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Hi there, it's Tucker Ligursky, a staff

0:02

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0:04

we get into today's episode, we're sharing

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0:41

on to the show. There's

0:46

people who say, yes, we need to be in the office five days

0:48

a week, and there's people who say, no, that's

0:50

false. And

0:53

we've done research around this. What

0:56

surprised me most was the finding that

0:58

there was no correlation between

1:00

being in the office every day and

1:03

a sense of connection to coworkers. I

1:06

think of Atlassian as the canary in the coal mine.

1:09

And as a canary, we are singing our heart

1:11

out at the moment. This

1:14

has been very beneficial for

1:16

us. Hi,

1:20

everyone, it's Bob Safian, and that

1:23

was me talking with Scott Farquhar,

1:25

the co-CEO and co-founder of Atlassian,

1:27

a $60 billion dollar Australia-based software

1:30

company that sells collaboration tools for

1:32

260,000 businesses around the world. Atlassian

1:37

has embraced distributed work

1:40

at a scale that almost no

1:42

one else has through a program

1:44

called Team Anywhere. And

1:46

whether your group is in the office

1:48

every day or only once in a

1:50

while, their experience offers

1:52

a fascinating and useful glimpse into

1:55

one possible route for the future

1:57

of work. Plus, you.

2:00

just gotta love Scott's Aussie accent,

2:02

right? Now, the Wall

2:04

Street Journal released data last week

2:06

that remote workers are 31% less

2:10

likely to get promoted than those who

2:12

go into the office. And

2:14

the US Bureau of Labor Statistics says

2:17

that 90% of CEOs prefer in-office work,

2:21

says they're more likely to

2:23

give them promotions and raises.

2:26

But Atlassian's own data says

2:28

all those leaders are missing

2:30

out. In a report

2:32

released just today, Atlassian describes a

2:34

slew of advantages for distributed work

2:37

if you run the system the right way.

2:40

So here's me and Scott dishing

2:43

about what others are doing wrong

2:46

and his vision for a better,

2:48

more humane work life for everyone.

2:51

This is Rapid Response. Let's

2:53

get to it. We'll

3:04

start the show in a moment after a

3:06

word from our premier brand partner, Capital One

3:09

Business. Within

3:12

the first two days in

3:15

Ukraine, we were handing out

3:17

blankets and gloves and pet

3:19

food and wheelchairs and suitcases,

3:22

and we started conversations with airbnb.org.

3:25

That's Jocelyn Wyatt, CEO of Alight,

3:28

a global humanitarian nonprofit organization

3:30

formerly known as the American

3:32

Refugee Committee. When they

3:35

rebranded as Alight, they made a strategic shift

3:37

from calling the people they serve refugees

3:40

to customers. Why? Because

3:42

they had an instinct that in this

3:44

moment in human history, it could make

3:46

a difference to reorient their teams away

3:48

from the word refugee, which might carry

3:51

a negative connotation, to customer, which aligns

3:53

with a commitment to provide outstanding service.

3:57

Our Reference To the

3:59

People. People we serve as

4:01

customers. Really? Resonate and West Air

4:03

bnb.org They saw us as a

4:05

partner that had values that were

4:07

aligned to there's. We were

4:10

able to really immediately book

4:12

Sam into thirty days of

4:14

free temporary housing. When we

4:16

can use the Incredibles platform that

4:18

attack somebody like Air Bnb his

4:21

creed adds to serve refugees like

4:23

wow makes. A huge difference. But.

4:25

A rebrand mobile. We spoke to European

4:27

bees desire to serve customers and eight

4:29

and a crisis. it's yield growth by

4:31

empowering the people a light without to

4:33

serve. Will. Find out how waiter

4:35

and the show is all part of

4:38

the Refocus Playbook a special series were

4:40

Capital One Business Highlights stories of business

4:42

owners and leaders using one of read

4:44

series of Entrepreneurship Today's Playbook Insight. Ignite

4:47

the multiplier effect. On

4:54

Bob Sassy in and I'm here with

4:56

at last the and Co Ceo and

4:58

cofounder Scott Far Far Scott Thanks for

5:01

joining us. It's great to be

5:03

hit or. We're. Talking earlier

5:05

about your coming to us today

5:07

from your home outside of cities.

