Corporate Strategy
Corporate Strategy
98. Making Meetings Better Part 1
Ready for a deep-dive into the mindset of Gen Z employees, AI's role in marketing, and the secret recipe for a collaborative team environment? This episode is just the ticket. We start by pulling back the curtain on why Gen Z workers are avoiding promotions, and it's not about the money. It's about the need for support, clear career trajectories, and a sense of fulfillment. Breaking the traditional corporate ladder climbing, we shed light on how these factors are reshaping the way businesses strategize for growth and retention.
We then shift gears to AI's role in marketing. Our candid conversation takes on the ethics of recruiters asking candidates to work for free, and the potential and limitations of generative AI in content creation. We share insights on why, despite technological advancements, the human touch remains indispensable for quality content. We also provide tips on hiring Gen Z talent, emphasizing the importance of meeting their unique needs and expectations.
Finally, we tackle the art of fostering effective team collaboration. From debunking the effectiveness of forced icebreakers to promoting meaningful meetings, we unearth strategies that promote genuine camaraderie and engagement. We talk about the importance of recognizing individual achievements, sharing knowledge, and improving processes for a collaborative environment. And, we don't shy away from discussing team roadblocks, the role of product updates, and the best way to approach company events. So, buckle up and join us in this enlightening conversation that promises to change your perspective on workforce dynamics and team collaboration.
Click/Tap HERE for everything Corporate Strategy
Elevator Music by Julian Avila
Promoted by MrSnooze
Don't forget ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ it helps!
Thanks, Greg.
Speaker 2:So scary every time.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to Corporate Strategy, the podcast. That could have been an email on Bruce. You're not quick, clark, how you doing Vibe check?
Speaker 2:Vibe check Um. Just got a new pair of glasses not doing the job, dang. Very disappointed, I know.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what they say about glasses. What's that man look at you four eyes, rude.
Speaker 2:I would imagine a lot of people that are listening to this podcast have glasses.
Speaker 1:I wear glasses for like 20 years. So that's true, I'm allowed, I'm allowed. So you got that. Laser surgery ripped your eyeballs out. They ripped them out of my skull, drilled holes in them and now I see perfectly. Look, it's a viable option for everybody.
Speaker 2:I like it. But yeah, big launch week actually launched two updates to different things, different digital projects, and I'm exhausted, so I need this week to end and I need to sleep for like 20 hours.
Speaker 1:You taking any time off for the upcoming Colonials on holiday?
Speaker 2:Uh, the Colonials on a small day? Uh, actually, no, I'm not currently planning it, man, what about?
Speaker 1:you? Uh, yeah, I'm taking the whole week. Oh, good for you.
Speaker 2:I do that on the, you know, Christmas time.
Speaker 1:But now you should do it.
Speaker 2:I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1:I'm in a uh, let's see how much time I can take Kind of mood.
Speaker 2:Do you have, uh, do you have, a unlimited PTO policy?
Speaker 1:Uh, technically Okay, yeah. Yeah Well why technically? Well, I mean, that's what they say. They recommend three weeks.
Speaker 2:I don't think I've ever taken three.
Speaker 1:Well, no, this year, this year, yeah, this year, yeah, I will take the three and maybe more, maybe more.
Speaker 2:Hey, you know what? That doesn't tell you where you're at right now. I don't know what does. I really agree. We do not have unlimited time off when I'm at out, but I just have a mutual understanding because we mentioned for I work internationally it's just like I just take a day here or there, take a couple of days here and there, and you just don't charge that time. You know you just you just don't put it in the system, so we kind of get those unspoken rules working with my team, that's good, that's good.
Speaker 1:There's a crew PTO over time I do.
Speaker 2:I do so if I ever choose to leave, I'll be able to cash all that out Nice.
Speaker 1:There is a cap, though.
Speaker 2:What's annoying is there is a cap based on your tenure, so you hit a spot and then, once you're over that, you'll just lose hours. That's whenever it lasts. We're just stupid.
Speaker 1:That's really stupid. You should never lose it. They should just pay it out.
Speaker 2:Exactly. They should just give you a nice little bonus at the end of the year to be like, hey, thanks for working those extra days you didn't have to. Here you go. I'm not going to be a company.
Speaker 1:Am I right? I know Corporations.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's the worst. This is why we need corporate strategy to reinvent the corporate world. We do, we really do. How are you, are you okay? I'm dying.
Speaker 1:I mean, as you can probably hear, I have a little bit of a head cold. I'm just, I'm just working through it. I'll probably take like a nice hot bath after this and then, you know, ease into the evening.
Speaker 2:But don't get the people too excited. Yeah, that's a little hot bath. Maybe some bath salts.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, definitely, absolutely. Swear my bath salts. That's great. As a Florida man, you can't live without bath salts, exactly. Yeah, you know like it's just all stuffy in the nasal region, I'll be fine.
Speaker 2:Okay. Different than the worst thing I've ever had. Don't get the sickness I got, whatever you do. So if you can just tell your immune system that you know. I think it'll be better for you.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm hoping this is it Right. Like you get sick once or twice a year now and your immune system just goes into overdrive after it's over. So like yesterday I had sore throat, today it's all just like congestion, stuffiness in the head. So I'm hoping this is it and then my immune system comes up. And then the rest of winter. I'm good to go. That's the plan.
