Developing, iterating, and scaling cultural values – (Michael Mizrahi & Maziar Brumand)

In life, you can focus on what you can control and ignore what you can’t control. The same principle is true at work: there’s only so much that is under your direct control. The factors that you can always control are your effort, attitude, and actions. Much of this comes back to cultural values, as culture often helps to dictate the way people are treated and the way that everybody thinks and acts together as a unit. In this episode, Levels Head of Operations, Michael Mizrahi, and Head of Business, Maz Brumand, (known as Miz and Maz) sat down to discuss the concept of cultural values and how it applies to our own culture here at Levels.

03:46 – Cement your culture at a pivotal moment

Miz said that a company’s culture will necessarily evolve as it grows, but there is a unique turning point where it can be beneficial to start cementing cultural values.

If you rewind to the beginning to when it’s just a handful of co-founders and the team is four to five people. They all know each other relatively well and they establish a working style of communication and interaction that works for them because they know one another deeply. But as the team grows, you add more and more people to this. And there comes a point where everyone does not know each other well, but you want that underlying culture to maintain and keep some of the habits and structure that existed amongst that smaller team. And so necessarily it will change as the team grows. But I think this is a pivotal moment for cementing a lot of those fundamental cultural values so that, as we grow, we have those set of assumptions that work with a much larger team. And I think that’s really the core of it.

04:31 – Do you hire or develop culture?

Maz said that culture is both something you hire for and something you create internally.

Always the question is, do you hire a culture or do you develop a culture? And I think the answer is a little bit of both. I mean, if you assume culture is a set of values…how will people behave without even knowing them? Which is really driven from values. Then I think you need to hire for those values. Because values, as we know, don’t change very quickly. There is this basis, this foundation that people have that then they build on top, obviously, and grow.

07:08 – When hiring, consider three categories

Maz said that once you attract talent, you need to continue to develop them in three separate areas: values, non-job-specific skills, and job-specific skills.

I’ve always thought about it in three categories. And I think we share some of the similar frameworks, which is, there’s obviously the values, which I view as things that have been built in a person over a long period. They’re hard to change. They’re not impossible to change, but they’re hard to change. It’s pretty much teaching tall. If you get somebody when they’re very little and put them on the right plan, potentially you can teach tall. But once they’re 17 year olds, you can’t teach tall. And I see value somewhat analogous to that, which is things that you want to hire for. And then the second category is a category of skills that are general. They’re not job-specific. And again, it takes many, many years to really master them. But they’re pretty much core capabilities. Things like is the person self-directed? Is the person and good at time management? And then the third category that I think about is job-specific. So you want somebody to be a fantastic programmer or a really good designer, so they would have to have certain skills relevant for that role. And obviously people change roles over time, so they can learn new skills, they can go deep, they can go wide. It’s really depending on what the person is interested and what the business needs. But really those are teachable and people develop them over their career.

11:39 – The value of trust

Maz said if he had to pick one foundational value as trumping others, it would be trust.

I think the number one value for me is trust. I think everything stems from that. Do I trust the people that I’m going to work with? And that’s, by far, the most important foundational value. And to judge trust, especially when you don’t know people, you have to go in with an open eye and be curious about how to understand whether the person’s trustworthy or not. And it’s a series of, I think, interactions. I think obviously because Levels was a synchronous written culture, there’s a lot of documentation that you can read about how the company is and works. I think the second value was idea of being transparent. I think ties back with trust, Levels is radically transparent and it’s building in the open. It’s very different than anything I’ve ever seen. Not only it keeps things on the right path for the long term, because there are checks and balances and transparency, but also it contributes and gives back.

21:15 – The concept of short toes Maz said that at Levels, there’s a cultural concept of having “short toes.” In other words, employees don’t need to worry about interfering in someone’s sphere of influence and stepping on their toes. They should feel free to make an impact wherever they can.

The other concept I really love was the idea of short toes, which actually goes hand in hand with this idea of ownership because a lot of times I think, not that people don’t want to own stuff, but there are a bunch of other forces at play within a company that prevents it, that blocks it. And one of these ideas is territory, right? “Well I could fix it, but then would so and so be pissed off because it was their thing?” Whereas in reality, I would love it if somebody fixed an error of mind that I didn’t have to spend a minute on. Right? But the thing that gets in the way is ego or territory, which I think the concept of short toes that we practice at Levels, which is, please, oh, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to be off that you’ve fixed something or added value to something that “was mine.” I find that to be super refreshing.

31:54 – Grading employees on culture

Maz outlined the challenge of determining what values and skills to focus on, and how to teach and measure them.

I think the challenge number one is figuring out what are our values, core capabilities and functional skills that a company wants to foster? I think understanding that and being super clear about that, at least in our heads, I think is important. So some form of memorizing that is important. But oftentimes I think what really helps is having cultural aspects or stories that propagate these things. Because we’re really bad at remembering facts, but really good at remembering stories as people. And so really having a set of stories that will propagate these cultural values and also core capabilities and functional skills. And you can have stories and examples in all three categories. I think the easiest, most memorable ones are obviously in the value category, but you can have stories in all three. So I think being super clear what they are, having ways for people to remember and understand it at a level is the second category. I think the third category is having a mechanism where people can judge themselves and people around people can also rate and provide feedback. So having mechanism where you say, “Okay, these are our nine three vales.” Just going to pick numbers, “three values, three core capabilities and three functional skills.” So nine in total. And where do you think you are on these things? Getting the feedback from the employee. And then having people that matter and are in a position to also judge the employee.

35:42 – Use stories to cement values

Miz said that when values are shared in the form of stories, they stick with you for the long term.

Stories reinforce either the capabilities or the values really well. I noticed early on that there was very much a short story culture where we would talk about certain values and reinforce a certain person who has done it. And in the moment, it can feel somewhat trivial, right? Maybe that wasn’t the best example of this value played out. But here I am six months later remembering what some of those stories were and remembering who told both stories. And so I can think back to different forums or different meetings or things that we’ve repeated over and over again of just, “Here’s how this one person did this thing this one time.” And that been just a discussion of the value, I very likely would not have remembered it, I would not be able to recall it today. So the depth and quality of the story doesn’t matter as much as just telling them often and reinforcing them often.

51:18 – Mentally buying into group memberships

Maz said that group membership helps shape our identity. Once we buy into the fact that we are part of a group, adopting the values of that group becomes more natural.

