Finding Joy in Networking with Foundry's Kurt Schmidt

Dane Groeneveld: Welcome to the Future of Teamwork podcast. My name's Dane Groeneveld, CEO of HUDDL3 Group, and today I have Kurt Schmidt joining me. Kurt's the president and partner at Foundry. He is an author of the Little Book of Networking and podcast host of Schmidt's List. So we've been having some good conversation about a number of things that we share in common here today. Welcome, Kurt.

Kurt Schmidt: Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity, Dan. I'm really excited to be here.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, it's awesome. So tell me a little bit about you. How did you come to be doing all of this great work and culminating in the book, and I'd love to hear that story.

Kurt Schmidt: Well, I started on my career as a designer and developer. When I was younger I was a professional BMX rider in my teams, and I started a bike company when I was around 21 with some friends, and I quickly learned that I was very interested in the design and marketing side of things. And from there I went to school for design and got my first job developing CD ROMs, customs CD ROMs for companies, so I can give a little date range for me. And then, yeah, this crazy thing called Web started showing up more and more. And so I joined a small agency and helped them build out their interactive team. And then after about five years left that one and went to join another small agency, which ended up growing really quickly. So we went from about 50 to 550 in about 6 years. And then after that I decided to take all my learnings and do our own agency. So me and a couple of partners started Foundry about six years ago. And so we do custom software development and design. So a lot of UX, UI front end, but also a lot of everything from APIs to artificial intelligence. So, it's a lot of fun. That's how I got into it. And then during that journey, you get opportunities like, Hey, do you want to speak at this event? Sure. And that seemed like fun and I started doing that. And then I thought these great conversations I was having with folks, well, I bet other people might be interested in these folks too. So I started a podcast about five years ago, and then I took all the learnings from the podcast and then turned that into the book. So, everything's just kind of built on top of each other.

Dane Groeneveld: It's a good evolution and a book, networking relationships are forming so much a part of innovation and a part of the way that teams kind of get together and evolve now. What was the real driver catalyst for you building out that content?

Kurt Schmidt: Yeah. Well, to your point, there was kind of two angles. One was, so I started writing it right at the beginning of the pandemic. I saw a lot of layoffs happening and I thought, boy, I'd really love to help people out. So I went to LinkedIn and I put a link to my calendar and said, anybody who needs help with a resume or wants a quick just to talk to somebody, no charge. No, no, I'm not selling anything, but if you need some help and you lost your job, I'd love to tell about. And while I had a great response to that, it was great, and I coached a number of people, but what I found Dane repeatedly was, is that people's network was their real problem, is that they hadn't focused on doing that and people didn't understand what networking actually is. And it's not something that is, you go to an event and put on a name tag that says who you are and walk around awkwardly trying to interrupt other conversations going on. That's not what networking is. I mean, it can be that, but it's not what it is. And the other problem I saw is that people internally in teams also had issues networking with inside their organizations and building sort of inroads into other parts of the business that maybe affected their business. I saw that as a problem. I repeatedly saw in more siloed organizations where people didn't understand that the owners of the business or the board or the stakeholders, they want everybody rowing the same way, but the way you're incentivized and the way the teams are tracked sometimes kind of fight against each other. So building that network is really important.

Dane Groeneveld: No, that's neat. I know Dan Pink talks a little bit about motivation and actually the detriment of task- based incentives for teamwork, which is really tied into that.

Kurt Schmidt: And again, you should all be rowing the same direction because you're all working towards a similar goal. But it can be very common for different business leaders in different areas to slowly incentivize teams into conflict with each other. Not knowingly, but it just will happen over time because people are, they drive by the hood of the car. Usually they're not looking down the road. So how can I make this quarter? How can I make this week? How can I finish this sprint off strong? But if you have a good understanding of what the people around you that support the work that you're doing and what their goals are and what their interests are, that can really not only help you climb the corporate ladder as it were, but it can also help you build a better knowledge base of what is actually happening in that company, so you can have a better understanding of the impact of your work, which is something we all want our work to have is impact, right?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's funny, I had a coach on and thought leader on from Greece this morning on the podcast, Agabaya, and I asked her of her sort of hopes for the future of teamwork, future of work, and she said she wanted it to be fun, meaningful, and belonging, and she wanted to create that in teams. And I think to get to there, which is a great place for everyone to have in that place of work, networking, understanding people's perspectives and their roles is really critical. So you're absolutely right that networking is, it's an internal and an external function.

