How To Gather Employee Feedback in a Remote Work Setup with Gustavo Razzetti

How To Gather Employee Feedback in a Remote Work Setup with Gustavo Razzetti

Sean: It is difficult to be able to build these kinds of cultures. And there might be some CEOs or company owners tuning in right now and thinking, Yeah, you know, that sounds nice, but how am I supposed to do that?

Because my people don’t speak up even if I ask them to speak up. Even if we have team meetings, even if we have open forums, they’re just keeping quiet. How do I change this?

Gustavo: That’s a perfect question. First, their silence is usually a symptom that something’s not a sign that something is not going well. I mean, it’s not that silence is bad. We need silence. So now when you’re talking, I listen. That’s necessary.

But if people are silencing their ideas because they are afraid, that’s not good. There are two things. First, leaders need to eat last. No. So if something happens, don’t be the first to share your idea. Because if you do that, then people say, Well, if the leader has an idea, then that’s going to be the idea that’s going to be selected, but also be more intentional about how you request feedback.

There’s an interesting story that when Steve Jobs became the CEO of Pixar, he started making a lofty, ambitious presentation about the future of the company, how he wanted to change the studio and everything. You know him. He was very good at that.

However, at the end of every presentation, he asked people, Do you have any questions? Do you have any feedback? And all he heard was crickets, until at some point he realized, well, maybe it’s me, maybe I need to start changing. So he started saying, Hey, what’s working at Pixar? What’s not working at Pixar?

So by changing the way he reframes feedback, people started a. In responding for two reasons. First, the way he presented the question was what said what’s working? He acknowledged that the company was in bad shape, that there were good things and he wanted to protect those good practices. But also when he said, As the CEO, what’s not working?

He was permitting people to speak up about the things that were broken or not so good, but also permitting people to say, hey, it’s good to tell me that something’s broken because that’s what I want to listen to and act upon. So changing that conversation by asking what’s working, and what’s not working changes the way people give feedback. They started talking.

Sean: That’s an amazing answer to that question. And I wonder, Gustavo, that is something that Steve Jobs was able to do on a face-to-face basis. How hard is it for Steve Jobs to do that? For example, right now, when you have a remote work culture via Zoom and ask for, hey, what’s working and what’s not working, and not a lot of people can.

Give him that feedback via Zoom because they would have to unmute. They would have to raise their hands. What if they want to say it and they’re simultaneously saying it? What would be your suggestion on how to gather feedback if you are doing remote work?

Gustavo: There are many ways, and I think that we need to leverage technology. One of the problems is that we try to copy and paste the same practices that we did in an open forum through technology. And to your point, that gets complicated.

So for example, breakout rooms are a perfect way so you can divide the audience into small breakout rooms and have them Hey guys, discuss. Your concerns. And then when we get back, each team presents 2 or 3 topics and then we consolidate so that they organize the conversation.

You can create mural boards or work clouds in which people can provide content. And then you see the biggest issues. For example, in GitLab, one thing that people do is that they post all the comments and then they upload them.

So the most voted comments are the ones that are shared with the larger group. So that’s a and the CEO addresses those issues that are uploaded. So there are many ways to do that. Turn taking. It’s also a very important thing like having each person have their turn to speak up.

So that allows people who need more time to reflect because they’re more introverted because maybe they want to make sure they express their thoughts in a more precise way. That also helps to give them time to write.

So we usually do, for example, what’s called silent brainstorming. So we invite people to write things down and then they share. And when you write down, you can also read what other people wrote. And if there is the same, you don’t need to repeat yourself. So that creates a lot of a protective environment for people to speak up as well. Got it.

Sean: And what do you think, Gustavo, now that a lot of companies are asking people to come back to the office, do you think that they should?

Do you think that it’s going to take up speed, that more and more companies would join the bandwagon and say, yeah, you know what? Let’s recall our people. And right now, a lot of those companies are recalling hybrids, maybe just two days on-site, three days on-site. But do you think it’s going to go back to five days on-site as well? So there are two questions there.

Gustavo: Absolutely. I think that we’re going to see a lot. So every revolution or every evolution always goes to one extreme. Then back and forth. It’s like a pendulum until you see progress. So I think that the biggest mistake you think is that people or we work remotely for a couple of years because of the pandemic and that’s it.

First, people show leaders that not only they could keep their business afloat, but many companies grew. So it wasn’t that bad. My point is not about I’m not against bringing people back to the office or in favor. It’s more about change.

The question going back again, are we asking the right question? The right question should be why would we want people in the office? Or even better, what can work? Is it going to be better at the office than remotely?

So the model is not one or the other for certain types of tasks. If we need to redefine the company strategy, maybe we need to A there’s a competition that is killing us and we need to find a new solution to stay afloat or to grow.

But there are tough challenges. Well, maybe those can be discussed in person better. However, a lot of highly complex day-to-day tasks can be done remotely. 

So the point is, if you’re going to bring people to the I would say think in terms of sprints rather than three days a week, two days, you know, maybe bring them for one week or two weeks to work on a huge challenge and have them solve it and then continue working the implementation and other stuff remotely. So it’s not about how many days, but it’s more about why and what for.

