Mindful B2B Marketing · 2024-09-16 · 48 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
56 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Pete Sena's approach to marketing leadership centers on a counterintuitive insight: sustainable business growth requires treating work as "a series of sprints within a marathon," not an endless sprint. After experiencing a serious anxiety attack from overwork - despite never pushing his team to work nights and weekends - he redesigned Digital Surgeons around wellness practices including meditation, proper hydration, sleep prioritization, and journaling. The company now operates with tools like Superhuman (to schedule emails for morning hours, avoiding the implicit expectation that employees work late), generous PTO policies, remote-first flexibility, wellness app subscriptions, learning development budgets, and summer Fridays. His results show higher-than-industry-benchmark retention rates and positive employee net promoter scores (ENPS). Sena contrasts his model with Big Four consultancies and high-pressure tech companies where friends experience midnight calls, unreasonable deadlines, and mandatory office time - arguing that "freedom is the new flex" and companies counting hours instead of making hours count will lose talent to those offering flexibility and boundaries.
Sena experienced tunnel vision, increased heart rate, sweating, and feelings of impending heart attack - all caused by exhaustion, dehydration, and lack of sleep from 15 years of constant grind, drinking 4-5 cups of coffee daily while skipping proper hydration and sleep.
He implemented Superhuman email scheduling so all emails to his team appear at 8am the next day, preventing late-night sends that would implicitly tell employees they need to work after hours.
Digital Surgeons offers wellness budgets for meditation apps and home office equipment, generous and flexible PTO policies, remote-first work culture, learning development budgets, and summer Fridays (any-time Friday), resulting in higher-than-benchmark retention rates and positive ENPS scores.
Sena defines mindful marketing as being present and aware of the challenges in front of you - understanding your team, clients, their customers, and who you're serving, rather than just the wellness practices typically associated with mindfulness.
At Big Four firms, employees receive midnight calls for deliverables, mandatory travel on short notice, unreasonable deadline compression, and constant after-hours Slack and email; at Digital Surgeons, the office is largely empty by 5:15pm and vacations are protected.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode mixes genuine, actionable insights (outcome-focused leadership, the four green lights system, information asymmetry) with substantial filler and repetition. Pete's personal burnout story is valuable, but much of the conversation devolves into restating the same themes (trust people, don't work nights, measure outcomes not outputs) without adding depth or complexity. The episode lacks granular operational detail that would help a practitioner immediately implement change.
I think a lot of leaders focus on what are the tasks and and to-dos that their employees are doing. And I think that when people focus on counting the hours and counting the tasks and counting the outputs, I think that people then start to think that way.
I believe profit is not a goal, all profits are result. At the most simple level, if you take care of your people, your people take care of your clients and customers.
Pete's core ideas - wellness over burnout, outcome over output, trust-based leadership, transparency - are well-worn in contemporary management discourse. The four green lights framework is a useful visual metaphor but essentially restates basic status reporting. His criticisms of hustle culture and 1800s-style management (Frederick Taylorism) are now mainstream. The episode offers refinement but little that contradicts or reframes existing orthodoxy.
I think that when you treat people like adults, they behave like adults. When you treat people like Like children, they behave like children, right?
freedom is the new flex.
Pete Sena is a legitimate founder with 20 years running Digital Surgeons (a 38-person agency) and has tangible experience implementing the systems he discusses. He has concrete examples of firing clients, managing team retention, and running a profitable business. However, his primary domain is creative/digital services, not B2B marketing broadly, and the episode doesn't leverage deep expertise in marketing strategy, demand gen, or revenue operations - areas more directly relevant to B2B operators.
Digitalsurgeons.com is the company I started 20 years ago. We've got a great leadership team running that, great team contributing on a daily basis.
we have turned down or fired millions of dollars worth of business this year alone, specifically because it was not good for the team.
Pete relies heavily on personal anecdotes (his anxiety attack, a friend at Big Four consulting, employee ergonomic keyboard) but provides few concrete metrics or data points. He mentions high retention rates and ENPS scores without numbers. The four green lights system is conceptually clear but Pete doesn't offer case studies with before/after revenue, retention %, or productivity metrics. The customer NPS example is vague. Most claims lack quantification.
we have a relatively high retention rate in terms of the amount of time that people have stayed with the company. How they've grown with the company over time when compared to our industry benchmarks.
I have a lot of qualitative case studies. I wouldn't say I have a quantitative case study because we, that's not something that I'm super involved in.
The host asks reasonable open-ended questions and does follow up on specifics (the wellness programs, the four green lights, the action steps). However, the host rarely pushes back or challenges Pete's claims. When Pete makes broad assertions (e.g., 'productivity does not equal progress' or 'the death of most modern companies comes from information asymmetry'), the host nods along rather than testing the logic or asking for counterexamples. The conversation is comfortable but lacks intellectual friction.
So can you explain what that is and what it means for your team and your working culture?
can you like describe what some of those are and like, have you since implementing any of these, have Have you seen like a difference in the people you work with?
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
MAIN INSIGHT: Prioritize self-care and employee wellness in the marketing workplace to prevent burnout and foster sustainable business growth. GUEST BIO: Pete Sena is a creative entrepreneur and founder of Digital Surgeons , a brand experience consultancy. For nearly 20 years, he has partnered with founders and business leaders to accelerate growth through marketing innovation, branding, and digital-experience design. A human-centered problem solver, Pete focuses on the behaviors and systems that drive people, products, and experiences. His work has impacted leading brands such as Unilever, Microsoft, and LEGO. He leverages expertise at the intersection of design, technology, and consumer behavior to enact positive change and increase business value.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
WEBVTT - > All right. Today, I'm sitting down with Pete Sena, - > and he is the founder of Digital Surgeons, - > and he has a lot of insights on how to promote self-care in your marketing workplace - > and get better results from your marketing team without burnout. - > So I'm super excited to chat with you, Pete, and dig into your background. - > Awesome.
