005 - When the Rules Stop Serving You with Rotem Kazir

What happens if we dare to tear off the mask of professionalism and actually risk showing up for real? I'm your host, Myriam Hadnes, and this is Unprofessionalism.

He was sitting the day before with the numbers and the, all the Excels and everything in the presentation and the numbers just didn't add up. And he was telling this in hindsight and he told me, listen, this was a turning point for me because I can't walk into the room trying to convince them that we have all of this figured out and we need to raise funds. It doesn't work. The numbers actually don't end up. And he said, I'm going to go into the boardroom and say that I don't know how to do it. Maybe we need to give the money back and close shop. And he actually did that. He came into the boardroom saying, listen, really, I'm so sorry. He felt very uncomfortable is an understatement, of course, but it was super awkward. But as he finished a sentence saying, just, you know, this is it. I'm showing you, these are the numbers. I don't know how to take the company forward. I want to be honest with you. And what he described to me was everything in the boardroom, like The entire power dynamics changed. Instead of treating the board meeting as a performance review, their faces literally changed. And this brainstorm started where they said, listen, let's all put our heads together, try to think, what are we missing? What are you missing? And maybe we can find something that we can go into. And what happened at the end was one of the board members, the investors there challenged a certain metric that they had, and they found out they looked at it completely wrong. It was something that they could pivot later and did something with it. And then another board member connected it to another entrepreneur who was going through something else, which is exactly what investors should do for you, okay? This is why you need a board of smart people who have a lot of experience. It's not always like that, okay? 'Cause we need to put like things where, you know, being real, you don't always get that. He had a very good board and he ended up raising another $100 million.

Rotem, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

I would like to start always with the same question, maybe a bit provocative. When has being air quotes unprofessional turned out to be the smartest move for you as someone you have witnessed? Wow. Okay.

So I've seen it happen quite a few times, but I can share my own personal experience as a Satya coach. I was trained as a Satya coach. Satya is a method, uh, of coaching, a well-known one here in Israel. And they teach you that the professional standard is, is maintaining distance from your coachees.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, they're not supposed to know anything personal about you. That's the reason for it is to be able to maintain a judgment-free container.

Okay.

Because if they know stuff about you, they may be thinking, maybe it's, you know, how do you think about what they're thinking of doing? And that like kind of stains, I think, the space that is supposed to be very safe. And I was following protocol for quite a while after, you know, I finished, I graduated the academy. And for, I think, a few years, I I kept a real distance with my coachees. I was very professional, air quotes, as you said. And then one day, this founder that I've been coaching for, I think, 2 years at the time it was, she says to me, listen, this is really unfair. You know everything about me and I don't know anything about you. I mean, you know about my business doubts and you know about my marriage struggles and you know about all the conflicts that I have and how I feel before I enter a boardroom, and I know absolutely nothing about you, and I feel it's like it's not symmetrical. That's how she said it. It's not symmetrical.

Yeah.

And I was like, I was, I was like shocked for a second, but then I, um, I told her, listen, this is how it's supposed to be. This is what I was trained to— this is professional for us.

Yeah.

And, and trust me, you know, it, it serves us well, and, you know, and this is how it's supposed to be. And she kind of, you know, she let it go. but it stayed with me. I ended, you know, we ended the session and I kept thinking about it. I was like, wait, maybe, maybe it's not the right way to go. Maybe there's another way that is more effective, more useful. I don't know what the right word would be, but it just stayed with me for a while. And I was thinking, I think that it was, I can understand how she felt and I could relate because I'm being coached myself. And I was thinking that same thing about my, my coach and how I felt about that. And I think that one day I just shared a personal struggle that I had that was very similar to something she was going through.

Hmm.

And I told her how I approached it and I, it was very, it was very candid. I mean, I walked her through the entire, you know, rollercoaster of feelings that I had. It wasn't just like giving her the solution. Okay, so this is what I figured out. It was just like, I completely feel you. I know how you feel. This This is, you know, I could relate to what happened there and this is how I, you know, solved the problem or approached it. And once I did it, I could feel the dynamics of the conversation change immediately. I mean, it was, it just became so authentic and real. And once I, you know, dropped a mask of being professional and being distant, I could become a real human. She could relate to what I said and it was closer. And I think that the depth of the conversation changed completely after that. And, you know, I remember myself walking out of that session saying, wow, I can't believe I did it. You know, it wasn't professional at all. I like really went against everything that I was taught, but it was effective.

Yeah.

