Speaker 1what's up guys welcome back to build and today i want to talk about getting the right people in the right seats in your company so something that i wrote down a bunch of different thoughts on because over the last gosh i want to say four months that's been a huge piece of what i've been having to do and i feel like i say that every time because i feel like every time i'm talking on this podcast i'm like here's what you have to do the people changes i was talking to alex about this the other day and i was like man fuck you like you just tell people how to make more money and it's like so straightforward and easy they're like i did this thing and i made a million dollars or five hundred thousand dollars or whatever and i'm like hey you need to do all these like really shitty things and in like six to twelve months it'll really pay off for you and it's like just such a not sexy thing to talk about that being said it's really important because you can't keep making all that money if you don't have the right people on your team and this is something really relevant to me because you know we've grown from right now we're at about 175 people in the company and you know a year ago it was half that so lots of things changing there's also there's not just like bringing in the new people but there's also making sure that the people that have been there for a while are in the right seats in the company so that continues to be a challenge as you get bigger and i think as you expand it becomes one of the things that probably is dropped first and i like to consider myself somebody who constantly is paying attention to that because i'm always thinking how do i get the most leverage out of everyone on my team and so i really don't believe that you can get the most leverage of somebody unless they're sitting in the right seat myself included alex included sharon included like we all have to be working on the right things in the right seats so i want to walk through that because i think some of the hardest moments that we have in business in general are when we have somebody on our team and we're like they have 10 out of 10 character they're trying really hard they're insanely loyal they've worked here for a long time they fit all the values everyone loves them and i think that's what's really important and i think that's what's really important is that they're not producing results on the team and so because of that you're like kind of fucked up over it you're like okay well what am i supposed to do with this person because they're great but like we need to make money and make this business work and drive results and if they're not doing that then that's a really difficult position to be in and so the one frame i would like to give you is that there's two different ways that people look at these problems and i think both are important to understand how to fix it but you have to understand more effort putting in more hours putting in more work coaching somebody more giving them more feedback will not fix a problem where they are not in the right role or where they are misaligned so it's kind of similar to like in business you have strategy when you have the wrong strategy you can market as hard as you want you can sell as hard as you want you can upsell those customers if it's the wrong strategy you're just gonna like it's almost like cutting grass with scissors and so it's the same for these people problems it's like you're cutting grass with scissors by just trying to put more effort into it and you're just like you're just like you're just like you're just trying to put more effort into this person when it's actually just a misalignment problem and so i see a lot of people miss that they're like i need to get more feedback coach them etc and i'm like what if this isn't even the right role for them and i really think that the most important job that you can have as ceo is make sure you have the right people in the right seats make sure that the people you've brought on you've paid all this money to and you're putting all this on the line for you're getting the most out of their performance you're getting the most of them and they're enjoying their job the most because they get to reach their potential so that's what i the first frame i want to think about is you have a situation where it's probably the most common you have the right person on your team and when you say right person it's like are they honest do they have work ethic do they fit the values are they smart are they kind um are they a good teammate okay if they check you know these basic boxes of what makes a good person to have on your team and it's like okay but why aren't they performing then it might be the wrong seat and that's what i want to talk about so i'll give you an example for this of how you can make a good team and you can make a good team and you can make a good team and you can kind of solve having somebody in the wrong seat i've had many countless times i mean hundreds of times where i've had somebody who's like freaking amazing but i just don't feel like they're in the right seat in the company and there's two ways that i look at solving this and the first is that i say okay maybe it's just truly the wrong seat i look at their skills rather than their experience and i ask myself based on their skills like the things that they i write down their strengths i write down their weaknesses does that fit the job description that they're currently in and sometimes i take a step back and i'm like it actually doesn't you know where i think this person would really shine is this sounds more like somebody who's a blank so i've had this happen multiple times i would say like some very like interesting areas where it happens like i've had people that are customer service that i think would be better in operations i've had people in operations that i think would be better in uh hr i've had people in hr i think lots of crossover in the skill sets they're similar with sales and marketing um obviously a little bit more of a skill gap there because there's like some very tangible hard skills you have to learn to cross over either one but i have seen people in either one of those where i'm like i actually think you'd be better in marketing than sales so um that's the first thing that you have to ask yourself is write down their strengths and weaknesses does this actually fit the job description that i have for the role they're sitting in and then you have a really cool question which is if you're a growing company and if you're bigger you get to ask yourself well would they actually do better in this other role that could exist or needs to exist or is open in my company that is like the easiest like grace from god way that you