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The Anatomy of a High-Performing Team · Fractional Frequency

• Amy Crook: Hi guys. Cortney: Aye. Nick S: Hello? Danny: Hey. Emily S: Hi everyone. Jake: ⁓ yeah. Amy Crook: It's been a minute since we've all been in the same room. Nick S: really has. Cortney: TV. Amy Crook: It's so fun to see everybody. ⁓ why don't we start by just going around the room and introducing ourselves to anybody who's listening? ⁓ let's think about when we were all together as a as a team, what our role was at the time, ⁓ and maybe like who we reported into. So when we all worked together, I was the director of talent acquisition. And I reported in to the chief people officer and I'm gonna popcorn it to Courtney. Cortney: ⁓ hi, my name's Courtney and I was senior manager of talent and I led the G and A and Go to Market recruiting teams and I reported to Amy. ⁓ I will popcorn to Jake. Jake: Hi everyone, ⁓ my name's Jake. I was the manager of talent acquisition and our contractor program, specializing in technical and product recruitment and I reported into Amy and all popcorn to Emily. Emily S: Hi everyone, I'm Emily. I led our recruiting operations team at Glassdoor. When we were all worked together, ⁓ I reported to Amy as well. I'll popcorn over to Danny. Danny: Hi everyone, my name is Danny. I was the intern program manager ⁓ and also in recruiting operations and originally I reported to Emily and then also reported it to Courtney afterwards. And I will pass it off to Brittany. Britney: Hi everyone, my name is Brittany. When I was at Glassdoor, I was a senior recruiter and I focused on all go to market recruiting and GNA recruiting and I reported into Courtney. And Nick, I'll pass it off to you. Nick S: Thanks, Brittany. And hi, my name's Nick. When I was at Glassdoor, I was a talent sorcerer. And I actually at various points in time reported to Emily, Courtney, and even Jake. Amy Crook: Almost like we couldn't get that leadership position right for the sourcing function. Nick S: Hahaha Britney: Yeah. Amy Crook: That's another podcast. That's a whole other deal. I wanted to get you guys together because it's been a minute since we all work together, but I reflect on the time that this group was the team as one of, if not the like highlight of my career so far. We just ev killed every single challenge that came our way. You know, if if Go to market wanting to increase their headcount ask by 70%. You know, we didn't panic, we didn't freak out. We were just like, okay, we'll get it done. ⁓ we wanted to build out the intern program, no problem, we'll get it done. ⁓ we want to expand engineering teams, no problem, we'll get it done. ⁓ by the way, can you clean up the contractor program? And Jake was like, Yes, please. It wasn't quite that enthusiastic, but he did do it. ⁓ and then new higher orientation. It just felt like for a while every problem that the people team needed to solve like came to us because we were trusted to get it done. And so as I start to think about high performing teams and the anatomy of those teams and what it takes to make them work, ⁓ I thought it'd be fun for us to get together and kind of a reflect on ⁓ how we work together and why that was so successful, and B ⁓ just things you've learned since then. You know, we've moved on to different organizations and met different people, different styles of leaders. And so we have ⁓ a lot of experience to draw on when we're talking about high performance and what it really takes to have a, you know, have ⁓ a cohesive team that's going after it. So I'm gonna start us off with the kickoff question of what do you think. Is the differentiator between like a high performing team versus a team that's just really busy because they've got a ton of work to do? Like what what do you think is are the behavioral differences? Yes, Nick. Nick S: So I would say what our team did really well ⁓ is I felt that this came from leadership, this came from everybody that, you on this call is that we did a really good job of anticipating what was needed. And I think we were a very proactive team and organization. And in the past, I had been part of teams that were very reactive and it just seemed like you were trying to tread water. just trying to get whatever deliverable it was done for the day or for the week or for the quarter. But what I really liked about this team is that we were always planning ahead both with our projects, but also like professionally. think, know, Emily, I remember you had met with me and talked about like, what were my goals at Glassdoor and you helped to really build out like a pathway for me to be able to achieve that. So. I would say, again, the ability to look into the future and plan ahead. Amy Crook: I like it. I like it. Who else? Cortney: I kind of want to second that. I think like the being proactive but also being intentional. I think Amy, you set the bar pretty quickly and pr pretty early on with all of us that if there was a process that was outdated or was really complex for like no reason and we had an idea or a way to improve it or streamline it, like let's do it. Like let's cut out. the additional work that's just there and let's figure out what's gonna make the most impact. And and we had permission to kind of say no and put that other, you know, stuff aside and say this is really what's gonna have the biggest impact. And so I think that's