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Well, you know, usually when we start this, I have some funny thing, and I do have a funny

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thing this time, but it coincidentally involves the guest we have.

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So first of all, why don't you introduce yourself briefly, guest?

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This is Joe Militello, and I'm responsible for the HR function at Pibble.

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So here's what I want to do.

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I don't know if those slides you sent me are like top secret or anything.

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I mean, I know they're not, but I want to get that one slide of the HR person pushing

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an office chair up the hill, because that's like, what is this?

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This is October.

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I don't know if that's, I don't know.

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I think maybe that's the funniest corporate slide I've seen all year.

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It's like, you could have one presentation with just that slide.

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I think it's, and to recap it, I'll put, we'll put a link to it, but there's a hill, and I

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think, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's an office on top with some, you know, office

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people milling about, and there's someone else pushing an office chair up the hill, and

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they're labeled kind of like HR, and man, if there's not a more accurate portrayal of pretty

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much everyone who works in a large corporation, I haven't seen it.

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I think that's great.

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And then as we'll get into, the rest of the presentation is about how to keep the chair

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on the top of the hill, so to speak.

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But I think that was great.

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Who did you get to make that for you?

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Did you make it?

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No, I'm not that creative.

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So we worked closely with Michael Louis and the marketing team on that, and it was titled,

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and I hope your audience will say it was titled, you know, Sipius, right?

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And so, you know, that was the Greek god banished to an eternity of trying to roll a rock up a

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hill.

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So we thought that would be a good analogy of a lot of the organizations, how do you get

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to relevancy, and how do you really kind of try value and value to the company and getting

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right off.

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Yeah.

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No, it was an excellent slide, as you can...

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Last week, when I presented on that, you know, I've shown it a couple times, and, you know,

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you usually get a bunch of giggles in the audience.

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Yeah.

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Well, we'll have to, and like I said, the rest of the slides were interesting.

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We'll have to start back with that, about what the forum you were at and kind of the

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discussion, because not only I'm eager to hear, like, what you discussed there as far

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as, like, a taking care of and people management and all the sort of HR concerns, but it'd also

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be interesting to hear what other people were saying there, because it seemed like a,

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an interesting forum for exchanging that kind of information.

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It was sort of, you know, beyond the discussing deductibles sort of thing.

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There was a lot more discussion, a lot more than just discussing what type of office chair

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it was, more about how nice the top of the hill is.

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So, but before we get to that, I was just commenting that I was very ill-prepared.

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So, can you emcee our news overview this week, Richard?

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I can, yeah, thank you.

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Yeah, we balance each other well.

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So, I'm happy to cover news for you.

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We actually have you around to do all the work.

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I just edit the beginning and ending of the podcast, and then you do all the stuff in between.

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I know, you just name-dropped some stake references, things like that.

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That's right.

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So, yeah, the news this week, a few things I wanted to point out.

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There is some self-promotion of Pivotal.

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The new Pivotal white paper we put out, there's a whole campaign around Netflix, open source,

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and microservices, and Spring Cloud.

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And we've already had thousands of downloads of that paper, which was pleasantly surprising.

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So, I think it's a good take on what are microservices, why do they matter, how did Netflix kind of adopt that model,

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and then how does Spring Cloud help you do it.

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So, we'll have a link in the show notes, but that's available now.

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Yeah, I was reading through that, and I was thinking, like, haven't I read this before?

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And then I realized it's because you and I had a podcast episode about it.

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And then I further remembered, you pretty much explicitly said, I'm writing a paper on this.

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And I was like, yep, the old peanut in my head's still working.

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Still got it.

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I'm a big check-the-box guy.

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If I do one thing, I try to make sure I can use that same thing in six other places.

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So, in this case, I knew I was writing a paper, so let's do a podcast so I can test the ideas first.

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So, mission accomplished.

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Exactly.

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Yeah, good stuff.

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So, the second one I wanted to point out was some of the Google Cloud updates.

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A lot of cloudy stuff last week following up on the Oracle cloudy stuff the week before.

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Google rebranded a lot of their works, their sort of office suite stuff cloud.

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They announced eight new regions all connected with their network backbone.

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They shipped their machine learning service out into public beta.

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So, their velocity continues to be great.

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I think they're continuing to demonstrate to people they're in this to win.

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And they had an invite-only event last week, Google Horizon.

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And Pivotal was one of only two companies on stage with them.

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And it's always nice when you get introduced as, and now next up, Pivotal.

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Who needs no introduction?

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I don't know.

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I like that when I walk into a room.

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If Pivotal's reached that stage, I guess that's pretty awesome.

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So, we're doing some good stuff with them.

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Yeah.

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I think, I mean, just to use the phrase, self-promotingly comment on that.

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I mean, I think it's been almost two years since I've been here.

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And I think it wasn't always the case that an introduction was not needed.

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But I think over the past couple of years, that's really been turned around quite a bit.

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Like, in the small rooms I go to, it's also the case.

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So, that's refreshing.

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And that does make me think, to put you on the spot, Joe.

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So, you know, whenever I see machine learning stuff, I'm always looking for, like, and just

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AI stuff for practical applications of it.

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We talked about this several episodes ago.

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And I wonder, like, whether it was at the thing you were at last week or whatever.

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Like, in general, like, are there, how, in the world of, like, HR, does, like, AI and

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machine learning come up?

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Like, how do people think about having, like, computerized agents, like, helping individuals

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out?

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Like, is that, or is that even a topic in your world?

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Or does that, does it come up?

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Yeah, the topic hasn't come up so much in terms of the, I guess, the interface with employees

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and our candidates.

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I think there's still a large bent towards, you know, human-to-human interaction.

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But actually, an event that I was at last week, which was basically being invited in by a venture

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capital firm to talk to their portfolio companies.

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You know, Google was actually, was actually a speaker.

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A woman spoke before me, who was at Google.

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And they talked a lot about how they use, you know, they analyze everything.

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And so there's a lot of analytics.

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So they didn't get into that machine learning and the, you know, the interface is still

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human-to-human.

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But I think we, as a company, especially when it comes to how we're making decisions on the

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people side is how to use more, you know, data-driven type of decisions.

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Yeah.

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A little bit than your question.

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Yeah, no, I like that framing that you have because it's, it's, it's what, well, it's not

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that, but I was mentioning agents and things like that because I remember talking with, with

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some AI people, how in some intelligence agency, it's always like, oh, I can't tell you where

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it is, which means it's an intelligence agency.

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And, and they were, they were talking about how you would be assigned this little agent

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that would just help you out with little things during the day, like giving you context and

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even like helping schedule meetings.

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And if you go into this building, you get access to that.

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And it does seem like, I guess, I guess you would call that like AI augmenting what a person

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does.

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And, and it is, I like the way that you're putting it is that you probably would always

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prefer a human face on things.

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And maybe you want to kind of like cyborg them out and have someone helping them out on

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the backend, but still having that, that human face of it, which is, uh, that's a lot more

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comforting than what I usually think about when I think about AI.

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And I think it'll, I think it's going to depend and I think it will evolve over time.

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Um, but I do think that the areas where, you know, the interaction requires a high level

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of empathy, um, you know, maybe AI will get there at some point, but I'm not aware of any

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sort of machine learning or AI today that can really, um, encompass, you know, that empathetic

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approach.

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I mean, I, I think, I think the height of AI empathy was, uh, Dr. Spatso on the sound

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card.

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Did you guys ever play with that where he, you sit down and he asks you to tell you about

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his problems and he talks back to you?

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I did not, man.

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I try that reference on everyone.

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And apparently I am the only person in the world who launched that program when I installed

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my sound blaster card.

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So, uh, everyone usually knows the talking parrot, but not Dr. Spatso.

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No, that's fine.

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We'll get you a, uh, an AI Teddy Ruxpin for Christmas this year.

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And I'll also talk back to you.

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Perfect.

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And go back to cassette tapes.

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Love it.

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So also it sounds like, uh, going back to the news.

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Uh, so Azure had some, some announcements as well.

