1117: How to Apply Your Core Values to Every Area of Your Employee Lifecycle w/ Christina Luconi

WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.320 --> 00:00:05.639 Looking for a guaranteed way to create content that resonates with your audience? Start 2 00:00:05.639 --> 00:00:10.589 a podcast, interview your ideal clients and let them choose the topic of the 3 00:00:10.710 --> 00:00:15.109 interview, because if your ideal clients care about the topic, there's a good 4 00:00:15.150 --> 00:00:18.989 chance the rest of your audience will care about it too. Learn more at 5 00:00:19.030 --> 00:00:27.460 sweet fish Mediacom. You're listening to be tob growth, a daily podcast for 6 00:00:27.579 --> 00:00:31.820 B TOB leaders. We've interviewed names you've probably heard before, like Gary vanner 7 00:00:31.859 --> 00:00:35.659 truck and Simon Senek, but you've probably never heard from the majority of our 8 00:00:35.700 --> 00:00:40.689 guests. That's because the bulk of our interviews aren't with professional speakers and authors. 9 00:00:41.289 --> 00:00:44.689 Most of our guests are in the trenches leading sales and marketing teams. 10 00:00:44.929 --> 00:00:49.929 They're implementing strategy, they're experimenting with tactics, they're building the fastest growing be 11 00:00:50.039 --> 00:00:53.600 tob companies in the world. My name is James Carberry. I'm the founder 12 00:00:53.600 --> 00:00:57.359 of sweet fish media, a podcast agency for BB brands, and I'm also 13 00:00:57.439 --> 00:01:00.880 one of the CO hosts of this show. When we're not interviewing sales and 14 00:01:00.960 --> 00:01:03.590 marketing leaders, you'll hear stories from behind the scenes of our own business. 15 00:01:04.030 --> 00:01:07.430 Will share the ups and downs of our journey as we attempt to take over 16 00:01:07.469 --> 00:01:19.340 the world. Just getting well, maybe let's get into the show. Welcome 17 00:01:19.379 --> 00:01:23.019 back to the BB growth show. My name is James Carberry and one of 18 00:01:23.019 --> 00:01:26.459 the cohosts of this show, and I am joined today by Christina Lucone. 19 00:01:26.620 --> 00:01:30.379 She is the chief people officer at rapid seven. Christina, how you doing 20 00:01:30.420 --> 00:01:34.769 today? Hi, good, James. Are you done? I am fantastic. 21 00:01:34.930 --> 00:01:38.010 So, Christina, I you got on my radar. I think it 22 00:01:38.290 --> 00:01:42.129 was through Mike Volkbe at Lolacom, and so you got on my radar there. 23 00:01:42.129 --> 00:01:46.290 I think I was creeping on an interaction that you get, that you 24 00:01:46.329 --> 00:01:51.000 guys were having on twitter about culture and and I love what you had to 25 00:01:51.040 --> 00:01:53.799 say and I thought, man, this would be incredible for our BB growth 26 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:57.319 audience. And and so today, Christina, we're going to be talking about 27 00:01:57.760 --> 00:02:01.310 how we're going to stand who they are. So a lot cold. You 28 00:02:01.390 --> 00:02:05.269 know a lot about culture and core values, but then another thing that you 29 00:02:05.390 --> 00:02:08.629 and I've talked about offline is how can you then apply that whuness, so 30 00:02:08.710 --> 00:02:12.550 to speak. How can you apply that culture, in those core values to 31 00:02:12.629 --> 00:02:16.219 different areas of the employee life cycle and you've got a lot of really interesting 32 00:02:16.259 --> 00:02:21.060 thoughts. Up at seven, it's some some other companies that you've been at. 33 00:02:21.099 --> 00:02:23.620 So before we jump into that, can you just give a little bit 34 00:02:23.620 --> 00:02:27.340 of context to listeners and explain what rapid seven is, what you guys are 35 00:02:27.580 --> 00:02:30.849 are up to over there, and then we'll dive into kind of understanding how 36 00:02:30.889 --> 00:02:35.169 to figure out who you are as an organization. Sure, we are a 37 00:02:35.969 --> 00:02:40.250 cyber security company that basically