I think the other one is self-esteem, right, and esteemed people. And this idea that our identity is formed by our group memberships. And when we do create those group of memberships or create that identity through those group memberships, automatically, we will ascribe the characteristics of that group to ourself from a psychological perspective. And so the reason that’s important in this idea of development is, when I accept that I am part of the Level’s group, I will start ascribing the values and the characteristics, and even the successes of the group to myself. And so making sure those are in a way that perpetuates me to close that loop is another way where we can create the intrinsic motivation for people to want to improve and get better at their job and help their fellow Levels employees.

Ben Grynol (00:06):

When we think about communication, thinking about at the first principles level, which is, okay, entropy will lead us in this direction. For example, in meeting culture. Why does entropy lead us to meeting culture? It’s because of these things. Okay, how do we then think about those things? Why do we tend to practice those things? How can we put in processes to avoid those things that cause entropy, that layer of thinking, going deeper, deeper, deeper, down to the scientific basis of it, I found to be really fascinating, both on just how we run our company and also how we think about metabolic health.

Ben Grynol (00:52):

I’m Ben Grynol, part of the early startup team here at Levels. We’re building tech that helps people to understand their metabolic health. And this is your front row seat to everything we do. This is a whole new level

Ben Grynol (01:17):

In life, you can focus on what you can control and ignore what you can’t control. Well, the same goes in work. There’s only so much that is under your control. And maybe that’s what a person should focus on. Gets down to this idea of effort, attitude, and actions. Those are things that people can control.

Ben Grynol (01:40):

And so Maz Brumand, Head of Business, and Miz, Michael Mizrahi, at operations, side note, it’s probably the first Miz and Maz episode that’s probably ever happened in the podcast world. Well, the two of them sat down and they talked about a lot of these ideas of cultural values. How can we embed some of these things, some of these ideas of effort, attitude, and actions into our own culture, to encourage people to act in the way that they do? Well, there are all these concepts that tie into it. A lot of things that we’ve talked about in different productivity and culture videos before. Things like treat people like adults. Some of the principles we’ve taken from the playbook of Netflix, it’s not perfect, it’s something that we’re continuing to work on, but Maz has a lot of experience at Apple. He spent eight years there. And from there, he realized that a lot of the values that they had in this larger tech organization, one of the largest companies in the world, well, a lot of these values can be embedded at a startup of any size. It’s more about the way you treat people, the way you think, the way that everybody acts together at as a tight unit. So Miz and Maz, the two of them sat down and they talked through these ideas of cultural values and how they apply to Levels.

Michael Mizrahi (02:58):

There was a good framing that Sam shared with me yesterday, that wasn’t something that I hadn’t heard before, but it was worded in a way in which I hadn’t heard it. And it was that culture’s the set of assumptions you can make about somebody without ever having interacted with them, right? It’s that invisible glue that holds a group of people together. And it sets the order for how work is done and how communication is done and how they relate and what you should expect in your interactions that are assumed, the assumptions that you make there. And what’s interesting about this stage of the company and where we’re at today is, you’re joining the company in late 2021. We’re somewhere around 30 or so people. It’s now early ’22, we’re already at 40 and growing quickly through the rest of the year, right, in the next few months, I think, we’ll easily cross that 50 person mark pretty soon.

Michael Mizrahi (03:46):

If you rewind to the beginning to when it’s just a handful of co-founders and the team is four to five people. They all know each other relatively well and they establish a working style of communication and interaction that works for them because they know one another deeply. But as the team grows, you add more and more people to this. And there comes a point where everyone does not know each other well, but you want that underlying culture to maintain and keep some of the habits and structure that existed amongst that smaller team. And so necessarily it will change as the team grows. But I think this is a pivotal moment for cementing a lot of those fundamental cultural values so that, as we grow, we have those set of assumptions that work with a much larger team. And I think that’s really the core of it.

Maziar Brumand (04:30):

Yeah. That makes sense. And always the question is, do you hire a culture or do you develop a culture? And I think the answer is a little bit of both. I mean, if you assume culture is a set of values, I think what you said was a really interesting way to phrase it. It’s a set of values, how will people behave without even knowing them? Which is really driven from values. Then I think you need to hire for those values. Because values, as we know, don’t change very quickly. There is this basis, this foundation that people have that then they build on top, obviously, and grow.

Maziar Brumand (05:00):

But thinking about out what are the values of the company as practiced by the early people and what they want to continue to propagate. And then thinking about the new people that you bring in, do they fit in within that value structure? Do they have the same values? And we can talk about some of the key values that are important, but really understanding what the values of the company is, and then hiring for those values to make sure that dilution doesn’t happen as you grow, I think, is super important. Especially given that it’s an exponential growth where you hire one person, which hires five people, which hire five people. So before you know it, that one cultural decision hired 25 people under. So grows pretty quickly.

Michael Mizrahi (05:44):

Yeah. And then there’s also the question of reinforcing amongst the folks who are already here, how do you grow and course correct and develop the culture as you go? Screening and hiring for culture is difficult, but then maintaining and adjusting is also pretty tough. And so I think that’s some of the point where we’re at now is figuring out how to put in the right systems and controls that help point people in the right direction when there are variances from the cultural values, as they’ve stated, and either we need to adjust those and refine them or correct behavior that’s getting too far away from what we want it to be or where we see it.

Michael Mizrahi (06:19):

And so that’s where things like feedback comes into play, where performance reviews start to take shape. There’s a bunch of different avenues you can go down, but that’s particularly tricky too. Can’t imagine doing it at our sites today is one thing. And then doing it in a company of hundreds or thousands, tens of thousands is an entirely different kind of challenge. I think you’ve probably seen a lot of that in the companies you’ve been in. I’ve seen some different stages about it as companies have grown. So it’s fun to watch it happen here and see what we get right and where we watch out for things.

Maziar Brumand (06:51):

Yeah, totally. I think there’s the step of attracting talent and then once they’re in, how do you actually develop them? And then the question is, how do you think about that? When you think about an individual, where they are at that point in time and where they want to go, contribute to most they can and have a fulfilling career, what does that look like?

