How to lead with transparency amidst adversity — Don Faul, CEO of CrossFit and former Google, Facebook & Pinterest exec

Brett: Well, Don, thanks so much for joining us.

Don Faul: Oh, thanks for having me.

Brett: So we got reconnected because I was emailing with Molly Graham, who's a mutual friend of ours, and I was asking her who are interesting people that maybe people haven't heard of. Um, and when she introduced us and sort of mentioned your name, she said Don is the best manager in the valley, which I, I think coming from her couldn't be higher praise because she's quite picky about terms like that.

And, and so I'm curious if you sort of had to guess why she would say that, or maybe what did you figure out or what do you do in kind of this big of category of management? what do you think it is?

Don Faul: Oh gosh. Well, uh, that's a lot to live up to. So, uh, that sets the, sets the bar pretty high, especially coming from Molly. Well, I guess first thing I'd say is I, uh, there's nothing that I've completely figured out. Um, , you know, if I've, if I've learned anything, especially in the realm of, of managing and leading people is, uh, there's always more to learn.

You know, I think I had the benefit at a pretty young age to kind of get thrown into management and leadership. You know, I started my career in the military. Uh, so at age 21, when I graduated from the Naval Academy, my first job I was, you know, put in charge of, uh, 40 Marines. Um, which is insane. I had no idea what I was doing.

But, uh, you know, straight into the fire, as they say. And I think so much of leadership, um, like a lot of other things is, is just learning through experience and learning through opportunity and. While I've had a little bit of a crazy all over the place career, you know, from the Marine Corps to technology to now CrossFit, you know, the one consistent theme throughout my career has been leadership.

You know, having the opportunity to be a part of and, and, uh, and lead teams at, in a variety of different contexts. And so I think I've been really lucky to have some incredible mentors, some incredible experiences, um, you know, over the course of the past couple decades. And, and it's been something that I think if I really think about what really drives me and where I draw my fulfillment, um, when it comes to work, it's all about people.

Brett: So when you use the term leadership, what, what's sort of the non cliche language you use to communicate what it actually means?

Don Faul: I think leadership is about, Enabling people to achieve their very best individually and collectively. And I think I stole that from John Wooden, so maybe that doesn't count. But, that's what I, you know, I, I really buy into the, the servant leadership philosophy or construct that, you know, leadership is a privilege and it's a privilege that allows you to have an impact on people's lives and help them, achieve great things.

Again, whether that's a, as an individual or, or more importantly and probably more relevant, uh, as, as a group or organization.

Brett: And what's the, how behind that, right. In the sense of like if somebody were to watch the way that you manage or lead, right, which I assume is in service of enabling people individually and collectively to achieve,

how are you actually doing it? Or maybe said differently. I assume you have lots of young managers in your career that you've helped develop and you are, you are giving them frameworks and explaining what they need to do to sort of achieve excellent leadership.

And so what are the things you're teaching them?

Don Faul: Yeah. So there's, you know, a few things that, uh, that I try to teach them that I've learned over the years. I think, you know, it really starts with, I think a, a leader's job is providing clarity and context for their people. So if you're fortunate, you know, you've got a, a collection, uh, a group of amazing people who are highly motivated, um, uh, who hold themselves to a high bar.

I think a big part of a leader's job is helping them understand what success looks like. And so that comes down to, you know, what is, is your vision for the organization? What is the strategy? Um, how do you help people understand what success looks like and individually and collectively so, You know, when I talk to leaders, the, the first thing I really start with is, you know, number one is making sure that your people have clarity.

Um, the second, you know, along with that construct, uh, you know, that, that helps them understand what success looks like, is making sure that you have the information on an ongoing basis to do their job well. Um, uh, I like to, you know, general, uh, Stan McChrystal had this term he uses, um, uh, that he calls creating a shared consciousness within an organization.

And I love it. I, I love that term cause I think it captures it really well. So it's about helping your team first understand what success looks like, and then make sure they have the information on an ongoing basis to make great decisions and do their job and operate with. Third, it's, it's helping coach and, and, uh, mentor people, um, through their journey.

So using, uh, your moments like one-on-ones or using times in meetings, interactions to help coach people through some of the challenges that they're going through, help them develop a set of skills that they can use as they grow their impact on their career. Um, and in part, you know, with that, I think comes another important responsibility, which is helping them navigate in and around obstacles when they, and that could be helping them partner with different parts of the organization.

It could be helping challenges.

Brett: On the first one, the point around clarity and context. Um, why do you think that's so hard? Because cause I, I certainly agree and I think at the same time, if you look at the average team lead, this is the area that is at, that they actually struggle with or, or it doesn't occur to them as like a P zero thing relative to things like, uh, coaching and mentoring and things like that.

Don Faul: You know, I think the, you know, you touched on, on that, that new team leader, I think that's actually the hardest transition. Um, you know, for a lot of folks, they go through a transition of being an individual contributor. And often the folks who are elevated to leadership first are the folks who are strongest as the individual contributors.

And I think a lot of the habits that, that can make you an exceptional individual contributor, uh, can get your way as a leader. So, you know, uh, a desire to make sure all of your work is perfect and manage the detail and, um, make sure that, uh, things are executed really well. That can translate to, as a young leader, Micromanaging, getting in the details, having a hard time delegating and letting go.

Um, having a hard time giving your team and your people the space, um, to make decisions. Uh, and setting them up for success is no longer about doing yourself. It's about helping articulate again, what success looks like and then coaching people along the way. And so I think that that's something, you know, for new managers, getting comfortable with delegating, which explicitly means getting comfortable with, uh, enabling people on your team to make decisions and make mistakes can be really, really hard for folks who hold themselves to such a high bar and high standard.

Brett: On the point about micromanagement, do you think it's always a bad thing?

Don Faul: I think micromanagement is a bad thing. Uh, I think being close to the details at times is actually important. And I think they're two separate things. Um,

Brett: Can you 

Don Faul: think one of the re. Yeah, for sure. So I, I think one of the really important, um, uh, things that I think a leader needs to be able to do that, that gets increasingly difficult, I think as you get more senior, is staying close enough to the business, staying, staying close enough to your problems so that you understand what's going on, is that you can help your team with useful coaching feedback, um, or understand how you can lead more effectively, whether that's providing additional clarity or context.

Um, and, and I think being in the details, sometimes asking hard questions, pushing on things, sometimes doing the work alongside your team is necessary in service of that. Um, micromanagement, I think is really when you step into, when, when you are in the details in service of making decisions on behalf of your team.

Um, and so I think you can be close to the details in service of, of your understanding and your context without getting, uh, in between your team and their ability to make decisions. Take risks. . There's definitely a lot of nuance there. Um, I think also a really big important part of it is having a really open conversation with your team, um, about why you're in the details and what it's in service of, and opening and, and inviting a dialogue, uh, that articulates, Hey, look, my goal here is not, uh, to make you feel like I don't trust you, Michael, here is not to be in all of your decisions.

