How Work is Stifling Innovation

Jose Leal (00:09):

Hello and welcome to Radical World of Podcast. I'm Jose Al, and today we've got Gloria Folaron, hopefully up pronounced that pretty good.

Gloria Folaron (00:19):

It's pretty, pretty good. Folaron. But

Jose Leal (00:22):

It's Folaron. Okay. Folaron.

Gloria Folaron (00:26):

We're the south, so we're in Charlotte area right now, and Oh, okay.

Jose Leal (00:31):

Oh, <laugh>. Well, welcome. It's a pleasure having you here. And nothing like starting on picking on your name as the first thing outta my mouth. So we've got a really nice conversation today about the work that you're doing, but how it relates with the work we've been doing, which is I think really interesting because much of, of this, what we've been talking about is how organizations don't serve people. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. Right? And it sounds to me like the work that you're doing is how technology isn't serving people. Yep. And so it's stifling them and not, not just them as a, as a general class people but specifically people who are neurodivergent as well. Right. Because we are all neurodivergent in some way. That's my opinion. Right. I,

Gloria Folaron (01:34):

I, I see a bit of the world as, the reason we have to categorize things as neurodivergent is because we get symptomology that results because how those brains work doesn't work in the way the world is set up. Right. So if we pull down the layer on layers of the onion, I think, I think there's a lot of truth to what you said.

Jose Leal (01:55):

Yeah. And, and I sense that that those that don't get identified as, as being neurodivergent are really because they're just able to cope. And so it seems okay, but they're really not okay. Right. They're, they're still struggling. Hundred percent. So there's so much to dig in because <laugh>, we were just talking off air about the alpacas and nursing and, and everything. And as I mentioned my partner's a nurse here at Stanford. So so lots to talk about that you, you worked in Ed. So I, I, I get a sense of what that's like. Tell us a little bit about you and tell us a little bit about what you've developed and why you've developed it.

Gloria Folaron (02:47):

I'll start with the about me piece. 'cause What you just highlighted was very much what I would call symptoms of my own A DHD. And we didn't know I wasn't, I was diagnosed two and a half, half years ago. So that whole, how did you get through life kind of not knowing fitting under the glasses, finding those ways to cope. And one of the things I realized over the last few years is that being in healthcare, we work in a way that is set up on what I call routines versus habits. So when a patient comes into the er, I know if you have this complaint, I need to do these next 10 things and I need to do them in a certain order, and I need to do them that way every time. And I can speed it up. So it's, it's, I have a trigger and then I have actions that follow it.

Gloria Folaron (03:36):

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, when you are neurodivergent, the ability to make habits is not as easy. So somebody says, oh, you just need to make habits to do it. It's that trigger event where you get this automaticity that happens. And I didn't know at the time that that is really what set the groundwork for my ability to float through the rest of the world and make sure that I was still getting by, by creating those patterns. My background I nursing was my undergraduate of a master's in business and emphasis in management. And then I have worked largely in the startup space, both as a product manager and as a project manager. And then the experience getting to where we are now is having seen both sides, even in healthcare from the treatment and misunderstanding that happens because of the way the differences in our brains communicate and realizing that what's happening in the environment now is a lot of what you mentioned off air, which is this organizational push pull that starts to happen when you have an employee who comes in with their own background, their own mindsets, their own ability to do things when you need them to do something.

Gloria Folaron (04:58):

But it doesn't always align. And we're, I'm seeing over and over again, organizations are just getting more and more constrained, and the demands are getting higher and the cognitive load is getting higher, and we're losing all that time that we need for people. So how do we create a tool that really starts to support people at the work where they're already doing the work, but then helps those organizations be more people focused without needing to do some of the, the nitty gritty to get in there. It's just part of what they do.

Jose Leal (05:29):

Well, one of the things that we talk about in, in radical world is, is the fact that even what you've just said about how organizations sort of control the situation, right? There's a mindset amongst our society, amongst people in our society that is, that it's okay for an organization to control those

Gloria Folaron (05:58):

Great point.