Kurt Schmidt: It is. And to me, what always has made a great team, so one of the things we look for when we hire people at Foundry, for example, is we love people with side gigs or side hustles or things like that. So we have a lot of people that are in bands or maybe act on in the weekends or do improv or a number of different things because what they bring from the outside into that team is so powerful and so important because we're only as strong as the one link in the chain, right? So to your point about building a strong team, I think there is that in that internal aspect of doing that, but encouraging people to go out to bring stuff back to teams. So one thing we used to do, for example, at a previous organization of mine is that people would always want to go to conferences or things like that. That's great, we'll pay for you to go to the conference, but what you have to do is you have to come back and present to the teams what you learned. You have to do a presentation, you have to show off, and it's not homework. It's celebrating the investment. And so you come back with these, you get come back and you're supercharged and you've got these great ideas that is tightening and enhancing the team. So I know a lot of books always focus on, and I've read tons of books on teamwork and building teams, and they focus a lot on how to make them work internally, but I also strongly encourage leaders out there to think about how can I incentivize them to bring in outside learnings into the organization.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. I think that's huge. I was talking to a friend, Leo Bottary and he does a lot of work on the power of peers and started with peer advisory groups in places like Vistage, but now he's looking at peers inside the organization. And he talked about a number of concepts, but one of them was this cycle where you moved from learning into sharing and then applying and achieving and celebrating. And it was development as a team sport. But to your point, if people are going outside and bringing stuff in, then you are broadening your perspectives, your horizons, and you're creating more satisfaction, more variety too. Because most of us, we love our jobs, but let's be honest, not a hundred percent of our job we love, there's a lot of tasks we get stuck doing every day. So it's nice to bring that little bit of variety into.

Kurt Schmidt: Well, yeah. And part of what I talk about in the book is with networking is being intentional, is doing it with intention because we're all trying to get to a different place. And the way I talk about networking is about how can I lift up other people that will then sort of that JFK quote of like a rising tide lifts all boats, right? So if I can get that team and the people and my peers around me up to a higher standard, they're just going to take me with them, right? So it's not about what you can get out of it. What can you provide? What value can you bring? And that's something in team building that I think is very important, is that if you're focused on creating value in the team, instead of focusing on how can I stand out in the team, because that's something people always tell you to do, right? Oh, you want to stand out, you want to be the big star and all those things, right? But I've found that the most reliable and the most successful people are usually the people kind of behind the scenes that are helping other people get the accolades, and those are the people that have a longer and happier career.

Dane Groeneveld: Absolutely. And I want to dig a little bit deeper into your framework for that in the book, because this concept of it's not about me, it's about the team. Traditionally doesn't sit well, we're networking because normally you'll see the boss that's out networking with investors and everything else. And the rest of us are all back here grinding away in the office, but it's trying to make a little bit more of a democratic accessible environment for networking.

Kurt Schmidt: Because the problem that I found, and I was guilty of this as a younger corporate employee, one of my first jobs was at a monster at one of the largest health insurance companies in the world. So I learned in there that standing out was not a good thing. You wanted to be under the radar. Because you stood up. It's like grass cutting. It's like-

Dane Groeneveld: Conformal, get out.

Kurt Schmidt: Yeah, right. Exactly. So I learned that, and then I realized that that's why agency world was a little bit better for me because I enjoyed trying to make noise and find opportunities not just for myself, but for the people around me. So the idea that being intentional and in bringing value to other people is really about understanding. Also, what are you looking for? Because you might not be bringing the value you think you're bringing, right? Because sometimes people... what's the term is that their only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right? So if you're an analytics person, if you're an analyst, you might think that the only value you can bring to a team is analysis. But I'm sure you have other skillsets and you have other passions and other things that interest you and maybe other people's jobs that interest to you, asking them to help mentor you, to help be a part of helping lift you up. That's a value to those people too. It's creates validation for the work that they've put into their roles. I remember years ago working on a cross- functional team and going to the marketing people and being like, I don't understand anything about marketing. Can you help me understand this? And they were so pleased. Like oh my gosh, look at this project manager showing up and wanting to learn from us. And they were so excited about it, and they taught me a ton of things. And then on top of that, it built a great relationship with them. And when I ran into problems even years later where I needed help, let's say in a different role, and I was like, oh man, we need somebody to help write this thing. Well, I know one of the copywriters in marketing, let me ask him if he's got some time. And it worked out great. So anyways, back to my point about that networking, it's not about that immediate gratification. It's about building that network long term over time.