Excited to be here as well. fun little platform here. - > Yeah. Thank you.
So what got you into marketing, founding your company and all of that? - > Yeah, for sure. So I am a creative tech nerd. - > So I'd say what got me into marketing was I originally thought I wanted to be a game developer.
- > And so I taught myself how to code at a really young age. - > And then I got into design because I wanted my apps and the the things that - > I was building to look cool because if you're just writing code, - > they don't have an interface and interfaces are cool. - > And then from there, I stumbled into a job doing sports marketing that I thought - > was going to be like an app job. - > And then I fell in love with marketing.
I thought it was really interesting - > to get to know how people think and how people behave and how all those things work. - > And ultimately that's what led me into what brings - > to be here today - > So one of the things that I wanted to discuss was a little bit of your journey with balancing business growth, with self-care and wellness? - > Why is that important to you and how did you get into doing that? - > Yeah.
Well, for one, I love this topic because I was definitely not the poster - > child for self-care for the first 15 years of my career, if I'm being really honest. - > What's interesting is people don't care about self-care until they need to care. - > So it's like we take our health for granted until we don't have it anymore. - > So what I would say for me is I had to learn a lot about just figuring out healthy - > habits with work because I'm definitely a workaholic.
I love what I do. - > I love growth. I love business. - > So I think that my journey to self-care really came about when I was having - > a lot of like issues with anxiety and burnout.
- > And it really just came down to like, I just needed to rest more. - > I needed to meditate, find some time for hobbies, that sort of thing. - > So now I just really try to make sure that everybody has their own way that - > they take care of themselves. - > And it could be anything.
It could be, you know, a hobby, it could be exercise, - > it could be, you know, hydration. - > I mean, it sounds almost trivial, but it makes a huge deal. - > And for me, I found that when I started prioritizing sleep, when I started prioritizing - > meditation, it really made a difference. Sorry, I had this lingering cough.
- > It's been with me for two weeks. I'm totally fine. It's just the weirdest thing. - > So to answer the question, I would say.
- > On the topic of self-care, you have to know yourself. It's the most important person to know. - > And I think from there, then you can do the things that are right for you. - > But I think it's important to realize that whatever you're doing, - > whether it's a job, a business, a company, it's a series of sprints, but it's a marathon.
- > And if you treat the marathon like a sprint, you will burn out. - > No matter how good you are, no matter how much you love what you do, - > there's just a limitation to what a human can do. - > So that's ultimately how I discovered it on my journey. - > I'd say first 10, 15 years.
- > First 10, 15 years of my career, I was just like grind mode all the time. - > And now I'm holding a lot more space for myself and others to not have that. - > Oh, awesome. Awesome.
So what are, - > I don't know how deep you want to go into to this, but what did it feel like - > or what specifically can you remember about that time where you were just about - > to burn out and what was the difference kind of before and after? - > Well, if you could imagine having crazy tunnel vision, increased heart rate, - > sweating, feeling like you're going to have a heart attack, that's all that felt like. - > I actually thought I I was having a heart attack. I went to the doctor and turned - > out I was just having a massive anxiety attack, which I think was really right - > about from just probably exhaustion, dehydration, and a lack of sleep.
- > And I don't share this with you or the audience to glorify it. - > I share it as a cautionary tale because I was loving what I was doing. - > I was pushing myself so hard because I was loving it. - > I was learning every day.
I was pushing myself every day. I was building multiple companies. - > And as we get older, when we're not 20 years old anymore, our bodies can't withstand the same type of. - > Constant tension, constant stress over time.
So I think at the time I was probably - > drinking, I don't know, four or five cups of coffee a day, wasn't drinking a lot of water. - > I would work out and lift heavy weights in the gym and whatnot, - > but I wasn't sleeping well or a lot, probably because of the caffeine. - > I was working a lot late at night and really just putting the time and putting the grind in. - > And look, this is not me trying to be for or against hustle porn here.
- > This is me just saying, this is my journey. This was what worked for me, - > what didn't work for me. I want to share it with others. - > But what it was like was it was a pretty serious medical thing.
- > And then what it felt like after I started to incorporate a more healthy hydration - > routine, a more healthy self-care routine with meditation, a little bit of journaling, - > note-taking, it was transformationally different. - > I was thinking more clearly. My moods were more more stabilized. - > I made improvements in my diet.
And it was like, I went from being stressed - > out all the time and overworked to feeling like really even and clear. - > I joke around a lot and to the people that still work with me, - > because I have a lot of people that worked with me before and after this. - > And it's like, you know, before meditation, Pete, after meditation, - > Pete, I joke around a lot. - > I mean, I'm still the same person, right?
I still bring the same level of energy - > and passion, but I think it's just, it's knowing when you're at the red line, - > that the best thing to do when you're at the red line is not to hit the gas. - > It's actually to let your foot off the gas, not hit the brake, - > but just understand that there is a limit. - > And the best way to build that upper limit is to strive, but also to make sure - > to pause and be present and have self-care. So yeah, that's how I would answer that question.