Jose Leal (05:59):

Right? And so we call that the, the fiat lens. We, we see the world as a, as something that needs to be controlled, and therefore we need to be controlled, right? And then we need to have systems of control and, and that process of control, and it typically is not like the structure of an organization, the hierarchy of an organization. The processes and policies of an organization tend to be about control, not about freedom. And, and therefore what we see is that people are constrained from the get go from the second they walk into the organization. They're already at, you know, with a foot back just trying to sort of deal with this. And you talk about neurodivergence and, and neuroscience from a standpoint of what is, how do people react in certain environments? And the reality is we think that the environment as a whole is already setting people on the defensive. And so anything that we do beyond that, meaning the more control we apply, the more stress we apply, the worse it gets. And that, that's the space you're dealing with. It's that it's, you're not changing the container of the organization, they're your clients, but, but you're changing the software with which they can use to offer some level of control, but it's limited by the fact that you've focused on the person rather than on the work Yeah. And, and the person's needs, right?

Gloria Folaron (07:54):

Yeah. And I would even shift the, the difference from the word control into visibility. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so how do we have visibility across the work that's married to autonomy so that we all know what goal we're working towards? And within that goal, there might be multiple paths to hit that goal, but if you all agree this is the place that we're all supposed to land. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you can step back then as a manager and say, I can trust that they know where we're trying to go and rely on them to be able to find that path. And it's okay if it doesn't look like the one I thought I, I wanted it to.

Jose Leal (08:35):

And so your work at lane time, I'd like to learn a little bit more about the focus on the person because what we try to do is, is actually focus completely on the person at the structure of the organization. So co-ownership, co-management as as part of the process. And I'm wondering if, if lean time is, is actually the type of tool that we're talking about when we talk about, you know, as you just said, autonomy, could could you envision lead time being used in a, in an organization that is co-owned and co-managed? Or do you still need project managers and you still need product managers and you still need admins and all of that kind of stuff to make it work?

Gloria Folaron (09:35):

So the, the way we see things is that the project, we love project management. So I, the, the pro the problem that happens right now that we find in the, as in the project management space for example, there was a study put out last year in the UK that said they asked software engineers, what is the biggest problem that your community is facing? And they said, bad project managers,

Jose Leal (10:03):

<Laugh>. So

Gloria Folaron (10:04):

As I've done a lot of discovery and interviews, what I find over and over again is that the folks who do project management are often not trained in the traditional practices anymore. It's often folks with the least tolerance to the chaos. And that's not a bad thing per se, but what we find is there's a lack of consistency. So you might have one team who has a very people oriented project manager, and you might have another team who is a very functional project manager who focuses more on the deadlines, and you'll get completely different outcomes because of the way they relate to the team. And so we see ourselves really in both spaces. So how do we help folks being a better project manager? And then how do we also help folks who are smaller companies who may not be able to afford a formal project manager, but still reap the benefits as if they had one?

Jose Leal (10:57):

How does the focus on the person, because for, for us, the idea that the individual should be fully autonomous and that the organization should be designed for that autonomy, how do you see this evolution of technology moving from a hierarchical and very structured right. Historically very structured process, really where we were serving the technology rather than the technology serving us. It was intended to be a tool, but it was really a tool that wound up in many cases being something that most people are serving the software. How do you see that changing? Do you see, is that, do you think that that's part of the work you guys are doing and moving in that direction?

Gloria Folaron (11:54):

So for some of that, what we find is that there's a lot of negative I wanna say almost baggage. It's, it's really, trauma is probably the better word for it, <laugh> and, and workplace trauma that follows individuals. And so a lot of where we're at right now is really starting to pick apart those pieces of how do we also change our relationship with what is productivity, particularly in knowledge work. We've tried over and over again to go back to what you see in manufacturing, which is, let's put a definition on how we can improve productivity, but knowledge work is abstract. It's in somebody's head. You can't measure and repeat every single time you need those breaks away from the work. You need time to decompress and let the brain do the thing it needs to do. And because we've been trying to squeeze the manufacturing process into it, right?

Gloria Folaron (12:52):

It, it's been convoluting the system. And so for us, we see these elements of their ways to build in features for, for example, one thing we do right now is we track how we don't track. It's, you rate how you feel on, on the tasks on an emoji rating scale from red, angry, swearing, face to a unicorn. And we can then start to help you prioritize tasks based on what you like to do and pair tasks that you don't like to do with things that you do. So they're easier to get into, but the next layer of that is then making recommendations on who to assign tasks to based on their interests without divulging who hates what tasks. But it gives a little bit more of that power back. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> of being able to, now I'm working on things that I enjoy and it's not just rooted to, oh, this isn't my job description, or I'm the only person available.

