Best of Series - The Hidden Killer Preventing You From Building a High Performance Team

Dr. Jim: [: 00:00:00

Compt is a personalized lifestyle employee benefits platform She's been a three time cfo a two time ceo 20 years of experience in leadership I have zero idea what she's going to bring to the table in terms of this conversation about building elite teams Amy, Spurling welcome to the show

Amy Spurling: Thanks so much for having me

Dr. Jim: and for those that are listening that was sarcasm.

I know that I've glossed over a lot of detail in your background and experience So I think it's important for us to level set and get the listeners up to speed on what I missed and what else you feel Is important about your background that's going to inform this discussion that we're gonna have

think I would include or add [: 00:01:00

Several have been fully remote. Some have been in office. So there's a lot of variety there for how we've I've thought about building teams, worked with leadership teams to build out teams. And then that really informed how I decided to build Compt my first company that I've found

it.

Dr. Jim: I think there's an opportunity for us to dig into something.

This is not your first rodeo in terms of building teams, and it sounds like you took a remote or hybrid approach even back when that wasn't really a thing. Share with us a little bit about some of the things that you learned in repeatedly building remote and hybrid teams and how that informed your style and your build out of Compt

s that I was part of this was: 2008

And so I took a lot of lessons around thinking about communication design of working together as a team to make sure that everyone had the right information at the right time. When I started comp, I specifically did not want to build a remote team. I was like, this is very hard. You have to be very intentional.

I want everybody together, at least most of the time. And we started out with, I'm based in Boston and the early team was based in Boston as well, where we would do three days a week together. We would do Tuesday through Thursday together primarily because. Boston traffic is terrible. And so none of us wanted to spend time commuting on Mondays and Fridays.

le spend their time in their [: 00:03:00

Dr. Jim: You've had to balance your approach based on what was right for the team, what was right for the conditions, what was right for the location.

It's a very pragmatic approach. How would you respond to a lot of leaders today who are advocating for almost a Or else philosophy when it comes to the discussion of remote versus hybrid versus on site? To be more clear, we've seen so many people say, we have to get everybody back into the office 100 percent of the time. What's your response to that sort of edict?

Amy Spurling: I don't love edicts in general. But I think that for, two and a half, three years, we've proven that remote work can work very well. There are some downsides to it. I don't think it's all glossy upside. Sometimes communication is harder.

lterior motives. I'm a former[: 00:04:00

And so if you're looking to scale back a team, not pay severance and not have to file anything with these states specifically around the WARN Act, it's a lot easier to have them quit. And one way to force that is folks who are living and have moved over the past three years with outside of commuting range.

Trying to force them back is a good way to push that button. It's My own personal opinion of what's happening. I have no insider knowledge, but if I was a CFO in one of those big companies and looking at ways to cut costs it would certainly occur to me.

Dr. Jim: That little bit of insight about the WARN Act, I hadn't even considered it because my brain automatically went towards a couple of different areas.

One, you have a lot of large corporations and CEOs with corporations and also private equity firms that have vested interest in commercial real estate. So there's probably a component of that

Amy Spurling: 100 percent

s driving that. But the WARN [: 00:05:00

Amy Spurling: I'll give you broad strokes on it.

I wouldn't say I'm fully versed on the Warren Act because My teams have never had to go through those types of layoffs, but if you're doing a large scale layoff in many of the states in the US, you have to notify the state that this is going to be happening. You have to provide notice as well to employees in much of the time.

Think specifically to places like California. We saw this come into play when Twitter started doing big layoffs and then there was pushback from employees that were like, Hey, this is outside the scope of the Warren act. So you are required in certain states, depending on the size of the layoff to do some regulatory filings, and then also to be providing notice and severance and things like that to employees, depending on the state.

And, there's a lot of other [: 00:06:00

Dr. Jim: Who knew that you were going to get a remote versus hybrid versus onsite primer on this episode. We didn't even tee that up in the beginning. Let's dive into the meat of the discussion. The intent of our show is to help busy people leaders do more with less and really arm them with those game changer lessons from senior leaders across the country.

So when you think about. Your experience and you think about those game changing moments that really shifted the way that you show up the way that you lead teams, the way that you grow organizations and build high performance teams. What was that game changing realization?

ll with typical tech company [: 00:07:00

When I started my own company, I believe that there's a, a power in having diversity on your team. You have different perspectives, you have different ideas around the table. You can problem solve in a different way. It's just to me, a lot more efficient and made a lot of sense. One of the things that I.

