#24 – Update – A big change in focus? July 2019

Transcript

[00:00:01] All right. Good day and welcome to D. Becoming Great podcast.

[00:00:06] I’m here with my good friend and the founder of great dot com, Eric Bergman.

[00:00:13] And together, we are running this podcast to improve our thinking.

[00:00:18] Explore how can we be better running the charity organization? Great outcome and just be better at life in general. Eric, how are you doing today? Well, I’m better at life in general, I would say, than than anyone else.

[00:00:35] So I’m an amazing humble. That’s that’s what I doing.

[00:00:39] You feel very humble. Yes. Now, I have a metaphor for today. So imagine this. I want you to think of an animal. Now I want you to think of an elephant. Well, what’s the difference in your experience here? And we’ll get back to that question in just a moment.

[00:01:07] This is an update episode where if you’re curious about what’s going on in great, what we’re doing, what we’re learning, what is going on, then this is a perfect episode for you.

[00:01:18] Last month that was called a lucky month for you. Everything went perfect. So, Eric, what happened this month? I was still being as lucky.

[00:01:30] Well, a lot of things is is going on. One of the main things is that we’re just about to launch our first product. We touched very briefly on that in the first and the previous update with with our casino product and that have gotten us to raise a lot of questions about, OK, how do we want to focus our time? Now, where is the best place to have our attention? Should we go all in on creating a casino product and start making money or are we losing ourselves in this?

[00:02:02] So this has raised a lot of questions and a lot of valid points then. Yeah. How do you feel about our focus at the moment? Do you feel that we should focus on this or something else?

[00:02:13] So the overarching idea with Great is to build a casino product where 100 percent of the profits will be donated to charity. So right now we’re considering if we should put all of our focus into the casino product or if we should focus more on other things like branding or charity aspect.

[00:02:37] It’s listed the dilemma you’re describing someone.

[00:02:41] Yeah. So basically we had a meeting like a week ago or something where Derek, one of the guys who working the most with the casino product, raised his concern. Like it feels like we’re losing our soul and a bit like, OK, we’re building this casino product. But right now, it looks just like a casino product. And where where do we get the the feeling of great into this?

[00:03:06] And to be honest, when he started bringing this up, it it frustrated me. I was like, of course, we should do the casino product. Let’s get started. Let’s not do a lot of fluffy, fluffy things around it, but actually focus in somewhere. And after the meeting, I I started contemplating this and feeling like, OK, maybe he’s onto something. Maybe it is a good place to start with our identity and then build our product. And I can see that this is is a common question happening in Intelsat businesses. Should we focus on making money or should we focus on kind of setting a strategy for our legacy and our purpose? Where where do we start? And I think that’s where we are now. And it got us started in some interesting aspects because we’ve tried to create an identity before, but it’s been very hard what we’ve been doing, these kind of various charity things like how do we do this? And I know you were struggling a lot with coming up a way of communicating this way. Why was that so hard?

[00:04:09] Well, before I answer that, one thing that is interesting here is you are eager to get the share the product going. And the idea with that is that that would be kind of the engine. What is generating profit for CNN sessions? Yeah, because the a product so that there even is something to give away. And at the same time, your vision for great is for it to be a 50 year project. So with that in mind, will it be more make more sense than to build a foundation, build the brand first and not be in such a rush to make the money?

[00:04:43] I think both of them make sense. So there is pros and cons with both of it. In one way it would make sense to focus a lot on creating the identity and start building from there. And in one way it makes sense to get the engine running and start money getting in and postpone the branding to a place where we know more about what our identity is. So if we should sit down right now and just grind what is great dot com, what do we want it to be? Where are we? Personally, I believe that it will be a big challenge because we haven’t really landed in what it’s going to be for ourselves. So I think that it’s very likely that we will change our minds along the journey. And at the same time, it might be the best thing to do and that this set that foundation to start with and see where do we want to take this? So I can see both of them being very valid options and both of them making a lot of sense to focus on. And as we spoke about in the minimalism of episode a couple of weeks ago, it’s like you need to sacrifice something. So where should you start?