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Yeah.

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Microsoft had their big ignite conference in hot Lanta last week and, uh, did some server

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types, always, you know, bigger, badder servers, which is always interesting.

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Uh, some new networking things for people doing DNS and IPv6.

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Uh, they're really making a strong play.

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I think with Microsoft to be the compliance friendly cloud and Azure and Amazon does a ton

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too, but Azure really seems to be pushing.

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The certifications that they can need for different countries and verticals and things like that.

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So they added a bunch more of those and it did some more of their hybrid stuff.

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So they continue to ship tons of stuff relevant to pivotal customers.

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Cause we do run, or we will have some upcoming announcements.

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We already have a beta offering in their marketplace for PCF on Azure.

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We're getting close to launching the full fledged experience.

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So we, uh, we love that we run cleanly on Google, Azure, Amazon, and everybody else.

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But it's great to see these underlying platforms continue to provide some additional, uh, some

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additional great stuff.

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And, and do you think, I think, I think last, last episode, we talked about how Azure maybe

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had the most like regional presences.

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Like, do you think that's still the case or did the, the Google announcements, like, did

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they even it up?

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I forget that.

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I mean, who knows?

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No, I mean, Azure still says they have as many as, as Amazon and Google combined.

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And again, some of this can get to be funny math on what constitutes a region versus a

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location.

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I mean, with, with Google's updates, these regions are, you know, dual site locations in

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the region and, and those sorts of things.

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But Azure still claims the most physical regions around the world.

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But, you know, Google's interesting advantage is how much of the network they own.

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I mean, they still say, you know, they're the, they'd be considered the second largest

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telco.

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If you actually measured them that way, that their network is arguably one of their biggest

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competitive advantages from using them as a cloud.

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Yeah.

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Hmm.

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Well, there you go.

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And then, and then finally, there's a, there's a release candidate of Steeltoe announced,

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right?

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There was.

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Yeah.

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And our, uh, Cloud Foundry Summit last week, we, we had a couple of bits of news.

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So we did announce that on October 7th, people who like using Spring Cloud or like the sort

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of Spring Cloud Netflix sort of things, but they're building .NET apps, can use Steeltoe,

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which gives you things like the config server and others we've talked about on the podcast

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before.

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But for .NET teams who want to use some of those Spring Cloud services, these are kind of adapters

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into that framework.

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So that was announced and, and Google also did present at a CF summit and they also open

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source live while they were presenting their service broker for Cloud Foundry so that you

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could do things like machine learning and their, their SQL database and others.

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So really cool again to see more tools, more capabilities for people building apps.

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Yeah.

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No, I think, I think, uh, I think, I don't know when it'll be, but sometime next year when

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we have, uh, like when, when we have extremely broad support, including .NET for everything,

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and it will have been in market for several years, right?

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I mean, obviously with the Steeltoe being released candidate now, it won't have been in market,

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but in aggregate, like all the stuff we'll have a, uh, as I was kind of talking about last

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year, we'll have a very general purpose application development and runtime deployment selling into

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the types of, uh, of companies that we do.

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I think, I think we'll be like, uh, almost excitingly, like descending the, uh, the, the diffusion,

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the diffusion of integration curve down into the, uh, the late majority and then over, over into the

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trough and the plateau of productivity, which, which, uh, you know, sounds all funny, but it'll be fun

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because it's always interesting to see when, when you, uh, when new technologies are apply or applied in the

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mainstream, like what happens and, uh, well, you know, what with going over like compliance and regions

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and all this stuff that's kind of like trivial, those are the, uh, it's, it, you can think of them

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as sort of like edge cases, but they're more like the cases in the center of the room. Well, all the

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people on the edges of the room have been having fun. Now we can like go into the, uh, the mix of the

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cocktail party and hang out with everyone. So I don't know. It'd be fun to see all that. That was a

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very painful analogy, but it was delightful to make.

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No, I wanted to see you finish it. So well done.

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You know, what I was, what I remember is in the center of the room is, is the, uh, the cold

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seafood buffet where they, I like the ones where they have the, the crab claws and they, they cut

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it open for you. It's like, it's like how royalty must feel, feel. They don't even have to open

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their own lobster. It's just like,

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No, you're thirst, thirst and halve a third right there. You're, you're living the dream.

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Uh, well, there is no transition that makes sense from there. So I won't attempt to make one,

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but what, what, you know, why don't you, uh, can, can you give us a, like a longer, uh,

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background of yourself, Joe? And then also like, like, uh, you know, you were on, I think I forget

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when, um, when it was some, sometime within the last year, I think before, before we added Richard

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to the podcast here, uh, which I don't know what we were thinking before we did that. Um, but we had a

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nice discussion with that. And one of the things, you know, in, in, in going over your background in

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more detail that I'm interested to hear is how you came to describe whatever it is you do. Cause I

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always feel kind of like a little guilty about saying HR, right? Like, it's almost like saying

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like, Oh, developers, right? Like there's almost a dismissive thing to it. And so like, like,

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how do you describe what it is you do and what your organization does in a way so that frankly,

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I, I cannot feel guilty about which phrase I use. Yeah. Well, we respond to most things,

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you know, generally, we're just happy to get a phone call and someone reaching out for help.

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That's right. It's, it's the, I try to follow the, Hey, you policy as well. I'm just happy to talk to you.

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Yeah. So there's, you know, there's, there's a real answer and then there's a, you know,

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a self-deprecating answer as well. Indeed. And yeah, I don't know if you've seen this, uh,

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Dilbert, um, cartoon, you know, I saw it about, right, but it's been around for a while,

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but I remember looking at it for the first time about three years that describes human resources.

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And, uh, and then the Dilbert cartoon basically says, you're neither human nor resourceful.

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Change your name. Um, those are the jokes.

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Those are the jokes. Those are HR jokes. But, um, you know, I think the, you know,

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the way I'd really, you know, kind of describe the role is really focused on, you know,

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the experience of our employees and our candidates. You know, that's really the most,

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I think, simplistic, um, and factual way to look at it. Not that we always get that right,

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but that is really the, you know, the focus of the overall people team, um, is to just focus on

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the overall experience and making sure that our employees have what they need to, you know,

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to do their jobs and to be the best that they can be. And everything we do is aligned to,

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um, you know, support the goals of the business. My official title in the system is chief people

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officer. Um, but you know, I just generally say I'm just a member of the people team and part of the

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leadership team and we're just here to help. Yeah. And, um, I'm happy to share my broader

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background if that's interesting to the audience. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, it's interesting to me,

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so I'll assume they care. Uh, but, uh, like, like I, uh, without, without going on too long,

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cause there's a lot of other stuff that it'd be good to talk about. Like how, how do you end up as

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the chief people officer? Like what, uh, were you like six year old, you're six years old and you're

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like, I want to manage, I want to manage the experience of people. Like how, how, uh, how do you end up

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in that position? Oh, I might need to sit on my couch and answer that one. But, um, yeah, so, um,

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I guess, you know, I guess luck at some level if you want to call it luck, but, um, that's how I

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manage my career. No, no. Yeah. And that's, and I guess I got to remember that I'm actually maybe

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giving career advice here. So I probably have to be somewhat serious, but, um, yeah, I've actually,

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you know, I've been really fortunate with my career. I started off actually in the military. I was in the

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military for four years, uh, in the Marines. And then when I got out, I really wasn't sure what I

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wanted to do. Moved to Boston and wanted to go to my, uh, MBA at, uh, Boston college. And, um,

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I started working at EMC. And so I had jobs both inside and outside of, um, HR at EMC. I was

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actually in corporate for about two years. And when EMC approached me about HR, it was actually the last

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thing I was actually thinking about. I was looking at sales jobs. I was interviewing for financial jobs.