Dane Groeneveld: And I think building for the future, that creates a resilience and an agility in teams, which is huge. A lot of companies, a lot of teams suffered when Covid hit because we got torn away from the way we used to work with each other and the way we had relationships. And I actually think there's been a lot of rebuilding going on, but I wouldn't say it's been uniformly successful.

Kurt Schmidt: And because what happens in some of these, and especially in the bigger the company it is, you just tend to rely more on the company to give you the direction and how you should be doing those things instead of taking more initiative yourself. So for example, I remember being in a larger company. We had a small team and we had a big all staff thing, and the CEO came out and said, here's our goals for the year. But none of them, I could translate into what our team was doing. I couldn't connect the dots to that, right? So what I decided then, and I didn't need the company to provide my team with a vision, I could create my own vision for the team. So we had a small project management team, and I was like, we're going to have the most on budget, on time projects ever this year. That's going to be our goal. And my assumption was is that if my boss or my great- grand boss or somebody called me into their office, they would say, what are you doing to help the bottom line? I'd be like, oh, well, we're working towards this. And I remember that actually happening in a more sideways thing at an event. And they were like, oh, what is your team working on? I was like, oh, we're working on being, oh, that fits in well with our goals. Thank you so much for doing that. And I was like, okay. But what happens so much is that we expect the organization to provide us with that roadmap, with that exact roadmap. And then when they don't, we look at that as a failure on the organization, but then we turn around and we complain that we're not given enough autonomy in. So there could be a bit of a contradiction that goes on there. Now, I'm not saying this works the same way in every organization, but what I would a ask people is that if they feel like their team doesn't have a ton of direction, just create your own direction and see what happens. Get together as a group, back to being intentional.

Dane Groeneveld: It's intentional, but it's also, it's a bias for action. There's no point sitting around complaining at the water cooler. If you have that bias for action, you build something, you've now got something to take up to a boss or to another department and say, what do you think? So I think that breeds good forward momentum.

Kurt Schmidt: And I love that. I love that term bias for action. And it's an important one because I've been on a team where they've had that one person that doesn't really fit in and doesn't really do a lot of work, or is more toxic or negative or something. They're dragging things down. But what I've found is the more intentionally you get with what your goals and your values things are, is that that will help either manage that person up or manage them out much more quickly than just ignoring them and then slacking nasty message about them after the meeting to other coworkers. That's only fun for so long.

Dane Groeneveld: Oh, that's draining. It's totally draining.

Kurt Schmidt: It is. It's a lot of emotional labor, and especially to your point, because we're so virtual, there's a much bigger load on our brains trying to interpret people's intentions through a two- dimensional, through two- dimensional sort of world. So.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, your example about talking to the copywriter in marketing was a good one. I was talking to a friend the other day, and she said to me, how much time and confusion are we creating by having to translate between departments? The finance guy or the analyst looks at it this way and then the creative team this way, and then the product and the logistic team this way. And none of us are speaking the same language or aligned around the same goals. So surely that's where there's a big opportunity to be networking and creating that common language.

Kurt Schmidt: Exactly. Because again, as someone who wants to be successful in their career versus their job, so, there's a big mindset where there's so many people that have given up their careers for a job because they're so focused on the job and the title that they have is that they are ignoring their career. They're larger term things. So that's why I talk about networking, but to your point, the idea of understanding how finance works in your organization, even from a high level is so valuable for your career. You might not think, how does this help my job today, because it might not, it might not, but that's not the point. That's not why we're going and building a relationship with those folks. We're building a relationship with those folks so we have a broader, more global, holistic, whatever word you want to use, understanding of how this business works, how can I bring value to it? And then also be able to see the writing on the wall win. Maybe I'm not adding value anymore, or the business is not providing value. That's some signs on, maybe I should hit the bricks before they hit them for me.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Which is where the external networking's important.