Did for myself as I started thinking about, all right, how do I want to build this team here at comp was recognizing that I, taking a look at my own network. And so 1 of the things I did was I was just curious 1 day. I was like, all right, I'm going to go on LinkedIn and just scan through my contacts, the folks that I'm connected to because my personal assumption going into it.

ning, page after page, and I [: 00:08:00

And I realized that was a huge gaping hole both in just the perspective I have on the market and building a tech company and just a loss of knowledge and a loss of access to that knowledge. And so that was a pretty big aha moment for me that if I really wanted to build a diverse team, I needed to know.

A bunch of people that didn't look like me and didn't have my background or didn't live in my geographical area. And so I needed to start being very intentional about how I went about building my network. Because it wasn't going to happen organically just in my local coffee shop.

to that won't even consider [: 00:09:00

We both know that when we're looking at sales organizations, it is predominantly white. It's predominantly male, even though that the data shows that women led sales organizations actually outperform male led sales organizations hat tip to Carrie Simpson, who got that research in front of me.

We know within sales what the demographics looks like, and it's Often worse than what it is in B2B tech. But what was interesting is that there was a recent panel that was on, and I noticed that the panel had gender diversity, but it didn't really have any people of color on it. And I messaged their CEO and the CEO had three times the network that I did.

And he's asking me for, who do I know? And I'm like, I'm happy to give you referrals, but you have a. 25, 000 person network, maybe there's got to be somebody in there that you should look at. I'm curious what got you to the point to even consider what is my network makeup .

d to be some sort of trigger [: 00:10:00

Amy Spurling: I don't know that I give myself credit for self awareness. It was a moment of curiosity, I would say for myself because what I was worried about as I started a company, I understand that I have biases, unconscious bias, just like everyone else.

And I know one of my. Easiest hires for me to make is typically a white woman at the age of 30 or 31. It's where my career took off. It's the first time I became CFO. I know that I do a lot of the projection work that people do where it's oh, you're just like me and you're going to be amazing. And you put all the things that you did on somebody else.

well. Diverse teams perform [: 00:11:00

I realized I needed to go and look and see if my network was only a reflection of myself. And so it really was curiosity to see just how much my bias was going to be impacted by that. Because, just like you mentioned in the example, people ask me all the time, Hey, who do you know who could be on a panel or on a podcast?

And If my go to list is people that are just like me, it provides some gender diversity, maybe some sexual orientation diversity, but it's missing a whole lot of other perspectives as well. And so I was just, I was curious and was like I wonder what that's going to look like.

And so I went in and, I was happy on one front and not so happy on some others.

Dr. Jim: There's an aspect of what you're talking about that I find really interesting . And it's the idea of when you're building an organization and you want the broadest access possible to the widest talent pool possible.

e you access to talent pools [: 00:12:00

Amy Spurling: 100,

100%. When we started the company in Boston, we did have some early diversity on the team, making sure, we did, Some work to find people with, different backgrounds because that's what I knew we also needed here.

Our first engineer actually started his career as an E Y accountant. Fantastic. Like we're a tax compliance based software. Couldn't have dreamed up a better engineer to start with us. But I also knew that hiring. When you're coming from Boston is likely going to reflect Boston demographics, which are very white.

And so that was going to be a limiting factor for us. When we got pushed early on with the pandemic to go fully remote, that's when I was like, all right, if we're fully remote anyways, let's start hiring all over the place. And that's when, things really took off for us. We've got a little pocket of folks, a little rock.

a world of other talent. And [: 00:13:00

We are building a platform that should reach every employee. I want perspectives from the Midwest. I want perspectives from the South. I want perspectives from companies that think differently than tech bubble companies.

Dr. Jim: One of the reasons why I am a pretty staunch advocate for remote work, or at least hybrid work in some sense, is that my lens when I look at the pandemic is that.

ou're limited to, a commute, [: 00:14:00

I want to tie back together from your answer is when you're trying to build an elite team.

Why did you pick out the concept of bias or the concept of unconscious bias is something that you wanted to avoid when you're building that high performance team? Why was that important?

Amy Spurling: I try and read a lot. Especially in this space, trying to understand where I need to do better personally.

And that's one of those places where I'm sure I had read a book right before that, because that was about the time I was reading about unconscious bias that probably triggered that. But recognizing that I have work to do is really important because ultimately, I can build a diverse team, bring on a lot of folks here, but if they don't have a voice, if they don't feel like they have an ability to share their perspectives, if I'm shutting people down, if I am bulldozing over them, that's not going to create the most highly impactful team, the most highly productive team.

And [: 00:15:00

I certainly. trip myself up many times, but keep trying to do better and figure out ways to create an environment that really does foster a team dynamic where people feel heard and like they have

ownership.

ng that you've done over the [: 00:16:00

Amy Spurling: One of the things that I've. Found that I was running into was again, going back to the place where I know my bias tends to go that, 30 something white woman with a similar background to me, we communicate very easily with each other. We have a shared perspective. We can shortcut to answers. I've made some amazing hires that were folks with that demographic.

