Remote First Company Culture with Marleen Kappert & Sebastiaan Bekker

Hi everyone, my name is Patrick Akio and if you're interested in working from anywhere company culture and how to build trust, this episode is for you Joining me today. I have two guests, Marlene Coppert, Head of People Experience over at Tenka and Sebastian Becker, CTO over at Tenka as well. They are both on this work from Anywhere journey and they're here to share what they've learned. I'll put all their socials in the description below, check them out.

And with that being said, enjoy the episode. Beyond commoding, You called me. You were in the mountains,

somewhere in the mist, and no one has ever thought that I was like, you're on vacation. I didn't expect you to answer. Yeah, I'm always a part of me is always on. And I was with the kids and they were, they were walking on this bridge that I thought, it's scary and I thought you're calling this is a good break as well next to you also. Yeah, they've ran over the bridge. It was over a ravine, so I was really happy to say sorry I'm busy, so it's saved by you on that part.

That's really funny. But I'm not always on, but I'm a lot of times I'm still on thinking about stuff, doing stuff as well. It's not that I say to the kids, Hey, don't bother. But if. If the moment is there, I'll, I'll pick it up and I'll fix it. Yeah, so everyone also brings like you bring your laptop and like work phone and stuff like that. But it's also right, like, like we discussed, right? You have several types of people. Some people really like to separate work from life.

Yeah, personal life. Because work is part of your life. That's my view. So I don't feel like my work is intruding my holiday, so I don't feel. That someone is expecting me to open up my laptop. I just, you know, I'd like to do some things. Yeah, while on a holiday, exactly. And you can still wind down, even though that part of you is sometimes still think about work. Yeah, because especially when you have time to wind down, right?

That's when you start thinking about things where you might not have the time to think about when you're busy working. Do you have an example of that? Like there was there in this vacation period, something where you were like, when I come back, I'm going to pick this up. Well, what I'm usually doing in my summer break is think about. So most people think the year runs from January to December, right? My year usually starts after my summer break.

So then I'm thinking, okay, what's up for the coming quarter? What's up for the coming year? How do I organize that? What should I tell my team about it? How? Those are the things that are then on my mind. I love that. I've never thought of it because in my head it runs through jam through December. Sometimes fab because that's when I get my raise, my parents.

But taking the time when you're away, whether that's summer or some people go away in winter and reflecting and taking that as kind of a fresh start, I like that perspective a lot. It works for me right? So it might not work for everyone, but for me it works. Yeah, yeah, you get that. So everyone's like refreshed and recharged batteries and stuff.

That's like the school we both worked in a school there. Yeah, you have it right. You do your year and then over the summer you think, hey, what I'm going to do different? What's gonna change? Yeah, that really helps. Yeah, summer. I mean, school. School times also have like a longer vacation. Yeah, like a six week. I mean, elementary school uni was different, was sometimes 8 weeks. And then you're just out of it and you're reorganizing and making sure you're ready for the next year.

Yeah. And then and if you look at it, educators, they wind down, right? So the last two weeks is really reflecting on the year and then you ramp up for the next year, you start thinking about what you're going to lecture that year and how it's going to work. So there's also sort of easing into the holiday and then easing out out of it as well. I think I'd do that as well. Cool. Can you elaborate on what you do or what you did kind of working with schools and educating in

that way? Yeah, I was as a director of seven schools and it was vocational education. So and this was really about helping the curriculum and also connecting to the work field. And there was in the hotel industry, so totally different from here, but it helped me to see craftsmanship. So I did hotel management school as well, but this was on the restaurant level.

And there you see how people really want to go, where they want to go and also how the industry takes these people along, how to make sure that they stay and they want to stay. And especially in the restaurant in the streets, hard, right. You train someone and they can work anywhere because of the skill set. So that was interesting for me and some. And sometimes in tech we we tend to forget, right. We want the Super seniors and we want them to hit the ground running.

And there's the restaurant in the streets, like Okay if you're skilled and if you want to. You can learn and and you can get to the complex part like a Michelin star restaurant where it's really complex. So it's interesting to follow.

Yeah, I can imagine. Do you think in the tech world it's the same that where you have the skills, you can go into an organization and hit the ground running the people that are really good or is there some additional stuff that's involved as well? I think it's additional and if you look at a formal restaurant it's easier because every. Everyone will follow the French setup, right, with the chef, the cuisine and everything there. So it's easy to know your slot

in an organization. Whereas I think that if you're a senior developer, it means something else in a different organization than the other one. Yeah, So there's a difference, I think, and it's harder to slot in. It might be an idea to think about it in that way. I think it's also it also has to do with how you organize, right? Because I've been working in restaurant business where we

work with non professionals. And then we just made sure that we were organized in a way that a non professional could work in that system. So you could also think about how to make a setup where you would start with non professionals and non developers and how you could train them on the job, but then they it's necessary that they have the skill set, which is think about curiosity, learning, mindset. Things like that, to really make that work.