Speaker 2:I don't like your chances. No, they're good. My chances are great. Mine started with the sore throat and then I was dead for five days, couldn't do anything. It was atrocious. So fingers crossed for you, bruce. Thanks, fingers crossed for you.
Speaker 1:At least I have tomorrow off. You know what? Veterans Day? Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2:Are you a veteran?
Speaker 1:Do you have tomorrow?
Speaker 2:off. No, I don't what I was going to say. Are you a veteran?
Speaker 1:No, no, much respect to those that are, I am not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah. Neither I don't have it off, unfortunately, but I love the companies that do Good for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know it'd be even cooler than getting Veterans Day off. What's that Actually taking care of our veterans Moving on America.
Speaker 2:This is not a political show. No.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about some news, shall we? I got an article I wanted to share. Oh, you've got news.
Speaker 2:I got news. I got news.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hit me with it. Jen Ziers are saying no thanks to promotions for reasons that go beyond money. The highlights of this article Jen Ziers aren't eager for promotions, probably because they believe management is unfulfilling. It can be like the company is assigning someone to babysit, one recruiter told Insider. And then last point was Jen Ziers crave support, clarity on goals, a realistic career path. You know all things we've talked about on this show at LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:I can see it in the market. The old American dream was like you rise your ranks and you become a leader at a big company. People don't care for that anymore. I feel like the US is shifting where. It's like you know what? I'd rather just do my job, get paid for it, go home, that's all I want. I want to work from home. People want that now. I think the tides are shifting in America to be more European, if you will, I hope.
Speaker 1:I pray to all the gods that happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I probably interviewed over like 100 product managers this year.
Speaker 1:No way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's up, it's got it down there. That's disgusting.
Speaker 1:I need to write it down. That's disgusting waste of time.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean it's good. We also hired like 30 people, so I mean that's success rate is decent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's good. That's not bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one to three ain't bad at all. That was a lot of the reasons, like some really good ones just wouldn't accept the offer, like they just declined. Maybe not 30, by the way, maybe less, not that I'm thinking about it, but anyways it's still not bad. But yeah, a lot of people are just like I got to come in a few days a week and you know I want to. I can't just like work from home and do really good at my job. I kind of, you know, don't know if I want to stick around here forever. So it just was really interesting like the different perspective of. They just weren't BS in it, they were like I know what I'm worth. Either you're going to hire me on my terms or you're not, and that's okay, I got a question for you about your interviewers.
Speaker 1:Did you make them do tasks as part of the interview?
Speaker 2:Like outside the interview itself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like hey go off and product manage something and then show me it.
Speaker 2:No, okay, it's an interesting idea, though we do. I hate it. Do you hate it? Well, I mean, are you getting paid for?
Speaker 1:it. So I interviewed the company recently and one of the things they told me as part of the process was that I would need to create a slide deck and do a presentation on the company. And I'm like I'm a director of marketing. I didn't get here by lying through my teeth. It's hard work and my entire career is online. You can literally find presentations, videos like live events that I've done. Making work for you for free as part of this interview is like the most insulting thing I can think of.
Speaker 1:So I was not, I was not cool with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd be pissed. Yeah, yeah, no, I 100% agree with you. It's like if you get paid, that's one thing where it's like, hey, we'll pay you a ridiculous amount of money to do this. You know, don't cap it out like 20 hours of work, right? You know I had a friend of mine who had a recent dev interview that they did that Like he had to do part of a project, but they were like, we will pay you, please keep it at 20 hours. Your rate is going to be like $100 an hour or something. All right, sounds great. Like I'll do it Absolutely. So in that case, I think it's good.
Speaker 2:I try to contain everything for me is done in the interview. There's nothing outside of it. I don't give any tips as to, like, what we're going to ask so you can do a bunch of research. Like we have a working session interview and it's kind of off the cuff, but you should be able to demonstrate just your good product management fundamentals and it's not a hard problem to solve, but we want to see how you solve it. So I think it's it's definitely, you know, to me I think it's important that if I'm not compensating them, I'm not going to waste their time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, completely agree, it's just a weird, weird recruiter behavior and it's definitely stullied the process, which was further stullied by the fact that they only pay based on local scales. It's just like let's just stop this right here. What are you doing? You should have mentioned that up front. What are we talking about here? You are not a place I want to work for, but yeah, that was that, yeah, yeah. Back to the news article at hand that you know it's. What I like about this and I posted it in the news channel is that they're making it very clear that Gen Z is not lazy, despite the stereotype that exists about the young people don't like to work, which they always like to say, but instead it's Gen Z is more cognizant about, like, the visibility of burned outness from us and the people's more senior than us that they see on our faces. They see the way we live and exist and create podcasts. So they are saying no, and I love it. Keep saying no. I think it's great, get more money.
Speaker 2:I want to get paid Exactly. I want to get paid for what I'm worth and not have to like ruin my life over it. Is that all right? Absolutely, it's not all right.