helps companies figure out where they're most vulnerable and then 38 00:02:40.289 --> 00:02:45.560 we provide the analytics to help them sort of diagnosed exactly where they should be 39 00:02:45.639 --> 00:02:50.719 focused to keep themselves as protected as possible. We are twenty years old, 40 00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:53.599 though most of the growth has come over the last probably eight years. I 41 00:02:53.759 --> 00:02:58.830 joined at the start of two thousand and eleven. We were seventy five people 42 00:02:58.909 --> 00:03:02.069 with I think two offices or three offices, and now we're global and and 43 00:03:02.909 --> 00:03:07.629 public and almost one five hundred people. So a lot of growth in the 44 00:03:07.710 --> 00:03:09.830 last four years. Lots of growth, lots of growth. So so, 45 00:03:09.949 --> 00:03:13.819 Christine, I want to dive right in because you've got a lot of really 46 00:03:13.860 --> 00:03:19.740 incredible thoughts around this. So start with understanding who you are. Is an 47 00:03:19.780 --> 00:03:25.139 organization, talk about why this first step is so critical to everything else that 48 00:03:25.259 --> 00:03:30.289 we're going to be talking today. So let's see. I don't I don't 49 00:03:30.289 --> 00:03:31.729 do a lot of stuff well in my life, but one thing that I 50 00:03:31.810 --> 00:03:36.810 figured out very early on in my career in the people's side of the business 51 00:03:37.050 --> 00:03:42.080 was I was part of these scaling growth companies and you know, you can 52 00:03:42.120 --> 00:03:45.719 have great financials or you can have a great sort of model for you want 53 00:03:45.719 --> 00:03:47.599 the business to go, but there has to be some kind of glue that 54 00:03:47.680 --> 00:03:52.879 gets everybody sort of operating in the same direction. And, while this doesn't 55 00:03:52.879 --> 00:03:58.310 sound like rocket science at all, really understanding the core culture of your company, 56 00:03:58.349 --> 00:04:01.430 and by culture I really mean like what are the values that you the 57 00:04:01.629 --> 00:04:06.270 shared values that that everyone believes in? So the foundational pieces of your company, 58 00:04:06.590 --> 00:04:10.740 not just like we have parties and we have a pin punk table. 59 00:04:10.740 --> 00:04:15.300 It's so much deeper than that. But I think if you can articulate who 60 00:04:15.460 --> 00:04:19.540 you are and who you aspire to be, it provides a context for people 61 00:04:19.740 --> 00:04:24.290 to then then you can build every other element of your employee life cycle. 62 00:04:24.370 --> 00:04:30.290 But I think that is just a foundational piece as you're growing an organization to 63 00:04:30.449 --> 00:04:33.810 really help you figure out how to build everything else around something, something pretty 64 00:04:33.850 --> 00:04:39.600 comfortable. What have you seen, Christina, in terms of how do you 65 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:44.040 is that a seen? Is that just a senior level discussion? Do you 66 00:04:44.199 --> 00:04:47.720 bring in folks from other parts of the company into those conversations? What have 67 00:04:47.800 --> 00:04:51.680 you seen work about? What is that culture? What are those core values? 68 00:04:53.269 --> 00:04:55.550 Well, there's two different questions. So I've seen a lot. I 69 00:04:55.629 --> 00:05:00.509 think what I've seen work is when you weave some subset of your entire population 70 00:05:00.589 --> 00:05:04.230 into the conversation. So, for example, I think it's incredibly common, 71 00:05:04.750 --> 00:05:10.019 especially in today's world now that culture is even a thing, where you'll see 72 00:05:10.620 --> 00:05:15.899 CEOS or, you know, five person companies say these are our core values 73 00:05:15.139 --> 00:05:18.459 and and this is what we believe in, and now everybody else that we 74 00:05:18.500 --> 00:05:23.209 hires going to believe in that. If you nail those values, that