Welcome back to the hustle podcast. Usually I talked with product leaders in design leaders, but today I have a very different kind of guest for those of you that know me, you know that I treat my company and all of our programs like a product, and one of the best tools that I have to do that is having a support system of people that can help me out with a lot of different leadership warranted stuff. Today I'm joined with Jen Dairy. She's the founder of plucky and as an awesome leadership coach. Her company, Plucky, works with individuals and companies to create healthy dynamics at work, from coaching to consulting, plucky helps leaders, managers, teams and employees find ways to be successful together because the truth is, as she says, we're all still learning. Jen and I have been working together for,

I don't know, a year or two now and the kinds of conversations that we have, the things we talk about or just awesome, and I thought that it would be really good to have her on the on the show and un impact some of the stuff that it really does affect teams So, Jen, why don't you introduce yourself to the listeners and then maybe tell us about plucky what the company's mission is and what you do every day?

Sure. Hi. Hello, listeners. So I'm Jen and I run plucky from Berkeley, California, which is where I live with my husband and two little sons. I ran plucky from home. At this point, it's just me, and I do have an awesome assistant who helps to handle the logistical stuff day today. But what my work is most days is leadership coaching. So I do that always be a zoom, actually, and that means that I'm talking to people who are either currently in management roles or moving towards management or leadership roles. So they're emerging leaders, and it's in a confidential context to talk about some of the hardest parts of that job.

And I think we'll probably get in tow specifics about what's hard about managing humans. But it could be really good to have somebody who is third party who's not in the orc chart and who has no jurisdiction over whether you get a raise or get denied a raise. Nothing like that could be really good to talk to somebody like that, and I spend by non coaching hours with plucky leading workshops. Sometimes I go out anywhere, treats with companies and teach workshops about how to have hard conversations, how to make your career path, things like that. But my biggest initiative lately started last year, and I run a two day workshop every quarter called. So now you're a manager because I really felt like there was major space in the market for a culturally appropriate solution for emerging leaders to gather for a couple days and learn some of the intricacies of human relationships. And so that's what I spent a lot of my time doing.

That's awesome. What, do you talk a little bit more about the So now you're a manager event? What kind of folks

go to that? Well, what's really funny? Actually, Anthony, is that I So obviously, I'm coming from kind of a tech background, not because I'm technical, but because that is agency life. You know where I sort of got my start an employee development stuff and so one things. Oh, this is a tech conference, and it kind of is, I mean, there's a lot of designers and developers who have moved into management roles who come? It's explicitly for folks who are less than five years into their management career. But I make a really hard push to make sure we diversify that crowd,

too. So I always comp a ticket for a nonprofit to attend As one of the 20 attendees. I think it's really important for us, especially in the tech space, who, you know a lot of us have very our access to much bigger budgets than a nonprofit Everwood. And it's helpful and grounds the room that everybody realizes like, Oh, wait a second. Actually, the management work that we're all doing is very similar, regardless of you know, what company is sort of stamped on your paycheck. So we have a nonprofit presence, and, you know,

I've also started to see some, like maybe I'll say, like cousin verticals to tech. Start attending some media and advertising, and certainly product companies come a bunch. What else is coming in next month? I got a couple of charter schools, so education are starting to send people, and it's always like, really exciting when there's a diverse group of people together, because they realize that Oh my gosh, you have the same problems as me. And it is not that I am not a good manager. It's just that this stuff is

hard, you know? Well, maybe let's start there. Let's start at the top level. What? What? What are the most common challenges that leaders are facing, at least in terms of the aggregate of the folks you work with?

So I think I'll break that up into two thoughts. The first is people kind of your level, right? So people who are either founders or who are have the keys to the kingdom in their hand, they kind of can make all the executive decisions as needed for you all. I think what I hear a lot about is howto create vision for where we're going and how that vision matches. Or it doesn't match the people that are already on the boat and and also just the confidence to make that vision like who are you? God, Yes, actually, in those tiny circumstances you are, you know, you two get to call the shots, but that's a lot of pressure and a lot of responsibility toe to feel confident in the ways you could dictate market, you know, in the next three years, like that's hard stuff.

