Company culture is what makes your company unique. It's what sets your company apart from other companies. It’s the foundation upon which everything else is built.
In today's fast-paced world, companies need to adapt quickly to changing market conditions. Companies that succeed in adapting to change often find themselves thriving in a hybrid environment where they operate across different channels. However, when they fail to integrate their culture into their daily operations, they risk losing their employees and customers.
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Josh (00:00):
And if we expand the idea of what culture is, um, and how we can design it from just employees. Yeah. To everyone inside of an ecosystem that is either potential customers or, uh, advocates that haven't, that, that don't engage to employees. Like there's no wall there's no, there's literally, before I used to say it was like, the walls of the building were kind of going away now, there are no walls of buildings. It's just, we're all here. And I happen to be creating value for you. You know, I get paid to create value on the inside, but as a community manager, right? If you're a, if you're like a Google community manager or one of these others, there that's, their job is to connect with the community. Why doesn't that? That should be the case broadly.
Intro (00:52):
What will you do to unlock innovation in today's fast-paced world innovation might not be enough. Tomorrow's pioneers of change will need to be agile, able to adapt and committed, like never before your host, Santa vending invites you to listen in and join business leaders from around the world, as they share their visions for success. In our future business challenges,
Sannah (01:16):
I wanna welcome Josh Levine. He's an educator, designer and bestselling author just has helped build culture, different brands. And as a principal of great Mondays, he continues to work with technology and social enterprise organizations. So welcome, Jo. I'm so happy to be happy here on today.
Josh (01:32):
Yeah. Thank you for having me.
Sannah (01:34):
So let's, let's go further into company culture, right. Um, so let's, let's get a definition because we wanna be sure that we are all on, on the same page here. So how will you define, um, company culture?
Josh (01:45):
It is the cause and effect of every decision that you make, every decision that every employee makes big and small. Um, there's a lot of different definitions out there. Yeah. Um, and when I first started looking into and thinking about company culture, about 15 years ago, I felt like, I didn't know, I didn't under, I was like, this seems really important, but how do you call it? Like, what do you say? And there's a lot, so there's, there's, there's kind of some common, you know, there's sort of the, the, the dictionary definition. So the, um, the behavior, the, the, the kind of the rituals, the, the, the kind of repeated pieces of a culture or a, an organ, a group of people, um, or maybe some people might say, uh, it's what you do when the boss isn't in the room. Right. There's that one.
Josh (02:41):
Yeah. So there's all sorts of, and they're not wrong, right? Yeah. Like they're not, that's not, they're not wrong, but for me, it wasn't very instructive. And so it was, it took me a while to kind of think through this, because it was what I realized it was cyclical. It was systematic, which is why I'm I articulated that way. Cause and effect, because that is essentially the power and the problem or the challenge of culture. Yeah. Is that if someone, if you're not aware of how you are acting, how you're making your decisions, you could be influencing how other people are making their decisions in an unproductive way. Yeah. But that's the most important piece cause and effect.
Sannah (03:27):
Yeah. So why is it so difficult? And I think when I, you know, when I started my career many, many years ago, oh, you know, you talked about company culture, right. The leadership that mm-hmm <affirmative> um, and you're still do, it's like there's, it's still so big. It's still that mountain mm-hmm <affirmative> um, so why is it so difficult?
Josh (03:48):
Well, culture is a big, I mean, I think number one, you just said it, it is a big thing. Yeah. And number two, I don't, where are the edges of this thing? Right. It's a fuzzy topic. So how do I wrap my arms around it? Yeah. Um, I'm I'm I am happy to report that people are now paying attention to it more and more. Yeah. And that's wonderful because now we have more eyes and we have more people engaging in the practice. Yeah. The question is what is the practice? And so when the, the, to answer your question, why is it so hard? Well, cuz I, I don't know what it is like what is that definition? And even if you have that definition, the behaviors and choices, what do I do about that? Yeah. How do you influence behaviors and choices? Well, it's everything. Yeah. Right. So now what, what do I like? You're like, that's too much, I don't know what to do. Right. Like I'm just gonna install a Fu foosball machine or, or I don't know what it might be. Right
Sannah (04:46):
Take. Right.