how I tried to operate too and working with my teams and even just with other people in the across the business. It was like, you know, what's really most important here and what are the things we can really just set aside. and and or or improve ⁓ to make it a more efficient process and really just to find the what's gonna make the most impact. Emily S: And I think leaning on what Courtney said, in order to do that, we have built a lot of psychological safety and trust. ⁓ really, I think us as a team, we really gelled in a way that we could give each other feedback on the process, even if it was like something that I came up with that was over convoluted and, you know, complex. Like I felt trusted by Courtney, Jake, Amy to say, like, hey girl, like too many steps. Let's let's bring that down. Right. And I never thought of it in in any type of like egotistical way or I never felt any way about it. It was just like, ⁓ yeah, they're giving me good feedback. This is so right. So there was just such a level of like high trust, having each other's back and knowing like the intention came in came from a good positive place to help each other be better and like put the team first versus putting ourselves first. Jake: I think off of Emily's point, the trust extended beyond just that leadership team or the the top-down leadership approach that we had. But like if I knew that if I was working on a project with Britney, I knew I could give something to Britney, it would get done. I knew if I was working on something with Nick, Nick would get it done. And I think that having that understanding that you can pass off work and it'll get done and it'll get done at a high quality and at a high clip. is so important when you have a million irons in your fire and you're managing between different tasks and different stakeholders. If you feel supported and you know that your coworkers, regardless of level, regardless of expertise, are willing to jump in and help you, I think you feel really good about your role and you elevate that team around you. Amy Crook: Yeah, I I Britney: Yeah, I agree. I agree with everything that's been said. I also feel like something that I think our team did a really good job of was like we were really busy, we would get through busy season and then we would take time to like look back on what we've done and say, like, this is what could be improved for the future. Or I feel like when you're a busy team, it's easy to just do the work, keep doing it and be like not stop and take feedback seriously. And I think we did a really good job of like improving things. Amy Crook: I agree. I I kinda wanna double click into Emily's comment around psychological safety because this is a term that gets like thrown around a lot. and I think it's really important. I'm sure you're all shocked by that. ⁓ that you have the relationship with your team that no matter what is going on, good or bad, that you know that. The best way to deal with it is bring it to bring it to the table sooner rather than later, and that you can count on people to support you to get through it. ⁓ and it's not going to be like a throw you under the bus situation. So I would be interested to hear from your perspectives, ⁓ not just at Glassdoor, but in general, like how is psychological safety built? And How is it maintained? How is that level of trust across the board like built and maintained? And I think I'm going to pick on Jake to answer that first. Jake: I I I know what answer you're trying to get me to say, Amy. ⁓ and yes, it is through playing ⁓ a lot of games. But ⁓ I I I think it starts like anything else with building a strong relationship and and being really transparent with with who you are and and how you show up every day. ⁓ I think we've all had coworkers or bosses that, you know, depending upon the way the wind blowed or what they had for lunch is what dictated their mood. And Amy Crook: Ha ha! Danny: Yeah. Jake: I I think it first starts within your relationships with your coworkers, with your boss, with your team, is just showing up the same way every day and not letting the druthers of the day get to you and ⁓ really being consistent with how you act and how you show up for people and how you inquire about their life and learn about them and and ask about how their day's going and ⁓ support them in their work. And I think that consistency really starts off ⁓ allowing people to connect and open up because they know at a basic level that you're not going to jump down their throat or that ⁓ you're not going to react in an unsuc unexpected way that you can you know have a level to of ⁓ freedom there. And I think through that kind of repetitiveness, ⁓ it starts to build the bonds of a psychologically safe environment. Cortney: I I was thinking about this too. I think that Amy, what you did such a good job of with us is like treating us like adults. And I think that some leader you know simple, but ⁓ I think that some leaders tend to withhold maybe how they're feeling about a certain situation, specific news, like and just keep everything close to their chest more. And I think obviously in some situations like you have to do that. But I think ⁓ when you would share with us, like, hey, this is the reality, this is what's happening, this is the reality of it, like this is what we're gonna do about it, that showed me that you trusted me with that information. And that incline in turn