So having somebody talk about that is pretty common equally. I think this is across the board, not just for folks that the highest ranks, but confidence and just knowing yourself and knowing what you want. I think what is true again across the board is the sense of creator grief, particularly in our vertical where, you know, folks used to be the makers. They made the thing, they designed the thing or they coated the thing, and now they don't do that anymore. And so that Identity Quest is really tricky. Like what? Whom? I now that I managed the paperwork for the people that make the things there is not only you know, a change in what your day to day calendar looks like,

but definitely the way you feel successful or not. At the end of the day and how your creativity it's just scratched, and all the ways that you saw yourself in your career going, it just really changes to a new ballpark, and I think there's a lot of space there to get creative about realizing that you actually are still designing, right? You're designing a team, and you can think about the different people on the team as feature sets and you know who who might we pull into the steam next to make sure that were, you know, moving in the right direction. But I definitely always give a lot of space for that grief that happens and try to reroute people towards other, whether it's side projects or other, you know, extracurriculars on the weekends and evenings to make sure that they are not fully leaving that feeling behind when it comes to the newer managers. Oh, man,

I mean, I think it's definitely this major question of like, Am I moving in the right path? Did I just grew up my whole life by saying yes to management and equally, Is this the only way I will ever make more money? Right? Like we have this kind of synonymous feeling with career path these days that in order to move anywhere in your path, your career path, you've got a go up the ring of management, and I think that's busted an old school and no longer true for a lot of more modern companies that there are definitely two paths, at least one of which is towards mentorship and managing. But another is towards like a really deep expertise in a field where you become a thought leader and a speaker and a writer and those sorts of things. And I think they're both really valid. And for companies that embrace seniority in both directions, you're going to retain people a lot longer because they're going to see that there is not just one way to do things. Wow, Okay, so

much, so much to impact there just to respond to what you said, yes, absolutely created. Knowing how to create and communicate vision is probably the hardest thing that I've ever had to learn how to do. Yeah, and it's because, you know, I you know there's a lot of lot of reasons, but it's a it's a completely different skill, and you also have thio, you know, You know, if you're working with the leadership team, it has to. It has to be communicated in a way that really makes sense and furthermore like even if you even if you can communicate it, someone gave me an interesting quote the other day the quote was something like People here you the first time,

the seventh time you tell them and and, ah, it. But it's really hard to create vision right and communicate it and then re communicate and re communicated, re communicate and then create goals around that hold people accountable. It's really, really tricky stuff. And if you're you know, if you're a designer, that or an engineer, that creates a company that, you know, you're not really thinking about having to do that right. Chances are you're like, you're just trying to like you, said users.

You know, the skills that you know, we're paying the bills to start a company. And the other thing about you know, your point on designing teams. That's also really relevant to me because, you know, I was going through a lot of deep depression before I'm before we started our coaching relationship, where I almost there is pointed times were almost quit the company because I wasn't designing and I felt like I didn't need to be on the payroll. But once I realized that like the program of employees experience and the disciplines and all the things that we're creating was act was was actually designed challenges. It really, really changed everything. Then on your point of management. Yeah. I mean, I see it a lot,

you know, You know, being that I hear a lot of people, you know, people are so eager to get that, you know, first sort of creative director job or whatever, but they don't really realize what that job entails or they, like. You said they think that the only way that they can grow, he has to go down management track. And that's something that I that I wanted to be proactive about, like I never I never wanted someone to choose a management track because they felt that was the only way to, like they were gonna grow. So, yeah,

I had to. We had to. We had to make sure that people could grow as independent contributors. Well, and so, Yeah, I like that. I I think I agree with you like those air really meaty stuff. And as Segway into good Segway into

the next question, we'll wait before you go there. Can I push you on something? Okay. So even your thought about going back to the idea of needing to create vision right for a company and that that's definitely part of your job. These days, I wonder. I've never been a designer, but I wonder if there's any metaphor underneath this that you feel could be relevant for designers who are listening where, actually they they are definitely creating vision for something, and they need to convince a client about it, usually right. And is there anything that you pull from in your previous experience as a designer that you leverage as a fundamental leader with regard to company vision? Even though it's not made of pixels,

