welcome to rework the boat. Guessed by a base camp about the better way to work and run your business.

I'm Sean and I, Whalen Wong. Last week we had clear Lou on the show. She is the CEO of Know your team, a software company that is trying to solve the problem of terrible bosses. And she has a lot of resource is about management and leadership in the workplace. And one thing that she has is a podcast called the Heartbeat podcast.

So today we're gonna bring you an episode of the heartbeat podcast that Claire did with our very own David.

Hi, Neumeier Hanson. Enjoy. Hi, everyone. I'm Claire Lou, and I'm the CEO of New York. And today I've got a super special guest with me. God, David had my hands. And who is the co founder of Base camp, along with the founder of Ruby on rails, which feel like half the Internet. It's built, including you, your company. And I'm lucky because David actually sits on our board to be bound to work pretty closely over the past few years. And I know I personally benefited as a CEO from a lot of your insights. And so I'm excited to have you here and ask you this one question about

leadership so I can't wait to be

Oh boy, it's Yeah, hopefully it's a question that here yet you're ready for. So my question for you, David, is What's something you wish you would have learned earlier

as a leader, you know? Wow, that's good question there, Steffy. There's tons of things. I think what I got exposed to early on leadership training was kind of like the negative end of it. I got to see a lot of really poor leadership. I got to see a lot of poor management, and I learned a lot from that. But there weren't so many positive examples from the draw for us. I mean, it's great to learn what not to do but so so good to have somebody. The import works one of the early principles and took from that which is like, Oh, I have experienced all these bad leadership moments where I least I'm not gonna do that like so let me just try to be or authentic in the way that I'm acting is leader, which means how would I like to be treated right.

So that was where a lot of it got driven for. And I kind of just got it going in that group and thinking like, Well, at least if I'm acting in ways where if I was on the other side of the table, yeah, I would feel good about it. But that's good, right? And I think that goes a long way. That goes, I don't know, half the way made, right? Yeah. And then the other half of the way is then realize that not everyone's like you. Not everyone would react the same way as you would in a certain situation.

So you can feel like what we put in Ford or what we're talking about. Like, be fair. I'm being on top of it, whatever, because I'm putting myself on the other side. But I'm putting myself on the other side. I'm not putting the person necessarily talking to one side, and I think that that was one of the things that I have to just learn to see that there were different reactions that I could for posting to talk with people in a certain way or trying to inspire people in certain way that I knew I would have reacted well to just through the experiences that I had. But then it didn't work for whatever reason, right? Because the person on the other on the end of this was not me, someone else. And they had different sensibilities, and they had different things that they responded Well, to think sometimes early on these, that led to some frustration. Yeah. Why can't you just get

it like this? Should

work exactly. This should have worked like I'm not. I don't feel like I'm being recently, I feel like because again, I'm putting myself on his side rather than be empathetic to my my own mirror image, right, Which is not actually a very good definition of empathy, right? Like you're tourniquets, you should get into the other person's shoots, right? Like I'm trying to get into my own role somewhere else, which is one good influence, but certainly not anyone, right? So, having just,

uh, picking up more on the inside and picking up on it's not just that, like someone is not me. It's that that person is different from another person's sticking from another person. So the way you talk to people the way you try to motivate them. The way you try to this fire, then they're gonna be different, right? Like even within the large group of people that are not me. I like there's false. It's individuals. It's out so obvious. But I think it's harder to summarize in Just say you're single thing and just, you know, you should do things this way. And then some number of people respond.