could 75 00:05:23.209 --> 00:05:27.250 work well. But I think what I've seen is people typically don't start thinking 76 00:05:27.250 --> 00:05:30.490 about it until they have some amount of scale, right, like a hundred 77 00:05:30.569 --> 00:05:33.769 person, hundred fifty people, is probably like a real sweet spot to figure 78 00:05:33.930 --> 00:05:39.120 the stuff out. And what I've found is if you try to dictate what 79 00:05:39.319 --> 00:05:43.560 your culture is to a bunch of people at that point. It doesn't always 80 00:05:43.600 --> 00:05:47.879 land particularly well. However, if you engage, and what's worked for me 81 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:54.069 in the past is if you can engage people from every level of your organization, 82 00:05:54.430 --> 00:05:59.310 representation from every level of your organization, every team and whatever office you 83 00:05:59.389 --> 00:06:02.550 have, for example your offices, you've got this great microcosm of people in 84 00:06:02.629 --> 00:06:08.300 the company that can really help. If you can get that group of people 85 00:06:08.339 --> 00:06:12.660 aligned on who you are, you're probably on the right path. So when 86 00:06:13.220 --> 00:06:16.980 I came rapid seven we were seventy five people. When we start talking about 87 00:06:16.980 --> 00:06:20.889 the culture, we were ninety probably two weeks later ninety people, and what 88 00:06:20.970 --> 00:06:26.050 we ended up doing was pulling the subset and we ultimately had about thirty people 89 00:06:26.050 --> 00:06:30.449 engaged in the conversation. Now doesn't mean that the inmate from the asylum and 90 00:06:30.810 --> 00:06:33.639 you know they get to whatever the employees say goes, but it gave us 91 00:06:33.680 --> 00:06:38.480 a really good starting point to say here's what's really important to us, here's 92 00:06:38.480 --> 00:06:42.720 who we think we are, here's who we aspire to be, and then 93 00:06:42.759 --> 00:06:46.959 we were able to take all of that great work back to our executive team 94 00:06:46.079 --> 00:06:50.110 and say what do you think, and not surprisingly, they did such a 95 00:06:50.149 --> 00:06:54.829 great job. There was natural intersection. It was great. I mean we 96 00:06:54.910 --> 00:06:59.629 ended up tweaking a couple of words, but ultimately our people are culture was 97 00:06:59.790 --> 00:07:02.100 by the people for the people, and we had a third of the company 98 00:07:02.139 --> 00:07:06.259 already sort of flag weighting culture carriers because of them part of the conversation. 99 00:07:06.300 --> 00:07:11.899 I love that, giving giving them ownership throughout the process because if they own 100 00:07:11.980 --> 00:07:15.410 the creation of those values, obviously they're going to own what we're about to 101 00:07:15.449 --> 00:07:19.930 talk about is the execution of how do you actually embed those values throughout, 102 00:07:20.410 --> 00:07:27.449 throughout the entire business? Any thoughts or suggestions that you would have to companies 103 00:07:27.490 --> 00:07:30.839 at this at this stage in their business, they're starting to think about this 104 00:07:30.920 --> 00:07:33.519 stuff. Maybe they're around the hundred employee mark, hundred and fifty employee mark. 105 00:07:34.040 --> 00:07:38.160 Is there a certain number of values? I know I've heard Patrick Lyncy 106 00:07:38.279 --> 00:07:41.519 only talk about, you know, three. The likelihood of people remembering them, 107 00:07:41.959 --> 00:07:44.389 you know, goes down a bit, but I know that other people 108 00:07:44.389 --> 00:07:47.629 have other thoughts. What what are? How many values do you think companies 109 00:07:47.629 --> 00:07:51.509 should aspire to land on? I'll like land on five right. I mean 110 00:07:51.670 --> 00:07:57.110 three maybe too few and seven is way too many. So you know, 111 00:07:57.269 --> 00:08:01.579 five might be the sweet spot. But what I've learned over time and I 112 00:08:01.620 --> 