I'll try the best I can. And you know I have, you know, for those listening. And I'm not a seasoned CEO. I'm just was a designer that started a business and had a decent business model, and people hire us, and we're lucky enough to have cash in the bank to be thinking about creating a vision. But I think, yeah, there's a couple of like frameworks, you know? Obviously, I'm a big believer in this sort of why I like getting to the why I don't I really don't think that people wanna work for your company or your team or buy your product or service is or or hire your agency because of what you do. They, uh all these decisions were made because why you do it? And so I think for me the most critical element,

which is similar to say, like designing a product right there, it has to solve a core need. And there has to be a realtor tangible need or emotional desire to want to associate yourself with it. And I think that's similar for creating vision, cause you can't really creative vision until you know your Y and then you have to create core values. And then you have to make all these decisions based on that. For example, we redefined our why it hasn't changed much, but very defined, Like why we exist on why we're gonna do this in one of those things. Is it aligns to our core vision of or you call like maybe a product principle of well, collaboration is keen, right? So that indicates to us that like, Okay,

we're not gonna do staff augmentation because that's not collaboration that doesn't align with our vision. We're not gonna grow that way. you know, some some of those things, right? Some of leveraging some of those tactics of, like, you know, designing delightful products. You know, when making hard product decisions are in a way, it's kind of similar. But, you know, and in dreaming, right,

the true North. Like if you're designing a product, you know, you can't just be thinking about what you're doing this week or next month or next quarter. You have to be doing this week next month in this quarter. But you also have to be thinking about where you're going, where this product or program or company is going to be next year. Three years later, five years out. And you have to dream big. I have something to work towards because if you don't dream big enough, you're never I don't think you can sort of reached the height that you really need to get to where they're designing a product or a company. So

I tryto like you

think of it that

way. I mean, I think what's really beautiful about that is that I obviously totally agree with you. I think you need a North Star. I think you need a big direction. It helps to leverage in a line everybody along the way. But there's also the hilarious reality that your giant beautiful dream every once in a while on like a Tuesday morning is gonna totally be counteracted in a tiny decision. You know, and that that's really too, that even when you're presenting designs to a client and they say, You know, I really hate the paint Can we change out toe orange or whatever? Like fundamentally, No, that's not what the picture looks like, right? And But every once in a while, perhaps there are tiny concessions that we have to make along the way. And I really feel like actually a big part of my job is the coach is to be ableto laugh about that with somebody and t o say Yep, perfect is not a thing.

Yep. And as long as you're trying, you know, like, you know, when we when we grew from, like, 8 to 10 to 12 or 16 whatever. You know, I had to tell my team like, Look, I'm not an expert

at this stuff. Yeah,

you know, and, uh, you know, I know that you need these things for me, and I'm trying to learn. But I want you understand that just like you learning, you know, your design skills. I'm trying to learn how to be a leader. And I think that, you know, management has to communicate with the rest rest of the team. It doesn't matter how big your your company is, but and I think people have to be included too, like, yes,

you said earlier like, Yeah, ultimately, owners Or, you know, sometimes heads a big departments are the ultimate, you know, decision maker. But it's better. Sometimes when you leverage your team to help you create that vision, it at least they'll get behind it better. And then you know what? Sometimes. And this is also hard for me. You have to know when Just say, you know what I'm making a final decision on this.

Yeah, I heard what you said. I'm making a decision. And that's something that you you've been helping me with because, you know, you can't always You're just no way you're gonna please everyone.

