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2023-01-16. Stopping By
Episode 1217th January 2023 • Reqless • Aboard
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Rich has an idea about how to completely revolutionize the remote workplace. Typical hijinks ensue.

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Paul Ford:

Hey, rich.

Paul Ford:

How you doing?

Rich Ziade:

Every so often it just hits like a lightning strike and

Rich Ziade:

you, you take a leap beyond just giving advice and instead you

Rich Ziade:

just end up changing the world.

Paul Ford:

Great.

Paul Ford:

That's a wonderful way to start this podcast.

Paul Ford:

It sets the stakes very low, and there'll be no problem meeting

Paul Ford:

the expectations of the audience.

Paul Ford:

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Rich Ziade:

Welcome everyone to the Zian Ford Podcast.

Rich Ziade:

Uh, we like to give advice, but today we're gonna change the game.

Paul Ford:

We are.

Rich Ziade:

here we go.

Paul Ford:

Okay.

Paul Ford:

We, we should, this is actually how our relationship works.

Paul Ford:

It would be like, Hey Paul, we're gonna go have this big meeting with some sort

Paul Ford:

of really important client and I, I know you've fully prepared and you've had a

Paul Ford:

lot of thoughts, but we're gonna do it actually, um, in using puppets instead.

Paul Ford:

And I would go, okay, rich.

Rich Ziade:

And it's this afternoon,

Paul Ford:

give me my puppet and then we'd land the business like

Paul Ford:

there is a strategy to it, but, woo.

Paul Ford:

Alright, so here we go everyone.

Paul Ford:

Welcome to our world.

Paul Ford:

Rich is about to blow it up.

Paul Ford:

What the hell are you talking about?

Rich Ziade:

We have a startup called a board.

Paul Ford:

We sure do.

Rich Ziade:

and except for Paul and I, effectively the entire team, a

Rich Ziade:

team of about 16 people at this point is distributed, fully distributed.

Rich Ziade:

and then we came out of the holidays, which is essentially the month

Rich Ziade:

of December, which is like a drug fueled haze when it comes to running

Rich Ziade:

a company or starting a business.

Paul Ford:

You know, have you noticed it?

Rich Ziade:

up and you're like, why am I in Forest Hills, Queens right now?

Paul Ford:

So let me,

Rich Ziade:

I got here.

Rich Ziade:

Let's talk for

Paul Ford:

I, I need to, so let me.

Rich Ziade:

December

Paul Ford:

Hold on.

Paul Ford:

Here's what, here's what used to happen.

Paul Ford:

Hey, I'm gonna take the week off between, uh, Christmas and New Year's.

Paul Ford:

And they'd be like, sure, Paul, go enjoy a cool nineties band cuz it's

Paul Ford:

the nineties and that's what people do.

Paul Ford:

And go, you know, go watch Blues Traveler and then fast forward to 2022.

Paul Ford:

The holidays begin the week before Halloween.

Paul Ford:

Like seriously, everybody is like, poof boy.

Paul Ford:

A lot of candy man getting ready for Thanksgiving and it is

Paul Ford:

like a three month period now.

Rich Ziade:

It, it Thanksgiving is like stepping into a void, of some sort.

Rich Ziade:

I think part of it is the way they made Cyber Friday into this multinational.

Rich Ziade:

festival of some sort, There's Cyber Black Friday, cyber Monday, and it just

Rich Ziade:

goes on and on and we don't know what to do except put shit in our shopping carts

Paul Ford:

It's just

Rich Ziade:

K.

Paul Ford:

it,

Rich Ziade:

then we kinda wake up January 8th,

Paul Ford:

it.

Rich Ziade:

the third, by the way, the eighth.

Paul Ford:

Just straight up capitalism, man.

Paul Ford:

Like capitalism is like, look, we're not getting enough.

Paul Ford:

We need a little more.

Paul Ford:

So hold on.

Paul Ford:

But the other, the other thing I've noticed too is because everyone

Paul Ford:

is remote now, I think it actually makes it worse because everybody

Paul Ford:

is like very calendar aware.

Paul Ford:

And so starting in October, they're like, whoof, boy, I'd love to get coffee,

Paul Ford:

but it looks more like February now.