could solve this problem it's like fucking amazing i actually have another role that i need filled that's if they were to fill this would create a ton of value in the company that better is aligned with their actual strengths and weaknesses fucking great go for it now many cases though you're looking at this and you're like oh no i don't have another role for this person that would be better aligned with this stuff and so you have room for creativity because let me just say this it's your company it's your team there are no rules now there are precedents that you set so you want to set the precedent that every time someone's not a tenant at their job you're going to change their job but you do have the flexibility of like you know what i can slightly alter this role like titles don't mean a lot if you meet a director of operations at my company at the company across the street from me and you're like oh my god i'm not going to be able to do this at the company down the street from us completely different roles like it's not even close so if they're not even going to be the same across companies there's no reason why you couldn't slightly change it in your company and i have found that there's no way in which every single person on like my executive team for example fully embodies to a 10 out of 10 exactly what i need in every executive there's actually little pieces that they get from each other and because of that we make like one very strong team together and so sometimes you look at it and say okay would a job description or focus actually unlock this person in this seat like maybe we're having them do 50 of their job is something that is actually not adding a ton of value to the company and they're really bad at the other 50 they're fucking killing it and they're really good at it and if you have them do that 100 of the time it might unlock so much more value for the company and their performance a good example of this is i've had multiple times where i've looked at somebody and it's like they're constantly misscheduling this is executives and leaders more so they're um what time to do this they're not communicating properly with people why is all that well they don't have an administrative support function below them so one thing that i've done for all my executives for example is like i make sure they either have an ea or an admin of some sort that's supporting them why is that because i can't tell you how many times you're gonna run across this where like an executive's not very good at that stuff some of them are good at it but do we want them focused on it do we want an executive focused on administrative tasks do we really think that just because it's in the job description it's not going to be a good job for them they need to do these things and it's you know looks good to the team if they're really good at it do we need to have them doing it it's like no they could probably get a lot more leverage in their role if they focus on the other things so it's like okay cool that's out of your job description you don't manage any of those details somebody else is going to do that other two questions that i ask myself are kind of like tangential to this which is like are there things in their job description like am i asking too much of them and because of that they're unable to perform so part of that is the administrative function the other part is sometimes i look and it's really unfair of me to ask this of one person so i actually think i need two other people supporting them in these ways to make this role more effective i found that in many instances especially when you're a smaller company there's just no way that somebody is going to be able to fill every single hole in the exact way that you want they're not gonna be a 10 out of 10 everything so you really have to ask yourself okay is this really their fault that they're not a to get realistic about the fact that i'm gonna have to expand my team i'll give you an example which is like typically the first ops hire hr hire finance hire people are looking for them to do like because they don't want to spend a ton of money in the back office they're looking for them to do everything and then they're like oh my god they're not good at this part i'm like no fucking shit you think somebody's like really good at like business partnership and hard conference is also really really fucking world-class at recruiting like those are actually two very different skill sets so very different temperaments of people i've made that mistake in hr a few times where it's either recruiting suffers or business partners suffer either way i just realized like you know what fuck it i'm gonna bite the bullet if i can save three people from quitting this year with having a proper business partner setup if i can recruit roles twice as fast with having a good recruiting setup it is worth the extra hire so that's another way that i like to think about it so that's the approach that i take when it's like okay we have the right person it's just truly the wrong seat like it's the wrong job description for them and their skills and it would take more time then it's reasonable to train them up on those skills. And it doesn't make sense for the business. They also don't really seem to like it. They also have other skills that if maximized can create a ton of value in the business. It just doesn't happen to be that they're in that job description, right? That's where we have to get creative. It's like when I talk to people, that's not your job description. I'm like, you made your fucking job description. What are we talking about over here? Like there's no like HR people, job description gods that are looking over your job descriptions and saying, oh my gosh, you shouldn't write that. It's like, what are we doing? Like you make the rules. So like do whatever suits the business and the person and you. The second situation that I see is that you have the right person. This is one I've come up on a lot. I would also classify myself in here, which is you have the right person, wrong season of life. So this is when you have somebody, and I've had people recently, and many times in my past where, you know, I had someone that was an insane director of operations in my last company and so good. And then, you know, she had her third child. And at that point, it was like, oh my God, I'm going to be a director of operations. And I'm going to be a director of operations. And she just couldn't give what was needed for that job. You know, in a small startup type company, you know, I wouldn't say startup, I guess you're doing 50 million a year, but like startup energy, like we're still five years old as a company, we're young. You need somebody that's like kind of all consumed