We've had lots of conversation with heads of companies and organizations of all sizes, and one common denominator, the fight for workers in today's tight labor market. We get another read, as you know, on the US employment picture with the monthly data release on Friday and a few reports leading up to that. Our next guest knows a lot about people management and building a company thanks to its people. She spent ten years at Google. She is corporate officer
and advisor to Stripe. She was COO It's Stripe. So delighted to have with us. Claire Hughes Johnson. She's got a new book out, Scaling People Tactics for Management and Company Building. She is here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio. Really nice to have you. How are you? Thank you? I'm well, it's great to be her, Carol Thing. It's great to have you here, and I want to talk
about your book. I want to ask you, though, I feel like Claire, everybody's talking about people management, especially coming off the pandemic. What have we all been doing often so wrong? And what have we maybe realized as a result of the pandemic what we were doing so wrong? Well, I think that what we've probably done is thought that just people management will come naturally to us and the pandemic. No,
it doesn't, But I do think it's learnable. I mean, I think a lot about scaling people is just like, let's break down some of the stuff that happens in private, the one on ones, the performance conversations. Let's expose what happens, but actually do the work. Because actually doing that work
and investing in people. And I agree with you and the climate we're in right now, if you're not investing in yourself as a leader and manager or in your talent, you're gonna have a problem because you need more out of them, and you can't let growth paper over challenges. I mean, I do think the pandemic cause more disconnection, So if you're not reconnecting, it's going to get worse. And that doesn't change when we get into a softer
labor market. What's your take on that. I think the best companies make this investment, no matter what I do think though in a softer labor market, sure people start taking some things for granted, but I don't know. I think one of the things that bothers me often is companies Obviously they're obsessed with their business, with their product, with their growth, but you're people for a lot of companies are what's producing all of that. And the whole
hypothesis of scaling people is you want great results. This is the investment you make because in the long term, that's what's going to produce them. I have to say it's like a handbook, like as I go through it, like I'm assuming that that's what you meant for it to be, and you've got some great What I like is though great quotes from some leaders. You've talked to a lot of people in terms of what it is, What is though the biggest mistake that people kind of make,
or what as you talk to leaders? So, yeah, it is more like a reference manual. So scaling people is just not really to be red cover to cover. It's more look in the table of contents, what is the thing you're working on? Is it team development, is it company building, operating structures, is it performance feedback? Is it your own career? And you'll find a section in the book and also, yeah, quotes and excerpts from a lot of different material what do people get wrong in management?
There are two things that I think often happen. One is thinking you need everyone to like you and you're not your team's best friend. I'm sorry. And the other is not you need to manage different people differently. And I think a lot of people take the Golden rule. Well, I'm going to manage people the way I like to be managed. But guess what, they're different than you. It's like the opposite of the Golden rule. What motivates them,
what kind of challenge? How do they take feedback? You need to be studying your team and yourself to understand how to adapt and adjust. And I actually think it's very doable. But maybe the third mistake is not taking the time to do it well. It's interesting too, And I think about as you were helping Stripe, as you were working at Google, right, building out these incredible companies, right, but at some point it's probably crazy. You're running after
a million different things. The last thing you're like, all right, what is Joe need or what is Jay need? In terms of an employee? But it's really important, it is. It is at the end of I think the longest chapter in the book is about hiring. Yeah, and at the end of the chapter, I found myself because it's true. I've been in very high growth environments. I've been part of building too, you know, arguably pretty definitional companies Google
certainly and Stripe we hope to be. And at the end of the chapter, I found myself writing, if you've gotten to this point, you probably think I'm insane for recommending all of these things that you need to build and want to build into your hiring and your onboarding process. And it's very tactical. They're they're like specific steps, right,
and how to interview and teach interviewing. I said, but you know, if you believe talent is everything you know, or that hiring is everything, then talent is everything and
your hiring process has to reflect that. Well. It's interesting because I do feel like in part of the narrative, the corporate narratives, certainly coming off the pandemic right, certainly coming off of George Floyd and everything, it's people, you all matter, and so on and so forth, and you know, the working from home, do what you need to do. But I do feel like I wonder if the narrative, maybe the narratives there, but the actions are right, And what are you seeing or what do you think does
it just that something change. Here's what I worry about in that, which is there seems to be something soft in saying people investment or people matter, when in fact, I think the best places, the best managers and leaders have very high standards but also deep devotion. Right, It's the marriage of the caring and the expectations. And I worry people were like, well, we've got to just take our foot off the gas because yeah, there was a pandemic.
Terrible things have happened in this country and around the world, and it is very hard and people are tired. But you know what, we want to be inspired. We want to be inspired by where we work and the people we work with. And if you don't have a high standard coupled with that empathy and that devotion and that investment, you're not doing your job and you're not going to
get the results. All right, So, because you're here and you have this incredible background, I only have a couple of minutes left, so you have to promise you if you're going to come back, because but tell me about some of the interesting trends that are going on. We're talking so much about aim. What is it that you find it you're at Google. I mean the Moon's like, you know, there's just so much stuff. What is it that you find interesting? I love working with founders, and
I love all of the things that are happening. You're absolutely right. It's you just turn around and there's an exciting project happening in any in lots of companies of all sizes. I think AI is real. It is incredibly innovative. But what's really interesting about it to me is it's less of a technology that is like there's one or two winners ye, kind of a thing, right, like an Android and an Apple. Right. This is much more fragmented and dispersed, and it's very accessible to a lot of
different companies. It'll be very interesting to see how people how companies sort of innovate around AI as part of their core business. And I think a lot of the best companies will. We only have about forty seconds left. Is it a conversation you guys are having about I think every company. I'm a bunch of boards too. I'm on the board of HubSpot. Every company is having that conversation. Really really fascinating. I have a million more questions working
from home, is it here going to go away. I think some version of it is here, but it means you have to be in person on some regular basis in my opinion, all right, come back. Scaling People. It is her book. It really is a handbook. It's pretty incredible. It's very dense, but we kind of love that it's entitled Scaling People Tactics for Management and Company Building. Our thanks so much to our guest Claire Hughes Johnson, Corporated officer and advisor to Stripe, former CEO Stripe, joining us
here in our Bloomberg Business Week studio. Thank you again, great to be here. Loved it, loved it. You are listening in watching Blueberg Business Week on this Tuesday. Just a reminder of how we closed in terms of trading, just down about one and a half percent on the S and P five hundred, a decline of one point seven percent on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nazik a decline of one and a quarter percent. This is Blueberg Radio