Rich Ziade:

It's true.

Rich Ziade:

So this is my, my big innovation.

Rich Ziade:

So, okay, let me continue on the narrative.

Paul Ford:

Okay,

Rich Ziade:

back and we're a startup and startups have to be nimble.

Rich Ziade:

feedback loop in sync, and I just, and I'm a generally paranoid person.

Paul Ford:

boy,

Rich Ziade:

of the December haze, just kind of paranoid and anxious

Rich Ziade:

about if we were in sync or not.

Paul Ford:

out of what I love is people should just see slack over the holiday.

Rich Ziade:

It's fair.

Paul Ford:

Yeah,

Rich Ziade:

was good

Paul Ford:

you.

Paul Ford:

You

Rich Ziade:

was pretty good.

Paul Ford:

are, but, but there is like December 26th, 7:00 AM I'm worried.

Paul Ford:

I'm worried.

Paul Ford:

, those will just be the words in this.

Rich Ziade:

no, but I, yeah, and, and, and nothing's wrong.

Rich Ziade:

It's just, it's just not, it's, it's that, it's that

Rich Ziade:

ambiguity that breeds the anxiety

Paul Ford:

Well, I think you and I as partners, I used to wake up,

Paul Ford:

get that message and go, oh my God, I need to be anxious too.

Paul Ford:

And now I go, rich is an anxious person.

Paul Ford:

Let's figure out what's making him anxious and talk about it

Paul Ford:

and figure out what's real.

Paul Ford:

And it's usually really productive.

Paul Ford:

So there is just, just a little as we're advising, getting

Paul Ford:

to know the other person.

Paul Ford:

Psychology.

Paul Ford:

It's really useful.

Paul Ford:

All right, so here we are.

Rich Ziade:

so I, I decide, I said, and, and the good news is we synced

Rich Ziade:

up with the leadership of a board and they were all in agreement.

Rich Ziade:

They're like, yes, we need to sync up.

Rich Ziade:

Well, here, there's too much ambiguity.

Rich Ziade:

We're moving forward, but are we moving in the right direction?

Rich Ziade:

Are we making, are we prioritizing right and whatnot.

Rich Ziade:

And so I put together essentially a series of two hour meetings

Rich Ziade:

every day for the week following.

Rich Ziade:

So there was like Monday at 2:00 PM Eastern Tuesday,

Rich Ziade:

2:00 PM Eastern Wednesday.

Rich Ziade:

Essentially, it's like, let's get in a room and hash this out.

Rich Ziade:

And

Paul Ford:

There's an element of re you're, you're rebooting, right?

Paul Ford:

Like, let's look at each element of the app.

Paul Ford:

Let's talk about our strategy.

Paul Ford:

What were, what were we trying to do?

Paul Ford:

Where did we end up?

Paul Ford:

Because things drift.

Paul Ford:

They naturally drift.

Rich Ziade:

They naturally drift.

Rich Ziade:

And so by Thursday we didn't need all five days of meetings.

Rich Ziade:

I had scheduled five days we, by Wednesday, end of the Wednesday meeting,

Rich Ziade:

we kind of knew what the plan was.

Rich Ziade:

And by Thursday we were just sort of checking it, all

Rich Ziade:

the, checking all the boxes.

Rich Ziade:

But

Paul Ford:

This is the mark of the, this is a true, great executive move where

Paul Ford:

you overschedule everyone and they're kind of exhausted just thinking about it.

Paul Ford:

And then you give them back a couple days.

Rich Ziade:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Ford:

Yeah.

Rich Ziade:

I think, I think car dealerships do this too with like rims

Paul Ford:

everyone.

Paul Ford:

Everyone is so appreciative.

Rich Ziade:

Well, it's the extra frying pan

Paul Ford:

oh, it's.

Rich Ziade:

the late night TV ad.

Rich Ziade:

Right?

Rich Ziade:

So, But, and so it was immensely productive.

Rich Ziade:

It felt clarifying, the team was relieved, actually, not just us.

Rich Ziade:

And so I think this got me thinking, and this is a very, been a long unwinding

Rich Ziade:

word to get to this revolution in meeting

Paul Ford:

Okay.