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Goldman Sachs. Um, I was interviewing for business dev jobs, you name it. I was interviewing for it. And

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they, uh, they called me in and said, Hey, we'd like to just talk to you on a one hour informational

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interview. Went from one hour to eight hours. And they were actually looking for a junior military

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officer in their manufacturing facility in Franklin, Mass. And they thought the skill sets that I had

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in, uh, Marines was applicable. And, you know, one opportunity led to another. And then, uh,

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when EMC acquired green plum, I got EMC into big data and data analytics. Uh, I was asked to move

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out, um, to California. And that's where I started working closely with, uh, Bill Cook and Scott Yara

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and a lot of other members of the legacy green plum team in summer of 2010. And then when we formed

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Pivotal, I had the opportunity to join a company for, uh, for this journey that we've been on for the

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last three and a half years. Yeah. I, I think, I think that's, that's, uh, like one, one, one way

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that's interesting. And, and, and it is, it is sort of like, uh, you might call it guided luck

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the way I manage my career, but, but I think, I think especially, you know, someone, someone like

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yourself, who's, uh, who's helped you, you and the team who's helping manage the experience of the

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employee, right? It's good to have firsthand experience of like, uh, a career is not really

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a ladder. It's more like a maze, right? Like it's, it's like this weird thing. You went, you can,

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some people it's a ladder, like it's predefined and it's one track and all this stuff, but like

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there's, uh, there's all these different things that come up and what's important is to like figure

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out what, uh, at least to me, what's important is the best choice for the individual and the

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organization and how they fit together with each other, which I think is, uh, it's, it's not always

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the experience I've had with how, uh, I've been managed by organizations I work for. So that's,

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that's, uh, that's nice. That's heartening. And careers are very generally not very linear,

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right? And, and my definition of luck is when, you know, opportunity, you know,

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means preparedness, right? Right. You gotta, you gotta love what you do and you gotta show value

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and you gotta fit within the culture. And I'm generally, uh, operate my life more through,

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you know, because faith, right. If you do the right things, you know, good things happen.

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So I wanted to ask you, I'm, I'm kind of new here. It's six month anniversary tomorrow. So I got to go

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through the process and come aboard here. And I don't know, I've never worked somewhere like this,

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where human resources in my typical experience is often looking out for the company, not necessarily

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the employees. It's you're calling me a resource for goodness sake, like you're not calling me a

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person. So that's typically been HR is, Hey, look, we're going to help you get onboarded. But our goal

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is to kind of protect the company. I, there's a genuinely different vibe here and it's not just

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naming. It's not saying we're chief people people. It's, it's actually, it seems to be a different

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vibe. How does that start with you? I mean, how do you kind of create a culture within what is

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traditionally called HR where it's not just about, well, how do we pay the people the least possible

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and keep them at least marginally happy so they don't leave? So, I mean, there's gotta be a different

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approach here because I've never worked somewhere like here before. Yeah, no, that is true. And I mean,

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what you're describing is mostly conventional HR. And as we can talk later, what I was presenting on

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last week and, you know, the way, you know, when we formed a company three and a half years ago,

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you know, one of the things I was sharing with my team is we're going to have not a lot of policies

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and not a lot of process, right? We're going to really focus on, you know, treating employees like

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adults and hoping that they act in pivotal best interest. And we're not going to design a lot of

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bureaucracy and a lot of processes and policies around, you know, solving for the 5% bad actors

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of the company. Let's just create a really cool company and a great experience for the 95 or 99%

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of the employees that want to be here and do great things. And I think generally speaking,

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our traditional HR, you know, may be focusing more on, you know, being much more risk averse

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and trying to just really protect the company at all costs, which I think has,

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you know, unintended consequences. And a lot of what we modeled HR over over the last couple of years

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is, you know, our development culture around agile, right? And agile requires this level of,

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you know, experimentation and this level of, you know, focusing on the candidate and employee

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a level of risk-taking.

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No, that's good. I mean, how does a company who's not like this, I mean, I'm sure, you know,

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people at EMC or Dell or others who observe how we operate and may look at us and think we are

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czar, but I mean, how does a company who doesn't have the sort of mindset you described, one of our

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customers or others who have a very risk averse, you know, kind of by the book, tons of policies

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approach? How do you start to unwind that, assuming you want to?

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Yeah, well, I don't really worry about other companies except for the ones that are paying us

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or want to, or want to be customers of ours. Sure. And I do. And so we do interact with the myself and my team

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actually do spend a lot of time with customers, especially the more, the larger ones, and the ones

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that, you know, are, you know, talking about, you know, their own transformation. Sure. Right. And

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obviously, maybe not obviously, but I think obviously, you know, we're trying to get them to

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adopt our platform as quickly as possible. And a lot of times, not all times, but a lot of times,

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you know, we do that through labs, right? And get them started. And that's just one path to get them

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onto the platform. But when the conversation quickly changes for those really, really large companies,

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I'm not going to name them unless you want to get into examples of them, but they quickly realize that

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they need to make a culture and people transformation. And so my team works closely with Siobhan's team,

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which is the transfer transformation team. And we run into exactly what you're talking about,

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right? You know, they want to build software like us, and they want to be able to

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much more quickly, and they want to be able to take a lot of their existing applications and

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migrate them onto the platform. But then they look internally, and a lot of the processes and systems

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and culture is not set up for that, right? You know, there's one major client of ours that's

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just called a $20 million plus client of ours. You know, they've outsourced their entire recruiting

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function. So they call us in to try to help them. I'm like, right, let's just talk to your recruiting

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org. And they're like, oh, we outsource that. Or, you know, they're trying to hire a, you know,

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a programmer and it takes them, you know, six months to get an offer. That's very different

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than how we operate. And so they are, they do have a lot of challenges in trying to help them with that.

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So, and, and tell me, tell me if this is a good, uh, sort of theme to, to, to bring out the broader

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question. I mean, the broader question is like, and this is why I like to have you on this podcast.

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You described it just there is, is we go talk with people who are pivotal customers. And one of the

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first things we tell them is like, you have to change your culture, right? And, and like, you know,

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we're a software that on the product side, we have software to sell, and we can talk a lot about

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transformation and things like that. But I think it gives you and your team an interesting

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role in it to describe how we do things and the challenges we face. And so like, I think that's a

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endless vein of fascination, how, how you switch things over. And so one way of that, I think is

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something that kind of runs through a lot of it and maybe can allow us to highlight what are some

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challenges and things that you change in the, uh, the employee experience area is, and is this idea

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of at the product level, uh, or with the software level, you have this notion of like, let's use a

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bunch of experiments or small batches, as I say, to kind of figure out what our software should do.

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Like we're not going to know 12 months ahead of time, what we should code or what the best experience

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for the user is. So we'll put a bunch of experiments in place and verify it and collect

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data and always be fixing that running experiments. And it also, you know, uh, occurred to me a long

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time ago or relatively long time ago, that if you're a manager at an organization, you have to do that

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same thing with your organization structure to change it around to figure out what organization structure

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works well and which employees work or what types of roles work well. So all that idea of experimenting

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with your organizational structure very quickly comes up. And I imagine in, in a more traditional

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HR world that has all sorts of weird challenges, let alone when you go back to, um, uh, like, like

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people, HR policies itself, like experimenting with people policies must be incredibly difficult.

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So, I mean, I just think this idea of how you introduce experimentation into the organization

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is, is a fascinating one that is very representative of the change we ask our customers to go through.

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And so I wonder like how you're dealing with this idea of experimenting with not only different

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like people policies, but also just like helping people out, change their organization around to operate in that way.

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Yeah. No. And I'm happy to give you some real examples, but this is very much part of what we're doing.

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So you think about previous organizations that, you know, either you've been at or your audience,

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and it doesn't necessarily need to be something that HR rolled out. It could be

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HR or another support organization, IT or finance. And they rolled it out, rolled out this product,

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right? It rolled out this process. And you and your colleagues were looking at each other and

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scratching your head like, what is that? That adds absolutely no value. Right. Right. And, and that's,

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and, and real companies do that, right? Sometimes where, you know, maybe some larger companies,

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right, they'll go and they'll build a product and they'll spend, you know, 12 or 18 months building

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this product. They'll think what the requirements are, but they never really tested or validated.