[00:05:50] And I don’t have the right answer here. I’m not sure which way is the best way to go. And I still don’t. We haven’t decided on where to go. What we just realized that this is this is a big challenge and. It raises a lot of questions, what do we want to focus on?

[00:06:07] And with this, you mean kind of what we want to stand for as great? What is that we want to give? Because right now we’re saying we’re a casino that is also donating to charity.

[00:06:20] And what do you mean by this?

[00:06:26] I’m not quite sure where you got this. It’s basically what I was saying is that we are in we’re in a situation where we have X amount of hours to put into something. We could either put them all into creating this casino product and start making money and get the engine spinning or the wheels spinning based on the engine. Or we can put a time and focus into branding something or creating what is our identity, what is it that we want to do and to be able to define that, then one way would be to dig deeper into what kind of charity do we want to do? Like a big part of the identity can tie in to the charity work we’re doing. And that’s where we we struggle. So one of the things that we’ve been trying to do since Inception of Great is to work with effective altruism, which is the term for the most efficient charities mathematically. And that could be anything from preventing animals suffering in meat farms to taking carbon dioxide out of the universe atmosphere or preventing malaria. So the challenge here has been how do you brand something with so various courses? So it’s been a struggle for us to. To say this is what we want to do because what we want to do does not have a face.

[00:07:50] Ok. That explains the question I was having.

[00:07:54] So I was wondering, what is our current problem with the charity? And what you’re saying then, is that the word? Well, the problem with our branding, I mean, and they probably describing is that the word charity we want to do casino and give it to charity, that the word charity is to WEG. There is no clear way to understand what that is. And now we have planted the seed for the metaphor right in the beginning of. You’re thinking of an animal. You get no picture in your mind. You’re thinking of an elephant. You get a very specific picture. And this we kind of realized with the charity as well, because you asked me a couple of minutes ago, you’ve been trying to educate, in effect of altruism, where you have all these different kind of charities, everything from malaria to helping animals to preventing risks from A.I.. And it’s very, very challenging to get someone engaged and make them understand what is it we’re actually doing when there are so many different causes, it becomes a lot more challenging to brand. Great.

[00:09:01] Yeah. And it doesn’t have a face. Yes. As you say, what does what does it look like to prevent malaria or what does it look like to prevent A.I. issues in the future? Like robots taking over. It’s the same with the metaphor than what does an animal look like? And it can be any animal and the brain kind of gets overloaded with that. So this takes us back then to if we should focus on branding or if we should focus on a product. And is it possible to do the same thing, both the things without really losing ourselves and then raise the question where? So I brought this up with Joe Akim, our new leader. It’s like this is what we’re struggling with. We don’t know how to brand this because we don’t know how to put a face on effective of altruism or these various charities around there. How do you create is? It’s really, really hard to communicate because it’s very complex. And he challenged me on that and said, yeah, but what if you choose one very effective course and you communicate that? And I’ve never thought of it that way before, and he was like, that’s an eye opener. And I started thinking of that like I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Hey, what’s what? What if we do this? What if we do that? How can that come into this? And how would that then make sense both from a branding perspective, but a lot for like our internal team perspective. Can we have one course that we are truly passionate about that really matters to us? Is it? Is it because if it’s easier to communicate to others, it’s also easier to communicate for ourselves. It’s easier to say I’m passionate about getting clean water to everyone who doesn’t have it than it is to say, I want to do all of these different things and be passionate about all of them. It’s tricky. It’s easier to say I really love cats and picked one specific animals. So to say I love all the animals from cockroaches to elephants. It’s it’s a different thing.

[00:10:59] So I think this is where we have ended up now in our thoughts with regards to to branding as well as as charity work communication and our business like, OK, if we want to communicate a specific thing, what should that be and where does that make sense?

[00:11:19] Ok. So you’re talking about malaria. And that is one of the top rated courses, but is said to be one of the most effective ways to help people with that, then be a cost to consider. Well, we have considered this costs easier.