- > Oh, yeah. That's an incredible story. Since you've been kind of of promoting - > this with your team members, like Pete after meditation, - > like how, what was the change in how you like interacted with, - > with them, with, with other people who you work with? - > It's a really good question.
I think what I would say is I'm more patient now. - > I recognize that just because something can get done in a day doesn't mean that it has to or it should. - > And I think that what I would also say just to be really, really clear is I've - > never been the kind of person that pushes people to work nights and weekends - > and that sort of thing. I've never been that kind of boss, never been that kind of leader.
- > I held myself to that standard as one of the owners. And I think a lot of founders - > and entrepreneurs who might be listening to this understand you pushing yourself - > does not always equal you pushing your team. - > So I want to make sure that there's a direct distinction. distinction, - > I'm speaking primarily for myself.
- > I think I've always led my team in a way that created space for them to have - > work-life balance and that sort of thing. - > We've never been known as the you're going to work 80 hours a week kind of company. - > We've just never been that company. - > I've worked at companies like that.
I have friends who work at companies like - > that. I don't think that that's healthy. - > And that's a whole separate topic altogether. - > But yeah, Yeah.
I mean, I think for me, we have a wellness budget and a learning - > development budget and all of our employees and all my companies, - > people can use that for whatever they deem as growth and self-care. - > We have a really generous PTO policy that we're super flexible about. - > We're a remote-first culture, so we're not forcing people to be in the office five days a week. - > We're really generally flexible as long as the work is getting done.
- > So I would say that's just just been my, you know, my thoughts on. - > That aspect of it. But I think for me, just kind of going back to the thread - > that connected you and I around mindful marketing or mindful B2B marketing is, - > I don't think mindful has to always be connected to yoga, meditation, - > and sleep, which it typically is. - > I think mindful means being present and aware of the challenge that we have in front of us.
- > And I would say to that end, I've always been a really present marketer in terms - > of understanding who is my team, who's my client, who is their customer, who are we serving? - > So I just want to make sure that we come at it through multiple angles of mindful. - > Yeah, that makes sense. Okay.
So you mentioned that you've implemented some - > of these like wellness programs and PTO programs. - > So can you like describe what some of those are and like, have you since implementing - > any of these, have Have you seen like a difference in the people you work with? - > Like say you implemented an employee wellness program, like just have you seen - > any like before and after stories or just like notice that people seem happier, healthier? - > Like what, what, what case studies do you have of this like working anecdotally?
- > I have a lot of qualitative case studies. I wouldn't say I have a quantitative - > case study because we, that's not something that I'm super involved in. - > I have a really great leadership team that focuses on those things. - > So I can certainly double back with them and get back to you.
- > But what I would say in terms of what I've experienced is we have a relatively - > high retention rate in terms of the amount of time that people have stayed with the company. - > How they've grown with the company over time when compared to our industry benchmarks. - > We use a couple of different softwares where we can get employee net promoter scores or ENPS. - > And those kinds of things, certainly things that come up in one-on-ones with - > managers and leaders.
We do 360 reviews. - > So I think we've heard a lot. I think for me... - > The correlation that I would make to it is people feel seen and heard, - > but I think the world is generally a pretty chaotic place right now.
- > It's very difficult for some people to work and focus when we have some of the - > atrocities happening in the world that are happening today. - > You know, some people are really emotionally affected by these things, - > whether they're directly or indirectly in their, in their vicinity. - > So I can't pretend to know what's going on people's heads and hearts. - > But what I can say is, you know, by us doing our part, - > you know, when we offered up like meditation app subscriptions, - > and we've heard anecdotally from people in the company that that's been really - > appreciated, that we focus on that.
- > We've had a lot of people really surprised by it like wow like i - > didn't know that i could you know that that was a possibility you know - > some people who do a lot of work from home have - > you know bought various amenities that you know - > have made their life or work easier you know like - > one of our engineers has like a special kind of ergonomic keyboard that's really - > special for him and and i think you know makes him feel like heard and appreciated - > you know i think it's different things for different people but again i'm not - > that's not something that i'm super involved in on the day-to-day, - > so I don't want to pretend to be.
- > But I would say overall, what I do see come out a lot in the retrospectives, - > so we do retrospectives in our sprints when we close them out. - > And it does seem that people really like when we do different things, - > whether it's any time Friday, which is our summer Friday kind of thing, - > or when we gather and bring people together for different things, - > as opposed to really trying to squeeze out every billable hour we can. - > I feel like it just promotes a happier, healthier workplace.
- > And that's just the way that I've felt for a really long time. - > So I wouldn't consider that to be very... - > Avant-garde. I think great companies understand that their greatest assets are - > people.
And if you take good care of people, they take good care of you and your clients. - > So I don't know, maybe I'm weird because I'm just biased in that regard. - > Well, yeah. Well, let's dissect some of these biases then - > because you said you might have worked at some previous companies where they - > didn't really have a culture that focused on wellness or where you've encountered - > friends or colleagues who have been in those kind of 80 hour a week hustle and - > grind set type of working environments.
- > Can you maybe speak a little bit about friends or anecdotes you've noticed of - > people who've been in that environment and how it might compare to your employees? - > 100%. I was at the dinner with a friend the other night. He works at a big four consultancy.
- > And he said that on a regular basis, his boss We'll call him at midnight or - > one o'clock in the morning and ask him to deliver things. - > Again, he's at a big four consultancy. He's, he's, you know, - > pretty high up in the organization. He's not a, he's not a leader.