Speaker 1:but go get them, go get them you know what I actually think.
Speaker 2:It's working at a lot of companies that companies become more flexible to that, so I hope the tides keep changing and a lot of the bigger organizations are impacted. We'll see. My news is I saved your jobs All your marketing jobs out there.
Speaker 1:All of ours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I saved all of them. It has to Found an article that says generative AI shouldn't reduce your startups marketing headcount.
Speaker 1:So you're welcome, Bruce. Say that again. Generative.
Speaker 2:AI shouldn't reduce your startups marketing headcount.
Speaker 1:Okay, because they're going to be scripters or promptors, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. You're just going to use AI to be better. I really like the whole article. If you really break this down, you just use AI to already enhance everything you're doing. So, if anything, you should just be more effective and, at the end of the day, be able to do more.
Speaker 1:See, I like the intent, I really do, but I think, based on our conversation last week and we had some good chat in the Discord about this the fear I have is not today, it's 10 years from now. Now in last week we talked about that article where the CEO is out of touch with the CMO chief marketing officer. And listen, let's just be real here. If you start bringing in generative AI and people see, oh, I can crank out more content and all I have to do is just make my marketers prompt the AI, well, they're not making the content. Maybe we pay them less, maybe we bring people into the lower rate.
Speaker 1:And then it's oh, but you know what? They're creating more content. We don't need all this, so let's just cut back and just make one individual prompt everything. And the thing about generative AI, because I used it in my job and I am a marketer it's not very good.
Speaker 1:It's great at finding and building outlines, but when it actually comes to creating content that people firstly know what to read, anymore like. I think the biggest joke here is that you know GPT and all that arrived right at the perfect time at the cross section of TikTok, which is attention spans are lower than they've ever been. Who's reading Like? Who's actually reading your marketing material? So not too concerned on that end. Just because video content is king now, but yeah, it's bad. Generative AI does not create good marketing content. You need a strong editor. You need a strong storytelling skills and writing skills to make it good, and you end up spending personally as much time as you would just writing it from scratch. If you care about the quality.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's completely fair. I think it's the same thing for code Like it's not good enough yet, Like it's going to give you something, but you're going to look at it and be like okay, contextually, there's issues with, like how our code base is structured and you're going to have to like spend a lot of time just trying to make it work. It's like when you you know back in the day and don't lie to me, you've done it. When you steal something off the internet for an essay or something like plagiarize a little bit, like you have to spend just as much time as it probably would have taken you to have, you know, the original thought, like reshaping it and trying to get it to fit in what you wrote.
Speaker 1:Now, when you say plagiarize, define that. Copping or paraphrasing something from an article or whatever it might be like it was your own, but if I reference it it's okay, right? Like if I'm doing the note. Yeah, I've never plagiarized. Wow, good for you. I will always cite my sources, always. I'm a big believer in that.
Speaker 2:When you were a wee little boy.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, here's a fun fact I won the fourth grade writing contest. Wow, wrote a little short story. I've always been a pretty decent writer. I've enjoyed the art of writing for work, so it's never been an issue now Still stolen code in the engineering role on Stack Overflow. You better believe it's not really stealing.
Speaker 1:I mean, this is a good solution, and it's the one on Stack Overflow, exactly. Yeah, if I'm borrowing from an article or Wikipedia or any kind of journalistic thing, I'm citing sources and I like to create my own narrative along with it, because I know I don't think I've ever plagiarized in my life.
Speaker 2:You know what? You're just an honest guy and I appreciate you. There's not a lot of people like you on the world.
Speaker 1:No shame if you do, though I mean do whatever it takes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I did it when I was a kid. Don't do it now because it's wasting my time.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's one of the big things about GPT or Generative AI is if you're not siding the sources where it's getting its information from one, it could be drastically wrong, as we've seen with that lawyer. Yeah, it's all those fake cases. But two, you're not doing credit to the original authors, who might also be chat GPT. But like good to reference that's how the world works is we give credit where credit's due. I'm a big believer in that.
Speaker 2:Well, I kind of gave you a buzzword or a buzz line you know buzzfeed kind of feel for the news article. Just I tried to save your job and then you admitted I don't even need to be employed, so it kind of was a waste of an article. But speaking about GPT, they actually did their demo day and they actually talked about copywriting in it, where they are making like enterprise versions with copyright safety and they help you actually fight. They'll pay the legal cost if there is something that's found to be truly a copyright issue that they, that the machine or the algorithm gave you.
Speaker 1:I think, out of all the AIs that I've interfaced with, I think chat GPT seems to be the most wholesome and the least problematic. Agreed. Have you? Have you watched some of these videos from Boston Dynamics with the dog? Yeah, yeah, sure, that's the stuff that scares me. That dog is going to replace so many factory workers, like so many factory workers.
Speaker 2:The dexterity gets there. It's there.
Speaker 1:Now that it has the little mouth neck thing. Yeah, it's there, it's really good, it's terrifying. And the thing is, is who needs a job more right? Some lowly marketer creating crap for a company that exists to sell to other businesses? Or the person who works in the factory, who's been, you know, welding steel girders for the last 10 generations of his family line and now he's been replaced by a frickin robot dog?