Have you have you tried a program like that or something similar? Because we we try to act CB. Actually I was one of the people that pitched for it where we have a bar that is quite high. Because it is a consultancy company, we expect a certain level of expertise. But I joined actually, and I only had one year of work experience when it came to software development. So I was always kind of an edge case, kind of. They took a flyer on me basically.

And The funny thing is after I got hired, I could see through their internal recruitment system what was said about my application and who was pro and who was against them. That was really fun reading back to it. But now that I've been here for three or four years especially, I mean back years when I pitched this, I wanted to pay it forward. Also for people that have a great mindset, have that curiosity and drive that you're looking for are really a sponge and are looking for knowledge.

Because I feel like, I mean we advocate for knowledge sharing, so it should be something that we do anyways and I feel like people that come in with a fresh perspective also add to a team. So then we developed kind of this program where people would join that have less work experience than what we usually look for. We train them for a month when it comes to ways of working processes, some technical skills as well and then we make sure they land in a team within a

consultancy assignment. It's also aligned with the client. They have a different hourly rate. Everything should be fine. And that's a program we started off with the beginning of this year. We hired 2 people as kind of a proof of concept to see how it would land. And it was a lot of fun doing it actually. I talked to people and they were like okay. Now that we've been doing this for a bit, it's been now eight months actually. How's it gone?

And there were some challenges and some some interesting tidbits along the way. I really liked the first month of training. I'm. I'm a horrible planner and I had to plan the whole thing. So also some some things fell through the cracks where there was like okay, we expected this person to show up. They're actually at home, they can't be there. This other person also is knowledgeable about this thing.

They can give the training. So stuff like that we also did on the fly and the people landed the assignments and they're they're right now really happy with the decision they made to join this company because they're learning a lot. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Your question. We haven't tried it. So we take juniors from school, Yeah. And we train them and we try to get them. To commit codes as soon as possible. But we haven't really taken what you say, right? Amazon does the same, right?

If you don't have education, you can still grow into that part. Yeah, we haven't done that yet. Actually. It's a good idea. Yeah. Curious, will you, will you expand that from 2 to 20? We'll try because also right now with regards to the economy, we've had challenges finding the right assignment for the people that we hired back then. So with that in mind, we still want to make our sales pipeline a bit more robust before we try this again. But everyone I talk to is really

enthusiastic. They even want to be involved so they can share what they learned for the new round, let's say and expand it. So I'm hoping yes, but our sales needs to be a bit more robust so we can land an assignment easier for them for the new people that would land. Yeah, I'm back going back to the schools. If you go back to the schools and discuss it with them, yeah, that will make the the, the, the break from from from school to

to work also a much easier. So it's interesting we're trying to get to that like from the educational journey. We pick them up. Yeah, that's not where we're at right now. We went through, OK, this is our bar and we're going to go a little bit below that. So we do have bad people that have work experience but not the

work experience that we require. So we can help them with that one month of training in in bridging the gap, but I definitely also because I like working with people that are kind of a blank canvas in that way. I definitely want to go from that educational route and then they join our organization to learn and grow from. I think that's just a lot of fun.

Yeah, it is. And it will also help change the industry, right, because it's still you have to have this, this, this type of of of background or or this type of experience or that they're interlinked, yeah. And changing that is, is also core, I think.

Yeah, absolutely. When it comes to how you hire and what you're doing at Tinka, you mentioned actually Marlene in our in our intro call that you've hired someone even from Kenya. And the thought that popped in my mind back then, I was like, if you're hiring globally in that way, in a fully remote way of working, how do you make sure that the culture and the people still work together effectively as you want them to? Yeah, well.

As we discussed, right, it's it's not like we started this work from anywhere strategy just because we thought that was a fun thing to do, right? That was a strategic choice, knowing that we would need some specific talent that we probably could not find in Zula, the Netherlands or maybe even Europe, right, So. That's when we started thinking

how to solve that problem. And because of COVID and where everyone saw that working from home wasn't that scary as some people thought it would be. That's how we how we came up with that strategic decision to just have this work from anywhere, policy, its guidelines or strategy, a way of working. So that's how it started and you don't start with hiring someone in Kenya, No, right. So we started with Portugal, Germany, countries like that. And what I see in Tinka is

because everyone is working from anywhere, you don't have this distinct, you don't distinguish between okay. So you have 50 people in an office and you have 10 people working from anywhere. That doesn't work. That doesn't feel like one team. But if everyone is working from anywhere, then everyone is the same, so most meetings are remote. So it's not like you're meeting with 10 people who are physically in a room and you're the only one those are all trying to participate in a

meeting online. So that helps. And what we also do is organize events where teams or even the entire company gets together. And there we there we put emphasis on social cohesion. So we don't ask people to come to the Netherlands for as we say, think a penance day which is our annual think up party, to just sit them down and board them with 800 slides about information. No, we we invite them to come over and just spend a nice day with colleagues. Love that.

And. Well, I have seen that people respond quite positively to that. So I'm certainly planning to to keep that.