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that along the way, right? They had a hypothesis, but they never really, you know, tested their

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assumptions along the way. So we really have incorporated a lot of the, you know, lean,

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lean startup thinking and HR and a lot of the principles and tenants around agile and extreme

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programming because, you know, the, my team, they don't want to roll something out or do something

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that they think is adding value, but then it falls flat, right? No one wants to do that,

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right? No one wants to spend weeks, months, quarters doing something and then your customers

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don't see any value in it, right? And so this concept of experimentation allows you to

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get feedback early on, right? So you have a hypothesis in terms of a problem you're trying to solve,

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what you're trying to do. There's a series of assumptions that we come up with within the HR

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organization. And then we, we test those, you know, along the way. And then we get feedback

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and we adjust and we change course. Now, do we always get that perfect? Of course not, but that's

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certainly the intent. And, you know, one example, maybe, you know, more recently, you know, as you

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mentioned, you know, earlier, you're filling out the survey. I'm assuming it was the benefit survey,

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right? We, benefits is really complex, but it's really important to our employees. And a lot of

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our colleagues have, you know, really unique circumstances at home. And, you know, we're

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going on this journey of separating from EMC and going on our own benefits. And so we are going to make

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sure that this process is very inclusive, right? We're not going to just come up, you know, spend time in

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a conference room and approach it from a cost perspective and us tell our employees what they

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need for benefits. You know, we want to invite them as part of the process. And we got this,

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we got a lot of positive emails. One last week where this boy wrote up to us and said in my 20 years

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working at companies, you know, I've never been asked to actually help, you know, or be invited to

408
00:28:58,660 --> 00:29:03,380
be part of the process to help shape what type of benefits we have. Yeah. That's, that's, that's a,

409
00:29:03,380 --> 00:29:08,100
that's a good point. And I mean, without, without getting into too easily getting into some trough of

410
00:29:08,100 --> 00:29:13,700
past cynicism, like it is, uh, I think that's true. It is nice to have, uh, you know, usually

411
00:29:13,700 --> 00:29:17,860
there's sort of like some committee of people and then, and then as you're saying, like each employee

412
00:29:17,860 --> 00:29:24,820
finds out every like 12 to 14 months, like, here's the new plan, enjoy it. But it's, uh, in, in, in,

413
00:29:24,820 --> 00:29:29,860
in the same way that, uh, we would talk with our customers about, you know, I have, I have this,

414
00:29:29,860 --> 00:29:35,140
this funny story I tell of like what user experience is, is going and talking to the users

415
00:29:35,140 --> 00:29:40,820
and figuring out what works well for them, right? Like, like it, it turns out you can just ask them

416
00:29:40,820 --> 00:29:45,860
and observe them and do what's good for them. And, and I think, I think one abstract way people put

417
00:29:45,860 --> 00:29:51,540
this is to have empathy with the people you're working for or working with or whatever. And I think

418
00:29:51,540 --> 00:29:58,260
while a survey may seem kind of like cheesy, like sending out those things and engaging with people

419
00:29:58,260 --> 00:30:01,860
and what you were just saying shows this amount of empathy of like, we're trying to figure out

420
00:30:01,860 --> 00:30:05,780
what's best for you and, and not only what's best for you, like what you want and what, what's going

421
00:30:05,780 --> 00:30:12,420
on in your situation. So that, uh, and that survey is actually just a, it's not the beginning.

422
00:30:12,420 --> 00:30:16,420
That's not the beginning and ending. Oh, you mean there's more surveys? Oh no. What have I asked for?

423
00:30:16,420 --> 00:30:23,460
Get ready. Um, it's actually that survey is going to help guide go focus groups, right? And employees

424
00:30:23,460 --> 00:30:28,340
are not going to be obviously forced to participate in them, but that, you know, we're going to go and

425
00:30:28,340 --> 00:30:33,460
talk to our employees through a series of focus groups across all functions, across, you know,

426
00:30:33,460 --> 00:30:37,860
all geographies and actually talk to them and see what's important to them and share the results of

427
00:30:37,860 --> 00:30:42,500
the survey and, and get more, more data. So it's not just, Hey, we're going to do a survey. Thank you

428
00:30:42,500 --> 00:30:46,260
very much. We got all the information that we're going to go and, and solve this and we'll see you

429
00:30:46,260 --> 00:30:53,300
in nine months. Right. That would not be part of this. I think what's cool is that you're also using

430
00:30:53,300 --> 00:30:57,540
and sharing the data. I mean, I don't know, as I was taking this, even the questions weren't being

431
00:30:57,540 --> 00:31:02,260
worded like an HR goon trying to yell at me. Instead it was like, Hey, this is a trade-off you

432
00:31:02,260 --> 00:31:06,020
might think about that this or this, or some people are going to value this. And I would suspect when we're

433
00:31:06,020 --> 00:31:10,660
done this, you all may share some of this data. So even if this goes somewhere that maybe isn't my

434
00:31:10,660 --> 00:31:14,580
preference, I can look and see, well, my colleagues really preferred this, or this was where something

435
00:31:14,580 --> 00:31:19,380
where we did decide to make this choice. It just feels like a very genuine partnership versus a,

436
00:31:19,380 --> 00:31:23,540
Hey, we already decided, but we'll throw out a survey. So you feel like you had some say in it.

437
00:31:23,540 --> 00:31:27,540
I don't think that vibe at all. Yeah. And that's, and that's not the intent in that. You know,

438
00:31:27,540 --> 00:31:32,820
my ask is, you know, keep us, definitely keep us honest as we go down this six to nine months,

439
00:31:32,820 --> 00:31:38,020
because it's certainly not the intent. So, so if you were to have a, uh, I don't know,

440
00:31:38,020 --> 00:31:43,300
sort of like, uh, most important, I don't know, two or three things that, that when you're, when

441
00:31:43,300 --> 00:31:48,660
you're, uh, consulting with, with our customers or people like, what are, what are sort of like the

442
00:31:48,660 --> 00:31:54,020
effective, like, here's some, some worst and best practices that you would give people like, like we,

443
00:31:54,020 --> 00:31:59,700
you know, like we touched on one. That's the, the blindingly obvious ones are always the most

444
00:31:59,700 --> 00:32:02,980
useful and the most ignored. You know, I mean, there's the old thing about common sense is

445
00:32:02,980 --> 00:32:08,260
uncommon, but one of them is obviously like, well, you should ask people what's helpful for them.

446
00:32:09,300 --> 00:32:13,300
Right. Like, and you should actually do that. But like, what, what are some other things with this

447
00:32:13,300 --> 00:32:18,900
idea of having not only being able to run experiments, but having, having, uh, I don't know,

448
00:32:18,900 --> 00:32:24,020
a more agile HR organization. What do you find in the organizations we talk with? There's some,

449
00:32:24,020 --> 00:32:26,660
some easy and hard wins of things that they should focus on.

450
00:32:28,180 --> 00:32:34,500
Yeah. The, um, I think part of it is, um, you know, a lot of the organizations we deal with,

451
00:32:34,500 --> 00:32:39,860
they, they get freaked out really quickly, right? When they, when they hear out, you know,

452
00:32:39,860 --> 00:32:45,380
they're going to have to change the way, you know, they operate or their structure, or they,

453
00:32:45,380 --> 00:32:50,420
do they have to go to pairing, you know, do, you know, how does this scale? And so there's always this

454
00:32:50,420 --> 00:32:57,540
initial kind of, um, trepidation, um, especially when we're dealing with our, you know, our counterparts,

455
00:32:57,540 --> 00:33:01,220
HR counterparts at other companies, because, um, generally speaking, they tend to be a little bit

456
00:33:01,220 --> 00:33:06,660
more conservative and risk averse, as we talked about earlier. So we try to just at least put at

457
00:33:06,660 --> 00:33:13,700
ease of first saying, Hey, this, this does scale. We have seen this before. Um, so that, you know,

458
00:33:13,700 --> 00:33:16,980
and just letting them know that, you know, we try to show them that empathy as well,

459
00:33:16,980 --> 00:33:20,820
that we're here with you. We'll help you. And we'll help talk this through because they do get

460
00:33:20,820 --> 00:33:26,580
this initial freak out. So we try to at least, you know, stabilize, you know, and bring some level of,

461
00:33:26,580 --> 00:33:34,100
um, I'm sorry, calm, but you know, some sort of, Hey, we're here with you. And the last thing we want

462
00:33:34,100 --> 00:33:38,180
to do, and I don't think we've ever done this for me, this last thing we want to do is, you know,

463
00:33:38,180 --> 00:33:42,420
freak out a part of the customer and we, you know, we put a dealer at risk or put a, you know,

464
00:33:42,980 --> 00:33:46,580
you know, put our relationship at risk. So we take, you know, our interactions very,

465
00:33:46,580 --> 00:33:53,700
very seriously. Um, but the, you know, I think the more, I guess, you know, obvious thing with

466
00:33:53,700 --> 00:33:56,900
them is once we kind of get through that first conversation is that you just need to get started.