And if you ever feel that way, I want you to let me know so I can course correct.

Brett: That it sort of builds on what I was gonna ask, which is how do you, well, I guess there's kind of multiple parts, but how do you know if you're close enough to the details or problems? Like is there a self diagnostic that sort of makes sure that you're flying at the right altitude and. What are you doing to create the conditions that your team is comfortable saying, no, I actually think you are micromanaging me, and it's, and it's creating an environment that's not productive for me.

Don Faul: So I, I think you, you know, as a leader, one of the things you have to work really hard on is creating an environment where your people, the people around you feel comfortable being honest with you and that this sounds like really obvious, but it's really challenging actually. And as you get more, more senior, obviously it gets more and more difficult, uh, to create that environment.

And, um, I think being able to do that well, I think you do that by, by spending time with people. I think you do that by being open when you make mistakes. I think you do that by asking open-ended questions of people, um, to solicit feedback on decisions you're making or statements you're making. Uh, I think you do it by rewarding people and recognizing people who push and challenge you and, and sharing with the group how people challenging you helped you make better decisions.

I think these little things in your behaviors are really important in creating an environment again, where people feel comfortable pushing on you. If you're able to achieve that, um, that is the, the most valuable and impactful thing that you can do, because you will then have a group of people around you who feel a responsibility, uh, to let you know if you're getting too far in the details or, uh, pursuing a path that may not be the right one for the company.

 one of the things that I, that I try to do is build into my schedule, um, one-on-one time with not only my direct reports, which is kind of a normal course, but also trying to do skip level meetings, or when I travel, I, I take the time to grab people and just talk to them in an informal setting, one-on-one, and have a conversation.

Don Faul: And in that conversation there'll be questions, and those questions will help me understand, uh, and feel out. A number of things from, Hey, how good a job are we doing, communicating our vision and what success looks like. Can these folks kind of play that back for me? But also asking questions to, to help me assess how close I am to understanding the business is my perception of where we are really grounded in reality.

For the folks on my team, were actually doing work. And I find those conversations, the informal ones to be incredibly valuable.

Brett: Can you share more on the skip level? And you mentioned one of the questions, but like what, um, are there a handful of questions that you find gives you the most signal?

Don Faul: So a, there's a, there's a couple questions that I think if, if I think about our job, it really traces back to, I kind of come back to our responsibility as a leadership team. So if we start again with, uh, it really important part of our job is creating strategic clarity. You know, what are we trying to achieve as an organization?

Ultimately, I wanna make sure if we're doing our job well as a leadership, Every single member of the team can trace that, uh, success as an organization down to their individual role. So I'll ask, Hey, you know, help me understand, um, how your work connects to the company strategy. What are you working on right now?

How does that ladder up and connect what we're trying to achieve as a company? Um, hey, do you, you know, what's your sense for the top priorities for the company right now? Those are really, really clarifying. Um, and, and, you know, really helping assess and understand how good a job we're doing communicating.

I'll always ask, Hey, you know, what are a few things that, that you feel like we're doing as a company right now, um, that we should double down on that you think we're doing a really good job of? And then what are two or three things that you think we can do that I can do as a leader, that we can do as a leadership team to, uh, to set the, the company up to be even more successful?

Um, and those are the types of questions that often you get, uh, really open, kind of candid feedback around.

Brett: So this sort of builds on that first point when you were laying out the how behind leading, which is around providing clarity and context. And I'd be interested, what are the rituals or practices or systems that you think make up sort of the operating system or set of behaviors that someone can follow to increase the chances that they provide appropriate clarity and context for their people?

Don Faul: Yeah, so the first I'd say is, um, really starts with, for, for any organization, their overall approach to planning and, and you know, there's no one size fits all. Obviously. It's really dependent on, on the organization and the size and the stage and what they're focused on. But, um, taking the time to get the team together to be really thoughtful about what, what the overall plan and strategy is starting at.

Ideally, you're starting with a longer term orientation. Hey, What is the vision for the organization? How does that come back then to a X year strategy for the organization That comes back to, hey, what do we want to achieve this year over the course of the next six months? And so, you know, as you obviously are getting closer to the near term, you're increasing your level of clarity and specificity and resolution.

And this could manifest in, again, there's a bunch of different tools. You know, we happen to use, uh, an OKR format. So we've got a set of OKRs then, uh, objectives and key results for the organization, uh, and company that then ultimately filtered down to each individual on the team. So I think that planning cadence is, you know, in figuring out how to do the right mix of tops down and bottoms up, you know, so I think at a senior level, having some degree of, of high level vision and intent is really helpful for the team.

And then given the organization the time to get their team involved in planning. And ultimately resulting in, uh, a set of OKRs for the organization. And, you know, you can figure out what the right cadence is. We do it twice a year. Um, some organizations do it, uh, on a quarterly basis. So I'd say that's really essential, kind of number one.

The second piece is figuring out what I would articulate are the right call 'em operational rhythms, the right series of meetings and conversations that set the organization up to, uh, monitor progress against that strategy, but more importantly, update and inform that strategy as you're learning. So, you know, the roadmap that you bring into any pays is really a best guess.

It's a hypothesis based on kind of what you've learned before and what you believe to be true. And I think really good organizations. Retain a degree of flexibility. And they've got meetings and operating rhythms that allow you to revisit assumptions, allow you to evaluate the things you're working on so that that strategy can be one that kind of lives and breathes as you learn more.

And so figuring out, again, there's no right size fits all, figuring out, hey, what are the meetings that we can have where we can check in on progress? Where it's really about a dialogue of what we've learned and how we're applying those learnings moving forward and creating a culture of accountability and really high quality work.

And then the last piece I'd say is the more informal side of making sure that, um, within the organizations, your managers are spending time with their people. They're having productive one-on-ones. They're talking about challenges. They've got the opportunity, um, to have coaching conversations Last thing I'd say is as part of the overall operating rhythms, I think it's important and, and again, this is all right size based on the size and stage of the organization to get the entire team together periodically. Um, and again, this is an opportunity to share information in service of that shared consciousness.

So again, it's, we do it about once a month, we get our team together, revisit the strategy, revisit what we've learned, talk about what's next in the hopper, get a chance to recognize some of the great work that's happening and kind of broadcast that to the team.

Brett: That's sort of a, a great explainer. I think. I'm interested, when you talk about operating rhythms, maybe, what does that look like or what did you institute in your, your current role on sort of a weekly or monthly basis?

Don Faul: So the first thing we did actually was, and I would encourage, you know, any organization who's thinking about this, the first thing we did was just assess what we had been doing. And what was working and what wasn't. Uh, again, I think one of the things that's, uh, I think d dangerous and really common is you attempt to bring a model or structural from another organization and try to impose it on a new end.

And again, there's no model here that's cookie cutter and works best. So the first thing we did, the first thing I did at CrossFit when I joined the team was, um, had a chance to observe and talk to the team about what we had. So how are we sharing information? How are we planning, how are we making you ensuring that our team is getting the information they need to get decisions?