Paul Ford:

Okay.

Rich Ziade:

We, something is broken with remote work.

Rich Ziade:

This isn't about trust.

Rich Ziade:

This isn't about whether people are productive.

Rich Ziade:

I don't care about how people use their time.

Rich Ziade:

As long as good things happen and the output's good, I don't care about that.

Rich Ziade:

So it's not about that.

Rich Ziade:

It's not about holding people, like making sure they're putting their hours in.

Rich Ziade:

I'm not interested in that.

Paul Ford:

Okay.

Rich Ziade:

This is about what has been lost, um, since remote work took hold,

Rich Ziade:

which is Environment that just by design breeds collaboration and discussion.

Rich Ziade:

And the problem is, is that when you schedule a meeting,

Rich Ziade:

think about what you have to do.

Rich Ziade:

First off, you have to time bound it.

Rich Ziade:

Number one, meetings can't go on forever.

Rich Ziade:

So you're like, we're gonna get an hour.

Rich Ziade:

Number one.

Rich Ziade:

Number two, and this is the next thing that happens that

Rich Ziade:

sort of destroys collaboration.

Rich Ziade:

You have to give the meeting a title, and if you veer off that title, you've,

Rich Ziade:

you're viewed as noisy or distracting, or not staying on the same page or whatever.

Rich Ziade:

So look, think about what's happened.

Rich Ziade:

We've essentially told one another that we're gonna.

Rich Ziade:

And we're only gonna talk about a particular topic, and then we're gonna

Rich Ziade:

disperse and then hope for the best.

Rich Ziade:

And what's been lost are those environments of discussion debate.

Rich Ziade:

Disagreement, meandering off the topic because it's, there is no topic.

Rich Ziade:

We're just in a room they're hugely important.

Rich Ziade:

And this isn't about, oh my God, I don't trust my of this or that.

Rich Ziade:

I need to go see.

Rich Ziade:

This is about connecting, and I think that's been lost and I have a solution.

Paul Ford:

Okay, I, I, I don't really have anything to say at this point.

Paul Ford:

I want to know your solution to human communication.

Rich Ziade:

You set up a meeting called Chance Encounters.

Paul Ford:

This is something you can do on Craigslist when you see someone

Paul Ford:

on the subway and you're like, Hey, I, I'd like to get to know you better.

Rich Ziade:

Oh,

Paul Ford:

Oh, sorry.

Paul Ford:

That's,

Rich Ziade:

Let me

Paul Ford:

that's, no, no.

Paul Ford:

Sorry.

Paul Ford:

Sorry.

Paul Ford:

I'm wrong.

Paul Ford:

That's missed.

Paul Ford:

Missed connections or something like that.

Paul Ford:

Yeah.

Rich Ziade:

Uh, maybe Chance Encounter does sound like a romantic novel.

Rich Ziade:

Let me think of another name.

Rich Ziade:

Um, stopping by the meeting is called Stopping by.

Rich Ziade:

Okay.

Paul Ford:

Okay.

Rich Ziade:

is, it is one hour every day of the week a set time.

Rich Ziade:

Okay,

Paul Ford:

Okay.

Rich Ziade:

me out.

Rich Ziade:

know you can't

Paul Ford:

Stop hitting.

Paul Ford:

Stop hitting your desk.

Paul Ford:

You're being very emphatic and it's upsetting the audio.

Rich Ziade:

Uh, you can't

Paul Ford:

Okay.

Rich Ziade:

everyone and say, oh, I can't make it today.

Rich Ziade:

You're not allowed to do that.

Rich Ziade:

You have to come to the meeting.

Rich Ziade:

The meeting may be five minutes.

Rich Ziade:

it may well be five minutes, that's okay.

Rich Ziade:

But you have to see each other day.

Rich Ziade:

You have to see each other every day, and you have to look at each other,

Rich Ziade:

and you may tell them, you may tell everyone about a movie you saw last

Rich Ziade:

night, or you may say, look, I had an idea and I wanna share it with you,

Rich Ziade:

or I'm concerned about something.

Rich Ziade:

is nothing worse than the meeting that gets scheduled the subject is.

Rich Ziade:

Need to chat.

