Hello? No, but Ann? Uh, hi. Is this, is this, um, DrupalCon? No. No. This is an alternate reality. I found myself in the wrong room. I apologize. This is your psychologist. We're in therapy today. It's a little bit of nuts therapy. It's, um, we can say that. You know, we can, we, I think we, I think we should roll this together with the coffee buff because we need a lot of excitable coffee lovers in this room right now. Because it's right across the way. Do you have stairs, people? No. Someone invited three Drup kids to be our neighbors upstairs. They're at the queue conference and all morning. Oh, the queue? Remember, I said, oh, there's a big queue up there. So we were walking up over here and we're walking the street and they was like, oh, what's that queue up there? Like, what's their queue up there for? And I'm looking on the street, looking for a long line of people. Because we have a British person and we deal with British people. Literally the letter Q and in a window. No, because like a Q is a line. And so she's like, Amy, are you just talking about a line? Where's the line?  I don't see it. What is it on the crazy, not crazy, but fun continuum? It was maybe not terrible, but like it could be an interesting place to. Yeah. Yeah, but when. It was like running through like a high school or something where they all entered the first line. After this session, I'm going to go up there to see what that's all about. Because that's hilarious. Okay, that's awesome. Because if we both go, they can't go through the rest of the course. Are you sure? I'm very able to be persuaded about what she's for. Oh, okay. Okay, that's good. Because I'm a very pessimistic. So that's how you end up here. We said show up and you did. Oh, that's awesome. Oh, I should. I should go. I'm about to go. You should run a camp. Okay. Just say yes. It's okay. Yeah. You're like your guests. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, you might be surprised at some answers. They might be entertaining. I did not have coffee this morning on purpose. Because I don't drink coffee before I speak. Because then she speaks very fast. Very fast. Very fast. Brrr. Don't have? No. Sugar is not a good thing either. Have you been inside? No. Not this one, but I have been before. I went in there. And they had a bucket. Like a food-safe green bucket. And it was like this big. And on the side it was written as sugar. And on the inside of it was...  Probably 80 pounds of sugar. Oh my God. Just sitting next to it. Oh, it's ready for the days. Yeah. Donut making. Can you imagine how much sugar because it needs to be ready when it's all out of the bowl? Yeah. Like when they didn't have a package or a situation that's like a... Because that's all the icing and everything. I think everything was already cooked there. I think it's just more added to coffee. Oh, geez. Oh, wow. Because it was like where you would normally... Like it was put like on the ground. So like the person worked there and they were just on the list. Sugar coffee. Yesterday I went to coffee with Adam and one of our team members. And we went to Crema around the corner. And my partner has been on a decreasing caffeine thing. And so I had this coffee. I didn't even drink like a quarter of a small coffee. And I was like... And I was like, oh I'm so sorry because we were having a meeting of the team. I'm like, I am listening to you. I'm sorry. I'm just good. I'm shaking. I'm like, yeah. I'm like, okay. I'm focused but... I'm very... Actually I'm laser focused but way faster than anybody has time to speak. And it was like, I'm so sorry. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And this person has something in it that you can't get at U.S. And you can tell them that. Oh. If it was daytime stuff, it probably had some form of soup. Like... Apparently you're not going to have to elaborate the chain or you have to take it. It probably has the stuff that used to be in super bed. Like Sudafendron? Yeah. Yeah. That's the stuff that they made in that way. They used to go with...  It's also really helpful if you really feel crappy. No. Not mad. No. But like... Yes. Let's make sure the transition comes back to pharmacy. Yeah. Pharmaceuticals. No, but like... Of the legal type. Because you can still get the Sudafend. Do you, whatever? Yeah. The decongestion. You have to...  But it does work if you're really, really crappy. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's all sorts of fun types of chemistry. Food chemistry. Yeah. And it's funny, because my ex-husband's mother-in-law was a food chemist. A sugar chemist that worked at CNH. Sugar. And Hawaii. Oh. So she's one of the people who led us all to believe that that was the problem instead of sugar. No. She is one of the people who are like, no, whatever. But she... But it was wonderful because she also grew up in the Midwest and in a huge family. And she did all the baking. And so she uses food chemistry. And she doesn't follow any... Like, she follows recipes a bit and she makes the best baking. But she'll do it like, okay, the weather outside is humid, so I'm going to increase the baking powder this month. You guys went to the coffee box but you're just saying hi. Yeah. But it's amazing. I'd like to hear. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. Bye. Are you staying? I'm staying. But I'll set a little bit for the fact that I just want to know if you guys need anything here. Oh, no. We're here. We've been warming up the chairs for a while. We're fighting with Adam who's going to end up at the coffee box versus here. Yeah. Is that he tried to reproduce the following? Oh, you know, we're going to be rambunctious, but we can be rambunctious together. Like, what do you want to do when you grow up? Drink lots of coffee. No, I don't like coffee. Incorrect. No, I don't like coffee. Yeah, you know, it makes us feel like the room's more full. Good. Oh, you know what? We were playing the game usual suspects last night and everybody had like the unusual suspects. Unusual suspects, right? Yeah, I don't know who John Nguyen has it. It's interesting. It's kind of based on stereotypes which is questionable. Yeah, it's a questionable thing, but what was funny is okay, how do you identify what personality you are and you could have like a card and ask personality traits based on just what the person looks like. Profiling. But what's interesting about it which is actually interesting is let's say the person who's the person who says no, they wouldn't have tattoos. Like you might have different opinions about who would like what kind of person would have a tattoo or not. Yeah, so it's really, it's actually pretty neat because we had a lot of conversations. But it is heavily based on some interesting stereotypes sometimes. But it is showing that you're not entirely always caring about that. I don't know what the exact point of that is because you can take it where you're like because it actually makes you think about how you stereotype people and how you may or may not be right. Like the people who made it, like what, you know. Yeah, and the group of people like if you're playing with the group, they have to vote. Like, do we all agree that these people have that same trait of like the clue of that group? So it could either be like reinforcing some really negative things or bringing up some positive conversations. I don't know what you're supposed to do. I think it's a little bit of both. But, I'm not sure it was just like the time filler game. It was easy to learn. It's like someone else was like, it's kind of like adult guess who. Yeah. We, it's still 1035. I know. I know. I was like, wow, people are kind of coming in here. Oh, we have 1045. 