Speaker 2:Fair enough, robot dogs taken over. You know, I'm just telling you. I agree, they probably need the jobs more.
Speaker 1:Right, and they're the ones who will probably be impacted first and the most. The good news is, we have managed to make some progress against AI. We've seen with the various strikes in Hollywood and, very true, yeah, the writer's room, but let's see how it shakes out 10 years from now. Yeah, I'm not worried about tomorrow, I'm worried about 10 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, I think that's what everyone's kind of thinking is like right now. It's cool to see what it can do, but, you know, to see really where it's going to go. You know it still has a long way to go to really be world impacting.
Speaker 1:Right. Speaking of world impacting, let's get into our main subject. I had a topic. I'm going to save it because I realized we have a topic from Squid Boy, our favorite contributor or one of our favorite. We actually have like 18 favorites in the discord.
Speaker 2:But one of our favorite pay-henders. Do we pay him? Because we probably don't do. We probably should give him something.
Speaker 1:The amount of topics Squid Boy has given us just off the charts. Thank you, Squid Boy. It is awesome. Yes, If you want to find out how to get in our discord, be sure to stay tuned. At the end We'll tell you how, Clark, can you go to the POT Topics channel? Open up the link. Fresher Squid Boy posted. I would love to. This might be a multi-parter again. Oh, here we go.
Speaker 2:They've gone and given us the thing. I already saw it. Uh-huh, yep, I saw it.
Speaker 1:So if you go into the channel and take a look, there is an article 20 team meeting, topics for better collaboration and engagement, plus free templates. Oh, I am so this is produced by fellow app. I know nothing about fellow app. Have you ever heard of fellow app Clark?
Speaker 2:No, but this is like. This is perfect for something that we love.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, it is. So I'm looking at them real quick. They look like a zoom type, Maybe not no, because they're using Google Meet in here. So it's uh. It's never good when first thing you see on someone's website is a different product than the one you're talking. Just a little marketing 101 there. Great meetings are just the start. Fellow is where teams gather to have productive team meetings and meaningful one-on-ones, built collaborative meeting agendas. I don't know what your product does.
Speaker 2:It's like a Google plugin. I guess, just to help with your project management.
Speaker 1:They say AI is like the second word in all of their marketing messaging pillars, which brings me great concern. Uh, you know, if you need a marketer to come make your stuff better, let me know, fellow. Maybe for the right amount of money I will help. That's not what we're here for today. 20 team meeting topics for better collaboration and engagement Clark.
Speaker 2:Ooh, get excited. There's a whole 20. There's 20.
Speaker 1:I say we do them all right here, fast and furious.
Speaker 2:I'm down, let's do it. All right, you want to start? You want me to start? Take it away. Icebreakers oh so the questions that I mean. Everyone knows what icebreaker is, so I'm not going to talk through, I'm not going to read it for work, let's just assume, let's assume our listeners might have come from planet Krypton.
Speaker 1:Okay, they don't even have ice there, it's all crystal you know what, why not?
Speaker 2:So yeah, if you need a team meeting, top guide Icebreakers, you know. Be able to break the ice between each other, and what that means is basically just dig below the surface, just to learn a little bit more. Make it human, make the connection human with each other, so you're not just looking through a screen or see each other in the work but you don't really know anything about them. It's that bonding experience. I get to learn a little about Bruce, he gets to learn a little about me. We've become a little more connected. That's the whole idea, and the questions are great. What fictional family would you like to join most? What is your most used emoji? Have you ever met your idol? What language would you like to instantly know? Very interesting.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to rank all of these meeting topics on a scale from I love to I roll. And I'm not going to lie Clark, they're recommending this for virtual meetings. This is a big I roll from me.
Speaker 1:You invite me to an icebreaker, because here's the deal I'm going to be on so many meetings with the people that are part of this icebreak Right Throughout the next however many years I'm with this company. You know what. I don't need this. It's going to happen, naturally, over time. You show up to a meeting a couple minutes early. You catch who's on there. You say hey, how's it going? You know, oh, where are you located? Where do you live? You're breaking the ice, naturally. We're not forcing it, so I don't know. I see this is a really weird way to make people feel like they're being inclusive and creating camaraderie, but in actuality, it's super forced, it's super cringy and awkward and I hate them.
Speaker 2:I don't disagree with you Like the the means of. It's like put together this one slide about yourself and let's present it and talk about it. It's like, can we just make it natural? Like you know, we're there to work, Right? I don't want to waste hours putting together things about me. Like let's just talk, you know, like humans, right.
Speaker 1:I've been on icebreakers where I've learned things about people and I've liked them less. So, like, let's just be honest, there's a huge risk here too. It's like oh jeez, that's incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the companies I work for. They had like a round, like a monthly, where you meet somebody else in the company and you connect for like 30 minutes. First of all, I always made it 15. What am I going to talk about, with some of random and a different division for 30 minutes, but the things I did, exactly you said. I'm like what value am I gaining for that? I'm probably never going to talk to this person ever again in my life. Yeah, that's weird. Why am I wasting my time?