And I think that was a turning point for me saying, you know, the rules are made for us to follow in order to make us, you know, to put us on the right path. But there's a point in time where we need to understand, is that really serving us? And is that something that we need to— maybe there's, you know, there's a personal style that needs to go into it. Maybe there are some rules that are meant to be broken in a way. And that, I think that theme goes through my entire career, especially in HR, because I wasn't, I've never been the one to follow the rules, like air quotes, as you said. I think I've always broken them at some point or another.

Thank you so much for this story. I love it on, on a lot of different levels. And what really, what stays with me is the idea that these rules are created to get you on track to become a professional. And then for me, what I hear is you graduated being an air quote professional the moment where you dared to break the rules and to step into your own truth.

Exactly. I could really recall myself, I think in the beginning of my HR career, learning the ropes, trying to understand, you know, how to do it because I'd never had like a real, um, uh, professional or, or a formal academy for learning HR. I was just on-the-job training, you know, I was accepted for this job and I learned everything while doing it. And it was very important for me to understand the rules and understand like what's behind them, like what stands behind, what are they serving? And once I could do that and I felt confident about understanding them and knowing what's there, I could little by little, you know, break them when I thought it was the right thing to do because there's another cause that is guiding us. I think once you, you feel confident enough in your, you know, we call professionalism, I think we have the liberty, we take the liberty of, you know, breaking them every once in a while cuz, cuz it's all a matter of what you're optimizing for.

Yeah.

And if you're optimizing for being professional or being right, or do you optimize for results? Yeah. And, um, and for the good of the company.

Yeah. Yeah, totally. Because then I also think that if the coach is 100% neutral and a black box, then what would be the difference to an AI coach?

Right.

But it has been trained in asking all these questions. But the, I think to some extent, and maybe that's where the, where the real professionalism comes in, where you don't start projecting your own shit on your client. Oh, I know exactly how you feel because I've been there.

Right.

Or where your client tries to replicate your solutions because, oh, they idolize their coach. So all these traps. From not being clear on the boundaries. But I think once we can stand in our boundaries and know how to serve the client, it's beautiful if we can open up. Right.

And you know, as you speak, I think about it. And I think that, you know, what you're saying is just, is creating, it's, it's being able to, it's, it's about being real and being human. It's not about the, the, my, my coachee, my client replicating what I did. It's not about me saying what's right or wrong because in training they tell you, you're not supposed to solve the problem for the coachee. You're supposed to be there to be that safe space, to hold space for the coachee to be able to think and ask the right questions and reflect and everything. But once you get really good at it, you just have the freedom of doing other things, of injecting those— micro interactions that could push something forward a little quicker or give another way of thought or something like that. If you're just staying there, just asking the questions and being a bouncing board like that, then again, an AI could probably do it just as well.

Yeah.

And it's a big question about when AI is going to replace us in that sense. But I think it was, it really Got me to a place where, okay, you need the human side of it. And the human side of it is exactly that.

And I think the experience, because when I put myself in the shoes of a startup founder, knowing that my coach has worked with the VCs who are either about to back me, hopefully, or are backing me already, funding me, I would know, want to know from your experience and would feel cheated if you're hiding it from me or holding it back because Why do you let me make this?

What is all your experience for then if I cannot benefit from it?

And I would be curious to explore the direction of, when I think of venture capitalism, I think of a huge amount of pressure. There's a lot of competition amongst the startups who want the funding. It's about a lot of money. It's high-risk investment.

Um, right.

And so I would be curious, what are we talking about when we say it's all being professional as well through the eyes of a VC, but also through the eyes of a startup? Yeah. That are disruptive in the first place by design.

So we'll take it from the VC angle, I think, to begin with. Investors see many, many, many entrepreneurs. I mean, they have me, they take meetings all the time and they sit in these you know, nice conference rooms and they listen to the pitches and they hear all these amazing ideas. But what is, what really catches them is a lot of confidence. I think before anything else, that's the first thing you sense about something walking into the room. It's, you know, it's how much space do they take? Like, how do they show up? And so whether it's in Zoom or physical, it's Doesn't really matter. It's how you show up when you meet those investors. And these guys have seen everything, okay? They usually quite like distanced. I mean, you need to impress them. You need to put up a face a lot of times. And the investors wanna see a person that knows his stuff, knows his numbers, knows the market, knows the product, knows the struggles. Knows the competition, knows everything. So you need to be that almighty Superman coming into the room knowing everything, being highly confident about anything that comes out of your mouth, and being able to fight the challenging that is happening in the room. And I think that's why, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs get so scared before these meetings. I mean, A pitch is really, is a hard experience to go through. You constantly being scrutinized and challenged on anything, like every pixel in your presentation and every little word or number that's there. And that sets a lot of pressure. Okay, so this is from the eyes. I mean, if you're an investor, you want to see, you want to see the person standing in front of you. You can, you need to imagine them. After you've invested in them, being able to head anything that comes your way and, and, and being able to win. And I think that's the real thing. I mean, the resilience of it, it's something that is really hard to measure just from like first encounter. That's something you learn about a person over time, but you need to assess it somehow. So you immediately go to the confidence and then that, and, and, and maybe past experiences or whatever. So that's the VC side. And on the entrepreneur side, it really counters everything that you need to represent as, as, as a founder. Because in my experience, you can't create trust if you're not real.