467
00:33:57,700 --> 00:34:03,300
Right. And at the end of the day, like, we're not there to change them. They've come to us,

468
00:34:04,020 --> 00:34:09,620
you know, per se and saying, Hey, we want to learn to do things differently. And so that can come in

469
00:34:09,620 --> 00:34:13,460
many different shapes and sizes, right? So they don't have to necessarily look like us. They don't

470
00:34:13,460 --> 00:34:18,340
have to necessarily do 906 standups. They don't have to do everything that we do. Um, there's

471
00:34:18,340 --> 00:34:24,100
things that we certainly have an opinion on things that we recommend they do, they do, but it's, you

472
00:34:24,100 --> 00:34:30,180
know, they need, it needs to fit and work within their organization. Um, and so, you know, one tip

473
00:34:30,180 --> 00:34:34,660
that we do give besides just, Hey, just get started. Let's find a project. Let's find a team that's going

474
00:34:34,660 --> 00:34:41,060
to work on this and we'll work with the HR teams and the recruiting teams, etc. Um, but one tip that

475
00:34:41,060 --> 00:34:48,100
we generally tell customers is it may make sense to kind of have this team off to the side for now.

476
00:34:48,100 --> 00:34:52,980
It may sound counterintuitive, but generally for the larger organizations, right? If we work with 5,

477
00:34:52,980 --> 00:35:00,500
10, 15, 20, or 30 customers, but then they go back into an organization of 300 or 3000 or 30,

478
00:35:00,500 --> 00:35:08,020
30,000, which oftentimes has they get to assume. And so we do, um, recommend those customers that

479
00:35:08,020 --> 00:35:12,660
really want to do a major cultural and people transformations that just keep the team separate

480
00:35:12,660 --> 00:35:17,540
and you keep adding to that team. And so when that team then gets to a level of critical mass,

481
00:35:17,540 --> 00:35:21,140
they're not going to get to assume, you know, by the larger organization.

482
00:35:22,500 --> 00:35:26,580
Yeah. That was a scale out strategy. So that, that's how you see that taking effect.

483
00:35:27,940 --> 00:35:32,660
For sure. Right. So if we, you know, brought in, you know, say we worked with 20 or 30

484
00:35:33,940 --> 00:35:38,020
customers, including some of their support functions, but you then put them in an organization

485
00:35:38,020 --> 00:35:43,780
where they get quickly outnumbered, they're just going to revert back to their old ways of doing

486
00:35:43,780 --> 00:35:49,940
things. So you have to kind of keep them separate and just keep building that mass into that organization

487
00:35:50,820 --> 00:35:58,020
is, you know, equal to or greater weight, you know, weight and error quotes to, you know, to the, uh,

488
00:35:58,020 --> 00:36:00,500
to the formal organization.

489
00:36:01,300 --> 00:36:05,940
Yeah. No, you know, those, those, uh, I mean, again, those, those sort of three things are interesting

490
00:36:05,940 --> 00:36:11,700
in the sense that they, they almost map to on, on the other end, a lot of advice that we tend to give

491
00:36:11,700 --> 00:36:15,620
people, like if, if you want to do all this digital transformation, cloud native,

492
00:36:16,420 --> 00:36:21,380
use software better to run your business, you know, essentially like, uh, as I was just telling my,

493
00:36:21,380 --> 00:36:27,780
my, uh, almost seven year old son last night, like learning's hard, right? Like you, you fail a lot

494
00:36:27,780 --> 00:36:31,700
and it seems really weird and you don't know what's going on. Like, I always try to remind him how

495
00:36:31,700 --> 00:36:36,180
resistant he was to learning how to ride a bike and he would get upset and it wasn't working out. And

496
00:36:36,180 --> 00:36:40,580
nowadays he doesn't even think about it. And so like, in that same way, if you're learning, if you're

497
00:36:40,580 --> 00:36:45,380
changing your organization around and doing things, it's good, as you said, to be aware that you're

498
00:36:45,380 --> 00:36:51,300
going to freak out, right? Like things are going to seem crazy and weird and that's normal. You just

499
00:36:51,300 --> 00:36:56,740
got to like get through it. And then I think, I think as, as we see a lot, um, among customers,

500
00:36:56,740 --> 00:37:02,740
right? Like, uh, it's a little counterintuitive, especially in a large organization. But as I like to

501
00:37:02,740 --> 00:37:08,020
put it, like, it's not a good idea to rewrite the.com site as your first project, right? Like

502
00:37:08,020 --> 00:37:12,580
you should, you should pick something smaller and like learn it and build up credibility and then

503
00:37:12,580 --> 00:37:16,980
expand it out. And I'd like to think that the expansion out is kind of like the

504
00:37:17,780 --> 00:37:22,020
mythical hockey stick thing. Like it starts off small and then all of a sudden you can blow it

505
00:37:22,020 --> 00:37:26,980
out really large at the end. But whatever, whatever way the stick is going at the end, I think it's

506
00:37:26,980 --> 00:37:31,780
definitely a pretty much established best practice that you should start with small things and grow up

507
00:37:31,780 --> 00:37:34,420
incrementally instead of biting off everything at once.

508
00:37:35,540 --> 00:37:39,380
Yeah. And, and that's the approach. And the other thing, which I think is just a byproduct of who

509
00:37:39,380 --> 00:37:45,700
we are helps provide some comfort with the customers is that we're not your typical consultants, you know,

510
00:37:45,700 --> 00:37:50,900
and think about maybe your typical SIs is that when they're talking to us, we're actually practitioners as

511
00:37:50,900 --> 00:37:56,340
well. So what we're sharing with them are things that we actually do, right? Things that we incorporate in

512
00:37:56,340 --> 00:38:01,620
our day to day with certain customers, you know, I'll share with them our own transformation.

513
00:38:02,020 --> 00:38:03,940
Right. And when we were formed

514
00:38:03,940 --> 00:38:07,780
three and a half years ago, right, it was a thousand people, you know, showing up on day one.

515
00:38:07,780 --> 00:38:13,220
It was seven different companies, you know, that EMC and VM were acquired over the previous three years.

516
00:38:13,860 --> 00:38:20,100
And so we looked a lot differently than we did then. And so we take them through some of the steps and

517
00:38:20,100 --> 00:38:26,580
things that we did and some of the mistakes we made. We made lots, you know, lots of mistakes and we had a lot

518
00:38:26,580 --> 00:38:30,020
of challenges over the last three years, three and a half years, but we've, we've learned from them

519
00:38:30,580 --> 00:38:34,580
and we're able to impart some of that, you know, to our, to our customers as well.

520
00:38:36,900 --> 00:38:40,580
So I want to switch gears a little bit and ask you about something that we're starting to do and

521
00:38:40,580 --> 00:38:44,980
some in the industry are doing a little more around pay transparency. So if you could maybe tell us what

522
00:38:44,980 --> 00:38:50,580
that, that spectrum is, because there's obviously the one end of the spectrum is nobody knows anything

523
00:38:50,580 --> 00:38:54,500
about what they make in concert to others or their range or anything to the other end of the

524
00:38:54,500 --> 00:39:00,420
spectrum. Like you put my salary on pivotal.io, like there's probably a full spectrum there of things.