Speaker 1:That's like the number neighbor of corporations. So I think there's something to be said about learning about roles and responsibilities of what people do. But just randomly being assigned to talk to you know, steve the Excel spreadsheet guy, I don't know, that's seems like a waste of time. Exactly, I agree. Number two current projects. This one is I'll just read the little description here Once everyone's a little loosened up go over current or ongoing projects. This should be discussed so everyone's updated on projects towards milestones and where a team member may be stuck and could use some help. There are specific tasks that need to be touched on during current project status meetings, including task updates, the status of the current project schedule, updates in the current budget, quality and scope of determination. What's your uh, I loved eye roll, clark. What do you got? I love and I roll at the same time.
Speaker 2:Oh interesting Middle of the scale. Yeah, I got to go middle of the scale, and the reason being is these can be really good If the team is actually focused on the same stuff, but if you have Steve the Excel guy in a meeting about, like the user experience designs for a product, like it's going to be a waste of the guy's time Don't. Don't force him to be there. Don't force him to share an update about no one cares about your Excel formula updates that you have to do all week, right, yeah, just let everyone do their jobs. If you guys are all working on the same stuff, though, and you impact each other and, yeah, I love this this is great. Like you should talk about these things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it really depends. I love the way you quantify that cause. I was just going to say I love. But if, if you're bringing Steve the Excel guy into, hey, we're going to do an overview of the business, you know where we're tracking, what we're selling, what customers are saying like, does Steve the Excel guy need that? Maybe not for his day to day, but it's really good for him to understand the company and the business and the part he plays and making it successful so it can be useful. Does he need to be in a weekly company oriented standup where he gets the breakdown of the sales track? Absolutely not. So I completely agree. I love the context you brought to that. It's got to be the right group on the right subject.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I 100% agree, and I've made the mistake of like leading a diverse team, a large team, and I'll kind of like bring everyone to give updates. And then the second it goes into like an area they don't care about. Everyone's eyes just start to roll, like there's very few that can actually pay attention and be like, okay, I understand, because it doesn't impact them. And if it doesn't impact you, you know it's hard to keep the focus on it when you have a million other things to do. Complete number three progress on quarterly goals.
Speaker 2:So get team members talk about their progress on quarterly goals. Give them this is like I don't know why they say updates on current projects. Again, that's exactly what you just talked about the project updates. Quarterly goals should actually be like quantifiable of. You know what percentage are we towards our revenue goal or what percentage are we in our development of X or Y product? Like, don't give the project update, just tell them how far along you are. And then I think really what you should get out of this is and the one thing they don't talk I'm actually kind of surprised they don't talk about on this.
Speaker 2:It's great to talk about progress, but to me, like everything has to be actionable. Yeah, like if we're meeting, there should be a purpose of identify what projects are behind and how we can rally as a team, you know, to pull them forward. And so I think that's what this point misses, because it talks about, like, what objectives are working towards, what is the status? Are we on track to complete them? And that's helpful, but that's not the output. The output should be okay. We're not. So what do we need to turn our focus away from so we can actually hit this goal, and how do we help?
Speaker 1:our team do it. I agree, this is an eye roll for me, just because if you have any kind of work management system like JIRA or Trello or whatever, chances are you have a much better way to do this. It doesn't involve taking up people's time, right? And if you're already doing something like a stand up whether it's daily, weekly, whatever you're probably doing a much better version of this with the people that matter. And quarterly goals that's such a big thing, right, Like that's your personal quarterly goal. You should be tracking that and whether you're doing an email status update, JIRA, what have you. It should be very visible at all times because it's a bigger chunk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree and I think you really have to do like. I think maybe this is a really pro tip for all this, and I'm actually disappointed because if this company is all about like meeting efficiency and they aren't bringing up like, how do you, how do you kind of guide everybody to the outcome you're looking for? Like, I think each one of these things, like these are fine meetings, but you should prepare everybody and you, as a fresher or not, I guess I'm doing that you, as a fresher or not, should essentially be looking for like, how, like, if you are seeing something, how does it impact me? How can I help? What are the you know things that people are struggling with that maybe I can provide some insight into? Like you have to make it so that people can actually engage, because if everyone's just reading it out, eyes are going to roll. Yep, completely agree.
Speaker 1:Number four industry insights and updates. How up to date is your team on the latest trends in the industry? Insights and updates on what is new in the industry are in excellent way for your team to stay in the know and evolve the market, etc. Etc. Some examples include any upcoming conferences or webinars, changes that will impact the tools you use. Some of the processes or blogs and podcasts about recent trends.
Speaker 2:So this wasn't I love until I read the examples and now it's I roll, but the idea I love because I love when my team brings up the table and be like my team did did that with chat GBT. They're like hey, check this out. I don't know how it impacts me yet, but some really cool stuff and we should try using it Like that's awesome, Very cool, Like let's do it. So I agree, the examples are bad.