Kurt Schmidt: A hundred percent. And again, it's more of a lifestyle. And that's what I talk about in the book is that networking is super fun and easy when you have a system and you look at it more as a lifestyle and instead of a task to be done, it's a mindset way more than it is a sort of chore. And when you approach it that way and you start to systematize it becomes a lot of fun and really interesting. So like I said, the book's a quick read, it's a hundred pages. I wanted it to be something that people would actually read-

Dane Groeneveld: And apply.

Kurt Schmidt: Yeah, and apply. So I took a lot of the fluff out to make it more of a handbook for networking. And it's great because I have another peers, there's another great networking book called The 20 Minute Networking Meeting. And that writer and her, she gave me a lot of kudos on her book. And it was funny because her book was one of the books that helped inspire me to write this book because-

Dane Groeneveld: It's nice when it pays back. It's reinforcing.

Kurt Schmidt: Yeah, exactly. And I was very clear, my book is not meant to replace books like that. It's meant to augment those types of books. So the 20 Minute Networking Meeting or How to Win Friends and Influence People written in the'50s or whatever, it's still relevant today, even more so in some cases. So my book was not meant to replace those. It's meant to augment them with a system that people can actually implement that will help them work towards larger networking goals. And to your point in, I've seen people use it internally. I've seen people use it externally. I've seen people use it both just multiple tabs, and they're working towards building a career instead of just trying to get their job done. And I think, again, once you have that holistic look at things, I think you just make better choices.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, you're more informed, for sure. Yeah. So tell me a little bit more about that system. Because I'm a networking addict, it doesn't mean I do it well. My wife's like, I can't go anywhere with you, Dane, without you trying to see who's in town and who you can connect with one way.

Kurt Schmidt: Yeah. I'm kind looking too. For me, it's all started out with a simple spreadsheet where I had a number of tabs. One was to segment people into different groups. So if it was consultants, maybe like an independent consultant. So you run into an EOS consultant, a marketing consultant, a fractional person, an agile consultant. They would all go into this group, and then maybe there was recruiters, they would go into another sort of bucket, and then business owners and peers and other just lateral professionals. So, that's kind of where it started. And what I would do is when I would connect with someone, I'd put their name in there and what they were looking for. So this is Jen. Jen is looking for more consulting opportunities around product development, and this is what a good client looks like for her and yada, yada, yada. And then would, over in the corner, I would update the date was when I last talked to her. And then the spreadsheet is really simple. When it gets to 60 days and it hasn't been updated, it turns yellow, and then when it gets passed 90 days, it turns red. And so every day when I get up, I can quickly go, I fly, open my spreadsheet. While I've got it more, I've made it a little bit more crazy with Zapier web hooks and some other things right now. But the basic, which sheet was a way for me to stay in touch and keep in touch with these people. And so somebody might say, well, what are you asking them about? Well, I know what they're looking for. I reach out to them and I say, Hey, how's that going with looking for more consult? Is that still your goals? And by the way, here's mine. This is what I'm looking for, and I'm still looking for that. So I would always kind of have that script to say, " Hey, I'm Kurt, I'm president at Foundry. We do custom software design and development. We're always looking to meet new partners and clients that could maybe benefit from our work. I also do a podcast. I'm also always looking for guests. So if you know of somebody that you think would be great for a leadership focused podcast, maybe somebody you worked with or an old boss, I'd love an introduction. And then I'm also looking for speaking events based on my book that I recently released." And then I would just run and run through that very quickly and What are you looking for? And then I would record it, put it in the spreadsheet, and then every day, just like a system I go through and I'm like, oh, there's Bill. I haven't reached out to Bill in a while. And then I would look and maybe after some time I'd be like, oh, I did see on LinkedIn that Bill just took a new job in Chile or something. So I might move him to what I call the annual sort of check- in. So maybe every six months versus every 90 days. And then I have a dead file, which is like, oh, I've tried to reach out to this person a couple of times.

Dane Groeneveld: Dead connect.

Kurt Schmidt: Yeah, they're, they're not interested right now. I'm sure it's overly surface. I've had people resurface three years later and be like, oh my gosh, it's been so long. And I'm like, right, yes, it has been long. Yes. Oh, I remember you. And I pull them out of the old dead, dead file into the active one. So again, it's a really simple tool, and it's different from a CRM, right? Because this is your personal CRM. This is not, this is not about getting opportunities for sales or businesses or things like that. It is really literally my own little personal Craigslist of people that are looking for opportunities and can I match them together. And that's what I do. So there's business owners tab over here. Hey, oh, bill mentioned he's looking for product leadership. Oh, there's Jen, product leadership. Let me connect these two. And it's worked out really well for years for me. And I eventually want to turn it into its own little SaaS thing, but I'm way too busy to do that.

