00:38:34,100 --> 00:38:39,890
what that's what that will do.
But the performance review, and

680
00:38:39,890 --> 00:38:44,180
kind of what you just said, like
being told, Hey, you're doing a

681
00:38:44,180 --> 00:38:50,330
good job. Well, I think if it's
kind of, you're either going to

682
00:38:50,330 --> 00:38:53,450
be doing a good job or a bad job
a bad enough job that you're

683
00:38:53,450 --> 00:38:57,080
going to be let go. So I think
if you're still there,

684
00:38:57,140 --> 00:39:01,250
obviously, you're doing a good
enough job I think in a world

685
00:39:01,250 --> 00:39:04,580
like for so this is DevOps,
right? This is humans of DevOps.

686
00:39:05,300 --> 00:39:08,330
In a when we're encouraging
blameless culture, we're

687
00:39:08,330 --> 00:39:11,600
encouraging a culture of
incidents are okay, they're

688
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:16,010
going to happen. You know, like,
it's how we learn. It's, it's,

689
00:39:16,010 --> 00:39:19,040
it's, it goes back to I always
compare this to parenting,

690
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:21,110
because it's like, how would we
talk to our child? It's like,

691
00:39:21,320 --> 00:39:24,560
accidents are okay? Like, you're
allowed to make mistakes, how

692
00:39:24,590 --> 00:39:28,250
are we going to grow if we don't
make those mistakes? So when you

693
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:31,190
when you have these reviews, and
it's like sometimes they're just

694
00:39:31,190 --> 00:39:34,490
literally, you know, can
checklists that you have to go

695
00:39:34,490 --> 00:39:38,450
through when it's what are you
really gleaming from them? I

696
00:39:38,450 --> 00:39:42,020
personally don't like doing
performance reviews or having

697
00:39:42,020 --> 00:39:44,210
performance reviews because I
don't think they accomplish

698
00:39:44,210 --> 00:39:48,110
anything other than it's just
another form of bureaucracy. I

699
00:39:48,110 --> 00:39:53,000
think you need to have immediate
check ins you you constantly are

700
00:39:53,060 --> 00:39:56,570
in the loop as to what's going
on. When you have these daily

701
00:39:56,570 --> 00:40:01,790
check ins or weekly, bi weekly
or whatever you're style is, but

702
00:40:01,820 --> 00:40:04,910
continuous feedback, right? It's
the continuous feedback. So

703
00:40:04,910 --> 00:40:08,330
there's nothing no surprises,
there's no quarterly surprise

704
00:40:08,570 --> 00:40:13,070
coming your way. And when pay is
told to you upfront, this is

705
00:40:13,070 --> 00:40:17,660
what this position makes. You
know, there's no $50,000 scale

706
00:40:17,660 --> 00:40:19,670
or something when you're, you
know, getting talking to the

707
00:40:19,670 --> 00:40:23,030
recruiters or whatever. And then
when you're there, yeah, this is

708
00:40:23,030 --> 00:40:25,640
how much is increases every
year. And you can expect that it

709
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:28,460
takes away so much of the
pressure that we have on

710
00:40:28,460 --> 00:40:31,580
ourselves to know what we're
going to be dealing with every

711
00:40:31,580 --> 00:40:33,380
year. Totally.

712
00:40:33,410 --> 00:40:36,860
Matt K. Parker: Yeah. I mean,
yeah, no, I actually, you know,

713
00:40:36,860 --> 00:40:39,950
you said, I don't think these
performance reviews, do

714
00:40:39,950 --> 00:40:42,080
anything. I think they do do
something. And I think it's very

715
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:45,590
bad, right? I think ultimately,
right? Performance reviews.