1045? Isn't that our session is 1045? I thought it was sympathy and I thought it was just triple sympathy.  Hi there. Yes. Hi. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Yeah. We're all set up. It was nice because it was empty before. So we're like, oh, we have plenty of time and get comfortable. Yeah. Yeah. That with this versus the battle of what do we do last night? So. I mean, it turns out how late people were really generous time. Yeah. It's not like 8 a.m. Yeah. Where we were without till 4 and they're not enough. Yeah. Yeah. That's the rolling in with like 1 and I like that. Exactly. We were kind of early. I know. We were responsible human beings. Oh, you caught up then. No, I was 245. Yeah. But we were, it was a mellow time. We were waiting for other people to make sure they showed up to the hotel. Well, so. Yeah. I was asleep. She was asleep. Yeah. Seriously. We have a buddy system thing at triple con for our team. It's just make sure you always have a buddy and it doesn't have to be us. It can be someone else, but someone that we know. Someone knows where you went if you ventured off. Yeah.  But, oh, I'm at this place. So that place is really nice. No. That's hilarious. What's good? I should have some background music, but I won't. I would just put on children's music. And that's just, no. Only when it's witty and fitting. And theoretically it is, but don't do that. No. As your body goes big, go, your mind goes strong, go. It's great to learn because, no, it's power. Schoolhouse, from schoolhouse rock, and you tip on the rain and the soup. I don't know. Lyrkosis. Horrible. Ever since I was little. You can't do it. One of my friends, yeah. If I see the lyrics, I could do it. Terrible lyrics. Often makes up for own. You know, a lot of people have some interesting bits and pieces. One was, you know the song, but God, I can't, what is it? I can't. What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? Love and nobody like, but you, for all my life. I can't seem, sorry. There's nobody, nobody but you, for all my life.  And she always thought, she's like, it's so peppy, but it's so mean. And I'm like, I can't see my, me liking nobody.  And I'm like, she just thought it was like, a weirdly progressive song. The sweetest diss song ever.  I'm not right now. But I'm like, how does that make sense for the rest of the song? She's like, it didn't, I always wondered. That's fantastic. She, she screwed it. I just start scatting to the rhythm that I can kind of remember.  And like, the Bohemian Rhapsody, that one. I don't know. No, but sometimes if you're in a, or some other rock ballad, like, there's a couple of people going along, just, that's it. It's really, obviously, we're singing over here. Good morning. Yes. Yes, I won that shirt. So I saw the shirt already and I knew she was going to make a comment and it says she like freaked out. No, my cousin is on our team and she explained the Ethernet coming in to ports as the Pink Floyd Prism. She just did this at Stanford. Pink Floyd Prism, the network comes in and the ports of the rainbow. That's why I was all, and she's not here with us. No, it was much more sweeter for Lindsay. It's amazing. Thank you. Oh yeah. Okay, five more minutes. That's a good positive thing. Me and you. Sorry. But yeah, she's like, it's such a weird thing that I say that. I always have to like look up lyrics when I'm like, that's questionable sounding. Are they saying what I think they're saying?  Or, oh, that's what they mean. What is the song about? Like for reals. The catchy tune, but this story is weird. Well, it's like a lot of people in their lives. So I'm trying to find a way up about math for a long time. You feel it's literally in the lyrics. Because they didn't actually listen to it. 1040. 1040, good buddy. Huh? I know. Well, I was singing. But then she wanted to put on kids music. No, I was singing. I was like, oh, kids music would be fitting for this. I have a child. Oh, I don't. He's been potty training a lot. I have a buddy who's on the toilet with him reading. And I don't know if it's appropriate. Oh, hey, Patrick's story. Hello. Hello, everybody. What? Okay. I'll turn it off. He's in a music class for little toddlers. And they just run around and play instruments. And this is how they welcome them. Congratulations. Oh, thank you. Oh my gosh. I'll show you plenty of funny videos and pictures. Oh my gosh. Yeah, absolutely. We were tired last night. I was expecting only some midnight.  But I was like, I'm not doing it. I have mindfulness. Okay, well. Only three more minutes need to be filled with your children's songs. Well, she'll be coming around the mountain. Okay, actually here. Okay, does everybody know this song as a child? Open and shut them. Open and shut them. I never knew that song as a child. Really? I learned it as an adult. Click them underneath your chin. Open wide your little mouth but do not let them in. I've never heard that in my life until just now. Yeah, I don't know. But it's cute because you can like creep up your kid's leg. It's very funny. And they're like, yay. Okay, we have like a minute and a half. I know. Okay, got it. Right on the phrase. Would you like to stand up? Okay. It's been a long night and a long morning. Come on, I just did a dance and a kids song. Dance monkey dance. Open and shut them. Open and shut them. Give a little clap.  Fold them in your life. Creak them, crawl them. Creak them, crawl them underneath your chin. Open wide your little mouth but do not let them in. Okay. Let's see what she grows up. You got a minute. Yeah. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. I never, I never heard of her until today. You have a plethora of siblings. Is that a song that you guys have used before? Really? No, it was like a new one that we had heard at the music class. I'm like, where have I been? Okay. It is time. Good morning, everybody. Do you guys know what you want to do when you grow up? Oh, good. Darryl's here. Hi, Darryl. You want to take a nap. That's what Genevieve said a couple of minutes ago about what does she want to do when she grows up. Nap time is later. Nap time is not now. Give yourself about an hour. Okay. We're going to get started. My name is Amy Degnan. I'm CEO and principal architect at Hook 42. I'm Genevieve. I do all the non-technical things and operations in HR staff. She takes care of us. Thank you, Genevieve. I appreciate that. So topics we're going to cover today are why do we ask this question? How we kind of navigate through that answering this question and then a couple takeaways and some things to think about when you head. Oh, yeah. Okay. Why do we ask? So who has been asked this question before? Okay. A few people have the room. Who hates this question? Okay. It's almost the same people that those hands have raised. We hope to replace the hate with some softer feelings about that. But my story about this question and why I ask it because it's funny, that's where the session comes from, is my dad always asks, what do you want to do when you grow up? And as we are children and evolve through our life, that question can be many different things and elicit a lot of different feelings. Like, I want to be an astronaut.  