- > He's a, you know, individual contributor. - > He'll get a call on a Thursday. He has to be on a plane on a Friday. - > You know, guy's got a family, right?
But he's got to do it. - > You know, constant emails, Slack messages, after hours, - > you know, unreasonable project deadlines where things have to get done, - > you know, in hours or days that some people take weeks or months on. - > So, I mean, I've heard a lot of crazy stories. - > I mean, you hear stories of people that, you know, just are working around the - > clock and having to deliver stuff.
- > So that's a stark contrast from our team, you know, like at 5.15 on a regular - > day here, where most of our office is empty or virtual office, whatever you call it. - > I think a lot of companies still are counting the hours and counting the watches. - > I think we have to stop counting the hours and start making the hours count.
- > It's not to say that we don't work hard. It's not to say that we don't have - > those times where we have to do things. - > But I do think that it's important to recognize people's boundaries, - > to understand those things, and to hold space and hold them sacred. grid.
- > One of the things that I do, which I do think made a big difference in my team - > is I used to be in meetings all day and then at night I'd be catching up and I'd be emailing people. - > And I didn't realize that if the CEO is sending an email at eight o'clock at - > night and their phone lights up, they might check it. - > So what I do now is my team knows this. We make jokes about it is they notice - > that almost all the emails they get from me that happened at 8am.
- > It's because I use a tool called superhuman and it schedules them for the next day. - > So the benefit to that is if I'm modeling the behavior that I'm working all - > hours of the night, then sometimes that might implicitly set the unspoken rule - > set that they think they have to work those kinds of hours. - > So I think that we encourage use of do not disturb on Slack. - > We encourage away messages on Slack and out of office emails when people are out of the office.
- > And we don't bother people when they're on vacation. - > I mean, to me, this is just like good business. So forgive me if I'm kind of - > like, But then I have friends who are at really great companies. - > Or let's say really high performing companies, like brands that you and I know and love.
- > I don't want to out any of them specifically, but like main name brands that - > we've all heard of and maybe buy from, and it's not the same for them. - > Where they're getting called into the office, they have to drive two and a half hours to an office. - > They get there and their boss doesn't show up for 45 minutes. - > And then they ended up having a 15 minute meeting with their boss and a two and a half hour drive.
- > There's a lot of shit out there. And I think that people are waking up to the - > fact that freedom is the new flex. - > And I think the more you can give people freedom, the more people you can give - > people flexibility, the more that they're going to want to put the energy in - > to make the company successful if there's a purpose behind it. - > So I think people have woken up to the fact that it's not the 1800s anymore.
- > People don't have to work in those types of situations because there are other - > options out there for them. - > We have a very... My companies employ mostly knowledge workers. - > So they're all really smart awesome people and - > i think that they know that you know they don't have to be here they can - > be anywhere they want to be really and so i think that when people - > want to be somewhere versus feeling like they have to be somewhere i think it changes that - > the dynamic but again this is these are things that are not new to me we've - > we've believed this for a long time i mean yeah it's not new to you but it's - > new to some people or they just like maybe i've heard of these types But don't - > don't really have it in their company or in their team.
- > So, yeah, for these are like marketers and like CEOs who are listening and like - > trying to move towards this type of culture. - > So I want to drill down like a little bit on how you implement some of these things. - > Like, okay, you say, for example, you encourage people that do out of office - > responders and do not disturb Slack messages. - > Like what kind of, do you have any kind of like system for that or like some - > guidelines that are encouraged in specific situations?
- > Or is it just kind of like, eh, use it when you need it? - > Yeah. I'll actually, I'll show you actually. Hold on.
- > Give me one second, okay? Mm-hmm. I just want to respect people's privacy, so give me one sec. Yeah.
- > But I want to show you in the audience so you can see it. It's like an internal - > document with your guidelines. - > Yeah. Give me just one second.
I'm going to show you. - > I just didn't want to. I just want to make sure nobody's sensitive information, - > like their names or whatever was there, just because permission, - > I think, is a really important thing. - > And I didn't have the permission to share that.
So hold on one second. - > So I will share my screen. this is - > just to share context for you in - > the audience so this is an - > internal slack channel we have called my status so here you see a person leaving - > at 4 45 you know seeing a person leaving for after-school help to help with - > their kids yeah someone's on a little bit earlier you know someone's out for - > pto someone's taking their fall friday so we have these things called fall all Fridays, - > which are basically where you can just elect to take certain Fridays off that you want to take off.
- > So you see people like electing that and reacting to that and that sort of thing. - > So it's a very relaxed situation where we look out for each other and people - > just signal what they're going to do. - > And it's not like you have to put in for a time off request and get that approved by your boss. - > We work together, we cover each other.
And that's just an example. - > But like you can see there, like, you know, that if I was to scroll past that, - > there's stuff happening all day. I blurred out people's names just for privacy purposes. - > But yeah, I mean, that's it's stuff.
It's small stuff. We don't like over operationalize - > it. Right. It's like open communication.
- > Typically, people letting each other know when they're not going to be around or not. - > You might have noticed the little emojis next to people's names. - > We use different software that will say, like, if they're in a meeting, - > so you're not like slacking someone there in a meeting or if someone's away - > or in a different time zone because we have people that work all over the world. - > So I'd say it's small stuff like that.