525
00:39:00,420 --> 00:39:04,820
So I mean, what are the core ideas around page transparency and where does pivotal land in that

526
00:39:04,820 --> 00:39:11,540
spectrum? Yeah, it's actually a very timely question. And I think you described the spectrum

527
00:39:11,540 --> 00:39:16,900
accurately. We actually built the spectrum internally of, okay, well, what is, what's the extremes of

528
00:39:16,900 --> 00:39:22,580
both sides of it? And, you know, aspirationally, where does pivotal want to fall on that spectrum?

529
00:39:22,580 --> 00:39:29,540
And so, you know, I'm actually going to be writing an email out to all of our employees

530
00:39:29,540 --> 00:39:34,900
here in the next week or two to actually answer that very question. So I can give your audience

531
00:39:34,900 --> 00:39:41,620
a little bit of a sneak preview. I'm not sure when this actually will become available, but I'll have

532
00:39:41,620 --> 00:39:45,780
to hold back certain things because I want to make sure the whole company here could at once. But the,

533
00:39:47,060 --> 00:39:53,620
we do want to make some movements. So today, I don't think all employees really understand

534
00:39:56,420 --> 00:40:03,140
how paid decisions are made. So that is a step on the journey of becoming much more

535
00:40:03,140 --> 00:40:08,900
transparent with the pay. So we're going to publish a pay practices document so that all employees

536
00:40:08,900 --> 00:40:17,700
understand how to do salaries. We're also going to share and educate employees in terms of how you do,

537
00:40:17,700 --> 00:40:21,140
how we actually benchmark, right? So you think about, we have colleagues in, you know,

538
00:40:21,140 --> 00:40:27,140
30 plus countries and many different cities across the world. Like, how do we even come up with the pay

539
00:40:27,140 --> 00:40:31,780
ranges and the benchmarking and what do we benchmark against to it? And so we're going to share that

540
00:40:31,780 --> 00:40:40,100
methodology, you know, over the, in the coming weeks and the coming months. The ultimate goal is not

541
00:40:40,100 --> 00:40:46,580
actually publish, put your salary out on Pivotal.io, whether it's internal or external. We've made a

542
00:40:46,580 --> 00:40:53,460
decision that that's not something us as a company can do. And we're 2,300 employees and we're not even

543
00:40:53,460 --> 00:41:00,100
sure what that would actually, you know, get to. Now we will, we are going to put on a, put us on a path

544
00:41:00,100 --> 00:41:06,420
where all employees will know where they fall within the first, their perspective pay range.

545
00:41:07,060 --> 00:41:12,420
And so we are actively working, you know, that right now, we're working with leaders. So that will be

546
00:41:12,420 --> 00:41:16,420
a goal so that all of you know exactly, you know, where you fall in the pay range and why you're paid,

547
00:41:17,060 --> 00:41:21,620
you know, what you, um, what you're paid at. Now the, one of the ultimate goals though,

548
00:41:21,620 --> 00:41:27,460
with pay transparency, in my opinion, is around fairness, right? And pay equality.

549
00:41:28,260 --> 00:41:33,620
And so one of the things that, you know, I'm going to share with the company and actually put on,

550
00:41:33,620 --> 00:41:41,620
uh, you know, right on our Pivotal.io blog is actually going to talk about, um, gender

551
00:41:42,660 --> 00:41:48,340
quality, um, when it comes to pay. Um, and Pivotal has recently signed, you know, the White House,

552
00:41:48,340 --> 00:41:54,740
um, equal pay pledge. Um, and also we've done some analysis, you know, with a third party,

553
00:41:54,740 --> 00:42:01,460
um, to find out, you know, how much women earn, you know, or every dollar that a, that a man makes,

554
00:42:01,460 --> 00:42:06,820
uh, in the U S. And so we're going to share those results with the company in the next couple weeks,

555
00:42:06,820 --> 00:42:12,500
which I think is, is the right thing to do. Um, not a lot of our peer companies are doing that,

556
00:42:12,500 --> 00:42:15,380
but that's, that's basically the path that we want to go down.

557
00:42:17,220 --> 00:42:22,340
Interesting. What are the, some of the challenges of doing these sort of models? I mean, obviously,

558
00:42:22,340 --> 00:42:27,060
you know, somebody who was just toiling away blissfully unaware that they were, you know,

559
00:42:27,060 --> 00:42:31,060
grossly underpaid and now all of a sudden they're disgruntled or, you know, you hit some other

560
00:42:31,060 --> 00:42:34,260
things. What, what do you see in the industry as challenges around paid transparency? And are

561
00:42:34,260 --> 00:42:38,500
those just things that are overcome by finally having some of these conversations that maybe

562
00:42:38,500 --> 00:42:44,500
we've shied away from for a heck of a long time? I don't know why it's that hard to be honest with

563
00:42:44,500 --> 00:42:52,180
you know, we, you know, we, we, we started having this conversation literally in Q2 and said, Hey,

564
00:42:52,180 --> 00:42:59,380
we want to be much more transparent, which is how we pay. And I think part of this also is,

565
00:42:59,380 --> 00:43:04,260
you know, we want to just continue to foster this level of transparency and trust with our employees.

566
00:43:04,980 --> 00:43:10,580
And we just think it's a, it's just a logical path for us to go down. Now, I think maybe some larger

567
00:43:10,580 --> 00:43:17,060
companies, um, maybe their data isn't great and they're afraid of what it says, you know, maybe

568
00:43:17,060 --> 00:43:21,620
they're a little bit more risk averse because, you know, they're afraid it could lead to some sort of, um,

569
00:43:23,540 --> 00:43:30,260
lawsuits. Um, and so, you know, some, but some bigger companies are tackling this, right? You know,

570
00:43:30,260 --> 00:43:36,260
Salesforce.com and Apple and others have come down this, come down this journey or going down this

571
00:43:36,260 --> 00:43:42,820
journey. But for us, this does fit within our broader focus around diversity and inclusion.

572
00:43:44,340 --> 00:43:52,020
And I do think that, uh, the really create a, an inclusive, you know, organization, you know,

573
00:43:52,020 --> 00:43:58,740
the, the senior leadership team needs to continue to make some overtures to help fostering that trust.

574
00:43:58,740 --> 00:44:04,580
Right. And then hopefully over time, that's just, it'll be completely earned in uniform.

575
00:44:05,140 --> 00:44:08,180
And you don't have to do these types of things that you just trust that the company does the right

576
00:44:08,180 --> 00:44:13,060
thing. But I think we need to do, you know, some of these things in order to help build and foster

577
00:44:13,060 --> 00:44:15,780
that trust and confidence that folks have in the company.

578
00:44:17,780 --> 00:44:21,700
Yeah. You know, I, I was, I was, uh, delightfully laughing at your comment that, uh,

579
00:44:22,260 --> 00:44:26,980
I don't know why it's so hard. Cause I, cause I think, you know, it, it, it gets back to that

580
00:44:26,980 --> 00:44:31,700
general thing that, uh, that, uh, I'm always returning over and over again too. Right. Which

581
00:44:31,700 --> 00:44:38,180
is like, uh, so if you want your company to be high performing, right. In a, in a weird innovative

582
00:44:38,180 --> 00:44:43,300
sector, right. You're not just like, I, you know, I, I think pretty much every job you want people to

583
00:44:43,300 --> 00:44:47,620
be like creative and high performing. It's just a matter of like how, how you structure the business.

584
00:44:47,620 --> 00:44:51,540
It's like probably one of the first things you want is your people to be happy. One,

585
00:44:51,540 --> 00:44:56,580
you have to be able to, uh, hire people and be a desirable place for them to work. Uh,

586
00:44:56,580 --> 00:45:00,420
but then once they're there, you want to retain them and grow them. And, you know,

587
00:45:00,420 --> 00:45:05,700
whether they go through a maze career or a ladder, you want to take advantage in all the best ways of

588
00:45:05,700 --> 00:45:11,060
the resource that they are to, to use a bunch of weird mixed metaphors there of, uh, of sentiment.