Jose Leal (13:44):

Right? And, and you're doing that by doing some AI analysis on the behavior that, that they're doing. So what they like, what they don't like, what, what they're completing, what they're not completing.

Gloria Folaron (13:59):

That and the rating. So the, the rating is entirely private. So they can put a, I'm an vomit emoji on the task and nobody but the AI knows that. So then we use the mathematical algorithms based on their analyzing, okay, which tasks are best suited for this person's profile?

Jose Leal (14:19):

Right. And so what do you see as sort of the progression? 'cause This is early days of this type of stuff. Do you know of anyone else that's doing this kind of work in this space?

Gloria Folaron (14:32):

Not, not where we're at. What we see is a lot of disjointed. 10 years ago, startup mentality was pick one feature and build for that one feature, and then just focus on that. Right. What that's done is created these gaps, fragmentation flows. Yeah, exactly. So like products, there are products that give you kudos and you can cheer on your teammates, but they're outside of your natural workflow. Right? And when we talk about heuristics and getting people ingrained in adoption into those things, it has to be where they're already doing the work or it's not gonna happen.

Jose Leal (15:08):

Right? And so you're looking at how do we do more of the, of the workflow within an organization so that it can be enrichened and enlivened by more information about what they like and what the scope of their work is.

Gloria Folaron (15:28):

Yeah. And you touched on something earlier that we were actually having conversations on today with our team around goals. And, and it's, you didn't touch on it directly. It was more reminding me of that one of the things that we find kind of in this hierarchical top down model is that it gets really hard to set OKRs, and it gets very hard to set OKRs because I'm committing to a metric that is somebody else's measurement, right? And we spend our entire lives measured by somebody else's bar, even from childhood and school, right? It's, it's a mass group bar, it's the bar of a job description. It's never our own bar, right? And so we see ourselves like long term, getting to a point where we can align somebody's values and now look at your task and your company's goals and start to match those things because we can see the big picture and say, oh no, this is what's important to you. Look, this is how this task actually accomplishes those things.

Jose Leal (16:27):

Right? And, and I can imagine that that could go two ways. It could go the manipulative way, right? Which is let's use that that knowledge to drive more good behavior from folks, and we'll keep buying that technology to keep driving better behavior. They'll feel better and we'll get more stuff and we win. Or it goes down the path of the individuals having more of a say in that process. And, and I, I, I can guess which one corporations want. Yeah. And, and that's scary because that's likely more likely to happen than not. And so part of our work is, well, we don't want it to be a corporation. We want it to be a bunch of individuals working in an organization independently peer to peer collaboration. And, and so from, from that perspective, do you see that there's some potential here of this technology opening up the eyes of teams to be less hierarchical, to be more peer to peer? Or do you think it's just sort of going to be more of the same, but nicer?

Gloria Folaron (18:00):

So I think that all kind of really goes into what we call flow. There, there has to be a organizational flow that happens in terms of how you work and set your own structure on a day-to-day. And then we find as if, if we empower people on the individual level and give them what they need, then that starts to branch out into the reframing for the team itself. So well the majority of PM tools are focused on the company and maybe that project manager we see the focus is on the individual. And so how do we build a system that works for them and optimizes for them, and then that funnels and links to the work that the company is doing. So our hope, and that's what we are aiming for, is really that what you just described. And I would say that on the other point is you're touching on psychological safety, right? How do we create a world where those individuals are psychologically safe enough that they can feel comfortable putting those things in the system? And we're very particular, even how we put in the emoji task sentiment, knowing that some folks are still going back to office. You click and rate the emoji and it automatically blocks, blocks off. So somebody, if they were walking by, you can't see what you just put in.

Jose Leal (19:20):

And so the idea is, okay, this is my thing. I have some, I have now a relationship with my software that is not in, in relationship with my organization, that it's something that they can't see no one else can see. And that puts me in a state of sort of having a bond in a way with my software, which we don't usually have in this way. Right. Do you see it that way?

Gloria Folaron (19:52):

I do. And I also, there's that, that sense of control. I know you mentioned control and the kind of the negative aspect, right? Right,

Jose Leal (19:58):

Right.