What I realized as I was going through an interview process is that not everyone interviews the same and not everyone communicates in the same way, either because there's, neurodiversity or just they just communicate differently than I communicate. And so I needed to take a step back as I was going through that interview process to assess, can this person do the job and.

Look at trying to make it more skills based or more focused on outcomes rather than the way they were communicating and then working to figure out how we communicate together. Because if I was just trying to create an environment where everyone communicates in the easiest way for me, I'm going to have a very one Nord organization.

eeded to be very flexible on [: 00:17:00

Dr. Jim: We tend to communicate better with people who are like ourselves is, I think, what I gather from what you're describing if we recognize that and we're deliberate about.

Looking for different bringing on different. What was the process that you went through to create the space for effective communication when you're sitting across from somebody that probably doesn't have the same sort of wavelength? That you're on ?

Amy Spurling: I would ask a lot more questions.

And so that was really important for me So asking questions in different ways if I didn't quite understand the answer Or it wasn't quite hitting the note. Asking questions in a different way. Also leaving space for people to express themselves in different ways.

written. Maybe they are more [: 00:18:00

However, they want to communicate, figuring out what that is as quickly as possible, and then working within that to see how they want to share their information. As we've built out the team, we've also needed to create space for that. Not everyone communicates in the same way on our team. Some folks are more quiet and reserved, want to sit back, want to observe, want to share their thoughts after the fact.

Some don't like to share things publicly. They'd rather do it in a, a direct message just because that's where they're more comfortable. And some are the, Bulldoze into the room and are going to make everybody laugh with a joke, creating space for each and then making sure that the entire team recognizes this is how we operate so that every voice gets heard is something that we continue to iterate on and make sure happens here.

boarding and leadership team [: 00:19:00

Organizations will fall over on the onboarding side in making these things real.

Amy Spurling: A big

piece of it is calling it out, saying, this is what we're doing. This is how we're approaching it. Not trying to let it just happen organically without thought or structure.

Having everyone on the team, especially in that onboarding process, understand and go through okay, not everyone communicates in the same way. Having everybody welcome the person, creating space for that person and showing them how, our own cultural norms around this and then continually reiterating.

able if I'm not creating the [: 00:20:00

So that it's a culture that is not just driven by me, but it's a culture we've built as a team and we all are moving that forward.

Dr. Jim: Before we close down, I think it's going to be helpful for you to share a bit of a paint by numbers version of how. Other leaders can build this type of organization that's intentional about diversity.

What are the key things that other people, leaders need to watch out for when they're trying to execute this?

Amy Spurling: For me personally, it was, being curious and wanting to build that type of an organization is obviously a first step. If you don't want to build that organization, you've got a different hurdle to cross.

ow to be an anti racist book [: 00:21:00

Now that we're a team of 150, if you're there in the early days, this should be part of the framework. As early as possible. For us, it was day one. To me, diversity is not something that is a check the box down the road. It's part of our secret sauce. No, we can operate at the same level of many of our competitors, but with, 60 percent of the team because we've got really talented people with very different perspectives, problem solving that makes us more capital efficient.

This was a day one solution. So making that an intentional thing, a stated thing, doing the work on hiring. And making sure that you are seeing diverse candidates. But that goes back to look at your network, look at the networks you're pulling from require the recruiters you work with to put diverse slates of candidates in front of you.

possible candidate if you're [: 00:22:00

It should be reflected throughout your organization for us. It goes all the way up to the board level and otherwise, if my board isn't diverse, my management team is not going to be diverse and neither is anybody else on the team. And so being very thoughtful and strategic about that, I think is important because otherwise it feels diversity paint on the same old story yet again.

So I think there's places that you have to be very intentional. Working on your network. Like for me, it was getting outside of, I was going to the same coffee shop in Kendall square over and over again. I'd see a lot of the same types of folks. It, for me, it was going to different types of events in different neighborhoods and meeting with other types of founders and going outside of my own city to help expand that network and then building from that place helped us build a much better team.

Great stuff, Amy. Couple of [: 00:23:00

you?

Amy Spurling: You can find me at, on LinkedIn, Amy Spurling you can find me on Twitter, still calling it Twitter, at Amy Sperling. I had one of the early accounts or you can find us at our website compt.Io

Dr. Jim: Appreciate you hanging out with us on the HR impact show. There's a ton of things that I picked up. I have a full page of notes from the conversation I think if you follow that framework, a lot of people, leaders can impact any kind of chains that they're looking to impact. Amy. Appreciate you hanging out with us. For those of you who have listened to the conversation give us a review and let us know how we did and tune in next time where we'll have another great leader talking to us and sharing their insights about how to build a high performing team.