Josh (04:47):
<laugh> yeah. Um, and so previously, or, or maybe the majority still be, they, they leaders, um, only think about culture when it is a problem when there is a problem that arises and that means that they're being reactive. Yeah. And when you're reactive, you're on your heels. Right. You are not thinking strategically, typically if you have a crisis. And so what I like to say is that it is better to address culture early so that you don't have to address a crisis at the same time.
Josh (05:42):
Why is culture hard? Because it's a big thing that is really ill defined. And so what I, and I asked myself the same question and that's why I wrote my book. Great. Mondays. I define the six components of culture as a starting point for people, for leaders, for managers to have something, to hook into little tools and levers and opportunities to think, okay, if I don't want to just react, I want to be proactive. How do I do that? And as a designer, you know, a design thinker, I, I, I like to think about a framework and pattern that allows people to understand the problem better. And that's what I've laid out in the book. And that's really the whole, the core principle of everything that we do when we work with clients as well is what are six components. Yeah. How do we help you develop each of those? Yeah.
Sannah (06:54):
What, if you go and, and work with a client, what, what have some of the signals that you see if that's a bad culture or not a good culture?
Josh (07:03):
Well, I think first off is, um, I don't wanna necessarily say what is a bad or what is a good culture.
Josh (07:19):
Um, the question is whether it is a culture that is aligned with the goals and the outcomes that you want. So for example, um, there have been many reports about the crappy culture, quote unquote, at Amazon, you know, if you're working the warehouse, you get a five minute bathroom break, right. Or I don't, whatever, whatever the latest scandal is. Yeah. But you can't argue with the success. Right. And so it's, it's this customer first customer only, and, and employees are, are not the priority. Okay. So you've made a choice, but I mean, I'm not saying you're, you're not a successful company. I, I don't think that's a great culture. I don't wanna go work for Amazon, but if it's aligned with what their goal is, then that's, then that's fine. Yeah. And so there's the corrective that it, it's a kind of a, a false choice. Right. Do we want a good culture or a bad culture, right. Like you wanna be thoughtful about your culture. Yeah. You have, you have a culture, everybody, every company has a culture. It's just a matter of whether it's the one that you want or not.
Sannah (08:41):
Yeah. But, but you can also write down. Right. You have all of your mission and your vision. Right. And say, yes, how we are. We live, you know, by, by all this. And then there is employees, that's not living by it. And they, some, sometimes they, they are allowed to behave.
Josh (08:57):
Yes.
Sannah (08:58):
Cause they perform right. Or they're a good resource, but they don't live it. And then
Josh (09:04):
High the high performing asshole.
Sannah (09:06):
Yes. Thank you for saying it. Um, and it really hurts the, the company within it does. Yeah. Um, and I'm so surprised sometimes that how long it can take for, um, for leadership or management to, to see it, that it's, yes, you are performing in this moment and maybe the next couple of weeks, but what's happening behind the scenes is just not good.
Josh (09:30):
It is a classic. And I think there's many problems, uh, business, corporate culture or corporate enterprise, you know, problems that can be framed in the same way that this is, which is short term benefit, long term problem. Yeah. What is the trade off? What is the you organizations are often incentivized to, and, and, and as humans we are, are in, in sort of intrinsically programmed to deliver on the short term to succeed kind of this fight or flight, we gotta win this quarter. And so if you are, if one is unable to see the picture, and even if you are to really reckon with the, the, the, the, the scale of the problem that will emerge in the future, you don't feel that pain now.
Right. The pain now is if we fire this person, we're gonna lose our big accounts.
Josh (10:48):
But if you don't fire this person, then in 18 months, you're gonna have, you know, a 25% turnover, your turnover is gonna continue to be, you know, whatever it, whatever it might be or accelerate. Right. So, and it's hard, right? That's an ambiguous, you're like, what will happen? You're like, well, I don't know what, what problem will occur in the future. But I do know that if we get rid of this person, now we're gonna see a, you know, a drop or, you know, in sales or whatever it might be.