00:08:05.420 spent a lot of time talking to companies trying to figure this stuff out, 113 00:08:05.180 --> 00:08:09.459 and I would always err on the thought of scalability and who you want to 114 00:08:09.500 --> 00:08:13.250 become. Some there's a big piece of this as the aspirational not just who 115 00:08:13.329 --> 00:08:18.569 we are today at ten people or a hundred people, but can you envision 116 00:08:18.569 --> 00:08:24.009 your company being successful with several hundred people or public or wherever you want to 117 00:08:24.050 --> 00:08:28.720 imagine yourself, and will those values hold up? So, for example, 118 00:08:28.759 --> 00:08:31.960 I was talking to a company just a few weeks ago about some of their 119 00:08:33.039 --> 00:08:35.759 values and I was kind of challenging on them where one of their big values 120 00:08:35.879 --> 00:08:39.480 was we want to have fun every single day, and I'm thinking, like, 121 00:08:41.080 --> 00:08:43.429 you cannot be at a start up because, like, I am passionate, 122 00:08:43.629 --> 00:08:46.309 I love and we find humor and fun. But, like, it's 123 00:08:46.389 --> 00:08:50.870 not always fun and sometimes you're going to hit bumps in the road and it's 124 00:08:50.870 --> 00:08:52.590 going to be super painful, but it's how you work through those. So 125 00:08:52.669 --> 00:08:58.259 I really challenged them to think about is that a scalable value? That might 126 00:08:58.299 --> 00:09:01.740 be fun when it's five guys in a basement together making stuff happen, but 127 00:09:01.820 --> 00:09:05.700 but as your company begins to grow and scale, as that something that you 128 00:09:05.820 --> 00:09:09.330 can you can really ground around. Or what is it you're totally after, 129 00:09:09.730 --> 00:09:13.529 like is your element of fun? I want to learn something, we want 130 00:09:13.529 --> 00:09:18.210 to challenge ourselves to learn something every day because that's what we perceived to be 131 00:09:18.330 --> 00:09:22.250 fun, or we want to always be in this together and never fail alone, 132 00:09:22.570 --> 00:09:24.679 or whatever will it's go. I'll really sort of like what's the meaning 133 00:09:24.720 --> 00:09:31.919 behind what you're trying to say, and I think sometimes companies will take a 134 00:09:31.960 --> 00:09:33.080 bit in an easy way out, or it's like, look, we came 135 00:09:33.120 --> 00:09:39.950 up with five really fun creative values and everyone's going to remember them and they're 136 00:09:39.950 --> 00:09:43.429 going to look amazing on a Coffee Cup. and honestly, I don't know 137 00:09:43.549 --> 00:09:46.110 that that's truly challenge ourselves to do the hard work, because I think a 138 00:09:46.230 --> 00:09:50.789 lot of it is not like we don't even have our core values hanging up 139 00:09:50.789 --> 00:09:54.340 in our offices. You actually won't find them, because not only do we 140 00:09:54.500 --> 00:09:58.179 want people to know what they are, but we want people to embody them. 141 00:09:58.419 --> 00:10:03.100 Like what's way more important than you met memorizing a phrase is that you 142 00:10:03.460 --> 00:10:07.809 deeply understand what in pack together means to this company. Right team work, 143 00:10:07.889 --> 00:10:13.610 in my company might mean something very different to another company. But by impact 144 00:10:13.690 --> 00:10:18.850 together, which is sort of our version of teamwork, we're hitting on elements 145 00:10:18.889 --> 00:10:22.200 of collaboration and grabbing a shovel to help one another, etc. So we 146 00:10:22.360 --> 00:10:26.000 really need people to understand what it means in this context, not just a 147 00:10:26.240 --> 00:10:31.759 clever phrase. I love that. So once an organization has has started to 148 00:10:31.799 --> 00:10:37.029 put some legs on this, they start to they've defined their core values. 