Paul Ford:

It is terrible.

Paul Ford:

Now, hold on.

Paul Ford:

I have a few thoughts here.

Paul Ford:

One is, This is a tough one for the very shy person.

Paul Ford:

Easy for you and me.

Paul Ford:

I I got five minutes you put open.

Paul Ford:

Somebody once said, I think it was like Debbie Reynolds once said,

Paul Ford:

famous actress if you're young, once said if she did 20 minutes every

Paul Ford:

time the refrigerator light came on.

Paul Ford:

When it open you just like you, you and I.

Paul Ford:

It's just, you put us in front of a room of people and we, we explain

Paul Ford:

why platforms are important or talk about what we did this weekend.

Paul Ford:

I think so.

Paul Ford:

So there's that.

Paul Ford:

Okay.

Paul Ford:

So not everybody is like conversational and chatty.

Paul Ford:

Okay.

Paul Ford:

There is a context for this and I've seen that people do

Paul Ford:

like, Kind of study together.

Paul Ford:

There's like tools and apps and networks where people just kind of hang, right?

Paul Ford:

Because some kind of social progression.

Paul Ford:

So social connection makes tasks that are challenging easier.

Paul Ford:

So there's an ambient mode for this kind of interaction, which is, boy,

Paul Ford:

I'm having trouble getting stuff done cause I just keep reloading Twitter.

Paul Ford:

Well come on into the study group will listen to a song and we'll all just kind

Paul Ford:

of boost each other as we get it all done.

Paul Ford:

So there's.

Paul Ford:

What is the, what is it?

Paul Ford:

So let, let's do it.

Paul Ford:

Let's do it.

Rich Ziade:

let me ask you this,

Paul Ford:

rich, let's have a chance encounter.

Paul Ford:

Come on.

Rich Ziade:

Oh, okay.

Paul Ford:

Okay.

Paul Ford:

But the First of all, are you on time?

Rich Ziade:

I'm on time.

Paul Ford:

Okay.

Rich Ziade:

on time.

Paul Ford:

Rich.

Rich Ziade:

time.

Paul Ford:

Rich,

Rich Ziade:

Actually, you know what?

Rich Ziade:

No, let's make it a little looser because we

Paul Ford:

Okay?

Rich Ziade:

meetings.

Rich Ziade:

Okay?

Paul Ford:

Mm-hmm.

Rich Ziade:

you have to show up between three and three 15.

Rich Ziade:

You have to show up in the first 15 minutes, and you can't be late.

Rich Ziade:

If you come in in those 15 minutes, has to be in a place for 15 minutes.

Rich Ziade:

If you come in at 3 0 8, that's okay.

Paul Ford:

Okay.

Rich Ziade:

It's about,

Paul Ford:

All right.

Rich Ziade:

that.

Paul Ford:

So it's 3 0 5.

Paul Ford:

It's 3 0 5 and Chance Encounters has popped up in my calendar.

Paul Ford:

I go into the Google Meet.

Paul Ford:

Hey, how, how's everybody doing?

Rich Ziade:

Ah, I'm having a tricky day today.

Rich Ziade:

Susie is just, I don't know what's going on.

Rich Ziade:

I think she's distracted my, my gut's telling me she's not happy

Rich Ziade:

and I'm trying to talk to her, but I just need this work done for now,

Rich Ziade:

and then we'll sort it out later.

Paul Ford:

Wait a minute, was Susie on the call?

Paul Ford:

Okay.

Paul Ford:

That's important you, because it's much, much, much less

Rich Ziade:

awkward.

Paul Ford:

Yeah.

Paul Ford:

Um, oh, so, so it's not for everybody in the company, it's for a cluster of people.

Rich Ziade:

it's for a, absolutely, it's for, for people that do

Rich Ziade:

better when they are working together, which is so many people.

Paul Ford:

All right, let, lemme start.

Paul Ford:

Okay, so,

Paul Ford:

okay, so what are you gonna do about Susie?

Paul Ford:

I don't know.

Paul Ford:

She's, you know,

Rich Ziade:

I

Paul Ford:

actually rich.