That's right. And it is hard to say that because it relies on a lot of trust, Right for you to say thanks everybody for your contributions. I'm going to go away now and think about this and come back with a final decision to move forward in order to be able to say that you need to feel like everybody is not gonna flip a table, depending on if they get their way or not. So their trust that all right, I might not agree with them this time, but I do think he's fair. And I do think he listens to opinions and he's not political, you know, like all those sorts of things. It relies on that trust, and that's why trust building is it's like self care, you know, it's like you don't realize you need it until you're really in a hole. And so, like practice of trust, building and trust exercises with the team all along the way, even in micro movements, is really important for the times. When you do need to make a tough call or unpopular decision,

let's dig in a little bit deeper. Leadership, management, ownership Is it the right path for everyone? How do you coach people in navigating those those questions?

Well, the great thing about humans is that they actually have so much more data to work from than they think. So if I'm talking to somebody who's wondering about moving out of an icy individual contributor role, I might ask. Okay, tell me about the other times that you ever let anything right or were responsible for other humans. And it's It's not like a black mark if if somebody doesn't have those experiences, but rather if somebody's telling me things like Okay, well, you know, I really loved being a camp counselor in this summer's Ah, I wasn't are in college. Um, I you know, I was a coach for O r like a tutor, you know, for other people in the writing center.

Oh, you know, when I was studying cops, I actually was a ta for classic those tiny opportunities where nobody's putting a gun to your head and saying Go B and R A. Right. Like there is some internal motivation that's pushing you to seek those opportunities where, like it or not, you're a little bit in charge, and maybe you're practicing mentor ship. And if there is any evidence of that and again, some of this is going back, you know, a long time like toe high school, even her middle school. In some cases, if you're seeing a human's path that has been dotted by those sorts of experience,

then I think that's like not a huge leap to imagine that that person would be really fulfilled by management experience again. I say that with the caveat that some companies are, you know, really dysfunctional with regard to their power structures. So make sure the company you're choosing is is like the right culture for you to manage also. But I think all that those little anecdotes that feel like they were not valid enough to put on LinkedIn. I really think that tells you the kind of person that you have in front of you now again, if you're a person that never had any of those experiences, that doesn't mean that you should move into management. It's just kind of like Then you start to ask more deeper questions like, Do you like teaching, right? Do you tell me about the times that you've spent leading in a team or being the big brother big sister on a team that people come to you with questions? What do you like about that right? And asking underneath what's going on, because really underneath what you want to say is,

What are you hungry for? Are you hungry to empower other people? Are you hungry? Thio get really, really, really good at something. And when you can identify that hunger and then apply it to the situation at hand, then I think you really start to get somewhere. And what I think is a strength of some companies is the ability to give people almost like a practice experience with management. So to have somebody manage an intern for a summer or you all have apprenticeships, right to have an apprentice kind of under their wing for a little while because I definitely have that experience in house where somebody was talking about really wanting to move in. Management got him an intern for the summer. By the end of summer, he was like, I don't want to do this anymore. I was like,

Great. I'm so glad we didn't, like, send you off in a new direction in your career and totally changed everything for you. Um, it was really good for him to practice that. And then now, of course, like 10 years later. I think he is managing and very happy with it, but just wasn't the right season for him to move into that at that point.

Yeah, yeah. I don't know if this is gonna work out, but one of the things that we decided that we would do we implemented this quarter was we wanted to make sure that there was a culture of mentorship across the entire company. You know, from the stuff that we do together to the way the leadership team works, too, you know, all all the roles. So everyone mentor someone you know, like, for example, are our director's mentor. Our leads, our leads meant our designers are designer's mentor, our apprentices and the spectrum is different, Right?

Cause, like a designer mentioned, an apprentice is not about like career mentorship. It's about how to be a better designer, right, and same with, like, design lead to designer. But from from director to lead, it's more about starting to build those those those leadership and management skills. And so we'll see. We'll see how that works out. But basic, basically, everyone on our team right now has a formal mentorship requirement

what I think is great about that. Anthony actually has nothing to do with Mentor ship. What I think is great is that you're experimenting. And that's another thing I would really encourage. Anybody listening to think about is give yourself permission to experiment, right, Ty saying you know what? We're gonna try this quarter window an experiment, and try a mentor ship situation where everybody gets men toward and then have the sense of humor at the end of the quarter to sit back in the room and say, Well, how that go, guys. And, you know, see if people are like, what a train wreck? Worst idea ever.