Josh (11:18):
So short versus long. Yeah. And culture is, um, is the kind of quintessential long term project. This is something you invest in now, and you can maybe get a little couple wins, but it takes a long time. And so this is only culture. I mean, culture work is really only for organizations that wanna have success in the long term. Yeah. Long, like, and it's, I don't want, you know, it's like, we try not to get wrapped up in the kind of build it quick and flip it organization startups. Right? Like if you're like, I'm in it just to make money, like as a startup per you know, someone who's a founder because that they don't care about long term inherently in that. So when we think about culture, culture is a long term investment. We were talking about legacy. We're talking about a decade. We're talking. It takes a long time. And the bigger the organization, the longer, the, the, the longer timeline it takes to actually feel that. But in the end, there's nothing. There's no other way to go about it. If you want to turn the ship, I know the ship is going to turn slowly. Yeah. But if you don't, the ship is not turning and it will run a ground. Yeah.
Sannah (12:47):
Yeah. You have to do something. So let's, let's, let's talk about it. Right. Cuz pandemic, after the pandemic hybrid, not hybrid companies going back to, to being in the office, some saying you can be, you know, remote, how do you create a company culture suddenly when everybody's all over?
Josh (13:03):
Yeah. That is a, that is a really good question. So the problem, the reason why this is, this is what I believe. The reason why it's a problem when everybody's all over the place is because you're missing those relationships you're missing. So in the way I'd like to describe it. Relationships are the synapses of culture and rela building it and strengthening relationships is the way an organization, you know, is coherent. This is what, what it, what we do is we have, we work with other people. Yeah. So here we are in this moment of somewhat, you know, hybrid or fully distributed. And all of a sudden we have, we don't have the same moments in time to build those relationships. We don't have the proverbial water cooler pass 'em in the hallway. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> connect with folks, even that little nod or good morning or whatever familiarity. Right. You just see people.
Sannah (14:10):
Yeah.
Josh (14:11):
So now, and there's some research out that shows you closer with your immediate team, but much further away from anybody else. And so you have, you're gonna have a very strong team culture. You're gonna be familiar with folks and you're having, you know, it's like people are available and you're doing the most immediate things. But now we have to be very, very, um, explicit about how we build relationships beyond our immediate team. And I think the organizations that don't do that are gonna see a severe drop off in quality of collaboration and engagement and work, you're not gonna have, you're not gonna know what's happening elsewhere in the organization. Yeah. And so there's this whole rebirth, right? This whole, like really messy reimagining of what the, how the organization works now. And you were gonna see the pain of that. And then you're gonna see people leaders who go, uh, remote work sucks.
Sannah (15:24):
It's not gonna work. It's, it's look, it's terrible. But the truth is is that it's not working because we haven't figured it out. It's not that it can't work. There are things that we need to be in person for, for sure. Yeah. But I believe that we can absolutely build, you know, have an organization that really does great work and can do it remotely and can have a good culture, except that the problem now is that the burden of these relationship building activities is now on the organization before it just happened. Yeah. Before it just happened. Right. That's why we had the foosball or the ping pong or the pizza parties or whatever. Like, those are some of the ways that we actually, that's what I call rituals. Yeah. And so, okay. So we pass people in the hall, it just happens. We see each other we're in the same location, but I don't know if you ever worked at an organization that actually had multiple buildings or even multiple floors.
Josh (16:29):
There's some research out there that says that if someone, that there's sort of this log rhythmic relationship between distance of where someone sits and how well you know them. Yeah. And so if there's someone on a different floor, it's like, you'll never see them cuz you don't go to that other floor. No. And it doesn't matter. So what we have to do, this is kind of that except for in the extreme is we now have to, as, as part and parcel of our job as a manager, as a business unit leader, as an executive to say, if I want my organization, my people that work for me to have to be able to be engaged and collaborate and, and work well together, they have to know each other. And so we need to establish rituals. We need to establish channels. We need to establish things that happen that actually enable people to connect with one another. Yeah. Outside of their normal zoom team call <laugh> and that is gonna be the key. Yeah. And it's not it's and it's not easy and, and it's not, you know, quick, but it's critical. We have to. Yeah.
Sannah (17:55):
Have you, have you any examples with any of your clients or anything you read where they, where they succeeded? Because again, some of it is virtual, right. And there is people are as afraid, not afraid, but not as tech savvy. So they're like, ah, I don't wanna do it. Right. It's easier just to walk by and say, good morning. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, mm-hmm <affirmative> have you, any examples you can share?