made me feel like, okay, I I can trust her with or I can share information with her and I can trust her. And that like kind of I think built that on my end, and that's how I tried to operate with the re everyone on this on this call. ⁓ I think that's what really helped establish it is that it there wasn't there weren't things that were happening that you know, we felt like in the dark of or ⁓ you know, that was unnecessary, right? Obviously, again there's certain things you can't, but ⁓ I think you went out of your way to make sure that we were all aware of what was happening, why maybe our role or what we were doing was impacted. and that gave me more You know, made me trust you more and then kind of I think it just goes round and round. Amy Crook: Yeah, it's an interesting thing 'cause I see this with like peers and like other leaders too, of you know, that holding back of like crucial information that gives context to a situation. And I've always been in the mindset of if nobody's expressly told me that like this is top secret or whatever. That why wouldn't you share that with your team so that they have the same amount of information? And you hear this phrase a few times, not so much in corporate, but just in general, like knowledge is power, knowledge is power. Well, why wouldn't you want to make your team powerful? Like, why wouldn't you want to equip them with all of the context so that when they're making recommendations or they're going into a meeting, they're prepared and they're able to offer something really helpful because they do have that context rather than the person that they're talking to sitting there being like, I wonder if they know or don't they know or this that you know it's just so messy and it's not really necessary, I don't think, in 90% of the cases. Like everything that's going on from a company perspective ultimately is going to hit talent acquisition at some point, whether it's a department change, a department growth, a change in direction, a change of strategy. gonna land at our doorstep at some point. So the more heads up that I can give everyone else, the better we'll do. Is kind of how I felt. Danny: Yeah, another thing I wanna add too is I think this team was really good at being proactive and including others who weren't maybe as confident in sharing their opinions or ideas and including them in like decisions and thoughts and feedback. So I think I really appreciate that, ⁓ on this team and I think that really helped us build that psychological safety where we felt open, we felt ⁓ confident sharing feedback and ⁓ you know, being included in decisions. So I think that was really Set us up for success. Britney: Yeah, I agree. I think adding on to that, I feel like something that you guys all did a really good job of was just like verbalizing it. Like you'd ask a question and then say, like, this is a safe space, you can disagree with me, like feel free to do that. And I think even just saying that out loud is like, ⁓ okay, like I do have the power to do that and like that's okay with my leaders. So I think that's important to do. Amy Crook: Absolutely. And I can't I can't emphasize that enough actually. You don't hire a bunch of smart people so that you can tell them what to think. Like you hire the smart people to tell you things that you don't already know. and you know, I can think of occasions with everybody on this call that you've challenged an assumption that I might have had and made the solution better. And and I think the the balance that people don't always get right is that between like ego and impact. It's like you you're now responsible, yes, for this team, but it's their output that matters, like your output becomes almost irrelevant. Britney: That's cool. Amy Crook: Because everybody else is counting on you. ⁓ so creating space for people to be acknowledged and celebrated and rewarded when they do that hard work and not take it as ⁓ is somebody gonna think that like they're better than me? Like I just feel like those people are very low confidence people that are afraid to share the spotlight for reasons that are very personal to them and probably nothing to do with the team that they're supporting. Didn't mean to stop it, stop you all in your tracks there. Are we ready to move on to the next conversation? Because because the thing that get that I like to think through is like when it's high performance versus just busy. Like any talent acquisition team can be busy, right? Like when we got through COVID and it was the great resignation, we were busy. But as has been mentioned, it didn't stop us wanting to improve. It didn't stop us thinking about impact. We we weren't just like s slugging away, we were actually tracking the metrics of the funnels, making sure that there weren't any blockers in the way, that we were handling things effectively, and that when somebody asked us to do something, we did it. Which, you know, echoes back to Jake's point around like you the accountability and you can count on us to be that person who delivers, which I think is why we ended up with so many side projects as a team. when we were when we were all together. Little f little fixes. Cortney: Yeah. Amy Crook: Okay. ⁓ did you have something to add, Court? Okay. Just getting comfy. ⁓ okay, so let's change gears a little bit. What do you think is the biggest mistake that leaders make that can really erode ⁓ team trust and