589
00:45:11,060 --> 00:45:15,620
And, and it seems like the best way, as far as I figured out with people to like,

590
00:45:15,620 --> 00:45:20,180
have them be happy is to like have a huge degree of trust with them and also like,

591
00:45:20,180 --> 00:45:26,580
don't take advantage of them. And, and it seems like, you know, the, uh, once money is involved,

592
00:45:26,580 --> 00:45:32,660
everyone's always suspicious. So having the maximum amount of, of logical transparency around it sort

593
00:45:32,660 --> 00:45:37,140
of removes that as a source of conspiracy theories and everything. And anyways, it like kind of gets

594
00:45:37,140 --> 00:45:40,980
that nonsense out of the way. And you can just focus on people having a good experience and having

595
00:45:40,980 --> 00:45:45,780
good people, which allows you to recruit people, which will allow you to have a business that

596
00:45:45,780 --> 00:45:51,300
functions and does well. Right. And, and all of that stuff, it sounds like, again, really normal when

597
00:45:51,300 --> 00:45:56,740
you explain it, but like, man, the amount of effort that companies have been struggling over this stuff

598
00:45:56,740 --> 00:46:02,420
is indicative of something weird going on. Right. Yeah. And the, the word of, you know,

599
00:46:02,420 --> 00:46:08,020
views in terms of, you know, I've actually drafted this blog so far, just want to take the mystery out of it.

600
00:46:08,020 --> 00:46:14,420
Exactly. Like there's no, there's no, this black art. We're not like in conference rooms trying to

601
00:46:14,420 --> 00:46:18,500
figure out how to, well, right. Everyone is well-intentioned. Yeah.

602
00:46:18,500 --> 00:46:25,300
Um, everyone is trying to do the right thing. And, and so let's just, let's just take the mystery out

603
00:46:25,300 --> 00:46:29,540
of it and let's just share how we do things. And, and over time, we'll let our employees know where

604
00:46:29,540 --> 00:46:34,100
they fall within the range. So we have to do it in a way that's thoughtful and that, you know,

605
00:46:34,100 --> 00:46:38,020
they're educated and managers are educated in terms of, you know, what data means and methodology.

606
00:46:38,020 --> 00:46:40,900
Right. I think it's doing the right thing. It's not hard.

607
00:46:40,900 --> 00:46:45,620
Yeah. And that, that with, as, as the last topic before we wrap up, that brings up something you

608
00:46:45,620 --> 00:46:51,060
and I had, had, uh, have talked about previously and that is, uh, and I wanted to talk about this

609
00:46:51,060 --> 00:46:55,700
because I hadn't really thought about it until you mentioned it is like how, how as, as a company,

610
00:46:55,700 --> 00:47:02,500
you sort of explain and embody the values that you have. Right. And, uh, you know, like our, uh,

611
00:47:02,500 --> 00:47:06,660
we, we have the values of like, do the right thing, do what works and be kind. Right. Which,

612
00:47:06,660 --> 00:47:13,940
which, which, you know, sort of sounds like pretty normal, but I think, I think the challenge is

613
00:47:13,940 --> 00:47:20,180
figuring out in any given day to day situation, like how, how you communicate and prove to employees,

614
00:47:20,180 --> 00:47:24,260
not only the seriousness of what that is, but what those things actually mean, like,

615
00:47:24,260 --> 00:47:28,820
what does it mean to be kind and do, do what works. And so I'm interested in, we didn't talk

616
00:47:28,820 --> 00:47:33,460
about it in great detail, but like, how, how are you thinking through sort of like defining what those

617
00:47:33,460 --> 00:47:38,020
values are and then also sort of, um, having everyone prove to each other that they're following

618
00:47:38,020 --> 00:47:46,500
them or being an exemplar of it? Yeah. And good question. Um, we have a lot of work to do there

619
00:47:46,500 --> 00:47:51,620
and I think we've made a lot of progress. Um, but you know, when we formed the company three and a half

620
00:47:51,620 --> 00:47:57,700
years ago, you know, we had lots of different cultures and different values that we just inherited.

621
00:47:57,700 --> 00:48:01,940
Right. Um, and you spend 10 minutes in a larger organization, you're going to pick up some of that,

622
00:48:01,940 --> 00:48:05,460
those values and cultures, and then also all those previously acquired companies.

623
00:48:05,460 --> 00:48:10,820
So I've actually been on this journey of kind of figure out like who we are as a company, like,

624
00:48:10,820 --> 00:48:15,060
and what are we, what are our values are? And Paul, you know, has greatly shaped that. And,

625
00:48:15,060 --> 00:48:22,260
and so has, has Rob. And I remember early on, you know, my team asked me to publish our values,

626
00:48:22,260 --> 00:48:25,940
right? This was like mid 2013 and let's write them on a website. And I said, no,

627
00:48:25,940 --> 00:48:30,420
we're not going to do that. I said, because it would be very disingenuine. And most of our employees

628
00:48:30,420 --> 00:48:35,860
would not even be able to even recognize themselves or see themselves in those values

629
00:48:35,860 --> 00:48:43,540
because we need work. The leadership team has work done. Um, and so we are at a point now where

630
00:48:43,540 --> 00:48:48,020
we do talk about our values and as those, you know, those three in terms of, you know, do what works,

631
00:48:48,020 --> 00:48:53,540
do the right thing. And I'm, but I think, I do think, and I've had this conversation with Rob recently,

632
00:48:53,540 --> 00:48:58,500
um, that I do think that a lot of employees really need help understanding. What does that

633
00:48:58,500 --> 00:49:03,060
actually even mean for them? Right. To your point, right. It is simple. Well, like when you do your

634
00:49:03,060 --> 00:49:07,140
job every day, what does that actually mean? Right. As a sales rep, you're interacting with customers

635
00:49:07,140 --> 00:49:12,660
or your colleagues. What does that mean? Your PAs, your PAs are interacting with, you know, your reps

636
00:49:12,660 --> 00:49:17,620
and the product organization. What does that mean? What does it mean for engineers? And so we're actually

637
00:49:17,620 --> 00:49:23,140
going to, um, um, Rob is going to get in front of, uh, he does this, um, he's going to participate in

638
00:49:23,140 --> 00:49:28,180
this lead on session for managers. And this is going to be just one start. And we have over 300 people,

639
00:49:28,180 --> 00:49:33,220
managers at Pivotal and just do some storytelling. Right. And so I think that's one way in which,

640
00:49:33,220 --> 00:49:37,380
you know, we can help our employees really understand and our managers understand

641
00:49:37,940 --> 00:49:43,140
our values is instead of just referring to the three of them and hoping that they're interpreted

642
00:49:43,140 --> 00:49:48,340
correctly, it's actually, well, let's do some storytelling and actually talk about what does

643
00:49:48,340 --> 00:49:52,980
that actually mean for different functions and, you know, different levels of the organization in

644
00:49:52,980 --> 00:49:59,140
terms of how, um, you know, Rob and the leadership team expect, um, not only them to behave and carry

645
00:49:59,140 --> 00:50:03,700
themselves, which is really important, but also how the rest of the company, um, operates.

646
00:50:05,220 --> 00:50:11,700
Uh, no, I, I think, I think, I think it's that, uh, that storytelling, which is nice. And, and now

647
00:50:11,700 --> 00:50:16,660
that you say that, like thinking over, uh, the kind of discussion of values and corporate policy,

648
00:50:16,660 --> 00:50:21,060
like over the past, like couple decades of my career, like I kind of only remember the stories

649
00:50:21,060 --> 00:50:26,020
executives would tell like, like actual things they would do. And it gives, it gives a good guideline.