And so it really guides what you're doing. And then my dad's retired. I'm like, what do you want to do when you grow up?  I'm going to work in my garden. So it's really different. So yeah, touching on the idea.  No, you're not. I answer that again on the next slide as well, just to really hit this point home. None of us are grown up, despite what our ideas say. Not true. We also do it like Amy kind of touched on it. It lightens the mood. But the bigger thing is it increases your creative thinking and self-awareness. Because like, well, what do I want to do? Am I doing what I'd like to do? It can cause existential dread, but there's some tools to help you kind of get through that instead. Yeah, and it encourages you to really participate in your own life and the creation of what you're doing. Because it encourages you to participate in your own life and she wants to talk about this less. Darryl, can you do the quote at the bottom? It's never too late to have a happy childhood. This is one of Darryl's favorite quotes. Yeah, so when we ask him that, that is what he says. And then the question obviously brings up a lot of what ifs for a lot of people. What if you just don't know? It's okay, because it's just actually about growing. You can answer this question and a little while down the road go, oh, I was wrong, that's fine. What if you change your mind? Again, it's okay, because we have ways to address that. Next thing, what if I'm already grown up? Like I already said, you're not. You don't have to worry about that. What if you're, we added this in. What if you're your own boss? We talk a lot about like managers, you can do this. Employees, you might try this. What if you're working for yourself? It's okay, you can use all these tools as well. You won't have some of the same feedback, but you can use some of the steps as well to think about what you're doing with your own career. And what if you realize you're in the wrong job? That's fine, because you can create a new path. Sometimes that means a wild shift. Sometimes it's like take a small step sideways and you can start going in a new direction and have a lot more success there. And why does the business care about this? Well, it really increases employee engagement. Like we both care about each other and the good for what they're doing. And when this is coupled with frequent check-ins, there's greater accountability on both parts. Like is the business providing the tools that the individual needs to grow? But also there's nimble course correction. You're like, I'm really going to do this one path. I want to be a site builder. And you're like, oh, that's not working. But I really want to maybe do something else. We can make sure that those courses are changed. Also we can align growth with the company goals. So it's a really beneficial involvement for both teams. And also we can keep a pulse on the overall health of each other. And make sure, hey, how are you doing? How is that going? It also increases the team coherence and it's way easier for team planning. Because we know this project's coming up and it's aligned to a couple of other people's growth paths. Let's give them that opportunity. Let's give them that opportunity to apply some of the things that they've been learning in a really tactical situation. Oh, yeah. So the next thing we want to talk about is the difference between a motivation and an incentive, which we go into a little bit later. But internal motivators are always going to work longer term than an incentive. If you want to do something because you want to do it, you are accountable to yourself. You are accountable to everyone involved. And Karat Dingley there saying, if you do this, you get this, jump through all the hoops, eventually it doesn't work. Because you either need a really big prize or they just go, I don't want it anymore. Yeah, and over time that just evolves. The thing here is money is only a motivator for so long. I'm not anti-money. Money is how we survive in this world. But at a certain point, having a billion dollars in a job that crushes your soul, in my opinion, is it worth it? If you value something different, fine. But usually soul crushing jobs, even for the money, don't work out that well. Has anybody gotten to that point where you're like, this job isn't worth the money, I just need to leave? Yeah, yeah. Seriously. We all have felt like that's why we have our own company. Anyway, and this comes back down to why does motivation matter? What is my purpose? Why am I even here? It gives that greater sense of community and contribution, not just to yourself, but to the greater good of the business or for Drupal, the greater good of the community. And we talked a bit about marrying goals and that type of thing. But really what happens is when we ask these questions that are not like a yes-no question, but they're open-ended, it provides that there's no wrong answer. It's the creative answering that really it's exploration of where you want to go. And we talked about the internal motivators. For the how am I doing, being able to answer that question really eliminates the guesswork and unknowns. So you're like, am I doing okay? Do they think I'm doing okay? Am I doing this right? Is this okay? Eventually that's going to eat away at you. And even if you're doing it right, it can lead to an apostor syndrome or other things there. It can also be useful because sometimes people, whether it's down a rabbit hole or just have some idea and they go, we're here. Constant feedback keeps you from getting way over here. You might be like, over here. You can be like, oh, let's come back a little bit. Sorry, I'm interrupting. But I was talking about this the other day and it was like the unknowns in guessing cause persistent mental chatter. And it tends to get in the way of keeping on that track and that this helps kind of align that and calm the chatter. And then the third thing we have is that feedback and constant idea of knowing how you're doing instead of guessing and worrying about it allows greater self-confidence because you're like, oh, I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. Someone gives you feedback and you're lying at yourself and go, okay, I've got this. Cool, I've got this. Self-accountability goes back to the same idea of the things that internally motivate you to succeed. You can go, I want you to do this for me and I know that I'm doing it