and therefore the performance? Like what what do you think leaders leaders traps that leaders fall into that impact how the team performs? Cortney: ⁓ no. Sorry, just getting repositioned. Jake: I think it all starts with communication. If you're a leader that, you know, can't communicate effectively or articulately, or choose not to communicate with your team, it creates a lot of distrust and dissatisfaction. And I think a lot of what we just talked about, it was centered all around communication. The communication between us, the communication from the top down of Amy, you always sharing as much as you could, and you know, to the point where Maybe it got us in a little more trouble than it did good sometimes. But Amy Crook: When we never got in trouble. Emily S: Mm. Jake: But I I think it ultimately come down comes down to communication of, you know, as a leader, are you equipping your your people with the facts, with the the confidence that to to do the job, with the right guidance to help them when they need it or to help up level them when they maybe they don't have the right skill or right experience? ⁓ I think a lot of tra a trap that like a lot of younger or more inexperienced leaders fall is like They need to talk too much or they always have to have the final word. And I think a lot of that communication skill is also stepping back and knowing as much when to talk as it is when to listen and when to listen to your team, when to listen to your superiors, when to listen to the business, and really take in that information and synthesize it down for the team. Amy Crook: Jake, I think that's the first time ever that you've referred to me as your superior, but I like it. I think we should stay. Cortney: Yeah. Emily S: Ha ha ⁓ ha. ⁓ Amy Crook: Jake's like, I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about like the leaves. Cortney: Yeah. Jake: No, I I was Amy, I was talking about you. Amy Crook: Any other thoughts? Nick S: Yeah, I think something that a mistake a leader can do that no one on this call ever did, but like, ⁓ leaders that don't follow through or don't, if they're expecting a certain level from their direct reports, but they don't themselves hold themselves to that same standard, then it creates a culture of like, well, you know, Emily doesn't get her stuff done, so why should I have to feel like I need to get my stuff done? Which never happened. Emily was always on top of her stuff. But like the point is, is that I saw, you know, that the three people on this call that I reported to, they were always lights out getting done what you need to get done. They really cared about the work they did. And that culture permeated down to all of us of like, okay, I know that. Cortney: Okay. Amy Crook: Everyone else is. Emily S: Yeah. Nick S: my person's working hard on their stuff and I want to be just right up there with them too. And it was also kind of an aspirational thing of like, you I want to eventually get to that level. And so these are the people that are doing that kind of work and this is what it takes to get it done. So when a leader cuts corners or isn't present or isn't involved with the work that they're doing, I think that can be tough. Emily S: And I think echoing that for me when I see myself doing my best for a leader and when I say myself not doing best for my leader is when I see them in the trenches with me. And that's a practice that I definitely preach as well. It's like if you're asking your team to do these things and I always hire for people who are better than me. So like I want them to teach me and I want them to grow me, but I'm in there doing the things with them. Right. ⁓ Maybe Danny can speak on this a little bit. Sorry to call you out. But you know, back in the day when we were scheduling, I was s in there scheduling with him whenever needed. Amy Crook: Yeah, you two are false. Danny: Yeah, I think definitely echo what Emily said, but I also wanted ⁓ bring another perspective too, where now being in startups, I found that a lot of leaders they like optimize for speed and then they start to confuse that with like being efficient, right? So I've seen like a lot of leaders and teams move super fast, get candidates in the pipeline and get an offer out in the week, but then that the candidate end up not accepting because you know it felt rushed, it felt impersonal. Emily S: I think I may have rose. Danny: And I really think that leaders who kind of mistake as like fast and good should not be mutually exclusive, right? So I think having leaders who can understand that balance of, you know, you need structure in place so you can move fast in an efficient way, I think that really will help, you know, teams with their performance. Amy Crook: Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ no, I think we lost Emily. Cortney: Well show him that. Nick S: She sent a message, she froze, I think, and she's trying to get back in, I believe. Amy Crook: Okay. I'll keep an eye out for Unla back in if she gets back in. it looks like you were gonna say Cortney: I was gonna say, yeah, I was gonna say I think I really like what everyone has said and I think that ⁓ kind of like what Danny said, like I think you can get really bogged down with, you know, checking off all these things that you're say your team is doing, giving them all these tasks to do. ⁓ but that can just be busy work and it's like, what are we doing this