Paul Ford:

She, um, was in a terrible grain threshing accident yesterday and, and so I don't

Paul Ford:

think you'll have that problem anymore.

Rich Ziade:

Oh, I didn't know.

Rich Ziade:

That

Paul Ford:

The answer

Rich Ziade:

explaining that.

Paul Ford:

help Susie, she got caught in a green treasure.

Rich Ziade:

Do it again, Paul 3:07 PM

Paul Ford:

Okay.

Paul Ford:

Hey Rich, how you doing?

Paul Ford:

You see the game?

Paul Ford:

Uh, what sport are they playing right now in this season?

Paul Ford:

When, where are we now?

Paul Ford:

It's January

Rich Ziade:

Oh,

Paul Ford:

Football.

Rich Ziade:

upset.

Rich Ziade:

The Vikings last night.

Rich Ziade:

It was a good match.

Paul Ford:

Yeah.

Paul Ford:

New York Giants, Minnesota Vikings.

Paul Ford:

Two teams.

Paul Ford:

Yeah.

Paul Ford:

Pretty great

Rich Ziade:

Um, listen,

Paul Ford:

love this.

Paul Ford:

Yeah.

Paul Ford:

Okay.

Paul Ford:

Okay.

Paul Ford:

Okay, keep going.

Rich Ziade:

app and had a thought, I

Paul Ford:

Uh,

Rich Ziade:

I wanna share.

Rich Ziade:

I wanna just get your thoughts and I want you to react to it.

Rich Ziade:

This is not formal, just gonna throw out the idea.

Rich Ziade:

Pause.

Paul Ford:

I I do like that.

Paul Ford:

I do like that.

Paul Ford:

I like the, because what happens, you are correct.

Paul Ford:

You have an idea about the.

Rich Ziade:

I can't schedule a meeting called Idea.

Paul Ford:

This is real.

Paul Ford:

You have an idea?

Paul Ford:

Well, here's, here's the, here are the patterns that work today.

Paul Ford:

Slack.

Paul Ford:

Hey, do you have a few minutes?

Paul Ford:

At which point the person goes, you're my boss.

Paul Ford:

So yes I do.

Paul Ford:

And then they're braced, right?

Paul Ford:

Like they're braced for some sort.

Paul Ford:

You have a few minutes means put on your armor.

Paul Ford:

If you are like a designer or engineer, put on like five inches of

Paul Ford:

plate metal because here it comes.

Rich Ziade:

It doesn't even have to be a designer engineer, right?

Rich Ziade:

It that's just, just org chart.

Paul Ford:

So that's, do you have a few minutes?

Paul Ford:

Okay.

Paul Ford:

So then there is, um, and then there's the more formal like product roadmap, planning

Paul Ford:

and standup where it's very task oriented.

Paul Ford:

This is real.

Paul Ford:

The thing that you are discussing is out of our world.

Paul Ford:

And here is the thing you are discussing.

Paul Ford:

I'm gonna, I'll give you some examples.

Paul Ford:

I read an article, boom, and now when the boss reads an article,

Paul Ford:

Five alarm fire because it's just

Rich Ziade:

It's true.

Rich Ziade:

You can't share anything,

Paul Ford:

No, but if you come into a context and you're like, I was reading

Paul Ford:

this thing, I want to know if you think that this, if this approach would let

Paul Ford:

us have faster development times and usually like it's a way to introduce

Paul Ford:

an idea without enforcing a policy.

Rich Ziade:

There are no expectations, Paul, and, and the other thing is, It.

Rich Ziade:

Look, there are power dynamics at play here.

Rich Ziade:

Some people are managers of other people, and the fact that you're just even giving

Rich Ziade:

that person some FaceTime is a big deal.

Rich Ziade:

I have been, I've, I've managed many teams in my career, many people in my career,

Rich Ziade:

you know, you can almost feel that moment.

Rich Ziade:

They feel like this is my chance to.

Rich Ziade:

Why I'm pretty good at this thing in this moment.

Rich Ziade:

And that could be in the kitchen or that could be injected into a meeting.

Rich Ziade:

It's so forced.

Rich Ziade:

It's so, um, there's no need to have that pressure.

Rich Ziade:

People want to impress other people.