Mm-hmm.

If you're not yourself, if people don't relate to the human side of you, if they think you're just saying things and they can't believe you. Mm-hmm. So, You need to both, you know, try to impress and make a, make a really good impression on one side, and then still be human and be real when you enter the room. And the other side, which we haven't, you know, touched upon, is, is the company itself. And how do you show up in front of the company?

Yeah.

Which is a totally different ballgame because yes, they need you, they need you to be strong and confident and, and everything else, but they also wanna be, want to see someone they can relate to, that they want to work for, because you're going to go through hard stuff. Yeah. And it's going to be like long nights, probably like a lot of red-eye flights, a lot of struggles along the way. And you don't do that for someone that you don't believe in, for a company you don't think will succeed. So, the founder needs to like hold the rope in both ends and be Both human, but very, very impressive. Um, this is, I think, encapsulates.

Yeah. And it, it's interesting because, uh, it's so easy to understand all sides. And still it supports this, as you say, the mask of the tough founder.

Mm-hmm.

They know exactly what they're doing, the almighty. And then the human side is showing this crack in the mask. And yeah.

And then admitting sometimes that they don't know. What is it?

Yeah. And then at the right times, right? What are you supposed to— what is still professional not to know? What is maybe even a sign of leadership not to know because you're not making assumptions that might be very risky at the end?

Right.

Right.

I think when I first, not first encountered it, but when it really stuck with me is that I had this founder that I coached and there were, after I think post their A round, maybe their seed round it was, and sales were picking up, but then at like the late stage, very, very last stage of Before signing the contract, everything stalled and they needed, in that specific CEO founder was supposed to give a board update to his board members. And these are calls that are preliminary to the board meeting that you want everyone aligned before you go into the meeting itself and discuss the hard stuff. You want everybody to know all the dirt and what's not working because you don't want to You don't want to encounter it first when you're in the boardroom.

I think so.

So he had this update call with one of his board members, and he told me before, he asked me, what do I think? But he said, listen, I'm really, I'm kind of depressed really because I don't know what to tell them. I mean, we kept like telling them that we're doing amazing and sales are picking up and we got this amazing CRO that's that's, you know, going all over the world and we have all these prospects that we wanna sign. And, and so at some point it just doesn't, you know, the numbers don't add. It doesn't, we don't have any contracts to show for it. I mean, what do I tell them?

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, I was listening to him and it, and it, it, for me it was, you know, there was only one answer. I mean, you, you, I know that you need to, show them that you have a solution, that you know what to do, but you actually don't. So how about we take a different approach than saying, listen, we got to figure it out, we'll figure it out, we'll have it ready for you, or let's meet in another month, we'll figure it out then. What happens if you just tell them, listen, we're doing really well up to a certain point and we've investigated everything. We went through all our deals, we interviewed the customers, We sat with the sales team and we're not sure what happens at the last mile. And I was wondering if I could get your help in trying to maybe hook me up with like other entrepreneurs who are going through the same thing. Maybe there's something that we need to learn that we don't know and we haven't figured out yet. And he really liked it and, you know, he was like, wow, I haven't thought about like this approach because I'm constantly thinking, you know, What, what, what is my board member going to say? What is my investor going to say about me? Not knowing how to, you know, break this point and, and figure it out.