Sean: Got it. That’s very good. Very good stuff. And Gustavo, what allowed you to get to where you are? All these answers, all these examples, and stories that you have? Were you always a disciple of remote work? How long have you been working remotely to realize these things?

Gustavo: No, as I mentioned earlier, wasn’t always. And that’s something that I stress in my book because there are people that are in the camp of I always supported remote people that are hated. I’m more into the camp of always exploring what’s better and also trying to understand because I work with different companies and show them things are changing.

So it’s not once again, my approach is not remote or the office. It’s how you can combine the best of both worlds. And for every company, every industry, every job, it’s different. And so my take is this is a revolution that’s happening.

People showed that they have flexibility not only in the location where they work but actually in scale. When people can change their schedule or adapt it to their family style, their needs, some people like me, I’m better working.

And for example, when I write or need to put together a proposal for a client, I do better at night than at 7 a.m. So in the morning, I do minutia, tasks that don’t require much thinking.

But when it comes to doing deep work, I prefer to work from seven to midnight or even later because I’m going to be much more productive so I can write a 3000-word article in a stint late at night. But if I try to do that in the morning, I could spend five mornings and I wouldn’t write half of the article.

Sean: Right? That makes sense. And one of the things, Gustavo, that I want to pick your brain about as well. So we’re going to do a little shift here. And I see you’ve done a lot of work when it comes to culture, and culture is so important, especially for me as CEO.

We’ve been so intentional about it. And one of the things that I notice that kills culture kills it insidiously is gossip. What do you think about office gossip or not? Just office gossip, but gossip about personal lives with your colleagues or friends. How do you squash unhelpful gossip, that is divisive, and that just tries to distract and distract your work environment?

Gustavo: I think, John, first of all, you mentioned one word that for me, it’s critical and we need to get back to it, which is being very intentional. You mentioned being intentional about how to design culture.

So when you’re intentional, the first thing that you need to do is codify your culture. So put it in black and white or in color, but make sure that people can read what. So if in your culture gossip has no room, make it explicit, right? That’s the first simple step.

Like, for example, Netflix, that’s a very aggressive culture. They have a saying or a belief, a principle actually that says never to say anything to someone that’s not present. So if you have to say what someone said to the person and also if you disagree, disagree openly because silent disagreement is not effective.

So that’s how you expected to perform. So when you’re welcome to a company as part of your immersion process, they tell you, hey, this is what’s expected of you at Netflix. Even if you are a colleague and someone comes and breaks that rule, then you’re going to say, Hey, hey, no, that’s not how we work here.

No, stop gossiping, stop criticizing. And if you have something that you don’t appreciate about your colleague, go and say it to their face. So the system is codified, but then the rest of the employees start leaving that system and push people to, hey, no, that’s not how we work here.

And they push them back. Also, that person’s going to experience from their colleagues and their leaders very fierce, candid criticism. So they’re going to hurt. But once you hear that, when people don’t like something about you, about your behavior, about your work, they’re going to tell it to you upfront.

Then they’re going to explicitly be permitting you to do the same with others. So that’s how we break gossip. If you feel that some people are being repetitive, gossipers, then get rid of them because they are not part of the culture. You told her. In this culture, we speak openly, not behind someone’s back.

Sean: Got it. Amazing. And how do you when you can as CEO and as a leader, when you’re able to find out that, hey, someone’s gossiping and someone’s not in line with our culture, someone’s violating our code of ethics in terms of our culture, what’s the first thing you do as a leader? Do you schedule a meeting with that person? Sit them down. Is there a way or a process for you?

Gustavo: The paradox is if someone comes to you talking that someone else is gossiping, they’re gossiping too, right? You know, my first reaction is, okay, if you feel there’s something wrong, you should fix it with that person.

Always operate under the 50 over 50 principle. So whenever there’s a problem, each part should own 50% of the problem. So as a CEO, I would encourage them to say, okay, if you think that that person is gossiping, go and tell them.

Maybe you’re misunderstanding, maybe they are upset, maybe they’re frustrated and try to see what happens and go and tell them, look, you’re doing this. If you feel that, then there’s no solution, then raise. Hey, raise the issue with your manager.

You know what I mean? But as a leader, we always need to pull down the stuff and not say we don’t want to be seen as every problem should be escalated and the CEO should fix it. No, the CEO has bigger fish to fry. If you see that something’s going on, go and fix it. That’s why you have a culture. People should enforce it, not just the leader.

Sean: Amazing. And Gustavo, if people want to get a hold of you, they have more questions. Where’s the best place to do that?

Gustavo: If they can. Look, I’m on LinkedIn, I’m very active there on the platform, LinkedIn, and look for Gustavo Rossetti with Double Double. I’m the only one with that combination of first and last names. So that’s going to be easy.

And second, you can go to our company website, Fearless Culture dot Design. It’s dot designer.com’s fearless culture and we have a lot of like over 600 free articles very extensive with lots of tools that you can apply as well. So if you subscribe, you can get lots of free content that you can use right away with your teams.

Sean: Amazing. Thank you so much, Gustavo. We learned a lot today and we are better for it.

Gustavo: Thank you Sean for the invitation and thank you for listening and hopefully we can stay in touch. Bye bye.