And of course, right as you said, how, how do you make sure that you have a culture? But I think that that's always an interesting conversation, right. And the first question that then immediately pops up with me is yeah, but what is it? Culture, right? Because sometimes I get the feeling like people discuss this as as this okay, this is the culture. Almost as you could put it in a box or so, right? Or I think it's culture is mainly about behavior.

So culture is how you do things in your company and I think you you can align that also when you're working from anywhere. And of course you don't have the water cooler conversations, right, because there is no water cooler. So you have to be intentional. Think about what can you organize to to make that happen? And well, if you ask me that, that is sometimes as simple as, let's see, I have 10 minutes in my calendar, let's call someone. How are you doing?

Yeah, as simple as that. It's it's as simple as that. And you see people who are who quite naturally pick that up and you see people who who would then say, yeah, HR should organize something for me. And it's. And it's like, okay, That's interesting, right? Yeah, that's a different mindset, I guess. But that's a different mindset and again, there's no wrong or right, so you need to. That's also about different people looking at things differently.

And how do you cater for all sorts of personality types?

Yeah, that's where I thought the challenge was going to be, right. Because you, even though you start small, you start with a specific culture, right? The way you do things around here, Yeah, basically. And then you hire, you went gradually, you went to Portugal and Germany, which are still kind of adjacent, some a bit further than others. But then they come in and they can see the existing work culture, but they bring in their previous work experience, how they've done it previously,

their previous cultures as well. Do you feel like your culture is then still every evolving when new people come in? I think in every company culture is an every evolving thing. So yes, I think it's ever evolving and it's also I look at culture, okay, what, what is the strategy for the company? What is the plan and what is the, what is the company's current state of mind that's that's culture, right. And is there a match or isn't there a match.

So for example, when we carved out Tinka, we knew we had to make the step to really become this innovative. Learning organization, sometimes willing to take calculated risks, and that was a different form of behavior than. How the company previously operated, Yeah. So then you know, you have to have a culture change, right? But if as soon as you say it's culture change, everyone goes like, oh, that's, I don't know, yeah, where are we going? You know, because with change, right.

It's like everyone, everyone says, yeah, it needs to change and then, but that also means that you have to change now. I don't have to change. The other people have to change, right? So I think we took quite a low profile approach there. And as I said, right, culture is

behavior in your organization. So if you need to change something there, then what you're actually talking about is change of behavior. And how do you do that? Well, you can read 1000 books about it, but what always helps me is quite a simple structure for it, which is you need to prioritize the behavior you need.

You then habitualize people with that behavior and then you put the systems in place or you check whether all your systems aligned are aligned with the behavior you want to see in your company. Exactly. And that that to me makes it quite simple and quite tangible. And then the next question is how do you prioritize behavior? Well, what we did is we said, OK, most people have, most companies have values. And then we said, yeah, we probably. Should also have values.

But what is it with values, right? Because you typically write them on a post or stick them on a wall somewhere, and then HR tells you that this is how you in the intro, this is the onboarding, this is the values. So here's the handbook. Do this, you'll be fine. And we said, OK, let's not talk about values, let's talk about virtues, because, and that seems like a small difference, but

virtues is more. It has more of the behavioral side of things in it already how you describe a value and then it's like Okay who who tells the people that these are our virtues. Is that HR now is that the just the management team or the CEO? No, because you know, if it's our company, then it's all of us. It should be everyone. And then of course as HR you can make sure that this. Project or that this subject gets the right attention in the company. So that's the role I took. Yeah.

I organized workshops where everyone that works for the company would go through the workshop. And it's not like I was telling people okay. This is the virtue. This is what it means. We just had open conversations with people. Okay. If this is the virtue, what does that mean to you personally? How do you feel about it? How do you recognize this in your day-to-day work? Or maybe you don't recognize it at all? So then we're not doing what we're telling that we're doing.

So how do you think we can solve that? Where do you start and that we're. I really enjoyed doing those workshops. I can imagine. Yeah, it was super cool. And what we also did, we did not. Not only people that were on our own payroll participated, but also the people we worked with, right?

So independent contractors who would work with Tinka for a bit longer, they also participated to really get this 360 view on OK, if you say this, but I see that and there's probably something, there's something missing. There's something missing, but also really good to hear, right? And it's also made. I think it's also. Something that make people feel proud, right? Because you're also discussing what is already going really well. Yeah, exactly.

I feel like having those discussions and having them open as you laid it out, there's no right or wrong answers, right? It's an opinion and it's a perception on things that have happened or things that are happening kind of in your inner circle. And at the end you can decide if you accept that or not, what you think of that or not. But the perceptions of the perceptions right, they have happened. You just lay them out and you discuss if this is kind of the way that you want to work

together. Yeah. If not, you make a change. And if this is how you want to work together, then you're aligned. You're going to have the shared mindset of the virtues that you laid out. And there was another

interesting thing that you did. You mix a lot of different departments, so it was all in contact. So you had the people from development talking to the people in the call center. Yeah. And they have different contacts, so they have customers that talk directly to them and the developers are thinking about how do we build better systems. So it was also really about sharing that context to to one company that was also interesting to hear and to see.