well. And then the self-awareness, which comes into sometimes you're doing things a lot better than you think you are. On the flip side, occasionally you think you've really got it and you do need a little bit of a reality check which no one really likes, because it's sort of what is really going on. Right. The biggest thing there is open communication really needs to happen between both parties because otherwise none of this works. Yeah, it's just like, okay. Or if you're doing this for yourself you have to be honest with yourself because sometimes you're like, yeah, sure, I want to do this even when no one's actually checking in on you on that. Yeah. It can be a little harder, but it's doable. It is doable. You just have to wear different hats for yourself. I think it's really a discussion for continual growth. When we ask this question sometimes they're like, I want to be a poet. I want to be happy. I want to have work-life balance. I want to have these things. It's not necessarily tied to I want to be a developer. I want to make a module. It is. Sometimes it is like that. But sometimes it gives a broader sense of where is the human coming from and how to align that. And that provides guiding principles of how the personal growth is going to happen. And so this helps create the roadmap for next steps. Because sometimes a really, really big goal seems impossible. I'm going to climb that. You're going to climb Mount Everest. I was just going to say, oh, jeez. Mount Everest. You're like, wow, that's a really tall thing and that people die up there. But you know what? You can say, okay, I don't even go for a hike. So the first goal I'm going to do is go for a walk or a hike. And then you chip that up and up. And maybe you get to Everest. Maybe you don't, but man, you got really in shape on the way up there and you had that goal to get. And really this ensures that everybody's on the same page so we can respect each other's goals and support them. You're trying to climb Everest where it's not going to work. And everyone's going to be unhappy with what's going on. Yeah. Go ahead. So this is a big thing. Well, like if you have a job, you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm going to climb the ladder. We're going to take over the world. Oh my gosh, take over the world. And some people are okay with this. Some people want this. But not all employees want this. Some people want to just be a developer or a marketer. Yeah, and they're like, I like this. I don't want to do something beyond that. And that's okay. It's encouraged if that's what they want to do, but you encourage growth in that space. I want to be better at what I do. I need to keep up to speed with the technology. I want to reach out for tangential technologies. Oh, yeah, let's integrate this. I want to learn something that connects with it. And that's super okay. Yeah. Sometimes if we don't identify that early, there's a lot of conflict because the expectations of one person and the ones and desires, and maybe the person's really good at doing something, but they hate it. That doesn't work. It causes all sorts of static. So anyway, go ahead. So then this touches back on what I started to say earlier, the difference between a motivator and an incentive. This is pretty simplified, but motivations have a much greater connection or emotional connection, which is what usually drives you to have a personal feeling of accomplishment, satisfaction, all those things. They're usually an intangible thing whereas incentives are, I'm going to give you a bonus if you do this. I'm going to do this if you do that. Or I'm going to take that away from you if you don't do it. And so those usually promote a quicker change, but not a lasting change. And so it can be, they are useful. Motivators are always bad. They're useful for things sometimes, but they can be detrimental if they're the only thing you're ever using to try to figure any of this out. They shan't be a crutch, right? Well, the same goes, though. Motivators only work so long as well because personal satisfaction in a job is great, but the flip of earlier where you have a billion dollars and it's soul-crushing, you can feel really good about what you're doing and no one's giving you any recognition because, you know, food and shelter is not going to work either. So it's a balancing act without any incentives. Like I said, internal motivation will run out or people will feel really underappreciated. So recognition becomes really important and that's often in the form of some sort of incentive. Sometimes it's not. They don't know they're going to get something because they did it. It's just a nice reward at the end. You're like, hey, you did that thing. You can see over time there was a vast movement to add proper attribution to commit credits and large issue cues because people were doing a lot of work in lacking the recognition and then they were using those points to compare, like, your cred across the board, but you're like, wait a second, I did all this work and I don't have my recognition there. The last thing, recognition. So this permeates beyond just your work environment or your personal goals. You can see it within the community engagement. And then the recognition is important. This comes back to the open communication. For some people, saying thank you, they're like, thank you, I just wanted to say, someone to say that. Other people are like, where's the money? Or it can really vary what it is they'd like. So again, talking about that is really helpful. Yeah, sometimes they just want a hug. So then yeah, dispirited, unmotivated, unappreciated workers cannot compete in a highly competitive world. No. They can't and what happens is being unmotivated ends up being bad for everybody because as an employee, I'm going to read the employee once, she'll read management.  Someone else is driving your career and you never really feel like you're getting anywhere or increasing your satisfaction with your job turning into whatever you want it to be when you grew up. Or you might be on the wrong bus altogether if we're sticking with our bus analogy. Same thing.  I guess I'll get on this bus.   You're going to Indianapolis.  And so depending on who you're working with and where, that often will end up meaning that no one's going to grow, no one's going to help you change because they're like performance issues and therefore... So I'm getting into management too much. And then also if you're not motivated to grow, no one can make you do it. Period. End of story. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't get them to drink. There's a little craze. And you know, it's not that you have to always be like I'm going to do it and go and not have any days where you're like or discouraged, but ultimately if you never have any motivation it might mean that you need to look somewhere else for something. On the management level, if your employees aren't there and engaged and competitive, neither is your company because that's who your employees are. It's the company, it's the team. And it doesn't mean you should create like a cutthroat company or anything. It's motivation to improve oneself in the goal of a greater good, just like we do with the Drupal community.  