Maziar Brumand (07:08):

And I’ve always thought about it in three categories. And I think we share some of the similar frameworks, which is, there’s obviously the values, which I view as things that have been built in a person over a long period. They’re hard to change. They’re not impossible to change, but they’re hard to change. It’s pretty much teaching tall. If you get somebody when they’re very little and put them on the right plan, potentially you can teach tall. But once they’re 17 year olds, you can’t teach tall. And I see value somewhat analogous to that, which is things that you want to hire for.

Maziar Brumand (07:43):

And then the second category is a category of skills that are general. They’re not job specific. And again, it takes many, many years to really master them. But they’re pretty much core capabilities. Things like is the person self-directed? Is the person and good at time management?

Maziar Brumand (08:02):

And then the third category that I think about is job specific. So you want somebody to be a fantastic programmer or a really good designer, so they would have to have certain skills relevant for that role. And obviously people change roles over time, so they can learn new skills, they can go deep, they can go wide. It’s really depending on what the person is interested and what the business needs. But really those are teachable and people develop them over their career.

Maziar Brumand (08:29):

So those are the three categories that I think about. But curious to hear your thoughts?

Michael Mizrahi (08:33):

Yeah. I think those categories are right. Curious to go into more detail on the third piece. Because those sound like skills, but there’s something about the definition of values that we use, which is the assumptions you can make about how someone works or what they’ll do, having not met them. And so I wonder, are skills, values, being able to be really good at your job in, let’s use deal negotiation or structuring, is having a certain skillset there a skill or a value? Is me knowing what your approach to it from a skillset level, does that equate to the cultural value or the cultural pieces that we have?

Maziar Brumand (09:13):

I see as a layering of cake or building a house, right? The values are your foundation or the first layer of the cake. And so those are the things that will propel you to do things that will succeed in life or your job or your personal life or whatever. Right? So being a trustworthy person, being somebody that has grit and ownership, somebody that’s positive, somebody that creative, somebody that has humility. Those are life skills that are the foundation, not just for your career, but for your life.

Maziar Brumand (09:42):

Let’s just look at your career. Right? So somebody that is trustworthy and has grit, can establish relationships with mentors and has the propensity to learn. And now, so that creates the foundation. And then level up, is these core capabilities that we develop as we develop our career? For example, we learn how to plan. We learn how to be organized. We learn how to get back to people. There are these core capabilities that are not skill specific. You need them for any job, whether you’re a programmer or whether you’re a program manager or whatever you are, it helps to be self-directed, it helps to be organized.

Maziar Brumand (10:21):

And then there’s the third level, which is the skills you just talked about. I think skills is very distinctly different than values or capabilities. It’s the thing that you learn to get good at your job, like deal structure. So if you are, for example, a negotiator, right? So you have to have the right values to get to where you are. And you have to have the core capabilities. But then you have to actually specifically learn how to structure a deal. What are the steps to structure a deal? And that’s a learned skill based on specific job function that you have. And that could be different. If you’re a deal negotiator, could be deal structuring. If you’re a programmer, it could be program languages. If you’re a designer, it could be understanding of the user experience. So the skills could be very different based on your specific role within the company.

Michael Mizrahi (11:06):

And it’s very different from most job descriptions and most hiring processes where you start with the skills, here’s what we need you to do. Here’s what you to be good at. And you don’t always get a level deeper into the values of what’s underneath and how do we evaluate this person and fit with our company values. And it’s worth stating, values aren’t necessarily objectively good or bad, they’re just the ones that a company tends to have or has chosen, right? So when you looked at Levels, maybe a bit personal, but what are the things that stood out to you that communicated values early on and that you felt alignment with? How does a company actually show that and how has it expressed?

Maziar Brumand (11:39):

I think the number one value for me is trust. I think everything stems from that. Do I trust the people that I’m going to work with? And that’s, by far, the most important foundational value. And to judge trust, especially when you don’t know people, you have to go in with an open eye and be curious about how to understand whether the person’s trust worthy or not. And it’s a series of, I think, interactions. I think obviously because Levels was a synchronous written culture, there’s a lot of documentation that you can read about how the company is and works.

Maziar Brumand (12:21):

And you can also have a lot of different touch points of information that you have, whether you listen to somebody on podcasts, whether you talk to people that know the founders and the employees, there are just a lot of different sources of information about Levels. When you look at them as a totality, they all are congruent, meaning you don’t read in a documentation that Levels is like this. And you hear in a podcast that it’s different and you hear from somebody that knows the founders, that they’re different. They all work together, which really helps build that trust. So I think for me, number one was trust, that do I really want to spend the next 10 years of my life with these group of people tackling the mission of metabolic health? And I think that checked out for me. I did a lot of research, I read a lot, talked to a lot of people and I think that checked out for me.

Maziar Brumand (13:09):

I think the second value was idea of being transparent. I think ties back with trust, Levels is radically transparent and it’s building in the open. It’s very different than anything I’ve ever seen. Not only it keeps things on the right path for the long term, because there are checks and balances and transparency, but also it contributes and gives back. I think I was at a point in my career where I wanted to join a group of people that will have a big impact. And I did a lot of soul searching around what do I want to do with the next 10 or 15 or 20 years of my life? And I looked at and said, Okay, what are the areas in health that I think will have the biggest impact?” And the answers that I got after researching a lot of different things, there’s two things. One, was metabolic health and the other one was mental health.

Maziar Brumand (13:59):

And then the second question was, do I want to do it with these group of people? And do they have the right values? And so doing that research and the transparency that allowed that research and the value that the company’s creating and putting in the world was definitely a big a components of making that decision.

Michael Mizrahi (14:19):

I’m thinking through what this looks like when you evaluate a company as a candidate, or just from the outside in general, and you see a lack of trust or… Let’s start with transparency. It’s not a transparent company. That’s not a bad thing, a majority of companies are not nearly as transparent as we are. And so assessing a company from the outside by their values when you can’t see inside gets a little bit trickier, right? You start to lean on the interviews that you do through the process, but then you get into the recruiting dynamics, where are they interviewing you? Are you interviewing them? You depend on a lot of hearsay and just advice and first or secondhand accounts from folks who you know who may have words there. You have to dig a little deeper to get the work, to understand what the underlying values are beyond what might be posted on a website or on a careers page or be told by a recruiter.