And then we assessed, so we did that through some informal conversations. So as I was getting up to speed meeting with people, asking questions about what was working well and what could be improved, we also looked at some data that we had, um, from internal surveys, so engagement surveys. Uh, and one of the top things that we, we heard from our team in that was that, uh, they wanted more clarity, um, uh, in, in what the company was working towards and about how their work connected to it.

So we saw that, um, there was a real opportunity here to improve that for the team. And then as a leadership team, we had a conversation about, um, again, what are the current rhythms are, are are elements of those working that we can preserve? And then we introduced a few different ideas. So I shared a little bit from my experience, we heard from other people on the team.

And then what we did was we outlined a plan, um, for the next six month period and really framed it as an experiment. So, um, understanding that, the way we work and these rhythms, the optimal ones are ones that, uh, are gonna evolve as an organization. We're gonna try out a series of things. We're gonna look at X, Y, and Z to evaluate whether or not they're working.

We'll double down on the things that are working well and then we'll change and evolve the things that won't, and we're gonna do that now. So every six months when we do a restart our planning process, we look not only at our overall strategy, but we also look at the way we work to make sure that we can kind of continue to involve and build on that.

Brett: And so if you look at the experiment that you've been running for the last six months, uh, how would you explain kind of the different parts of it or the different meetings or reporting structures or that type of stuff?

Don Faul: Sure. So there's a number of things. The first thing that we worked on was, um, we actually didn't have a really clearly articulated long-term vision for the company that, that people are excited about, that we could share internally and then externally, uh, outside the company with our community as well.

And so we outlined, we really started with that. So that was a mix of conversations with our leadership team and then folks from across the company informed by conversations we had had with partners outside the company as well we had a nice round number and said, Hey, we're gonna articulate a 2030 vision for CrossFit.

What does that look like? from there we built out, um, a strategy to get us there. So we said, okay, if we understand what success looks like now, we're generally aligned around that and excited about it. How do we get. And that was a much more, more of a blocking and tackling exercise where we looked at the necessary strategic phases.

We broke down how we would evaluate success. Uh, and we built out kind of a seven year, three phase plan to get there that had high level milestones and success metrics that we believed, um, would help us understand if we were on the right path from there. That helped us get to a 2023. So we were doing this work in the fall.

We wanted to enter this year with a strategy I set of goals for the year that laddered up into that 2030 vision and seven year strategy. And so, uh, we built out as a leadership team, uh, a strategy for the year for 2023, and then separated it into kind of first half and second half. And ultimately, um, we were able to take all of that work, um, to the team and communicate it.

We also communicated that vision and strategy externally to our community as well. Next thing we worked on then was, okay, now that we've got a set of, again, in our case, OKRs, that we're gonna use, that we understand how they map to our strategy. We understand how they help reinforce our vision. Now how do we ensure that we're making progress against those OKRs and learning and course correcting along the way?

So we have what we call operating reviews. We do them for the major parts of our business. Um, we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 or 12 folks. So the, the, the team. So we'll do one for our product team, we'll do one for our, part of our team supports our, our gyms or affiliate owners around the world.

Uh, and every month we'll do an operating review. And that's an update on the progress that we're making against R OKRs. It's an assessment of things that we've launched and what we've learned from them, and then it is an articulation of the next series. That's are experiments that we're gonna run in service of hitting those goals.

And it's meant to drive accountability. There's dialogue, it's intentionally really cross-functional. So one of the things that we had identified was that we were operating in a really siloed capacity. Uh, we weren't doing a great job of communicating and coordinating across the business. And so these operating reviews are cross-functional by design.

And, um, they give us an opportunity to both broadcast and discuss the kind of key strategic issues in each respective domain. So those operating reviews are a really important part of driving accountability and driving awareness, uh, across the company. We record those and take notes, and we distribute them to the entire company.

So if you are in the review, again, we try to keep the group small so that we can have dialogue and discussion, but we then record and distribute it so anyone in the company can view any operating review and get the information and context that they need. We also have, uh, all hands once a month. And so in our all hands we'll get the team together.

We do it, uh, through Zoom, and that is a condensed version of our operating reviews. So it's about an hour long, about 40 minutes of, uh, produced work where we articulate progress against our goals. And then we also include kind of a deep dive on some of the major things that we've launched or shipped, uh, in, effort of, of recognizing folks who have done great work and make sure the team understands the, the awesome work that's happening across the organization.

So, um, we've been working on those. And then the last thing I'll add is we just launched a really lightweights, um, uh, newsletter for the organization where we aggregate a bunch of the work that's happening across the organization. We post it internally to a wiki, and then we push it out in an email that happens once a month.

And that's a more detailed version of all the work that's happening across the organization.

Brett: There's so much to jump into from that. I, I guess sort of at the top, you mentioned the 2030 vision for CrossFit. So I, I'm curious what it is, and I assume if you landed on it, you like it and what, what about it do you like? Um, I often find that sort of long-term visions can get very squishy and fluffy.

Um, but I'm curious kind of what you landed on and, and why you think it's effective.

Don Faul: Yeah, I agree. I long-term visions can be really hard. Uh, for, for, I think the reasons you articulate. I think for us, we wanted to, in our vision, and the reason that we like it and we've gotten so far, knock on wood, some pretty good feedback from our community, is I think it really articulates in our vision what we care about, uh, what our principles are and where we're gonna take really, uh, strong stances.

Um, and so, you know, we have the benefit with CrossFit of playing a role within a really rich ecosystem. So, you know, we, we talk about our company CrossFit as CrossFit hq, and then we have all of our gym owners. So we have almost 14,000 gym owners around the world. They're an essential part of our community.

Yeah, it's amazing. Amazing. We've got millions of people who do CrossFit. We have, uh, partners who are integral in the, in, in, uh, the ecosystem. Folks like Noble at a large apparel and shoe brands. We have Rogue, which makes fitness equipment, lots of other folks. And then we have our coaches. We have over a hundred thousand, uh, CrossFit coaches who are training people, changing lives in those 14,000 gyms around the world. I really view our role, our role is to play a leadership role in that community and ecosystem. And so that vision is not just the work we're gonna do. That vision is hopefully collectively what's possible if the whole community works together. And I think it's particularly essential that, that we play a role in shaping and articulating that.

And so, to give you an example, one of the things that we wanted to make really, really clear was that our true north, the thing we are most focused on is reaching more people and exposing more people to CrossFit. So it wasn't a revenue goal, it wasn't an earnings goal, it wasn't a number of gym's goal, it was more lives transformed by CrossFit.

Now, by the way, if we do that, all of those other things end up being really positive as well. It's the, it's the kinda rising tide that lifts all boats. But we wanted to articulate that as the North Star. That is why we are in this. And I think that's important because I think for, you know, we talk about what really inspires and motivates people.

It's those types of intrinsic, um, people can get excited about impacting that many lives in a way that is, I think, much more fundamentally powerful than getting excited about some random revenue number eight years in the future. So I think that ended up being really powerful and it said to our community, made a really strong stance about what we care about.

