Direct Feedback and Continuous Coaching: The Key to Building a High Performance Culture

Dr. Jim: [: 00:00:00

Taking bits and pieces of things that are convenient for you leaves a lot of things to chance. That's the argument that Arjen Mackaaij makes. Let's find out a little bit about Aryan when he's not being a kiss super fan. And you'll find out what that's about when you connect with him on LinkedIn.

Aryan is the CPO of front. Front is a customer operations platform for streamlining customer communications at scale. He's a multi time chief people officer in the venture back startup space. He's an advisor for several early stage HR tech startups organizations that are in the hyper growth stage of their life cycle. So if you're a scale up or start up.

, he's Dutch and he's also a [: 00:01:00

Arjen Mackaaij: Thanks Dr. Jim, happy to be here.

Dr. Jim: Yeah. Super excited to have you on. And I think before we dive into the conversation, I'd like you to share a little bit more about what you feel is important for them to know about you. That's going to bring an interesting lens to the conversation.

Arjen Mackaaij: What I'm hoping to bring to the conversation is different perspectives. I started my career. In let's say that the big corporate environments I was at LG electronics there and later on went to the Boston consulting group. And then I was also a management consultant as a boss at the Boston consulting group, which is quite interesting performance environment by itself, and then certainly a transitions to the venture backed startup world and performances is a big topic there too.

So I'm hoping to actually bring pieces from those different environments to this conversation.

Dr. Jim: of the things that's interesting about your background is that you started and you spent quite a bit of time in larger organizations. And now you're in the hyper growth stage.

you brought over from large [: 00:02:00

Arjen Mackaaij: Anybody who's been in big organizations has also seen processes at scale. And and also what happens when you put really great processes and systems in place. And when you look at the startup world oftentimes we're moving at a hundred miles an hour and quickly slapping things together.

And sometimes I feel that we might skip the process there and to the process that would then create the success. Consistency consistency in my mind also often creates perceived fairness and equity, et cetera. What I. I've taken from that past experience is that like how processes can help.

It can be good, basically, and systems can be good and how to apply those that in a startup environment . Sometimes feel that in the startup world, this might be an aversion also a little bit to process. There was a time when it was like processes, bad processes, scary processes, ugly, basically.

not going to be waiting deep [: 00:03:00

I just want to run fast and break things. You get where I'm coming from, don't you?

Arjen Mackaaij: I absolutely get where you're coming from. I think there's a balance there that you want to strike. Like I, I think in a high growth startup environment, you need to be nimble. You need to be agile as well. But by putting certain processes and systems in place, you do create that consistency that will also be important to deliver on your employee engagement.

I think it's like striking about balance there.

Dr. Jim: normally I do a bunch of rapid fire questions to get get the conversation going. I think I'm going to do a little bit of a curve ball. You're Dutch.

Who's your favorite Dutch footballer?

Arjen Mackaaij: favorite of all time. That would have to be Johan Cruyuff because he's the, in my mind, the godfather of Dutch football or soccer, however you want to call it. But I also have a slight weakness for Arjen Robbe, because he's my namesake.

ving a debate about favorite [: 00:04:00

And that's building high performance teams, and I want you to give us a little bit of context and share with us some of the things that stand out in your career that you're most proud of

Arjen Mackaaij: if we take a step back and we look at the last couple of years, I think the world has seen a lot of changes, right? And elsewhere in the US, I think there was a lot of change happening. Yeah, COVID, we had several socio political things going on. We had the Silicon Valley Bank collapsing.

If we look at the last 18 months, and also what's been happening in the with the investor venture capital markets and how access to capital for growth firms has also fairly declined. A lot has happened and I if I look back at the last couple years. I think what I would be most proud of is supporting the organizations that I was a part of navigating through this change because at times that was pretty tough.

COVID hit and you're head of [: 00:05:00

So I think if I look back, like that was a very there were very, various chaotic times the last couple of years. I'm proud of what I did there.

Dr. Jim: When you're talking about navigating crisis as a people leader, what were the, what were the 1 or 2 things that you felt really helped you. Navigate those crises is effectively especially from a people leader lens.

Arjen Mackaaij: First of all, it's just staying calm. Because like you said, like there, there's a it was definitely spiking people's anxieties and it's like many people were stressing out for what was happening around them and you could be the calm one in the room, right? And that, that helps a lot.

n also approach it very much [: 00:06:00

It's this is what your people are going through. So empathy, definitely very important. And then also like fairly, it sounds cliche, but just be very practical. About what needs to happen, what needs to get done. And if you've gone through different types of change trajectories before, and you take a step back, you realize it's actually pretty much like any, other change that we've gone through before.

months, so when you look into: 2024

12 to 24 months.