You have not sold the reputation of the company down the river. You rather came at it from an innovative sort of, you know, it narrative process of culture, and you allow that to fail while learning something about it. And that's really very bold as a culture. And I think organizations as a whole could learn a lot from that. But even if you're not in charge of your whole organization, you can just do that on your team. You can say, Hey, you know what? I've realized that we are all having some low morale lately because of the long days and late nights. So we're gonna experiment with is Friday's. We're gonna leave at three for the next month, right?

And be that manager and and give that decree and practice that and see how that goes for them or, you know, invent lots of other things. I always am telling people in my calls, As you well know, like, life is a giant sized experiment. Why do you try that for a while and then reflect on it and see what they think? And it really shows that you're very open to collaboration to

Well, hey, Jen, there's there's there's, like, three more big things we wanna I wantto like Get into here. And I know you have a limited time. So if you don't mind, I wanted to talk about, you know, a discussion point that you raised, which is the concept of how companies take on the traits of their leadership. E I thought that was really interesting. So why don't you unpack that a little bit?

So that came up. Anthony and I were talking for a quick second about sometimes I do something called employees Experience Audit, which means that I talked to a number of members of a team or a company, and I'm listening in confidential conversations, too, for patterns I'm trying to hear is the same phrase coming up is the same weakness coming up is the same strength coming up. And then I put together a document at the end of that for a short, medium, long term talent strategy for that team, our company. And one of the things that I notice is that quite often the strengths of a team, our company and the weaknesses or dysfunctions are a real mimic of Oran Echo, maybe, of whoever is leading it. So if you've got a risk averse CEO, for example, someone who's very nervous about changing anything up,

then that is going to trickle down into the culture and people are gonna be really nervous about stepping off of what the plan is. T Capital T Capital P right? If you've got a more sort of whimsical and like, totally like who cares about anything sort of CEO, then you're going to have a company that is, you know, pretty fuzzy in a lot of ways. and maybe not so tightened up in their accounting or not so not so intentional about all of their decisions Because okay, guys, it's about having fun, right? It's that sort of thing. And the thing is, I I don't know. My gut tells me that we all just want to be seen as doing well. And we we want to feel like we're doing a good job and we want to hear from the person we report to.

Hey, you're doing really good job with that. And if that all rolls up to one person, then yeah, whatever that person is commending or saying, that's you know that's not so good. They're gonna be true. You know, that's what's gonna set set that trickle down effect going and I can definitely see it. It's like I don't like to use the metaphor families so often because it's a little triggering for a lot of people. But I What I will say is it similar that if you see a family going through a divorce right and the the effects it has on all the different family members, that's the same. If you've got partners running a company and there's friction. They're right. Everything. Nobody's sure.

Like what team am I on? Is it okay to say that? Do we not mention that? Because Soon. So it's here, like those sorts of things. And so, at the highest levels, the best advice I can give is to make sure that you have your shit together. Like take, do self care. See a therapist as needed. Have a coach, if that's your thing. Like, make sure that you are trying to bring your healthiest, most positive but really self to the job because the company is going to mimic the way you

are. Uh, absolutely.

That resonated. Although you have you ever had a moment where that goes for you?

I think so, Like, I mean, if I just have to be really honest. You know, I think I can see some of the traits that I have that aren't the traits that I like the most. Sometimes I can see, you know, maybe people working that way. And you know, one of those traits that I don't like it, you know, I is that I have a really hard time with conflict. Yeah, you know. But I

don't I don't exactly.

