Hey, everybody, and welcome back to Resilience Unravelled. And today I have, through the second time of asking my friend here, Jason Shen, who's joining me from where in the world, Jason?
Jason:I'm here in Brooklyn, New York, so it's great to be here. Russell.
Russell:Good. And I already feel the need to sing the song, but I'll restrain myself because no one needs that. So, tell us a bit about you, Jason.
Jason:Well, I am an executive coach. I work with founders and leaders who want to navigate, change and swing bigger at the projects that really matter today. I want to talk about resilience. I want to talk about pivots. I want to talk about this book that I've been writing around helping start-up founders pivot their companies. And it's just great to be here.
Russell:Cool. Well, look, talk to me a little bit about your experience in the commercial world because I know this is actually quite interesting. So, take us through that.
Jason:Sure. I was always interested in computers growing up as a kid and studied biology at Stanford, which was sort of science oriented. I didn't really understand software engineering per se wasn't quite my thing. And when I got to Stanford, because I grew up in New England, I finally learned about Silicon Valley. I learned about start-ups. I really just wasn't that aware of what was out there. And it's sort of like that exposure. And then spent the last 14 years working in marketing roles, product management roles, started several companies, a Y combinator backed ride sharing company before Lyft and Uber was really quite large. And then later a hiring business that we pivoted into a gaming AI company. And that was ultimately exited to Facebook, where I spent a couple of years leading product teams inside of.
Jason:You know, I think what I do now really is informed by all those different experiences in small companies, big companies, in a wide range of industries.
Russell:Right. And so, what's interesting about the technology world is that things move fast. And you've mentioned this word pivot a few times. So, let's talk about pivot in the sense of an organisational pivot, because obviously there's a pivot in terms of personal development, but let's bottom that one out first.
Jason:Yeah. So, I think what happens in a company pivot is that the company is moving in a certain direction. They have a certain problem that they're trying to solve, a certain audience that they're solving it for. They have a particular way that they're trying to solve that problem, and they have a way of making money from that solution. And typically, there are some iterations and minor changes to parts of all of those aspects. But often companies come into a point where something major has to change. For instance, the audience might, you might start with doctors, and you go to nurses. That's not too big of a change. But if you went from doctors to hospital administrators or accountants, all of a sudden, it's a pretty large change. And that affects the way you talk about the company.
Jason:There's a lot of people who were using it who aren't going to use it anymore. And so often those transitions for early-stage companies are very common. And in fact, this one venture capitalist, Fred Wilson, has kind of looked at his own portfolio and found that most of the companies in his portfolio, this was back in 2007, had gone through what he called either a complete or a major transformation of their business. And the companies that were sort of, in his view, failures, were less likely to actually have gone through that transformation. The winners tended to be more likely to have done it, which suggests that this is actually an important step in a company's evolution.
Russell:So what tends to happen in the pivots? Is it obviously a resetting of strategy and goals and such like, but also is it transitioning people in some sort of way? What does it look like practically?
Jason:Well, let me tell you what I see when I work with founders who are doing this is they typically wait too late to do the pivot in the first place. We all sort of learn, don't give up, never quit. And there's all these lessons of entrepreneurs who just stuck it out and then they eventually did it. And so, I think many entrepreneurs try to do that. And then it's only when it's so obvious that things are not working and they don't have a lot of time left that they sort of do this Hail Mary, this sort know, pray, and we're just going to change a lot of things all at once. And I think that is dangerous. And, yeah, you have to cut people. You don't have a lot of time. You're sort of making a swing in the dark.
Jason:And what I really recommend is actually making that change earlier so that you have a little bit more time, you have a little more patience that you can have towards the new things you're working on. You're not working under such pressure. And yes, sometimes you do have to change personnel, but it gives you a little bit more time to see who can handle the transition. Right. If you don't have a lot of time, you just sort of have to make some cuts. Maybe you have to make a lot of cuts and just go with it.
Jason:When you start a little bit earlier and you give yourself time to kind of explore the pivot, you can see who's comfortable in this space, who maybe steps up to the plate, who you thought was actually great, but actually is kind of like needed that stability and can't deal without it. And you can make more informed decisions about personnel and all the other choices you're trying to change with the business at the same time.