Wells that avenue. That's what he told me the right thing. Yeah, nurses, the people know, and in some cases, like the exact office, it right that works for one good one doesn't

work in a totally. I think it's so interesting because to your point, it's sounding off his own treat people where you would like to be treated this right Oh, does so obvious. And yes, it's absolutely not because your point is you. It takes some nuance and awareness to realize that, okay, every person isn't like me right there on the same experiences, tendencies, personality, and I think I mean personally, you know what I'm thinking about running your company can be hard to to feel that way, but it's I mean, you're kind of in your own bubble of e mean for you personally, Was there, You know,

moment that happened in the past 10 15 years is you're running base camp were, you know, kind of stares you in the face, and you're like, Oh, wow. Like, I think I'm putting myself on the other side and not actually thinking about

trying to sing a specific areas. I could take anything of specific characteristics, so, yeah, I have. Ah, Hi. Since emergency. So one of things, that sort of talent in this is to get a vocabulary to talk about personality differences and traits. And and Leni's Yes. Um, and we did a base camp a while back. Did they? Uh, I don't know what it was called. They never called it a personality test whenever that that's going on.

But it's Ah, Well, assessment of thing is finding strength. Find a straight fight is one of the way we did. We've done another. We used to have, like, an assessment. We did new hires. Cool. That was even more in depth than straight final semester states, right? Yes. Drink cider. Yes, Fighters.

I have a high level of urgency. I didn't have a lower score on thoroughness, and those things were frequently conflict. And there are people in the company to have run to be low levels of urgency and very high levels of Florence. So they really want to make sure that all the I's dotted and t strike that, whatever that cold some attention, right? Like I don't got a problem or I got a project and good night. We've been shipped this in two weeks and they go like, No, no, it's not because we're looking at things differently in the sense of how much hourly input, the new speed. When I think I'm chip this in two weeks. I'm not that, you know,

Chip is in two weeks. If we're worked 100 20 hours and what begins in whatever way, I think we could keep this in two weeks because I won't cut this corner that corner in this corner and I'll end up with a smaller problem that in some in two weeks, and I can tell that 40 hours a week versus there are other people in the company. You ever buy Tyr level thoroughness that will say through like all these other. Well, what about this? Educates? What about that education? What about this? And that's right, Does that case is totally balance. It's just in many cases, I'm just willing to trade off the bike. Then let's just launched and see what happens because what we launched by not being worth it at all. And then there's all those sorts of educations for something that just isn't done.

It doesn't go anywhere, right? I think even between Jason and I, we often have some of this tension because we have different sensibilities. Runs just happens to also have a very high level emergency. So there we have some common ground, but we have other sensibilities around like experiments. How much to invest up front? Experiment. I have a very round to be no Tom time. When put in the least amount, I can just get traveling, going and Jason's often more like No, that won't be a proper trial. You have to run, the more you spend more time on it,

Otherwise you won't get a violent results. So there's just all these inherit traits, I think like thoroughness or urgency intention, and you can often come in through these illusions of disagreement or attention or whatever, because people coming through from different, a little less over the chip is in two weeks. And someone was like, What the fuck you talking about? No, no, we could be that. We just don't talk about safe thing. You're talking about a version of the project that is embellished in all sorts of ways to deal with all these cases. It's completely reasonable to talk about that, right? And I'm talking about the version I have in my head that has,

like, cut off and my 2/3 Mr stopped out to get something out there. So this is just one example of something where you can get into conflict attention or miss each other because you're coming at it from different angles and the way that I'm posting things. I'm trying to talk myself, right, because that's the first bar clear. And I think most people don't even clear that bar, right? They're not. They're not treating others like they would be wanting to be treated themselves right. But if you hear that bar, then the next level is while you have to treat others like they want to be treated right. Not just like you would want to treat. Which requires all that additional level of empathy and insight into who are they, right? What are there strings?

Whether their sensibilities, what did they respond to? Yes, And once you unlock that, everything's become somebody took. I mean, it's not even one true locked up because you really, truly unlock that. But if these if you're trying right, you're making an effort to kind of understand who the recipient this, right? Yeah, absolutely. Which is funny, because I freaked when they have just internal tension with that in my writing, some riders thing like,

Oh, think about new reader and what they never do that Yes, I think the only way I can write in a productive managed to think about myself on the other side. What would I want to read? And again, that just tops out at some level, and I'm sure that's restricted in some levels in their waste. Perhaps some of the messages that we have could reach broader if we were better and more capable of writing for other people, not just for ourselves. I accept that limitation in my writing. I try not to accept that invitation invitation?