Maziar Brumand (15:16):

It’s interesting, I’ve actually spent a lot of time thinking about why trust is so important. I think trust is a heuristic decision rule, which means that in a very complex world that we live in, which there is a lot of factors affecting things that there’s a lot of information that you don’t know, trust allows you bypass all that complexity. And without that trust, I don’t think our minds and our time would allow us to really dig into everything, to be able to make decisions based on every single fact that exists out there. Because A, you won’t have them, and B, if you had them, it’s just too much process. So I think trust allows you to bypass that very complex process. And so it also prevents you from second guessing, everything that you hear. So I think it’s the foundational thing that’s really, really helpful.

Michael Mizrahi (16:05):

I guess what I’m trying to get at is there are things on the core capability side that reinforce the values very well. And so when someone executes on their own, they’re self-directed, they follow through, they’re reliable, obviously that builds trust and contributes to that overall trust culture. And I think that one in particular seems to be a very common theme at Levels that I haven’t necessarily seen elsewhere, just in terms of consistency and follow through at all levels across the board. And so I think that piece in particular is one that resonates with me. And that’s that middle section, right? That’s a core capability. It’s not a skill specific piece, right? It’s not a functional skill. The work product itself might not be great. Hopefully is, and it could be depending on who’s producing what. But the product can be of varying in quality, but the follow through and the execution, the methodology that we use to approach it is consistent. I think that has a big piece in the middle there. And we see this across the board, I think this is true in all different functions and at different levels.

Maziar Brumand (17:04):

Yeah. I think a good example of it, just to build on what you said, is the idea of closing the loop. I think that’s one of the things that I noticed that is really strongly practiced at Levels, which is make sure you close them. Especially in an asynchronous culture like that, it’s super important or you’re not getting real time feedback. When somebody asks you whether you got something, whether they’re wondering whether you got it, being able to say, “Yep, I’ve got this and I’ll work on it and I’ll get back to you.” And then actually doing it is super powerful. And obviously it also amplifies a lot of the other things like trust. If you close loop with people, they, overtime, trust you because they know that when they ask you to do something, you’ll do it and you’ll follow through.

Maziar Brumand (17:41):

So I think that closing the loop is really important from a core capability. And interestingly enough, it’s actually exactly what we do with our customers, right? Being able to close the loop with them on their glucose, right? I ate a hamburger and we closed the loop, they’re providing them feedback with their glucose data. And so it’s almost the same concept internally.

Michael Mizrahi (18:02):

Yeah. I’ve always loved that, how the close of the feedback systems line up and how we can really lean into that. And it’s not cheesy at all, right? It exists in the product, it also exists in our culture and it’s fundamental to the way we think about things and the way we believe change happens and things get done is close the feedback system. So that’s one that’s nice to really pull into the culture and say that that’s kind of near and dear to us.

Michael Mizrahi (18:23):

The other one here that I really love that makes working with people just awesome, and it’s not something you find everywhere, is when people do the work on their own with quality and avoid creating unnecessary work for others. This looks like a lot of different things, but some really practical examples, it’s just a really petty example, but if I’m linking to a document and sending something along, properly hyperlinking the person to the right place in the document that I want to point them to so that they can then navigate easily and get exactly where they need is just such a pleasure when you’re on the receiving end of it. And when everyone does it, it just creates a culture of thoroughness and just thoughtfulness to detail.

Michael Mizrahi (19:00):

And obviously the link example is a light one. But I think this follows through in a bunch of different cases.on memos, on strategy docs, on sharing thoughts, on executing on work and putting in the right notes and pointers along the way, just communicating very well and thoroughly with not just the intent of getting the thing done, but of making sure that others know what you’re doing and you’re being consistent and thoughtful about how they might look at it in the future. And so this pays dividends just on and on.

Maziar Brumand (19:26):

Yeah. I think that stems a lot from the cultural value of ownership. Just being proud of your own work, right? You’re not doing it because somebody asked you to do something, you’re doing it because you really want to do it. And that’s an inside out thing instead of outside in thing. It’s driven by your internal values. Which, you’re right, nobody loves it when somebody does a half job and it expects somebody else to clean it up or fix it. So it is delightful when you actually can provide feedback in a very pointed way instead of looking at something like, “I have no idea what you’re asking me. And by the way, the whole thing is a mess.” That’s a terrible feeling when you get an email or a threads or a ping from somebody.

Michael Mizrahi (20:11):

The word here, I think is just quality, right? It’s quality and consistency and attention to detail. I’ve heard this thrown around as painting the back of the fence. I don’t know if that’s a Steve Jobs thing, I think it might be. Making sure that the inside is well designed that folks won’t see, but it matters because it matters and the details matter and people care about producing high quality work. It’s our version of it. But in the workplace, it’s fun to see that expressed.

Maziar Brumand (20:35):

Yeah. I love it. I think attention to detail where it matters, and sometimes where it doesn’t matter, because the discipline is so valuable. The example at Apple was that we paint our PCBs black, which obviously has additional cost on work and people are like, “Why would you paint your PCBs black? Nobody’s going to open and look inside the phone. You can’t even open the phone. So why would you paint them black?” And it’s that, yeah, same concept of paint the back of the fence. You know it’s green, you know it doesn’t look good. So paint it black. Doesn’t matter if most people don’t see it. And so it’s having that self discipline and that desire for quality is so important.

Maziar Brumand (21:15):

The other concept I really love was the idea of short toes, which actually goes hand in hand with this idea of ownership because a lot of times I think, not that people don’t want to own stuff, but there are a bunch of other forces at play within a company that prevents it, that blocks it. And one of these ideas is territory, right? “Well I could fix it, but then would so and so be pissed off because it was their thing?” Whereas in reality, I would love it if somebody fixed an error of mind that I didn’t have to spend a minute on. Right? But the thing that gets in the way is ego or territory, which I think the concept of short toes that we practice at Levels, which is, please, oh, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to be off that you’ve fixed something or added value to something that “was mine.” I find that to be super refreshing, but I’d love to get your thoughts since you’ve lived this for much longer?

Michael Mizrahi (22:09):

Yeah. I think there’s a few angles to this one. One of the first ones is that it just plays to a sense of ownership and a feeling that everyone is responsible for the outcome of the company. And the company’s small enough that we’re not yet in the stage where divided by teams or able to point fingers and have an us versus them dynamic of “That was at teams work, we’re not involved in that.” All of it’s under the Levels banner and we’re all responsible for the output at varying levels of work. And so having short to is a mindset with that to make sure that we all feel collectively responsible and involved in the output.