Speaker 1:Examples are really bad. I've done this before. Like I remember, when I was learning about Kubernetes and I was on the sales engineering team on my previous jobs, I gave them a breakdown, like I'm going to talk you through Kubernetes, what it means to our industry, like what we need to look for we need to avoid, what you need to know, and like where you can go learn more. This is super valuable meeting. I mean, I'm saying that, I let it, I assume it was valuable, but you know, doing things like that that raises all ships, right. It's a knowledge share. It's great, right. The examples they gave are crap. So I love the way we do it. I roll at fellow app.
Speaker 2:Agreed and I really think they should Like, if you're doing this, make it tangible of like yeah, bring an idea to the table of say saying like hey, manager, I think our team could try using this for a little while and seeing if it improves our marketing initiative or our efficiency or our user story writing, whatever it is right. But I think you need to make it tangible in your world so it's not just another thing out in the ether. We already have enough knowledge around us, enough stuff going on. Don't add more to it without making it like a meaningful to your day to day life. I like it. Number five Team wins I already love it. Oh, okay, I could read the whole thing, but I think people get as, like you know, did we complete milestone? Did we launch a new product?
Speaker 2:Kick off the meeting with the positive news Examples they give complete, major project, person acts just close to massive deal, new hire, doing our team. I do love it. It's fluffy, but I love it because it kind of gives everybody a couple of things. One, a positive way to start the meeting shows that recognition is there, so that people are valued, things aren't forgotten about. I think it's super important.
Speaker 2:And then, lastly, I'd say, you know, awareness or recognition to the individual that may not get the recognition. That is nerve, because sometimes there's so many different things happening in an organization and it's hard Like people's projects just get lost because it might not be the most important thing. The company's thinking about that quarter. And if you're able to give that shout out of like Steve, the Excel spreadsheet guy we love you, steve he completed like all this new auditing of like our financial systems and he made it, you know, from a two week process into a day process, like that's a really cool shout out that gets underappreciated. So I think it's worth having those types of call outs and team wins, I agree.
Speaker 1:And I like this as an opener, like you suggested. I don't think an entire meeting dedicated to team wins works. I also just want to say this should be in writing somewhere, like there should be an email or newsletter that highlights these things as well. It's nice to recognize people when they're on the meeting, but I don't need to hear about Steve the Excel guy when I'm in marketing, right?
Speaker 2:Like, let's not highlight that during our meeting.
Speaker 1:So it's all about context and when you do it.
Speaker 2:Man, you know it'd be awesome is if, like talks about awards during a two or like reasons like Steve's getting a 3% bonus this year, here you go, Steve. That'd be super cool, but a company would never do that because it's too contentious. Yeah well.
Speaker 1:Steve doesn't deserve that. I know he reads Reddit. Number six process improvements, the processor workflows and working well, then it's time to shake things up. Let your team know of any process updates that may have been decided upon. Take the time to answer any questions they have. Remember to listen to feedback, to what the team has to say, and the examples and questions they listed are adding an additional review step to a product launch email checklist. Has it come with freelance writers? What processes should be automated? This is the first one. I can just genuinely say I love Period.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, at the end of the day, like process sounds boring, but it's super important to look at things at a high level, understand how things come in, has ideas, has tangible things, whatever the things that it goes through while it's inside your company and how it goes out. And a lot of your day to day I tell my team this all the time a lot of your pain points are just because the process sucks. And if we fix those processes, you won't have to have 10 meetings. You'll just know where things are and you'll know what stage of the process and you'll know it's with the right people and you know what's being done and you know when you can expect it. And that takes away so many headaches. So process is key and I 100% agree if something's not working, you should advise on a suggested improvement, that you try it to see if it fixes the issue.
Speaker 1:I'm actually gonna steal this for my future team meetings and just use this because I love this so much Like let's just talk about what processes aren't working or could be improved. It's great Exactly Find those pain points.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we finally got a good one. Find those problems of where you're struggling, figure out what process should be and what the steps are to do the thing. And if there is no process, implement a process and try it. It starts with doing that, but if things are all over the place and it's always a dumpster fire, not written down, then no one's ever gonna be able to understand what needs to happen. So, 100% agree. Number seven customer stories. Ooh, no matter what industry your business in, the important team meeting topic is customer stories, whether it's good or bad. So you need to know what your customer's saying. Listen to any recent reviews, take a look at stuff then see if customer story and turn the ways to improve anything that may need to be changed in the future. So we'll share quotes from sales calls linked to the most recent case study and sort of video of the customer describing how they use the product, the benefits that are getting.
Speaker 2:I roll a I love, I love Two in a row. I love, I agree, two in a row. This one's great because I think you should always share qualitative feedback. Or, let's say, a launch happens, sharing out hey, we got a new NPS qualitative survey, fill out from this customer, whatever it is like. Sharing out the improvements and the wins that you have. This just ties into it. Or how you changed the whole company because your product came in. Like, those things are super cool and honestly, I think you can dual use those things for marketing purposes as well, to advocate for your company. Like, hey, this biggest client, you know we saved them 100 hours a week because we introduced our product and it's fixed all their problems right, so they just feel really good and it sells more product.
Speaker 1:The works don't matter. Yeah, I love it. Nothing additional that I think the system is just great. Number eight roadblocks and challenges, not always smooth sailing, and sometimes the team will run into a roadblock, challenge or bottleneck. Whatever holds back making progress. They'd like to make an assignment or project. Two heads are better than one, but it may be worth it for the team to brainstorm way to overcome the challenges. See, I don't see a difference between this and process improvements. I don't either.