And that's been a little under the question we took on. Um, we raised some money here. The company was purchased about two years ago and shifted from being a private organization, private company, to one now that is private equity owned. And on the back of that acquisition, a lot of folks in the community were asking, what does this change about the future?

What does this change about what CrossFit stands for? And so this vision for us was meant to be a really bold statement about what that true North is. And, and I think it's one that that brings a lot of people. In that, you know, we talked about a few other things. We talked about, um, uh, the role, uh, that we believe affiliate owners play, that coaches play, that partners play.

I think that was important. I think it sends a really important and powerful message that, that we view our role as one, as, as, as a leadership. One that's about bringing people together, that we view this future vision as what's possible with a really strong partnership. And, uh, I, I think that tone is a really important one in our ecosystem.

So I think those are some of the things that we tried. We wanted to make sure we articulated really, really clearly. Uh, and then we set a number in terms of our growth that was really aggressive, um, achievable, but really aggressive. And I think people get really excited about that.

 So, zooming in a little bit, you talked about the, the importance of operating reviews, at least in the context of the way that you'd like to, to sort of run, run a business. Um, I'm interested if a CEO came to you and said, you know, we want to implement operating reviews, or We kind of do something like this, but I'm just not happy with it.

Brett: Could you go a few clicks deeper and sort of explain some tips and tricks to make those really, really high quality and useful?

Don Faul: Sure. So I'll, I'll, I'll tell you what we have tried, um, and what we've, what we've leaned into. I think the first is, I think that the most transactional but important part of the operating view that we start with is just progress against your goals. And I actually think there's an element of knowing that on a monthly, biweekly, whatever cadence you decide that you have to stand and communicate the progress that you've made is really, really important.

It drives a level of focus and urgency. We don't even spend a lot of time going into the details. You just have to update it. So we update. Here are the OKRs, here's where we're trending. There's an expectation that if it's yellow or red, there is a plan attached to getting it, you know, specifically articulating how it gets to green.

Uh, we don't even spend time covering the greens, so if we have reds or yellows, we'll spend time on it. If not, we kind of move on. Um, so I, I, I would say having a, first I would ask , do you have a clear set of goals? Does every team have a clear set of goals? And that seems obvious, but there's a lot of places that don't necessarily.

So that's a really good starting point. Um, next I'd say, you know, after covering off on progress against goals or OKRs, I think the most important piece is really reinforcing and building a culture of iteration and learning. Um, you know, I'm a big believer in, um, if, if you can create a culture where people are really good at taking thoughtful bets.

Good experiments that, that ensure, um, you're gonna learn and good experiments in service and are aligned with your goals, then you're gonna make great progress. So if you can build up high velocity of learning, it's one of the most important, I think, cultural, uh, foundations for successful companies. Um, and that sounds, again, very easy and very obvious, but actually creating a culture that's possible is really hard.

Running good experiments is a lot easier said than done. And so I really try to focus on, and I, I think beyond how to design and run good experiments, I think sometimes people get too fixated on the outcome of experiments and not fixated enough on the design of the experiments upfront. Um, you know, if you're doing things well, you should try a lot of stuff that fundamentally doesn't.

But if it had a strong hypothesis, grounded in what you understand about the business, aligned with where you're trying to go, it's a good experiment. And so designing an operating review that is specifically focused on, on what you've learned in the prior period. What are the bets that we ran? What was the hypothesis around those bets?

What did we learn by virtue of it? And then how are we using those learnings to inform the next set of bets and hypotheses? And I think if you can create that type of culture where people are able to design really good experiments and iterate really rapidly over time, the results will take care of themselves.

And so really structuring the operating reviews so that people are, um, that they're really focusing on learning and good experiments and service of progress over time, I think is really, really, And then the last thing that I'd add is, um, I think operating reviews are a great way to articulate and surface kind of key decisions or blockers or misalignments.

Um, one of the things that I think can slow organizations down is when you run into issues that, or the team, for a variety of reasons, may be blocked on something, uh, and maybe internally with another team, they just have a different point of view or resources aren't prioritized in a w in a well running organization.

Those decisions get discussed directly. And if they're not resolved, they get escalated really rapidly so that, you know, leadership, um, can step in and support the team. But escalation is really hard for folks. Most folks are reversed to it cause they think it's can be viewed as failure. And so creating a time and place for that and normalizing, hey, if you're blocked, if you've tried to resolve it yourself, it's expected and supported, that it's escalated for a decision.

So those are some of the things that, that I would offer up that, you know, cover off on OKRs first. Second, try to focus on learning and, and really shaping and designing good bets, good experiments. And then finally having a place where kind of blockers or misalignments can be surfaced and reconciled so the team can move quickly.

 and is the format sort of around slides that someone's presenting a memo? Like what, what are the assets that people are using?

Don Faul: So either way, I, I, I'm not a huge fan of slides. Those, sometimes they're the most efficient way to structure conversation. So I've done it with both. Um, I like written form because I think it forces a level of clarity, um, that, that you sometimes can get lost with, with slides, but there are other places where, um, slides can be beneficial as well.

So I've, I've seen both work well in this type of format.

Brett: can you share a little bit more? We kind of went on a little tangent when you were talking about a culture of experimentation and, and I agree. I think it's one of those things that is thrown, thrown around a lot. and, you can often pressure test things by saying, like, say the inverse, but we don't, we, we, we wanted culture that doesn't welcome experiments.

And I think most people like their gut reaction is, that's not good. But it's all kind of about the implementation detail. . Um, and so I'm curious, you talked a little bit about it in the context of an operating review and at a high level sort of what good experiments look like. But, but anything else or anything you've learned as maybe you've come into an organization that wasn't as risk taking or experiment oriented in kind of how you move a group of people in that direction.

Don Faul: Yeah, thi this has been for me, uh, thi this was a journey for me early in my career. Um, I was not very good at this. I was not very good at really thoughtful experiment design. Really thinking through the why behind what we were doing. I was very action oriented. So I was good at, Hey, I'll optimize what we're currently doing, show me something, uh, show me a line of nails and I will go hammer them.

Brett: Do you think that was just inculcated in your personality or, or that's somehow part of the way the Marines are run and that sort of was, it sort of shaped you in that way?

Don Faul: I think it's, I actually think it's how most people operate. And, um, and, and I think when you are, um, you know, perhaps, you know, part of it comes back to how folks are educated. Um, I think when you're more junior in your career, generally your role has fewer degrees of freedom for thinking and it's more ex execution oriented.

So you fall in a habit of saying, okay, give me the task. I gotta go execute. Let me go knock 'em out. No question. The military with a very hierarchical structure, certainly reinforced that. So, uh, and then I, you know, I, early part of my career was in operations, which was about kind of details and optimizations and execution involved through, so I think that all reinforced it for me.