It's just like when you act like a human - > being to people, they act like a human being back. - > And i don't know i just don't think it's that hard yeah - > what what app was that you said it's called my status or - > it's a channel within that's just a black channel we have oh okay and so there's - > no company you know where you request the time or you have a spreadsheet or - > whatever it's just oh i want to take tomorrow off i'm taking fall friday tomorrow - > guys and that's it it's it's It's kind of that simple.
- > We have an HR workflow system that's connected to all of our payroll stuff called Zenefits, - > where when someone's going to take time off, they do let their manager know, - > and then their manager will put that in so that it's in that system too. - > But I'm saying the way we go about applying for these things is extremely conversational. - > What I found is that the easier and more flexible you can make things for people, - > the more likely that people will use the system.
them. - > The harder and more complex, the different. Now, again, we're a much smaller company. - > I work with some of my clients that are 20, 30, 40,000 person companies.
- > So obviously those things I think require a little bit more rules. - > We're independently owned, right? So we're not beholden to some corporate overlord. - > I am the corporate overlord in this case.
So I think we can kind of do things - > how we want to do them. And I'm really proud of that. - > Okay. And how many people are in your company?
So right now we're just about 40 full-time people. - > I'm a little under 40. I think 38 was the number as of the screen share I just cleared. - > And then we've got a bunch of contractors and kind of perma lancers that we - > work with on a regular basis.
But yeah, the core team is about 38 people. - > Okay. Sounds cool. And there's a topic that you brought up previously in one - > of our conversation that was about outcome-focused leadership versus output-focused.
- > Yeah. So can you explain what's the difference between outcomes and outputs - > and why you think leaders should be aware of that? - > Yes, 1000%. I think a lot of leaders focus on what are the tasks and and to-dos - > that their employees are doing.
- > And I think that when people focus on counting the hours and counting the tasks - > and counting the outputs, I think that people then start to think that way, - > which is they think that if they do a lot of things and they're really busy, - > they're actually adding value. - > I like to focus on outcomes. - > So for example, I would rather someone come to me and say that, - > I'll take a business development example for a second, and then I'll come around to an engineering one.
- > I'd rather someone say, we've got three clients that are about to sign a new - > scope of work to work with the company that they're working on versus them saying, - > I made 100 phone calls today, or I sent 100 emails today. - > Because I think that a lot of times people focus too much on the output and - > not enough on the outcome. - > And I think that when you focus too much on the widget and not enough on the - > why, then in my experiences, your success is different.
- > So what I mean by outcome obsessed is like, what are the most important things - > that we need to get done on this creative program that when it goes live is - > going to surprise and delight this particular core audience who we know has - > these needs and wants and that sort of thing? What's the outcome? - > Versus going like, okay, here's the to-do list of 30 things that we have to do. - > And okay, if we get 28 of them done, we feel bad about ourselves because we - > didn't get all 30 done.
done versus if we just celebrate the fact that we're - > launching this thing, it meets the criteria, getting some success, - > that's an outcome. So I like to focus on outcomes over outputs. - > I think a lot of companies have the kinds of cultures, the kinds of setup, - > the kinds of people where they focus too much on where the person is, - > did they get this thing done? - > And I just think that when you treat people like adults, they behave like adults.
- > When you treat people like Like children, they behave like children, right? - > And what I mean by that specifically is like, give respect, get respect. Give trust, get trust. - > Give distrust, get distrust back.
- > So I just think that it's really simple. And it's sad because I work with a - > lot of leaders who don't see it that way. - > Not in my company, in other companies where they're just like, - > they're still living in Frederick Taylorism world from the 1800s where they - > think people are going to be programmed like robots. - > And what I tell people now is if you want robots to work for you, go get an AI.
- > If you want people that are going to help you grow your company, - > focus on outcomes and making people feel heard, seen, and loved. - > Yeah. And I think that over-optimization has kind of bled into business culture - > over however many years, like post-internet and remote working and social media culture, - > because I think people, there's maybe then this movement towards like productivity - > and measuring it like digitally through like optimizing the number of hours, - > the amount you can squeeze out of the number of hours you're working.
- > And then the amount accomplished per minute, like you get some advice from. - > You know, some famous business CEO that'll say, oh, well, you can compress your - > meetings down from 30 minutes to 15 minutes and you can get just as much done - > if you squeeze in that time. - > But then that... I do agree with that though, but I want to be really clear about something.
- > So I just wrote an article that I purposely have been compressing my meetings - > with people for shorter meetings, because I think meetings are generally a waste - > of fucking time, which we're going to cover in just a second, hopefully. - > But what I want to say as a build on what you said, Kira, is I think that productivity - > does not equal progress. - > So I want to be really clear is what people call productive is often not productive. - > For me, I think that people need to focus on effectiveness.
They need to focus on progress. - > And I think that productivity oftentimes is measuring quantity, not quality. - > And I think that, yes, we absolutely want high quality, high quantity, - > but low quantity high - > quality there's value there so you have to look at yourself you have to look - > at your business you have to look at your customer and you have to ask yourself - > like well what is success and then move into that but i do think there's a lot - > of waste in organizations so i think that like i applaud the ceo of shopify - > who got rid of meetings that were recurring meetings - > most of them are a waste of time if you ask the people how they really felt - > no one wants to go to a fucking 60 person - > zoom meeting and listen to somebody wonk on it's like that could have - > been an email that could have been a loom message right that's - > why loom got built bought for almost a billion dollars because the - > amount of times i have to say something to someone but rather than writing an - > email i'll send them a five minute loom watch the loom respond to the loom when - > you get a chance right i don't need it right this second but if i call a meeting - > with you and add all this pressure you know some people like to process things - > go through them a few times so i I think that like what I've learned about synchronous - > and asynchronous communication is that.