Arjen Mackaaij: Now I'll caveat this also because I knew for any leader to come into an organization, I think you want to stabilize the the team first and I get to know the team and and really, truly understand the organization.

months in right now. And my [: 00:07:00

It's look, I really want to spend the time to learn about the organization, like what makes it tick. And then from a business standpoint and also from a cultural standpoint, I really understand that then also understand like. What are our challenges and then come up with what we're going to do now.

This being said, like one of the things that I already know that we're going to be focusing on and that many I think high growth tech companies are going to be focusing on. And I want to say. A caveat high growth, because if we look at the last year, like I think many tech organizations are experiencing like not so much high growth at this moment, right?

And how do you then still create like a compelling value proposition for your talent to be at your company,. Because they also joined your company because they wanted to be part of a high growth company. And when maybe the the. The top line growth isn't as, as extreme as it was before because the entire SAS industry is, going through a rough time at this moment, then what do you do?

How do you [: 00:08:00

Dr. Jim: It's really interesting a lot of the things that you mentioned, because when we think about moon shots, or when we hear about moon shots in the broader business world we're thinking, massive things. Of it is that in a lot of instances, it's getting the fundamentals, right?

Getting the basics nailed is what actually drives the most impact. I wanted to call that out for those that were listening, because I think it's an important point to highlight. You've had the experience of being in.

ive, what's the myth that is [: 00:09:00

Arjen Mackaaij: If we just stay on topic here I think one of those myths is that, they can okay want to be a high performance culture And they look at successful cultures and whether that's Netflix or Amazon or companies like that and then wanting to cherry pick elements of that and then say Oh, I like this part.

And so this is what I'm going to do. And then not not also recognizing that element functions well because of a broader ecosystem of different average initiatives, systems, processes in place that, that reinforce the success of that particular element. That's often the conversation that I've done having with with different executives at startup companies.

Dr. Jim: I'd like you to expand on that. Why does it stand out to you and why do you make the point that you can't cherry pick this, that, or the other thing you have to have a broader view.

hile, I was also there in an [: 00:10:00

I was able to see it from the client facing side, as well as from like the internal workings. And I learned a lot there about performance management in general. One thing I will say about the Boston Consulting Group is that. One, I'm still to this day, very grateful for the opportunities that they gave me and the amount of development that I received, like when I was there.

But secondly, that they were able to create a high performance culture that is a true up or out culture, but also with empathy. And I always thought that it was quite unique. Because you also hear about high performance cultures that, that maybe too toxic,. And for a while the investment banking world was more known like that.

didn't hit that bar and also [: 00:11:00

And it was, we had a great time together and now we're going to move on. And that always stood out to me. And so that was an experience like earlier in my career. And then I took that with me to also the startups that I was a part of that whenever the, usually was like founders who would bring up to me look, we also want to be high performance.

And how do we do that? And oftentimes the go to mechanism is look, I just need to, let go of low performance really quickly. It's yes, this is an element of it. But there are other elements in there as well that you'll need to put in place in order to make that work.

lting group, this was a high [: 00:12:00

Arjen Mackaaij: The fact that the BCG was always very upfront and direct with you about that and even before you joined the company. And this is something that you see at Netflix as well, at least from, I've never worked at Netflix, but that's my understanding from people that work there.

They're very upfront that look this is a high performance culture. We pride ourselves on that and we want you to be a part of it. But if the time comes where you are not hitting that bar for us, then we'll just be very upfront with you about it.

And then that's where the road will end. And that's where the journey will end. And if you're very upfront about this right from the get go, like that's, people will self select in. And I did as well. So I coming out of grad school I knew exactly what was in the brochure and it was very clear to me.

p for that. Then I think the [: 00:13:00

That requires like a really good recruiting process to be able to identify great talent and the probability of having a a good hire is just very high. And what I saw that see also in, in high growth companies is that the recruiting process is airs more towards speed than towards quality.

And especially in a high growth environment, like you need to get people in the door basically to do the work, but you get a lot of mishires to that as well. And these mishires are not going to hit that bar and they're especially if you hire people that are not as good as you would like them to be.

ave the money and the brand, [: 00:14:00

BCG definitely did and threw out a lot of perks, et cetera, but then you also have to do brand name. Going back to Netflix. If I might use that example again, it's like they also pay as one of the highest in the market. Just to get that talent in the door, basically, and then you can work with the talent and see whether they're right for you.