And then Pinterest was really the place where, my role really required a lot of, um, you know, first principles thinking. Um, we didn't have, when I joined there, there was no strategy. And my initial attempt was, Hey, I'll just import what we did at Facebook. And while some of that worked, some of it didn't because Pinterest was fundamentally different, and I had not yet really exercised this scale of being able to take a step back and say, okay, what are we trying to solve for here?

What do we know about it? And if we're gonna take this logical first principles approach to solving this problem, how do we do that? And, and, and leverage the experience I have from Facebook and Google, which was valuable, but leverage it in the right way for Pinterest. Um, for me, it took a lot of reps and it was really hard at first.

And I, you know, when as I got a little bit more senior and I got to athos and I got to CrossFit, um, it's also really hard to teach. Um, it, it, it, for a lot of folks, it takes time. The best I've found is trying to share simple tools, frameworks, um, and lots of coaching, mentoring, and giving people enough time and reps so they can see what good looks like.

One of the things that, that I always try to include in our planning is before we get to recommendations, um, or strategy or specifics, um, we spend time on, you know, what are the assumptions, um, what, what are the principles that our strategy is grounded in? So what do we know to be true? What do we believe to be true before we talk about the steps that we're gonna take?

And, um, I, I think that creates a place and a space for people to really force people to really think about, okay, we have to go solve this problem. What do we know about the problem? What are we optimizing for here? What have we learned to date? Um, and how does that then inform the approach? So what we talk about with our team is by the time you get to your strategy, it should be really obvious.

Why that's the Beth path, because you've laid a foundation in the diagnosis, the current situation and the principles you're optimizing for that set that up to be the right path forward.

Brett: Switching gears slightly. You, you mentioned a couple times the role of the all hands and, and I'd be interested, what do you think makes an a plus all hands, or like what is the, if you think back to an all hands that you left and you were like that. That is excellent. Like what was going on in there or like what's the, what's that ideal agenda look like?

Don Faul: I think the, you know, for us, our all hands is an opportunity to get our whole team, so, you know, 200 people together, uh, once a month. Uh, and our team is distributed. We're a fully distributed team, so we are literally all over the world. And, um, there are really two high level objectives in our all hands.

In part, it's informational, so we want people to walk out with, um, clarity around our strategy, our progress, um, make sure they have the information they need to do their job. And then even more importantly, it's meant to, to drive inspiration. And so, um, for us, I think we hadn an all hands, uh, Our last all hands that I think was really successful.

And I think we did a good job of threading the needle between pushing information on our strategy. That was, I think, helped people understand and, and check the informational box. And then we had a few updates from the team on things that we had done and things that we had shipped. We had a couple stories from our community, um, that really check the inspirational and excitement box.

And so I think you can, for us, you, you can air, you know, too far on one side or the other. Um, I think that the all hands for us is essential and making sure it's used as a tool to make sure people really understand where we're going and then making sure that it also is all hands can get stale. Um, and it's really expensive time if you've got your whole company on it.

So making sure that there is, um, it, it is curated in such a way that people leave. Really fired up. People should leave all hands meetings fired up, excited, motivated, and equipped with the information they need, uh, to better do their jobs.

Brett: I think that last point is what so many companies forget is that when someone leaves in all hands, they should be super energized.

Don Faul: Mm-hmm.

Brett: And I think that a lot of folks tend to over-rotate just on like information dissemination and not finding opportunities to get people like incredibly excited about what they're doing, why they're doing it, who they're serving, and sort of that type of stuff. Um, you touched on this a little bit as we've sort of been talking, but I think when a lot of people at first blush hear you articulate what management and leadership looks like in your eyes, I, I think that some people think it's like the opposite of high performance being, demanding, having out outrageously high expectations, right? It's about enabling others. And, and my guess is that you sort of feel that that's wrong.

That actually. Are best driven by the types of things that you talked about, but I'd be interested if you could sort of expand on that and sort of explain maybe what some people get wrong when they think about, um, you know, coaching and mentoring and developing and setting context as, as things that are kind of the opposite of having outrageously high expectations, demanding a lot, holding people accountable and so on.

Don Faul: Yeah. And you know, I think the, you know, what I would say is, you know, part and parcel, I think great servant leaders also hold an exceptionally high bar and demand excellence. Um, that is absolutely critical part of the formula for me. You know, the reason I am such a big, big believer in this servant leadership model is, um, I think that exceptional performance gets unlocked by connecting people intrinsically to like to do things. Um, connecting them and making sure that they really, really deeply believe, deeply believe that the work that they and their team are doing is connected to something bigger and more important. And that, you know, for exceptional people un unlocks a level of performance that you're not gonna get with a tops down, you know, do the work type approach. And I think the, the very, very best people are most energized when they feel empowered and feel like they have the autonomy to achieve great things. The second thing that I think is really essential is, um, I think people work. Uh, you get exceptional performance when people feel accountable to their team and the people around them, and they don't wanna let them down.

Um, I think that this is true for the very best organizations and very best teams, and I think servant leadership is the, the best way to unlock and connect these two things. Um, I've been in both, you know, I've had leaders before I worked for in the military who are very hierarchical, varied, dictatorial, um, and, and you can feel the difference.

Um, yes. Did I do the work that was necessary? For sure didn't inspire me to do my life's best work. Absolutely not. And so, um, I, I think, you know, with exceptional people and exceptional teams, that they respond best to an environment where they feel truly empowered and they feel truly connected to something that's bigger than that.

Brett: On, on this, on this sort of idea of servant leadership. Did you experience it at any time when you were in the Marine Corps or, or it was always sort of what we think of as, as a very top down, um, hierarchical sort of, uh, dynamic.

Don Faul: Oh, I absolutely, I was really fortunate to

Brett: Yeah. So what did that look like in the context of, of the Marine?

Don Faul: yeah. You know, I, um, I'll give you, you know, two quick examples. The first was my, my first job. Um, this is straight outta college. Uh, you know, leading for the first time had no idea what I was doing. And I was really fortunate to, to get dropped into a unit where my boss was this really experienced marine.

And we, um, I really struggled initially, again, because I was trying to do everything myself, micromanaged all the details. Um, he was able to give me some very direct, constructive, uh, feedback that my job is to make my Marines successful, not do their jobs for them. And I'll never forget this, you know, this guy, um, he was a, he was a major in the Marine Corps and we had, uh, an exercise once where I took my Marines on this super long challenging hike.

It was like 30 something miles and it was just my individual units. Um, but my boss showed up and did it right alongside all my marines. And no reason for him to have to, um, it was brutal for him, but he did it because he led from the front and he wanted to show the Marines that, you know, we were gonna ask them to do something.

He was gonna do it right alongside them. And that was really, really powerful for me. I'll ne you know, never forget it. Second example is actually I worked for, I was really lucky I got a chance to serve under, uh, general Jim Mattis. So former sector defense. Um, general Mattis was, um, was the, uh, hallmark example of a servant leader in Afghanistan.