149 00:10:37.710 --> 00:10:41.549 This is the part of the conversation where I where I was really fascinated and 150 00:10:41.710 --> 00:10:46.429 our kind of precall that we did a few weeks ago. Can you speak 151 00:10:46.549 --> 00:10:50.259 to what some of those areas have been? I know we talked before. 152 00:10:50.379 --> 00:10:54.700 You know all the way back to when you initially reach out to a job 153 00:10:54.779 --> 00:10:58.340 candidate, all the way down to off boarding. You know when when someone 154 00:10:58.460 --> 00:11:01.539 is leaving the organization. Can you speak to some of those touch points within 155 00:11:01.580 --> 00:11:05.929 the employeft cycle? And Yeah, I mean I should go. I I 156 00:11:05.090 --> 00:11:09.090 think about culture in terms of you know, what's going to scale and what's 157 00:11:09.129 --> 00:11:13.210 going to have legs, right. I mean it's not this touchy theey. 158 00:11:13.850 --> 00:11:18.450 It gets a bad rap for that, right, but it that's not what 159 00:11:18.600 --> 00:11:22.759 it it. It can be such a pivotal piece of your success equation if 160 00:11:22.840 --> 00:11:26.399 you nail it, and and I believe the way that you nail that is 161 00:11:26.480 --> 00:11:31.080 to truly weave it into every element that touches your people. So you're right, 162 00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:35.230 I think, if you think about the first interaction you ever have with 163 00:11:35.350 --> 00:11:39.110 the candidate straight through to the day you part ways and everything in between. 164 00:11:39.149 --> 00:11:41.710 So that could be development, it could be how you promote people, it 165 00:11:41.830 --> 00:11:46.669 could be, you know, training, it could be whatever your benefit would 166 00:11:46.669 --> 00:11:50.740 be, anything that touches your people throughout their duration at your company. Thinking 167 00:11:50.779 --> 00:11:54.379 about how your core values tie into that is incredibly important. So, poor 168 00:11:54.500 --> 00:12:01.850 example, if you say that you truly value, you know, continuous learning 169 00:12:01.889 --> 00:12:05.610 and and and Growth and development and all of those things, and that's something 170 00:12:05.649 --> 00:12:11.769 that you value, and yet your promotion process is basically a political who knows 171 00:12:11.809 --> 00:12:13.970 you? Who's going to lobby for you, and and I have the biggest 172 00:12:13.970 --> 00:12:18.039 squawky voice, therefore I'm getting the promotion. Yeah, those things are in 173 00:12:18.159 --> 00:12:22.399 massive conflict with for another right. So we ended up looking at our promotion 174 00:12:22.519 --> 00:12:28.159 process and saying for everybody director level and above, where those politics can start 175 00:12:28.200 --> 00:12:31.549 to really play into things, we created a process that was so aligned with 176 00:12:31.669 --> 00:12:35.429 our values that we actually look at people and we could say, Hey, 177 00:12:35.750 --> 00:12:39.309 James is phenomenal, he's had a great work track record, needs delivered results 178 00:12:39.350 --> 00:12:43.549 and that's great. However, we're not just going to look at that success 179 00:12:43.629 --> 00:12:46.539 record, we're going to look at his embodiment of our core values. Is 180 00:12:46.980 --> 00:12:50.899 he somebody who is actually, you know, growing in developing a team? 181 00:12:50.100 --> 00:12:54.500 Is he somebody who does grab a shovel and is truly collaborative, not just 182 00:12:54.700 --> 00:12:58.769 with his own team but foot broader and the ex spectations the higher up you 183 00:12:58.850 --> 00:13:03.049 go, the more you're going to do those things. And we'll actually look 184 00:13:03.049 --> 00:13:05.610 at those things and we'll create plans for people. And not only if I'm 185 00:13:05.690 --> 00:13:09.129 your manager and I'm the one putting you up for promotion. It's not just 186 00:13:09.409 --> 00:13:15.840 my say. You'll actually have an outside person, another leader within the company, 187 00:13:15.919 --> 00:13:20.360 who's sponsoring your promotion path, so that we have