Well, and that's I was literally like the next question I wanted to ask him brought this topic because I completely agree that I think is a leader. There's almost sometimes it's fine. Line 20 wanting Thio. Push the company forward, Lead your team, inspire folks in a way where it's catering very much to the individual taste and profits of every impolite. But is there a line Teoh where you shouldn't do that or can't do that? Or, in a case of you can't make everyone in the company happy, right? Or can't fill every person's and sort of your present something in a way where every person you whether they're, you know, it's more thorough or they have a great sense of urgency. You're gonna feel good. Like, how do you use, like, find? Yeah,

I think it is. One of the things like, uh, math between two points is relatively simple. If you had 1/3 or fourth point and it's extremely ugly understanding hole, I tried not to like. I mean, I'm not even solved that point point part of the U. S. So don't try to necessarily solve the 34 point part of the puzzle. So I mostly used to stake me when I'm dealing with people want one in one time, once or in direct approach to like developing people when it comes to sort of broader initiatives on company level, when we're doing whatever it's there, but not as prominent because Jason, I have a tendency we fall back to like All right, well, there's two people.

They say There's Jason, there's me and we have different sensibilities. Even though there's some overlap it between the two of us, we could just sort of Joel understanding. I have somewhat of an idea of how this otherwise be perceived. That's kind of the best that were out, which is why this is confidence on it, like a curb. And I think that this is also one of those things where it helps to have a somewhat stable company. A lot of people have base camp we've been working with for many, many years. Several people were here for more than a decade. We have tons of people who worked here for five years of war and you get to you're a better shot at understanding people's preferences and strengths and reactions. Anticipate the ranches. One should work with them for a long period of time. And I think that's one of the ways that having a stable workforce really works in your favor.

And it's one of those things. So on the other hand, that can throw you off when you then have someone new, joined the company, and you don't fully understand what they respond well to you. It's pretty useful misstep, right? And that's to some extent just what it is like. The waiting word about another person is that you missed happen, who based reactions. And then you see how well you approach your thought was working doesn't write on, then you calibrate and then you try again. But at least just being aware of that is, ah, speak support.

Absolutely. So as you try to keep this in mind and like we're standing, quarter this first bar, Okay, I think I'm treating people I would like to be treated, and then your purse. That second bar. Okay, well, how would they like to be treated in your head or in one on one interactions? Or is you in sort of Jason? Think about sort of how you also present information to company. And right now, you know, you got the whole company meet up going on right now. How do you try to bake that into how you operate as a leader? Data

that I find it hard to do to explicitly on a conscious level. This calibration becomes sort of part of the gun reaction system, and I think that we've gotten better than an intensive. Let's say there's some announcement we wanna make to the company that first read it for ourselves and clear that first part. But I would like to be spoken to in this matter could hey, let's think about all the ways this could be interpreted different ways, like people something called The Devil Advocate or whatever. I just try to misinterpret uh, anything that we try to put out there and seems that we put in place, for example, one of the war, the bigger changes we made on the personal side of things where a couple years ago we went to a new salary pay system. We use that or when a lot of companies do is very individualized. Everyone negotiated somewhat their own salary and like no two people in the company of the six hour And we just found for us that was not working well. And I felt like it wasn't I wasn't treating company in the way I would want to be treated because I said I felt like just a deep sense of unfairness about that. Like people joined a different time. They ended up with different salaries,

even though those different salaries doesn't always match their differences in scale experiences. And I just felt like, Hey, I thought through it isn't like some payroll was public. Would I be embarrassed about that? And in a few instances, we ended up feeling yes, we would. And then we went through this whole process of thinking like, Okay, what have been about that first thing was like, What is the market? Actually, we often say, No, no,

no, I think we're paying, like, market. But, you know, you just have this anecdotal information about like someone said like, this person over this company is being paid so much senses another very rigorous way of dealing with something too important s Hey, so we went like, Well, let's hire a company, and we ended up using Rafferty, which is a service. That survey is a bunch of different technology companies and just thinking through the whole process of what we're gonna pay people way. Hadn't even thought of it just sort of happens. Yeah,