I think another really key component is like having a very strong feedback culture and a culture of direct feedback and continuous feedback as well. So that you're continuously assessing the performance of your employees and also coaching them, . If I look at just a talent, like a raw talent coming in the door there, there is definitely a chance they're going to figure out everything on their own, and they're going to be super high performing by themselves.

r, like again, hiring speed, [: 00:15:00

So you have great talent, but then they still don't make it

Dr. Jim: Something that I'd like you to expand. You're talking about onboarding. What we've covered so far, when you're talking about building a high performance organization that operates with empathy.

You're setting the conditions up front from a talent attraction perspective in a talent acquisition perspective. And you mentioned it to yourself, you're creating your job descriptions and your communication motions for those candidates. So they self select in the next thing that I'd like you to map out is from an onboarding perspective. How do you set your onboarding process? So that it's aligned with your recruiting process with the intention of keeping keeping people in with clear expectations.

, in order for the person to [: 00:16:00

And it's a little bit to get your feet wet, but these are also important things. And here are also the the goals that I'm I'm looking to you for to achieve in the coming period. And this can be like the first maybe six or 12 months. And then also providing them with somebody that they can go to if they have questions beyond you, their manager.

So like it's a bit of a cliche, but the, I believe that the buddy system. And then maybe in, but a buddy can be somebody who's like a peer who will guide you to Hey, here's how this stuff works. And don't worry about this. But maybe secondly, also providing the person with a senior mentor.

mpany, how to influence, how [: 00:17:00

And the second part is, by the way, also entails a whole bunch of like functional things like get to know the job and and your team, et cetera. But it's important to, to spend time on that. So they're set up for success. Like you want the person to feel welcomed, .

We want them to feel like excited and motivated, not scared. And you also want to give them like a first couple of things to get their feet wet.

Dr. Jim: The thing that stands out about what you described, is that the things that you listed off from an onboarding perspective were people centric versus administrative centric. And I think this is 1 of the flaws that happens within a lot of onboarding processes is that they get that 1st part.

was that there needs to be a [: 00:18:00

You want to build confidence early so that people aren't figuring stuff out on the fly even in a startup environment. Yes, you're building the plane as it's flying, but you can't. Put your people strategy in that mode, because you're setting your people up to fail.

So I really love how you brought that out. 1 of the things that I'm wondering, and we've had a really solid conversation about some of the fundamentals that need to be done from. A talent attraction perspective when you're building a high performance organization, we've talked about the onboarding side when it comes to building high performance organization.

ild of high performance with [: 00:19:00

Arjen Mackaaij: Looking back at the time I spent at BCG I think that having a culture of continuous feedback and regular performance assessments is it's important and just also just taking a step back when we think about performance management, I noticed that We're often talking about reviewing people and deciding if they're going to stay or not, or putting them on tips or stuff like that.

But you can also think about performance management as from a coaching perspective. So what are we doing to really help this person excel? And from that lens, like you want to have like frequent coaching touch bases and also be very transparent with the person, like where they stand.

cultural difference here as [: 00:20:00

And people who are listening that are working for multinational companies will know what I'm referring to here, but then In the US, the I've definitely had my experience of the, like the, what's called the BS sandwich. Like that you always have to, say three good things or three positive things and then one negative thing.

And where it's are you really doing the person a service there by packaging it in that way. So I actually really like this the radical candor framework . So that you can be direct, but also caring at the same time. But that you would want to be that at the same time. And I will even take it a step further and say look it, if you're holding it back, it's also not really caring, .

Cause you're actually depriving that person from giving them good feedback that will make them better. Because if the person is not performing and it's not going well. They know it, and they often sense it as well, but most often they sense it, and it's maybe sparking their anxiety and making them insecure, and that's not helping their performance either.

en you would get feedback on [: 00:21:00

This is the things I would like you to work on and that type of environment, that, that really pushed and challenged me.

Dr. Jim: I love how you call that out. You called it the B. S. sandwich. We call it the compliment sandwich and it's never really resonated with me from a communication perspective because I'm an Indian. So our communication style from a cultural perspective is pretty direct. And it sounds like your default communication style as someone from Holland is very similar.

tting detailed feedback on a [: 00:22:00

Throughout your career, so you were actually brought up in a feedback culture. You have managers who aren't skilled in that they're not really modeling what that looks like to the individual contributor ranks. And then, when you look at high growth organizations, who are the people that are most likely getting promoted into management roles?