It's very important to foster that because if you have that battle, everybody's going to try to not only help the person rise next to them, but they're going to like try to squash them. That's not cool. And then they're squashing each other and then they're paying all this attention about like keeping the other person down instead of raising each other up and themselves up. So not very healthy. You'll hear this theme again. Communication, communication, communication. It can help because it can define opportunities that someone might not know is there either because coming from the company you might go, oh, we need someone to do this. They're like, oh, I'd love to do that. I mean... Or it can just eliminate the dislike options. If you have no idea what you want to do, you're like, okay, well let's make a list of what you know you don't want to do. And that goes both ways. It can empower people to ask for help or space when they need it. If you have a really closed door if someone needs help. Or people won't feel comfortable asking for help because they're like, oh, I'm going to... There will be a negative consequence to me having any sort of vulnerability I should have chosen before.  I love that word. I hate saying it. It can also really help with maintaining where you're going. It can remind you where you're going if you're like, ah, I feel so lost. Or it can reframe your perspective. If you feel lost, someone can be like, no, look, you're kind of on the path. Look at the situation from outside. Which doesn't always have all the details on what's going on inside the situation. But an outside perspective can often be very helpful. And to touch on the last point, finding those proper motivators again, like you want something to say thank you? Okay, great, now we know that. Right. So the pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. But the realist adjusts the sales. So adjusting the sales. So it's like changing things as changing what's going on as the world around you changes. It's very agile. It's very agile. In a boat metaphor. It provides greater accountability for both parties like we talked about earlier. Easier course correction. But we need to have measurable goals to make sure how do I correct what's right. Or what's improvement and what's not improvement. And this aligns again with the clear company goals. So if your company doesn't have goals or a strategy, it's very hard to anchor into that. So at the company level you have to address that. Many big companies, schools, that type of thing will have goals and values set up. So this is where we align those things too. And really a lot of increased one-on-one face-to-face communication is necessary. And if you're in a distributed team, don't just use Zoom, audio, or Slack. Like put the video on. It doesn't matter if you are in your sweats or whatever. Just say hello. Talk to them because then you can see like you're discussing with somebody in person how are they feeling by how they're looking and how they react and that type of thing. So it's much, it's a higher value of communication. And also, we're going to talk about our tech and process that we're using. But these aren't your old performance review. So who has come from a company that makes you do a yearly performance review? And it's long and it's a like, yeah, it's a tome.  And then it's like, I have come from these and they're like super, like we had to sell to not our direct managers, but the three levels up that I've like, yeah, I did this and but they never see their three levels up. What's going on? It's a constant interview. Yeah, seriously, a constant interview. That's great. That's fun. But what we are using is check-ins that are semi-formal open discussion. It's a work meeting, but really aligned to the professional goals and give feedback to what's going on. And we do set out, we, oh, yeah, we set out a lot. But make sure it's just all about human check-ins and stuff. But what they are not is historically scary performance reviews. Of doom. Of doom. Of doom. Can I tell my management book story? Yeah, sure. Okay. So one company that's big and shiny, what was highly competitive in the performance review writing and I watched how much they made us work on it and take away from the other things and have us focus on how it was written. And I was like, I'm a good author actually.  And so I was, I bought a book of management phrases used in performance reviews and I walked around to everybody else in our team and we chose a few phrases and we planted it in each one of our reviews, the exact phrase just to see if somebody noticed the pattern. No, nobody noticed the pattern.  But I don't want that environment in my company. Well, I think it's funny. If somebody did that and we found it, I'd be like, oh my gosh, that's hilarious. But oh, something is wrong on our company level to get back to that point. So they aren't like as a casual chat. This is a work discussion and we have things to have outcomes, right? And they're not behemoths plans set in stone either. So we have to be agile, right? So one of the biggest things about setting all this up and then we're getting more into the structure of all of this. If you work for yourself, you can still follow all these rules and it should work. Obviously, two people aren't going to come to your meeting though. Maintaining a regular a regular schedule. A regular schedule is important because it really makes it it allows time for preparation and it indicates that this is an important thing to both of the parties. Like, they are going to show up and the other person will show up and it's a mutual respect issue that said sometimes things do come up and it's impossible. But as much as possible, be like, hey, I have a weekly standing time for you. This is my time for you and it goes for people on both sides. They're like, I'm going to show up for this meeting and we'll be here to talk about this and it's really open on both sides. I feel really horrible to like for my director for it sometimes I pulled off and things at the last minute because everyone, you know, for whatever is happening. The first thing to say is I'm incredibly sorry. Let's just make sure we get you proper time. When is the soonest time we can talk and that type of thing. It sucks sometimes to do that. Kind of somewhat obvious but coming prepared for these meetings is really key.  