And it's another way of showing, I need to have the—

I need to know. Exactly. So he tried it and he called me right afterwards and he said, listen, oh my God, this is a whole new experience for me. And I was like, I was so happy for him because what he got was a very, very human response of, Listen, I just, you know, you're the 3rd founder that is telling me the same thing. Let's do something, maybe like a brainstorm together with the other 2 founders that are, you know, facing the same problem, and maybe we'll try to figure something out together, or maybe we can get an expert in, or— and he was actually getting help instead of, you know, putting up a face and being so stressed about it. So, That was something that really was exciting for me because it, it, it showed how I think, um, being authentic about, and, and also being real. I mean, he was, he's talented, he's resilient, he's, he's been through a lot of tough stuff before and he got to a point where he said, well, I don't know how, I don't know how to show up as that or as all that anymore. And then he found out he could be something else. And it didn't ruin anything. It did the exact opposite. It just, you know, made him—

Opening so many doors and not only for him, but also for others.

For others. Exactly.

And, oh, this story really touches me because it's, um, on the human side, it's so clear. Of course you can, you can just ask for help because who can expect but a founder knows everything and has a solution and will find a solution by themselves. And still in that moment, it seems like the, an option we cannot even consider.

Exactly.

And then have to—

it wasn't an option for him.

Yeah.

And I think maybe that's the magic of coaching. I think it, it, the coaching is like, is opening up opportunities, is making you see more opportunities than you, that than you think you have. And I think that's, that's what I love about it.

Yeah.

And then also getting, having the permission to be yourself, which is, yes, which is very tough.

Yeah. And that's what I, I think there's another tension there in the startup world where when I think of a startup founder, I think of the disruptor, someone who has no problem being themselves. Um, sometimes maybe even living a bit in a high, high risk, um, especially if they have succeeded, if they have received the investment.

Yeah.

And then still, so if you have learned that this is successful, um, and that it works that way, what then happens very often, what I heard, but well, you have more information, is in the scale-up phase, they would then lose, um, the team and the company because they're Moving somewhere up there in their, right?

Yeah.

So how do you then stay human and how do you bring grounded? How do you bring your team along? Um, and why do you think, when does it break? What is it? Is it the stress? Is it that they really become ignorant or is it that they're so anxious actually that they armor up? That's a—

Well, I think, I think the latter because I haven't seen a lot of entrepreneurs that are really, I think maybe, um, indifferent to struggle or, or being there and staying there, those 20,000 feet, I think. Um, and, and I think most of the founders, what happens is that they face so many different challenges that they constantly need to have that armor that you just mentioned. I mean, it's funny, it's totally associative what I'm going to say, but I remember when being back and being in the VC, I was doing this research of trying to find the qualities of the most successful entrepreneurs that we had on our portfolio. I mean, what was the thing that was the common denominator of these people who were the most successful? And one thing, it was funny, I expected to see resilience and all kinds of other stuff that, you know, that we've seen the research and everything. But what I found out That the one thing that showed up again and again and again is being obsessive about your product and your company. And sometimes being obsessive is perceived as weird or detached or you're not grounded. We've always been. Yeah, you know, we're not gonna make it. Listen, we have a runway of 2 months. How can we make, you know, how can we break that? How can we go past that? How will we sell? How will we, I don't know, break into new markets? But the ones who were really, really successful were the ones who said, listen, I'm gonna go through this wall. I don't know how, but it's going to happen and we're gonna do it together. Now, the doing it together part, I think is the hardest part because leading a startup as a CEO, and that relates Also to co-founders, but I'm gonna focus on most of the people that I coach are CEOs. Leading a startup is tough for so many reasons, but it's very, very also very lonely. And sometimes all the conversations just going in your head, you have the pros and cons, you have the, the, it's gonna, we're gonna make it, uh, we're not gonna make it. And everything happens in your head and sometimes you forget to do what's needed to have everyone around you going with you in the same direction. And I think that's something that gets lost in the way many times. And the being able to gather everyone around you does not happen when you are in either extreme, very, very confident, detached, not seeing the problems, not seeing the struggles, not seeing things that need to be solved, otherwise it's not gonna happen. That's one end. And then on the other hand is being totally like, okay, we're never gonna make it. It's so hard. Help me go through this or whatever. So you need to find, I think, some kind of balance. I don't even know if it's in the middle, maybe it's more towards the confident, but also find a sense of being human and being real and not ignoring problems because you're going to, you see them every time. It's just like if you don't see them, your employees will tell you what's not working.

Mm-hmm.

But you need to be able to face them head on And I've seen entrepreneurs that are, that don't wanna see the problems, that, that, you know, defy them or say, listen, it's, you know, you're seeing it wrong, or it's not. And it catches up later. I mean, you, you can't brush things, you know, under the rug or stuff like that. Problems, these problems don't go away. You need to face them head on, but you need to be real about it and you need to create a space where people tell you the truth.