650
00:50:26,020 --> 00:50:32,260
And, and, you know, like, like, uh, to, to have my own sort of like, uh, story of it,

651
00:50:32,260 --> 00:50:36,420
so to speak, I was just talking with one of our, our, our sales reps last week and you

652
00:50:36,420 --> 00:50:39,860
and I had talked about this before that. So I was, I was kind of asking him the question,

653
00:50:39,860 --> 00:50:44,660
like, what do you think of these values? And, and like, like a lot of the, um, uh, I mean,

654
00:50:44,660 --> 00:50:50,980
some of it has to do with the nature of large, long, uh, enterprise sales that we have, but the,

655
00:50:50,980 --> 00:50:55,860
I always think salespeople are an excellent test of values of corporations, like the closer to the

656
00:50:55,860 --> 00:51:01,060
money, the more, the more of a, of a chaotic Petri dish it is. And the discussion we were having was,

657
00:51:01,060 --> 00:51:06,740
was essentially like more of the consultative nature, just sort of, uh, uh, you know, giving,

658
00:51:06,740 --> 00:51:10,980
giving prospects and customers advice about how they should do thing and hooking them up with

659
00:51:10,980 --> 00:51:15,780
information rather than just trying to, uh, sell them the stuff or make the numbers or whatever,

660
00:51:15,780 --> 00:51:20,660
like, and it's always important for a salesperson to focus on that. But, you know, as I was discussing

661
00:51:20,660 --> 00:51:25,780
things with him and avenues, he had been, uh, sort of suggesting customers go to and things that they

662
00:51:25,780 --> 00:51:30,340
should not do. A lot of it was a good example of like him figuring out what was good for that

663
00:51:30,340 --> 00:51:35,780
organization and then trying to map to the capabilities that pivotal has and kind of not

664
00:51:35,780 --> 00:51:39,940
only steer them to things that they would spend money on us with, but steer them away from things

665
00:51:39,940 --> 00:51:44,020
that wouldn't make sense for them. So it seemed to me that like that, having your salespeople,

666
00:51:44,580 --> 00:51:49,620
um, be happy to tell customers that like, no, this product's probably not a good idea for you at this

667
00:51:49,620 --> 00:51:55,620
point. It seems like a good, a good example of, of doing the right thing. And, and also it's funny

668
00:51:55,620 --> 00:52:00,740
because like, it's also an example of it, it, it works in the sense that you're not telling them

669
00:52:00,740 --> 00:52:05,780
to do something that won't work. So that's kind of a negative example, but it's also kind to like,

670
00:52:06,500 --> 00:52:12,020
be nice to people and actually, and try to help them out. But, uh, yeah, I mean, the stories are good.

671
00:52:12,020 --> 00:52:19,700
Yeah. And I've heard, you know, I've heard Bill Cook, you know, say to, um, our company and to our

672
00:52:19,700 --> 00:52:26,820
sales organization, right? He, he would not want to see us do a large ELA where the customer, you know,

673
00:52:26,820 --> 00:52:30,660
wasn't going to get any value out of it and they weren't going to use our software and it was just

674
00:52:30,660 --> 00:52:34,740
going to, you know, just sit there and we're not going to consume AIs, right? This is not the right

675
00:52:34,740 --> 00:52:39,940
thing to do. It's not just about getting the deal done, right? We want to show value and help our

676
00:52:39,940 --> 00:52:44,820
customers get to the outcomes that they want. And obviously this does tie to our business model in

677
00:52:44,820 --> 00:52:51,380
terms of making sure that folks are renewing our subscription, right? And so it does help put some

678
00:52:51,380 --> 00:52:57,140
of that behavior in check because of our subscription business is that we need our customers doing

679
00:52:57,140 --> 00:53:02,180
renewals, right? And if we're trying to sell something that them just to make a number and a

680
00:53:02,180 --> 00:53:07,220
quarter, which is important, um, you know, it's, it's gonna, it's not going to be the right thing for

681
00:53:07,220 --> 00:53:10,980
them and it's going to actually hurt our business model in the longterm when those, those customers

682
00:53:10,980 --> 00:53:17,220
turn. And then also Edward has been talking a lot about, you know, engagement plan, right? And

683
00:53:17,220 --> 00:53:20,820
I think engagement plan that you have early on in your conversation with your customers,

684
00:53:20,820 --> 00:53:24,900
you're actually building that roadmap in terms of, you know, the outcomes that they're trying to get.

685
00:53:24,900 --> 00:53:27,460
And that just keeps everybody keeps everybody honest.

686
00:53:30,260 --> 00:53:35,460
Well, absolutely. Well, before we wrap up, is there, uh, any, any other topics you don't think

687
00:53:35,460 --> 00:53:38,340
we've, we've, uh, we've covered sufficiently that you want to raise up?

688
00:53:39,140 --> 00:53:43,940
No, this is great. No, I just, uh, appreciate, uh, both of your time and, uh, it's great chatting with

689
00:53:43,940 --> 00:53:49,060
you. And, um, certainly if, uh, your audience has any questions, they can always, uh, you know,

690
00:53:49,060 --> 00:53:51,700
feel free to reach out to me directly or remember my team.

691
00:53:51,700 --> 00:53:56,900
Yeah. Well, you're, you're now in a very small club of people who've been on this podcast twice.

692
00:53:56,900 --> 00:54:01,860
So, uh, whenever, whenever we get the budget to print up jackets, we'll have to send you one

693
00:54:01,860 --> 00:54:07,540
or, or maybe just a really nice image in an email we'll send. We'll see. We'll see.

694
00:54:08,180 --> 00:54:12,980
Oh, so I won't, I guess I won't read into it if I don't invite it back for a third.

695
00:54:15,220 --> 00:54:17,380
The club of two is, uh, hit the threshold.

696
00:54:17,380 --> 00:54:18,260
Very exclusive.

697
00:54:19,700 --> 00:54:24,180
That's awesome. Well, well, uh, well, thanks for being on. And, and, and if, uh, if people want

698
00:54:24,180 --> 00:54:27,700
to follow up with you, like, do you, do you have like a Twitter account or anything you want to throw

699
00:54:27,700 --> 00:54:35,620
out? Yeah, they can, uh, follow me on, uh, on Twitter. Um, you know, joe.militello10 on Twitter.

700
00:54:35,620 --> 00:54:43,780
And, um, you know, my email is jmilitello@pivotal.io. So feel free to reach out to me either way.

701
00:54:43,780 --> 00:54:47,700
Well, that's great. Well, we'll, we'll have to be sure we'll put, uh, Coté's favorite slide

702
00:54:47,700 --> 00:54:54,020
of 2016 up somewhere. That'll be, that'll be good stuff. And, uh, and, and, and as always,

703
00:54:54,020 --> 00:54:58,580
uh, thanks for listening, uh, everyone. This has been Pivotal Conversations. You can find

704
00:54:58,580 --> 00:55:02,820
the show notes, uh, with, with many of the things we mentioned, if you go to pivotal.io

705
00:55:02,820 --> 00:55:07,860
slash podcast, and you can also go directly to our not so secret backend for hosting this

706
00:55:07,860 --> 00:55:14,020
in SoundCloud. If you go to soundcloud.com slash Pivotal Conversations, it's a lot to type,

707
00:55:14,020 --> 00:55:19,380
but easy to remember. And it's always nice if, uh, if you like this episode to recommend it to people

708
00:55:19,380 --> 00:55:25,060
or just drop us a line through whatever weird channel you, uh, you like using, or if you really

709
00:55:25,060 --> 00:55:32,100
want to be like hyper, uh, responsible or something, uh, you can go into iTunes and leave us a review

710
00:55:32,100 --> 00:55:36,500
or rating. I think if you did it now, you would be the first person to do it, at least as far as written,

711
00:55:36,500 --> 00:55:41,540
uh, leaving a typed up thing. So there's, uh, the first mover advantage of your awesomeness that you

712
00:55:41,540 --> 00:55:46,820
could achieve effortlessly. Uh, you probably have to log into Apple or something, which is exciting.

713
00:55:47,220 --> 00:55:49,780
Anyhow, we'll see everyone next time. Bye-bye.