Josh (18:15):
You know, I was just, um, reading an article by, um, um, one of the writers for the Atlantic and, um, I drew a really important lesson and the, the article was all about how, um, sports is the perfect bonding activity. Like to be a fan of a, of a sport. Yeah, exactly. Because the stakes are so low. Yeah. And he goes on to tell the story about how he and his dad were Cubs fans. And, you know, there was a relationship that built on that, you know, like ultimately not life or death thing, you know, it's, it's just a kind of this thing to connect on. And what I realized to me, the corporate example of that is the, um, or an example of that would be like on if you have, um, a cat's channel on slack or a dog's channel or a baby's channel. Yeah. And what that does is it creates these new, uh, like the, it, it, it identifies people self-identify with things that they are have in common with others that have nothing to do with their project plan.
Sannah (19:34):
Yeah.
Josh (19:36):
And what's wonderful about cats, dogs, and babies is that when you're in there, you're like,
Josh (19:42):
Cute. Right. You like, you're not corporate. Right. You shed, you're like your heart's open <laugh> right. Like if you're a dog person and you see dog, you know, it's like, you have a dog, you're like, oh, I get that. Totally. And you are not you're you are able to be more open and connect with others.
Josh (19:59):
Is this the panacea that everybody's looking for? No, but is it an easy way to create for people to identify yeah. And find people that they have common. Absolutely. There's no reason it costs $0 and it runs itself. Yeah. People wanna share the cat's dogs and baby pictures. So to me, that is the starting point. That is a very concrete, easy thing to think about, of like, what are the other things that we have in common that people can find connections with others. You can also, and should also create these connections around employee resource groups. That's another way to do it. That takes a lot of effort, but I've seen it. One of, one of my clients is just they're so all in on the, um, on diversity, equity and inclusion, but they have an incredible wealth of employee resource groups that are branded, that have names that are connected to the brand. And they each have logos and people are really passionate about it. Beautiful. Look at the value. Look at that. That's so great. Why not have a lunch and learn over, you know, over zoom, I'm gonna teach you how to make risotto. So everybody shows up who likes to, you know, cook, or maybe not, maybe they're connecting with them anyways. Yeah. So these are the, these are the things that we need to start doing is establishing these kinds of, uh, corporate approved. Right. Like, like it needs to be,
Sannah (21:34):
But activities right. Or funding across. Yeah.
Josh (21:37):
Yeah. And it needs to be, it's a, a range. Right. So corporate supported, um, uh, um, what I call emergent rituals and the corporation goes, oh, right. Leaders go, oh, look at what's happening here. Yeah. We're gonna let this happen. Hey, did you know, you guys can do this on, you know, on company time. Um, a CEO that I worked with, I saw her, um, I saw her, um, call out one of the, one of the people that we were working with and saying, Hey, I, I know that you, I know that you play bass guitar. And, um, I know that you, you know, you and a few of the folks here and that, and you know, at the company have like a, you know, have like a little group. I want you to, like, I want you to guys to do a performance at the next employee kickoff meeting or whatever it is, the sales kickoff. Yeah. And then like the next time we were in the room, she was like, you guys been practicing and she was like, wait, you were serious. And she was like, yeah, I want, I want you to do it. Like, let's, let's get it. So that's the, you know, it's like, Ooh, I see the opportunity. Yeah. Let's make this.
Sannah (22:48):
Yeah, no, that's good. No. Yeah. It, and it is to, to get an interest right. And learn more about everyone, um, and, and their interest as well. So that, that's a great way to do it. What about the, all the generations? Because I can see that with, with my kids, um, they, they can be virtual. Right. And even though they never met, met the person, maybe they ever never saw the person because they're playing games. Right. But they still talk about this person as a friend. Um, so how with, with generations and in the workplace now, how is that going to, to, to impact, uh, company culture?
Josh (23:24):
Yeah. I mean, they're gonna be more likely more naturally able to make these and have these relationships for us, you know, you and I, where it's like, it's a little bit harder because we had experience being in person. And that was kind of, that's kind of the benchmark, but gen Z never had that. Right. Yeah. It's just, it just won't. Um, so I, I, I, I believe that it's gonna be more naturally, they're gonna take to it more naturally, but it will still be the, you know, it'll still be the organization's job to make sure that they have the opportunities to connect with other people in the organization. Because if you're on a discord chat, you're gonna be, um, on a, one of the discord servers. Right. It's gonna be for a particular interest that may not have to do with the organization. It could be a coding language.