Yeah, I can imagine. And you're then there from the software development side, and I'm assuming you want to understand all the domains that are adjacent to that, right? Yeah, exactly. And maybe even even further than that, right. If you talk to finance, normally, if you're a developer, if you're in development, you don't go there. But really, hearing what how they view the company and what their concerns are is even more interesting than. Talking to to the direct users

of your systems, Yeah, exactly. And does everyone from the team or a few people of the team, do they share those kind of interests and areas of interest? Because me, from a software engineering perspective, I love knowing about the business, but that's I think because of the person who I am. I am innately curious and when we're building something for a customer, I also want to understand where they come from.

And I would, I would love if that's carried on through the team as well, but I'm not sure how that would is. Yeah, it's a it's a personal mindset, right. So, So some people say, well, I want to know, I want to see what's happening. I want to understand. Others are less so and say, well, let tell me what to do. But in the end, how we hire is that curiosity is always there in a certain level exactly. Otherwise it's it's going to be

hard. If you're not curious, it's hard to connect to a remote company as well. I think I can imagine how have the challenges been in in

working remotely, kind of within the tech side of things. Have you seen challenges when bringing together those people that are living in in different areas or is it still doable in that way? I think it's still doable. It's also due to the size that we have. So, so there you can make a direct connection with almost anyone in the company, right. It's it's small enough that that it's still manageable in that size.

I think that helps. I think it also helps that most of the developers, if you look at the community, it started with development. Now it's also going to the call center and on other places as well. But for most of the developers already were used to some sense of of of remote or not everyone in the same room. So that made it easier for us. So I don't think that there were big problems. What you saw happening is. You had to juniors. You had to really actively get

them out. Like Mernain said, you have to get those 10 minutes in and think about Okay. I have to talk to the juniors and not not the seniors, but but it went fluid gradually. I think the COVID helped there because then it was what it was forced. Yeah. And now I don't see anything that I say, oh, it's a problem. We have to go back or we have to

to manage it in some way. Is it because everyone has kind of built these relationships you think or do people already speak the same language because of the technical domain? What do you think? It is as smooth as it is? It's a combination and I'm looking at, I'm looking at you as well. I think that what we saw is we

had a sort of lighthouse. We had a head of Data Science and Data engineering. He was living in Stockholm and he really made it his key point and we learned a lot from him. Because he showed the way, Okay, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do this deliberately, Yeah. And that helped us see and also make the shift in Okay. It's something else than just not being in the same office. We have to do this in a different way, I think, and that is interacting together.

Is that what it's talking about? Yeah it's it's it's everything. So it's a ritual. So the interaction, the social talks, the knowledge sharing, everything that you do like like you have at CB, at the XKE, the knowledge exchange. How do you do that remotely? Yeah, how do you as a team bonds remotely and and also how do you deal with setbacks remotely, right. If something goes wrong or an error is made, how do you get together and learn from it and also share what what happened right?

Yeah, if you make a mistake and normally in the office someone will pat you in the back, hey, it doesn't matter. But how do you do that if if you if you can't talk to to them in the water cooler? I think that helped us because he showed us okay. You can do this remotely if you make that deliver choice, I think. Yeah, that makes sense. Money. You wanted to chime in. I saw. Yeah, I think it. So I think that's part of it, right. How do you organize and be

intentional about things? Put it on the agenda, yeah.

When I started with Tinka, Tinka didn't have an HR department. And I'm I'm saying HR department constantly, but our department's actual name is People experience because we think about employees as people, not as resources. But that aside, so then I started and onboarded my team and that's where I was thinking, okay this, this might be complex, right? Because the entire team is new in the company, the people department should, you know, be aligned with what is happening

in the company as a whole. And also for me, how do I make sure that my new team feels at home in this organization where I don't see them? Yeah. So how did we do that? We we just had conversations about it, right. So. So when starting with Tinka, they knew where they were stepping into. So if they were like people who would like to be in an office for five days, they probably would have not joined Tinka. Yeah. So I think that that is step one, yeah, the expectations.

That's expectation management and it's also. I think one of the upsides of being able to start an entire new team, right? Yeah, clean slate. Clean slate. And you know if you have a team where you have three people that like to be in an office the entire week, that's that's a different problem you have at hand. I didn't have that problem. But what my team did, which was I think really smart and really

cool thing. So they just started working while having a Slack call open or maybe 70% of the day. So they would just, you know, be working each in their own home but having this constant open line, at least with each other. And I really said to them, listen, I get it, it's hard, right? It's a new company. It's there were junior when they when they started working on my

team. So I said listen, if there's something or worry or you're stuck, just call me and if you cannot reach me, just text me or slack me or whatever. I will always prioritize. You over anything else I'm working on at that moment and I think that's just how we started it and I want to zoom in on that because we also tried that the

whole open communication channel. People were saying when COVID happened, like I'm in my apartment, I'm really alone, I missed the office chatter and stuff like that. And then we opened up the call and in some instances it worked. And in some instances where I, for example, would say to someone, you can always call me, I'll prioritize it, stuff like that. It would not always work. I figured there's a certain skill and probably how you came across to those people.