Michael Mizrahi (22:47):

The other piece of it is really down to the personal level. And it’s about having a low ego mentality that others can contribute to your area of work and value that you’re adding isn’t specific to a specific output, but it’s your general being there and your contribution as a whole. Right? And so if someone’s going to comment on a piece of work that you did or provide input or suggestions or even corrections, being open to that and inviting that, given that it’s in the best interest of the company and not being attached to your own piece of work or ego that’s wrapped up and involved there.

Maziar Brumand (23:19):

Yeah. It sounds like there’s two components then to it. One is this idea of aligned incentives, right? Which we talk a lot about when we think about membership. But aligned incentives internally, right? Our ultimate incentive is for the company to succeed. Where all startups start default dead and trying to get default alive is really the ambition of every single employee within a startup. So our incentives are aligned in that sense that any work that anybody does is, in that sense, pointed at making the company alive. That’s the incentive thing that I think super important, incentives are so powerful.

Maziar Brumand (23:51):

The second thing I think concept is cultural, where from within the higher people that are not egomaniacs and people that take ownership as a cultural value. Do you agree?

Michael Mizrahi (24:05):

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Maziar Brumand (24:06):

I haven’t met somebody with a huge ego yet at Levels and I think I’ve met everybody. So it’s a good sign.

Michael Mizrahi (24:13):

I think even… this came up in a recent book club we read, The 13 Commitments of Subconscious Leadership. I forgot if you were on that call. I don’t think so.

Maziar Brumand (24:21):

I was on a flight.

Michael Mizrahi (24:22):

Right. Okay. But your thoughts may have been there. Anyways, the concept came up of ego and how we either screen for it or train and reinforce the right values around ego. And so that was an interesting conversation because we can’t expect that everyone that works here is this fully self-actualized, aware, reached Nirvana state. But yet it’s something that’s important that they show a willingness to be interested in the concept of even discussing it. People are going to be at various stages of that journey. And we’re getting into this sounding like a religious component. It’s not. But the book was framed through some Buddhism principles. But anyways, we’re getting off topic there. I think the conversation of ego, just one that we’re willing to have. And I think the better way to phrase it is just having folks be self-aware of where their character and their self is involved in the work and just team dynamics.

Maziar Brumand (25:16):

Yeah. It makes sense. I mean, I think it also maybe plays a little bit into humility as well. I guess ego and humility are a little bit intertwined. We have a lot of senior people and very capable people, but I think everybody generally that I’ve talked to and I’ve met are curious and have an open mind of learning, that we haven’t figured it all out. We don’t know a lot of things. And so it’s very possible that we’re wrong. And I’ve definitely noticed that. And obviously we debate vigorously about different things because we’re trying to get to the best solution, but I’ve also noticed that the humility or the sense of curiosity that, “Hey, I could be wrong.” And “Hey, maybe we should revisit that and not living by dogma.” I’ve definitely noticed that.

Michael Mizrahi (25:59):

Humility’s a tough one just because it’s really, really complicated. And I think there’s varying levels of it. Obviously, I think this is very much in the values category that we laid out, but then it has expression in work too. Right? And so there’s confidence, which is important, but there’s also levels of humility in one’s work that’s important too. And so figuring out how to thread that needle and just right in the middle, on the right levels of both, when producing work, when communicating internally, when fighting for good ideas, is tricky.

Maziar Brumand (26:31):

Yeah. And humility doesn’t mean rolling over and be a pushover. Right? It’s having the confidence that you are going to explore and debate. And obviously you’re going to argue for your point of view, but actually having that debate with the interest to reach the truth, versus what is your position or proving that you’re right, I think is the difference in my mind of humility versus not. And I could be thinking about it the wrong way, but that’s how I think about it.

Michael Mizrahi (27:01):

Yeah, no, I think about it similarly. It’s not putting being right above the right answer.

Maziar Brumand (27:07):

Actually, the other point that’s adjacent to this, I think is the idea of first principle thinking and whether it’s engineering or science way of thinking, which is we operate, I think, not we as in Levels, but we as people, operate it on heuristics a lot. And there’s a good reason for that, right? If we’re going to use mental energy to question everything and go down to the first principles, we wouldn’t get anything done, I’d be super tired by 10:00 AM. But there is this sense at Levels that we ask a lot of why’s.

Maziar Brumand (27:38):

And I think the famous like five whys is a well known framework. But really thinking about things and creating these mental models of how… when we think about communication, right? Thinking about at the first principles level, which is, okay, entropy will lead us in this direction.” For example, in meeting culture, why does entropy lead us to meeting culture? It’s because of these things. Okay. So how do we then think about those things? Why do we tend to practice those things? How can we put in processes to avoid those things that cause entropy? That layer of thinking, going deeper, deeper, deeper, down to the scientific basis of it, I found to be really fascinating. Both on just how we run our company and also how we think about metabolic health. Which was one of the big draws frankly, of coming to Levels. There’s a lot of pseudoscience companies out there that are just trying to create or replicate a bunch of practices without really understanding the why or explaining the why.

Michael Mizrahi (28:42):

Yeah, it’s very much a discipline and that’s why it applies across context, right? It applies to the product itself, the science that’s involved to the hardware, to the software. And we use that framework in all of those cases. But because that’s the muscle that we’re constantly using, we also apply to company matters and culture. And I think there’s a world, like you mentioned, where it’s applied too liberally and all sudden you’re questioning everything and having these deep discussions about things that probably don’t warrant it or that just end up complicating. But what I’ve found more often than not is that you’re sometimes surprised by the answers you get when you ask them about things that you don’t think you should ask them about. Right? And so some very basic things of like, “Well, of course we wouldn’t share X, Y, Z piece because you just don’t do that.” But asking the question and digging into the reasons and the emotions and the feelings behind it really lets a discussion happen that helps you understand why that is the case and correct it if there isn’t a good reason that you can find for why that is.

Michael Mizrahi (29:47):

And so there’s the Chesterton’s fence principle, which is if you come across a fence and it’s there before you take it down, make sure you understand why it was put up in the first place. And so there’s a reason for some of these things to exist, but really questioning it and looking into it is important. I think that’s true across the core capability side and just approaching your work with that mindset. But it also goes a little bit deeper into some of the leaning on the values that then guide that decision making.