5:09

Do you like working away from

5:11

the office? Or since

5:13

we've chosen to do what we call

5:16

team anywhere which is to work from

5:18

anywhere, I've probably been in the office

5:20

about once a quarter. Oh

5:22

so mostly. Or were. Mostly

5:25

work from home for me, and that's mostly

5:27

at my house in Sydney and or the

5:29

summer. it's a place it on ninety minutes

5:31

north on the dates. Because.

5:33

There's this battles that's going on

5:36

in boardrooms in see sweets around

5:38

the world about the future of

5:40

work in office vs for the

5:42

pendulum swinging back and forth and

5:44

at last he and you've taken

5:47

a stance that you've referred to

5:49

as a one way door. Can

5:51

you explain what's the one way

5:53

door? We. made

5:56

a decision very early in the

5:58

pandemic that we were don't allow

6:00

our employees to work from anywhere, in

6:03

a distributed fashion, and we call

6:05

the team anywhere. Go wherever

6:07

you want to, and we

6:10

will not force you back into an office. And

6:13

for us now today, about 40%

6:16

of our last-in employees live more than

6:18

two hours from an office.

6:20

And so it really is a one-way door

6:22

decision for us. At

6:24

the time you announced this Team

6:26

Anywhere strategy, you said you were prepared to

6:28

lose 20% of the

6:30

company who might prefer a different environment.

6:33

I think many companies believe

6:36

that decisions can happen without

6:38

having some deleterious by-product.

6:42

We said, what's the maximum number we'd be

6:44

willing to lose and still do this? And

6:47

obviously, if you can always 80% of employees, you

6:49

would rethink. And so we collectively said,

6:51

I think about 5,000 employees at the

6:53

time, and we said, well, if

6:56

we lost 20% of our employees, would this still

6:58

be the right decision? And we thought,

7:00

yes. And we've lost way less than

7:02

that. So this is

7:04

like more a management choice that might

7:06

appeal to different talents as

7:08

opposed to a right or wrong,

7:10

or? We believed

7:13

that it's a more human way to

7:15

work. We also believe

7:17

that the best talent around the

7:19

world doesn't all exist within a

7:21

90-minute commute of an office. And

7:24

we have people all over the world working

7:26

for us. So we got a talent advantage

7:28

there. And lastly, we

7:31

believed that the way work

7:33

happens is gonna change a lot. And as

7:35

a company that provides teamwork software,

7:38

we needed to be at the forefront of that. And

7:41

I think all three of those areas has proven

7:43

true. It has been a more human way to

7:45

work, and we've had huge business benefits of talent,

7:48

and we're also changing the way that we build

7:50

our products. You just

7:53

released a big report, a 45-page report

7:56

about your experiences and the lessons

7:59

learned. What's the most

8:01

important takeaway that you hope

8:03

to teach other businesses through

8:05

this data? I think

8:08

of it last year as the Canary in the coal

8:10

mine and as a Canary we are singing our heart

8:12

out at the moment. This has been

8:14

very beneficial for us

8:16

and we believe it

8:18

shouldn't be controversial being

8:21

distributed shouldn't be controversial. We

8:23

want to evangelize that. There's

8:25

a couple of lessons. Let's take through

8:27

the belief that humans

8:30

need to get together to build

8:32

social bonds. There's people who

8:34

say, yes, that's true. We need to be in the office five

8:36

days a week. There's people who say,

8:38

no, that's false. We can be a remote

8:40

company. We believe that you do need

8:42

to get together to build social bonds. Our

8:45

belief though is that you don't need to get together

8:47

every single day to sit next to each other on

8:49

a Zoom call in an office and

8:51

commute back and forth to get that benefit.

8:54

We believe that you can get together for what

8:56

we call intentional togetherness deliberately

8:58

to build social bonds, to break

9:01

bread, to build that human connection

9:03

that we think is so crucial to teamwork. But

9:06

it doesn't need to happen in groups and drabs every

9:08

single day. Let's do it deliberately. And

9:10

we've done research around this. What

9:13

surprised me most was the finding

9:15

that there was no correlation between

9:17

being in the office every day

9:19

and a sense of connection to

9:21

co-workers. There are two questions

9:23

that we thought were really important. One

9:26

was how connected are you to your

9:28

peers and how connected are you to

9:30

Atlassian as a company? And

9:32

we serve our employees every single month

9:34

asking those questions. And what

9:36

we did is we correlated those answers

9:39

with how frequently people come to an office

9:41

and how frequently they do what we call

9:43

intentional togetherness gathering. And we

9:45

found that people just turning up to the

9:47

office every day was not correlated. However,

9:50

when people did get together deliberately,

9:52

we saw a huge spike of

9:54

connectedness to each other and to

9:57

the company. The Surprising part

9:59

was the decline. Hey function I thought a

10:01

week or two wider we be back to

10:03

buy songs, but it turned out to the

10:05

da decide between three and five months he

10:07

took. To. Get back to the

10:10

baseline and so if you take

10:12

that and Euro authorities say widely

10:14

maybe wouldn't get together once a

10:16

quarter and still maintain and about

10:18

baseline connectedness and so doesn't require

10:20

and in office every single day.