for? Like what is the what is the imp okay, going back to my first question, like what is the impact of what you're doing? And I think being mindful of what your team is working on. If I'm gonna ask Danny to go do something, ⁓ one, like Emily said, I better be willing to do it as well. But two, I wanna be mindful of like, okay, I asked him to do this. It also creates X, Y, and Z additionally for him to do. And so I wanna be mindful, okay, maybe we need to take a step back or take a few things off his plate of something else that he's working on. And I think like when leaders don't acknowledge all maybe everything that's on your plate and really kind of just being in like it's be about being intentional and thinking about, okay, this is what I want you to be spending your time on. Don't worry about X, Y, and Z. I think that can quickly build or take away trust. It's like my leader doesn't care about what I'm doing. They you know, it doesn't matter what I'm spending all my time on. I'm I'm spending all my time on this piece that really is not gonna have any impact but just because they gave it to me to do. And so I think, ⁓ leaders who are aware and willing to maybe reprioritize every single day or midway through a project and be willing to shift and just kind of look out for for your team and like what they're working on and and make sure that they're spending their time just like you would. Like I hate wasting my time and I would hate to give something to Danny or anyone else to waste their time to. Amy Crook: Yeah, a hundred percent. Jake: Yeah, Court, I wanna kinda double click on what something you said because ⁓ I I think it it's really important to call out is like the impact statement of everything of like in my experience the best leaders have always been able to articulate the impact of an ask or a task, even if it's a really shitty thing that you have to do. Like I I know that this is not going to be fun. I know this might be a super manual process. I know I might have to call 350 people. Amy Crook: Yeah. Jake: But if I understand that that's something that's valuable to the organization or valuable to the team or something to that effect, I think it's much easier to to take that and you know can it can be something that can be used for the team in the future ⁓ rather than just like saying ⁓ a bad leader would just say, well, you have to do it because I said so. But articulating the impact is really beneficial when kind of managing a team and managing people's expectations, especially when it's just a horrible task, which I know everyone on this call has had to do some real dumb, dumb shitty things sometimes. Cortney: Like Amy said, like giving it context, like yeah, giving that additional information of like this is why you have to do this or and I'm be I'm willing to do it too. Yeah. Jake, I like what you said. Danny: Yeah, and I think that's why our team performed so well is because we were intentional with our ass and we thought about like downstream effects, right? So making sure that nothing was affected and everyone needed to do what they needed to do. So I think that's what I really loved about our team. Cortney: I think that a lot of that starts from the top too. I think like having the permission from not just like the people team leaders, but also like company leaders. I remember when Christian, our CEO, said something like, You, you know, you have permission to prior prioritize, reprioritize, say yes to what's gonna be the most impactful and say no to what isn't. And I think that was really good to hear and kind of reassuring of like, okay. I'm doing the right thing and that we all are kind of operating with the same mentality. Amy Crook: That's a really good point. So, like, how much when you think about wanting to be a high performer and feeling like you're part of a col you know collective that is strong and wants to do well, how much influence does the C level, the C sweep have on that versus your individual teams? So What's what's the weight do you think? How much how much sway does a CEO have over your day-to-day? Emily S: jump in. Sorry guys, I got a little disconnected there, but I'm back now. ⁓ I think it depends on the company size. And I think maybe those who've transitioned to indeed maybe can speak on this a little bit more as well. But I always say that ⁓ larger companies, the C-suite, the impact is not really there because they're this phantom figure that you've never seen in your life, but they're there, right? Kind of like a big brother S type of thing. Cortney: Well Emily S: But in a mid-sized or smaller company startup that you see the, you know, C-suite folks in the ground with you, you know, grinding it out, their impact is so much bigger because you see their impact directly day to day, ⁓ where you're leaning on your team, you're leaning on the C-suite, you see like them practice. Amy Crook: Yeah, that's such a good point. Team size is huge. Yeah. Like, Courtney, I know you've been ⁓ out for a little bit looking after baby baker. But did you d how often would you have interacted it w in the Indeed family, like how often would you interact with like a C level person? Like just not not at all. Cortney: Never. I mean unless you're like working on a high level role, they the company's just so big. They're they're really I don't at least at my level wouldn't necessarily be a reason to, or an opportunity to. whereas I