Uh, I remember he got our Marines together. We were at this airfield in Kandahar. This is in 2001, really early. And it was dis you know, November, December, uh, super cold and General Mattis would sleep in the dirt next to our Marines when all the other senior officers were inside sleeping on cots. He would walk around at two o'clock in the morning and, you know, I would find him talking to my 20 year old Marine.

In the middle of the night asking that Marine about, you know, where he was from and if he had what he needed and if he was clear X, y, and Z. He was such an extraordinary servant leader, wouldn't wear any cold weather gear, so he wouldn't wear jackets until every one of his marines got it first. So, uh, just a, that had such a powerful impact on me.

And I'll, you know, Marines will tell you they would walk through fire for that guy and it was because he modeled servant leadership.

Brett: you sort of explained when you think about servant leadership or, or what you think good leadership looks like. You sort of shared that people feel accountable. They feel accountable to themselves and the people around them. And you said they believe that their work is connected to something bigger and more important than themselves.

And there's a dynamic where they're empowered and they have meaningful autonomy. When, when you think about those two building blocks and you, you sort of started to share this, I think as you were explaining those, the, the sort of fantastic stories from the Marine Corps, but what were the moments in your career that taught you those two lessons?

What were kind of the stories or the situations if it, if, if there was one or a few of them that, that imprinted that or, or kind of gave you that worldview around this idea of servant leadership.

Don Faul: You know, I think a lot of it for me starts with having, you know, in the Marine Corps I was really blessed to, to see both extremes. I had General Mattis on one, and then I worked for another leader who was very opposite, who, uh, you know, really was all about himself and didn't have any, you know, any, you know, shred of humility.

And, you know, I spent, the longest period of my military experience was working for that person and. That left just an indelible print on me. coming out of that experience, I'm glad I had it actually as hard as it was cuz it just reinforced for me. I was never gonna, I was gonna do my best and never show up that way.

Um, and, you know, I'd say the, the, the next thing that I would touch on, you know, it was the Marine Corps and the military by design and probably by necessity is, is obviously pretty hierarchical and, um, has a fair amount of, um, even with the servant leaders, you have a notion of, of it's somewhat directive.

Um, there's a very region ranked structure and you know, at times there isn't a lot of discussion about, you know, what we're gonna do. There is direction from, from leadership about which way we're gonna go. When I got outta the Marine Corps, my first job was at Google and, you know, talk about the other end of the cultural spectrum.

It's so different. And it was an environment that. Really heavily indexed much more towards consensus and where there's an expectation. You know, the Marine Corps, my Marines didn't expect to have context. They didn't want it, they didn't expect it. Uh, at Google it was complete opposite and it was forced a really hard, uh, shift for me in recognizing, hey, my job here is I have to really invest in making sure the team has context, that I'm bringing people along.

And there I saw the power of what was possible when. You know, I played my role in making sure my people had information, context and then space to go execute and operate. And I think that really opened my eyes for what was possible when you combined incredible, highly motivated people with a great team oriented culture with clarity of vision and with the information they needed while you could achieve so much as a team.

And so that was, for me, a recognition that, gosh, I, I, I can build on what I learned in the Marine Corps. I can really do a better job now of empowering people and creating an environment where they can do great work. And my role now becomes how do I make sure that they have what they need so they can run as fast as they can.

Brett: how do you get someone who maybe wants to switch gears from more of a, a, a top down. Oriented leader to somebody who's more servant oriented. So let's say you don't even have to convince them that it's the optimal way to manage and lead an organization. Any thoughts on how somebody can develop those new muscles?

Don Faul: Sure. So, you know, I think the, the first thing I'd probably start with is, you know, assessing and asking, you know, what this person has done to set up his or her team with kind of clear goals and outcomes. Cause I think that's a, a really necessary enabler. Um, so, you know, do folks on your team have a set of goals, um, that are really oriented around outcomes?

Not necessarily. Tasks that they need to go operate. Um, so I'd start there, you know, and, and to the, the best extent possible, that's a, an articulation of what success looks like. Um, I think for that person really thinking through, um, how they use, again, coming back to how they're structuring their team meetings, how they're structuring their one-on-ones, if that person is gonna shift, I would really encourage that person to, to have a conversation with their team and be really open and say, Hey, um, I'm really making an investment to shift the way that I show up and support you.

You know, my goal here is to empower you to make decisions and move quickly. My responsibility is making sure that you have a clear understanding of what success looks like. You have the information you need to do your job, that I'm here when you need support, but I really want and expect that you guys are gonna make decisions and move.

That's my intention and I'd love your help and feedback along the way. It's gonna take us time. It's gonna be a shift. I want you to let me know, I'm gonna check in periodically on how I'm doing on this and I'm gonna ask for your feedback along the way. And I think that's a re that'll end up being a really essential step cuz I think it helps signal to the team what success looks like, what that intention is.

And then for anyone, it's gonna be a journey. It's gonna take time. And I think if you can open the door where your team feels comfortable com coming to you and sharing feedback on how it's going and you're truly committed to making it happen, um, then you can create that, that, um, momentum where you're, you're learning and getting better over time.

And then I would probably have this, a version of the same conversation with my manager and with my peers in, in that journey and saying, Hey, here's my intention and I'd love your help in helping support me through it.

Brett: So building on this topic of leading teams, do you think anything changes in this environment that we're currently in? or does leadership look different when things are going off the rails? I think there's, there's a bunch of people that have been leading teams over the last decade in a time where sort of capital was free and abundant.

And so that led to a very certain style of running of companies. And now I think we're in a new regime that that's probably here for some period of time. And so, and I'm sure sort of throughout your career there's been ups and downs. Things have been going well or not. And, and so how does leadership evolve in the context of, of difficult times?

Don Faul: Yeah, that's a, it's a really interesting question and, uh, there's a lot of teams, companies, organizations that are going through this right now. You know, I think over the last, gosh, 10 years maybe, um, particularly in the Valley, uh, I think there are a lot of teams and cultures that have been built on, um, high salaries and beautiful offices and amazing valuations and momentum and perks and benefits.

Um, and I think those things can breed entitlement, complacency. Um, I think you have environments where the culture's never really been tested before. And, um, you know, I think coming back to a little bit of what we touched on, but I think the very strongest teams and cultures are built on, on something that's just fundamentally different, right?

It's that authentic connection to, to, to what you're working on. That sense of purpose. It's an intrinsic connection to other people on the team and, and your belief that what you're doing, the work you put in when you show up every day really matters. And that people show up with a, a, an op feeling and obligation to support each other and support the team and the company.

And I think there's a lot of organizations right now that are gonna have to figure out how to make that shift and that leap. Um, and I think it's really, really hard. Um, I think the type of leadership that, um, organizations, you know, that you need during times of adversity is fundamentally different. I think there's a lot of folks now who have to figure out how to balance being authentic about the challenges that their company and organization faces, you know, some of which might be existential, are we gonna make it or not?