Speaker 2:It feels like a repeat.
Speaker 1:And if you're gonna do a repeat, at least do it like more than two blocks away from the previous one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it comes back to process. Frankly, like, how does it not? You know, unless you're just like Steve really sucks? He's pissing me off. That's a people issue. But it's like people process technology. You know the good old trio and one of those things that you could say this tool sucks or this person sucks, and that's technology and people. But the rest come down to process. So I agree, let's repeat.
Speaker 1:Give us number nine Clark.
Speaker 2:Number nine product updates when new products are being announced for these or if they're still in progress. This is a great topic for discussion in a meeting. Make sure everyone is informed and consider having a product manager. Ha ha, thank you, fellow, you got the ball. Hey, I still have a job. Join the meeting to walk through any necessary training or answer questions the team may have. What features are they working on? What can we expect? What problem does use case, as the new feature address? Love it Love. I mean they called out products on bias, but I love.
Speaker 1:I love, you know, I actually love knowing what's going on with the product that I market.
Speaker 2:So when I you don't always hate product managers.
Speaker 1:That's good. Well, the issue is getting this to actually happen. More often than not. I'm like begging. Please just give me a scrap. Give me a scrap of knowledge from your product manager brain and they're like well, I don't like your marketing. So that's you know. That's the kind of world I live in. Oh, that's atrocious. Yeah, it's you know. You know we do what we can.
Speaker 2:But I like this one and, to your point, I think it benefits everybody Sales support, marketing, whatever engineering, just to know what else is going on. So that way you guys can be like, oh yeah, that actually impacts my work, or this. I have 10 customers asking me this feature right now about the sooner I'm going to be able to sell some more product Super important one. And you got to find the right place to do demos and have the right cycles in place so everybody can get the visibility. Completely agree.
Speaker 1:Number 10, upcoming company events. If an exciting event is right on the corner, gather your team and discuss the deets. The examples they list here are feedback cycles, social events, conferences that some people are attending. I think this was like. I'm going to repeat it with another one too but, you know what Like this is.
Speaker 1:This is in the middle of the line. It can actually be inappropriate to be like oh yeah, all the salespeople who crushed their number are going to club. Doesn't it suck that your developer and no one cares about you Like? That's not something that should be shared, even if they are that sounds personal For anybody listening.
Speaker 2:if that sounds personal, it's because it actually happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, like all the time, like Clark and I would literally see like, oh yeah, the sales reps who closed big numbers, they're going to Maui. Now you're way behind on your development schedule. So you know, crack the whip, keep turning out the code that they sell loser, like it's just, it's not something I want to hear about. I don't need to hear about it. Like I already know they get paid more than I do, so they get vacations paid for by the company. Cool, awesome, great, really motivates me to make them successful. So this one, it's a bit of a 50-50. Like, I do think that understanding where the company is like what events are you speaking at? What major you know milestones are you going to be showcasing your product with?
Speaker 2:But, at the same time, not everyone needs to know Exactly. I think it will lead people out. If you, you have to be conscious of that and also like sometimes, if you have consulting firms or contracting firms that you work with and like they're not real employees but they're there on a contract, you know they might not be invited to some of these, be careful. Like, if it's not relevant to your group, don't bring it up, especially if you're a manager, because it just makes everybody look like why am I not?
Speaker 2:invited to that and it makes you kind of look bad and brings people down. Yup, do you want to save? Do you want to cut it in half? Yeah, let's do it. Save the rest for a second half.
Speaker 1:Let's do it.
Speaker 2:I feel like a two-parter, because I'm reading through a few of these and I actually think some of them might be good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we might want to save some of these. Yeah, yeah, let's do it. Let's do a two-parter, like we did last time. This is just the way the Squid Boy whenever he submits a topic. It's gotta be two parts.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying. We don't deny the Squid Boy. We don't.
Speaker 1:We really don't. You know, I would say, this is time we actually continue not to deny people of their submissions. But there is not a new. What do you mean? You're right, oh, there is, there is actually one. There's one, there's one, I will take it on. Yeah, I will say you're up, I'm not up on this one.
Speaker 2:This is too easy. This is you put. You gave Bruce a nice little softball. He's gonna hit it out of the park with his good old marketing brain. I want some tricky bottom of the barrel reddit memes thrown in here that he has to explore, Some deep fried memes.
Speaker 1:All right. So it's everyone's favorite game show. What do you meme? This week's meme comes from constant memer Alex Estrepo, and the meme is picture this, if you will a pristine sunset. Okay, deep in the heart of Nevada, ooh, a man stands on a mountain, the sun eclipsing through his open legs and arms as he reaches up to the heavens, which are golden crisp of clouds. The text on the top he's not naked. No, hold on. No, he's not naked. I haven't seen him being so on.
Speaker 2:I'm just closing my eyes and imagining it.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, he stands on top of a rock, on a mountain, Arms reached up into this crisp golden sky. The text reads any pizza is a personal pizza if you believe in yourself.