10:22

what requires is four to six

10:24

times a year deliberately getting people

10:26

together. Intentional. Meetings

10:29

are better than just.

10:31

randomly being in the office more often. There's

10:34

a lot of benefit to randomly

10:36

dumping into Paypal is that's the

10:39

only option you as it's better

10:41

than nothing. What we found though,

10:43

is that can you deliberately build

10:45

social bonds in a short time

10:48

period and give people back the

10:50

time that they spend commuting for

10:52

example, will get that numbers from

10:54

us the average? Alas, he has

10:56

saved about ten days a year

10:59

in commuting, and that's about two

11:01

and half million hours or one

11:03

hundred thousand days. And

11:05

in places like India where than

11:07

a typical longer commute time. We.

11:10

Saved some lessons thirty two days

11:12

year. Randomly Gabi into Paypal is

11:15

good. What we think is better

11:17

is deliberately connecting with people and

11:19

with it. I organized our offices

11:21

in that way and it will

11:24

surprise that was in still has

11:26

offices. Why we settle down. And

11:28

what we found is actually the three

11:31

cohorts. The people who come into the

11:33

office. One is the people who want

11:35

an office environment. They come in every

11:37

single day. Those people want a closed

11:39

or office because they're on zoom calls

11:41

in they don't wanna sit next other

11:43

people on the ankles, they wanna get

11:45

work done. The second group of people

11:47

I call the water cooler people and

11:49

those are the people who say what

11:51

solely on human connection every couple weeks

11:53

or not with my team I just

11:55

want to get to go on a

11:57

Me people on the charts. and also when

11:59

i turn up to the office, it's not about getting work done.

12:02

Those people want to sit next to the water

12:04

cooler. They want to sit in the cafeteria. They

12:06

want to bump into as many random people as

12:08

possible, but they do all their random bumping into

12:10

people on a single day every

12:12

couple of weeks. And for those people, they

12:15

want open space, open plan, high density. The

12:18

third group of people is where we do this

12:20

intentional togetherness gatherings, where we might get 10 people

12:23

together or 50 people together to

12:25

break bread and build bonds. And

12:28

for that, couches and bean bags

12:30

and bright airy spaces that you

12:32

can configure in a multitude of

12:34

different ways. And so

12:36

we have rebuilt our Austin office

12:38

from scratch with that in

12:41

mind. And we're actually building

12:43

one of the world's largest wooden buildings

12:45

in Sydney, a 40 story

12:47

office tower. And our

12:49

designs have evolved in the lessons

12:52

learned report that you're talking about. The

12:54

report talks about commuting time saved each

12:56

day and that people

12:58

spend some of that time working,

13:01

but not everybody thinks remote

13:03

boosts productivity. There's a lot

13:05

of suspicion that whatever people's

13:08

reported hours are, that

13:10

less is being done. How do

13:12

you protect against that? Some

13:14

people who are forcing a back to office

13:16

mandate, in many cases, that's

13:18

like telling people they need to use a

13:21

blue pen instead of a black pen. Does

13:24

it matter which pen you use if the output's the same?

13:27

Does it matter where you are doing the work

13:29

if the output's the same? And

13:31

what people are finding is that

13:33

many of their measures of productivity

13:35

are often based on

13:38

presenteeism or hours in the office

13:40

or things that aren't actually the

13:42

output of the work that is

13:44

getting done. And that's

13:46

something we've had to go through as well,

13:48

how we think about work productivity, and

13:50

we build a lot of that into the products that

13:52

we use. We've got a product called Atlas that does

13:55

goals and OKR setting, and we

13:57

use that to check out things on track.