The trust that you build with them allowed them to step to you or to any other colleague to ask those questions, cuz it requires a safe space. How did you kind of engage that and create that within the new team as well? I think that's part of right if you. Really openly discuss. Listen, it's not like a million companies before have done this for 50 years, right?

And it's also think about it right when when I started working for Tinka as a head of people in a work from anywhere environment, most HR people would look at me. That doesn't work. How do you connect with people you don't? See the people, right? So I think. That is part of it, right? Having that conversation and also being really honest about it. Now, it is not 100% ideal, right? There is there. There are certain aspects of it that aren't that ideal and that

will never be ideal. On the other side, working in a Openoffice space is not ideal either. So then it's all about okay if this is a situation, this is a setup we chose, we deliberately chose. It's a strategic decision we took. How do we make it work and how do we make it work for everyone? And it's also learning by doing it. And as long as you see the fun and the beauty of that learning curve, I think there's no again, there's no right or wrong, it's

just okay. This works for us, doesn't work for anyone. So the team you mentioned, right? There are also doing things that don't work for my team. On the other hand, there are things that I do with my team that won't work in that team. Yeah, it's it's also taking the space to really again, almost personalize the experience. Yeah, it's interesting that you

lay that out because the you want your virtues to kind of be upheld through the teams, right? Yeah. But the way of working within the team as you lay it out is apparently flexible. It's more so tailored towards how do these people want to work together and really form a team, right? Because you don't start off as a team. You're a bunch of people together and then you learn how to be a team by probably trying

things out. There's an open communication channel work for us or do we do something else? Do we call up someone when someone needs someone or something else in that way? Still, I feel like at the fundamental level, it might have to do with the virtues and how you get people to jump aboard on the 1st place.

But there needs to be kind of this trust level, this safe space for people to do that, to be themselves, even though they are remote with people they have probably never seen in person or not yet and still be comfortable with that. Yeah, and for us in tech, what helped was.

If you have a big incident and you do inslect the huddle, you said open the channel and everyone joins and can join from the company that also created something because then you're all there and and what we tried to do then is also make jokes, do something on site, right. You're not always working you're waiting for something to happen or someone to come back and and what we also saw this there was a lot of stress. There was a lot happening. People were relying on the

systems. They were also in that call. We just had a chit chat as well, right. Someone said I'm going to call the vendor, I'm going to call this. I think that helped us in the in the early COVID months as well. And we keep that up. So if there's an incident, anyone from the company can join and if you're a new joiner and and I'll say, hey join those channels and listen up because then you hear how people work together might be that you're. I think you're right.

You triggered me something on trust and then I thought well there we trying to build the trust. Everyone does the best that they can. There's no wrong. Thing there and it's it's all about keeping the pressure down so you can keep on thinking might be that there's something there that that helped us, I don't know. And also with trust, right?

Where wherever people work, mistakes happen. Yeah, I make mistakes. You make mistakes, everyone makes them. And I think if you look at trust, it's mainly how you how you respond or react to something that went wrong, which then is the proof of the putting for people OK? Is it? Can I? Is it trustworthy here, or do they just say it's all right to make mistakes? I like that a lot. It probably wasn't a conscious choice to open up the channel and make everyone or try and

make everyone comfortable. It's just what happened because of the people, because of the openness and probably the transparency in the culture. And there's also this paradox of trust. Or Paradox of Safety, right? To find out that it actually is safe, or that you can actually trust someone, you first have to make the first step, which is where the paradox is right. Try. So try and then find out what happens. And then as leadership. Really.

Make sure that you that you don't make mistakes there right you you can make a lot of mistakes, but as in a leadership position, you don't don't make the mistake there. Yeah and it's hard right? Because you're also you're also people. You also make mistakes also there. Yeah, also there. Yeah. And I think it's also right if. So for example what I do if if something goes wrong right I I know the people on my team. They are. They really want to do the right things, right?

They really want to do the right things right. So whenever they make a mistake, I know that it's probably the biggest problem for themselves. Yeah. And then I just ring them. Hey, what's up? Well, nothing is up. I was just checking whether you weren't making yourself going crazy. Exactly. About something that went wrong earlier today, because that shouldn't happen. I'm just calling you to say stop it.

Yeah. In other environments, other people would say you made that mistake and they would kind of drill down on that. But because you know the type of people that are in your team, you didn't have to do that. You knew they were already aware of the mistake and they were already making sure that wasn't gonna happen again. Exactly. Or okay. Let's discuss that. Right. Yeah. So this happened. Okay. Not ideal, but the world is not ideal. Exactly.