716
00:40:45,710 --> 00:40:49,250
They're based on a very
outdated, antiquated and

717
00:40:49,250 --> 00:40:51,830
debunked theory of human
motivation. It's called

718
00:40:51,830 --> 00:40:55,700
behavioral ism, right? It's
turned back in the early 20th

719
00:40:55,700 --> 00:40:59,420
century, when people started
studying behavior in rats. And

720
00:40:59,420 --> 00:41:01,880
then they began to extrapolate a
lot about what they learned

721
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:06,380
about rats to people, right. And
then from even the scientific

722
00:41:06,380 --> 00:41:08,690
statements made along those
lines, which are no longer even

723
00:41:08,690 --> 00:41:12,050
considered valid science, right,
we have then taken a version of

724
00:41:12,050 --> 00:41:14,690
that a warped version of that
into pop culture right now we

725
00:41:14,690 --> 00:41:19,010
have pop behavioral ism. And so
it systems of management in most

726
00:41:19,010 --> 00:41:23,180
companies and pay systems of pay
and most companies are based on

727
00:41:23,210 --> 00:41:26,360
a belief that you have to use
carrots and sticks to get

728
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:30,770
performance right. And this is
actually been debunked by the

729
00:41:30,770 --> 00:41:34,250
last 75 years of research into
behavioral science. Broadly

730
00:41:34,250 --> 00:41:36,800
speaking, we can refer to two
basic theories about human

731
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:39,800
motivation. One is called Theory
X. The other is called Theory Y.

732
00:41:40,070 --> 00:41:43,010
Right? Theory X is a pictorial
mnemonic, by the way, imagine a

733
00:41:43,010 --> 00:41:45,170
worker holding their hands up
and the next in front of them,

734
00:41:45,350 --> 00:41:47,900
what are they saying, screw, I'm
not going to do anything unless

735
00:41:47,900 --> 00:41:51,500
you force me to. I'm lazy, I'm
recalcitrant. So unless you're

736
00:41:51,500 --> 00:41:53,360
putting a pretty big carrot in
front of me, you're not gonna

737
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:55,910
get performance out of me.
That's Theory X. And if you

738
00:41:55,910 --> 00:41:59,480
treat your workforce, as if they
all conform, that theory acts as

739
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:02,450
if they're all lazy and
recalcitrant. And you whip them

740
00:42:02,450 --> 00:42:06,260
with disincentives. And you you
know, carrot them with pay

741
00:42:06,260 --> 00:42:08,990
incentives and stuff like that.
The thing is, what we've

742
00:42:08,990 --> 00:42:11,720
discovered is that although they
started as human beings with

743
00:42:11,720 --> 00:42:14,930
intrinsic motivation, you turn
them into human beings who can

744
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:19,040
only be who will only perform
based on extrinsic motivations,

745
00:42:19,160 --> 00:42:22,400
theory acts as a self fulfilling
prophecy, theory wise, another

746
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:24,890
pictorial pneumonic, imagine a
worker holding their hands up in

747
00:42:24,890 --> 00:42:28,010
a while like this, what are they
saying? They're saying, Yay, I'm

748
00:42:28,010 --> 00:42:31,610
glad to be here. I like working
right. I like my job. I'm

749
00:42:31,610 --> 00:42:34,580
passionate about programming.
For instance, I want to do that

750
00:42:34,610 --> 00:42:37,520
I started as theory Why, what
did I become after 10 years in

751
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:40,640
our industry Theory X, right? I
didn't want to do anything

752
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:44,090
anymore. I was so demotivated by
everything. Right. And I'm not

753
00:42:44,090 --> 00:42:47,150
the only one, you said in the in
the introduction, 84% of people

754
00:42:47,150 --> 00:42:50,240
around the world are disengaged
at work. And by the way, a fair

755
00:42:50,240 --> 00:42:53,120
number of those are actively
disengaged, they're actively

756
00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:55,880
creating toxic situations for
themselves and the people around

757
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:59,090
them, they are so upset with the
way things are, right. That's

758
00:42:59,090 --> 00:43:02,480
the kind of thing that we create
with old school ideas about

759
00:43:02,510 --> 00:43:06,110
people about behavior and about
motivation. And that's what we

760
00:43:06,110 --> 00:43:08,510
have to change. And that's part
of this radically collaborative

761
00:43:08,510 --> 00:43:09,170
revolution.