Yeah.

Which means you need to be honest yourself about where you've made mistakes, where you don't know the right answer, where you don't know the right path. And that's the key to creating that trust.

I love that. And it, um, so it brings me back to the story you told about the boardroom. So the, the founder admitting that they don't know and they need help. What do you think is more difficult for such a CEO to admit that they need help and don't know the answer to the board? Or to the—

Or to the company.

To the company. Wow.

That's a tough question. Um, I think the board is tough. Maybe it's equal. I don't know. I think maybe it's just as hard to do, to do it both ways. But I think that the, the board side has a tougher impact on the business of the owner and the metrics and the finance of the, the company and whether it's going to, you know, It's gonna have a runway. They're gonna raise funds or not raise funds, or can we, can we, can we continue working and for how long? When you do it in front of the company, yeah, there may be some people like saying, well, no, but I was expecting more, or that's disappointing. But I don't think that would actually harm the performance of the company as much as entrepreneurs think. I mean, I think they hold a misconception of being vulnerable is something bad. Being vulnerable to your employees is something bad. That's something that, you know, that not showing leadership. And I think that when they do try to be vulnerable, they often find acceptance and support and connectedness that they didn't expect to find. So I think, and it's tougher. get the same with the boardroom. Although I do have another example of this founder that he's the CEO of a well-known Israeli unicorn today, but back when he was raising his B round, we didn't work together then. He was going to starting out the process of raising funds and he needed to go into the boardroom and show them the the deck for the kind of roadshow or whatever. And he was sitting the day before with the numbers and the, all the Excels and everything, the presentation, and the numbers just didn't add up. And he was telling this in, you know, in hindsight, and he told me, listen, this was a turning point for me because I said, I said to my co-founder, listen, I can't walk into the room trying to convince them that we have all, all of this figured out and we need to raise funds. I mean, it doesn't work. I mean, The numbers actually don't end up, and I don't know how to make the company like past this. They had a, like a very big like business chasm that they needed to cross and he didn't know how to do it. And he said, I'm going to go into the boardroom and say that I don't know how to do it. Maybe we need to give the money back and, you know, close shop.

Wow.

I could, because we, they, you know, they were trying to figure it out for a long time. And he actually did that. He came into the boardroom saying, listen, really, I'm so sorry. He felt very uncomfortable is an understatement, of course, but it was super awkward. But as he finished a sentence saying, just, you know, this is it. I'm showing you, these are the numbers. If, you know, I don't know which, I don't know how to take the company forward, and this is the point we're in, we're at, and I want to be honest with you. And what he described to me was everything in the boardroom, like the entire power dynamics changed. Instead of treating the board meeting as a performance review, they just, like everything, their faces literally changed. And there's like this brainstorm started where they said, listen, let's, okay, let's all put our heads together, tried to think, what are we missing? What are you missing? And maybe we can find something that we can go into. And what happened at the end was one of the board members, the investors there challenged a certain, I don't know, metric that they had, business metric. And they found out it was completely like, they looked at it completely wrong. It was something that they could pivot later and did something with it. And then another board member connected it, did the guide to another entrepreneur who was going through something else, which is exactly what investors should do for you, okay? This is, this is why you need a board of, of smart people who have a lot of experience. It's not always like that, okay? Because we need to put like things where, you know, being real, you don't always get that. He had a very good board and he ended up raising another $100 million.

Wow.

Um, dollars and become a unicorn. They're Quite successful, the, you know, growth stage. But that was a, for him, that was a turning point. I mean, that's the first time in my life where I said, I don't know, I don't have it figured out and I don't know what to do and I need your help.

Oh, that's so beautiful. And I can only imagine, as you said, these board members, they're highly intelligent, successful businessmen and women. And I can maybe in my total naivete also imagine that they enjoy having the challenge and being there as a real support unit because they have believed in this founder and the company in the first place. Otherwise they wouldn't have, they wouldn't be there. And then to be given the opportunity, it's also to be trusted instead of sitting there with this performance theater like the high school teachers. Can you explain this number, please?

Exactly. Exactly. But you know, as, as, as we talk, like I listen to myself saying, oh, you're saying all the, like these amazing success stories of being unprofessional and being real. There are also other stories where, you know, people just came in, said it, and the board wasn't as responsive and accepting as, as I said. So it's a risk. I mean, we need to put it in place and just understand that sometimes it's There is, you need to read the room. You need to know your investors well. And I think that's another, by the way, another good point of understanding when to be unprofessional.