Okay, this happened. How do we go about it next time? How do what can we put in place to prevent this from happening another time And also making sure right? It's not like I'm writing this down for your quarterly review to confront you with. Yeah, I get that. When we're looking at kind of the foundation that we just laid

out in being effective and still being remote, we talked about the virtues. We talked about kind of creating this safe space, allowing for mistakes to happen and building trust in that way. Is there any ingredient that's kind of missing that you would still want to add there? I've something I think that we have a clear purpose so, So what we said out is we're going to make it better for our customers. We're going to be more responsible in in how we do it. As Stinka.

I think that also helped because people really wanted to connect. If you, if you're remote, you want to connect to the goal more than if you're not remote. If you if you have the interviews as well, people are really looking okay, What are you going to do? What? Why are you here? I don't know if we chose them, but but so many of the questions were.

Why do you do what you do? And and the people that ask those questions, if I really were also the people who were really successful in getting with us because they were like, I'm going to, I'm not just going to work here because it's remote. I want to work here because we're going to do something I do that I need to understand. Yeah, I want to understand and I think that was that's also part of of what's really important and I think that's maybe also

something that you put in every. Opening had those This is why we're here, yeah. And maybe we funneled or we filtered out these people that that we're looking for that, but that helped from the get go. Yeah. Was that always as crystal clear from the start or was it really when people were challenging and asking those questions that it was honed? Yeah, I think the last part,

right, I mean and I think that. You start doing something and and then you see, hey, there's this side effect is that's what's happening. And then of course you zoom in and you think, OK, that's that's what we're going to do. But I see that that works for us as well. I think I like that a lot. Also the acknowledgement that you're not starting off perfect, perfect, right. Yes, you have a purpose, but it's still kind of malleable.

And I feel like the more conversations you have, the more people that on board you and that want to kind of go in the ship and sail with you, the sharper it gets, the more crystal clear it gets. Yeah, it's like Marlene said on culture, right? Everyone brings something, yeah. And that, yeah, it's fly with it's ever shifting. Yeah, I like that. In working together remotely and

it being going the right way, let's say, have you also experienced something that didn't go as right that you've pivoted or still are working on when it comes to challenges there? Well, I think if you look, if you look at work from anywhere, I think most people in a company have a really positive outlook on that, right. So we have this thing called Office Vibe where people can put in feedback. And if I look at what people are positive about and work from anywhere is definitely part of

it, yeah. I think where we can always be better is in making sure that everyone is aligned with everything they need to know. On the other hand, I'm not sure if that would be different if we were in the office so, but I think being remote makes it a bit more of a challenge. Yeah, I think it's. It makes it a bit more of a challenge or it makes it easier for people to say that something isn't communicated because you're this work from anywhere, right? So I think it's two sides of the

coin. Interesting. Basically, and I think as a manager or as a leader in company, I think for each and every team. That should be prioritized. Do my people know what they need to know? Yeah. Have I communicated everything they need to know at the earliest moment in an understandable way? Yeah. And does it land? And does it land Right, so we have town halls. And what I do after each and every town hall is call my team and ask them, OK, what is your take away?

OK, So this part to me, it was a lot of information. And so what's your take away? You really understand what does that mean to you? Yeah, so that's, that's a question I asked them to check. But I also think if you have a really large team, that's more difficult, I can imagine, Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be harder. Then I like the kind of checking

because probably if it doesn't land, it's something for you to improve or whoever that gives that information to improve as well. And if it does land, then you know it was well done. It's land that everyone knows. Now we kind of have to share the mindset of where we're. Going, or at least from my team. Exactly, Yeah. Yeah. You wanted to mention something as well. Yeah, the tunnel is one of the parts. So we have a centralized tunnel.

But for tech we do this as well with the contacts and what's happening, I still find that the hardest part to organize. So one-on-one, it's easier. One on two or three then you can do it because then the conversation is still happening, even remote, but having a sort of screen. And and getting the interaction in, getting the feedback in and and not always having the sort of water cooling cooler talk afterwards. That's the hardest part.

I think those town halls getting that in, getting the interaction and getting the feedback, I'm still struggling with it. What do you think that is? Is it because kind of the the grandeur that a town hall brings? Because you said when an incident happens, for example, you do have. Those interactions that you're looking for? Yeah, everyone steps in with a purpose at that moment, right? Something is broken, something is happening. And with a town, you set a time

and a date. Everyone shows up, and probably there was half of the time they're still with their minds on the problem that they're trying to solve for the next meeting that's coming up. And then you get all these blank phases, right? You're talking. I find it hard maybe maybe the differences with what what do they expect out of that meeting, but I don't know yet. I'm struggling with it because I got some memes of of of the drove people in the same show or the Muppet show.

You you have that that background as well. We try not to make it too big, but it's hard to make it interactive and to really get 20 or 30 people to really be there and and take it in, I think. I can imagine.

Also with with the organization that is growing some stuff that is going to work well or some stuff that are already challenges are going to be more apparent. We're going to have to shift also with the growth of the company. Is that something you're you're consciously thinking about with the processes you have now versus kind of how the company is growing? Yeah. If I look at it, what I see is you're always one or two steps behind, right?