Gloria Folaron (19:59):

For somebody who doesn't have psychological safety, that control piece is significant. 'cause It gives you something to anchor on,

Jose Leal (20:06):

Right? Yeah. And control is, it's in of itself is not a bad thing. It's nice to control your hands, <laugh>, right? It, it's nice to control the, the space around you and the life around you, but it's when that control impinges on someone else's personal space and personal life and ability to actually do what they love to do. Yeah. So based on what we've talked about so far, and from a a radical world perspective, as I mentioned, there's this fiat lens, which is sort of the structure of the world that we're familiar with. Everything needs to be controlled, somebody needs to be in control of it. And we define and, and dictate as an organization what, what that happens. How do you see from the work that you guys are doing this radical lens, this, it's about people's own desires. It's about people's own needs being met, both psychologically and obviously physically, all of the practical needs being met. How do we go about that work transforming? Like you're, you're starting to see it, you're kind of doing that work. What do you see as sort of the next step? How does this evolve?

Gloria Folaron (21:43):

Would you, when you say that it's kind of the next step in terms of context to the organizational piece or context to the individual piece?

Jose Leal (21:52):

Both. How, how does, how do individuals become more empowered? How do organizations give, give more empowerment if there's such a thing let go of, of some of the things that they used to require? I mean, imagine still as many people are going back to the office there's still a lot of people not in the office, right? And so that changed, right? That was huge. My partner Laura mentioned she's a nurse. She does case management for kidney transplant or liver transplant. Pardon me. Where did that come from? And, and so she works from home. She can work from home. And, and she does five years ago asking her, her boss to work from home, it was like, no, can't do it. The department rules you. All of this kind of stuff. Not possible. You wouldn't be able to do it. Right? so things do change, right? And, you know, the good thing of Covid is that we learned that that's possible. We learned that it's very possible. What are we learning is possible, I guess is what I'm asking, and how is that possibility becoming more apparent that people can be self-motivated, that people can be excited about their work, that people will get stuff done, even though they may not have someone breathing down their necks to do it. Like, do you see where I'm going?

Gloria Folaron (23:29):

Yeah. And you're touching on a lot of things that are very core to be experience of somebody with a DH adhd. Exactly. where you, a lot of them that I've talked to work on what they call bursts or bursts of energy I, what I find is, is actually, it's a circadian rhythm flow, which says that two hours after you wake up, you end up with a peak time, and then you have a dip, and then you have a peak again. But that's not a nine to five schedule <laugh>. Right. And so in that nine to five schedule, you have some dips built in that companies are expecting you to be productive in. But what you've just described is like that world that exists that lets you work when you can optimize your own work. And so the, for us in terms of kind of the system, and this, this may be a little hearsay in terms of what we're describing.

Gloria Folaron (24:23):

I don't know if we can be at a point in the next five, 10 years yet where we can fully trust that the corporations are going to empower their employees to do that. I think there's a deeper cultural shift that has to happen as a society, right? There's a lot of studies that show that the decline of empathy has been significant in terms of how we viewed the general world. And so for us, we see that being on, on the bottoms up approach, like empowering those individuals to start being that voice. And when they're empowered, then it becomes easier to start saying and modeling the things in the workforce that start to change up. Ideally, and I say this all the time, there, there was a recent study that just came out that said that when asked directly, 53% of tech workers identified as neurodivergent, but then they asked the companies how many neuro divergent employees they had, 3%,

Jose Leal (25:25):

Right?

Gloria Folaron (25:27):

The difference in the companies that I think are gonna be successful are gonna be those ones that can model and benefit those 50% that they're neglecting in those numbers. And so if we can empower those folks from the beginning, I think we'll start to see that cultural shift happen.

Jose Leal (25:45):

And, and I think that cultural shift is happening from many places, right? The fact that you are doing it from a technology perspective, and we're doing it from an organizational perspective, is happening. We have colleagues that are doing it in the legal perspective, right? We have colleagues that are doing it from technology and accounting and you know, you name it, there are people coming to the same realization, which is that what we need to do is focus on our needs as individuals, and that if our needs are met, then we'll be able to do the things that need to be done. Yeah. Because ultimately, as you said earlier, when you're energized is when you get things done. Yeah. And you can't get energized if you're in an environment that doesn't allow for that energy to come about either because you're off. Because here you are at a time where it doesn't work for you. Yeah. You're having to do things in ways or things that are in general that you don't want to do because they're dumb. Yeah. Like somebody's telling you to dumb do a dumb thing, and you're like, okay, yeah, sure, I'll do it. Yes.

Gloria Folaron (27:13):

Yeah.