With the right level of optimism, I think a lot of folks struggling with, gosh, how transparent can I be as a leader? If I'm scared, if I'm worried, um, can I share that with my team? Or, or, or do they expect all positivity from me? Um, I think it's an, an opportunity in a moment where, you know, it's somewhat cliche, but, but I believe it's true.

I think the strongest teams are built and molded during times of adversity. And so I think there's an opportunity now to, to get back to focusing on what matters to, to rally the team behind, you know, what that organization is trying to do. To, to get a little leaner maybe than the organization, the teams and companies have been, and really bring the, the team together in a way that, um, it, you know, can elevate performance and outcomes despite the adversity.

Um, but that's a new muscle for a lot of managers and leaders if they haven't been exercising it.

Brett: And so maybe we could sort of pick apart a few of the things you just shared. One is this question about, uh, how transparent to be, how sober or optimistic, how authentic to be in moments when things aren't going well. What's sort of your philosophy around.

Don Faul: you know, when I, my last job I was at a company called aos, and we, you know, we were a, uh, early stage, um, company, uh, went through lots, ups and downs, lots of challenges, and that was really the first time for me, my, my current technology where, We had these moments of like, are we gonna make it? Um, and initially lots of moments where I felt scared, anxious, um, nervous about the team, about the company responsibility to the team, about whether their jobs were gonna be there.

And initially my response to it was to really over index on optimism and positivity. And what I heard pretty quickly from my team was that they stopped believing me. So they said, Hey, we, we know everything's not perfect. And if you are not being honest about the things you're concerned about, then we're worried you're not being honest about anything.

And gosh, thank, thank goodness they shared that with me directly. I was able to course correct on it and really settled in a place where, um, I really focused on being authentic, um, and honest about just about everything we shared. We were incredibly transparent. Um, but knew that it was part of my responsibility to always be able to articulate the path forward, the best possible plan and path forward for the team and the company, and what that meant for us, and what that meant for the organization.

And that wasn't always the best news. Um, it was oftentimes pretty disappointing. But, um, I was just overwhelmingly, um, surprised in a really positive way by how our team came together. Um, even in the hardest moments when we were at risk of not making it, um, sharing, you know, authentically where we were actually brought people closer together.

Uh, so, you know, my, my general approach and advice that I would share is, I, I think you have a responsibility to be authentic with your people. I think you have a responsibility if you're the c e o, the founder and a positional leadership to communicate a, a plan and a path forward that you believe is the best one.

And I think in most cases you'll be really pleasantly surprised by how people come together to, to support you and support each other.

Brett: So to maybe make it even more concrete, let's say the two of us were running a company and there's nine months of cash left, and we're both concerned that even with all the changes we're gonna make, I don't know what the capital markets are gonna be like, and I don't know if we can raise more capital.

What is communicating well, communicating authentically or with the right level of transparency look like sort of in that type of dynamic?

Don Faul: So I think that, you know, the first conversation you and I would probably have is, do we think there's a path here? And, and what do we think is the right thing for us and for shareholders? And if we think there's a path, you know, a potentially viable path, then our job I think is to communicate that to the team and be open and say, look, we have nine months of runway.

Um, we've thought a lot about path forward here. We do believe there is a path here for us to be successful. It's gonna be hard here. Here are the, the challenges that stand in front of us, but here's the plan and here's why we believe it's possible. And we believe we have the best shot, you know, if we work through this together.

Um, but we thought it was important that you guys understood where we were. And, um, that would be, that would be my bias. And I think if you built a really strong culture, um, I think you're gonna find most people stick with you. And if certain folks don't, then that might be the best thing for them and the best thing for the organization,

Brett: Why do you think that's so powerful? The idea of being authentic and transparent, even when things aren't going well versus sugarcoating things. Pretend, pretending like everything's gonna be fine. Why is that so galvanizing?

Don Faul: you know, I think first one, most of the time you're not fooling anyone. And I certainly wasn't when I was up there trying to convince it to the team. So like in, in a lot of cases, folks on your team really have a better sense for where things are, and if that's the case, when that's the case, it can feel really disempowering and insulting when you, when you know you're not getting the truth right.

And it, it actually gets you starting to think about, you know, are there other things? I don't know. Um, I, I think the second reason is, look, I I, you know, we, at Atheros we were really lucky, like we ended up in a scenario where we could not get to the type of revenue growth. So we ended up kind of winding down slash selling the company.

And in the year before that, we were open with our team all along the way that there was a high probability we were not gonna make it. And in the 12 months before we ultimately sold slash wound on the company, we only had one person leave in that whole period of

Brett: That's incredible.

Don Faul: And. Yeah, amazing. And, and attribute to the culture that the team built.

And I think it was because again, coming back to people really believed in what we were doing and they thought, Hey, if there is a shot and a path, I wanna be a part of it. And the second was they really cared about and believed in each other, and they wanted to be there for each other. They wanted to support each other.

You know, we talked about, I would talk to the team and say, Hey, look like we have a lot of challenges in front of us, but I'll tell you from my perspective, I wanna leave it all in the field. This thing is important enough to me and special enough to me. I don't wanna look back and have any what ifs. I wanna know that I, and that we did everything in our power.

And if we don't make it, that's okay. That's better than looking back and feeling like I bailed on it too early. You know? And each person had to make up that own, make their own decision around that. But, I think people, I think that really connects with people. Again, I think it's about like it's why the intrinsic motivation piece, it's why people caring about each other.

That's what keeps em around.

Brett: you touched on this in different ways, but I'd be interested if you sort of have anything else to share on the topic of culture building. And I think, again, similar to leadership, it's, it's one that can get into Kumbaya territory very quickly, but I think you are sort of uniquely suited to talk about it because you worked across so many different companies.

Most recently now CrossFit all the way back to the Marine Corps, who, who are actually known for wildly different cultures, but very, very strong cultures, very, very opinionated cultures. . Um, and, and so is there anything that comes to mind for you in terms of what's going on in great cultures? Why is it that companies that are so diametrically opposed in terms of their cultures can all have strong, high functioning, useful cultures, maybe sort of anything, anything to share on that?

Don Faul: When I think about the different, you know, organizations that I've been really lucky to be a part of that had strong cultures, you know, from clearly the Marine Corps to, to, you know, Facebook to now CrossFit, you know, threes wildly different. Um, there's a couple things that jump out, you know, for me, um, each of them had a very clearly articulated sense of who they were.

And what they cared about. There were a set of principles. when you ask the average person, they could tell you exactly what the Marine Corps was all about and what it valued. And so, so, you know, that is, and, and same thing is true at at CrossFit. You know, we have a set of principles that, that guide our methodology, that guide our ethos, that guide the company. And then I think those, you know, early on, that's often, I think at companies often shaped early on by your founders, your early team members. It's, it's a very often a part of who they are and what they care about. And then I think the great cultures find a way to, to, to clearly they articulate it and then build means of reinforcing it and safeguarding it over time.