14:00

individuals contributing to those overall

14:02

goals, instead of tracking how

14:04

many hours someone comes into the office or

14:06

what color pen they're using. If

14:09

you have two employees who have

14:11

similar jobs and they're producing

14:14

similar work, but one

14:17

of them's only working 20 hours and the

14:19

other one's working 40 hours, but you're paying

14:21

them the same amount. You don't care as

14:23

long as they're delivering those results over the

14:25

time period. We don't

14:28

track people's hours, looking

14:30

at the studies of when people use

14:32

our products and how often they're on their

14:34

computers, not from tracking computers, but tracking the

14:37

actions that happen in software. We've

14:40

actually found that people's days have expanded.

14:42

My rough rule of thumb is if

14:44

you had an hour long community each

14:46

way, we probably get half of

14:48

that back in terms of work, that people

14:50

work slightly longer days and they get half hour back. What

14:53

we found is the day does extend, but

14:56

the intensity has changed. People

14:58

are now working the hours that really

15:00

suit them. And if they want

15:02

to get up early and work then and

15:04

then go for a run in the middle

15:06

of the day, if they want to see

15:08

their kids recital at 10 AM in the

15:10

morning and work through after the children go

15:12

to bed, we're seeing that more. And

15:14

so what we found is that people's

15:17

hours have shifted around. In

15:19

some cases, they've extended, in other cases, they

15:21

haven't. But it really is proof that it

15:23

is a much more human way of working. And

15:26

so you don't really care. As long as the job is being

15:28

done, you do it the way you need to do it in

15:30

your time. And you're finding

15:32

that people aren't taking advantage of you

15:34

by doing less, working less time. We

15:37

care about the outputs and

15:40

presence in an office is not

15:42

any proxy for productivity. Everyone

15:44

knows that, particularly early in career where they

15:46

think if I stick around longer than the

15:48

boss, that's the way to get a promotion.

15:51

Those days should be dead

15:53

right now. No one should

15:55

be thinking about how many hours they put in. It

15:58

should be about the outputs they're doing. And

16:00

that's one the reasons that we

16:03

choices accompanied her head down this

16:05

path was.we wanted to understand the

16:07

evolution that map customers would have

16:09

to go through and we built

16:11

that indo upon us and recently

16:13

were caught A company called Loom

16:15

which is a video products asynchronous

16:18

video so instead of sending an

16:20

email or a psych message he

16:22

recorded and send it to someone

16:24

is a wine or productive way

16:26

to communicate information because he can

16:28

share it with multiple. People people

16:30

can comment on get back and forth

16:32

reply. It's bit of an email because

16:34

as got a human touch it can

16:37

be done. Saw star and so as

16:39

a result of living this way of

16:41

working we've ended up quiring companies and

16:43

we want those products and fun as

16:45

more companies. I think

16:47

the variation in that. Different.

16:50

Kinds of work environments between companies is

16:52

gonna get broader and broader because folks

16:54

like you are going to keep moving

16:56

further and some other folks who just

16:58

gonna hold on and it's just gonna

17:01

make this choice for employees about what

17:03

kind of place de wanna work at.

17:06

There. Is the people that have chosen to get

17:08

back to the office. Three. Four five

17:10

days a week but everyone's in the office

17:12

to sign dies you can't leave remotely. It's

17:14

basically the why we used to work with

17:16

a few extra days of flexibility around it.

17:19

I think that is actually many people going

17:21

to choose that way of working as a

17:23

seems very similar to previous. You've got people

17:25

like us where I feel like it's a

17:27

new way of working there I think is

17:30

bet on appeals to now my to people

17:32

the one of the middle where it's some

17:34

people can work remotely. Some. People

17:36

Time. Some. People come to the

17:38

office. you careers better you can the office

17:40

but you can work remotely if you want

17:43

to. Those who were close not as must

17:45

come in but those who don't don't have

17:47

to come in. I'm totally confused as to

17:49

what their optimizing for. I'm yet to work

17:51

out of those principles by says it can

17:53

justify that in any way and so I

17:55

can understand people snap back to what we

17:58

don't posses emphasis to his people can. Then

18:00

get a head around that the hybrid middle

18:02

thing doesn't make any sense to me and

18:04

I expect that to disappear over the coming

18:07

years where people realize how bad that kind

18:09

of putting both camps is. Scott.

18:11

Clearly has a bit of frustration with

18:14

leaders who don't have a clear idea

18:16

about how they want their people to

18:18

work. He's up for experimentation,

18:20

but not random experimentation. You need to

18:22

have a theory about the future of

18:25

work and then tested and refine it

18:27

based on the results. After the break,

18:29

I'm going to poke at some of

18:31

Scots assumptions in the spirit of one

18:34

of at last he and Core values

18:36

what they call no bullshit. Will.