You see it when it happened and then you start thinking about it. So I'm now in the process. How do I fix it? And to be honest, I've thought about it a lot. We tried some stuff. We also tried. You have gathered down where you can walk around and do stuff. I haven't found the solution for this one yet. That's maybe the biggest set back. And then you go and do one and one and one with smaller groups. But that's also hard. You give a different message, You miss information. It's hard. I.

Get a money. Yeah, yeah, I agree. What are your thoughts on kind of staying ahead with the rest of the processes when a company is still growing? Are you actively reflecting what you have now versus where the company's heading towards or even with growth in just the amount of people? I think if the answer to that question would be no, then we're definitely. Doing something wrong, right? Yeah. On the other hand, it's not easy to solve this. Yeah. And you know what?

What I see people do is as soon as someone misses some information or wants to share some information and it's always, yeah, let's do that. And that should be in the town hall. But listen, town halls aren't a cure for any for every disease, this disease in the company, right? It's it's not like there's this magical silver bullet. And I really strongly believe that doesn't work. So to me it's it's like a

cascade, right. So town hall is just is more overall information for the entire company and then for each and every team if you ask me should look into Okay how it starts with how big is the team. I have a small team, right? I can quite easily call people after the meeting and just make sure that that I pinpoint the things that I think are especially important for the people team. Yeah, your team is a lot bigger. So as you just said, right, that

that would not work for you. And then the question is how do what can you organize to also make it work for your team? Yeah. And I think that is something that I discussed with most leaders in the company and it's also not not for every team, the same solution. I can imagine, yeah. Just like the team processes within the team. Yeah. How the communication structures are in place is also and also I

think right. If you if you speak with people and something goes wrong, probably the first thing that is mentioned is communication. So something went wrong because of the communication that was missing or wasn't well or wasn't timely or whatever. Yeah, maybe that is the case, but not in 100% of the cases. So I think part of it is asking people questions. What do you mean? What information is missing? And some people, some people just want to want to know a bit more about the strategy.

But other people just want to make really need their manager to point out, OK, so this is what it means to you in your day-to-day job, yeah. This is the impact. This is the impact. So then again, right, it is about interacting. Yeah, asking questions and having an honest conversation about it. Yeah. And also being probably being flexible in that position to kind of tailor fit to whatever

the people need, right. If people want to understand more so the strategy, then at that point in time you have to lay that out. And if people want to know kind of the impact in their day-to-day, then at that moment you have to explain that a bit more, communicate that more. Feel like it's really hard to be in a position like that and not be flexible. If you're like, this is my rear of the hallway, then it's not gonna work. Or you're only gonna have the same people and people like you

probably, yeah. And if you have that right, then diversity. It's not gonna work. It's not gonna happen, no. No, no. You need to be flexible. That is like at the ground, but I think that makes it more complicated for managers, right? Yeah, it's easier to lead A-Team where everyone is the same, where everyone has the same needs and wants and things in the same way. Yeah, but it's also not fun. No, it's not fun. And also it has flaws, right?

I think back because I used to say this in elementary school, I'd be like if there was a team of me's, we would have this done. And now I know I have so many flaws that I'm like now. This part would would get done really well and this part would not get done at all. Yeah. So that's I think it takes some realization and probably you have to have been in that

position, you have to have worked with people that are more diverse, like the fondness memories of a team. I had was when we had like 10 different nationalities where I would sit at the lunch table, look around at my team and this was also kind of a team within a bigger team. But sure, I I would count the nationalities and we would have, we would have 10 different ones in a group of like 1415 people.

I thought that was really cool because I I was growing not just on a technical level, on a professional level, but on a personal level. I learned about their cultures. They made me excited to travel there. It was on a bigger level than just work, and I feel like where work and personal life kind of assimilate, especially because we can do that now with remote working, is where you're going to have the most joy, the most flexibility else as a person, and hopefully grow the most as well.

Yeah, in. Kind of rounding off this topic

of remote working and effective working, is there anything that is still missing that you still want to add on? Cuz otherwise I want to go into kind of my last thought, which is how you two got to work together as long as you have been. Is there anything that was still working and missing? Sorry. No, I think we covered quite a lot. Yeah, right. Yeah. Cool. Then who can take a stab at how you two got to work together and still have been working together

for so long? Who wants to kick that off? Normally I do this at the start, but I like to round off this time. I think we met at Vacom Okay. Yeah, where you are a team manager and I was the HR business partner for the department. I had never worked in technology. Okay, this was like a first time so I would join standups where I could literally not understand any work that was set. Did you know what a standup was? Sebastian told me.

Okay, that's good. And then at night, because my husband also works in technology, I would ask him bunch of questions, right? To not look stupid at work. But I think it only took me a few weeks to really like that technology environment and mainly the people working in it. Yeah, I think in a different life I could work in technology, right? So yeah, that really felt like I was. I found my place.