Speaker 2:Ooh, this hits me on a personal level. I agree, I agree and I'm looking at it now. I agree, I mean, why limit yourself? You know, if you want to eat that whole pizza, eat that whole pizza.
Speaker 1:That's right, and you know what I say. I say if your company brings you a pizza because they're trying to be that, you know, be that company you take that whole box, you take that whole 16 inch box. You walk back into your office and say I thought this was for me.
Speaker 2:And you just eat it.
Speaker 1:At the end of the day, take another box home.
Speaker 2:Take it home to your family. Let the company die and feed your family.
Speaker 1:Take that pizza, damn straight.
Speaker 2:It is a personal pizza.
Speaker 1:It was too good.
Speaker 2:Nicely done Nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:My eyes were closed and it was well said. But I do want some bottom of the barrel ones for you. I want some nasty, deep fried memes thrown in there. So it has to be much more difficult Well don't worry Next week it's horrendous so we can't wait to make sure to tune in for our next next episode.
Speaker 2:What do you mean? Well, you know how do you participate. I think that's what the people are wondering, especially if you're a new listener. You're like what are they talking about? Where are you seeing these memes? How do you do this? You know how does it all work. So what if they want to join our discord?
Speaker 1:What if they just want to hang out with Squid Boy, right? Oh, it's good boy. There's a way you can do this. It's, it's super easy. You go to corporatestrategybiz. That's dot B I Z, biz dancer business. That's why we got the domain. Go there. Click on the contact us page. You can join our discord. You can see all of our socials. You can. You can hang out with us. We are not the coolest group of people on the planet. Those people are in our discord and you want to hang out with them. Great group. Highly recommend Get in here, join the conversation. And the most important thing is we all help each other. Like we talk about news, we help market each other, we give advice. Good place. Highly recommend you get in there.
Speaker 2:I like it. Well, if you want to stay updated on everything this. Am I blue, by the way? Should I know this in the show notes?
Speaker 1:You're still blue. Yeah, you're still blue, okay.
Speaker 2:So I thought I mean my name changes. I didn't know my color changes too. Now I'm certified fresh clerk. I went back. I went back to certified fresh clerk.
Speaker 1:I think I was before. You are not the marvels. You're not certified rotten, fair enough.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't pay for that certification like you have to on X. So yeah, that's true In our discord. It's free.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we certify anyone as a corporate strategist, like I do during the discord. It's true.
Speaker 2:You can put it in your LinkedIn bio to say, and speaking of that, yeah, you can also follow us on LinkedIn, instagram, youtube, x, tiktok. If you want to stay updated on all things, definitely sign up for newsletter, hit our sites, sign up for the email and then, immediately once we release this, you'll be the first to know there's a new episode out and you can get ahead of head start inside of the discord and kind of post and rave about it, as you're the number one listener.
Speaker 1:I don't think we haven't ticked. We haven't ticked yet. But if you're wondering, hey, how are they doing YouTube and Tiktok, there's, there's no video component. Just you wait, we're cooking, ooh we are cooking.
Speaker 2:Also, reviews really help. So if you guys can give us a review on your podcast platform of choice, please throw us a nice little review out there. Help us in the algorithm and the AI will say thank you, yes, our numbers have not been as great as they have been in times past.
Speaker 1:It's not devastating. I'm not crying about it, but when I look at the graph the line is lower. That makes me a little sad. So I used to growth and now it's going down.
Speaker 2:I'm disappointed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, it's a strange thing, so please share. It's a. It's the best way to get the word out, because we just don't market and we suck at it. So, speaking of things that suck, there might be ads on this episode. There might not be, it's really variable, but right now we are paying for this completely out of pocket. If you want to help us get rid of the ads, click support the show, which is in the show notes on your podcast platform, and once we hit our number, the ads just magically go away, or they go away on their own, because we're not being sponsored by any right now. So you can play the roulette of ads if you'd like, but if you want to help us out, that's how also Bruce pays for all this.
Speaker 2:I'm doing it. So really we're just emptying his pockets. It's great, my pockets, it's great for me.
Speaker 1:Clark just suckles on the wallet of old Bruce bangers. I do, it's great. All right, oh, you already did the other thing. You think that's everything?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sorry, we were skipping ahead, but you know just like herding cats in their corporate world. We have to hurt each other like cats occasionally.
Speaker 1:Yes, and when you said herding cats, I think you said herding. I know the phrase but like it just. I was like oh, that's cruel.
Speaker 2:No, I'm not an annual abuser, so nobody put me on it. Don't cancel me.
Speaker 1:Nor should you be heard them cats like a. Like a wolf Heards them sheep. No, a sheepdog hurts the sheep, the wolf tries to eat them anyway.
Speaker 2:Look out for that corporate world. You'll get herded and you'll get wolfed, so you better watch out.
Speaker 1:Thank you, as always, for listening. We appreciate it, your listenership. Thank you for your time. If you enjoyed, you here again leave us that review and share, share, share if you can, and and remember, take time to synergize. As always, I'm Bruce and I'm Clark and you're on mute Touch base with you next week.