Maziar Brumand (30:12):

Yeah. I think that’s a really good point. I think there’s two sides to that coin. One is this idea that, hey, sometimes things are there for a good reason. So don’t just operate on the rebellious notion that you should take everything down because it’s all then and has no reason. So I think that’s a really helpful nuance.

Maziar Brumand (30:29):

And then the other side is we have a lot of things that we’ve filed away in our heads as assumptions and being able from time to time, take those out, especially if they’re important, and ask the why and evaluate and figure out whether, yeah, does this make sense? And if it does, put it back in. And if it doesn’t, throw it out. It makes it fun. It makes it fun because sometimes you get these aha moments and nothing’s more fun than actually getting an aha moment on something that seems so obvious and changed your thinking about that. I think it’s actually a scientific definition of fun.

Michael Mizrahi (31:05):

Yeah. I think I’ve heard pieces of that, on fun. Switching gears a bit. So we’ve spoken about these values, core capabilities and then functional skills that are built on top of that that might be role specific. How do we think about fostering these? I think there’s an element to this which is hiring for it and then there’s an element it, which is reinforcing and training it internally when necessary. These are hard concepts to communicate upfront and the opportunity to do so also has to be done in the right window. And so have there been times where you’ve seen us here, in previous roles, in life in general, where someone has deviated from some of these and you’ve had to course correct? And how do you frame that feedback or that conversation? How do you check your own assumptions about that? What does that process look like for you? And I’m curious to see where mine end up.

Maziar Brumand (31:53):

Yeah, I think it’s a good question. I think the challenge number one is figuring out what are our values, core capabilities and functional skills that a company wants to foster? I think understanding that and being super clear about that, at least in our heads, I think is important. So some form of memorizing that is important. But oftentimes I think what really helps is having cultural aspects or stories that propagate these things. Because we’re really bad at remembering facts, but really good at remembering stories as people. And so really having a set of stories that will propagate these cultural values and also core capabilities and functional skills. And you can have stories and examples in all three categories. I think the easiest, most memorable ones are obviously in the value category, but you can have stories in all three. So I think being super clear what they are, having ways for people to remember and understand it at a level is the second category.

Maziar Brumand (32:49):

I think the third category is having a mechanism where people can judge themselves and people around people can also rate and provide feedback. So having mechanism where you say, “Okay, these are our nine three val…” Just going to pick numbers, “… three values, three core capabilities and three functional skills.” So nine in total. And where do you think you are on these things? Getting the feedback from the employee. And then having people that matter and are in a position to also judge the employee. And I don’t mean judge in a bad way, meaning assess the employee as well. And then putting these two against each other, to see whether the perception of the person is the same as the perception of people around them. And as we know, we hold the model in our head of the world, that is a model of the world, but it’s not really the reality of the world. And so making sure that the reality as it exists in the person’s head and the reality as it exists and people that interact with that person are congruent. And if they’re not, having a conversation to understand why is there a disconnect? And bringing that into congruency.

Maziar Brumand (33:56):

And then at the end of that exercise, you could just determine that, “Look, I’m really strong at three, I’m really weak at three, and I’m kind of middle lower at three.” And we don’t have to be great at all nine, at least not at the same time. And figuring out based on where the person’s interests are and where the business needs are, what are the ones that need to either go from competent to superpowers? That’s the thing. Or from deficient to competent so that people are not falling flat in certain aspects. But really understanding what’s important? Where do people think they are? What do other people think that person is? Bring it into congruency and then figuring out what are the ones that the person wants to develop, needs to follow and then providing a path for them to develop that.

Maziar Brumand (34:42):

And I think that path to development is also not so trivial. I think having a mechanism where people can get this constant feedback, not just annually, once we decide what person should work on, they need to understand how and who can help them. And so having an ecosystem around people so that they can continue to work and get feedback is also important. So have the opportunity to work on it. Once they work on it, they have feedback system that will help them have resources available to them to work on it. So it’s all a big system that has to work together. It can’t be different pieces that we just put together and expect people to develop themselves, but the system has to work to develop that individual.

Michael Mizrahi (35:26):

Yeah. I really like the holistic view on this. I think it’s very easy to design these programs or design cultural elements in isolation. Let’s take a feedback or performance review process. You design that, you structure it the way you want it. But going back to the stories piece that you mentioned about how the stories reinforce either the capabilities or the values really well, I noticed early on that there was very much a short story culture where we would talk about certain values and reinforce a certain person who has done it. And in the moment, it can feel somewhat trivial, right? Maybe that wasn’t the best example of this value played out. But here I am six months later remembering what some of those stories were and remembering who told both stories. And so I can think back to different forums or different meetings or things that we’ve repeated over and over again of just, “Here’s how this one person did this thing this one time.” And that been just a discussion of the value, I very likely would not have remembered it, I would not be able to recall it today. So the depth and quality of the story doesn’t matter as much as just telling them often and reinforcing them often.

Michael Mizrahi (36:29):

And then when it comes to the feedback process, something that we implemented in trying to get to this process where someone’s chewing on it themselves and understanding where their own assessment is versus how it stacks up to what peers and managers and just others in the company think of them and how they stack up against those things, with separating out the self assessment from the peer feedback portion. And so letting someone look at their performance through the lens of a project, understanding and rating themselves on a certain set of questions. And only after that’s been completed, sending it out to peers for feedback.

Michael Mizrahi (37:03):

And then the third step is synthesizing all of that and saying, “How did I think I was doing versus how did the peers that I asked the same question of think I was doing? And where is it congruent? Where is it incongruent? And from here, what’s the path to reconciling that? Which of these are important for me in my role to develop further? Which of these aren’t?” No one is going to be great at all of these, but together we’re going to compliment one another. And that’s the important part, building a team with diverse skills, diverse work habits, diverse backgrounds, is that it’s the compliment of everyone together that makes the output really great. And of course, the constant feedback is essential, right? I’m talking about this in moment in time feedback process, because that’s top of mind and we’re just started iterating on that and experimenting with it. But the constant process beyond that, that reinforces and corrects where necessary is essential to that. But I like the holistic view too, of stories and reinforcement and then down to the personal level. So you can actually recall some of those examples as they’re brought up.