It's those high performance at the individual contributors. Who've never been coached to have these conversations that rise into managers at manager roles, and then you have this cycle continue. So it's a great set of points that you bring out. Arianne we've covered almost the entire employee life cycle when it comes to how do you build a high performance culture that has empathy, we've covered attracting the talent, onboarding the talent, developing the talent.

remain consistent with that [: 00:23:00

Arjen Mackaaij: That's a great question as well. Because what also stood out to me at BCG was the, again, the empathy that really came back. Like when we get to that point where you might have a super talented person, But they're maybe not consulting is not the right role for them, or they are not as good as you need them to be in that role, how to then have that conversation and with BCG, there was also, I felt there again, that there was a lot of empathy in a conversation, a lot of humility also recognizing like, Hey, yes, we're actually saying goodbye to you here, but also a level of directness there too.

Look, this is the decision and here's where it ends to focus wasn't very quickly went on to how can we then help you to succeed in your next step? And if you if this comes from that empathy standpoint,. Consider the fact that you're letting go of this person and the person is not going to be in the job market and they need to look for the next role.

pport them through that? And [: 00:24:00

Would come to that person and say, Hey, I heard you're going on tradition. How can I help you? Is there anybody I know that I can connect you with? But the fact that people would say that, like they took one, they took away the shame of that situation. There's no shame in it. You're still a super talented person.

And the second piece is there was a genuine intent for the signal to genuine intent for you to be successful also after you left. And because of that, I think people left with her. Had held up high,. And they they also transitioned them better to another job. I became more positive alumni, .

also in, in the high growth [: 00:25:00

I have this conversation with founders where I'm usually encouraging them not to be too stingy, also on like the severance and stuff like that. It's try to set the person up for success. Yes, you don't have to give away the house. And we, most high crops organizations don't have the same resources as.

Meta or Google or Netflix, but you can signal to the to the employee that you're really doing your best to try to set them up for success for the next step. And like I said earlier, like the same example that I use for BCG, like a partner asking you like, Hey, how could I help? An executive at a tech company can do the same thing,.

It's how can I, who can I connect you with? Look at my LinkedIn, pick three people or five people that, that you would like me to connect you with. And I'll do it like, just saying that helps people so much.

ant because if you're on the [: 00:26:00

So when senior leaders. Reach out in that way that actually helps soften it. So I'm glad that you brought that out. We've talked about a lot of stuff on about the topic of building a high performance culture.

That's focused on up or out, but doing it with a great deal of empathy. What are the big things that you want the listeners to keep in mind when they're trying to build this type of culture?

Arjen Mackaaij: The topics that we covered are important ones, supporting important building blocks,. From setting clear expectations up front of what the culture is going to be like and what the expectations are going to be that you're going to have as a company. Secondly, then setting them up for success through great onboarding and also direct feedback and ongoing performance conversations.

And then lastly to to also pay minds to the exit procedure and and how you're transitioning people away from your company. If it is assessed that they're not hitting the bar, that you're aspire to have.

Dr. Jim: Last [: 00:27:00

Arjen Mackaaij: Actually, so I'm a very a low social media guy. So LinkedIn is actually my platform of choice. And so if they want to find me feel free to reach out to me through LinkedIn and I always look forward to having quirky and insightful and in depth conversations about HR.

I'm a total people geek

Dr. Jim: in. If you're having trouble finding him, look for the guy with the KISS t-shirt in the profile picture. And that'll that'll narrow down if you have 15 Arian Mackays that show up in your search bar. Arian really appreciate you hanging out with us and sharing your insights.

When I think about this conversation that we've had, there's a couple things that stand out One is that the whole idea of building a high performance culture, having an up or out culture the myth that we help bust in this conversation is that it doesn't mean heartless. There's a way to pull this off where you are high

ow you navigate the employee [: 00:28:00

You're actually being consistent to your values and your mission, and you're doing it with a lot of heart and you're doing it with kindness. There's a difference between kindness and niceness. So it's critical that you carry the, these principles through the entire employee life cycle. We opened the conversation by saying, you can't cherry pick what you like, and what's comfortable for you. If you want to build a high performance organization, it's an all or nothing equation.

ation of leaders within your [: 00:29:00

If you're looking at building a high performance organization, You can't risk picking and choosing because that's setting yourself up for failure. So for those of you who have hung out with us and had and listen to the conversation, we appreciate your time. Leave us a review and let us know what you thought of the conversation and then tune in next time, where we'll have another great leader joining us and sharing with us the game changing realizations that they had that helped them build high performing teams.