Josh (24:15):
It could be a game, whatever it might be. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, that's where they're gonna spend their time and energy and that's fine. Yeah. And what are the opportunities you can do to, to spin that up inside of your company as well, so that you have this opportunity and the truth is that maybe at the, you know, as we continue to go down this distributed path and we have these very powerful ways of connecting with people, maybe we're gonna see these, these rituals and connections that happen inside and outside the company. Yeah. Maybe what we need to do, what organizations forward thinking organizations need to do is they need to connect customers and employees over, you know, uh, craft beer, brewing <laugh> or, or something. Right. Like it, it, to me, I think the future of culture is really about communities internally and externally.
Josh (25:18):
And that's what these, these tools are doing is creating communities where there were none. Yeah. And you may not even know what those people look like, but you're both, you know, you're, you have these avatars playing the games. And so I think there's a whole realm of possibilities. And if we expand the idea of what culture is, um, and how we can design it from just employees yeah. To everyone inside of an ecosystem that is either potential customers or, uh, advocates that haven't, that, that don't engage to employees. Like there's no wall there's no, there's literally, before I used to say it was like, the walls of the building were kind of going away now, there are no walls of buildings. It's just, we're all here. And I happen to be creating value for you. You know, I get paid to create value on the inside, but as a community manager, right. If you're a, if you're like a Google community manager or one of these others there that's, their job is to connect with the community. Why doesn't that? That should be the case broadly.
Sannah (26:26):
Yeah. So what I hear as well is you, you there's been a lot of focus, right? When you talk to looking at your customers, right. Saying customer centric, but here, right. To be employee centric, I think that's, you know, being sure that you're listening as well to your, to your employees
Josh (26:44):
And community, community centric. And here's what I'll say. I think the terms employee and customer are gonna become irrelevant.
Sannah (26:53):
Yeah.
Josh (26:53):
You're no longer who, it doesn't matter when you look at, and I know this is going pretty far out there, but you look at distributed autonomous organizations Dows right. Like those are self-organized groups of people that get value when the organization, you know, succeeds. I don't think that that is too far a field from what a formally, you know, formally created traditional organization is like where you have people contributing. I mean, you have to look at, to open source software. One of our clients we've we had a long term relationship with, um, red hat now. Part of IBM. Yeah. Um, Linux and the, the red hat enterprise Linux, tho that is an open source program. And they have there's people in this community that contribute to that unpaid because it, it gives them social status. Yeah. And they want to be part of this project.
Josh (27:53):
Yeah. So that is, to me, the very, that was like kind of the early days of what I expect to see where you're gonna have people, a community supporting a project and the, what we get and what we contribute is not necessarily, you know, gonna be the, uh, I'm gonna get a paycheck for sitting at my desk from nine to five. Yeah. That's a very old way of thinking. Now it is. I get social credits when I contribute to a project. And maybe that helps me, you know, build my next startup. I don't know like, oh, I know who you are because you did these things. What is value it? You know, it's like the internet and this distributed world has allowed us to create Val, like to exchange value in ways that is so far beyond what my parents could ever even understand. Right. It's like, you go, you make a widget and they sell the widget and you make some, you know, you make a pew pennies on it. This, this is, this is, you know, we're now moving into this world that doesn't adhere to that anymore.
Sannah (29:10):
Yeah. What, how do you recruit in, in the, how the world looks like today? Um, I've seen, if you go and, and just looked and LinkedIn, right. And you see some, that's so many jobs, but <laugh>, if you go and look right. Um, if that was a dating side, I heard somebody say this, right. If that was a dating side, it, it looks like, oh, date me. Right. And then they're just write me, me, me. <laugh> if that was a dating app, you know? Yep. I'll run away and like saying I'm not that person can only talk about himself. Right. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, I'm not there. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so what's, what does the future look like on when you have to recruit new employees?