Rich Ziade:

That is still a thing, right?

Rich Ziade:

And the fact that you're like, you know what?

Rich Ziade:

I'm gonna use today's four 30 up to inject my idea, it doesn't go well, it's not

Rich Ziade:

fair to that person to not have that.

Rich Ziade:

To spitball and talk because there's an agenda

Paul Ford:

I actually, I came into this rolling my eyes and the

Paul Ford:

gaps that you're talking about.

Paul Ford:

Here it is.

Paul Ford:

I was reading this article, maybe we've been doing it all wrong, like to play

Paul Ford:

with big ideas without consequence.

Paul Ford:

What has happened with everyone being distributed and everything being very

Paul Ford:

structured and with chat and so on, is everyone has decided that every

Paul Ford:

speech act has to create a response and it, what happens is all of those

Paul Ford:

interactions actually pick up the hierarchy in the organization because

Paul Ford:

of the way the meetings are scheduled.

Paul Ford:

So whereas.

Paul Ford:

I think you have to actually then make a secondary deal in your chance encounters,

Paul Ford:

missed connections, whatever we're calling it, which is that nothing will be

Paul Ford:

particularly binding out of that meeting.

Paul Ford:

And that's the hard one.

Paul Ford:

You can look someone in the eye and, and now they can say, I'll send you an email,

Paul Ford:

or I'd like to discuss this later, but.

Paul Ford:

But the, it is not a place, it will only work if it is not a place to

Paul Ford:

assign work or to create structure.

Paul Ford:

So are we doing this at a board?

Paul Ford:

Are we like now one of those startups that's like, we have a new

Paul Ford:

management strategy, it's called Whole Democracy and we're gonna.

Rich Ziade:

I threw it out into our board Slack, and my team

Rich Ziade:

will hate me for mentioning this, but there was radio silence.

Rich Ziade:

In fact, slack stopped working for half a

Paul Ford:

Well, it, it kind of proves the point that you need the meeting.

Paul Ford:

That's, this is the terrible thing about proposing that in Slack

Paul Ford:

because if everybody's like, yeah, we need it, then maybe you don't.

Paul Ford:

But if they say nothing, then you probably do.

Rich Ziade:

Exactly.

Rich Ziade:

And so there's just gonna be more meetings and those meetings are

Rich Ziade:

gonna have a little less structure.

Rich Ziade:

it's funny that you'd say, you know what one of the requirements is?

Rich Ziade:

Nothing is binding.

Rich Ziade:

That's like saying when I see you in the kitchen and we chat

Rich Ziade:

for a bit, nothing is binding.

Rich Ziade:

Like that's how insane that sounds, right?

Rich Ziade:

Why?

Rich Ziade:

Because you're working back from the calendar invite paradigm, right?

Rich Ziade:

A very formalized, structured thing that are really for strangers to connect,

Rich Ziade:

not strangers, but like org A needs to talk to someone at org b, they

Rich Ziade:

coordinate calendars, but teams, and when I say teams, I don't just mean peers.

Rich Ziade:

I mean, your team of six should connect with you.

Rich Ziade:

They value that time, that free flowing time to say some things.

Rich Ziade:

Do you have to buy into ev?

Rich Ziade:

No, you won't.

Rich Ziade:

Actually.

Rich Ziade:

Sometimes you'll be like, Hmm, I think you're onto something.

Rich Ziade:

I don't know if I agree with how, how you wanna solve it, but

Rich Ziade:

I agree there's a problem, for example, and that space is gone.

Rich Ziade:

It's truly gone.

Paul Ford:

You know, no, it's, it's, everything is assigned

Paul Ford:

now or, or it's weird, right?

Paul Ford:

Because, uh,

Rich Ziade:

what I'm talking about,

Paul Ford:

yeah.

Paul Ford:

And everybody got super excited about how.

Paul Ford:

working from home would demolish hierarchy, but as far as I can tell,

Paul Ford:

it has really created a whole new kind of hierarchical structure.

Paul Ford:

And it's great.

Paul Ford:

I love working remotely.

Paul Ford:

I, I get it.

Paul Ford:

I go to an office with you four days a week, so that's a little less remotely.

Paul Ford:

I do miss having an office.