somebody he has it. 188 00:13:20.480 --> 00:13:22.399 There's no stake in the game to them. So I could say I 189 00:13:22.480 --> 00:13:26.519 think you're great, I'm going to promote you as all great. It could 190 00:13:26.519 --> 00:13:31.230 be totally political if we add somebody else in, Sally from sales, and 191 00:13:31.789 --> 00:13:35.629 she's also working with you along these dimensions and really sort of helping coach you 192 00:13:35.750 --> 00:13:39.070 to get there. By the time it comes time for promotion, not only 193 00:13:39.110 --> 00:13:41.860 do you have your manager who's saying, Hey, James, is gone through 194 00:13:41.860 --> 00:13:46.820 all this hard work, but you've got somebody from outside who's very neutral to 195 00:13:46.899 --> 00:13:50.740 the process, saying, and I've seen the progression here and I believe that 196 00:13:50.820 --> 00:13:52.659 they're actually, you know, not just doing a good job, but they're 197 00:13:54.299 --> 00:13:58.730 massive embodiment of our values and how they're weaving their teams to understand the same 198 00:13:58.769 --> 00:14:03.610 things, etc. It's such a more neutral process. That's one way of 199 00:14:03.730 --> 00:14:09.210 US tying our core values into our every day I appreciate you sharing that that 200 00:14:09.370 --> 00:14:13.000 example. You know, there's so many different touch points that we don't often 201 00:14:13.080 --> 00:14:16.960 think about and it's so it's you know, when you're reaching out to candidates. 202 00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:20.879 Are Our COOO mentioned to me the other day. He said, and 203 00:14:20.039 --> 00:14:24.080 James, you know it gets love people well is our number one value. 204 00:14:24.120 --> 00:14:26.549 And he's like, and James, I was thinking about how do we integrate 205 00:14:26.629 --> 00:14:31.350 love people well into how we issue a job offer, because that's a that's 206 00:14:31.350 --> 00:14:33.590 a really fun thing when you get a job offer. It's really that's just 207 00:14:33.629 --> 00:14:39.019 an in and of itself it's incredible, but right now it's just like it's 208 00:14:39.019 --> 00:14:43.220 a Google doc and that we're emailing someone. How can we, how can 209 00:14:43.299 --> 00:14:48.820 we embody that first value of really loving someone well in that experience? And 210 00:14:48.899 --> 00:14:50.740 so he was like, what if we did like a drone drop? I'll 211 00:14:50.779 --> 00:14:56.409 some like dropped a drone of something that had the offer on that went. 212 00:14:56.690 --> 00:14:58.049 You know, it is super outside the box. Is that even you know 213 00:14:58.129 --> 00:15:03.529 we we get shot down by by the government, probably, and so I 214 00:15:03.809 --> 00:15:09.200 love I just thinking re exist, like examining every element. So whether that's 215 00:15:09.240 --> 00:15:13.759 the interview process, on boarding and their brand new the quarterly rituals, this 216 00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:16.240 is something you mentioned doing. Do it? You guys do a values award 217 00:15:16.879 --> 00:15:22.190 on a quarterly basis. Work Anniversaries, birthdays, team goal achievements. There's 218 00:15:22.230 --> 00:15:26.070 so many different options for us to be looking at to say how can we 219 00:15:26.190 --> 00:15:31.509 embed our core values into these different things? You also there's another kind of 220 00:15:31.549 --> 00:15:37.580 another thing that's not necessarily a part of the employee lifs, like braided your 221 00:15:37.620 --> 00:15:43.019 physical space or you've made your your values a part of your physical space. 222 00:15:43.059 --> 00:15:46.059 Can you explain how you guys have done that? Sure you know we've grown 223 00:15:46.500 --> 00:15:52.169 significantly over the last several years. So we literally just moved into our latest 224 00:15:52.210 --> 00:15:56.529 headquarters and it's the fourth one we've had in eight years because we kept our 225 00:15:56.570 --> 00:16:00.649 growing space and as we contemplated this new space that we would have you know 226 00:16:00.730 --> 00:16:06.080 we're in Boston spaces at a premium. It's really hard and now we're in 227 00:16:06.120 --> 00:16:10.360 almost a hundred and Fifty Tho square feet for six hundred and fifty people. 