The Marine Corps is amazing. I, I, I didn't, I didn't even, I wouldn't have used the word culture when I was back in the Marines. But it, it's amazing looking back at it now, you have an organization that's, you know, 200 and, and you know, 70 something years old that has an extraordinarily strong culture where you could take a marine from, you know, today in a Marine from World War II and sit them next to each other on a plane and they will bond and connect, uh, use the same language, talk about how approach their experience.

Were really similar, separated by, you know, 70 years. Um, and I think the same is true at, at, you know, when I think about, you know, our culture at CrossFit, um, there's so much of the day-to-day experience that really comes back to a clear articulation of who we are and what we stand for. And I think, I think you have to have something you stand for in a really clear, convicted sort of way, and take a really strong opinion on it.

I think a lot of, a lot of places fall down with a very vanilla, inauthentic. List of statements. That's not a culture, that's not gonna create a culture. It's gotta re be a really strong orientation and a really strong point of view. And then I think, yeah, that the, you know, each of those has figured out a way to preserve it as they grow, evolve, and scale.

And that's, that's the really hard part. You know, you can, the, the founder essentially can influence the culture early on by virtue of his or her personality and will. But when you start growing, you know, when you're adding hundreds of people, thousands of people, that's insufficient. And great organizations figure out a way to, to boil that down and then bake it into everything they do. Uh, and that takes a real deliberate kind of focused effort, I think.

Brett: Is there one of the companies or, or sort of company building experiences that you, you've had that, that illustrates these ideas maybe kind of in the most clear way?

Don Faul: Yeah. So, you know, I'd say for CrossFit, we, um, part of what we do at CrossFit is, uh, we train our, our coaches. So any, if you walk into a, a CrossFit gym anywhere around the world, you're gonna coach by a CrossFit level one level two trainer. So they've gone through a training program and CrossFit's training, and education's really unique.

It's, it's all grounded in a bunch of work that CrossFit's founder Greg Glassman did, gosh, you know, almost 20 years ago now. And, um, that process all of our employees, we, we have, all of our employees will go through a level one if they haven't already. And part of that level one is, is really about the history and the foundation and the principles of CrossFit.

It's a very specific language. There are very specific quotes, um, that are a part of the CrossFit doctrine and culture. That you could ask our employees, or you could go, you could walk into just about any one of our gyms and ask them for the definition of fitness or ask them what CrossFit is and they'll recite back to you these one-liners that are incredibly clear, that are off repeated, that take a strong stance, um, that people are really inspired by.

And so we have a manual, it's a CrossFit level one manual, and it's incredible. It's amazing. It was, you know, articulated a bunch of years back, but it is one of the strongest culture building documents that has not only set up a great culture within our headquarters, our 200 people, but it's created a culture now that has been embraced by 14,000 small business owners and hundreds of thousands of coaches and millions of members of our community who can play back a lot of those same tenants.

Um, and so I think that's, that, that level one, you know, we call our Level One manual, and then a lot of those same concept concepts and principles are echoed in a lot of the media that we produce, these short videos over time, where they're woven into in a really delivered sort of way.

Brett: If people wanna find that, is that document on, uh, posted online?

Don Faul: It is, yeah. People can search for a CrossFit level one manual, uh, or go to crossfit.com.

Brett: Very cool. one area that I thought to wrap up, is sort of the idea of storytelling and, and I think the way that you conveyed a bunch of your ideas and our time together, I think illustrates some of the idea.

that you figured out as it relates to storytelling. And you've actually written about this years ago on the review. Um, that will link in the, uh, show notes. But for folks that haven't read that, maybe you could kind of do a few minute summary on just a few of the ideas that you think are most important if somebody wants to become a better storyteller.

Don Faul: Yeah. Yeah. This is one of the, I think it's one of the most important skills as a leader. Um, and it really taps into, if, if you buy the notion that one of the most powerful drivers of motivation is an intrinsic connection to what you're doing and an intrinsic connection to each other, I think storytelling is an, an essential tool in creating and eliciting that emotional connection.

So for, for managers and leaders, I think it's really, really powerful and really important at every level. In terms of like the, the kind of how-to on it. Um, I, I think, you know, for great, for folks who are really good at this, I think the starting point is really knowing their audience well and knowing who are they speaking to?

What drives those folks? What is top of mind for them? So, you know, as an example, when I would travel, um, at Facebook, we had offices all around the world and I would travel about once a quarter to India, to our office, or to Dublin and spend time with the team. And being in remote offices is really hard and you're disconnected from headquarters.

And so I would spend a week there and I would usually do an all hands towards the end of the week. And in the, in the days leading up to that, I would spend my time just talking to people. And what I was trying to get a sense for in my direct conversations and conversations with their leadership is what is top of mind for our team?

What are they frustrated about? What are they hopeful for? What are they excited about? Um, that helps me understand where I need to meet them when I talk. And, and how I can create that authentic connection so that when I'm talking, they feel like, okay, Don, Don gets us. He understands where we are, he understands what we're going through.

That's really, really powerful. Um, next, I think if you understand where people are, you, you have to really be thoughtful around where do you want to, where do you wanna get them, you know, how do you want them to feel when you're done speaking? What do you want them to know and have conviction around? And then your story is really the arc that helps connect you from where they are to where you want them to be.

And, um, so, so I think that that's a useful setup in terms of the framework of, of thinking about where they are, where you want them to be. Um, and then it's about helping shape, uh, the conversation you're gonna have with them to help them get there. So I often, you know, what I'll do in this is, is I sit down and, and I'll, I'll, I'll do my best to kind of frame it out.

So I'll, I'll jot some notes. I'll try to outline, you know, roughly outline the kind of arc of the conversation I wanna have and. By the way, I'll do this for longer remarks. I'll also do this. I sh I should be doing this in every one of our all hands. So if I'm gonna take 10 minutes at the end of our all hands to speak to our company, let me make sure that 10 minutes is really thoughtfully prepared for, it's not off the cuff, it's really delivered.

Cause the team, I owe the team that. So I'll, I'll, I'll, you know, frame it out. So I'll try to, you know, put the bullet points that outline how I want to tell the story, what message I wanna get across, and then I practice it. And, um, for folks who are new to this, build in a ton of reps, the delivery part is as important as the substance and conveying with clarity and emotion, what you're trying to get across.

Um, if it's really important, you know, get your partner or friend or spouse to sit there, as painful as that may be, and listen to you and give you feedback on it. Um, but, uh, and then get lots of reps, I would encourage, um, you know, New managers, all managers, honestly, you should be speaking in front of your team frequently and get a lot of reps on this.

Um, it's ver for me, I used to get very nervous and very anxious anytime I spoke in front of our team. I still get a little bit that way, but it's gotten a heck a lot better with, with practice. So, you know that those are some of the things that I would encourage folks to think about in terms of storytelling.

Um, uh, and, and again, I would just reinforce it can be really such a powerful thing and, and you know, if you think about again, wanting to inspire team and connecting them, it's one of the most useful ways you can do it.

Brett: Great place to end, Don. Thank you so, so much for joining us.

Don Faul: Thank you so much for having me. This was a great conversation.