762
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:14,270
Jason Baum: I think that is an
excellent place to kind of to

763
00:43:14,270 --> 00:43:18,530
stop, I want to keep going. So I
think we're going to have to do

764
00:43:18,530 --> 00:43:23,000
this again. Maybe in a Twitter
space, maybe another another

765
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:26,990
venues, the more that we could,
I would love to continue this

766
00:43:26,990 --> 00:43:29,390
conversation with you. I think
this is absolutely fascinating.

767
00:43:29,390 --> 00:43:33,680
And, Matt, you're not off the
hook just yet. Because we always

768
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:37,610
like to close with 111 more
question. I don't like for this

769
00:43:37,610 --> 00:43:43,310
to be a gotcha question. But I
kind of do it. It's always a

770
00:43:43,310 --> 00:43:46,310
little more personal. This one's
This one's not necessarily as

771
00:43:46,310 --> 00:43:50,510
personal. What's one question
you wished I'd asked you? And

772
00:43:50,510 --> 00:43:51,740
then how would you answer it?

773
00:44:01,130 --> 00:44:05,540
Matt K. Parker: Okay, well,
this, I wish that we had had the

774
00:44:05,540 --> 00:44:08,090
time to talk about one of the
imperatives actually two of the

775
00:44:08,090 --> 00:44:10,460
imperatives that we haven't
really covered at all. I'll pick

776
00:44:10,460 --> 00:44:13,490
one deficiency need
gratification? Here's how I

777
00:44:13,490 --> 00:44:16,400
would answer it. If you had said
What the heck is that? Here's my

778
00:44:16,430 --> 00:44:21,050
30-second Answer. Human beings
are different from other

779
00:44:21,050 --> 00:44:25,430
animals. We don't just need
water, food, shelter, right? We

780
00:44:25,430 --> 00:44:29,540
need love, security, autonomy,
fairness, esteem, trust,

781
00:44:29,540 --> 00:44:33,020
meaning, we are meaning beings.
We're not just physical beings,

782
00:44:33,020 --> 00:44:37,430
right? The companies that I
profiled in the book, right, and

783
00:44:37,430 --> 00:44:40,040
that I talk about a lot of their
practices, a lot of what they

784
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:43,490
have thought about is how do we
create environments that are

785
00:44:43,490 --> 00:44:46,790
high in what psychologists refer
to as deficiency need

786
00:44:46,790 --> 00:44:51,470
gratification, right high in
environments in which people

787
00:44:51,500 --> 00:44:55,580
mutually satisfy each other's
need for those human needs for

788
00:44:55,580 --> 00:44:59,450
security, autonomy, fairness,
esteem, etc. Right? And they

789
00:44:59,450 --> 00:45:02,660
have little practices that they
do every day. They have big

790
00:45:02,660 --> 00:45:05,660
practices that they do once a
year, and everything sort of in

791
00:45:05,660 --> 00:45:10,250
between for maintaining a
culture. That feels good, right?

792
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:14,060
All the Ellen with us,
psychologists like Abraham

793
00:45:14,060 --> 00:45:17,600
Maslow, Carl Rogers, Romae, many
others in the sort of mid 20th

794
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:21,590
century, they were all saying,
We believe that what is good for

795
00:45:21,590 --> 00:45:24,530
people will also be good for
organizations. And we wish these

796
00:45:24,530 --> 00:45:26,990
companies believed us. And we
wish they would focus on

797
00:45:26,990 --> 00:45:29,630
creating great environments for
people, because I think it'll

798
00:45:29,630 --> 00:45:32,270
help them be great
organizations. The truth is,

799
00:45:32,300 --> 00:45:35,480
they didn't know they didn't
have the empirical data to say

800
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:39,740
for sure whether or not that was
true. That's no longer a, maybe