think different. Amy Crook: Yeah. Whereas Danny, you probably see them all the time, right? Because you're in a startup. Danny: Yeah, and think of like a thirty person startup, like everything you do. ⁓ no, Emily maybe she just wanna talk. She's like, I gotta go. Yeah. Right. Amy Crook: Probably I guess. Cortney: But Amy Crook: Ha ha ⁓ Britney: It's like an article. Nick S: It's a sore subject for her. Danny: But yeah, no, I was saying like at a small startup, like every little thing you do, like from documents to Slack messages to anything you do, your CEO will see it and they will have thoughts and opinions. And I think that's great, right? Because I think your impact then spans all across the the the team. And I think that's that's a great ⁓ thing to have. But again, in like bigger companies, our courts said it might be harder to get visibility from like a C suite. And again, vice versa, it might not be. They might not have much impact on the team as you would like them to have. Amy Crook: Do you think like as you're, you know, all technically almost midway through career, like do you think that the experiences that you've had thus far have made you have a preference on like team and company size, or are you still open? Nick S: For me? Jake: I'm firmly in the the the company of of small company. I I don't want to be at a big company anymore. I the I mean Amy, you and I started at a what thirty thousand, forty thousand person company. Nick too. and I I fet it felt so in cold cold and impersonal and for lack of a better term, slow moving that Amy Crook: Yes. Jake: I don't want to be in a place where I can't have efficacy on the business. Like at when we were at that company, I could have done, you know, 200 recruiter phreens a day and not moved the needle at all. At glass door, where we were like maybe a thousand people, I could have done 200 for recruiter fun screens and filled five positions. So ⁓ for me, what I what I always find important in my career, and especially kind of after our glass door experience, is I I wanna have impact and tangible impact and meaningful impact. And I think for for what we do is you know, in talent acquisition or adjacent HR spheres, it's very much, you know, you can have that impact as an individual contributor ⁓ at a smaller company. Amy Crook: I'm I'm small co obviously I've set up Stradivis, so that's my favorite company now. ⁓ but yeah, I agree. If I w if I was not doing this, I I would not wanna be in a big, massive corporation where there's just too much bureaucracy to make any difference to anything. Cortney: Mm-hmm. Nick S: I think for me, it kind of ties to this entire conversation. It depends on the opportunity, but it also depends on the leader, especially if it's a leader I've worked with before. Maybe it's a company where, I don't know if that's for me, but I know this person, I know the type of team that they run, I know the type of ⁓ what to expect out of working for somebody like this. Amy Crook: Mm. Nick S: I think that plays a big role too in people's decisions because I, when I first started, I never thought I would work for a tech company or, or a credit bureau ⁓ for, you know, Amy and Jake. But my career found my, through my journey of my career, found myself there. And a lot of times it was because of the leaders. And so I think that's a really important thing that in a lot of times, if you are a leader, chances are you might jump from opportunity to opportunity. but the way that you treat your team and the way you invest in your team can have dividends long after the time you're at that specific place. Amy Crook: Definitely. Cortney: I always said to r when we were hiring for roles at Glass Store, like I felt like Glassdoor was like the perfect, like happy medium of like small and large company, where we were still able to build things. We were some of the things we were building as we were going, but we were able to change a process quickly if it wasn't working or if it didn't meet the needs of our customers, you know, external or internal. and so I really appreciated that we had that permission and we could really make ⁓ make those decisions and and make changes if we felt necessary. ⁓ and you were also able to really like build a good reputation for yourself, build really strong cross-functional relationships with people at every level, including, you know, from associate level up to VPs, ⁓ and have interactions and experiences with our C suite. I think it was really nice to be able to build relationships at that level and learn from them and ⁓ just see how they operate. see I I that's one of the things I definitely appreciate about glass stores. I thought it was a good good size. Britney: Yeah. I think the mention of like relationships there is like super important because I think that's what I liked about Glassdoor is like you were there for three years and you knew pretty much everyone and you had like good relationships with some people in finance. You've met some of the C suite and there was no one where you're like I've never met that person or heard their name before. So I think like building those be meaningful relationships was really it was fun. Amy Crook: I agree. I'm interested to hear from Danny, Brittany and Nick. Do you have similar dynamics in your teams today? Like have you taken anything from how you operated when we were a team into your roles now? And have you managed to create