You were working as an IT manager and we were working together quite a lot because there was a transformation going on back then. Yeah, yeah. And what I liked in the conversation is talking about

systems like we do on this table. What's happening here? Why is it happening and what's a layer beneath it? And and why are the actors acting and the way that they do. That's something that that I like to to see and and to see how can I influence, how can I make it better. And that's all from the get go.

We're there, right? You didn't know what a stand of us may be. But you did know how a group works together and you see that right away in a stand up with a visual visualization of everything. And in that part you hit off right away. You said, I don't know what's happening here, but I see that this is happening. And and that's how we took off right away and and from there then you see a lot happening, you learn OK, let's do it differently.

I think that we also in the transformation we had a lot of Ouch moments, a lot and and we also had a lot of moments where

we didn't agree. Yep, Yep, Yep. I think that's also healthy to not always agree, but to challenge each other in that way. Yeah, and that's also cool, right? And and then then way back in this conversation, you spoke about trust. Yeah. And I think that is what is most important, right? There have been times where we would disagree very, very firmly. But I would always trust that we would find a solution. Yeah, Somewhere, somehow.

And that it wasn't personal. Is that hard to not take it personal when it comes to like you have this common common interest, right? The shared passion, even sometimes. And when you disagree, you can take that objectively. This is what we disagree on, and I feel like some people also take that personally. It's different for different cultures. Sometimes it's faster than others, but it is a challenge, I feel like. Have you experienced that as

well? Yeah, for me it is, because I think that the way if you try to change things, you take a lot of yourself into the job, right? Otherwise, if you're really detached and you're completely the objective observer, you can't change the system, right? You have to be in that system in order to change it. So from time to time it's hard. That's also what you say to me that I'm like I want to fix and and I've just tried to get it fixed and like. Chill. So that's maybe also the trust

that you get the feedback. You know both. You're in it, You also want to change things, and you have things that yell dearly. But if you have the trust that you can also have that meta discussion that that's important, I think. I think you share a goal and you you share how you would look at things from a moral side of things. Maybe even. Yeah. And then life happens, right. Or in our case, work happens. Yeah. Yeah. And then then it is about the paradox of safety, paradox of trust.

OK. So we now, I think the first time I said something that wasn't that nice. And then he looked at me, Whoa. And I was like, yeah, it's not nice to hear. I get it. But it's not. Not true. Exactly for a reason. And as I walked away, I was like, okay. Now let's see. Yeah, what happens? Yeah, because I'm the kind of person, right. Most people would think I'm kind of direct, but I would, to give that direct feedback wouldn't do

that all the time. So to do that, I think that for me was one of the was a moment to check whether I think I can trust this guy. But what happens if I? What have? What happens if I tell him this? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Because if it breaks, then you know it's it's not to trust next time. Yeah, so.

I I passed the test. I think it wasn't easy, right? So you get something that goes to your core and you get, you get feedback. You're like first you're angry, right? If you get that what she's saying and then you go back and yeah, she's got a point. And then you also think why does it? Hit me. So I was anything, yeah. Why does it sting? And it's at your core and then you think, OK, yeah I have to think about this one. So, so that's that's how we do it.

I can also think about 100 times where I would be, well, not panicked, right, But worried about something and I call you and then you would tell me something and then you would say, yeah, does this doesn't help, right? No, not at the moment because I'm too emotional. But tomorrow this will help me. So thank you anyways. Right. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I like that a lot. I mean, the hard part is like I'm I'm a software engineer most on the day today and I work in teams and the teams of various sizes, right? I know people that I work with that are close to me, that I have built up that relationship, that we have had those discussions and we're still out of it together probably and and we know each other more because of that. But as the team grows and also with more people.

Having that kind of team quality that you would have with A1 on one or one like in a in a group of three, it gets trickled down with more people. And I feel like that is that is kind of the challenge that we have with creating software in that a team size matters a lot, but I don't know if it if it is known that it matters a lot. Sometimes I feel this kind of urge if people, if there's more people than the problem, the solving of the problem goes faster or the solution is there

faster. And I thoroughly disagree with that because I'm in the team. Basically. So to hear you say that you two work effectively because you've gone through a lot, you've been open and honest with each other a lot as well. I feel like that makes a lot of sense because it is kind of that one-on-one dynamic. And then for me to have that with each individual of a team, let's say of seven people, that's just not going to happen.

That's going to go years down the line before we have that with each individual and probably that team is not going to be the same then as well, no. I agree.

Yeah. Cool. I want to round it off here. I want to thank you both so much for coming on. How was this? Was this as nervous as you thought it was going to be, or did it? Was it as nervous? Yeah. More of a sort of normal conversation that we have about teams. That's good and and I like your question, so it was really cool. Thank you. Thank you as well. Same goes for me, right? I told you when we met last week, had the first conversation. I immediately liked the way you asked questions.

So awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much. Cool. I'm gonna round it off here then. Everyone. I'm gonna put Sebastian and Marlene socials in the description below. Check them. Outlet them know you came from our show. And with that being said, thank you for listening. We'll see you on the next one.