[00:11:34] Well, consider this deeply and I’d say that we still consider it. But one of the downsides with malaria. If you want to turn this into if you want to combine it with branding like you could brand something with mosquitoes everywhere, it wouldn’t create very positive associations for the person coming in the early. It’s like no one really likes mosquitoes. So it’s a tricky thing. And it’s also if you want to find the positive aspect of that, which would be a healthy child, it’s like a healthy child could mean anything. It’s hard to kind of you couldn’t brand a casino site with healthy children. It wouldn’t really make sense. And it’s personally, I struggle to connect with malaria because it’s so. Distant from from my life, I have never had malaria. I’ve never seen anyone who has malaria. None of my friends have suffered in malaria says. I’m very disconnected from that course and that makes it harder to communicate it. But it makes it harder for me to really connect with it, even though I know it’s a very, very efficient, good cause to do it with. So how’s your thoughts been on this process where where do you think we can take this?

[00:12:49] Well, I can the trigger. We talked about this this week, and I think it makes a lot of sense to focus on one cause.

[00:12:57] So it’s easy to understand. OK, great is helping with this specific problem and the issue with malaria.

[00:13:07] The thing with effort to effective altruism in general is that they focus on causes that are not getting attention because that is where you can do a lot of good usually. And the problems is the causes that don’t get attention. They don’t get it for a reason. One reason that malaria isn’t sold this stuff in rich countries, it doesn’t affect anyone here. So people don’t have an emotional connection to malaria and therefore, they’re not as willing to donate to that cause.

[00:13:35] And I can totally understand that. I mean, I think out of 100 people that we interact with, maybe how many do you think will have a real relationship with malaria out of almost none.

[00:13:47] One. One, possibly.

[00:13:48] Yeah, possibly one. So can we pick a costand that more people have an association to the two? So which costs we’ve been thinking about work.

[00:13:59] It’s at the moment we’re considering environment in general. Like what? What can we do with the environment? And that’s a very big cause as well. And it’s a very big spectrum of things that goes on their environment. And we we don’t know if this is the right course, but it might make sense to instead of saying great is an organization working for charity. We could say great is an organization that works for the planet or the environment or carbon dioxide or wherever we want to be. We want to stop global warming. That’s our main mission. I heard June was the hottest month ever in Europe. Is like we want to stop these things and it becomes a communicative, better way. It becomes easier for us to understand it ourselves. And it’s something that then could tie in to branding because it’s easy to have symbols for for nature. It could be anything from you can have a dramatic picture with the earth burning, if you would want that. But you could also have beautiful forests. You can have a Swedish moose or a polar bear or whatever you want. And people will associate this with what it is that we want to do and the cutting of the course we want to accomplish.

[00:15:08] Will there be a picture of you writing a bear at some point? Have you seen that picture there?

[00:15:17] Of course, of great. Now there will be a picture of a bear writing me because I want to support nature, not climb on top of it.

[00:15:25] That makes sense. I mean, I could really see a chair to product stand out how it could differentiate from other products in a way that is visual, in a way that, yes, the word charity wouldn’t be able to do its way, just like the word animal.

[00:15:42] Yeah. Yes. And that’s where we’re coming from here. This is where we would be contemplating right now should we give up, quote unquote, on the effect of altruism and the ideas that we’ve been standing by for a couple of years. Where should we find a place where effective altruism and the environment can meet where it actually makes sense? Personally, I haven’t even looked for that place until just very recently and see where we’re going right now. Let’s say we haven’t really landed on any of these things yet. And now we’re looking for what questions should we ask to challenge this perspective and who should we ask those questions to? What kind of questions do you see here that we need to answer before we make such a decision?

[00:16:24] Well, I’m curious. The reason that we do like effective altruism is that they look at the math. What is the mathematically best way that this community can find to help people the most? And I worry with focusing on the environment is that it might be a slightly less effective course. So we might be giving up on an opportunity to help in the short run.

[00:16:49] So a question I want to know, is it worth doing that compared to the advantages of having a stronger brand mix so that it basically does the data say that if we spend a thousand dollars on the environment, we can do a lot less good based on math than we would do if we spend a thousand dollars on mosquito nets for malaria. Yeah. And if we are way below that amount of good, which is really hard to say because it’s so philosophical when you start comparing human lives with the environment. But that’s one of the questions where we need to raise like is this a cause worth investing in in that sense?