that for yourselves again? Britney: That's a question. Been trying to implement games, but not quite there yet. Danny: ⁓ yeah. Amy Crook: The games are everything. The games were everything. Like we we we worked so hard, but come that one hour a week, we were demoing a totally different skill set. Cortney: James Built Trust Yeah. Mm-hmm. Britney: Important though. Amy Crook: I still think that Danny should be a stand-up comedian. Yes, you're hilarious. Yes. I am so glad that AI wasn't as ingrained in all of the tooling as it is today because those transcripts. Danny: Really? Cortney: Yeah. Yeah. Danny: I try my bust. Amy Crook: Could have been could have been a problem for us. Because that's another thing that kind of I can I I believe strongly is that like we should be able to speak freely. We should be able to say whatever we want and trust that it goes no further. Like it's not gonna go out of this room or if it's a one-on-one, it's not even gonna go back to the team. Like whatever Britney: Yeah. Cortney: We'll just go to the grave. Yeah. Amy Crook: is said or whatever we think or whatever we feel like we can get all our all of our messy out together and then when we're outward facing to the rest of the business, we are buttoned up, polished, ready to go, on top of things, highly professional. Because I do think it's human nature that you need a bit of like blowing off steam when you're in a high pressure position. And if you don't do that, Then people are gonna find other ways to blow off steam that aren't perhaps as healthy as games. Cortney: I think it's like a really good relationship, a really healthy marriage. Like you you internally you can vent, you can complain and then when you show up to the world, you're polished, you're professional, you guys have it together, you don't air laundry. Yeah. Amy Crook: We agree on everything. Jake: Yeah, yeah. It's like when you clean it's like when you were a kid and you cleaned your house and you're like shoving things into the closet. So Mom the house looks good for mom and mom's friends, but secretly you think, ⁓ mom's friends can open the closet and see all the monsters in there. Britney: Ha ha Danny: Okay. Nick S: No. Cortney: Yeah, but like Nick S: everything's gonna fall out, you know? Cortney: Don't look under the one of the air. Amy Crook: I love that. I love that. Okay, I'm gonna take us into our last question. if every leader listening to this conversation had to or could have the opportunity to implement one change tomorrow to improve their team's performance, what would you recommend that they do? Nick S: I have a good idea. I think for ⁓ something that could implement tomorrow that could change how their team operates is literally just have a day of just not working on whatever the normal stuff is. And we're at a perfect time of year. FY27 is about to happen. Just have a day where you all meet and plan ahead. Plan for the next fiscal year. Map out what your goals are, what you want to get done. whether it's a chart or a calendar and hold your team accountable and yourself accountable to reaching those goals. think, you know, a lot of times teams get stuck in the, and you know, we're gonna try to do this and we're hopefully gonna do this next year, but actually planning it out and sitting with your team, having them have a vested interest in when these things are gonna get done and how they're gonna get done can really help to materialize those goals. So I say, you know, being proactive. is a huge game changer. Danny: Yeah, I think another thing I wanna recommend is really define what a good outcome looks like before you start the work, right? I know like teams are urgent, there's this urgency to start, but I think what ends up happening is that you know you get to end the process and specifically for recruiting, you have like these candidates, the framework is all over the place, you end up making a gut call, and then you just end up reopening the role six months later, right? So I think kind of like front. loading, if that makes sense, that clarity at the beginning, I think is really a high le leverage thing that a recruiting org specifically can do. Amy Crook: But I think that translates into everything. Like the more transparent and clear you can be with what you're asking somebody to do, the better the outcome will be. Like every time on every topic. Cortney: Yeah, I remember there was this task that Brittany and I were given and the directions were not clear and we redid it four times and it was just No, no, sorry, fine. ⁓ no. Yeah, I think it's just I think you know, it just goes to show, yeah, be clear from the beginning and let's make sure everyone is using their time wisely. Amy Crook: Not by me, I'd like to add. I I was thinking about I was thinking about this and like and now I'm doing that now I know what you're talking about, yeah. Britney: I knew exactly what you were talking about last night. Amy Crook: Yeah. Cortney: and I I'm gonna say that I really do think that the games had like this magical impact on us, like this effect. Like, and for everyone who's listening, you don't know, like our team within the people team was known as like the team of the games, like specifically Jake. Jake had a list of like thirty games that we played. We all n we all had down, we knew exactly what we were doing. ⁓ Britney: Yeah. Amy Crook: Fun. Cortney: And I think not only did it obviously like let ⁓ let us like blow off some steam, have fun, ⁓ not talk about work for a second, but I think that's how we all got to know each other really well. ⁓ of course, working together for three plus years does that too, but you just learn some funny quirk about somebody or or something like that. ⁓ and then I think it also builds trust. Like we learn to trust each other and like what Amy said, like we would make jokes and it'd stay in that room and and we all, you know, kind of, you know, had had a good time doing it. But I think ⁓ I think the games were kind of magic. Amy Crook: I agree. I love the little quirks. Brittany, have you been out for any marges lately? Britney: Hundred percent. Yeah. At first I was like, What? What did she just say? 