And we were in the level rivers around it, which then made that at some point we have to communicate that. Okay, we're switching from a system. This is Ann Hog System that's not very rigorous and may well be and waas unfair in some instances. And we switch into this new system where everyone is gonna be paid the same way that the same level of experience, on skills and work in the same decision. That's a pretty big

change that's been

sensitive. And it's a very sensitive right. Yeah, it's Thankfully, in our instance, we sort of had a way of doing it were like it was like we didn't have to decrease anyone, stay like they dio me. Sort of factual change was that a bunch of people got a big race. That's what you say, right? Like nice. That sounds nice, but there's all sorts of things that are actually not too nice, But the case studies. Look, that was There's this guy and I think Seattle something running payment processing company. Who said we were gonna pay everyone 70,000?

That's gonna be the floor. You have read something about Oh, at 70,000 money. Stop being so like, cabbages is increasing pressure. Want me? Everyone said you go like and he got an incredible amount of positive feedback. There's something feedback from the outside, right? What they like within that company isn't that good. And, yeah, it turned out it wasn't necessary because there was There was not just what the foreman was. The response of people who were, I don't know, making 30,000,

40,000 peak race. Whenever people make $105,000 we got no worries. And they got to see all these people they felt for whatever reason, like that there. Before, that was a split. Maybe they felt they were being paid on time because they won't agree or they had a long experience. Is something else. Relative fix between positions that felt recently don't send that road fixed. Got erased, right. And a bunch of people apparently ended up leaving because they were not happy with that at all, and you're like, Oh, shit, that's fascinating.

I'm doing a supposed to be just university. Good thing by raising before, but it has all the secondary facts, Frank. So that story definitely left a mark. None in the Canticle. It's just think, the fact that, like clearly, the guy was CEO and wanting to race everyone. Sally did not anticipate

that best intentions.

I think that's really where this is important because I think most business leaders would think in most cases, But they have the best intentions. You know what essentially best intentions. Everyone say they have the best intentions. Bullshit. What matters is outcomes, right? And whether you're taking actual steps to anticipate those outcomes and mitigate those outcomes, the best you can. Interesting things, right? So when we went through this pay adjustment process, that was one of the big things, like, Okay, we're gonna move. Some people got Cem very large raises,

and I felt like that's great, like we were clearly not. We wanted to set a target that we want to pay everyone at the top 5% or the 95th percentile of the industry. Based on Chicago or better rates. Just it's in cases like we were just often that right, Eh, So we were catching up, but still. So this was something we thought through. And then we thought through, like all the ways we wrote out the announcement, and then we kind of just trying to poke holes in it from like, Oh, I'm a person like this. We're sitting in this position where, for example,

do not gonna raise. Like, um, I'm gonna read this and go like, what is it yet, right, like everyone else. Fucking tax money. And I didn't get anything. So that's one of the strategies we try to use to get it broad perspective and again, just like role play. So it's pretty inaccurate science, right? Like there's there's a bunch of things through the reactions to all sorts of things where we went afterwards, like only should I totally couldn't. I don't have I have enough imagination to imagine other people sufficient different for me,

and their reaction is different. But in almost all cases, you've been still back tracing. They go like all right, I understand

what that's coming from, right? I think that it's such an incredible insight. And in such I mean personally, I find that such an important reminder that, yeah, your best intentions are not good enough as an employer, as a leader, it's not right,

and it is what goes into the consideration. Most people's best intentions just go from there like little head spinning. Maybe they were in the bar, how they would be treating something, I think, oftentimes don't think clear some romanticized version of what they would have done themselves in that situation, which is just a pretty poor in each of whether this is good in a good year, engages What is the reaction

exactly? Yeah, reaction will be docked in keeping that in mind. Thank you so much for your time. I just appreciate that. Thanks. If you liked what you heard, you can check out Maura of Claire's podcast The Heartbeat at Know your team dot com slash blawg slash podcast. You can also find the heartbeat on your favorite podcasts.