[00:17:29] Or what? What are we giving up? Yeah. And I don’t know the answer to that.

[00:17:33] You know, I mean, it’s tricky because in malaria, you help humans survive in health issues. It’s so easy to measure. But with global warming, you have so many wring some water kind of effects of this issue. So what other questions do you think needs to be answered?

[00:17:56] Well, I think we need to see what the team wants about this as well, because at the moment this is something that we haven’t really spoken about. How how much does the team stand by a question like this? Can we do? Do we as a team believe in the cause of us spending our investing our money in the environment rather than helping sick children?

[00:18:17] It’s a big it’s a moral kind of question like where where do we stand in unity? Because it’s it’s hard. So that’s one of the things where it’s very important for us as an organization that people stand by it and believe in what it is that we want to do. Mm hmm. Say, that’s another thing where we need to get clearer.

[00:18:38] And with environment, you mean projects that, for example, remove CO2 from the atmosphere, maybe help animals, maybe train station south to be basically anything that isn’t about humanity?

[00:18:52] I would say so. Pretty much all charities would tie into one thing, either humanity or not humanity. I I can’t think of a charity that’s not relating to a human problem or not human problem. So it’s the environment could tie into everything that is in the not human, which could be anything from helping stray dogs in Stockholm, which I guess is not a very big cause, but could be to planting trees. But then obviously we want to look into that big pile of stuff and see where do we make the biggest impacts. It’s probably some causes that are a thousand times more efficient than others, but we can still look in that entire pile, which is a big pile of different causes.

[00:19:37] Yeah.

[00:19:38] And this could be a really big shift in focus for us. And especially, I think, in the way that we communicate. I mean, I was sitting last autumn and I tried to make public speeches about effective altruism and all the math behind it. And it’s incredibly difficult to communicate, to communicate that you want to help the environment. It’s so much easier and more powerful, I think. So it’s going to be a lot of fun being an ambassador for great with this kind of focus.

[00:20:11] Yeah.

[00:20:12] How do you feel about me wrapping up this section and then we can move on to the next? I was just about to say that. Go for it. OK. So to see to wrap this up and say, how does this actually make sense to other businesses that are doing things out there? I would start by asking myself, OK, when is a good time to focus on branding? And I don’t have the answer of this, but it’s a good thing to be aware of. When can you focus on branding and when should you focus on making money at the moment? We’re a place where we still focusing on money. And this is a question that we just started raising and I think that’s where it’s the most beneficial to start for any startup. Like start with where the money then focus on the branding because you kind of need the money to do the branding. But then then when you come to the section of branding where we have realized that, OK, symbols make a lot of sense, how can we tie this into something that’s tangible and understandable? So if you try to brand something in a way where you are doing a little bit of everything, it’s really hard. So what I’ve learned from this and what we have discussed is the easier it is to understand the concept, the easier it will be to marry it with your with your branding in general. If you have something abstract, that’s gonna be hard, but this makes it a lot easier. So we are right now challenging what way to go with all our charity courses because it ties into branding. So we are kind of stepping ahead of time saying this is where we want to donate money to because we want to tie it into the business model. And this is where we’re challenging ourself right now. And to be able to make those decisions for the future, because the decisions we made in the past were too complex to communicate.

[00:21:51] Did I catch everything? Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. So let’s move on.

[00:21:57] One other thing that we have been doing is that Joakim has officially started our new CBO and the CBO.

[00:22:06] He won’t waste. We decided not to have the total CBO because we don’t want sea level titles. But that’s a complete story. Let’s call it. He’s a great, amazing leader of the great lot. Who is I came for you.

[00:22:18] Joakim, that’s a good question. So he just strikes me as a very kind and caring person. That’s like the first energy that comes to mind thinking about him.

[00:22:29] He smiles. He’s a little bit like goofy from Donald Duck. But in a very good way. He’s like a smart, goofy. So imagine that you take.

[00:22:41] I don’t I don’t know the English name for a female. But, you know, the guy named Donald Duck who invents all this stuff and got this little guy with a light bulb. So you take him and you take goofy and you kind of marry them together. I think that’s their lovechild. That’s that’s joke. I came to me and it’s he’s challenging things in a very good way, but also in a in a caring and loving way where it comes up with great things. So I’m I’m super happy with with his first month here and the part that he’s already taking in the organization.