Yeah.

It, it go back to the original, you know, thing that we had. It's not that you always need to be very vulnerable and say how you don't know stuff or you've made a mistake or something. I mean, it's, it's going to, you know, bite you in the ass. Sorry for it. Yeah. Um, but sometimes, but you need to understand, I think that's, that's being smart to understand when and where you can reveal your vulnerability and understand what are the consequences, what are you risking, uh, versus what are you gaining.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, and I wonder, wonder whether this brings us back to your own story that you have to earn the liberty to be unprofessional. Hmm.

Right.

Because I was thinking of, so this founder to, to dare to admit in front of the board or the company that they don't know that they're at the point where they need help. If they had done that too early and there's a very clear, obvious solution, then they lose all the trust and all the support.

Exactly.

So you have to first come to the point. And to own it. And then we are back to the confidence that possibly they see from the very first encounter.

Yes. And I think, you know, uh, the experience speaks for itself, but that's why second-timers, you know, entrepreneurs and third-timers, they have all the liberty in the world to fail and to say, I don't know, or I need to figure it out because they come with all these, like, you know, barrels of trust that they have and credit that they have from the first experience.

Mm-hmm.

You know, if they exited or then, you know, had a good outcome. If they failed the first one, well, maybe not so much, but if they come with a success, and it could be a small success, doesn't need to be, you know, very, very big one, they, I think, automatically have more freedom to be vulnerable and say where they don't know. Yeah. Yeah. And that's something that, you know, uh, thank you for making the point.

I think that's very important that it's not unprofessionalism. Also in the way how I understand it in this kind of provocative way is not being reckless. Yeah.

You have a lot of responsibility and, and the risks are, the stakes are very high.

Yeah. Um, so when I look at the corporate world, um, They're very clear rules. Sometimes they're very explicit, very often they're implicit of how to dress, how to speak, what to say, what to do in order to be considered as air quotes professional. And in the startup world, it feels at least to me as if all of this is erased and you can literally invent Right. Your own definition, which might be part of the company's branding even, uh, to have your very own professionalism. Oh, we all wear hoodies. I don't know.

Yeah. Right.

What does the professionalism mean in the startup world and how is it maybe also destabilizing that you have to find that there is no guardrail or no— Mm.

Okay. Um, well, first, it You know, as I was listening to you, the, I think Mark Zuckerberg, the wording of move fast and break things. I think that was Facebook's slogan for a long time. And, and that kind of, you know, worked for the entire, like for the entire ecosystem of startups. The culture of it is just move fast and break, break stuff.

Mm-hmm.

And if you break stuff, you break rules. And that's kind of a permission. to do things out of the very traditional professional way of doing things, because that's how you invent stuff. That's how you go out of the way and do amazing things. And I think that you talked about being professional, uh, in the startup world. Startup is made of, like, when you, when you, you just start it, it's made of a lot of generalists, a lot of people who can do anything because you can't hire a, a very professional person for every single thing that needs to happen when you start out. So you hire a lot of people that can, that are very like versatile and can go from very different disciplines and do stuff efficiently and effectively. And sometimes it's at a cost of expertise because a lot of people, if you, it's going wide versus going deep. So you need a lot of people. Not a lot of people. You need some people, uh, that can do a lot of stuff, and that gets you through the, the beginning of maybe to 50 people, and then you start being more like specializing in the, in a specific expertise and roles. I think that being professional in a startup is putting the company first.

Mm-hmm.

This is my definition of being professional at a startup. So it's not about the rules as we see, like the traditional stuff. And as an HR, I've never been known for following rules very much. I was always thinking what works versus, you know, being, going by the rules and being right. And I have this incident where that I can share that one of the startups that I was heading the HR for, One of, we had a, um, like a manager there that was very toxic and everyone knew she was toxic. Her manager knew she was toxic. The manager had, you know, he knew he had to let her go. He was stalling. He didn't want to, you know, face everything that had to do with it because letting go of someone, you know, firing someone is not a very pleasant experience. And I think he was also a little scared of her.

Mm-hmm.

