[Intro music] Skipper Chong Warson: My name is Skipper Chong Warson. And I'm a design director in San Francisco. And you're listening to How This Works. This is a show where I invite people on to talk about those things that they know very well. And Thejus Chakravarthy is with me to talk about a bunch of things, but mainly about how we manifest change, both from a point of view of learning or work, as well as in our personal lives. I think these are all important topics, especially right now. I appreciate you making time Thejus. Thejus Chakravarthy: Oh, thank you very much. I'm happy to be here. Skipper: So we like to start the show by hearing from our guests, I want to hear from you. Will you tell us some things -- who are you, where'd you grow up? Thejus: Okay, let's see if I can do this justice. I was born in India, specifically in Mumbai. According to apocryphal stories from family, I crowned in the cab. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: On the way to the hospital. So that's pretty funny. My father was a Brahmin, very orthodox Hindu family, my mother's Catholic, the opposite. And so because of that, we weren't exactly welcome in the motherland. So my parents decided to jaunt off to Bahrain. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: So we live for a little bit in Bahrain. And then we would go back and visit family pretty regularly but then eventually, my family -- my mom and my dad -- decided that we were going to go to America for the opportunities in the new world. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: So my parents came over first. And while they were putting the money together for me and my sister, we ended up in boarding schools. And so, I'm mentioning all of this because I have a deep seeded confusion about tradition and the way things are because I never really got exposed to any of that stuff growing up. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: I have no mental concept of what that means. Skipper: That makes sense. Thejus: But my family settled in Baltimore. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: Bodymore Murderland. And when I got there, I was still in middle school, which is a fun time to have an accent and not understand how things work. And so that was pretty much the case through middle school and then through high school. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: And that was eh, I wouldn't say that was fun. I wouldn't necessarily say it wasn't a learning experience, but it wasn't fun. So then I got into college. And that's when I started figuring out a little bit more stuff about how to fit in and you know, how it's kind of okay not to fit in in certain places and coming to grips with that sort of thing. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: So yeah. That's my path. Skipper: And where are you located now? Thejus: Oh, right. Now I'm in New York City. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: And I've lived here for about five years, I think. Ish. Skipper: I love that while you're saying this, and I hope this makes it into the show via edits, I can hear a siren in the background. Thejus: Oh, yeah. Skipper: That's right. The sounds of the city. So what's one thing Thejus about you that people might not guess -- something, of course, that you feel comfortable sharing? Thejus: I thought about this pretty long and hard when you mentioned that you'd be asking me this question. I have an almost pathological fear of dislocating my right shoulder. Skipper: Huh. Thejus: So the first time I did it, it was after my second show ever with a hardcore band that I was in called Lovers and Killers. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: And I was kind of running off the adrenaline of playing my second show ever but it was intense. So I was stretching, and I don't know how it happened, but I rolled my shoulder, just the right angle to dislocate (my right shoulder). Skipper: Okay. Thejus: But again, full of adrenaline, I just admittedly -- like a dummy -- just reset it myself. And then went on to finish loading out the van, loading up, packing everything up, and then spend the rest of the show going, My shoulder feels a little funny but no big deal. I couldn't use it the next day but I just couldn't even I couldn't raise it, it was weird. But then pretty much ever since that incident, I re-dislocated it for almost a year, like almost every month, it would pop out of of socket and I'd have to pop it back in. Then, once I started paying attention to what I was doing, it didn't dislocate as often because I was very careful about where I was moving my arm and what plane of motion -- stuff like that. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: And then, I dislocated it throwing a snowball. And then I freaked out again and started focusing again -- starting being really attentive to how I was moving my arms and where I was doing stuff. And then I dislocated it again, picking up an empty plastic bottle that was over my right shoulder. So I'm constantly aware of where my right shoulder is and how I'm moving my right arm because I just -- the idea of dislocating again, ugh, just horrifies me. It's something that I just can't get past. Skipper: Okay. That is not something that I would have guessed about you for as many years as we've known each other. Thejus: Yeah, I am super, super concerned about my shoulder. Skipper: (Pauses) So Thejus, what are we talking about today? What's the subject matter in which you consider yourself very knowledgeable? Thejus: When you mentioned that you wanted me to be on your podcast -- which again, thank you -- I was and still am extremely surprised. Because it's hard for me to accept that I actually know anything because I (begin) from the starting point of, Well, I'm only 50% sure that I'm not a brain hallucinating vividly in a jar. So. To be sure of something, it's kind of -- uh huh. But I think the thing that I know the most about is the way that people think and the way that people work within the workplace. And so how we think about work, how we think at work, how we act, what we can do to make workspaces that actually result in the behaviors that we want to see as opposed to the behaviors that we do see. So it's questions around things like, How do you reduce nepotism? How do you reduce ageism in hiring? Well, nepotism is kind of easy. You just don't hire somebody who's related to somebody else and verify that somebody is not related to somebody in the company. But what about ageism? With ageism, you need to have policies in place that say, Well, if somebody gives you a resume, and it's got their birthdate, because there are some people who still do that, or you know, the year they graduated college or when they finished their masters, we'll just scrub out the dates. And now you don't know how old this person is, right? And that's what I mean, there's challenges in the workplace, but it's something that I know a little bit more about than most of the other things I know about. I recently started a company -- by recently, I mean, about a year and change now at this point. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: Where basically I have a business where I help companies work more efficiently and more smoothly. And the clients that I've had so far have been very positive in their feedback, which they have to be because they paid for me. Skipper: I don't think they have to be, but -- Thejus: That's fair, that's fair. I think that's the one topic I feel like I'm not a complete neophyte at. Skipper: Okay. Take me back -- how did you first become interested in this idea of helping companies to be better? Where is the beginning of this? Thejus: Well, David Copperfield... I was... Eh. No. (Laughs) It was actually probably in college. I was one of those college students who didn't actually want to go to college, but my mom and dad were kind of adamant, Hey, we're immigrants. What the hell are you doing? Go to college. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: And so what are you gonna do? I definitely didn't want to go, I had no idea what to study. I didn't know what I even cared about. So my first -- I want to say three years of college, I was undeclared. I know you're not supposed to be able to do that, but I think my advisor dropped the ball. I mean, he picked it up real fast once he realized what I'd done. But I took a bunch of psychology classes because I loved the field. I love it so much. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: I also took dance classes, I took piano classes, I did -- Skipper: Okay. Thejus: I was taking enough psychology classes that I basically was just a hop, skip, and a jump away from becoming a counselor. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: And so I said, Oh great. Then all I have to do is take this counseling class. And during my first practice session, the teacher pulled me aside and she said, Your problem is you aren't separating yourself enough from this client. And you need to learn to stop trying to solve the problem for them, they have to solve it themselves. Skipper: Right. Thejus: Which she was 100% right. That's a totally fair assessment. But to be fair, I was a young male who didn't want to be in college at all so I took it as a direct assault on my personhood. So I took a step back then. I was like, well, maybe counseling isn't for me, because the idea of listening to somebody pour out their heart and explain their problems, and not being able to say, Oh, my God, let's let's find a way to solve this problem for you because it sounds like a real problem. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: So tell me more about how you feel as opposed to maybe should stop smoking meth. Kind of how my head worked. Skipper: Right. Thejus: So of course I left. And after I had that little interaction -- she was a great teacher; I learned so much from her -- and so after that situation, I took a couple steps back and I said, Okay, wait, if what I really care about solving problems -- Skipper: Hmm. Thejus: Well, what's the easiest or rather, what's the biggest problem a lot of people run into? Like, what's the number one thing that makes people unhappy? Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: I was working, I was working in a bookstore at the time so of course, you know, after classes ended when I went to go work my shift. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: And I remember sitting at work just kind of selling books, which I liked. It was a great job. I still kind of enjoy bookstores. But I it dawned on me, Well, you know, the number one thing people hate is work. Skipper: Hmm. Thejus: They hate their jobs. Almost everybody hates their job and the few people who say, Oh my god, I love my job. Well, they don't love all of it. And sometimes the things that they hate about their job or there are aspects of the job that people should be able to control. Because work is a controlled environment, it's a constructed environment. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: There's no reason to assume that we need to work 9 to 5. However, that construct was put in place by the Ford Motor Company because they wanted to create a five day, 40 hour workweek. Skipper: Right. Thejus: But why did Ford even come up with a five day, 40 hour workweek?  Well, a 40 hour workweek, with eight hour shifts, he could have 24 hours of coverage if he had three eight hour shifts, that makes sense. But he wanted a weekend off, not because he felt like his employees were wonderful and he wanted to give them the chance to, you know, really spread their wings and be wonderfully well actualized -- no, no, nothing like that. He just wanted their money, the money that he was paying them, he wanted them to be able to spend. So he said cool, 40 hours a week it is. And that's it. That's the whole reason. But once I realized that, I said, Okay, wait. So there has to be something in psychology that -- which I love as a field that -- will let me tackle this problem. It turns out there is there's an entire field of psychology called industrial organizational psychology. So I did that. That ended up being my undergraduate. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: And then after I was done with that, one of my professors actually suggested that I try the instructional systems design master's program, which was surprising to me, because I didn't even think I was that good of a student. But she pointed out that one of the major issues in industrial organizational psychology is, Well, how do you get people to change? Like you can understand the problem, you can have a better deeper understanding of the systems that are causing these issues -- Skipper: Sure. Thejus: But then how do you cause behavioral change? Skipper: Sure. Thejus: Why not? Why don't I just focus on this thing? Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And she again was 100% right. I've never been happier to be to be steered. So I'd say after that, it's just been -- get the inspiration where I can about the things that I care about when I can. I've gotten inspiration from Terry Pratchett, who's easily one of my favorite authors. At one point, I was inspired on how to better help my co workers because of a TED talk that was on a topic completely different. And actually, most recently, the bodega down the street from my house was recently taken over by some guys from Yemen who are refugees. Who came to America and they picked up basically a part time job. And then they picked up another part time job, then picked up another part time job, and then picked up a full time job. And they just kept working and working and working. And hearing them talk about the benefits that they get from their work so they can make enough money to bring the rest of their family over. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: And then they work so they can get enough money to buy another bodega that they can give to that new family member. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: And seeing how a well run, well managed workplace is empowering. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And then I remember every workplace I've ever had that was the opposite, or full of politics ,or full of nepotism, or full of ageism, sexism, racism, any other ism you want to throw at it. And it just infuriates me enough that that's what I want to do every day. That's literally the thing that makes me care about the field. Skipper: Yeah. I think there's a wide variety of improvements that can be made. So I'm glad that this is something that you're thinking about. I have to say, though, in thinking about the bodega down the street from you, that is one thing that I miss about New York City, being able to walk around the corner, get any number of things that you need in your life, and be back home within 15 minutes. Thejus: Right. Oh, my God, like moving up here from Baltimore -- probably my favorite apartment that I ever rented was a five minute walk from a 7-Eleven and a five minute walk from Royal Farms, which is the equivalent of a much classier 7-Eleven. So, 7-Eleven on one side and much classier 7-Eleven on the other side. But ROFO chicken is no joke. Like if you ever have a chance to be in Baltimore, because lord knows when we'll be able to travel again -- but Baltimore, Royal Farms only exists in Maryland, and it is hands down some of the best fried chicken I've ever had in my life. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: But I swear by ROFO but having bodegas is great. There's three -- four actually within a five minute walk from where I live. And there's never been a time where I've been like, You know what I really want? I really want this one thing I can't get. Skipper: That's right. Thejus: It's so cool. Skipper: Because of all the competing products and just the sheer density of what exists on the shelves, right? If you think you've experienced everything in a bodega, literally change your angle of viewing 30 degrees up, and you'll realize there's a whole other universe of things that you didn't realize were there but it's because they have such tiny spaces and such limited shelf space, they have had to be really creative about how they merchandise. Thejus: Yep. And then also, like, depending on the bodega, you can walk in through the front door and you see exactly what you want and you walk out. That's your totality of your experience with them. Skipper: That's right. Thejus: So nowadays, whenever -- even the bodegas that I know, I still walk all the way to the back and then all the way to the front -- just because there's so much stuff. In some of them, it looks like the store ends, but then you cross a point and you realize, Oh, no, that's the back section. And then you turn a corner, and oh my god, there's a whole other pile of stuff. It's awesome. Skipper: That's right. So you have taken these ideas around work -- how we can work better, how we can learn -- and you've written two books recently. And we'll link to them in the show notes so people know how to access them. But I'd love to talk about some of these ideas that you posit in the books. The first one is called "Brushfire". And the opening image is very powerful -- the way that you start the book. Would you be open to reading the first few paragraphs? Thejus: Oh, sure. So I'll just condense a little bit if that's okay. "So you're walking through a forest and there are huge tree trunks. And the bark is cracked and craggy and the trees are dimming the light with their massive branches. The underbrush is so thick that each step is like wading into the ocean. This is your forest. You've inherited from a long lost relative who called it an orchard. But looking around, you're wondering how -- normal branches here, fallen trees there -- how could anything really grow here? And then how could you even harvest anything from here? So you decide as the new inheritor to clean it up. But where do you get started? Do you get started, right here, right where you're standing -- where you've just waited through some underbrush? Or do you walk the perimeter? Do you walk the entire forest and make a list of things that you need to change?" And that's where I kick it off. That's roughly where we are. Skipper: That's such a visceral image because I think we can we can put ourselves in that situation of someone coming into a place that used to be something else, wondering how it was ever this other thing? And how you get to that change state? Thejus: Exactly. That was the intention. The challenge for me was, How do I convey what I feel when addressing an operational challenge for the first time? Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And for me, it's always felt like that somebody has just explained to me what they do. That somebody explains to me how their department works or how their company works or how their particular job works. And after they explain it to me, and then they say, Oh, and then I do this. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: Wait, wait, your job description said this thing? Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: What you're doing is that thing? Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: I have no idea where to even begin, Do we fix what you're doing and streamline it? Even if it ends up pointing in the opposite direction of what your job description says? Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: Or do we start with your job description and change it to match what you're actually doing? Or is it something completely different? And so yeah, that's the closest image I can think of -- is suddenly having a big problem thrust into your lap. And that problem being Hey, here's an orchard. Grow apples. Skipper: Yeah, it's very succinct. So in the first section, you talk about this notion of power being a mechanism of corruption and you specifically talk about the Stanford Prison Experiments and Milgram’s obedience experiments. Can you break that down for us, what does that mean in the context of a workplace and/or this environment in which we willingly opt into. Thejus: So the Stanford prison experiments, which were done by Philip Zimbardo or Dr. Zimbardo or Zim. He basically took a group of young men -- psych students -- and he randomly assigned them to either a guard or prisoner status. And then he put them in the prison, which "prison" was basically a couple of rooms in the administrative building he was in and he basically played the role of -- Zimbardo himself -- played the role of the warden. And he instructed the guards to enforce obedience. And there's more details, but the gist of it is, let's see what happens when we play act authority. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: Because the idea was that well, I've just told you, you're the guard. And I've told you, you're the prisoner. We're all students here. We're all reasonable people. And let's see how this shakes out. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: Well, the results were -- to put it bluntly -- horrific. People flat out did not expect -- even after Zimbardo published his work, nobody expected -- everybody thought it was nutso. The guards basically psychologically terrorized the prisoners and the prisoners thought that they deserved it and didn't fight back. Skipper: Hmm. Thejus: Zimbardo himself -- the "warden" -- completely lost perspective. And he admits as much in several interviews, Which man!? Basically, he had to be dragged back to reality by friend of his. And before he was like, Oh, crap, you're right. I shouldn't be doing this. And I think probably the most banal conclusion you can draw from this is that people change when they're given authority. And I feel like that's the most -- nobody can argue with that -- that's about as banal an argument as you can come to. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: But that tells us people change when they are given authority. But what about the other side of the equation? And that's sort of what Milgram's work was focused on. So Stanley Milgram basically showed that people were willing to do horrible things in the face of authority. So it's not just that people were given authority, it's that somebody else who was an authority (figure) asked them to do stuff. So the Milgram experiments in psychology are relatively famous but outside of psychology, not so much, even though they made a couple of movies about it. Which caught me off guard. One's with Skarsgård and the other one's with William Shatner. Skipper: Oh, okay. Thejus: But the actual documentary of it is available on YouTube and it is one of those things that I can't watch regularly. Or else, it just breaks my brain. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: So in Milgram's experiments, he would have a subject sit down in front of a box, the box would have a bunch of switches. And then an experimenter in a lab coat would say, Okay, here's the thing, there's somebody else on the other side of the wall, they're going to read out word pairs, you have a list of word pairs in front of you. And when they don't read off word one, they'll read off word two, they're wrong, flip a switch. And you have to go from left to right on the switches. On the left, very low, mild shock. On the right, it just had the letter X. And then the next one had XX. And the last one said XXX, like literally, we're not talking about it anymore. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: So basically, you just could only flip each switch once, you sat down, and people would flip the switches as they went on. What the subjects didn't know is that the person on the other side was one of the co-conspirators. And by about halfway through the zapping, they would start saying things like, Hey, I want to quit. Hey, I'm done. Hey, this really hurts. Hey, I have a heart problem. I don't want to do this anymore. And the subject would then say, as most people would, this guy really doesn't want to do it. I'm not sure we should still keep doing this. And all the experimenter would say -- the guy in the lab coat would say -- you must continue for the experiment. Skipper: Hmm. Thejus: In a polite voice. Almost every one of those test subjects went all the way to lethal levels of electrocution to the point where the person on the other side didn't respond. Skipper: Oh, wow. Thejus: Now admittedly, nobody's really electrocuted, but the people performing the switch flipping had no idea. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: And that gives us the both sides of the equation. People change from student to psychologically terrorizing prison guard. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And people change on the other side where they're willing to kill another person because somebody has asked him politely to flip some switches. Skipper: Right. For the sake of the experiment, yeah. Thejus: Exactly. Zimbardo and Milgram both were dealing with the challenges of trying to reconcile what happened in the Holocaust. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: That's why they were doing the research. But even now, if you look back on what their work showed us, and the amount of rework and unwork that people have done over the decades to try and make sense of it -- a core problem in the way human beings are wired. And we still don't have a "solution" for it. We just know that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: So what this showed me -- and probably shows any halfway decent student of psychology -- is the banality of the cruelty that we are capable of, especially if we insist on obeying and being obeyed. Skipper: Right. Thejus: Those those poor guys, like they flipped over a rock, and they probably thought they were gonna find a few strange bugs. And they basically uncovered a nightmarish horror that is the human mind. Skipper: Right. Thejus: And all it is that when people are given authority, they change. And when people say, Oh, well, you have authority to (have others) do what you say, they change. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And it's just baked into what we are. Now, take that and then factor it into workplace. Well, the workplace is a constructed environment. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: We're not here to electrocute people for word lists. Skipper: We think... Thejus: And -- Not as far as we know, right? The new Duolingo comes with a shock collar. But when people are promoted or people are given a position -- okay, now you are the manager. We can't assume that that manager is not going to be affected. You can't assume that just because they were a nice person that they'll be a nice boss. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: So considering that work is completely artificial, there's no reason not to put in stop gaps, there's no reason not to put in things that can bend or twist behavior. Because you know, when we're talking about things more widespread than work, when talking about politics, when we're talking about interpersonal relationships, when we're talking about other sociological tendencies, then yeah, that's when you have to have a little push and pull, and discourse and debate becomes extremely important. But in the workplace -- Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: It should be unacceptable. It should be completely unacceptable for somebody to be allowed to be put into the position where they were just following orders. But it should also be impossible to allow somebody who's been put in a position of authority to basically cause damage to everybody else. It's unacceptable. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And that's why I think that the -- so, "Brushfire" of the two books is more of the psychological, overarching mindset perspective. And so without the acknowledgement that power corrupts, we can't really even begin to talk about authority. We can't even begin to talk about what it's like to be a boss and an employee. Does it matter that the CEO said so? Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: Well, it does or doesn't is kind of a fungible question. But if the CEO could tell his entire staff and the entire company, Cool, guys, tomorrow, we're going to start electrocuting babies. Skipper: Right. Thejus: Well, that shouldn't happen. But who's to say? Skipper: Right. Yeah. Thejus: I'm being glib. But yes, that's basically why I started with power corrupts. Skipper: I think that's an important element to recognize. Because it's something that has been agreed upon by some group of people within the workplace doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing to do. Thejus: Absolutely. 110%. And also, remembering that the workplace is a constructed environment and everything in the workplace is something we put into place. Saying that Oh, well, that's just how it's always done to me is a red flag. That's waving a flag in front of a bull. Also, Hey, maybe somebody should be watching this. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: Almost every job I've ever worked -- and I've worked quite a few -- and people I've talked to in all of their jobs, there's certain things in certain industries that people just assume is the way it's supposed to be done. No matter who it hurts. And that's galling. Skipper: Yeah. One of the other pieces of the framework that you put together in "Brushfire" is around this idea of: it's always the system. What does that mean? Thejus: Ooh, okay. Yeah. So I think the best way to look at that is -- so everybody makes mistakes. And it's obvious to each of us when we make a personal mistake. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: You go to the bodega and you pick up skim milk instead of two percent, you close the wrong tab on your browser. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: You know, you're trying to lose weight but dammit if those Krispy Kreme (doughnuts) aren't fresh. Skipper: That light. Thejus: Oh my god. The hot now light. Oh, they just opened the first hot now -- well, not the first -- but the only hot now in New York. Skipper: Oh, wow. Thejus: And I am there for it because that's the one thing I miss so much. Because I love Krispy Kreme but getting a hot now Krispy Kreme is -- that's a whole other game. And they opened it up just before the lockdown. So I am -- Skipper: Oh, man. Thejus: I am chomping at the bit. Skipper: And is it in the city? Or is it -- Thejus: It is in Manhattan, I believe it is near Times Square. Skipper: Okay, as it should be. Thejus: But it's definitely -- I mean, the one time I ventured out to possibly see what it was like, there was a line of tourists around the corner. So I'm absolutely not going there. Not until much later because I love a donut but I also like breathing. Skipper: Fair, okay. Thejus: So you make mistakes, you know you made mistakes. You castigate yourself. You forgive yourself. You work within yourself and that's fine. But it's not as obvious when somebody else makes a mistake. Did somebody -- and my example usually is, Well, if they emailed you an unfinished document -- Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: Did they mean to send you an unfinished document? Are they asking for your help to complete it? Or did they make a mistake and send you the wrong document? Skipper: Sure. Thejus: Somebody was in a mood, or to be fair, just being a dick in a meeting? Were they -- are they a dick? Or were they hungry as hell? Right. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: Were they trying to make somebody miss a deadline intentionally? Or were the kids sick? Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: Right. So hard to tell. Like when it's yourself, you have access to all the information but if you're somebody else, you don't. Skipper: Right. Thejus: So people in the workplace point at a failure or a mistake, a widget that's the wrong shape, or a missed deadline and they say that's so and so's fault. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: I have a problem with that because without the ambiguity that's around those sorts of problems, right, where's the acceptance that mistakes happen? And nobody's perfect, but also no machine is perfect. I mean, bit flip errors happen in almost every OS (operating system) known to man. So we just have error correction, right? But when I say that the problem is the system and it's always the system. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: Without acknowledging that work is completely constructed, without acknowledging that we can't just do things as we've always done them -- we punish people or reward them for things that have nothing to do with what they actually do, how the company has to contribute to what's going on, and instead of just saying, Well, it looks like the system that we have in place doesn't account for that kind of variability. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: It looks like that we have in place is not rewarding the right attitude, the right behavior, it looks like a system we have in place is punishing the wrong thing, and it's actually rewarding the right thing. It starts to get tricky because unless you approach the system itself as something that you can modify, then never have a system that can adapt to mistakes and faults without coming to a complete, grinding halt. So that's what I mean by: it's always the system. Skipper: And I think that lines up to some of the things that I've seen in the design industry. And I'm seeing more and more positions come available that are labeled things like change management. Thejus: Right, right. Change management, man. So change management has been -- so, my background is in instructional systems design. That's what I got my masters in, that's what I did for 15 years. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: We hated to hear the term change management. Because the problem is that if you're a trainer, and if you've been working in instructional design, instructional systems design in any way, shape, or form, you know what happens -- is that somebody, somewhere in some meeting somewhere decides, Hey, we're gonna roll out this new software platform. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: And you as the trainer now have to train the staff on how to use this new software platform or use this new widget. Skipper: Right. Thejus: Okay. Well, is it done being configured? No, we haven't finished making it. We haven't finished configuring it. You just have to make the training. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: I can't do the training until you're done making the system. Well, we decided to launch the system, say November 1. Cool, when do I get access to it? Well, you don't get access to the finished version. That's the one we have to launch. What the hell, man? But also usually when change management gets rolled out into those sorts of situations and change management people or the change management team that has to juggle not only the project itself, which (asks the question) how do we get the software up and running? Let's use a software platform just so I can stop jumping around for my analogies. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: So how do we get the software platform configured and then launched? Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: But they may not necessarily also be factoring in the question, How do we get it configured to the point where we can build training so we can teach people on how to use it, give them a chance to make mistakes on it, knock off all the edges before we go live with it? Skipper: Right. Thejus: But there's also the other problem, which is, if you don't factor in that extra lag time -- Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: It doesn't actually affect the launch, which is kind of like the paradox of training where you don't necessarily -- Example: people use iPhones. Has anybody actually taken a class on how to use an iPhone? Skipper: Probably not. Thejus: Probably not. And I mean, to use some of the cooler features, of course, you need to go to the Apple Store and take an extra class. Sure. But if you think about that, what is it? It's a small metal and glass rectangle that gives you access to more computing power than they needed to reach the moon. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And it will show you cats, so kudos. If people can do that, then why would there be any assumption that there should be a learning curve for using a software platform? Well, the assumption is there because that software platform is probably not that user friendly. Skipper: That's right. Thejus: And that's never baked into the whole change management argument. It's never baked in the argument that, well, we're switching a system, the system itself is broken in different ways. And we need to help our people through the problem, when in fact -- and I cover this more in "Flywheel" -- the fact is that people self teach all the time, and they self teach faster and more efficiently than individuals can ever pull that off, like you can't make a system to teach somebody faster than the way they teach themselves, especially when you're dealing with adults. Which I mean, we are. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And that's why I agree that change management is necessary. As much as I agree that project management is a necessity. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: But I also feel like sometimes people that band aid, people throw it, like training was a band aid, they just throw training at the problem. They throw change management at the problem. They throw project management at the problem, but they never stopped to say, Wait, why is there even a problem? What is the meaning of this? What are we doing? Skipper: Right. Thejus: And I understand the uses and abuses of the terminology, but just the word change management still gives me the heebie jeebies. I'm working on it. Skipper: Sure. Sure. So there's one last concept that you talk about in "Brushfire" that I want to get into -- you use this term, the Ben Franklin effect. Thejus: Ah, yes. Skipper: What does that mean? Thejus: Okay. So it's actually a pretty cool story. I'm 80% sure it's not apocryphal -- who's to say? Skipper: Right. Thejus: But basically the story goes that Benjamin Franklin, one of our founding fathers, knew that somebody else just didn't like him. It happens that guy had a massive library full of really cool books. And so Ben Franklin asked him for a favor and said, Hey, can I borrow this really cool book that I know you're the only person who has a copy of? Of course, the guy says, Well, yeah, okay, fine. You can borrow the book. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: But, and here's the fun part, it actually caused a massive amount of cognitive dissonance in that guy's head. And it actually made him like Benjamin Franklin, afterwards. So basically, if you ask your enemies for favors, they may not be an enemy anymore. Skipper: Hmm. Thejus: Not because they are now helping you but because logically, you just don't do favors for enemies. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: So if they did you a favor, you must not be an enemy. It's a weird little mental hack. And there's lots and lots of people who talk about doing this -- YouTube is full of them. There's talk about doing it manually, doing it -- but I think really the best way to approach the lesson of that is it's proof that if you ask for help, the worst thing you can get is a no. And the best is more than you could have asked for. So it's crucial that you ask for favors, you ask for help. And I know personally, I'm terrible at it. Like I am the worst. And I've been called to the carpet by friends and family for that particular fault of my own. But it's an awesome function. It's an awesome function of the human brain that when we do nice things for people, we can't see them as bad people. We can't see them as enemies. Skipper: I feel like there's something in this example of the Ben Franklin effect that feels something around how do we involve and include other people in the work that we're doing? Thejus: Yes, yes. Skipper: And building those relationships and building those bridges to make sure that people are being represented, of course, but then also, how do we enlist people to help us in the work that we're doing, but also do their best work as well? Thejus: Ooh, yeah, yeah. And I think that there's also something to factor in here is that people will never give you their all, if they feel like you don't value all of them. So if you're a person of color -- like myself, immigrant like myself -- and you're in a board meeting and nobody's listening, and in fact, nobody's even asking questions, and every part of the conversation is where you can't even raise your hand to raise a point, and they're railroading over you. But there are definitely times that I've had meetings with various co workers, various ages, various genders, various identifications, various, you know, all the variouses. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: And it's been an active fight to pull the meeting away from somebody and give it to somebody else and say, Wait, you had a really good point that he interrupted you, what are you saying? Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: You made a really good point but she interrupted you, what are you saying? Please tell me. And I feel like inclusion -- from the perspective of the Ben Franklin effect, if we can sort of connect those two things, I feel like inclusion from the perspective of well, this person in this department is antagonistic towards this department and these people -- well, is it the people in the departments, or is it the fact that you've put these departments at opposition? Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: That they aren't actively working together. That one is setting deadlines that the other one has to follow, and the other one has to push back on those deadlines. Well, again, going back to it's always the system, well, then why the hell are you doing that? Why is team A creating a deadline that team B has to follow? And why are they not working collaboratively? Why are they not sharing effort? Why are they not doing favors for each other? Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: Because you can't expect to create an intent, to basically design a system that feeds and promotes antagonism, and then be surprised that people are jerks. Yeah. It does what it says on the tin, man. You've literally created -- you basically, you made the Thunderdome. You can't be mad. You did it. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And now that's your fault. No, I agree. It's a sticky wicket is probably the way to phrase that. Skipper: Yeah. So in your second book, and again, we'll link to both of them in the show notes so listeners can have access to both volumes. It's called "The Flywheel and the Lever". And the story that you start this book with his around creating an instructional system out of open source technologies. Can you unpack that for us? Thejus: Well, in hindsight, it was a terrible idea. I mean, not a terrible idea. It worked and it did everything was supposed to, but man, I ran through so many cases of Red Bull just to get that thing to work. Skipper: And you're talking specifically about creating the instructional system. Thejus: Specifically about that. Yeah, specifically about that. So basically, it was what happens when you take a freshly minted grad student, well master's degree graduate and say, Okay, how do you solve this problem? We have no budget but we also aren't going to stop you with whatever crazy thing you want to come up with. So that happened. But basically, I was hired on as a contractor making e-learning videos, and it was going to be one of those contracts that almost everybody in the contract world just dreams of. Which was perpetual work, there will never not be a need for more of this, you basically can keep doing this forever. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: But the guy who was the head of the contract, who then would eventually become my boss, asked me, Hey, is this the best way to do this? And, again, young, fresh grad, head full of ideas -- I said, No, I don't think it is. Then, I sat down and I sketched out a better plan. And then I handed it to him. And he looked at it, he asked, Okay, wait, what is this do and how does this work? And where does it go? And it was just a back and forth. And then he said, Hey, what would it cost -- what would your salary need to be to bring you in as a full time employee? Skipper: Okay. Thejus: And I, of course, end up writing down some crazy number because I was, you know, I had the cushy contract. Skipper: Right. Thejus: And the next day, he had the offer letter with the exact amount that I quoted him in front of me. And he said, If you're going to sign this, we can talk about, you know, cancelling your contract, and you'd become a full time employee tomorrow. So of course, this man who hired me was stark raving mad. Because nobody in their right mind should have done anything like that. But hey -- Skipper: Of course you signed. Thejus: Of course, I signed. Because -- Hey, it's already insane... let's just see where the crazy train is going. So basically, it was just me and him. And he was in charge of all the meetings and budgeting stuff, but I was in charge of everything else. And I had to build out an instructional system, the whole thing -- kit and kaboodle, top to bottom. So first chunk was all the documentation, all the stuff that was written down, they had Word documents printed and saved. And in almost every department, they were completely different. They also had three ring binders. And it was the first time in my life that I ever saw a six ring binder. And I don't mean like where all six rings are on the same spine, I mean, two three ring binders connected by a single flap. Skipper: Stop. Thejus: It was these massive tomes. They were awesome, although horrifying, because that was what they had to use for reference. And so I think all of that -- and I could go find a good chunk of it and to email people and ask people to give me copies of the files that they had sitting on the desktops, and cram it all into a wiki, which I basically had to first identify the right one, and then learn its markup language, and then figure out how I was going to use regex and a bunch of other, you know, neat nerd tricks to basically scrub all of those Word documents, PDFs, and whatever, and jam them into this wiki and then organize all the information. Skipper: Simple. Thejus: Yeah, totally fine. Totally simple. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: I definitely lost track of how many nights I passed out at my desk. Skipper: Right. Thejus: And so -- that happened. That was all the documentation side, then I also had all of those e-learning videos, but I had to organize them better. So I had to find an LMS, a learning management system. I found a nice open source one, I figured out enough of the backend so I could figure out how to connect it to the wiki. And then I said, Okay, cool. Now we've got these two things. Let's keep working on that. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: All of that took me about six months. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: To go from nothing to something. And $0. I had no budget and I had to do it all myself. And actually, I got most of it done within three to four months. It was just the last few months for me going, Oh, God, I didn't expect that to work. Oh, God, I didn't expect that to break. Skipper: I want to back it up because there are a couple things that you talk about in "The Flywheel and the Lever" as being foundational to the way that you now think about this experience. So you mentioned that there's an article written by Donella Meadows -- Thejus: Yes! Skipper: That was foundational for you. How was it foundational? And would you break that down a little bit? Thejus: I cannot speak more highly of Donella Meadows than -- I lack the words. I lack the eloquence. Hell, I lack the brain. She's -- the work she did, my god. So yeah, sorry, I should actually probably say what she did. She basically studied and did a lot of work with complex systems. Now, these could be systems as complex as economies or they could be as complex as -- and I mean small scale economies like the economy of the city, as opposed to the economy of the globe. But also weather systems and weather patterns. If you can think of a complex system that is hard to really understand the inputs and outputs of, she probably did work related to it. Skipper: Interesting, okay. Thejus: But the article that I specifically remember -- it almost never leaves my head. It's basically like her work for me is almost like a koan. It's supposed to be a paradoxical statement that opens your mind. That's what a koan's supposed to do. But reading her work feels the same way. Like the first time I read, you know, what is the sound of one hand clapping? Or any of the things from the Dao De Jing. Where it was like, Oh shit, right, my brain hurts. Reading her work is exactly like that. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: So she had an article that was specific about leverage points, which basically lists out where interventions in a complex system has the greatest impact. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: But the part that still sticks to me and still speaks to me personally -- and I'm going to paraphrase here because again, I may know it by heart, but man, my brain ain't that good. Basically, she points out that human cultures are the repositories of behavioral repertoires. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: And human cultures accumulate this information over 100s of 1000s of years. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: And that's the stock, that's the bedrock from which social evolution of any form can come from -- Skipper: Okay. Thejus: Are these cultures but while people appreciate things like genetic variation -- Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: They don't necessarily appreciate cultural variation as much. Because it's key to almost every aspect of human cultural explanation, it's a core belief that their culture is superior to another culture. Whether they are to all cultures is some arguments, but superior to a culture or to one specific culture, it's just part of how it's built. Because we can even talk about things like subcultures, I find it easier to talk about subcultures rather than talking about larger cultural things, because people can lock on to thinking about subcultures within their own culture, as opposed to think about a completely radically different culture. So for example, if you're really, really, really into country music, that is your subculture, then you believe country music is inherently superior to let's say something like lo fi, hip hop. And so we believe that and that is an aspect of your culture. In fact, people in that culture, people who are in this subculture of liking country music, will almost never say, Oh, I'm in the subculture of liking country music, but I hate country music. That's -- See, that's what I mean by like, that is literally impossible. You cannot have that. But if you think about cultural superiority, people look at a culture and their own culture, the one that they grew up in -- Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And they can't find something in that culture that they hate, or something that they despise, or look at another culture and say, That culture is clearly superior to my own. Skipper: Hmm. Thejus: They may say, Well, some aspects of my culture are not as good as that culture but overall, mine is better -- Skipper: I see. Thejus: Right? So you end up with those sorts of arguments, but the insistence that people have on having a single culture, it shuts down resilience, it shuts down learning, it shuts down adaptability. Skipper: Right. Thejus: So the more you reduce the number of cultures in play, the harder it is for a system to adapt, because what you've basically done is you've removed the bedrock, you've removed the stock out of which social evolution can come out of -- Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: By basically saying, well, this culture is better than that culture. Well, great. Now, you've just created a fragile system, right? And any system that avoids experimentation -- or avoids or gets rid of things that are unique and different and innovative, any system that does that will eventually fail and collapse in on itself. So we don't want that. And so -- considering that I was born and raised and embued in like six or seven different cultures when I was a kid -- Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: So reading that made me go, well, crap. Maybe I don't have to reduce myself down to a single culture, I've been exposed to so much. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: Well, that makes me weird. That makes me different, that makes it hard for me to fit in. But that's a great reason to leverage that to figure out solutions to systems that only somebody who's had as much of a disjointed upbringing could actually come up with. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: So that's why it -- it's foundational, it's basically baked into how I think these days, I no longer accept statements like, Oh, well, that's just the way it's always done, or Oh, we've always done it this way. Or things like, Well, you know, that's an industry standard, or that's standard practices. Get out of here with that. Don't give me that. That's like saying, we will only listen to country music. If you really want to appreciate country music, you gotta listen to the blues. If you really want to listen to the blues, you got to listen to some jazz. And so -- Skipper: Yeah, I'm wondering about people who don't necessarily subscribe to the culture that they were raised in, folks who maybe were raised in another country, and just for sake of the example they move to America, and, you know, they're first generation Americans. They don't speak the language of their culture. They know nothing about their culture. Other than some very top line things. How -- Thejus: Yeah. Skipper: How does that -- how does that manifest for someone who has opted out of a culture that maybe they knew very well at some point in their life, but they have decided that they don't want anything to do with it. Thejus: So that's an interesting point in parallel. So like I said, my mother and my father, when they got married -- that was taboo back home. And so when we were growing up, my parents basically had the choice of teaching us a language that would allow us to apply ourselves in all the cultural situations and so they settled on English. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: So whereas my father spoke 11 languages and my mother speaks eight -- Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: (Laughing) Although to be fair, it's five fluently, the other three she's a little broken on. Skipper: (Laughing) Oh, that's it. Yeah. Thejus: My sister and I only speak English. And we did that before we even came to the States -- before we even came to America, we were still only speaking English, because it was just easier than trying to have us learn multiple languages. Skipper: Right. Thejus: There's a lot of aspects of Indian culture that I do not appreciate, even though I was raised there. And I was raised seeing all these variations of it. But there's a lot of aspects of American culture that I don't truly appreciate. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: There's a lot of aspects of -- and I think that as you grow and become an adult -- there has to be a point where you look at any given culture and you pick and choose. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And I think that the failure is assuming that because you don't fit in 100%, that is your fault. And it's not. It's a failure of the culture to not be inclusive, not a failure of the person to prune themselves into the shape. At least that's the way I look at it. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: I think that if we forced everybody to be the same, we'd never have David Bowie, for God's sakes. If we forced everybody to be the same, Freddie Mercury would never have been a musician. He would never have sung. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And that's just two recent musicians. I'm not even talking about, like -- Skipper: The list goes on and on, yeah. Thejus: And as an immigrant, speaking as an immigrant talking about first (generation) -- Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: I have a serious bone to pick with a lot of first gen Indian folk because they seem to have this artificially crude and harsh view of what back home is like, and I grew up there. So I know what it was like. And sometimes I have conversations with first gen Indian folk, especially in New York, it happened a couple of times, where I have to point out, Look, I have more in common with your parents than I do with you even though I'm your age. I have so much more in common with your parents, because we can talk about the food we miss, we can talk about the things we miss doing, we can talk about how nice it was to sometimes just, you know, you get on a train and then you fall asleep on the train, you wake up in the morning, and you're in the middle of a nature preserve. And in 20-30 minutes, some kid’s gonna come running up and he's going to sell you coffee or tea. And you can't do that here. Where the hell am I going to see an elephant in the wild? In America? It's probably not going to happen. But I think that those kids are doing themselves a disservice because they're trying to fit into a mold of a theoretical culture that doesn't really exist in that way. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And so we as people -- as adults -- it also behooves us to turn to each other and say, You know, we may disagree on being a vegan, being a carnivore, being an omnivore. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to exclude you from what I consider to be my culture. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: And my tribe, to paraphrase Seth Godin. I also definitely think that personal, that jarring sensation of realizing that you won't fit in unless you do this, that, or the other is something that middle school and high school beats into a lot of Americans. And, culturally, it also beats it into people in more restrictive collectivist cultures, like in China and India. And if we don't accept that if we don't make that a part of ourselves, and integrated into our own cultural expression then we're doing, not only ourselves a disservice, we're doing the species a disservice because if we were all homogenous we'd have been -- if everybody is just a clone of each other, we get wiped out. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: Like -- anything. Right now, it's genetic variation that people are trying to -- the Cavendish banana and the Gros Michel are examples of what happens when you have a monoculture, right? So when people talk about having a monoculture of any sort -- we're going to have this kind of a thing and everybody's going to do the thing. Oh, no, no. We need everybody, we need crazed lunatics who are wearing tinfoil hats and screaming about alien mind control rays as much as we need a cancer doctor who -- just forgot her name -- the one who just cured cancer with nanoparticles. I just saw the article. (Frustrated.) But yes, Skipper: I forgot her name too. Yeah. Thejus: Right. But that's what I mean, we need both of those people in the species. Why? Because we don't know. Are we greater or lesser than the sum of our parts? Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: So, yeah. Skipper: I appreciate you walking through that because -- some of this backtracking, some of these fundamental, and really, these are assumptions that we've made, right. We've codified some of these assumptions and say, This is the way that we operate it, this is the way the world works. When you go back and you start examining them and thinking about them, that's when they begin to break apart. You have this great line in "The Flywheel and the Lever", where you say, if you had to read the entirety of "The Joy of Cooking" before you ever cooked breakfast, you'd starve to death. And I think, there's no way we can know everything about everything, be that expert before we start doing a thing, because we're going to mess up, we're going to screw it up, because that's what happens. And then we try it again and we do it differently. We do it better. Or maybe just do it again. Maybe not -- Thejus: Yeah. Skipper: Mess up as badly or I don't know what the metric is. But -- Thejus: Yeah, lather, rinse, repeat man, like you just sometimes... And paralysis by analysis is a wonderful rhyming phrase -- Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: But the fact is that I agree 100%. If you don't go out, try something, and make a mistake, you won't know exactly what you need to fix. Skipper: So we've mentioned your second book, "The Flywheel and the Lever" -- can you walk us through some of the the titular concept in broad strokes? Thejus: Sure, sure, sure. So I think the shortest version, and probably the most succinct way to phrase it would be, you need to build out a system that relies on people and puts them above everything else. So, people first. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: Then you make a process that turns the inputs into outputs. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: And that's all you have to do -- just define your inputs, define your outputs, and then you let the people, because they're above everything else -- figure out the details. Just let the people figure out the details. And system, the process inputs, outputs, let people handle the extra details. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: If you notice that for some reason, the outputs aren't the outputs that you expected, sure, you tweak the system, you don't tweak the people. You tweak this, fix those inputs and outputs, and then finally, fine, if you really insist on it, if you really gotta, you can use some fancy schmancy technology. It might help, right, but it might also hurt. And you should be real careful with that. So, it goes people, process, technology -- in that order. Skipper: Right. You make a point in the book where you talk about technology as being irrelevant. Why? Thejus: Okay, so we're in 2021. So let's talk about 2020 because, hey, PTSD being what it is. So if COVID and lockdowns have shown us anything, it's that more jobs than anybody ever admitted can be done from home. It's definitely not a new thing. We didn't create breakthrough technology in March, although we are finding that the technology that we thought was breakthrough is just broken. But it's been the case for a while that we've known that people could work remotely. In fact, Tim Ferriss, his entire métier has been about the fact that he could do his job remotely. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: So a lot of people -- like Silicon Valley let a lot of people spread their wings in that way. But what's more likely and more accurate to say is that most companies are still caught up in the idea of a control management structure as opposed to a commitment management structure. And so they're still trying to force people into the office for eight hours. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: Because if I have you at your desk for eight hours, I will get eight hours work out of you. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: Which anybody who's been on the internet for any amount of time knows it's not true. Because nobody in their right mind would sit down and grind out eight hours of pure work and then get up like some sort of freakish automaton and go home. Skipper: Right. Thejus: You know, people take breaks, people take psych breaks, or basically like they need coffee. Well, you don't really need coffee, you need a break from your desk, and you'd like to talk to people around you. That's different. Skipper: Right. Thejus: But similarly, there have been so many situations where a company will roll out a software platform or roll out a product to fix a business problem. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And it fixes part of the problem but it starts a whole new one, right? It fixes part of the problem but there's a whole batch of new problems to deal with. In software development, it went from Oh, well, you need to have a massive monolithic system to, Oh, no, you need a micro service -- you need a series of micro services. To now people are like, Well, you kind of need a series of monoliths and micro services. Well now, you have to do all kinds of stuff. And dockers everywhere and Kubernetes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's just -- Great, but have you actually solved the problem? Skipper: Right. Thejus: And for every tech bro that's sniffing after VC funding for an AI driven asset management platform or some goofy thing, let's be fair, there is literally any number of nuclear ordinances controlled by the United States government that's running off of COBOL. Skipper: Right. Thejus: Which was one of the first programming languages and man, is it hard to read. Skipper: Right. Thejus: Tools are tools. And software is just software. Technology is just technology, they don't make us better or worse. They just make us faster. And sometimes they might make us slower but then they might make us faster, right? So you don't become a better writer when you use a pen and notepad versus using a laptop. You become a better writer by writing more. That's the difference, right? You could -- some writers swear by doing it longhand. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And some writers swear by doing it with technology. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: But in both cases, they will tell you, it doesn't matter what technology or what tool you're using, you have to practice. You have to do it every day. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: So if the technology is fungible -- I could use a quill and manuscript or we could use voice dictation. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: Well, then, if the end -- then we have to focus on the process. And the people engaged in that process. So that's why if you're sending emails or sending Slack chats, or you've got Nerf Darts with a post-it attached to it, the technology is irrelevant. Skipper: That's right. Thejus: What matters is that you're communicating and how you communicate and what you're communicating. And when you communicate it, that's what matters. Skipper: Yeah, you're absolutely spot on. I think that this notion of hard skills versus soft skills -- hard skills are those things like you have to understand how to work certain tools and operate a laptop and but then there's this fuzzy set of things that we do as well that are about connecting with people, how we can see certain opportunities in a way, cut through some of that chatter, that signal to noise ratio, and figure things out but those aren't. That's not a bulleted list that you have to be able to do this thing X. But this general idea of how we operate in a better way. Thejus: Yes. And hard skills and soft skills -- because I haven't really worked in the design field personally but I've worked in five person software startups out of somebody's basement, I've worked with the U.S. Coast Guard, I've worked at a law firm, I've worked at a nonprofit, and I've worked at a healthcare company -- I've worked all over the place, including a bookstore, which I mentioned earlier. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: But I think that the hard skills are easy to quantify. That's why they're hard. It's very simple. Can you do the thing? Thejus: That's right. Thejus: But the soft skills are really about, Well, how good are you at being around people? Can you work with people? Can you work with yourself? Are you emotionally aware? Are you aware that you're being a dick, dude? I think that the problem there is that the same people who quantize the hard skills are attempting to quantize the soft skills. That I feel  is -- down that road lies danger, because it's very difficult to treat people like cogs in the machine. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: But it is so easy. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: It's difficult in the sense of what the ramifications will be. Skipper: It's way simpler. Thejus: Yeah, one person, two person three person, done. Skipper: That's right. Thejus: How many people do you need for your department? Five people? Look, here's five people. Problem solved. Skipper: Right. Thejus: Except, what if four of those people are jerks? And the fifth person is Satan himself. So, now you've got a team full of jerks doing -- and their hard skills might be through the roof -- but their soft skills are terrible. Skipper: Right. Thejus: And so they can't get anything done. Thejus: Right. Thejus: But I think that that also has something to do with the environment in which you put people. There's several situations -- heck, going back to GamerGate, where women were marginalized for no other reason than they were women. Thejus: Right. Thejus: But if you were to, and some people have shown this in GitHub, if you were to remove any sexual identifier from their work, then there's no questions and no arguments about the quality of their work and the level of their involvement. But that leads to the question, Well, then how the hell are you letting that happen in meatspace, not online -- online, that's a thing -- but in meatspace, in actual, in your office, why are you letting this happen? Why are you letting these women be marginalized? Why are you letting them be minimized? Skipper: Right. Thejus: Well, you're letting it happen because you only measured the hard skills. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And now you're going to do implicit bias training, which is, I mean, I could spend an hour talking about how it's complete poppycock. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: I'm pissing off quite a few people in my field, but it's true. There's no data to support that assertion. Anyway, but -- Oh, yeah. So we're having -- we have a problem with racism in our office. So we're going to do implicit bias training, right, or counterpoint, you set up a system like you should, that punishes the ever loving crap out of anybody who's a racist, but also doesn't ignore the fact that different races exist. You kind of have to do both. And that's why it's so difficult. And that's why I think that constructing a system that puts people first is so important. Because it's difficult. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: But my God, the results are, you know, unshakable. But if you ignore that, if you ignore the people, and you focus on, well, we're launching this technology, this technical piece, we don't need to care about our people. Skipper: Right? Thejus: Well, great, I hope you get sued. Skipper: So I think we could definitely continue talking -- and you know, if our past conversations are any indicator, we usually end up budgeting for X amount of time. And we usually end up going about X plus 30 minutes. Thejus: Bare minimum. Skipper: Bare minimum. But I want to wrap things up, we'll have links to things that we talked about in the show notes. So people will be able to dive deeper into some of these things and then we'll also link to your books. But I want to get to our closing questions. What's one of the most important lessons that you've learned so far in your life? Or in the work that you've done? What's something you wish you learned earlier? Thejus: Okay, so this was one of those questions that plagued me because I've been thinking about it for a while. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And I think it's hard for me to say, because I don't think that anything that I now understand or now know could have been learned without all the mistakes I made before I got here. And I don't think that I would have appreciated what I know now without the context in which I've received it, if that makes sense. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: Right. Like, it's one thing to say, Oh, if I could go back in time and see myself in high school, I would tell myself, Dude, get checklists. You've got a crappy, crappy attention span. And you've gotta -- if you have a checklist, you're getting a lot more stuff done. But you are gonna forget more than you remember. Skipper: I see. Thejus: I wouldn't have listened to myself because I was young. I was in high school. I was a dick too. That's fine. I was a teenager. They're not supposed to be nice people. That's their job. That's why they're teenagers. But I think the one thing that I would -- because I'm actually thinking about what I would say to my nephew and my niece once they get old enough to actually maybe even listen to their uncle -- I think the most important thing is to learn how to become yourself. Because it is insanely harder than you think it is. And what I mean by that is, you have to learn who you are versus how you were raised, versus what your job is, versus who your friends are, versus the things you identify with -- what TV shows, what music, what media you're consuming, what political party you belong to, those are all things, but they're not who you are. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: You are the person who is consuming things from a constellation of choices. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: To put it in perspective, if you have friends and all of you watch the exact same TV shows. And listen to the exact same music and work the exact same jobs and have the exact same friends and you're the only friends with each other have, you're in a cult. Skipper: Hmm. Thejus: Right? And that's fine. You could totally subsume your concept of self in a cult, that's what culture is for. But that also doesn't mean that you exist, you are now just a cult member. But if you yourself don't like a TV show that the rest of your friends like, be okay with that. Learn to be okay with that. Learn to accept that there's something different about you than your friends. And dwell on that, live with that, that's super important. Because again, we're not going to get -- like our species is not going to get -- where we need to get or even get through what we need to get through if all of us are the same. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: I mean, I used to think that I was just plain too different, too weird to ever fit in. Then I met some other weirdos who were weird in their own special ways. And I didn't have to change myself as much to be weird with them in their own weird ways. We definitely did connect 'cuz we didn't have -- until we found things that were semi similar. Skipper: Sure. Thejus: So we found the things that we liked that we could all get along with. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: And those, I mean, one of them became -- and it still is -- one of my best friends. Like my brother from another mother, I'd take a bullet for my two buddies who I was in the band with for years. I met them when I was just starting to figure out that it's okay to be unable to fit in into groups. Skipper: So Thejus where can people find out more about you? Like we talked about your books, do you write? Or do you inhabit some other corner of social media? Or? Thejus: Well, that's tricky. So, I used to be on Facebook, I used to be on Twitter, I used to, I used to, I used to. I don't really do social media anymore. I find it more mentally exhausting than personally fulfilling, I tend to write on Medium a bunch. Skipper: Okay. Thejus: Probably will be writing more to Medium this coming year than I have in the past. I mean, honestly, if people want to get in touch with me, if people ever want to ask questions, or just chat, the best way to do it is through my email address, which is thejus.c@gmail.com. But we'll we'll put the link in the show notes, I guess. And other than that, I have a business site, which is hircinous.com. But that's more or less just where I put the links to "Brushfire" and "Flywheel". And where I leave like an open book for people to come and say, Hey, I'd like to hire you to work on my company to solve this problem for me. But that's basically it. Skipper: Well, thank you, Thejus for making time. I really appreciate you making the time and space to chat today. Thejus: Oh, absolutely. It was an absolute pleasure, Skipper. And thank you so much for doing this. Skipper: And thank you for listening to how this works. This episode was edited and mastered by Troy Lococo. Please find our show in your favorite podcast app and subscribe. While you're there, it would be great if you could leave us a review. And if I could ask one more thing, tell just one other person about the show and why they should listen. You can find How This Works at howthisworks.show -- that's three words no dashes. Again, that's howthisworks.show. We're also in the places where social media happens. I hope that you got as much out of my chat with Thejus as we did in making it. And thanks for listening. [Outro music] Thejus: Eh. Always weird doing a reading. Skipper: Well, I was going to read it and then I realized people don't tune into the show to listen to me talk. They want to listen to the person that I'm talking to so, I had this a-ha moment where I thought, No, Thejus should just read it because he wrote it. Yeah. Thejus: That's fair. Skipper: Yeah. Thejus: So I guess I'll get started.