- > The way you communicate, where you communicate, how you communicate is super important. - > And it's something I've struggled with a lot. I have a particular company that - > I am an owner in, and that company is really struggling with meeting culture right now. - > And it's so ingrained in that company's DNA, it's really hard to change.
- > So that's a situation where I feel bad for that company because, - > and it's one of my companies, - > and I feel bad because it's really difficult when someone's so used to for multiple - > years having a meeting about a meeting, and then we go and replace that with - > a loom and people have free time and they're like, oh my God, what do I do with this? - > You actually have to give people permission to then use that free time for things that are valuable. - > And I think that that's a culture change.
That's a behavior change. - > I have so much respect for change management people because one, - > I just think like every change management person needs like a lifetime supply - > to THC because like it's hard to make people update behaviors and change, right? - > And if you historically look at the leaders in change management, - > it's been the companies that go in and fire and reward companies, right? - > But if you really look at the sustained progress around change management companies, - > I am not a change management expert.
- > But what I will tell you is the data tells you that it's about understanding - > the change, understanding the transition, and understanding how to communicate - > and work with that throughout those stages. - > I got a little bit of an expertise in change management during COVID because I'm like, Like, fuck, - > like the world just did a 180, but I have so much respect for smart change management - > people that do this for a living people, ops people, like God bless their beautiful - > souls and their patients.
- > They're special people. - > Yeah, I agree with that. I think people maybe, especially in certain company - > cultures, have a default of just relying on meetings or they're not thinking - > through what's the best way to communicate this ahead of time, - > especially if that's not set by the CEO or baked in from the beginning that, - > oh, we use Slack for this purpose, and then we use email for - > this purpose and then we use video meeting or in-person - > meetings for this purpose at the same time like there - > might be some like over - > optimization like when people - > when people get too much in this productivity mentality in my - > opinion they can sometimes like focus too - > much on the times and like ted out things that are - > important like for example it - > might not make dollars and cents - > on the surface to spend two days bringing everybody to a company retreat where - > they get to know each other but then that extra time that you're spending you - > can't measure it in like hour-by-hour output on your balance sheet, - > but it has some profound impacts on company cultures and people's productivity - > and people's well-being and overall coordination and efficiency at their jobs - > if they actually take the extra time to do something like that.
- > So I disagree with those people because I think that they don't understand how to measure it. - > Just because you don't know how to measure something doesn't mean it can't be - > measured. So I'll give you a perfect example. - > Why a two-day retreat is valuable for a company is that you can do a before, - > during, and after retreat.
- > Survey, conversation, emoji reaction with people. - > And you can get a felt sense of people on how that will improve clarity of vision, - > improve people's alignment towards a particular mission, bring people together - > in a time now where people really need... A lot of people are lonely, right? - > Not everybody at the company has family and children.
Some people are lonely. - > Some people are by themselves. - > Some people want to be in the presence of other people. - > Some people want to have their ideas be heard.
Some people want to contribute in a different way. - > So I think knowing... So in that case, that two days, yeah, you can look at - > the productivity hit that you would have for those two days. - > But then what you can realize is that when people understand each other and - > speak each other's language, things are going to move a lot smoother.
- > Things are going to move a lot faster. So that two-day hit in productivity might - > actually create a massive increase in two-year of productivity. - > I'll give you a perfect example. - > We've done similar things where we would do customer interviews with our clients, - > where we'd go out, we would talk to some of their core customers, - > we would survey them, we would do specific things, and we would do before and - > after studies of net promoter score, specifically on the client side.
- > And we saw that when you invest in customer experience, when you invest in human - > experience, you see an increase in net promoter score. - > Then you were able to actually back in, what's the difference of a one or two - > on a net promoter score, how does that affect lifetime value? - > How does that affect churn rate? So in the case internally for a company, - > lifetime value is equivalent to the time that they spend with an organization - > or the value that they contribute.
- > So now you can actually largely affect your attrition rate or your contribution - > rates simply by bringing people together around shared value, around shared visions. - > I think that a lot of people think that they can't measure things. - > They think that there's not going to be a big difference, but the reality is - > they're just not looking at the right things in my opinion. - > So that's where I think that people need to add more creativity to the way that - > they lead because humans are not robots.
We're not machines to be. - > Optimally optimized. I think we can get a lot more out of our people if we let - > them focus, if we eliminate distractions for them, because the world is a distraction device, right? - > These rectangles we have in our pockets, we get enough distractions every day - > from our lives and families and all that, much less like Slack notifications.
- > And hey, do you just have one minute? Do you just have one minute? - > How many times do you hear that in a company, right? And then it takes 30 minutes - > on average to get back on task and break that context switch.
- > I mean, I don't know about you, Kara, but you ever finish a day up and you're - > like, what did I actually do today? - > Like a million, just one minute interruptions. So I think it becomes more difficult as you scale. - > And I think when you're a remote company or remote first, it gets even harder - > because you have to design the interactions.
- > You have to design the gathering in a meaningful way. and going right back to - > the outcome focused leadership, right? Is like, how do you focus on what are we trying to achieve? - > Like what's the unit of value that this employee needs to create?
- > And just sharing that, like really transparent, like Kira, let me tell you, - > like you're on the team. This is the role that you provide. - > This is how you're compensated. This is what drives your compensation for the - > role.