Dane Groeneveld: No, that's a cool project. That's a really cool project. And when you think about the creation of knowledge, connections, value for different people, what is it that you personally take away most from that whole program and experience?

Kurt Schmidt: Oh, man, there's so much. I mean, one of the things that really when you asked that popped out to me was the possibilities and opportunities. So because I've been connected with a lot of these people for a very long time, seeing their growth over time and how their needs have changed and their growth, it really shows me, it opens up my thoughts to different opportunities that might be in the world that I've never been presented with. So seeing Jen grow from a VP of product at a very large insurance company to running her own consultant and seeing agency five years later with multimillion dollar clients and all these things, seeing that just that transition and that opportunity change over time is inspiring to me personally, right? But also at the same time, it is a value to me because as you do this over time, people understand you are a connector. You know all the people who that are connectors, it's pretty obvious, right? So the other thing that is of value is that you just get recognized as a connector person. So what happens to me on a daily if not multiple times during the week is I will just get a cold intro to somebody. Somebody will say, Hey, Kurt's a connector type person. This is my really good friend Amy. She was at this large company for 20 years, and she just got laid off, and I thought, for sure she should reach out and talk to you. And I'm like, great. Usually I'm all for the double blind sort of intro thing. Like, Hey, do you want to be intro to this person? But more times than not, because I have the more reputation of, at least in my network as a connector, I just get these opportunities dropped in my lap, and I enjoy that. So that's a great question. Thank you for that.

Dane Groeneveld: No, I like the answer. It reminds me about network analysis, going back to the internal side of organizations where you look at who carries that social currency and that credibility and trust and how they may bear influence even though they might not be in a hierarchical position.

Kurt Schmidt: For sure. Yeah, absolutely. And how do those people get into those positions. And I think just networking on the outside, they're great listeners, first and foremost. I would definitely recommend anybody listening to this show, look into the concept of active listening and what that actually means. And that term and that skillset has been huge for my development in my career, not only as an employee, but as a business owner later in life. Active listening and the skill for it has been priceless.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, no, I would agree with that. What about other than listening, what are the other drivers? I'm hearing that there's a theme in your work of, and you said it's not a CRM, we're not trying to sell something. There's a theme of just being there for the moment and not having an agenda. There seems to be some power behind that.

Kurt Schmidt: For sure. Because again, the idea is that what you're offering someone is access to your network. And that's of value. Don't forget, I mean, even if you only have six people in your network that you can think of, it's still of value. It doesn't matter. Everybody starts somewhere. And so the idea of, again, same as an internal organization, take stock of the people you know cross- functionally, cross disciplines in your organization. What kind of relationship do you have with them? How much do you understand about their job and what makes them successful? And if the answer's not a lot, then you should probably talk to more of those people and learn more of those things. Again, back to my point, it might not help you in getting your job done today. That's not the point. The idea is to build that career. And if you are someone who does want to work at a place for 20, 30 years, I know a number of people who've worked at Target for 25 years, 30 years, because Target headquartered here in Minneapolis and Best Buy and 3M and General Mills, these are people that worked there a long time. The reason why they worked there a long time is not just because they were good at their job, is because they have built that strong internal network, and they've been chosen for new opportunities and picked because as a business owner or even a large business VP, hiring from the inside is, or promoting from the inside is fantastic. It's a lot cheaper.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. A lot cheaper. And you've got someone who's already got the network internally.

Kurt Schmidt: Exactly. And if you're not on my radar, well then you probably shouldn't be on my radar, is how I might interpret that, right? Because nobody's out just looking. Nobody's coming to save you. You got to save yourself. I'm sorry, but back to your point about that's the other thing is being active listening, but also being direct and clear about what you are looking for. This is what I am looking for when you're networking and being direct with people. Because I meet with students, for example, and do some career coaching on the side, and they will spend 45 minutes kind of rambling about things. And I'll be like, what do you want? What are you looking for? And they're like, oh, I'm looking for a job. I'm like, okay, let's just start with that next time. So if you are, and this worked for me, well, internally with teams, is I would show up, and at the time I was PMO director, so I would show up and talk to maybe the director of development or the COO, and I would start the conversation with what I wanted. Obviously there's niceties and things wouldn't just, but I would start out with, my goal here is to leave this meeting with more knowledge about how we do invoicing. And they'd be like, oh, really? Well, I wasn't really necessarily prepared for that. Oh, I'm sorry. I probably should have wrote a more clearer invite, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Dane Groeneveld: But that's a good learning moment.