Yeah, I have a really hard time with conflict, so it's really hard for me to deliver it. I do it, but it's really difficult for me to deliver tough conversations, but I try to balance it out. But yeah, I mean, I hope that I'm not setting a bad example. But also at this at this point in time, like our design directors are working more with our people on a day to day basis with their work. So I have I have kind of become more high level, like, where do you want to be in three years kind of thing, like, Is it at fun size? Or is it that you know what? Your dream job kind of conversations,

you know? What's funny is that the meta version of this for me, of course, is now, As of this year, I have my first employee, right? And so I can see this cross all these companies that you work with and then I'm like, Oh, God, what's going on? It plucky. That is because of something that I'm not good at, you know, and a za personality I get really excited about, like everything, and I wanted,

like any sky's the limit. I want to talk about anything. I could really meet any human. I'd be so curious about them, and I can. I started working with a marketing consultant couple months ago, and I can tell that, like when I first had to just tell him what plucky is a company like, You know, the conversation was like, three hours long, and I was like, Oh, God, I I probably need to focus a bit here in terms of product offering and even, you know,

client offering that I'm doing because plucky definitely did take that sort of liberal arts. We do everything approach because it's very much my personality. So I say all this lovingly, right? It's like I'm I'm totally in this boat, too.

Yeah, you and I are about to have our coaching sessions pop back up, so I'm Yeah, I'm really curious toe, you know, have other conversations and talk more about what's going on. All right, so let's see one of the things that we've kind of tiptoed around today, but that is also, like, really important to me is employees experience because, you know, to be able to do great things you need, people that have trust and you, you know, there's lots of different ways to build trust. We talked about some of this stuff.

People are most important assets, and I've always have had a very, you know, rigid, like strong approach to employ experience, even though I may not know how to do it. The best of like, it's something that I've like I've always been trying to champion. What are your thoughts on how companies or teams? How should they be thinking about employees experience like, What is an employee experience program really look like what you know, like, what does it take to truly do it? And what are some of the best outcomes you've seen? What teams that really do make employees experience a top priority?

It's such a good nut to crack well, one thing that comes to mind, first of all, is that a lot of the leaders that I work with it's been quite a while since they were an employee of someone you know, like it's been a long time since they've had a boss O. R. Since they've had practice not being the leader, and so I generally think it's a really good practice of leadership to make sure there is. I don't know. Let's just say on an annual basis on opportunity for you to be a student of something. So whether that is a specific class or again, maybe that's some sort of fitness thing, like maybe in your ear into yoga, where you go to CrossFit or, you know, whatever that is, because even this is like such a micro example.

But I really think it illustrates it. I had somebody tell me that because they don't know what kind of classroom there in. I think it was just like a seminar or something they went to, but they couldn't hear from the back of the room and because there was like airconditioning going and they just for totally forgot, because they're mostly in the front of the room, speaking at people that sometimes the experience of the listener in the room is completely messed up by something they had no control over. And so then, when they started speaking at conferences again, they would make sure you know, to spend one of the sessions listening for the back road just to get a sense for what? What their talk could be like in that room. And I think that's like a perfect metaphor that you're going to you know, you wouldn't design a product if you didn't talk to any of the users, right? So don't design a company if you don't talk to any of the employees about what they're looking for and what they're thinking about. I think that's a big win for leaders is to have that experience of not holding the talking stick all the time in a room and being a student of something,

I equally think that you should have a person who really loves people run that operation. You know, like I think hr uh, h r gets a bad rap. But HR is also kind of a miss. And they are, You know, the industry hasn't poor reputation because, yeah, it's seen as like, HR. They're gonna they have no soul and they're not gonna talk to you as a human. They talk to you as a

resource. And why? Because ah, the maybe some some people have the company's best interest in mind Or is that

Yeah, I think. I think definitely. You know, HR as an industry probably needs to reclaim its title if they want to shift the perception. But definitely that's the quick joke, right? Like Ohr is gonna cover the company's ass, not yours, right? Like they're gonna protect the company for being sued. That is, unfortunately, the reputation they have. I think we're getting out of it a little bit because we're naming things differently. So now we have people, operations or director of people or chief people officer and these sorts of things.