Jose Leal (27:14):

Right? And very often, because we don't have that sense of meaning Mm-Hmm. We're not motivated, right? And so bringing the that knowledge to the table in technology that, hey, this is about helping people do the things they like to do, helping people do it in the way they like to do it, helping people be ab about them and then their work, that we're putting the order in the right way rather than, here's the work. Screw you. You're just a cog in the wheel and if you don't like it, we'll just replace you. Yeah. Right. that's gone. It's, it, it is starting to sound like organizations are, are listening and, and thus the success of the work that you guys are doing. Right? Yeah.

Gloria Folaron (28:15):

And I think it makes sense, anthropologically, if we look at the course of human history, right? Right. We've, we've now industrialized to a point where we can start to self-actualize.

Jose Leal (28:27):

We need to bounce back from having overdone it. Yeah. And, and find that balance. Yeah. Right. Time to move back from that extreme towards something that is more, we'll, probably overcorrect as usual.

Gloria Folaron (28:43):

Yep. That's part of, part of the cycle. The next generation will do better.

Jose Leal (28:48):

We'll, we'll, overcorrect, so anything that you wanted to, to talk about that we didn't talk about enough? Because from my perspective, the work that you guys are doing is, is highly compelling, not just for the neurodivergent, but I think for everybody, and especially for the neurodivergent because it, it at the very least lowers the bar a bit for that percentage of folks that are consider themselves or physically happen to be outside of the, of the, the norm. But that to me is kind of, how do I say it? It's almost like, yeah. So that's, that's what we should be doing. That's what needs to be done. What's more compelling than that?

Gloria Folaron (29:50):

I, I don't know. When, when I think of these things, it's I got diagnosed with my A DHD because we saw symptoms in my daughter.

Jose Leal (30:00):

Hmm.

Gloria Folaron (30:00):

And I can more, I, I lost count of how many times I've ever gone into a meeting and presented and asked a question of why, like, why are we doing this? Can you, can you help me understand? And over the years I've had to learn how do I sugarcoat this? How do I frame this a little differently? How do I make it so that the other person doesn't get defensive? But I can't count the amount of times that I've been almost felt like I was pushed into a corner because I asked the question why.

Jose Leal (30:32):

Right.

Gloria Folaron (30:33):

And if we can create a world where that why just naturally goes with the work, we're already setting the alignment needed to have those discussions. But not just for me and not for the other neurodivergent folks, but for my daughter who's going to grow up in a world and hopefully not have to experience these same things.

Jose Leal (30:55):

It's as simple as it gets, isn't it? It's just making things better for, for all of us. What what do you think from the standpoint of the product that you guys have developed and the breadth of products that are around it do you think that it's gonna catch fire, that you're gonna see many more products in different domains, software domains focusing on people? Are you sensing that that's the next generation?

Gloria Folaron (31:34):

If it's not, we will definitely be some of the forerunners. 'cause I, I don't see us stopping just at project management. The work experience is an experience, right? We spend so much of our lives at work that it encompasses lots of different things. I do see more and more focus though on the neurodivergent side knowing that, that, that culturally has shifted, I think mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> the rates of just women 23 to 49 being diagnosed with a DHD since 2020 has doubled. So where we're seeing astronomical amounts of folks who are realizing, yeah, my brain works a little differently than what society says it's supposed to.

Jose Leal (32:16):

Right. And maybe many of our brains do. Yeah. <Laugh> not the least of which is doing things that we're not supposed to be doing, doing things that we don't want to do, but have no choice to do, but to do when we're, we're told. Gloria, this has been a pleasure. I appreciate the conversation. I appreciate the fact that you're doing this work in a very practical way and, and bringing about change in a way that I think from a radical perspective is very much leaning in the right direction and doing the right work. And we just hope that we can pair up organizations to, to find that mix between individuals that are, that have the freedom, the autonomy to be doing this kind of work along with the technology that serves them even better. So thank you so much. Oh, thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. A pleasure talking to you and a pleasure learning about the work that you guys are doing. Thank you. Thank

Jose Leal (33:27):

Oh, next week we've got Douglas Rushkoff author and documentarian who studies human autonomy and is in digital age. So once again, Douglas Rushkoff the author and documentarian next week, so please don't miss that one. Douglas has been doing some great work with team Human and a lot of movement around how do we focus on the human. So really, really excited about having that conversation with Douglas. Thank you again, Gloria. And until next week.