I don't know what we were supposed to do or what we're talking about. It can make the meeting harder. There's not much more to say about that but showing up prepared is really important and also creating rules of engagement and feedback guidelines really, really, really help these meetings out because everyone knows what's expected. Everyone knows how this basic structure is going to work but what's expected and where we're going to go from here and it allows time for everyone to talk because if you set up rules that say we're going to do this, it doesn't have to say this long like a really specific agenda but having a thing like we're going to ask this. You answer here and just active listening which we'll talk about later. Welcome to us being all excited and be alive. But it gives everybody a chance to say what they need to say and everybody listening. So also it gives a chance to revisit often. Make sure everything's on track. Allow for change like we talked about and their guidelines, not fast rules. There are expectations set and deliverables or outcomes that we're agreeing on but the guideline is okay we're going to do this together let's just see how this goes and make sure we can change along the way and then also what we do is make sure that the management and the employee has shared access to all the documents that we do to create these plans because we use those for preparation and review and notes to be taken along the way. It's really important to choose wisely as we do this thing. We're going to cover smart goals. Okay, yeah. Also keep the big picture in mind and we have many small specific goals because they're easier to act than one large goal. And once again it is an all doom and gloom because a lot of people come into these check-ins of fear. I'm in trouble. I'm in a meeting with the management. What did I do wrong? What are they going to say? That type of thing. Having a regular meeting also helps with that because you know it's on your schedule. It's not like hey I need to talk to you right now. I like hearing that. Sometimes you just need to talk to someone and it's not scary but sometimes you're like we need to talk because it is scary so having a regular place to take care of this can help. And from the management side when I say hey I need to talk to you I'll try to add context about the session next week or about the this because I don't want to say I need to talk to you cut it. That's not cool for any money to hear back on this topic though. It's really another place to recognize what's going well. It's not just like hey here's where you can improve. That's really important. That's how you grow. Sometimes that feedback is terrible to get and you're like oh but as much as possible the things that are going well make sure they're called out because sometimes if people feel like all they're getting is the things they need to improve which happens and we'll talk later about sometimes people fail with this but calling out what's going well is really important. Some decisions do not align with what you want. Sorry I have to be the boss lady and say that but because business changes and business you have to react to business and as long as there's that open mutual respect that we're going to talk about this and understand why things are happening in realignment may happen that's okay you should expect that because business it does change. One other point on that and it says there must be some realignment with expectations I'm not encouraging everyone to quit their jobs but sometimes you realize you don't want to be where you are and that's fine. Other times you realize I don't want to do what I'm doing at this place and there is a way to shift that role if the management's open to it but you know there's a lot of options here or if there's the opportunity there or if you're working by yourself well your manager and yourself really need to probably get together. Have a deep conversation make sure you schedule yourself things seriously if you are an independent and you want to apply these it works great but you need to set that time apart for yourself and it's not always easy so humans on being human we're humans on both sides of this equation empathy is really important honestly I feel like cultivating a culture of empathy is incredibly vital for all of this to work the great things about humans we can adjust our behavior and reply feedback we can also usually see perspectives from outside of our own we can be really good at empathy emotional corrections to a working career are huge motivators for a lot of people and most likely as a human we get what the other person's saying this kind of ties back to empathy sometimes the business says we have to do something else and it sucks or it's good because maybe there's some weird crazy neat strategic direction we're going but as long as everybody's understanding what's going on that's great on the flip side of this we're only human after all humans get things wrong we mess up all of us do I think someone's giving a talk today about all the things they did wrong in managing other humans everyone will have a bad or an off day we do things wrong but we also sometimes might need more than one chance to fix something again if it gets into like 30 chances you might need to look at that either you don't want to be doing what you're doing and someone will be like hey can we work on this in a different way humans can be really really bad at empathy you can just be tapped out and you can't be there it's hard and sometimes if you're human emotions can cloud judgment in any direction we're fallible creatures with complex brains and from the management point of view it's very important to be open with the employees and other people that you're working with if you have had a bad day you come into that review and they might be like on cloud nine and you're like something bad has happened either at work or personally and it's important to bring that to the both parties bring it to the table I'm having a bad day or something else is going on let's be gentle on each other it's that moment of recognizing where you are now letting others know being in a trusting place but we have to allow that trusting place to happen because if it's going to be an attacking place it's a point of vulnerability oh I did that word too and if somebody is fearful that they need to be in a protective defensive state it's not going to work so it really needs to have mutual trust both ways so we have to participate and fail then fail to participate oh yes so the next quote there's an asterisk we have some discussion about one of these lines so do more than belong participate do more than care help do more than believe practice do more than be fair be kind do more than forgive and I'll give you another question after I found this quote about forgetting and I don't like this line very much the way it's written because as management you cannot forget what people have done and I, I mean that is correct I'll let her finish active listening I'm not finished anyway this is what it's like at work it's awesome I love it so do this do more than forgive forget it's important to forgive the team members there are some unforgivable don't get me wrong if you're breaking the cerebral code of conduct or if you're doing something that's illegal that's unforgivable but if something is not perfectly right forgive them business has to actually keep track of that stuff and we need to see what repeatable behavior is and you have to take action but what this is meaning as we discussed this it's the whole forgive and forget you probably shouldn't forget because then you have someone who repeatedly does the same thing and