Maziar Brumand (38:00):

Yeah, I think on the story piece, the story piece you’re right. Stories become so ingrained and you don’t even have to tell the full story. You could just reference one small phrase and everybody knows exactly what you’re talking about. And the beauty about it is that we’ll ascribe the entire moral point of that story in that one word. And so it’s such a powerful shorthand. And we’ve had ton of ex… I mean, I used to have ton of these in my old team with all these things. One of the things that was important to us was ability to get back to people quick. And so because there were so many different moving pieces, if you added latency in the system, in each of these links, you would never get anything done, especially because as complexity was high, a number of people involved were high. So if you introduced delay into that, it would break down. Something that would take one day could take two weeks as easily by just adding latency in each of these links.

Maziar Brumand (38:53):

And so we had a whole discussion and debate about how it’s similar to computer chips and how we designed chips. And we had a discussion about it, this story became a story. So everybody understood when you said, “Hey, it’s got to be low latency.” People knew exactly what you meant. Not only the concept that [inaudible 00:39:11], everybody knows you can look it up on Google, what it means. But it actually had a cultural connotation of flow latency.

Maziar Brumand (39:16):

Or another example we had was this idea of left to right planning, which was this idea that look, you need to know where you’re going. You have walk backwards. Right? And then from now on all you need to do, say to somebody that messed up a plan was right to left planning. That’s all you had to say. They knew exactly what went wrong and how to fix it. And so I think those cultural stories and shorthands are so powerful.

Michael Mizrahi (39:41):

Way more than the word of the value itself. I think the one that keeps coming to mind for us is close the feedback system, right? It’s close to the product, close to the way we work. And I’m trying to think through some others that we can riff on and pull ideas from. We have them, we just have to name them. I’m thinking of people and things right now, this person took this action. And I think we have a bunch of stories around that. Sam’s a particularly a good storyteller when it comes to those pieces.

Maziar Brumand (40:07):

Yeah. There are three that I can think of. One is [crosstalk 00:40:11].

Michael Mizrahi (40:11):

[crosstalk 00:40:11].

Maziar Brumand (40:11):

Which I think we borrowed, right? Painting the back of the fence, which we said earlier.

Michael Mizrahi (40:16):

Yeah.

Maziar Brumand (40:17):

I think the juice card example-

Michael Mizrahi (40:20):

Juice card.

Maziar Brumand (40:20):

… is on the cultural value side, everybody gets it. It means nothing. Juice card, but everybody knows exactly what it means within the company.

Michael Mizrahi (40:29):

Pork tacos.

Maziar Brumand (40:29):

Wow. Pork tacos. So there are these things that took me-

Michael Mizrahi (40:34):

Jevels. Jevels is a good one.

Maziar Brumand (40:35):

… I don’t know that one actually.

Michael Mizrahi (40:36):

Okay.

Maziar Brumand (40:37):

Yeah.

Michael Mizrahi (40:37):

Happy to tell that one. This one comes… it’s like making lemonade out of lemons, but then getting… Anyway, let me tell the story. We had a performance cover shortage a year ago, end of 2020, and we were really, really tight on inventory. And some lead times got long because of COVID. And we had to figure out a way to close the gap between performance covers that we needed and orders that were going out without impacting orders. And so we tried to get creative on this. Traditionally, we screen print these overseas at the point of production. What we did was order a bunch of unbranded, just black performance covers, took them to a screen printer in Hayward, California and just screen printed them on the spot and took a few months out of the production timelines. And we were able to fix this problem. But in moving so quickly to fix that problem, the proofing process got reversed through the process, they sent us proof of a photo. And instead of printing the Levels logo as an L, they printed it inverse as a J.

Michael Mizrahi (41:37):

And so now we fixed the problem, but not really. We had tens of thousands of Jevels performance covers. And the piece there was-

Maziar Brumand (41:45):

Collector items.

Michael Mizrahi (41:46):

… Collector items. The piece there was really owning the mistake and there were some deeper elements to it. But when it’s referenced today, it’s just like, “We’re going to make mistakes and being supportive and finding creative ways out of them is the important part, but also being thorough and avoid those kinds of mistakes if we can. Even when we’re working in a fire drill and everything’s last minute, you still have to pitch into the details.” But we took that experience and made it a positive learning. Something that we can laugh about today and have like a Jevels emoji versus something that was swept under the rug and embarrassing.

Maziar Brumand (42:18):

Huh. I love that. That’s a good one to be able to laugh about it and not taking yourself too seriously should probably be a value too.

Michael Mizrahi (42:27):

I like the idea of, and I hadn’t really thought about this, of just telling the values and then the capabilities through stories. I think that’s a new discovery for me that we’ve circulated around, but we haven’t really formatted it in that structure.

Maziar Brumand (42:41):

Yeah. Idioms or short hands are just so powerful. Used to use them all the time. And a funny one we used to say… And these come in ebbs and flows. Sometimes you may use them all the time and then after a while, they just… you shelf them as the thing you use.

Maziar Brumand (42:57):

But one example you used to use was the dog that caught the car. And the concept was dogs chase cars. But then if they catch them, they don’t know what to do with them. What do you do with it? Bite the car? Do you bark at it? It’s the thing, you just chase it. But the moral story, or the point that it was trying to demonstrate was this idea is like, okay, imagine you got what I gave you, whether you were asking for resources or whether you were making a proposal for a feature or whatever it was. So I’m okay, imagine, let’s fast forward, I got it to you, what are you going to do with it? And a lot of people would be about the chase of getting the thing. But once you said, “Okay, now that you’re here, let’s played out,” you get stuck. And so that became a thing where when people came and asked for something or were arguing for something, because they hadn’t thought about the thing after the thing, it was like, “Okay, what happens when you catch the car?” And people were like, “Catch the car? What are you talking about?” But people that knew, knew what that meant.

Michael Mizrahi (43:53):

Yeah. And it’s helpful to be able to use that in the workplace because it’s a common language that you share versus having to explain it thoroughly, so long as it’s accepted with an open mind and someone understands what you’re trying to say and it’s not confrontational, it’s just more inquisitive and curious.

Maziar Brumand (44:08):

Yeah. I think that the balance of it is, this is where it gets tough, it’s why we don’t use acronyms within the company, which is you want to create a culture where it’s open, people understand and talk in plain language. So I think there’s a balance of making sure that these things don’t become so ingrained that it becomes the old guard versus the new guard, where the new guard feels like they’re totally out of touch because they don’t know the stories. I think there’s a balance, but I think there’s an elegant way to do this.