And so they're trying to sort of spin it in a more friendly, reclaiming way, which is more about employees experience. But you know, by and large, HR is not necessarily the person you want to go to when you're just feeling some imposter syndrome. You there who you're going to for sexual harassment, you know? And unfortunately, that concept has really gotten aggregate at this point. And so I think, um, e Ciara's a personality type is not maybe the most warm and fuzzy that we might assume. So. Therefore, if you are a leader and you're able to name the person in charge of employees experience or people operations,

try to choose someone who's gonna bring a personality to that. That that makes sense, right? Make give him a downhill battle to somebody that really loves people so much and has health beat healthy boundaries and is pretty self aware to head that stuff up because you're already gonna be, like, way beyond another company who has chosen somebody who, you know, is a pretend bookkeeper and really, really enjoy spreadsheets. Oh, shoot. And also now they have to coach people like That's weird, you know, like, make a good choice about who's gonna head that program up because they will. Their empathy will be strong,

and they'll have a heavy E. Q. I don't want to throw shade on any accountants, by the way, or star people or anybody else in the conversation. I just think that sometimes you have different personalities, and it's important to pay attention to who you're having in power, that people make sure that's a voice they want to listen to.

Yeah, awesome. Just a quick note. I was actually getting a demo today from one of the engineers at a company called Lattice. Have you heard of this software? I saw a billboard the last time I was in San Francisco and it said something like, Do also things your people. So I was like, Okay, I got to check

this out. So I

got I got a demo today, and I don't know this world all that well, but this tool is the first tool software that I've seen where it's all in one sort of employees experience solution,

So really? Okay, I'm gonna

look Yeah, it looks really cool. It's like on boarding leadership vision creation and then creating goals on that, assigning goals to disciplines and people. And it's got all this peer reviews. 360 reviews people, analytics surveys like everything that you could ever like hope and dream to have it. It seems tohave. It seems to have most all of it. One place. This isn't a promote promote to them, and they're not a sponsor anyway. But I just want to call them out because I think, you know, for people that really care about this stuff, this seems like a great tool to look into.

I think that's smart to even just mention the word tool because I think a lot about that, too. Obviously, there's a lot of different pieces of software out there trying to, you know, help people know people. And Teoh, you know, I have a product that's a pack of cards to help people have one on one conversations better. And I think if you are the kind of leader or manager who is researching tools to do your job better, that is an amazing thing to be conveying to anybody that reports to you or the employees who are around you. Because it means that you haven't decided that you know everything you know. It means that you're a person who's open to learning and open to thinking about new again tools to use that word that you wanna fold into this operation. And that's just like I don't know. That's a good vibe if you're a leader.

So I was reading an article of yours the other day. I It's still open in my browser. I haven't had a chance to finish it, but we're kind of related to this. It was about gardening your team. I was wondering if you if you if you have some tips that you wanna share about people, they're trying to grow the people,

sure, well, I wrote that article because s I live in Berkeley, the area Nobody has any square footage. Everything is really tiny. And I have Ah, small two bedroom with two sons and almost no yard. I just have this micro yard in in our friend area, and I've wanted to grow garden for a while. And so this year we got some pots like, you know, standing pots and whatnot. And so he said, All right, let's do a container garden. So we did tomatoes and strawberries and cucumbers and then some herbs and stuff, and that,

for what it's worth, has been a really good self care practice where in between, sometimes heavy coach and calls, I go outside and just water them or check on them or weed them and the whole time, probably because this is what I do every day for my work. The whole time I'm looking at these things, thinking, Oh, man, look at those two tomatoes. They're growing really close to each other like they're affecting each other's shape as they grow right. This one's getting flat right here because that was pressing against it, and then the strawberries and how the strawberries are like you know, trying to make new daughter plants all over the place, but then not producing fruit because it's spending its energy to make, like all these new projects basically in any way that it was so strong.

I wrote a piece of that, right, because it was it was fun to think about, you know? I mean, we are, after all, like a species, and and I think that walking around in nature makes me think a lot about organizations and structures and that garden peace was a good representation of where my brain was. That with all that,

I have to finish that. Then, Yeah, that's that's so crazy. Like it's I have two people that I hired for the same role and they worked together for quite a while. And what emerged was an entire new discipline for a company.

