WEBVTT

1
00:00:08.719 --> 00:00:13.400
I think one of the most important things
I can do as a leader of a company

2
00:00:13.400 --> 00:00:16.250
like Menlo is to pump
fear out of the room.

3
00:00:17.710 --> 00:00:20.190
Fear is the grand demotivator.

4
00:00:20.190 --> 00:00:23.440
If I'm operating completely from
one end of the day to the other,

5
00:00:23.440 --> 00:00:27.040
one end of the week to the other in fear,
it doesn't matter

6
00:00:27.040 --> 00:00:31.220
how much other motivation there can be,
my mind is elsewhere.

7
00:00:31.220 --> 00:00:33.170
My mind is in a different place.

8
00:00:33.170 --> 00:00:37.350
So by systematically pumping fear
out of the room as a leader,

9
00:00:37.350 --> 00:00:39.620
I can keep people in that creative spot.

10
00:00:39.620 --> 00:00:43.846
Where they're actually enjoying
teamwork and trust and collaboration.

11
00:00:43.846 --> 00:00:47.790
And getting to inventiveness and
invention and imagination.

12
00:00:47.790 --> 00:00:49.440
So, how do we do that at Menlo?

13
00:00:49.440 --> 00:00:51.940
How do we get that fear out of the room?

14
00:00:51.940 --> 00:00:53.960
Well, one thing we do is
make everything obvious.

15
00:00:53.960 --> 00:00:57.400
We transparently put the work
plans up on the wall.

16
00:00:57.400 --> 00:01:00.540
And we day by day measure
the progress with these little

17
00:01:00.540 --> 00:01:02.980
colorful sticky dots on all the cards.

18
00:01:02.980 --> 00:01:09.931
So, everybody knows at any given moment,
are we ahead or are we behind?

19
00:01:09.931 --> 00:01:14.837
A lot of times the demotivation factor
is when you wake up one day, months into

20
00:01:14.837 --> 00:01:19.698
a project and you realize, I'm two
months behind and now I can't catch up.

21
00:01:19.698 --> 00:01:24.592
But at Menlo you're finding out, sometimes
hour by hour, how am I doing, and

22
00:01:24.592 --> 00:01:29.040
the neat thing about our system is,
if you and I are working together and

23
00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:33.714
we get behind, there might be another
team sitting right next to us that's

24
00:01:33.714 --> 00:01:38.647
getting ahead and their motivation is to
reach over to us and say, can we help?

25
00:01:38.647 --> 00:01:42.778
Can we take one of the pieces off
of your task list this week and

26
00:01:42.778 --> 00:01:47.330
move it into our lane because
we can see you're struggling.

27
00:01:47.330 --> 00:01:50.610
So I think one of the ways we stay
motivated even when we're falling

28
00:01:50.610 --> 00:01:53.800
behind is to realize we're
surrounded by a team of people

29
00:01:53.800 --> 00:01:58.340
whose job it is to take the overarching
goal for the entire team this week and

30
00:01:58.340 --> 00:02:03.700
say it's our job together to get
this thing over the finish line.

31
00:02:03.700 --> 00:02:06.220
And sometimes the whole team misses.

32
00:02:06.220 --> 00:02:09.210
But when a whole team misses together,
they feel the pain.

33
00:02:09.210 --> 00:02:14.615
I mean, there's a moment where everybody
feels disappointed in themselves but

34
00:02:14.615 --> 00:02:19.355
when it's a group disappointment,
rather then oh we found the guy.

35
00:02:19.355 --> 00:02:21.775
The one person who's behind.

36
00:02:21.775 --> 00:02:24.515
Right, the typical Monday morning
status meeting where we say,

37
00:02:24.515 --> 00:02:26.115
oh thank goodness, you know.

38
00:02:26.115 --> 00:02:34.360
Joe's behind and
I'm not as far behind as Joe is.

39
00:02:35.950 --> 00:02:41.170
We're not singling out individuals
when we're getting behind.

40
00:02:41.170 --> 00:02:44.630
It's a sense the team says
where we own the work together.