it's a problem but don't guilt trip people over don't hang it over the head this thing, this thing, this thing did you have a question? I think that is a really good point yeah absolutely so the question was can we do that word with learn so instead of forgetting learn that also implies growth on both sides I really actually like that I like that a lot so we just talked about some active listening I will listen to you actively so this really aptly titled do this do these things active listening can be not the most natural skill for some people some people really like to interject and keep talking and sometimes you talk over other people because you just don't want to hear what they're saying either which isn't great don't just wait for your turn to speak I know it's really hard it can be really hard because someone will say I have a response to that sometimes taking a quick note is good but don't just wait for your turn to speak listen to what they're saying sometimes it's nice to repeat back what you think is being communicated but on the flip side wait for your turn to speak don't sit there checked out because you have something to say and you're ready to say it keep listening to what they're saying to you and be very cognizant if caffeine affects your ability to do this which it does heavily with me and so there's this moment yesterday we were having a discussion I'm so sorry I'm under caffeine so anyway it's happened I mean there's entire books and talks on active listening you can look it up if you have more questions but being forthright and proactive in your communication was the other thing if you have an idea bring it up when it's your turn to speak and then if you're leading the meeting and you notice a couple people dominating it try to make sure you don't call people out but give them space to contribute because some people don't want it and this applies to other work meetings we have some people that take sometimes a very long time with a very long pause and it gets really frustrating waiting for them to talk especially if you know where they're going but you have to let them talk and they're not ready yet so we've had to put structure but they get very they should have a time to talk because that's who they are but we've put a structure in that gives round table like do you have something to say do you have something to say and also slows people down and make sure the agenda is clear and it's been working pretty well because and also some people might be tired or maybe they take some time to internalize and formulate some type of response but anyway, go ahead more things to do this is a lot about if you're doing this meeting in your workplace and how to kind of come to it most prepared again, if you're working by yourself well, you might not do all these things by yourself but being engaged invest in your own growth and this actually works for anybody if you're talking to other people or not take a moment to invest in yourself and figure out what you want to do and if you're at a company that really might mean like showing up figure out what you want to do and it might mean that you want to leave might mean that you want to stay there and participate in what they're asking you to do there's a lot to go through there and do your best which might not be perfect something went wrong communication failed you just literally didn't do the thing whatever it is if you honestly tried that's really important more so than being perfect sometimes it's not what you hoped it would be but show up anyway even if you're like I messed it up and I'm going to come tell you I messed it up it's important not coming to the table is one of the most on the management side I said the big bad words I'm sorry guys but because the management the rest of the team is showing up but when somebody drops the ball isn't it dropping the ball if they're just not showing up and it's for their own growth it's very hard to come to terms with that because it's like wait a second we're doing this not just for us but for you and we're helping and supporting you because that's the company culture that we make and we believe in it's important it's sometimes challenging and then again coming prepared everyone needs to do their things writing notes ahead of time can be great if you're somebody who forgets like something happens and you forget about it somewhere along the way before you get a chance to talk to someone write down some notes review if there's any documents around this you know the management has set up or if you're doing this personally notes you've taken review it again go oh it's time for me to look at this again but if it is with a meeting with someone else that you have time to complete what may have been tasks that were assigned to you or that you assigned to yourself so if you check in two minutes before your meeting and you were supposed to write like a couple pages about something you might have a problem and also as we go through this introspection it might come at like times where you're going for a walk or you're cooking dinner or something like that so be open to have some of this come in at odd hours and odd times and then drop it down and bring that back in it's not all this thought isn't combined into the hour you get or two hours or whatever to talk about this topic so and also this is a huge thing words matter the things you say matter how you say it matters the tone you say matters if you want to say some if you want something and you say I really want to do this this is great and then or if you say I really hate doing this it's that's fine too we now understand but you've said it it's now heard it's now mutual and then we hear that on the management level and go okay you've said that we are going to take that and support you in what you want so if you're someone that actually doesn't know what's going on or has a tendency to kind of say some things without taking a moment and really figuring out what does this mean if I say this to the world and to my management and to others what will they perceive this as this is huge also who has ever said how you doing and you hear fine yeah so it's the delivery of the message matter so make sure you're sincere say what you mean be aware of tone I'm I get bossy not bossy I get I'm going to let you finish talking I guess she's like oh yeah because she can't say well she absolutely can say this but no I'll be direct especially if I'm like okay this needs to get fixed but I do genuinely love the people that are around us in our team and the greater team and sometimes that's hard it's like it's like being in a family right but don't sugar coat your message but you can't be like mean about it either you know if you sugar coat your message usually people can see through it not always but it's still like you're not being sincere in what you're saying and that really goes both ways like as much as possible try not to do that and don't be condescending no that's horrible when you're frustrated can be an easy thing to fall into and again we probably have all done this at some point accidentally or maybe on