[00:23:16] I like the questions that you’re curious asking as well.

[00:23:19] You know, he’s very sharp and asking questions that challenge this thing in thinks in a really interesting way. So I’m always his mom. I trust his questions a lot. I’m always looking for them. And I’ll see what I can learn in the way that he’s asking questions and he’s doing it, like you said, in a very soft and kind of way. It’s nice.

[00:23:39] Yes. It’s I mean, when someone asks you over questions, it’s easy to feel stupid if you don’t know the answer. But if there aren’t if the questions are asked in a great way, it’s it’s not. So I never feel stupid with the questions that is asking.

[00:23:52] To feel that those were the questions that led into this entire thought of branding something in a completely different way than we had done before. It might change the entire trajectory for the word great is going. The entire destination comes from that. Mm hmm. So, yeah. And, um, one thing that he started raising was questions about vacation and what is a good vacation policy.

[00:24:17] And this is something where I’ve I think that these things suck, not vacate. Well, yeah, I think vacation sucks, too, but more bureaucracy and politics around these things. I’ve kind of been pushing that issue away a little bit and say, let’s hope no one asks about it. And then we got into July and June and it’s kind of vacation time. So we needed to start looking into this. And I think that he did a great job taking this on and starting looking into to research about this. And he’s summarized for us. What do you remember from his his summary on vacations?

[00:24:52] Was engaged in his presentation. So that’s one of the great calls. I think this might be on you to some place, actually, if you want to check it out, if you want to learn about this. Yeah, it makes some really good points where he’s summarized the research that he had found. And then he compared what is the vacation? Policies for all of our different countries, because we have people in Thailand, Stockholm, Malta and in Stockholm, you have a lot of vacation in the US, Florida. We have one guy. You have zero vacation.

[00:25:25] So how to make something fair done in a remote organization?

[00:25:29] And I think one thing that he did that I really liked is that he’s looking at what the science say about what is the optimal vacation frequency taking time off. What you usually do for psychological health and wanted to take that into the picture.

[00:25:48] And so basically what he tried to do was come up with not what feels fair to also what feels fair to people, but what does science say is the best way of doing this. Wonder when do people benefit the most? And I like that approach. And at the same time, I see how hard is it is to apply science to great, because great is such a weird company in many ways that it’s hard to compare how much vacations you need if you’re working in a factory, creating things, whatever boxes in toxic fumes all day with how you are in an organization like Great where you have full flexibility, you can work from home and work the number of hours you wanted, which each week. It’s kind of like apples and oranges. So I sat there listening to this and say, hey, this makes sense. This makes sense. And at the same time, does it really apply to where we’re coming from or is it useless?

[00:26:43] And honestly, I don’t really know the answer to it. But one thing that we landed on, which I really which I think is really interesting, is how I think with Netflix and Virgin, how those two company does it, where they have no vacation policy. So they have an infinite vacation policy. Basically, you can take as much vacation you want. You don’t need to ask anyone. But it’s your responsibility that your tasks get done. And to me, this sounds like the perfect solution, like we trust people, we want to trust people, and this happens. And the question he raised with this was people actually start taking less vacation. So if you’re entitled to 20 days in a regular company and then this is Daj having no policy, people take 17 because of his logic with his was that people feel pressured to stay at work rather than.

[00:27:44] Feeling.

[00:27:45] I don’t know. Empowered to take more vacation. And that’s that’s the challenge then. And he raised the question, OK, do we want to set an open policy where people can take vacation whenever they want, but we still have regulate in the way that you have to take the minimum amount of vacation, which would be this or that. And I think that conversation was what’s interesting. What did you take with you from that? You remember this?

[00:28:11] Yeah, I remember it. And what makes sense for me about having a minimum amount of vacation is that right now we’re only six people. But imagine that we grow and then a junior person comes in.

[00:28:29] I see a risk that they won’t take less vacation than kind of the other person that takes the least vacation. So there might be peer pressure involved. You can kind of get around that peer pressure by regulations.

