412. Fixing Organizational Culture with Frances Frei

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

The problem with the business mindset of “move fast and break things” is that what often gets broken is people. But how can companies take care of their employees without sacrificing accelerated growth?

Frances Frei is a professor of technology and operations management at Harvard Business School. She’s spent decades researching operational design and leadership and has co-authored numerous books like, Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leader's Guide to Solving Hard Problems and Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You.

She and Greg discuss the importance of fostering a culture of curiosity, why moving fast and breaking things is not worth it, and how inclusion can be an organizational superpower.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

Can you do layoffs with dignity?

27:01: When Elon Musk famously bought Twitter, he did layoffs and maybe a caricature of how to do everything wrong. But on the same day, he did layoffs, Stripe did layoffs. And so we got the two. Like on the same day, you could see the transcript of what Elon said to his employees and what Stripe said to their employees. So now Stripe didn't anticipate the layoffs, but the guy took responsibility for it in a way that I think strengthened the organization. That's what I mean. Either anticipate it so you don't have to do it or take responsibility that you did it and you learn the lessons…[28:02]I'm not sure we code layoffs as the management failure as they mostly are. And so I treat it, and I'm not saying this with any extra judgment; just learn from it like we do everything else. Like, great, yeah, you went through a layoff, what went wrong, learn from it so that you can avoid it the next time.

Curiosity is a cultural artifact

11:42 Curiosity is a cultural artifact; it's a cultural behavior. It's a cultural mindset, and when you have it, the symptoms are delightful to you because you're going to get curious about it. So many organizations have the "don't bring me a problem unless you bring me a solution," which is the opposite of curiosity. It's guaranteed not to have very much improvement.

Inclusion as an operational superpower

41:22: Inclusion, to me, the reason I like it so much, is I know of no other thing that can get me achievement, sentiment boosts, and performance with no new people and no new technology. I find inclusion to be an operational superpower. No new people, no new technology, and business performance and employee engagement skyrocketed.

Speed vs. sensibility

22:41: When people were writing code, and the code didn't influence individuals, I don't care if you got the code wrong and you wanted to move fast and fix things, and that somehow helps you do faster iterations of code. But when it's humans, personally, it's a worldview. I personally have a problem with it. That's the first thing. The second thing is it seduces you into thinking you are going faster, breaking things along the way, but when you factor in the collateral damage and the rework that you have to do, you're scarcely going faster; you just that somebody else had to pay for it later, and you got the advantage of it today. So, I think it's also misguided.

Show Links:

Recommended Resources:

• Little’s Law
• Travis Kalanick
• Karim R. Lakhani | unSILOed
• ServiceNow
• Valerius Maximus
• The No-Stats All-Star by Michael Lewis (New York Times)
• Chris Argyris
• Amy Edmondson | unSILOed
• Anita Tucker

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile at Harvard Business School
• Professional Website

Her Work:

• Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leader's Guide to Solving Hard Problems
• Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You
• Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business
• Fixable podcast