In a way. So, you know, and it didn't happen and months went by and, and people who worked with her complained to me and, and said, you know, we, we can't work like that. And I started seeing people updating their LinkedIn, people that we wanted to retain in the company. And I was really concerned and I was trying to urge the guy, the, the manager to fire her and he wouldn't. And then at some point I lost patience and I summoned her to my office. And I gave her the feedback that she needed to hear, the feedback that he was withholding from her. And not surprisingly, she quit within a week and everyone could breathe again. And that was very unprofessional of me, you know, because of, you know, I broke like 5 HR rules while doing it probably, but it was the right thing for the company. It was the right thing for the team. And I, you know, he was— He was mad at me at first, but then he admitted later that I like solved a big problem for him because he couldn't face just doing it and he was, um, doing everything to avoid it. And it, it was, it was the right thing to do for the company. That's, you know, and that's what leads me, or led me throughout all the roles that I, that I had, that I held over the years.

Yeah. I love that story. Because it, um, it shows. Now I'm very curious to actually interview someone who has worked in corporate HR because I can imagine that's very tough.

Tougher.

Yeah, because there are so many rules and as HR you have to represent the rules. Mm-hmm. Um, and, and your role, from what I have heard, how you also describe the startup world, it's almost as if it's, it's professional to, to break the rules.

And it's, it's a prerogative of being in a startup. 'Cause a startup sometimes, or many times, needs to break the rules in order to thrive and even survive.

I mean, yeah. What was the feedback you gave her?

Oh, wow.

If you're open sharing, because I think it's, that's also the radical candor we, we—

Oh my God. I just, I have this book right in front of me and it just said Radical Candor and my eyes landed on it. Um, yeah, I believe in radical candor. I feel it serves us well when done well. I mean, you need to, to know how to do it. I think that at first when I adopted it, I wasn't doing it very well. Like I was, I, I need, you need to train.

Yeah.

In doing, but I, radical candor, um, is based on the The underlying assumption, or not assumption, the feeling, the knowing that you care about that person that you are giving the feedback to.

Yeah.

Okay? You actually care about them. And I did care about her. I mean, I saw her, I felt for her. She had no tools and she didn't get the right feedback to change that. And I gave her the feedback. I think that had she stayed, we could have worked together to help her be more effective at her work and not do all the, like, have all this collateral damage. But I think it was too hard for her to get the feedback from me instead of her manager, which was tough. I think the, the, the feedback was around her communication style.

Mm-hmm.

And that's tough to hear. I mean, that it's tough to hear that, you know, you're, you're hurting people sometimes. You, they feel that you don't respect them or stuff like that.

Yeah. It's hard. It is hard. And this case actually, for me, what it brings up is the aspect of company culture, especially in startups where it's so fragile, that is often dismissed or what, not urgent, not important, not priority is communication.

Mm-hmm.

So, as to have the courage as a leader As a CEO to have these tough conversations and to, to grow a culture of radical candor and how can we support each other to become better? Because if one toxic person can— Rot the entire flock culture. Yep.

Yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly. And it's, it's, it's funny that you said, you mentioned tough conversations. Um, most of my coaching, if I had to put it into themes, is around helping, you know, my coaches, the entrepreneurs hold tough conversations, have them because it's so human to like shy away from them or avoid them and hope something happens and it goes away. And, you know, the person just understands that they're not performing or it's not working or whatever. But then problems never go away if we don't talk about it. Um, and I think it's so tough. You encounter so many hard feelings when you have those conversations. And what we do is a lot of, um, prep to hold them because it, it's like, it's, but it's not, it's not even about the words of what you're gonna say. It's about how you show up in the conversation. I mean, who, who did, who do they see when they see you? What do they feel from you? And I think that's the thing that a lot of people don't give enough attention to.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and that's, and being professional is not about, it's not just about what you say, it's about how you conduct yourself.

Mm-hmm.

In the situation. And you want to be caring and you want to be attentive and you want to be pleasant. Okay, these conversations are tough enough. You can be angry, but you don't need to shout at someone. You can just say, listen, I'm really angry about you for doing something like that, or I'm really disappointed, or you can say it, but you still, it's how do you say it, not just as much as what you're saying.

Yeah.

And we have these simulations and we work a lot about, around, What, how it's gonna work and what turns can it take the conversation. And, and I have them prepared for almost every turn in this, this situation so they don't encounter it the first time in real time. It's just something that they come prepared to and you act different and your body reacts different to it when, when you actually play the scene in your mind and you come prepared.

Yeah. These, um, automatic body stress responses because it feels like a life-threatening danger. And if we have gone through it before, our body at least knows, okay, this is safe. We've done that before. We can do that. And listening to you, I, one thing that comes up over and over again is actually the relevance of embodiment, the how you first show up and embody the confidence instead of performing the confidence.

Exactly.