[00:28:43] Yeah.

[00:28:45] Yes. I see a couple of aspects of this. One of them being that one of the downsides of this is you kind of need to start keeping track of people. And even if you’re doing it for their own good, start keeping track of people is the same thing as taking responsibility away from them. And that’s the same thing as taking trust away from them.

[00:29:04] In a sense, I don’t trust you to take care of yourself. So I’m gonna step in and take care of you. Basically, I’m the government and I know better how to spend your money than you do. So I’m gonna take your taxes and. At first glance, I don’t like that. I’m not sure if I like it either. Even if the intentions are good behind it, it’s it’s going outside of where I would want us to be. And that’s been my, like, main stand point in this conversation and. I feel strong. I feel too strongly about it, which makes me question my own intention in this and I brought this up with joy came after the call like. I don’t know if what I’m saying comes from a place of I don’t want us to start controlling people or I don’t want us to have more accounting and keeping track, how many days where this guy there or this guy there or if this comes from an inner greed within me saying, yeah, I’m worried people will take more vacation than and I’d rather have them working. If that’s actually my my intention behind that.

[00:30:10] And to be honest, I’m not sure as of this moment it’s probably a little bit of both. Probably. Partly I don’t want the bureaucracy and I don’t want to start doing this. And there’s definitely part of me that would like people to work harder, work more and do these kind of things. And I’m not sure where what comes from within me or helped communicated how to deal with it.

[00:30:32] But it’s just been a very interesting aspect for me to see this exact. OK, I come from a place where I imagine that everything and I don’t imagine that everything I want to be in a place where everything is very pure within me and that I just care about the people around me. And then I can see those grains of something else within a conversation like this. Like it comes up and then it’s. Did you feel this when we were talking that there might be other intentions behind it?

[00:31:02] During that meeting, there was one thing that stood out to me. And then you because you were talking about. I feel so passionate about this project that I don’t need to take a vacation. And the difference here in Great is that we are passionate and in a way that you might not be in another organization. And then I asked the question, well, if you want to take vacation and do something you don’t usually do, like maybe just relax or hang out with friends or read books or whatever, does that mean that you’re not passionate about work?

[00:31:36] And there was some kind of undertone of that perspective in what you said. And I’m not sure if you actually mean that or it’s tricky.

[00:31:47] I mean, once again, it goes back to comparing with other organizations.

[00:31:52] So basically what I said is that I want us to be an organization where we don’t feel a need a vacation, in a sense, where I want to create a place where people feel so passionate about the tasks that they’re doing that that that’s important where there is enough flexibility. So people feel that they’re working as much or as little as works for them right now.

[00:32:16] And where there is enough trust and joy and everything around it, that there isn’t a need for a long period of vacation. That to me personally, I would not want a long vacation because I want to do this. I did analogy like if you’re passionate about playing guitar, you don’t want a vacation from playing guitar. That’s just a part of what you do. And my vision of great as an organization is that. And I can see how that can come in as. Creating guilt if one does not feel those things.

[00:32:55] Well, to me, someone might be feeling that joy and passion, but they still want the break and offered me the opportunity to have a break actually builds up the excitement and joy inside of me. So I have more to give later. And the idea that if you need a break, that means you’re not feeling the joy or excitement that could potentially be toxic to me.

[00:33:22] Elaborate, yes. So.

[00:33:26] The idea that if you feel joy and inspired and excited, are excited about working, then you don’t need a vacation.

[00:33:34] That kind of alludes to that if I do want to vacation and want the break, because I feel like that would build up my excitement, that that means that I am not that engaged in the work.

[00:33:46] Ok, so let’s translate this into something else. Let’s say I want to enjoy Candy more. So I could stay away from Candy for a couple of weeks and then I will be super excited about having candy. Yeah.

[00:33:59] Exactly. Makes sense. And that doesn’t mean that I don’t like candy.

[00:34:06] But if you have an idea that people that like Candy, they never stop eating time. But then it’s like.

[00:34:15] Yeah, I think this ties into I think there are a lot of confusions of misunderstanding in this as well, because to me it’s like, yeah, sure, you it’s up to you.