Yeah, we'll see. And yeah, totally. I think you follow the lead of the brilliant people that you higher also make sure it's in the company's vision, but they're gonna bring such good flourished Oh, what's already there.

So what does your future look like? What's next on the agenda for Jen? Dairy and plucky?

I think I'm trying to tackle the whole new manager experience. I think that is again sort of echo. What were saying earlier. I think that's the focus of where my next few years will be. I run this. So now you're a manager four times a year at this point, and I go to all different cities to do it because I feel really strongly that plucky is not a company that only serves the Bay Area in New York. But there are new managers in many, many places. And so I try to identify cities that you know either have child care for my kids Hardy har but riel fact or has, um, you know, event space, that they'll treat me for tickets or whatnot, But I really try to diversify that. And what I am currently trying to figure out is what does that alumni community of that program need after the fact? So we spent two very amazing days together.

It's really great. The peer networks that come out of that are so strong, and people really like each other and they have somebody toe paying everyone. So I'll be like a dude. Have you ever handled this situation and the slack channel has a lot of good thoughts. And, you know, I sort of curate that and put challenges in there every other Friday to them. And and now I'm trying to figure out where we go with that. There's a 1,000,000 different directions. I'm gonna be actually taking a little bit of a different year next year because I got into a program to write. Ah, book. We haven't talked about this at all in this podcast, but you know that I was sick a couple years ago. I was diagnosed with a brain tumor,

and I'm okay now, but I have a memoir in me to write about that experience. And so I have gotten into writing program. So starting in February, I will be working on a book, and, uh, it doesn't mean a lot for plucky other than I'm going to cut down on the travel. That isn't for the scenario manager stuff. I just won't do a ton of travel next year so that I could get a good for them. Yeah, and I've got a couple follow up products coming out after the one on one starter pack. I'll have ah stuff that tools that are gonna be really good for managers with regard to their peers and then even some swag at some point. So everything is so exciting, Like even just having this conversation on the go. I can't lose my company.

I'm like, so excited that it exists. And there's, like, you know so much. Um, you know, somebody paths in the future, and I'm really, really glad to be around for it.

That's awesome. So everyone please check out plucky. It's be plucky dot com. Look into the ah, awesome resource is that she has available. And also take a look at the scenario manager conference. Maybe I can convince you to do one in Austin. Fun size will donate this face. We have a lot of listeners in Austin. So those of you listening that you think you might want to attend one in Austin? Let me know when Maybe Aiken beg Jin to come down here. We also have childcare for you. Well, we have that solved. You wouldn't have to pay for it. We have a solution.

Oh, my God. So this networking covers well,

I selfishly want want you to do it because I want to send us many people as I can to the event, and I we really want everyone to go are a lot of people to go. But if I can convince you to come here, be, let it be a lot easier. So maybe

you Austin's on the short list for sure that a lot of people have mentioned that before. So let's

talk. Okay, let's do it, Jen, how How else can people connect with you other than, you know, contacting you for your website?

Yes. Oh, Twitter. I'm sure Anthony could drop some the links. There's my personal trainers. Jennifer Dairy, Um, beep. Lucky is Lucky's Twitter and then on Instagram be pluck stir. Somebody already had be plucky. So be bluster. I just I post a lot of stuff on there for plucky itself, but I also think that's through the lens of ah woman entrepreneur who is two days a week home with her kids. So sometimes I'm literally writing State of the Union's while my kids at gymnastics class or whatever, and that's just really so That's a good way. And then, of course, the traditional Facebook linked in, or just some animal hello at be plucky dot com. I always love hearing from people.

Awesome. Thanks for making time out of your schedule, Thio. Hop on the show. You know, we've been trying to do this for a while, so I really appreciate

it. Yeah,

everyone, thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time.

Thank you.

Hustle is brought to you by Fun Size, a digital service of product design agency that works with inspiring teams to uncover opportunities of all popular products. Bring new businesses to market and prepare for the future. Learn more fun size dot CEO I'm Paige, a product designer. Fun size. Nah, missed.