with the job. And she had been that, but then when she had her third kid, she was like, I, she just couldn't, like she had too many other things filling up her life. And so she was the right person. It just wasn't the right season for her. And the season changed. And that does happen with people fairly frequently. I've had sickness, a spouse gets sick, parents die, a spouse retires. So then they feel like they need to retire. I've had, you know, my last CFO in my last company, she was an amazing CFO and her husband retired. All her friends were retired. Her parents then needed to be taken care of though. She loved the company and loved working with us. It no longer made sense for her to work with us because it didn't make sense for that season of her life. So that is something that you will come up against a lot, especially the longer that you're in business, where you're just like, man, I really love this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to love this person, but it doesn't make sense for the season of their life. And in those instances, I'm looking at it. I'm saying, okay, is there a job in this company? They're a great fit. They're performing. They're doing a great job. Is there another less demanding role that they could take that I could offer them? And that's like my first go-to with that roles that are, you know, all encompassing. Um, there are some roles that aren't that way in companies. Now it might be that every role in your company right now, you're at the size where it's like, Hey, uh, everybody got to be like this. And then it's like, okay, well maybe that's a discussion where you could say like, Hey, I don't know if this is a fit anymore. Can I help you find a job somewhere else? Can I give you recommendations? Can I introduce you to my friend's own companies? I've done all of those things when I've realized that like this person just can't give what we need and I don't want to them to fail. I don't want to like fire them, but it doesn't make sense for them to work here. So, um, that's how I typically like to handle that. Now on the other side of that, there's also where you have the right person for the right season of the business. And then the business changes seasons. This is super common. And I like in every, I would say like rung of growth of the business, you're going to see this, which is you have people who are so good when it's tiny and you're just trying to figure it out and you're trying to just like get product market fit and it's all hands on deck and you're talking all day every day and there's texting, nothing's formalized. There's no email, there's no HR, there's no legal, there's nothing right. It's just like fucking wild, wild west. There are people that are like so good in that phase. Then you get to the next phase, which is like you become an organization, right? Maybe you've got 20, 30 people and they start to struggle a little bit there, but like often can make it through that phase of design. Um, because it's a little less wild west. You need to know where things are. People need to know each other's names. You have to talk and communicate and do meetings and things like that. Um, and then you really move into, you start becoming a company. You're 50 to a hundred people. You need functions. You need HR. You need legal. You're on defense, not just offense. You've established product market fit. And now you're like, how do I grow and maintain product market fit? How do I continue to be a leader in my industry or maintain my product market? Um, my slice of the market. Um, different people for all of those seasons. There are some people that I've seen can move through them. Um, now I will say not always happily. Um, like I can tell I have teammates who have moved through all those seasons with acquisition.com, but I can tell you which seasons I was like, they were a little stank about that. Like they didn't love that season. Um, and I will be like transparent. Like I don't love the season of when things feel slow. If anytime things feel slow in the company, I'm pretty much just like going to come in and rip shit up until it's fast again, no matter how big the company is. I would never do well with like, you know, like 20,000 employees, because I think at that point, like things are just slower. And I, I'm just not a fan of that. It's just doesn't work for me. Some people love that. They love when it's slow seasons, not a fan of slow seasons. Another way that I think about seasons is you have peacetime and wartime. Ben Horowitz talked about this in his book, a hard thing about hard things. And that's essentially, okay. A peacetime, which is like, things are going well. People are buying your products. It's easy to do things in the business. It's like happy time. Like we celebrate birthdays. Anniversaries, all these things. And then you have wartime, which is like, we are up against competitors. We don't have product market fit. We are in a fast growth market and competing with other people for market share. Wartime. Some people do well in both. Some people do not. And I could tell you, like, you could probably look at your team right now and say, who's good at wartime and who's good at peacetime. Um, and I really think the question of that is just like, who handles adversity well, because some people just don't handle adversity and pressure and stress well. And if they don't, then it's like, okay, it's good to acknowledge. And there's a few ways that I navigate that one, which is like, if I have somebody who is like a fucking diehard and like, they just thrived in the first two seasons of the business. And now in the third, I'm not seeing it. I really think often I try to put them in a role that is more of an innovative role. So oftentimes the people that have that like startup mentality energy, no matter what kind of role they are in, I've just noticed that they tend to do better when you put them in some sort of role where you're constantly developing new stuff. Well, there's not many places I want to do that except for marketing. And product, because those are two areas that you constantly want to be working on as the business investing in making them better. So I have found that for a lot of people, um, they do really well when you put them in one of those roles where they can constantly refresh a product or refresh marketing. So it's almost like putting them in like an innovation role, a product role, a marketing role. Like those are tend to be roles that suit people really well, who did really well in the beginning and don't do as well as the company gets bigger. So I've seen that help at the same time. Like the reality is, is that like the goal of a company is not to keep everybody. It is to keep the right people at the right