[00:34:24] Don’t eat candy for a week. I’m fine. But I don’t need to have a policy saying that 20 days a year you’re not supposed to eat candy.

[00:34:33] It’s like the same kind of thing.

[00:34:35] Well, the thing is, though, that since you are not poor guy if you have that rhetoric. If you’re passionate, you don’t need vacation. I think there are going to be in a big organization, at least some people that feel like I need to do the same thing, even though they actually want to take a break from eating the candy.

[00:34:55] Yeah. And then I would say the challenge is the rhetoric rather than the policy.

[00:34:59] Yeah. And to have some kind of system in place to make sure that will not make sure but to find out if people actually feel like they have the freedom it is.

[00:35:15] How do you mean? You mean that people feel empowered so they don’t misunderstand it?

[00:35:20] Are people actually feeling that if I want to take a vacation, that that is encouraged?

[00:35:26] Yeah.

[00:35:29] Which is a cultural thing, that is a cultural thing. And I didn’t really feel like at least me, I didn’t really feel like we’d left it on that note. After the vacation meeting, though, I had no idea what my feeling is that it was kind of this courage.

[00:35:44] Korstad means I’m less passionate.

[00:35:47] Yeah, that was not at all. The feeling that was intended. I think one of the problems with the call is that we didn’t have time to finish it. So my logic with this is I want to lead by doing rather than by setting policies. So it’s like, yeah. Guys, I’m going on a dance retreat for a week. You can’t reach me is my way of saying do whatever you want. I’m going to trust you. And I’m hoping to create that kind of environment rather than anything else.

[00:36:18] Yeah, so then it’s Rep. Dennis Kucinich communication thing and the building culture. Yeah.

[00:36:26] You want to wrap this one up and see if we touch the last things as well. I guess we’re running.

[00:36:30] I my suggestion is that we wrap the whole episode up now cause the last talking point we have. We could do for the next update.

[00:36:37] So did you learn anything new from their vacation? Let’s wrap it up with that. Did you learn anything new from the vacation discussion?

[00:36:51] I think it’s interesting to look at my own intentions and looking because I get a lot more emotional on this topic than I think makes sense. And I think I take it. Personally. In. Some ways where I don’t really can’t really put a finger on it, but in some ways I feel personally offended of the conversation in itself. That would be a longer episode in the long talk. But it’s it’s interesting to see how emotionally engaged I get because of this. But to sum up, where we landed on was basically we do not have an a vacation policy in place. We did not land on recommending a certain number of days. We we do not say you can only take this number of days. You have infinite number of days as long as your tasks get done, similar to what Netflix and Virgin is doing. And we do not know if that’s the best way of doing it or not. But that’s kind of where we took with us from that. And what I’ve learned was my own reflections.

[00:37:54] Awesome. And final short question about what can someone else from your company learn from this vacation experience?

[00:38:03] I think the first thing is to challenge what what is vacations and why. Why are we doing it in a certain way? And do we know that vacations? Would people work, do a better job if they actually got more vacation? And just asking those questions? Because I think it’s very common that we end up in this is what everyone else is doing and not even thinking for ourselves. So if you’re American and the standard is basically no vacation, I think it’s very common to end up. Yeah, of course it shouldn’t. I vacation. That’s what everyone does. Instead of asking what’s the best thing, what’s the optimal thing, how do people feel the best? And then also probably produce the best results. So it’s I’m pretty sure there is science that says that if your employees take this much vacation, the company will actually make more money at the end of it. So just challenging this, what is the norm and why is that the norm?

[00:38:56] Regardless, if you are in the US with next to no vacation or if you’re in Sweden with lots of it, and I’d say that that can be applied to to any business from from large to small, it’s worth thinking about. What does this mean? Yeah, I think it’s easy to to end up in the situation where you think vacation is only for the employee, but it’s actually for the benefit of the business.

[00:39:22] All right, so let’s leave it on that note. If you have any ideas for us, any suggestions, any feedback, any ideas about the environmental branding.

[00:39:37] Send us an e-mail to your podcast. Great dot com. And we see you for the next week. And finally, sir, thank you for listening. It’s a pleasure to be here.

[00:39:50] Take care.