801
00:45:39,740 --> 00:45:42,920
it's true, it's a definite
truth. Now, we have lots of

802
00:45:42,920 --> 00:45:46,760
empirical data that says there
is a strong correlation between

803
00:45:46,790 --> 00:45:50,360
between environments that are
good for humans and environments

804
00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:52,970
that are good for organizations
and results that are good for

805
00:45:52,970 --> 00:45:56,240
organizations. So I'll end with
that. It's just another aspect

806
00:45:56,240 --> 00:45:59,630
of this whole dimension that is
really important to consider and

807
00:45:59,630 --> 00:46:01,460
explore. If you're going down
this path.

808
00:46:01,679 --> 00:46:02,159
Jason Baum: it's

809
00:46:02,210 --> 00:46:03,980
We're gonna change up the
structure of this podcast,

810
00:46:03,980 --> 00:46:09,110
because I'm so motivated now.
And inspired. So I have a follow

811
00:46:09,110 --> 00:46:15,110
up to this, too, that we spent a
lot of time on my, on my

812
00:46:15,110 --> 00:46:21,860
conversation last week, on
generations, and we talked about

813
00:46:21,860 --> 00:46:28,250
Gen Z, and what motivates them.
And this is they are, I think,

814
00:46:28,250 --> 00:46:36,950
in many ways the millennials are
are value driven, certainly, but

815
00:46:36,950 --> 00:46:42,830
not as passionate. Gen Z, is
value driven, and they're gonna

816
00:46:42,830 --> 00:46:48,860
be in your face about it. Do you
see Gen Z? Like everything else?

817
00:46:48,890 --> 00:46:52,880
I think, do you see them being
as they get into the workforce,

818
00:46:52,880 --> 00:46:55,970
and they learn more about the
structures, and they're vocal?

819
00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:58,910
Do you think that there's an
opportunity here with Gen Z

820
00:46:58,910 --> 00:47:01,640
coming into the workforce for
this to really take off?

821
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:07,610
Matt K. Parker: Yeah,
absolutely. In fact, it's being

822
00:47:07,610 --> 00:47:12,650
referred to now as the passion
paradigm, in sort of behavioral

823
00:47:12,650 --> 00:47:14,840
science, literature and
organizational literature,

824
00:47:14,990 --> 00:47:21,620
exploring this sort of explosion
in the value placed on having a

825
00:47:21,620 --> 00:47:24,890
job that you're passionate about
doing work that you care about,

826
00:47:24,890 --> 00:47:27,740
that you find meaning in, right,
it's growing and growing and

827
00:47:27,740 --> 00:47:32,690
growing. And I don't know, I, I
personally don't have the data

828
00:47:32,690 --> 00:47:35,090
in front of me to say that,
truly, there is like a

829
00:47:35,090 --> 00:47:37,550
significant and meaningful
difference between the way this

830
00:47:37,550 --> 00:47:40,700
was expressed in the previous
generation and the current

831
00:47:40,700 --> 00:47:43,700
generation or anything like
that. But the fact that it's

832
00:47:43,700 --> 00:47:46,790
growing, his true nonetheless,
right. And maybe it's growing

833
00:47:46,790 --> 00:47:49,370
across the board for everyone
alive today. Or maybe it's just

834
00:47:49,370 --> 00:47:53,090
a small segment of it. But it is
a meme at the end of the day,

835
00:47:53,300 --> 00:47:56,510
that that is captivating, more
and more people. And it's

836
00:47:56,510 --> 00:48:01,250
spreading that meme, right? That
that I think is part and parcel

837
00:48:01,250 --> 00:48:04,730
of continuing this quiet
revolution in the way we work,

838
00:48:04,820 --> 00:48:07,790
right? I'm using meme not in the
sense of, you know, pictures on

839
00:48:07,790 --> 00:48:10,310
the internet. I'm using it in
the original sense that Richard

840
00:48:10,310 --> 00:48:13,340
Dawkins proposed it right. A
meme is a unit of cultural

841
00:48:13,340 --> 00:48:17,330
propagation. It passes from
person to person, it's how we

842
00:48:17,330 --> 00:48:20,360
spread our culture, right? And
the fact that that's spreading,

843
00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:22,790
and it's finding more and more
currency in the world.