18:38

Be right back. Will. Be

18:40

back in a moment afterward for my

18:43

premier brand partner, Capital One Business. Hundreds.

18:47

Of thousands of people were see me across

18:50

the border. We're. Back with Jocelyn

18:52

Wyatt of A Light, she's been telling

18:54

us how their pivot to thinking about

18:56

the refugees they serve as customers lead

18:58

to a partnership with Air Bnb. Temporary

19:00

housing was just the first step. There's.

19:03

This period of disorientation. Where

19:05

they sort of sale. I know that

19:07

there are services out there, but I

19:09

have no idea how to navigate towards

19:12

them and we actually fired Ukrainians to

19:14

themselves had just been displaced. And.

19:16

We trained them to serve. In the

19:19

Is guide Rawls. That's. right?

19:21

They. Hired their customers, They

19:24

are able to make referrals

19:26

for health care or for

19:28

people's pets or for schools

19:30

or for childcare was more

19:32

than just booking. In temporary housing

19:35

Sli needs a really designed solely

19:37

sands that me a whole set

19:39

of. Their needs. A empowering

19:41

their customers light, hope to ignite

19:43

the multiplier effect cultivating leaders and

19:46

sauce strengthening organizational capacity which would

19:48

help them Scaled says Lauren Trust

19:50

Go of Capital One business. it's

19:53

common for companies to tap their networks

19:56

for grouse set alight when a step

19:58

further by expanding their networks not only

20:00

their business partners, but the people

20:02

they serve, or customers as well.

20:05

But a light's pivot would go beyond hiring

20:08

their customers. What would happen if

20:10

a light and the people they serve could co-create

20:12

their future? We'll find out later in the

20:14

show. It's all part of

20:16

Capital One Business' Spotlight on Entrepreneurs, following

20:18

Reid's Refocus Playbook, at all levels of

20:20

scale. Before

20:27

the break, we heard Atlassian co-CEO,

20:29

Scott Farquhar, make the case for

20:31

distributed work, what his company calls

20:33

team anywhere. Now, I

20:35

poke at him a bit about his assumptions,

20:38

and he gives as good as he gets. Let's

20:41

jump back in. I

20:43

talked to another CEO who's

20:45

supportive of remote work, but

20:47

he's also candid to his

20:49

team that their career prospects

20:52

might not flourish the same

20:54

way compared to those who

20:56

come in the office. There's a risk there

20:58

for you if you choose to be

21:01

remote all the time, but that's your choice

21:03

to make. Is that what you

21:05

tell your people? Some companies

21:07

operate a two-tier system where

21:10

they say you can work remotely, but

21:12

that is a second-class career path, and

21:15

we're reluctantly doing that. That's

21:18

remote or distributed in name only, and you're

21:21

not going to get the best people. You

21:23

can work from Boise, Idaho,

21:25

but you have limited career prospects.

21:28

We've had to build all of our programs

21:30

such that they are distributed first

21:33

and not something that is

21:35

a second-class citizen. One

21:37

of Atlassian's core values is no bullshit,

21:40

so I want to get right into this.