Paul Ford:

I don't mind it.

Paul Ford:

I don't know.

Paul Ford:

I go back and forth.

Paul Ford:

I don't mind.

Paul Ford:

I, I have no problem working with people remotely.

Paul Ford:

I think I need other humans, but, um, alright, so Chance encounters.

Rich Ziade:

It is, you know what, this is akin to just to close this, uh,

Rich Ziade:

close this out, and I, I, obviously, I'm, I'm, I do this, by the way.

Rich Ziade:

It's a management trick I do, which is I come forward with very like,

Rich Ziade:

clear, tangible plans as if like, I've been thinking about them for six

Rich Ziade:

months just to spark conversation.

Rich Ziade:

Um, and look, you know what, this reminds me of recess.

Rich Ziade:

I think recess is one of the most important times of the school.

Rich Ziade:

For kids.

Rich Ziade:

I really do.

Rich Ziade:

It's that it's less structured, it's more social are made.

Rich Ziade:

Sometimes kids keep drawing even though they just finished

Rich Ziade:

art class during recess.

Rich Ziade:

And I think that's hugely important and I think it's missing now.

Paul Ford:

You know what people used to do is they would go to lunch

Paul Ford:

and they would complain about their bosses, and then they would talk.

Rich Ziade:

Yeah, that's

Paul Ford:

would stop.

Paul Ford:

They would stop complaining about their bosses for five minutes and

Paul Ford:

talk about something they care about.

Rich Ziade:

That's right.

Rich Ziade:

That's

Paul Ford:

And it doesn't, it could be sports, it could be

Paul Ford:

their work, it could be the thing.

Paul Ford:

Most people care about their disciplines and their crafts,

Paul Ford:

and they want to talk about the things that they're interested in.

Rich Ziade:

Mm-hmm.

Rich Ziade:

. Yeah.

Rich Ziade:

Yeah.

Rich Ziade:

And, and, and I do think there's something that's, I I do

Rich Ziade:

believe something's been lost.

Rich Ziade:

How do we get it back?

Rich Ziade:

I don't wanna be orthodox about, oh, remote work is bad.

Rich Ziade:

I'm not getting into that.

Rich Ziade:

But there is something that is now missing that is real.

Paul Ford:

I think it's okay for us to have a startup and to

Paul Ford:

have one little management quirk concept that we're trying out.

Paul Ford:

Most, most startups are like, everyone has to drink only pro, um, soy protein

Paul Ford:

beverages, and we all worship a cube.

Paul Ford:

Like, I mean, they, they're, they get bananas.

Paul Ford:

And so this the one little weird thing where we're like, Hey, now this

Paul Ford:

is something we do for our culture.

Paul Ford:

Let's have a culture.

Paul Ford:

That's okay.

Paul Ford:

We'll try some.

Rich Ziade:

Um, great.

Paul Ford:

Okay, so when's the first one?

Rich Ziade:

in 20 minutes.

Paul Ford:

Oh, God.

Paul Ford:

All right.

Paul Ford:

All right, let's do it.

Paul Ford:

Let's do it.

Rich Ziade:

All right.

Rich Ziade:

Uh, reach out to us.

Rich Ziade:

Sometimes we'll give advice.

Rich Ziade:

Sometimes we will revolutionize how people communicate.

Paul Ford:

Very,

Rich Ziade:

you'll find on this podcast?

Paul Ford:

very exciting.

Paul Ford:

We got some good emails from the last one, so we'll respond

Paul Ford:

to those in a future episode.

Paul Ford:

Talking about watches and craft and all kinds of stuff, so, alright, friends,

Paul Ford:

well if you need us, hello@yadiford.com.

Paul Ford:

It works.

Paul Ford:

It's a good email.

Paul Ford:

Check it out, zdi ford.com.

Paul Ford:

Subscribe.

Paul Ford:

Give us five stars.

Paul Ford:

Anything else Richard?

Rich Ziade:

no.

Rich Ziade:

I just want everyone to have a wonderful day with their team,

Paul Ford:

All right.

Paul Ford:

Let's go.

Paul Ford:

Have a chance encounter.

Rich Ziade:

Take care everyone.

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