Kurt Schmidt: Exactly. Right. So next time, show up. Hey, I'm sending you an invite. I really want to know, understand more about how we do invoicing. And then all of a sudden, the next time they bring in somebody who actually does the invoicing, and they're like, okay, yeah, sure, let's show you more of this. Why do you want to know this? And I'm like, well, because I really want to understand what's happening more downstream with my work, and I want to understand the impact of it, and what are the opportunities my team can do for their upstream to make your job even better? And people love it when you say that.

Dane Groeneveld: Oh, yeah. Oh, for sure, I mean so often we're so narrowly focused on what's in front of us and not how that impacts our teammates

Kurt Schmidt: And the entire organization. Because again, if your team is maybe part of delivery, well, somebody is, look at the entire supply chain and how that works. Is there things that your team could be doing to better impact that overall? Because not only will that make other people's jobs easier, it'll make you look like what you're doing, which is great. We all want to look like we know what you're doing because none of us know what we're doing.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, no-

Kurt Schmidt: But it's good to look like we do.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. Or at least have someone to call on if it starts to go wrong.

Kurt Schmidt: Right. Exactly. Right. Yeah. You've got a buddy. It's like the trivia game where they have the lifeline, right? You'd call, you have one phone call.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. Phone a friend.

Kurt Schmidt: Yeah. Phone a friend. That's it. Yep. Exactly. I mean, honestly, that was super helpful for me. And I didn't do that early in my career. I thought, I keep my head down, I ship my work on time, and all the things will just come to me. All the things that I deserve will come to me. And what I realized, and my father taught me this very early, is that you get a hundred percent of what you don't ask for. So if you want to grow and you want to get better, and you think it will just show up, it will not. I'm sorry. I wish it would. I wish opportunity would rain from the sky, and we could all just grab it, but you need to ask for it. You need to go out and tell people, this is what I need, this is what I'm looking for. People do want to help, but sometimes people don't know that how to help.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. It's interesting. We've been toying with this new project. I read it on a BBC news article years ago, five, six years ago, and it basically said, build your own user guide, we call it a user manual. And so it's a one pager, and it's got a little cartoon interview up in the front to make it accessible. And it's kind of like, Hey, this is how I like to be communicated with. When I do this type of work, this is how you can help me do my work better. And it just gives you a little bit of a reference point, a navigation on, man, if I'm working with Kurt today, how could I approach that meeting? Or how could I help him to be more successful in whatever we're doing?

Kurt Schmidt: And it's things like that where people will assume that that's manager's job or their boss's job or the company's job to bring those sorts of opportunities to the table. It is not. It is your job because you have recognized it and you're smart enough to have understood that this is a value, and this would make our team stronger and better. Don't wait for somebody else to solve the problems for you, solve your own problems. And you'll see how quickly people start recognizing you as the problem solver in the team, and you're the strongest link in the chain all of a sudden.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. You've got something positive. Again, it's going back to your point on creating the vision at the group level. You've got something to take out.

Kurt Schmidt: Exactly. And I think all teams should have their own personal sort of vision or their team vision statement of some kind. And it doesn't have to be anything super serious. It could be work hard, play hard, like whatever. I don't care. But it should be something that... because again, corporate values and mission statements and things can be so lofty, right? Like Google's like, do no evil. I'm just picking on them because it's easy. So it's do no evil is their mission statement or whatever. How does that translate down to them? Android team? Well, I think it's up to that team leader and the team itself to define how that impacts their team and their work or their department or however you want to scale it to. So to us, as engineers do no evil means we don't want to build up a lot of technical debt that other people have to fill up later or things like that. It could be any of those things. So we put in processes and things like that that work towards achieving the larger goal of the organization, versus I'm going to sit around and wait for some SVP to show up and say, well, you should be focused on this.