21:42

You really believe that virtual-only

21:44

presence will be rewarded in

21:46

the same way as

21:49

someone that you see in person

21:51

all the time. If you think back to your

21:53

own career, wasn't there times

21:55

that being with someone physically

21:57

really mattered, or do you

21:59

think that's just- That's just the old way of thinking about

22:01

it. That's just old thinking. We

22:03

believe that human bonds are built

22:06

in person. And I'm sure

22:09

you have friendships that you've

22:11

built over the years where you

22:13

don't see them every single day. You

22:15

get together a couple of times a

22:17

year and you have intense experiences and

22:19

you share things and you have some

22:22

laughs, have some tears. These

22:24

can be deep friendships. There's no

22:26

difference in a work environment. We

22:29

believe you can build those bonds with

22:31

your colleagues and it doesn't

22:33

need to be done every single day sitting

22:35

at a desk. We

22:38

don't believe that people who never see each other

22:40

are going to build strong relationships. We just don't

22:43

think that for most people getting in a car

22:45

or some form of public transport

22:47

for an hour every single day to randomly

22:50

bump into someone at a water cooler,

22:52

hopefully if the stars align, is

22:54

the way that we should be planning our lives. We

22:56

should give that time back to people so that they

22:59

can have productive lives outside of

23:01

work. To be clear, the

23:03

CEO that I'm referring to, he doesn't have

23:06

a two-tier system. He's just

23:09

wanting to be candid with

23:11

his employees that in his

23:13

experience, having personal encounters more

23:16

often does help people

23:18

trust you more and give you more

23:20

responsibility. Being present that way

23:23

is a benefit. But it

23:25

sounds like you guys aren't operating that way. I

23:28

would say that we're still working this out. That's

23:30

why I talked about being a canary in the

23:32

coal mine, that we really are the largest company

23:34

in the world that is doing this. As far

23:37

as I know, the only company that has a

23:39

dedicated research team who are analyzing

23:42

this and publishing research for others

23:45

and had huge benefits. Our candidate offer acceptance

23:47

rate has gone up 20%. We've

23:49

managed to tap into talent pools that were 40% of our

23:52

people with more than two hours from an offer. So,

23:54

a whole bunch of benefits. Things

23:56

we're still working on, I would

23:58

say early career. people, they

24:01

actually come into the office more

24:03

frequently than later in career people.

24:06

And we're trying to work out, well, is there anything

24:08

different we need to do for that specific cohort? We

24:11

do have to make sure that that intentional togetherness

24:14

budget that we've set aside for people

24:16

to get together, it doesn't get used

24:18

and spent for other things. And we're

24:20

building reports around that to make sure

24:22

that as a leader, you can

24:24

see that your organization is connecting at a

24:26

frequency that we think is the right

24:29

amount. We've had needed to

24:31

build those employee surveys to make

24:33

sure that we touch on

24:35

how our employees are feeling as opposed to walk

24:38

the floor and hope you get a feel for whether

24:40

people are smiling or not. And so

24:42

there's things like that that we are still learning on.

24:45

There is no playbook for this. That's why we're sharing what we've

24:47

learned so far. And we've learned from

24:49

other companies who are also pioneering. But overwhelmingly,

24:51

it's been a positive experience and we wouldn't

24:53

be the company we are without

24:55

that. In the spirit of

24:58

no bullshit, I have to ask you. So

25:00

enterprise software, the field that you're in, it

25:03

can seem boring. Like

25:06

when I proposed Atlassian as a subject

25:08

for this show, my producers rolled their

25:10

eyes like it's not Apple, it's not

25:12

Tesla, it's not sexy. Do

25:15

you try to make it sexy? Do you think

25:17

it's sexy? Do you find it sexy? There's

25:20

two things that get me out of bed every morning. One

25:23

is our employee experience. The second is

25:25

how we make our customers

25:27

more successful. And that sounds generic, but

25:30

when you actually talk about on a

25:32

person by person basis, where

25:34

our product has helped them, it

25:37

can be really meaningful. Someone

25:39

who I was chatting with, he

25:41

joined a startup that was failing, couldn't

25:43

get product out the door. And

25:46

this person brought in the Atlassian product

25:48

suite. And this startup went from

25:50

being on debt's door to being

25:52

acquired for a couple hundred million dollars. Our

25:55

mission is to unleash the potential of every

25:57

team. We help teams at

25:59

all times. those companies you talked about,

26:01

Apple, Netflix, Tesla,

26:04

these are companies that we help. And

26:06

if we can make each of these companies 20%

26:09

more efficient, productive people enjoying their jobs, if we

26:11

can get rid of busy work of

26:13

people's lives and get them back to the work that

26:15

they really enjoy. That's a really

26:18

noble cause. I think about

26:20

Archimedes lever, which is give me a little long

26:22

enough and a fulcrum which to push it and

26:24

I'll move the world. And I

26:26

think there's not much more that I

26:28

could be doing with my life than making 260,000 companies,

26:32

tens of millions of people every single day,

26:35

more productive and enjoy their

26:37

jobs more. Are there things about

26:39

team anywhere that we haven't talked about? I'd

26:41

like to talk about some of the human aspects

26:43

of team anywhere. One

26:46

of those human stories is a woman who

26:48

worked for us out of our Sydney office.

26:51

And she came from New Zealand. And

26:54

her grandmother was struck and terminally

26:57

ill. And in a normal

26:59

have to be in the office every single day

27:01

environment, she might have seen her grandmother a handful

27:03

of times. As a result

27:05

of her being able to work from anywhere

27:08

she moved back to New Zealand,

27:10

got to see her grandmother every single day.