Michael Mizrahi (44:35):

Yet, there’s an element of learning the language and understanding the values. And that is essentially the cultural onboarding piece, whether you call it by the story name or the underlying value, the question is which of those sticks and is helpful for you as you navigate with people moving forward?

Maziar Brumand (44:52):

Yeah, definitely. Going back on, this was the one component that we talked about, the other component was this idea of how do we actually create a system for people to improve, right? I don’t think it’s that different than the behavior change we’re trying to do on the metabolic health side for our products, which is this idea that there is a measurement that needs to happen, an assessment effectively, which, in our products, we do it by the CGM, right? But in our world for developing people, it’s like there’s got to be this analysis or measurement step. Which I think is this idea, the person rates themselves, the peers rate themselves. You make a congruent and create one picture. That’s the analysis piece, right?

Maziar Brumand (45:29):

The second piece is providing insights to people around that analysis. For example, the insights could be, “Hey, in order to achieve this thing you’re trying to do, it’s really helpful for you to improve these two things in the scale bucket.” Or, “Hey, the value that you are actually keying on and leveraging, with a little bit twist, you can actually make it so much more powerful to develop the rest of your skills and core capabilities.” So it’s the insight layer of, okay, now that I know what I am like, so what? Right? And making sure that insight is provided in a way that people understand.

Maziar Brumand (46:04):

And then the last part is the action piece, right? Now that I know where I am now that I understand it, what am I supposed to do to get better? And then it’s the feedback loop, right? So you get that action, you get the feedback again, where people get the measurement, then they get insights and then they get the action. And the action part is super important, right? Because a lot of things that I think a lot of the development programs that fail is in the action space. So to give this person a long 360, and then they’re like, okay, goes into ether. And they’re either on their own or have no real plan.

Maziar Brumand (46:36):

And I think for that, there’s some things that need to happen at the company level, right? Providing the tools and frameworks for people to know and be able to take the actions. But I think there’s also a micro level of people that are closest to the individual and the individual have to take ownership to actually take the actions in a way that provides output. And I think figuring out what that means for Levels and how we can create that is, I think, the biggest challenge, because we can certainly do the… we can figure out our values. I think we know where they are. We can figure out the core capabilities and all that for people. I think we can provide insights. That’s not hard. But that action piece is, I think, the most challenging, where things usually break down.

Michael Mizrahi (47:19):

Yeah. What’s interesting is that… Well, this analogy keeps on giving, that’s step one. I love how these line up. There’s measurement, there’s the insights, there’s the action to make the change and there’s the feedback loop at keeps spinning that flywheel. There’s something about culture and values and performance that we don’t break down in an atomic enough way to make it understandable, where, in the product we’ve learned what some of those things are and we’re now implementing that, right? So just to use the analogy, here are some things you can do. You can have your fats before you have carbs, right? It’ll help blunt that spike. You can develop good sleep habits, because people who have strong sleep have better glucose control. What are the things in the work environment that we can line up to the places where some of the capabilities start to go off track and line those up with very specific insights that are actionable to help perform and to help someone improve? And so I don’t think it’s too much to push that analogy to the extreme and see how it plays out.

Maziar Brumand (48:15):

Well, that’s okay. Let’s play this. I’m not sure if I’m going to answer your question exactly as you asked it, but we’ll get there, hopefully. I think the concept is for somebody to change, they have to have incentives, right? And those incentives can either come extrinsically or intrinsically. And so the question is what is the incentive structure for that flywheel to continue versus to be disrupted? And you cut that feedback loop. Because once you get that feedback loop you’re done, right. So how do you create the right incentive structures, both internally and externally, for people?

Maziar Brumand (48:46):

And for example, I’ll give you an example of an intrinsic one. The sense of belonging is a human need that’s developed over millennia, which is generally the more you belong or the more bonds you create, the happier you are and the more bonds you break, sadder you are. And if you think about the extreme creational bonds, through birth of a child or marriage or whatever, it’s pretty long lasting. It’s very euphoric when that base is created. And then breaking of bonds such as death or divorce are absolutely devastating, taking it to the extreme, right? And it all stems from the idea of belonging. And it’s very intrinsic in a sense. So in this idea of the feedback loop of developments, this sense of belonging, which is, “I belong to this group of people called Levels, which have a certain cultural values. And by developing myself and instilling these capabilities, which ultimately, which means that the whole company is successful, I will create belonging.” So I think creating these extrinsic and intrinsic motivations to make sure that people take the action to close the feedback loop. Maybe some of the area we should focus on, just like we would when we’re developing a program for somebody to help them achieve their metabolic goal. We’re creating this intrinsic and an extrinsic motivations to help them close that loop. And I think it’s the a same concept, developing people.

Michael Mizrahi (50:15):

Yeah. The intrinsic has to exist first and then you can assist with the extrinsic motivation. But the sense of belonging in a team or a company comes about pretty organically, I’d say, in most cases. But there are environments that have a stronger draw, right? And those are environments where it’s pleasant to work with one another, where you enjoy the company of the peers, where you feel like you can do great work. I think that comes back to those values being sound and being strong. When that’s healthy, you create an environment where people want to contribute and there’s some positive energy going into it. And therefore the desire to improve yourself plays out.

Maziar Brumand (50:51):

Yeah, definitely. And I think there’s the concept of belonging, which is creating bonds. And I think people are different. Some people have already many bonds in their lives, so don’t really have that need that needs to be met as much as others. And then some people are just generally more prone to really value those bonds than others. So I think there is a interpersonal difference. But I think generally the concept is you want to create more bonds to feel happier. So I think that in the concept of intrinsic is important.

Maziar Brumand (51:18):

I think the other one is self-esteem, right, and esteemed people. And this idea that our identity is formed by our group memberships. And when we do create those group of membership or create that identity through those group membership, automatically, we will ascribe the characteristics of that group to ourself from a psychological perspective. And so the reason that’s important in this idea of development is, when I accept that I am part of the Level’s group, I will start ascribing the values and the characteristics, and even the successes of the group to myself. And so making sure those are in a way that perpetuates me to close that loop is another way where we can create the intrinsic motivation for people to want to improve and get better at their job and help their fellow Levels employees.