Dane Groeneveld: Which no one liked. That was a great podcast. I think it was called the Leadership Lab. It might have been a blinkers that I was listening to. And it was like, Hey, when you are at work and you're not feeling well, and you call your team to say you won't make it into the office today, how do you think they feel? And everyone's like, oh, they feel okay. They've got it. But the reality is they feel kind of inspired, freed. Because no one really wants the boss to come and tell them what to do every day. That's a parent- child relationship.

Kurt Schmidt: It a hundred percent is. And again, those folks are no different than you or I, but we have socially been trained that they are different. And so we treat them different. We don't tell them the truth or we're less, we withhold certain information. And I understand that we're not, that it's impossible to necessarily break through except for the fact that when you realize that you are in control of your career, you have all the power to make your team better yourself, you have the power to contribute and make things better. If you are complicit, don't complain later that you didn't like the way certain things were done. Because I've been on so many teams where the boss comes in and says, all right, from now on, we're going to do everything on orange paper or whatever it is. And you have, somebody leans over to you is like, man, orange paper is so dumb. And I'm like, like, yeah, I guess. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I've never used orange paper, so I don't know. And they're like, yeah, it's really dumb. And then later on, you see that orange paper isn't necessarily working and the boss kind of has to backpedal and all this stuff, and you've wasted a ton of time. But what you do get is you get a good laugh because you're like, ah. See how dumb that boss was when that person who was side eyeing the boss during this could have raised their hand and said, here's why. Let me put together a quick presentation on why I think staying with blue paper is going to be more successful for us. Because you don't do the work we do every day. You're changing it to orange paper for some arbitrary reason. Maybe you read a book, or you just went to a conference and heard that and you thought Orange paper's the way to go take some action into it and accountability for it. Because if you want to be, and I've always heard this from bad bosses, is like, well, if you treat people like adults, they'll act like adults. And I'm like, but adults also, it's two way street. They should be treating you with respect as well. So, if you see me walking off of a cliff, I hope you're grabbing my collar before I walk off of it, versus Well, they're the boss, and it's right. It's the whole emperor has a new close.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, that's right. It's interesting. I think that ties heavily back into psychological safety, which we talk a lot about with guests. And there's some crazy stats out there. Like 74% of people won't put their hand up if in a meeting because they don't feel safe. And I wonder how much this concept of networking within the business can help to build that trust.

Kurt Schmidt: Absolutely. Yep. Absolutely. Because again, I'm a firm believer in psychological safety starts with you. It does not start with, how is the environment necessarily created around you intentionally to give you that space, it has to start with you and your definition of safe, right? Because everybody's definition is slightly different. And back to the point about understanding your definition of safe. You might be in a safe place, but it's unfamiliar because you're new to the organization. So the more you're networking with other people and learning about where their safety is and how they define safe and how they interact with those things, it starts to build up even more and more resilience for you over time that your whole identity around that psychological safety might change a bit because of the organization that you're in. So again, I think that's where I say that active networking can help you create a better experience for yourself within a team than waiting for somebody to give you a handbook and then judging the handbook on whether or not it meets your needs or not.

Dane Groeneveld: No, I like that. So with this, and I'm actually looking forward to getting into the book with this concept of being very intentional and making it a lifestyle, making it a system. I like the way you described the tabs and the color coding. Here's the question I like to ask guests. When you think about Web3, how does this whole approach play into Web3 because there's something that's drawing me in that direction

Kurt Schmidt: No, I love that. I love that where you're going with that, because Web3, AI, a lot of these new tools, these are ways that, you know what I love about the idea with just CRMs in general with the ability to decentralize that sort of data and information? Because if you look at a lot of the, and they're great sales tools, don't get me wrong, but ZoomInfo, Apollo, a number of lead generation places, they're great, but they all are just robbing from everywhere else to dump into their database.

Dane Groeneveld: And it's just data. There's no meaningful attachment.

Kurt Schmidt: Exactly. Right. Exactly. So where I see the impact that Web3 could have is being able to really truly own your network in a decentralized way, and then being able to assign real value to that network and you can could even, and again, I'm not suggesting this, but you could in the future, there could be a monetization thing of how do I get into that network? Because there is lots of referral companies out there where it's like, oh, join the group and we give each other referrals. And you get a piece of this and you get a piece of that. Well, imagine if it's Web3 and there's an individual that has a large network, you don't have to join this large agency, and you can really make that a part of your value that you carry with you throughout your career so much like a resume. You've almost got this connection wallet that you're bringing with you that is a value over time. So I love that. I've thought about it. I love that you asked that question, so thank you.