27:13

Another one, two employees married to each

27:15

other both work for Atlassian, went

27:18

on a road trip around America. These

27:20

people had never been to Boise, Idaho.

27:22

And they fell in love with it

27:24

so much that they bought a house,

27:26

moved their entire life and family. We

27:29

have someone who works for us, Jan

27:31

in a van, who lived

27:33

and worked in a van traveling around

27:36

the country. She didn't join Atlassian

27:38

because of that. But this is an opportunity

27:40

she got to take because we have that

27:42

policy. What are people most misunderstand

27:45

about your business about

27:47

Atlassian? People often

27:49

think of Atlassian as the Jira

27:52

company or the Confluence company, that

27:54

we really solve technical problems that

27:56

were a developer tools company. And

27:59

that might have been true for the first year of a licensed existence.

28:01

That was kind of how we saw each other. But

28:04

what has really changed and people

28:06

don't realize is that we

28:08

help solve people problems. We

28:11

help solve how people collaborate with each

28:13

other, how information gets out of one

28:15

head into another, how

28:18

work gets prioritized and scheduled

28:20

through an organization that can

28:22

often be Byzantine and backwards

28:25

where companies who've licensed is the most

28:28

mission-critical software that they use

28:30

because it's how work gets

28:32

done across the entire organization. And

28:35

I think that's misunderstood about our skin. I'm

28:38

reflecting on this whole conversation. And you

28:40

know, in the last year, there's been

28:42

like this resurgence of in

28:44

office and mandates. Did that

28:46

surprise you? This sort of return to

28:48

the old days? It

28:50

doesn't surprise me that some people went back

28:53

to the way that they don't think before.

28:55

Now, it's happened with every

28:57

transition. You see people trying to hand

28:59

the new way into the old way.

29:02

And in this discussion of the future of

29:04

work, if you take 2020 as

29:07

the starting point, how far

29:09

along that curve have we

29:11

come? And how much

29:14

more is there to come?

29:16

How much more change will there be? The

29:19

combination of choosing how and

29:21

where you work and artificial intelligence

29:23

and the rise of that over the last year

29:26

is a potent change to how work

29:28

is going to get done. I do

29:30

think that we are only a small percentage through

29:32

that. The direction of this clear, we're

29:35

only going to get more distributed. We

29:37

don't need to turn up to offices to make people

29:39

feel good about paying rent. How big

29:41

and how fast we move is less clear. And

29:44

there's a lot of human and social factors associated

29:46

with that. But I think there's a long way

29:48

to go in terms of making people more productive.

29:50

And that's why I got up every single day

29:52

to think about how Vassian can help our customers

29:55

and beyond to change the way they work

29:57

and make work more human. This

30:00

has been great. Thank you so much for

30:02

making the time. I appreciate it,

30:04

Bob. I really appreciate the time. I'm

30:06

not sure I personally like everything

30:08

about team anywhere. In my experience,

30:11

having a group together more frequently

30:13

than once a quarter can

30:15

speed up execution and urgency.

30:18

But I guess that doesn't always make

30:20

for the most empathetic environment when it

30:22

comes to balancing other parts of your

30:24

life. And hey, I'm not everyone. Clearly,

30:27

Atlassian is connecting with a generation of

30:29

talent that's keen to have more flexibility.

30:32

So will the future of work

30:34

be more like Atlassian or

30:36

more like the office-heavy financial industry,

30:38

which was early in the back-to-office

30:41

mandate game? Scott's probably

30:43

right that the overall trend is moving

30:45

in his direction, but it's

30:47

still up to each organization, to each

30:49

of us, to create a

30:51

work environment that we want. That

30:54

will attract people who are excited about our

30:56

model, and it'll put off others.

30:59

It's just another way our world is

31:01

getting more chaotic. Until

31:04

next time, I'm Bob Safian. Thanks

31:06

for listening. And now,

31:08

a final word from our premier

31:10

brand partner, Capital One Business. We

31:15

asked displaced people, what is it that you want

31:17

or need? The first thing that they tell us

31:19

is that they really want to be working. We're

31:22

back one more time with Jocelyn Wyatt of Alight.