228 00:16:10.799 --> 00:16:15.159 And to try to find that space and downtown Boston was a challenge and there 229 00:16:15.240 --> 00:16:18.269 were a couple of elements that we really thought about and we really challenged ourselves 230 00:16:18.309 --> 00:16:22.590 to weave our values into how we were approaching space, not just to find 231 00:16:22.669 --> 00:16:26.870 it the coolest space we could find because it would help us hire people, 232 00:16:26.870 --> 00:16:30.629 are taking people, but we looked at innovation and when we had moved to 233 00:16:30.669 --> 00:16:37.379 our last headquarters, we were in downtown Boston and the financial district, which 234 00:16:37.419 --> 00:16:40.259 used to be home to tons of banks. They all, you know, 235 00:16:40.860 --> 00:16:45.100 went belly up or consolidated and we became one of the first big tech companies 236 00:16:45.500 --> 00:16:48.370 in that section of Boston and it went really well for us. We, 237 00:16:48.730 --> 00:16:52.370 you know, we became a pillar of that side of town and you saw 238 00:16:52.450 --> 00:16:57.129 other companies pop up. When we found this space, which is on the 239 00:16:57.769 --> 00:17:03.519 site of the Old Boston Garden where there were so many Celtics Championships and and 240 00:17:03.679 --> 00:17:07.400 Bruins Championship, etc. They had actually knocked down this space and rebuilt the 241 00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:11.440 garden a few years ago, just a few feet day, but we thought 242 00:17:11.519 --> 00:17:17.549 what an amazing thing that this city is doing where they're building a building on 243 00:17:17.670 --> 00:17:21.869 top of this old garden site. So it's kind of a cool hollow ground, 244 00:17:21.950 --> 00:17:25.190 kind of great challenge for us to live up to. But they were 245 00:17:25.230 --> 00:17:30.299 also building around the city and and around us. So there's they've revitalized this 246 00:17:30.539 --> 00:17:36.380 area so much that it became really attractive to our people. So we wanted 247 00:17:36.380 --> 00:17:40.700 to come to this North Station where the Boston Garden is, and it is 248 00:17:40.819 --> 00:17:45.089 literally right outside our door. Is this central commuting hub for people from the 249 00:17:45.210 --> 00:17:49.250 north of Boston, south of Boston, everywhere in between, to now easily 250 00:17:49.289 --> 00:17:53.210 get to work in a very crowded, congested city. But it was also 251 00:17:53.329 --> 00:17:57.680 this opportunity to rethink how we work. And what we ended up doing was 252 00:17:57.799 --> 00:18:03.279 because we're now six hundred and fifty people in this one location, we brought 253 00:18:03.319 --> 00:18:07.319 together our Boston office, which was a lot of sales and exacts with our 254 00:18:07.400 --> 00:18:11.559 Cambridge office, which is literally just ten minutes down the road, but was 255 00:18:11.599 --> 00:18:15.950 a development office and we very rarely partnered those groups together and we thought here's 256 00:18:15.990 --> 00:18:21.750 the first chance we've ever had to partner everybody under one roof and to really 257 00:18:21.910 --> 00:18:26.430 collaborate the way our values suggest we should. And what we ended up doing 258 00:18:26.589 --> 00:18:32.180 as a very physical manifestation of that vision was to build this. We have 259 00:18:32.539 --> 00:18:37.980 four floors here and we literally cut a hole in the center of the floor 260 00:18:37.900 --> 00:18:42.329 and you see. You stand on the ground floor at our check in desk 261 00:18:42.730 --> 00:18:47.009 at then you look up and you can see all four floors and what's that 262 00:18:47.210 --> 