This is how we look at your measurement of success. - > Did you know that? And you're like, no, I didn't know that. So did you know - > why we need you to be on these particular things for these reasons?
know. - > So I think when people understand those things, they're so much more empathetic. - > I think a lot of times we as leaders take for granted what people actually know. - > And that's why I think communication is so important.
And that's been a huge weakness of mine. - > I would assume people knew things or I would try to over-communicate or under-communicate. - > And the truth of the matter is, there is no such thing as over-communication. - > It doesn't exist.
Because even when you think you're saying too much, - > which you're not saying enough for some people. - > So I think it's just like over-communicate. And then the one big learning I'm - > having, which is like kicking me in the ass, document, document, document. - > Because it's like what happens from our lips gets generalized, - > deleted, and distorted.
- > What gets put to paper, a loom video that someone can go back and watch, - > a document, an artifact, a design, a thing, people can anchor that in a much - > more memorable way versus like, we just talked for an hour, like, what did he say? - > And then if you're in a bad mood, maybe you hear it one way and I'm like, - > no, Kira, I didn't mean it that way. - > What I really just meant was this. And you're like, but you were just having - > a tough day that day and you just heard it a certain way.
- > But if you went back and you're like, oh, Pete was saying we have to agree on - > these three items. I know Pete's this kind of person. - > Oh, if I had just written that down, if we had just agreed on that. - > So that's where I think that companies can do things like recording meetings, right?
- > Because when people have access to meetings, they feel like things are more - > open. They feel like there's things aren't being hidden, right? - > I think the death of most modern companies comes from information asymmetry. - > Okay.
So like the leaders having way more information than everybody else or - > just different pockets of people having, yeah. - > Yeah. It's not even leaders. I think that like the more open information is, - > the more people can contribute.
- > Right. And I don't think people ever meet, it's not malice, right? - > It's like, I'm DMing you because I don't want to bother the whole group in Slack - > or whatever comms tool you use. - > But by doing that, we make a decision.
we make an agreement and the team doesn't - > know about that. And if you or I forget to close that loop, then, - > Now the whole team is either doing something to step up and now that's extra - > work that they shouldn't have to be doing or if we just communicated it. - > So what I say is almost nothing should be private. - > Yeah, one-on-ones, of course, should be private.
- > Things that are sensitive should be private. But if we're all working on a project - > together and we're a project team or we're a product team or whatever kind of - > company you are, what is the harm in doing that in in the open. - > I would argue doing it in private is actually creating more harm. - > And lack of information breeds distrust.
When people think that things are happening - > outside of them, distrust happens. - > And I've seen the good and the bad of that across both sides of the aisle. - > Yeah. That makes a ton of sense.
You're making me rethink how I structure my - > Slack channels now. Now, so you switching gears a little bit, - > you have this four green lights system. - > So can you explain what that is and what it means for your team and your working - > culture? A hundred percent.
- > This is a system that I've rolled out in a lot of my clients. - > I've rolled it out with a couple of my companies. - > And I think that it works for a lot of different type of companies. - > I'm not saying it's a panacea, but I'm saying this is our system, right?
- > One, I think that visual, actionable, clear systems are important, right? - > So nothing, in my opinion, has been more memorable for the human experience - > than a traffic light, right? - > If you're an adult and you can drive a vehicle, you've probably seen some kind of a traffic light. - > You understand that red means stop, green means go, and some other version of - > a color means something else, right?
- > So I think that, and obviously, if. - > Many of these tools, the way they - > present themselves also have different affordances for different colors. - > So obviously, if someone has a color blindness, they can see the version of - > what that red is. So I want to just be clear, I don't want to come at it from - > an ableist mentality so I don't get attacked later.
- > But what I would say is four green lights. - > First green light is about our team. Take care of your team, - > they take care of your company. - > So the first green light is team.
Are we green, are we yellow, are we red? - > I'll go back into detail on each of these in a second. So that's the first green - > light. The second green light is our client or our customer.
- > In our case, it's our client. - > In your case, it might be your customer. It depends on how you structure. - > Third green light is the impact, the positive impact we're making on their business.
- > We get paid to do something. Are we delivering value for that thing we're getting paid? - > Whether we sell expo markers or agency services, same kind of thing. - > Are we delivering impact?
- > Value exchange, mutual value exchange. Last but not least is profit. - > I believe profit is not a goal, all profits are result. - > At the most simple level, if you take care of your people, your people take - > care of your clients and customers.
- > If your people are taking care of your clients and customers working together, - > you're probably going to have a positive impact on the business, hopefully. - > And if everything's working together in unison, there's transparency, - > you're probably going to have a profitable company in both situations. - > So I'd say rolling that out has been the single greatest thing that I've seen. - > As a founder, as a CEO, as a leader in helping to push things up and to the right.
- > And by having the traffic light system, by being openly transparent, - > writing about it publicly. - > So I wrote this article. It's 100% public. You can read about it.
- > Anyone can read about it. - > It's a public declaration statement. And everyone that works at this company, - > every month, we go through the four green lights. - > So we know that it's a staple in the organization.
- > And what I ask in almost every meeting is, how are you doing today, Kira? - > Green, yellow, red. and it's a qualitative test to understand, - > you know what? Maybe you had a pipe burst in your house and you're having a really tough day.
- > Maybe I shouldn't be super hard on you today. Maybe I can help you out a little - > bit. Maybe I could take something off your plate because then it's reciprocal. - > Then if I have a tough day, which everyone does, then people trust each other - > to have each other's back.