time. There's going to be times you have the right person and you do not have a role for them where they actually have career trajectory to grow. And at that point, if they want to leave, that's okay. I've had to tell my team this because, you know, we've had people leave and maybe they've been here for two years or three years, which to me is like nothing, but, um, you know, it means a lot to people who've only been here for a They're like, Oh my gosh, they're leaving. And I'm like, why must we think this is a bad thing? Why do we think it's a bad thing? Every time someone leaves the team, like things change in life, we don't all have the luxury of creating the perfect position for everybody for every phase of their life. The business cannot operate that way. So to a degree, you have to be reasonable with yourself, which is like, I'm giving you guys the method to think through this stuff. But at some point it's like, you've done enough. And like, you just, at some point you can't do more. Now the first phase that I want to think about, or I would say like piece to this is you have the right person under the wrong person. And that doesn't mean that either person's wrong. It means that almost like there's like a lack of chemistry. It's like, you know, you can have two friends that you're like, I'm going to set you guys up. And it's like, he's a great guy. She's a great girl. You set them up. And it's like, just nothing. And it's like, okay, there's nothing wrong with either of you. You just don't tend to have a very like natural, forming relationship. I've seen that many times on teams. I'll give you an example. I had a leader on our marketing team, super analytical, really good at what she did, but had a guy under her who was much more creative, much more visionary. And the two of them just bumped heads all the time. He could only think in analytics, logic, numbers. She could do that, focus on the bigger picture and kind of seeing ahead in the vision because that was her role in a more creative role. And she made it very clear that she was not happy under that person. And so I thought they were both very important to the company. How do I keep this person? And so what I did is I actually just dotted lined her to his boss. So I said, you know what? I think in this case, not in every case, it makes sense to say you have a dotted line to this person and a hard line to this person. So in these instances, the way I think about it is if they're both right for the team, but they just don't tend to have that natural chemistry with each other. I asked myself, well, what's missing that if existed in this relationship, this person would be performing better in their role, right? For the individual contributor. And a lot of the times it's something that can be supplemented if they have a relationship with another leader, if they have some sort of mentorship they're getting from somebody else in the company, or if you say, you know what, we're actually going to create a different structure where it's almost like you have a dual reporting to a degree. Now, again, I think somebody has to be a little bit more mature to know how to manage dual reporting in an organization, but it is something that you can do in a decent amount of these situations. So those are the three situations that I see often where it's like you have the right person in the wrong seat, the wrong season with the wrong boss. And those are the ways that I kind of remedy that stuff. There's so many times where somebody comes to me like this person's underperforming, we need to fire them. And I'm them like Like, what's the actual problem? And if they're a person of integrity, they're a great teammate, they've worked really hard, they've been really loyal, like, there's usually a lot of options. I will say sometimes you exhaust those options. I've had people where I've been like, I've exhausted the options. There's just nothing. And then I do, unfortunately, need to let them go. But the one thing I'll say is like, these problems don't solve themselves with time or with effort of coaching on getting to a result. They are solved by thinking strategically about the team. It's sort of like in sports, you only have so much time because like, you can only lose so many games before you're out the whole season. Business is the same way. So you have to ask yourself, like, can the business withstand this much grace that I'm giving the situation? That's always the thing that you have to kind of come back to, because at the end of the day, if the business and the whole team is going to suffer, if you're trying these things multiple times, that's going to be tough. So you do have to ask yourself that question. Is this in service of the business? Will this be? Is this going to be the best thing I can do for the business? And that's the frame I think of. But the one thing I'll say is like, I know you're watching this. You might be thinking, oh, well, what about this or this? It's like, please stop. We make up so many excuses in our head because we're like, oh my gosh, I don't want to have this conversation. I don't want to have to think through it. Or this sounds hard. It's going to take time. Yes, it does. But the thing is like you as the founder or as the CEO or as the leader are also going to go through seasons. And you're also going to have times where you realize that you may not be the right person in the right seat. You know, for me recently. I moved from CEO to executive chairwoman, and it wasn't because I hated being CEO or I felt like something lacked with me being CEO. You know, Sharon and I were really upfront about it. It's just seasons. And I recognize that I needed a season where things in my personal life are going to take more time for me than I had ever had before. Like I'm filming this. I'm six months pregnant. So I'm going to have my first kid. I don't want the business to suffer. And if there's somebody else here who can do my job, and they're in a different season that allows them to have more of that time. And I'm so lucky to have Sharon who is. And it's like, okay, great. Does that mean that I don't miss it? Absolutely not. Like I miss so much about it. And I don't think that I, in any instance, I'm in the wrong person, but wrong season. And so I think accepting seasons of life and seasons of business is a really important thing to do. So that being said, I hope this was helpful. If it was, maybe comment down below. What are you dealing with? What's the, do you have the right person or the in wrong seat? Like what problem do you have the right person, wrong boss? Do you have the right person in the wrong season? What are you facing? And let me know what you do about it.
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