Russell:And what's fascinating about organisational pivots is, especially when you're working with funders, which I know you do, it's often the people that found the firm initially who are the problem. They are the people who get in the way of the scaling process. I wonder what your experience is with.
Jason:Know it's true that there are entrepreneurs who really struggle, who struggle in one capacity than the other. And it's more rare than common to see a founder like a Bill Gates, a Steve Jobs, or a Mark Zuckerberg, who kind of carry the company through this extended period more often. And the founder that took it to this point eventually took the chairman role. And now with the IPO, he can kind of step off the board. And they actually took a meta executive who spent ten years inside the company, rapidly growing. She was the one who kind of came over and helped take that company to the next step, because you've sort of seen what that scale looks like.
Jason:A lot of entrepreneurs love that creative energy and the kind of the excitement and the no rules that sort of come with the early parts of the company. But then you do need someone who's oriented differently, who can kind of say, no rules are important, process is important. I coach a client right now who is himself part of that transition. He's trying to make the transition where he was part of the cowboy era, and now he's trying to set more structure, even though he also kind of enjoyed that period. He's trying to evolve and so working. I'm not saying that it's not possible. Right. You can work with leaders to kind of develop a new capacity, but it requires almost their own pivot in their leadership approach and the way they do it.
Russell:Yeah. And so, you mentioned resilience earlier on. So, resilience is often described as coming back from a failure. But what you're saying is you need to adapt first before the failure arrives, is that right?
Jason:Yeah, I think we all have slightly different views on resilience. And there's a lot of ways to look at it. To me, resilience is all about adapting in the face of challenge or change. And that challenge can be, we failed at something, and how do I live with myself and move forward from it? Or it could be something more specific, like, oh, the market conditions have really evolved, and we thought we could raise around, and now we can't, and we have to do something different. And so, organisations often get really good at handling a particular system, and then they struggle with the change. But let's talk about personal resilience, too, because I think that when you support the leader and the leadership that's trying to make the change and the people, it makes the organisational change a little bit easier.
Jason:And I think that you hear this a lot, but it's always hard to dedicate the time to it. But taking care of your physical body and taking care of your creative and emotional needs ends up being really important. Right. Like, I have several clients where when they deal with stress, they get in the gym, they're doing their weight training, or they're doing their boxing workouts, where they can really disconnect. Right. Because part of the challenge with something new happening is that it takes over your brain. You become anxious. You become sort of worried. You feel like you need to devote more brain power to solving this problem, and that's good, but you also need that time to kind of really separate.
Jason:And so for some people, it becomes this physical thing where if you're lifting heavy or you're running and training, you can't really think about your problem, right. And you let your brain rest. Similarly, for some people, it's like if their work is monotonous or they're kind of grinding through something, having that creative outlet. I have two different clients who are doing, like, music. So, music is their sort of outlet where they can kind of play and have fun and maybe get out some of the sense of autonomy. Right. Because sometimes you got to go back to work and the company needs this one thing, and you just have to deliver that one thing. Even as a leader, you sometimes feel constrained. And so having that creative outlet can be really powerful.
Russell:Yeah, that's good advice. But it's interesting, isn't it? Because what you're talking about here, having a creative outlet, some people call that talking about their emotions, spilling their guts. I noticed you've talked about that yourself. But there are various different cultural considerations here. Different cultures find that different, don't they? Maybe you could say a few words about that.
Jason:Yeah. I mean, culture and everyone kind of comes at this a little bit differently. I do notice a difference between when I coach men and women, for instance, right. Sometimes women, when I work with them, often they're more in touch with their emotions. They have a finer tuned sense of where they're at, and maybe they feel more open to kind of sharing that and using that as a release mechanism of the emotions are expressed, and then you can kind of clear them and move forward. Right. Some of my male clients, some of my, I'm Asian American, and I work with Asian American clients and non-Asian clients. And I have seen that sometimes my Asian clients, it doesn't come as naturally to them, right.
Jason:It's something that maybe they were taught to sort of keep a lid on their feelings and on their emotions, or it's a point of vulnerability. I think a lot of men feel that being too expressive of sorrow or fear or these other emotions can be considered unmasculine weak, that sort of opening for attack.