'Cause I no longer say it. I have had a Marge though, and I'm I'm gonna show it tonight. For anyone that doesn't know that I say margaritas and that was an embarrassing moment. Amy Crook: Yeah. Jake: I forgot about that. Amy Crook: Brittany had just been going through life thinking that a mark was referred to as a Marge. Britney: Why did no one tell me? Worse. Cortney: Why didn't I tell you? That's that's the real question. Amy Crook: Whoa. That was left to us to be like, Wait, what did you just say? Britney: Yeah. Everyone was like, What? ⁓ but I was gonna say like that ⁓ go ahead, Diddy? Danny: No, Brett, yours. ⁓ no no was gonna say like Britt you were just so confident happy saying that I was like, you know what, Britt? I I love that for you. Britney: No, no one said anything. We all just hoped off. I was like, I was like, why'd you get silent? ⁓ but I was just gonna say, yeah, like 100% court games is actually what came to mind. even just like building in connection time, like we did check-in questions often. I thought those were so fun. if you like set up coffee chat time for your team to just talk, like I think that time to just like let your hair down and be silly is like so underrated, but like it really does give you like a fresh of breath air if you're someone who's just in back to back calls, back to back meetings, like you need that time to just have fun, honestly. Cortney: And we all looked forward to it. Like I've been a part of teams where it's like, have this, you know, trivia, whatever and like, I don't wanna go. Whereas like with our games I was like, I we need another game, like let's do another game tomorrow and like we were really excited and looked forward to it. So I think that Britney: Mm-hmm. Jake: No we had other p other teams wanting to be a part. Cortney: Yeah. Britney: Yeah. Amy Crook: Yeah. People come into guest spot in of like, can we come and play games? Sure. Sure. Anytime. Cortney: One's well. Jake: I I was also going to say games, but a little bit different. I was gonna say like find your games. And what I mean by that is like games worked really well for us, but like at my in my current company, games would never work. But there there's go I'm going to find something that will eventually. ⁓ But is that, you know, a fantasy football league? Is that, you know Amy Crook: Yeah. Jake: ⁓ going and taking a walking meeting at the park by the office, you know, every other Friday or something like that. Find that to Courtney's point, find that time where you can kind of decompress and connect. And to Britney's point, blow off a little bit of steam and have some fun. I think that you know at the end of the day, you're spending more time with the people you work with than your family and then your friends. So how how can you make that time enjoyable? Because Like it or not, you're spending at least 40 hours, probably 50 now the way everyone works now, 50 or 60 hours with these group of people. So how can you make that time fun? How can you make that time enjoyable? And how can you make yourself the best version of yourself in that place? And I think it's through connection, it's through experience, it's blowing off a little bit of steam. So find whatever your version of games were for us. Amy Crook: Find your common happy place as a t as a team and don't and visit it often because they're the things that make the bad days not as bad because you can laugh through any situation, you can work together to get through any situation. And yeah, I agree. Find find your own games, your own version of games. I like that. Did everybody go? ⁓ my goodness. Guys, it's been so great to see you again. I honestly just miss talking to you all every single day. And it also makes me think we need to set up the time to play some games. Cortney: That look like the weird play in a while. Britney: Yes. I'm there. Amy Crook: Mm-hmm. But I'm super proud of you guys. Like everything that you do, you're excellent. I am so lucky to count you all as friends. you know, some of you I've seen go from, you know, recruiter to, you know, senior level management, some of you I've seen go from single to married with children. And I it's just been a privilege for me. to be part of your life journeys and to keep in touch with you and see how well you're doing. I I'm just I'm super proud of you and just grateful that I get to call you Franz. Jake: Yeah. Britney: Just a yeah. Nick S: The feeling's mutual. Amy Crook: Thanks guys. Thanks so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Cortney: Yeah. Nick S: Of course, thank you. Jake: Yeah, thanks for having us, Amy. Britney: You guys. Amy Crook: Bye. Nick S: Bye. Cortney: Okay.