Then embodying the, the care when giving feedback, embodying the, the heartfelt when admitting you don't know. So all of these are nonverbal clues.

Right. I think most of us as not just entrepreneurs, but people in general, we don't pay enough attention to What we feel and what we feel is first experienced as physical sensations in our bodies, and then they show up as gestures or whatever, or, you know, the, the sound of your voice, how you look at someone, the, the body language. Everything else is just a, it's, it's, it's a result of what you, you feel physically in your body. Because when we encounter tough situations, we go into either, you know, flight, freeze, or fight mode, and it changes everything and it causes us to go back to the automatic responses that we have. And we each have baggage that we carry with us. And sometimes that overtakes how we'd really like to react in a situation. And I think that the actual act of taking a moment and giving it some thought and trying to connect to how you really feel about a certain situation that you are going into. I prepare entrepreneurs for their board meetings or for their pitches, for fundraising, and it's mostly about breathing, about how they feel in their body, about how confident they want to, what makes them confident, and also giving them tools to, if something throws them off, to regain that confidence and come back to how They want to be and that's, and how they wanna show up in the situation or in the room. And it's, it's a lot of, takes a lot of training. I mean, if you, if you're open to it, many people are not very open to just, okay, let me just see how I feel in my body. It's all the meditation, you know, stuff that not a lot of people connect to. But I'm not saying, you know, meditate. I'm saying take 5 minutes to just quietly sit with yourself, see what What's happening to you, breathe deeply and connect to who you really want to, how you want to show up.

Yeah. Thank you. And I, I've been one of these people who thought that feelings happen in my brain.

Oh, I was too.

But you feel it's in your body.

You're right here.

Um, and it does take a lot of training and time and it's, And there's the other dilemma, right? Move fast and break things doesn't help in this case. If you move fast and break things, then you're in constant fight, flight, freeze stress response. And in order to really, some things need you to calm down, as you say, um, and reconnect.

Right.

What a beautiful struggle.

Well, some would say, some for you as a coach. For me as a coach, I love it.

What's an unprofessional thing you would still advise others to do?

Hmm. We talked a lot about admitting the struggle or not knowing or being vulnerable. And I think that like one hack I would, I, I always tell, you know, my coachees that they should implement is when you start your team meetings. Don't start by, okay, so what's your status? What happens in your, you know, in your yard, backyard right now? Start with what's hard right now. What's hard? And she, and do it, you need to model it first. I mean, you can't just, you know, okay, and then expect your people to be totally vulnerable. If they don't see you being vulnerable first, they won't, you know, they're gonna swing by, not, you know, not answer it truthfully. But if you say, let me share, you know, what's hard for me right now, and I can say whether I'm raising funds or there's this, um, I don't know, conflict between different, you know, features that we want to have or, or customers that we want to take. It's, it's, it could be whatever, you know, it doesn't need to be very, very tough or anything. But if you share what's hard for you first, then you will see that the other, that the conversation completely changes and then people can open up. And share what's hard for them. And then what you get is the reality of things and not a show that everybody wants to show you how good they've done stuff. And you, and you know, it's not just about the hard stuff. You can say, listen, this is really hard for me right now. We had amazing wins with another area, but this is what we're struggling with right now. And it could be one of the, I think it's It's great as an opening question, but it could also be like a middle question if you ask, uh, okay, what's working? What's not work— what's hard? Just as long as this question is presented and available to your managers, your executives, your employees, I think it, it, it, you know, it, it creates miracles.

Thank you. I can see this so clearly because it, Gives permission to speak out what's hard. So to admit that one is struggling and to normalize the struggle. Okay, if your job wasn't hard, maybe you're on the wrong. Maybe we're not. We're not using your full potential. Moment wo es nicht so gut ging. Or you're not looking right. And it opens also this culture that you. spoke about of asking for help and supporting each other. If we know what's hard for each other, maybe someone in the room has an idea and can support. Um, and this is what creates culture, real culture, right? So I love the question.

And it also creates trust because seeing the, the, the executive next to me struggle with something and admitting it and discussing it, I get more context. As to things maybe that I, uh, conflicts that I have with them. I mean, if I understand their, their struggle, I would, it would be easier for me to assume good on whatever happens between us. Okay. And that's also a very big benefit of it.

Hmm. I wrote it down.

Yeah. Cool.

The golden question. Thank you so, so much.

It's been a pleasure.

Delightful.

Really. For me too.

This was a conversation without the script. Now it's your turn. I'm Myriam Hadnes, and this has been Unprofessionalism.