Dane Groeneveld: No, you bet. I like that connection wallet concept too, because it may be that Kurt's got a really good network in design, and Dane's got a really good network in recruiting, and you start to see where to go more quickly, because networking can be a laborious long task.

Kurt Schmidt: Exactly. And so if we have some ways of seeing the assets within our piece and understanding the value of them and how groomed that information is, right? Because I think that's the most important thing with networking and connections and why LinkedIn is so powerful is it's not powerful because it's a great platform. It's a great platform because people keep it up to date. That is what makes it great. The people are constantly like Wikipedia, they're constantly in their tweaking data and updating data, I need a job. I don't need a job. I got a job. I'm looking for a job. I did a thing. I want to take some credit for this thing. This new milestone happened for me. That's what so great about LinkedIn. And so that's why it is so powerful because that's where we go for the newest information, right? But again, who's to say that us as individuals could not also be the arbiters of that sort of data and information, and that would be a value as LinkedIn is a value.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, I agree. I agree. Well, it's been a great conversation, Kurt. I think if I summarize, I love the story of enjoying, in fact, celebrating people with side hustles and side gigs as a way of bringing stuff back. I think that is important. There's a lot of leaders right now that are afraid of it, but I think it's something to be embraced.

Kurt Schmidt: Yeah. I love people. Like I said, if somebody had a side gig of building websites, like, okay, great, as long as it doesn't impact your work, that's fine. Because we do different type of work here. We work with teams, not individual freelancers. So you sure, as financial person on a ledger, you could look at those things and say, oh, they're conflicting of interest. But when the person, you're building that network and you're building the team with intention, you can see how their outside experience can really bring a lot of expertise to the team that you would've never gotten from somebody who is just a career developer.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. And I think Adam Grant posted on a study that said that people come in more happy, more energetic, more productive the day after doing their side hustle the night before.

Kurt Schmidt: A hundred percent. And we even have an Slack channels in our company Slack, that are dedicated to that sort of thing. And so people can opt into viewing those things, or they can opt out. It doesn't matter. It's not culture that's force fed. It's all a carte, you can partake as much as you like, and some people when they first start, they're very nervous about it. They're like, oh, I don't know what lines there are. And it's allows them to really, again, it's like a buffet. You can sort of take a little from hear and a little from there over time. And we do that very intentionally because we don't want people drinking from the fire hose the minute they start, because we do have a very strong culture. We have a lot of inside jokes and all those things, and it takes a while to start to learn those things.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, it does. Well, I think that's a great little tip, and I love that the way that, you know, go from encouraging that clarity at the beginning of the conversation. So you know how to listen for what the other person needs and how to share what you need. I think that's another great tip in networking. So it's been a great conversation.

Kurt Schmidt: No, I really appreciate the opportunity. I'm a big fan. I've watched a bunch of the episodes of this show. I think you do a fantastic job, and I'm excited to see more of them. So congratulations on all the success.

Dane Groeneveld: No, thanks Kurt. And if people want to connect with you, be part of your network or learn more about the book or Foundry, how do they best find you?

Kurt Schmidt: Yeah, the best way is I'm probably the most active on LinkedIn, like I mentioned. I do write a lot of articles and post and share a lot there. So you can find me, Kurt, K- U- R- T, Schmidt, and just spelled just like the beer. You can find me on LinkedIn. And yeah, I'd love to connect with folks and learn about what you're looking for.

Dane Groeneveld: All right. That's neat. And I've got to try Schmidt's beer cause I haven't tried that before.

Kurt Schmidt: Oh, it's terrible. Don't do it. Don't do it. That's terrible. No, it's terrible.

Dane Groeneveld: I've spent a lot of my life drinking.

Kurt Schmidt: Actually. I don't even think they make it anymore. Well, are you into ice fishing because-

Dane Groeneveld: No.

Kurt Schmidt: Yeah, well then, yeah, it's kind of an ice fishing beer.

Dane Groeneveld: Okay. I'll keep that in mind if I have a ice fish.

Kurt Schmidt: Which means it's super cheap and you can leave it on the ice if you don't like it.

Dane Groeneveld: Oh, that's funny. Oh, well that's been great. Thanks again. Kurt.

Kurt Schmidt: Yeah, I appreciate it.