Josh (29:49):
Uh, well, I think first, you, you know, you hit it exactly. Which is you need to tell them, you need to be really aware of what, what those people that you would like to work for. You want, what do they get? And I'm not just talking about, um, pay and benefits. What are the things, what are the things that you get when you sign up? So one of the models that we created, the, the five of, uh, the employee experience and this works, this is, this is works for, um, when you're recruiting a new candidate to continuing, to keep people, you know, at the company. So yeah, the five PS package, potential people, purpose and perception. So it's the, it's the, um, hierarchy of employee needs, right? So it's like, it's like, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So at the bottom, easy to provide easy to articulate package, what do I get today?
Josh (30:49):
Money, healthcare, whatever that is. Yeah. Fine. Everybody can, as a matter of fact, you're probably not giving them as much as Facebook can. Right. You're gonna compete with Facebook and Google. So theoretically, so that's just one thing, but that's not the only thing, you know, package potential. What is, what do I get tomorrow? Is there a path for leadership to get, to, to Le to be a leadership in leader in this company? Is it a resume builder? Yeah. What do I learn? What do I get to, well, how does this advance my, my career? So package potential people. So those are the people that you're gonna work with. And I'm not just talking about, Ooh, Santa's awesome. I can't wait to hang out with her and we get to do some cool things together. It's no look at who, who is working here. You will be, become like them.
Josh (31:41):
Yeah. Right. There's the rule of like, you're the sum average of the, you know, the, the five or 10 people that you hang out with most. So you would like to be ideally you're like aspiring to be like, those people are so smart. I just, I, it makes me feel like that's exactly the kind of person I want to become. Yeah. Okay. So that's the first three package, potential people purpose. So one of the core tenets of culture in the first place, why do I, why do I coming? What, what, what are we doing here? It's not about, just about money. What is it that we're doing at this company? And how can I contribute? That is about more than just money. What is it we're doing? What is, what is our purpose? You better have that clearly articulated and 25 words or less. Yeah. It's one of the things that we help our clients do. And it's the first component of culture.
Josh (32:37):
And then, um, back is people purpose perception at the end of the day, what has this job, this moment in your career done? When you look back and you're like, Ugh, I went and worked at X, Y, Z. And that was the moment that I was able to do. What, and how do you, and then how do you articulate that that's such an that's so obscure or obtuse? Like what, what might that be? And I think that's part of the magic of having really great, uh, communicators on your team. How do you sketch this opportunity in a way that isn't just, you get $150,000 a year, it's like, come join us to do some amazing things. And at the end of the day, you're gonna look back and say, oh my gosh, this was, I was part of this incredible journey. Yeah. You articulate that with language, with design, right? Those are all the things that you start to, and as you move up, this pyramid, it's harder and harder to articulate. It's harder and harder to get, but once, but when you get there and you are able to tell this cohesive story, all of a sudden that dating profile looks a lot, a lot sexier.
Josh (33:56):
And don't forget that you can't just stop once they've signed on, because you better believe if they're a high potential they're getting hit on by recruiters and head hunters every week.
Josh (34:10):
So make sure they understand what they're doing there and why.
Sannah (34:13):
Yeah. Yeah. Be human as well. Right. And have that emotional and be proud of what absolutely company stands for. Absolutely.
Josh (34:19):
Absolutely. It's not gonna be for everybody. You're like, well, I don't know if someone's gonna, like the way that you talk. That's fine. That's fine. Like be a human, right. Like a human.
Sannah (34:28):
Yeah. Um, what do you think and look in the future, what do you think the, the future, you know, the workplace will look like, cause we are in the mix, right. Hybrid be in the office. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, yeah. And it's the whole world, um, it's, it's in every stage.
Josh (34:47):
Yeah. It's the, um, you know, the it's gonna be the micro multinational, every organization is gonna be working asynchronously, remotely distributed. You're gonna have little outposts across the country where people might come together every once in a while. Um, so I think you're gonna have, you're gonna see what I would call like a pulsing where most of the time you are at a home office or some co-working space, and then sometimes you're gonna meet with your local team just to kind of be in the same space, even if you're not working on the same project. So if you all happen to be in the Mid-Atlantic region, you know, if you're, you know, in Virginia, then maybe you want to come in and do that. And then I think you're gonna find once, at least once, if not twice a year, you gotta have these comp the companies gotta bring everybody together, um, yeah.