31:25

She was telling us how they hired refugees,

31:27

now known as customers, to guide others through

31:29

the maze of services available to them. But

31:31

could Alight take that one step further and

31:34

help their customers co-create their future? Co-creation

31:37

has really been at the heart of what

31:39

we've been doing at Alight for about the

31:42

last 12 years, and

31:44

that has been really meaningful in terms of

31:46

people feeling like they can rebuild a life

31:48

in a much more permanent way than

31:51

we're scaling by bringing in additional

31:54

funding to help people start

31:56

new businesses or get jobs or find ways

31:58

to make money and support their family. families.

32:01

By taking a distributed leadership, bottom-up approach,

32:03

Alight is creating a new model

32:05

for refugee response, says Lauren Tresco

32:07

of Capital One Business. Alight

32:10

is changing the process of humanitarian

32:13

aid by engaging the people they

32:15

serve through co-creation. This,

32:17

in turn, empowers them to have an

32:19

active role in designing their future. Today,

32:22

Alight's refocus is making an impact

32:25

beyond borders, and their work has

32:27

never been more timely, as war, famine,

32:29

and climate change displace more people around the

32:31

world. Capital One Business

32:33

is proud to support entrepreneurs and leaders working

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to scale their impact, from Fortune

32:38

500s to first-time business owners. For

32:40

more resources to help drive

32:42

your business forward, visit capitalone.com/Business

32:44

Hub. Again, that's

32:47

capitalone.com/Business Hub. As

32:49

with every ad on Masters of Scale, the entrepreneurs

32:51

you just heard from were real and unscripted. Because

32:54

Capital One is a financial institution, it's important

32:57

to them to be transparent about their relationship

32:59

with the entrepreneurs we interview. Some

33:01

of these entrepreneurs are Capital One customers, and

33:03

some aren't. Capital One did compensate

33:05

all of them for participating in this campaign.

33:11

Masters of Scale rapid response is

33:13

a wait-what original. I'm Bob

33:15

Safian, your host and Masters of

33:17

Scale's editor-at-large. Our executive

33:20

producer is Chris McLeod. Our

33:22

producers are Chris Gautier, Adam

33:25

Skusz, Alex Morris, Tucker Legursky,

33:27

and Masha Makotonina. Our

33:30

music director is Ryan Holiday. Original

33:33

music and sound design by

33:35

Eduardo Rivera, Ryan Holiday, Hayes

33:37

Holiday, and Nate Kinsella. Audio

33:40

editing by Keith J. Nelson,

33:42

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33:45

Nault, Liam Jenkins, and Timothy

33:47

Lu Lee. Mixing and

33:50

mastering by Aaron Bastinelli and Brian

33:52

Pugh. Our CEO and

33:54

Chairman of the Board is Jeff Furman. Wait-what

33:57

was co-founded by June Cohen

33:59

and Darren Trim Special thanks

34:02

to Jody Indoor Say Alfonzo

34:04

Bravo him Cronin Eric The

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Plan Sarah Tartar Td Blazing

34:08

Mariel character to know me

34:11

as a cleaner fallen our

34:13

plans in sign Sammy of

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Cooter Chelsea stays on Luis

34:18

of allows Ricky Williams and

34:20

Just Winslow does it messages

34:22

skill.com The Find: The transcript

34:24

for this episode as ascribed

34:27

to our email news is.

34:37

Said. To be T. I produce

34:39

a podcast called Masters A Scale

34:41

and I'm looking for a way

34:43

to get listeners to leave us

34:45

a five star review. on Apple

34:48

Podcasts you have any suggestions, Absolutely

34:51

one effective way is to

34:53

engage with your listeners directly

34:55

during your episodes. Remind

34:57

them how much a five star review

34:59

can support yourself. What about

35:01

to try to convince listeners to

35:03

say air one of their favorite

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episodes with somebody and their allies?

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The have any suggestions for that?

35:10

Certainly. People. Love

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to share content that has made an

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impact on them. So remind your listeners

35:17

how sharing an episode can start meaningful

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conversations with friends or help others discover

35:22

insights they've benefited from. Would.

35:24

It be okay if I use maybe

35:26

our conversation as a segment on so.

35:29

That. Sounds like a creative. Approach. using.

35:31

American versus and ah, about engaging

35:34

your audience as a segment could

35:36

be quite engaging. This.

35:38

Is executive producer Chris Mcleod. And

35:41

I urge you to take sad see

35:43

beauties advice and we viscera view on

35:46

Apple podcasts and share an episode with

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a friend. If. Really? Really

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helps.