- > So I think that those green lights or yellow lights, red lights. - > Signals, in my opinion, save companies. - > Signals save companies. Lack of signals creates stress, Too much stress breaks the system.
- > A broken system leads to a broken company. - > Yeah, it's real interesting how you think about that holistically and not just - > like, you know, the short term direct impact, - > but the longer term, you know, this is how what I'm doing right here, - > checking in on all of my team members on a regular basis or having everybody - > check in with each other, you know, changes all the downstream effects of the - > system and affects the whole business. - > Yeah. And let me go one step deeper, right?
It's not just about talking the - > talk about walking the walk this year. - > We fired over four clients because they were directly resulting in lack of team satisfaction. - > So we, we have turned down or fired millions of dollars worth of business this - > year alone, specifically because it was not good for the team. - > It was not good for the vision.
It was not good for the company. - > In a very general sense, what were they doing that was impacting team satisfaction? - > No, you don't want to call out any clients, but just a vague, overarching summary. - > I'll give you a really good example without sharing anything proprietary.
- > So they were making promises and commitments to us that they weren't delivering on. - > And then they would send us what I like to call late-night angry emails days - > later, trying to get the teams working nights and weekends. - > You know, they're just, they were trying to let our dysfunction be their dysfunction - > become our dysfunction. - > And at the end of the day, I was not, you know, shit rolls downhill, - > as they say, it's a stereotype for a reason.
- > And I was not allowed to, I was not about to let their shit roll downhill just - > because their dollars were green. - > Now, a lot of CEOs might hear this and say, you know what, that Pete guy, - > I would never want to be on my company. - > And cool. Bye.
A lot of people might hear that and say, you know what, - > I really liked the way this guy thinks. - > Hi so i think that's that's where i'm at great people are really hard to replace, - > great clients are really hard to replace bad people bad clients not hard to - > replace in fact i would argue you should replace them yeah that makes sense so generally i like to, - > turn this translate this into action steps so let's do it you know suppose we're - > like talking into a B2B marketing leader or CEO and they want to start implementing self-care and better.
- > Wellness programs into their culture, as well as things like your four green lights system. - > Step-by-step, what would you have them do in order to see that through? - > First, you have to start with the real goal of the organization. - > Why do you exist?
What are you trying to do? Where are you trying to get to? - > I think you have to design a company around the vision, not the vision around the culture. - > I think in a lot of ways, the first place to start is what does success look like?
- > Paint that picture, define what that success looks like, and then figure out - > a way to make that success happen in a way that creates a healthy, - > contributory, participatory environment. - > And then from there, depending on the company, the region, whatever they're - > doing, then from there, you start to design a program. You can't start with a wellness program. - > You have to start with a vision.
You have to start with success criteria and a roadmap. - > And then you have to back into, okay, well now, in order to make this happen, - > we have to have the greatest team of X, Y, and Z types of people. Okay, great. - > How do we attract the greatest team of X, Y, and Z type of people?
- > Okay. hey, what does that mean for our competition, our benefits, - > our structures, our flexibility? - > How do we... - > Contribute to creating the kind of culture the kind of environment that - > we believe that needs to happen to support this initiative or - > goal because if you try to do that then you're - > just like benefit washing right where you're just trying to be like like there's - > been places remember back in the day that we used to try to hire me like years - > ago when i was like on the market and it was like they would promise you the - > foosball table and the stock kitchen and every possible thing you can think - > of dry cleaning services and you know chair massages and all this other stuff.
- > And like those kinds of perks, the one thing that you don't see written is we're - > going to literally work you until you're dead because we do not want you to leave this building. - > That's what a lot of companies have done historically is, you know, - > they, they try to over perk or overpay because they're going to crush you in the process. - > So I think that that's where like the, you know, it's like greenwashing, right? - > Like let's make everything green, but really, are you really green?
- > Do you really believe in that? - > So I just think that it's important to go a little bit deeper, - > be a little bit more conscious capitalist, as you see the book here in the back. - > So yeah, again, I don't pretend to have all the answers. - > What I can tell you is what's worked for me and what helped me sleep well at night as a leader.
- > But I just want to get 1% better every day. And I think the best way to do that - > is by asking questions, listening into my teams, talking to smarter people than I am in different areas. - > So I can get as diverse as possible with my team and my experience. - > I've got a lot to learn.
I think every company does, but I think I'm committed - > to growth, committed to being 1% better every day. - > And that, I hope my team knows and believes about me. - > Oh, awesome. Yeah.
I really, really appreciate this conversation, Pete. - > And as we're wrapping up, I'd just like to shine a spotlight on you and your - > projects and like to know what, where people can get in touch with you or how - > they can find out more about what you guys do. - > I appreciate that. So what I would say is if you want to find out more about - > me specifically, I'm just Pete Sena on every channel, LinkedIn, - > Twitter X, PeteSena.
com is my personal site. - > I do a free newsletter that I launched, which is like where I publish my wins - > and losses and successes and failures, just because I want to share with of - > the world what's working and not working for me. - > If you're looking for an amazing group of people to help you transform or grow - > your business or brand, head on over to digitalsurgeons.com.
- > Digitalsurgeons.com is the company I started 20 years ago. - > We've got a great leadership team running that, great team contributing on a daily basis. - > They use the Four Green Light system, among other things we talked about today.
- > So those are the things I would say. And what I would say, just stay curious, - > stay creative, and hopefully this is valuable for you and the audience that - > us into this now in the future. - > All right. Thank you so much, Pete.
See you next time.
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