00:18:52.450 meants to represent is connectivity and collaboration and you'll see people from all these different 263 00:18:52.490 --> 00:18:59.000 groups. Like we've created spaces on each floor that would make you want to 264 00:18:59.079 --> 00:19:02.160 go to that floor. So, for example, the ground floor. The 265 00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:06.200 fourth floor is where we have a Barista bar. That's not so we can 266 00:19:06.240 --> 00:19:08.079 be super cool and try to keep up with Google, which will never be 267 00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:14.430 able to do, but it's a place very centrally located. Everybody's going to 268 00:19:14.470 --> 00:19:19.710 drink coffee and we invested in a really amazing Barista who knows everybody's orders and 269 00:19:19.789 --> 00:19:23.859 it's like your own personal starbucks. But we're finding people from sales or standing 270 00:19:23.980 --> 00:19:29.779 next to people in products in line for coffee and they're having conversation together. 271 00:19:30.460 --> 00:19:33.740 Then we're finding they go up to their different floors and rather than just be 272 00:19:33.980 --> 00:19:37.650 stuck at a desk or in a closed conference room with a door. We 273 00:19:37.809 --> 00:19:41.210 have those. We have traditional places where you need to have those conversations, 274 00:19:41.609 --> 00:19:48.369 but we've also built work spaces that are much more progressive with how we now 275 00:19:48.490 --> 00:19:52.210 work together. So you might find an open conference space with no doors, 276 00:19:52.329 --> 00:19:53.920 is out in the middle of nowhere, but there's a white board and a 277 00:19:53.960 --> 00:19:59.200 couple of really comfortable chairs so that people can sit there and brainstorm together. 278 00:19:59.240 --> 00:20:03.079 And then you might find little closed off little British look and telephone booths so 279 00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:07.950 people can have personal conversations, you know with a doctor, without having to 280 00:20:07.029 --> 00:20:11.430 worry about anybody over hearing them. So we really challenge ourselves to understand how 281 00:20:11.470 --> 00:20:15.029 our people work, how they would use the space, and then we created 282 00:20:15.150 --> 00:20:21.029 space to accommodate I love it. That's fantastic, Christina. You have you've 283 00:20:21.069 --> 00:20:25.299 shared a lot of gems here. I know our listeners are going to get 284 00:20:25.299 --> 00:20:27.500 a ton of value out of this. If our listeners want to eat one, 285 00:20:27.500 --> 00:20:32.819 stay connected with rapid seven. If they're curious more about what the company's 286 00:20:32.900 --> 00:20:37.049 doing, where can they go to to do that? Sure so rapid seven 287 00:20:37.369 --> 00:20:41.930 probably it. We are hiring, so please contact us. But you know, 288 00:20:42.170 --> 00:20:48.049 www dot rapid seven, so our APID and then the number sevencom. 289 00:20:48.690 --> 00:20:51.960 And then, if you want to Ping me, probably the easiest way to 290 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:59.039 get me is email. See Lucni at Rapid Sevencom and I will do my 291 00:20:59.160 --> 00:21:02.359 best to get back. Awesome. Thank you so much, Christina. Again. 292 00:21:02.440 --> 00:21:04.589 This has been fantastic and I really appreciate your time today. We're thing. 293 00:21:04.750 --> 00:21:10.829 Thanks so much, James. Appreciate the time. We totally get it. 294 00:21:11.230 --> 00:21:14.630 We publish a ton of content on this podcast and it can be a 295 00:21:14.750 --> 00:21:18.819 lot to keep up with. That's why we've started the BOB growth big three, 296 00:21:18.259 --> 00:21:22.460 a no fluff email that boils down our three biggest takeaways from an entire 297 00:21:22.579 --> 00:21:29.099 week of episodes. Sign up today at Sweet Phish mediacoma big three. That 298 00:21:29.259 --> 00:21:32.420 sweet fish Mediacom Big Three