844
00:48:23,090 --> 00:48:26,510
Absolutely. Points to there's
something big on the horizon,

845
00:48:26,870 --> 00:48:29,570
right? Like this great
resignation, right, as you

846
00:48:29,570 --> 00:48:32,180
mentioned, in the beginning,
right, is actually about

847
00:48:32,300 --> 00:48:35,660
creating a world in which we
have more meaning and purpose in

848
00:48:35,660 --> 00:48:39,470
our lives, right, in which we
say, enough is enough, right? We

849
00:48:39,470 --> 00:48:42,470
are not going to take it
anymore, we actually deserve

850
00:48:42,470 --> 00:48:46,130
better, and we can create
better. I'll end with this. A

851
00:48:46,130 --> 00:48:49,310
coworker a long time ago, he
looked at me one day, and he

852
00:48:49,310 --> 00:48:54,290
said, We're adulting wrong. And
he sort of was, you know, he

853
00:48:54,290 --> 00:48:57,260
didn't really explain it at the
time. But I think that his

854
00:48:57,260 --> 00:49:01,070
statement, we're adulting wrong,
encapsulates what so much of us

855
00:49:01,070 --> 00:49:05,480
feel, but the flip side of that
is, why not adult right? We can

856
00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:09,350
make any sort of world we want.
There's nothing about this world

857
00:49:09,350 --> 00:49:12,950
that, that, that and especially
the human side of this world,

858
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:16,460
that is necessary or final,
right, we can get together and

859
00:49:16,460 --> 00:49:19,850
change what we do, what we
experience, how we experience it

860
00:49:19,970 --> 00:49:23,090
together and make it what we
want it to be. And I think

861
00:49:23,090 --> 00:49:26,210
that's what this was all about.
And, and as much as Gen Z is and

862
00:49:26,210 --> 00:49:28,880
it's sort of on the forefront of
expressing this potential.

863
00:49:29,000 --> 00:49:32,270
Absolutely. We should leverage
it and run with it and follow

864
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:37,520
Jason Baum: We are adulting
wrong. Matt, thank you so much.

865
00:49:32,270 --> 00:49:32,900
their lead.

866
00:49:37,550 --> 00:49:44,840
Matt Parker, Matt K parker.com.
And I think this this was such a

867
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:48,260
great conversation. I had such a
good time. I hope you did too.

868
00:49:49,160 --> 00:49:54,620
Radical enterprises the book,
Matt, thanks again. And thank

869
00:49:54,620 --> 00:49:58,700
you.  Oh, yeah, absolutely. And
thank you so much. And thank you

870
00:49:58,700 --> 00:50:01,610
for listening to this episode.
The humans of DevOps podcast,

871
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:04,520
I'm going to end this episode
the same way I always do

872
00:50:04,640 --> 00:50:08,960
encourage you to become a member
and join us in the community at

873
00:50:08,960 --> 00:50:12,380
DevOps Institute DevOps in the
wild, to get access to even more

874
00:50:12,380 --> 00:50:15,950
great resources just like this
one. Until next time, stay safe,

875
00:50:15,980 --> 00:50:19,760
stay healthy, and just fall
State Human prosper.

876
00:50:23,690 --> 00:50:25,790
Unknown: Thanks for listening to
this episode of the humans of

877
00:50:25,790 --> 00:50:29,330
DevOps podcast. Don't forget to
join our global community to get

878
00:50:29,330 --> 00:50:32,690
access to even more great
resources like this. Until next

879
00:50:32,690 --> 00:50:36,140
time, remember, you are part of
something bigger than yourself.

880
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:37,220
You belong.