Russell:But that's fascinating, isn't it? Because what you're talking about, there are people from an Eastern culture, and they've come to the West. And actually, what you're adopting is a Western approach, which often is based on the Eastern philosophies. And so, it's OD where what Buddhism is a lot about is about inner work. It's about inner peace. It's about self-reflection, it's about self-change, that sort of stuff. And it seems to be more of a Westernised approach to be doing the endless chatting and jabbering and talking and such like. So, I wonder how you marry together those two different sorts of paradigms.
Jason:Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because, one, Buddhism has really shaped a lot of parts of the west too, over the last hundred years or so, right? And we think about that sense. A lot of these enlightened alien races in science fiction always are kind of like vaguely Buddhist in nature, right? They sort of mastered their emotions and they're a higher order or something. And I also think that the immigrant experience is relevant, right? Like Asians in Asia versus Asians in the know. The immigration process is a very brutal one. It's a very grinding one, where some lessons are learned in that process of, like, you really have to rely on yourself. You don't have a lot of eastern typically are more collectivist societies, but you don't have that support system in America. So, you actually are in the West.
Jason:So you develop almost like a different mentality of, like, you must rely on yourself. Don't let others sort of take advantage of you, and then those lessons then get passed down to the children who are now kind of like navigating different. You know, I was born in Suzhou, China, but I've kind of placed myself in these one and a half generations of like, I didn't really have that much exposure in Asia before I kind of came to the US. But then I compare that to my wife, who was born in the US, and there's still a difference. I knew that I was an immigrant and I almost have this gratitude of just saying, hey, look, I'm glad to be here. I could have grown up there and I don't think my life would be the same.
Jason:Whereas for her, it's like she's Asian American, but she's born in America and she's like, hey, this is always my birth right. Why are you treating me? That's the conflicting values are at play. So, I think everyone comes into this from their own cultural, like the larger cultural heritage and then the immediate family heritage of their environment.
Russell:Yeah, it's fascinating. Very good. So why coaching? Why not other forms of development?
Jason:Well, I first experienced coaching through my career as a gymnast. So, I was actually in gymnastics for about 16 years, competitive at the national level, United States, and on the collegiate level. And so, coaching to me, always started with, hey, we're going to develop you as an athlete. And I appreciated so much the transformation, the growth that I had as an athlete receiving coaching. Then over the years, I've received life coaching, executive coaching during my entrepreneurial journeys and in my career. And to me, it just feels like the right step forward. I think when I told I started coaching while I was at Meta after the acquisition of my start-up, and I just kind of threw up a web page and I started to entertain clients. And there was a certain satisfaction in doing that I felt really connected to.
Jason:My father's an educator, my mother's a gymnastics coach herself. So, I think there's always, to me, a marrying of the direct, hands-on work with individuals, with. I write a newsletter; I've written articles for a number of publications of the teaching and the sort of frameworks. This book that I'm working on, and writing is a form of that. So, I think that coaching, and I'm sure you've experienced this too, right? It gives you a lot of insights, right. As you work with the clients, you learn a lot and then you write that down and then the writing reaches new audiences, and those people might write back to you and give you, their feedback. And so, to me, it feels like a really lovely cycle of learning, supporting and then learning again.
Russell:Yeah. And I think that's the point, isn't it? I think people undervalue the love of learning. I think people forget that resilience is actually about learning. And it's interesting, your point about pivoting, because that's about learning and its sort of become unfashionable to talk about it, which is a shame. Ready? Because actually, it's the point I would suggest that's such a great point, right? That a lot of folks feel like, oh, well, I finished school, I'm not a junior worker anymore, I'm supposed to have all the answers. I don't need to really learn. The time for learning is over. When, that's sort of silly, isn't it? There's always room for more learning. And I think that brain plasticity, you know, some of this, and even, like, physical capacity in even older adults, they've shown that our brains, our bodies can still respond to training, can still respond to these new stimuli, and we sort of short-change ourselves if we say, well, that's it, I'm putting a cap on who I am anymore. But there is a sense of vulnerability that has to emerge. If you're learning that, you have to admit that you don't know or you're uncertain. I don't know.
Russell:Have you seen that in your work? How do you help people navigate that, allowing themselves to say they don't know?