Josh (35:41):
Into, and it, and it is expensive, but it's a lot cheaper than holding prime real estate in downtown San Francisco or New York Manhattan. You gotta bring everybody together so that they can work synchronously for a week at a time and get to actually know each other. Yeah. Um, and to me, that is probably what we're gonna see is this like, um, even if it's hybrid, right. So hybrid, we think of when, when we first started talking about hybrid work, it was like, oh, I am working sometimes at home and sometimes in the office, but, but what about my team? Are we doing that at the same time? Or are we doing that differently? Yeah. Am I just going into the office so that I can sit in a room on zoom with everybody else? <laugh> right. What a waste that's so dumb. So we're gonna pulse probably.
Josh (36:27):
You know, it's like, you're starting to see either a company says distributed a hundred percent or they say two days a week, it's Tuesdays, Thursdays, or three days a week, Tuesday, whatever Thursday or whatever. And so you're gonna have this, this kind of like pattern and which I think actually works really well for humans. If you think about the way that we are designed biologically it's, you know, it's like you wake and you sleep. We have the seasons you've got the day. So I think not asking people to come in five days a week is a little more humane. It's a little more organic. And so that to me is like, would I make them effort to travel, to, you know, work with people for a week if I haven't seen them for the entire year. Yeah. That's gonna be worth it. Give me a reason to come in, gimme a reason to come together. So I think that's, the future is gonna be a lot of this. I don't know what to call it, but pulsing of, you know, patterns is cycles. Yeah. Maybe cycles of work
Sannah (37:27):
Cycle. Yeah. No, yeah. I agree. I agree. I think that's, that's good. And it's good to be. I like the flexibility. I think that's just, it, it, you, you can be much more productive, um, portion and human
Josh (37:39):
And human.
Sannah (37:40):
Yeah. So that was the future. Let's look into the past. So if you have to like look 20 years ago, what kind of advice would you give yourself?
Josh (37:53):
I was an art school 20 years ago. Um, I would say, um, stay interested in lots of different things. And the job that you're training for is not the job that you'll have. <laugh> it's you don't know, you don't know what the, certainly I, I, I didn't. And that's what I would say is like, you're you, you think you're gonna do something, but that the thing that you're gonna be doing doesn't even exist today. Yeah. So what you need to do is start working on the, the skills that they're gonna carry with you. I would, uh, I would, I would, uh, specifically, I would say, um, learn how to write sooner <laugh> that would be the specific <laugh> the specific task. I think I, uh, I did not, I writing is something I lean heavily into. It's something that, you know, I find really powerful and, um, was not, you know, did not end up learning how to do that until later in my career. So that would be a specific one. And, and so more broadly, it's like, just be interested in a lot of different things and start collecting the, the, you know, absorbing all the things that are happening and continuing to, you know, I'm a pattern seeker, like as a, as a designer, right. I was in design school. I'm a, I look for patterns. And so that's, to me is like, you don't know what you have no idea what's gonna happen, but you can start to see and look for the patterns.
Sannah (39:28):
Okay. I like that. So if, uh, any of the listener wants to reach out to you, how, how can they connect with you?
Josh (39:34):
Sure. Um, well, they can, uh, find the book on Amazon. Great. Mondays, you can also head over to great mondays.com. I've got a lot of content on there. You can read about the book, you can learn about our agency. And then I also have a slash classroom, um, with a lot of free tools and, um, articles. So check that out and you can also find me on LinkedIn, um, AKA Josh Levine, uh, and, uh, yeah, I'm always happy to, to chat with anybody who's interested in culture and talking about the future and they can email me, Josh. Great. mondays.com.
Sannah (40:08):
Thank you. And I will put that in the, in the show notes and also make sure that it'll be on mind innovation.com for this episode page. So, um, nobody needs to, to rush, to, to write it down. That's
Josh (40:18):
Right.
Sannah (40:19):
Um, great to, to have you on the podcast today, Joe, I think, you know, being proactive and the whole community centric, I think that's, uh, that's my takeaways from, from today. So thank you so much.
Josh (40:29):
Yeah. Thanks for having me. This was a real pleasure.
Sannah (40:33):
Thanks for listening to this episode of mind, innovation podcast, new episode at dropping biweekly. So make sure you're following wherever you get your podcast. You can find me on LinkedIn search for Santa ending. You can also find me on YouTube search for mind innovation or go to my website, Santa ending.com or mind innovation.com. Stay curious, keep learning.
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