Burke Pemberton [21:45] And just for the listeners, maybe the first time hearing biomimicry. So biomimicry is using nature to inspire design decisions. And the premise is that nature's had 3.8 billion years to figure out all of the world's problems. And if you look hard enough there are answers probably already out there. And so, we've really tried to use nature to inspire how we work as an organization. And like you said, feedback is one of the critical components of the evolution of survival, of finding food, hunting, gathering and finding shelter, understanding where the risks are, and understanding where the good stuff is. And so, those feedback loops are critical and they're especially critical to Stok because we are a bossless organization. So that's not to be confused with a leaderless organization, but your boss doesn't give you that annual performance review and tells you you're not getting a raise because you didn't turn in your TPS report six months ago. That performance model is broken. One of the first things we figured out when we decided not to have bosses decide our fate, we really try and focus on results. But we need to be giving each other constant feedback. And so we really work with our team members to break down a lot of the socio logical barriers to give either perceived authority feedback, or if they don't have the same communication style or level of comfort with, maybe they're an introvert, or they don't want to speak to somebody with a more extroverted or dominant communication style. And so we've really invested in a lot of different types of communications consulting, and infrastructure. So, some of the stuff we use is like strength’s finders and the disc analysis, which is more about communication styles, and then we've used crucial conversations training. And we try and have our leaders just model this culture of feedback where, as Brene, Brown says, ‘clear is kind,’ right? Like, we're not doing anybody any favors by not telling them what we're thinking but you don't have to be mean when you say it. And that's the trick, right? How do we communicate our needs and what we're thinking in a way that the other person can receive? And that stuff simply takes a lot of practice and we're always getting better at it all the time. And so we focus on that a lot in our development, and we have some structures in place organizationally where people need to be giving each other at least the five people they work with the most. Sitting down and doing monthly feedback. Everybody gets a credit card. Go out and take your colleague out for a cup of coffee or a beer and sit down and talk it doesn't need to be formal, but if you want it to be. You’re an engineer and you want it to be very structured, it can be, but you can have it be super informal. Everybody's got their own style. The style of how it's done is really up to each of our colleagues. And that in and of itself is a work in progress too. Because when people come over from other cultures in other organizational structure styles, they're not used to being able to have that kind of voice or are expected to have that kind of voice. That's something that we have to break down before we build it back up again. People have to step out of that comfort zone and take those risks, and it's not something that you learn just overnight.
Made with FlippingBook Annual report