Jason:I think it's a fascinating concept, isn't it? I think there are a number of different types of problem here. One which is the person that doesn't know what they don't know. And the second one is the person who has an ego that gets in the way of themselves. One of the classic things is the problem with development and the sort of process side of it, which is very hard for senior executives to go on training courses, which is where executive coaching really found its feet, really sort of take the board away, take a senior executive away and sit down, say, let me work with you and such like. And I think that's where coaching has really embedded things in. But years ago, I remember reading a book called the Fish Roth from the Head, which is a great title.
Jason:And I have to say that having read the book, it was the best thing about the book. But the point of the thing saying is that the exponential return you get if you develop the most senior people in the organization is something that's really forgotten. And so, people are very prepared to get development for people low down in the organization because there seem to be somehow a gift that we give them. But actually, the gift for the whole organization is for the CEO and the top team to work out the number of times on change programs that I've rocked up at the behest of a CEO or a board or a CFO or CTO, whatever it might be, and said, this is the issue. And within the record 3 seconds, you know that they're the issue. It's not the people, it's not the issue.
Jason:It becomes quite wearing after a while. I've got a special tool that helps us point out where the issue sits that's called, now hold up a mirror and say, just try this one.
Russell:But that's quite interesting, isn't it? It's tough to work through their ego to help them. You almost have to slowly let them through this process where they come to realize that it's their own behaviour that's creating some of the problematic results that they're seeing because they have so much influence over what's happening. And when they use it in an unskilful way, let's say they create results that they're unhappy with. And it's like, who do you have to blame? The line worker who doesn't make too much money and doesn't have a lot of training and not a lot of influence, or you.
Russell:And that's the point of a coach, isn't it? The point of a coach is to be able to hold that mirror up and be able to work with someone in a way that's significant for them. And that's the interesting thing about style and chemistry and such like, which is such an important part of coaching. You have that first meeting where you sit down with a CEO, whoever it is, whatever level, and you figure out can you work together? Because to get the best out of the coach, it's good to let the coach be themselves. And sometimes that can be great. And sometimes I know as you've done this, you need more than one, or you need to have one for a few sessions and another one for a few sessions.
Russell:And I think it's something that happens of professional supervision with psychotherapists and counsellors, very rarely with coaches, you have professional supervision required as part of your development. And the encouragement is to have different forms of supervision. And I think that's great. If you're a chief exec, just as you said as a gymnast, if you're a professional athlete, you have a squad, you have a posse of coaches, why wouldn't you do that as a CEO? And I work with people who are really enlightened, and they're the people that have the coaches and they don't just have one. So, it's possible that you and I and Jason can be collaborating.
Jason:I would love that. I think that there's good cop bad. There's, there's so many different ways to coach. And I think your point about the relationship and the dynamic there is so important. I think that there's a time and a season, right. I've had three different coaches in my own professional journey, and I think each one of them contributes something different. So that's part of it, too. Right? As a coach myself, I'm continuously experiencing different people's modalities. So, I kind of also, I go to workshops, I go to events, and I'm like, oh, I liked that, or I wouldn't do that. And finding your own rhythm and style builds your own confidence as a coach.
Jason:And then that instils the confidence in the client because they see that you can be open in your own skin and you can be vulnerable, and you're sort of okay with that. And by demonstrating that, it hopefully opens the door for them to kind of engage with those behaviours as well.
Russell:Yeah. And, of course, if the coach themselves isn't constantly learning, as you've just been demonstrating that you do, then actually you've got a problem on your hands. Because if the advocate for learning isn't learning themselves, that's a challenge.
Jason:No, that's not going to work out, is it?
Russell:Good. Excellent. Well, tell us about this book and how people find out more stuff about you and how people can contact you.
Jason:Absolutely. So, the path to pivot is a playbook for venture backed start-up founders who are hitting that point where their growth has really stalled out. They've made some progress, but it's not enough. And now they're wondering what to do. And it helps them go through the process of deciding whether to grit and stick it out, pivot and change or quit and go do something else. And so, this book will be out in the end of October. So probably around the time when this episode is coming out, they can learn more about me, and we'll have a special page set [email protected]. Resilience Unravelled so they can learn more and receive some of these first chapter, a couple of case studies of example pivots. If this is something they're into and more about, meet. So, thank you so much for having me on the show.
Jason:I'm really grateful for what you do. And I do hope we can collaborate in the future.
Russell:Let's do it. Okay. You take care.
Jason:Thanks. Take care. Glad we could make this happen. Have a good one. We'll talk soon.
Russell:All the best.