purpose because you're really mad as much as possible try not to do that take a moment count to ten right and you can't always control how things are taken though you can say something with the best intention and somebody hears something different than what you thought you were communicating and it can get out of control kind of quickly which is again where like an open communication can be really helpful to try to mitigate that before it turns into a giant mess and active listening repeat back did you say what you just said because I heard you just say that it doesn't mean this is it that and this is where the active listening comes into play and also I've had management that just totally check out on me I don't know if you guys have gotten I mean it's the both sides have to be equally engaged and into this and the big thing is listen to the response you get if you're communicating something and you think you're saying it you think you're communicating something and the other person gets really pissed off you might not have communicated what you thought unless that was your goal but usually you don't go out trying to piss off the people you work with generally so we're going to jump in so follow through we're going to sneak a little faster so some of the challenges as you work through yourself and with the company is working through imposter syndrome this is real people go through it sometimes it's called fear a lot of times it's called fear or more aptly described here but as we go through this really please trust that whoever hired you hired you for a reason they trusted you enough to invest in you it takes like three to four months for return of investment for any employees new hire even at highest ability to get back and try to look at the objective facts right not subjective objective and management support your employee and give concrete examples right so say hey this is where you're positively doing good here look at how you like line up to the rest of the community or to the profession so okay the other thing is related to imposter syndrome sometimes because previous experiences have told you you suck at that even if you might not but working through and with anybody who has baggage PTSD what do you want to call it other things that have happened in their life that color how they interact with other people now the biggest thing is discussing that I know it sucks but discussing those conditions and cultures that led you to feel the way you do about your in this case your work environment can be really helpful to see where the culture where you are now may be different place people where you are now understand where you're coming from but what just happened or vice versa you're like oh this isn't the reaction I expected to get in this situation yeah and I like the comment if this takes a lot of practice and internal kind of growth but check the baggage at the door as much as you can know that where you came from and what are possibly things that will trigger a sense of fear or lack of trust and hopefully it's like okay I know that happens but this is a new group of people let's do this and also be careful with your assumptions on both sides and management you really need to trust that people are doing their best but you have to address issues very quickly just to make sure it's like wait a second it's okay you can be here it's safe it's like that type of thing okay this is my favorite no repeat yourself don't try saying it another way sometimes you have to say it another way it's not always personal if someone doesn't hear what you're saying sometimes a word isn't clicking with them so you might try different wording yourself and the message is more important than the messenger so sometimes someone else someone else can say it and I say quote unquote better because who has been in that moment where somebody sitting next to you said exactly the same words you just did and they somebody picks it up so that totally works and sometimes the person hearing it is more ready at a different point in time so it's like if you're going to jump into how to write a module and it's your first day with Drupal some of that message will be lost until you have some time with Drupal understand the terminology and then oh learning the module is like oh I get that now so you're more ready to hear the message and this also happens on a personal and professional growth level as well so all of this was a lot of talking for us to then tell you the tools we use to make this happen we're going to sneak through here because a lot of this is online our slide deck is already online this is all online we were looking at writing our own structure to make sure it was as lightweight but comprehensive and filled with empathy and growth as we could instead of being those old school things and we looked and found the Adobe check-in toolkit which is public and it's all shiny put together thanks Adobe you really invested that time and money to do that of course we use Slack for chat we use Google suite to create a private folder for everyone to share the collaborative documentation so we can all get in here and what's interesting is we put our growth plans and tactical activities in our ticket tracking software and assign time to those and make sure that people are on track with due dates we treat it like a project which is a little bit we treat it like real work so we can allow time with it is real work we allow time for self learning and professional development in the company so quickly the jolby check-in toolkit it's comprehensive lightweight it has a cycle it's frequent it's open it's communication it sets expectation it has feedback and development and I'm going to zip right through and there's lots of pages in the PDF don't worry about reading this don't worry about this but the takeaway here is they have a guide for the employees and then they have a guide for the management or the leaders or whoever the other person the people managers with a column and they cover the expectations they cover the feedback they have specifics what you ask the impact and what you do out of it and it was so cool I was like oh cool we don't need to spend all that time being this beautiful structure and it was easy and there so the employees could read it we could read it and we're all on the same page and also here's the development plan and they also had a very basic structure for the questions you ask at like these the big growth planning discussion and this might be one of the more useful parts if you are doing this for yourself to go through these questions because it's a nice structure and they're all related to what I want to do when I grow up it's like what am I good at what needs development not weaknesses but you know in looking at shorter term goals longer term and finding the structure to kind of parse all of that out and the questions they ask is what parts of job do you find most satisfying and why there's a lot of why most satisfying why key skills or strengths that you are doing now and what do you want to develop and that type of thing so it's really wonderful to share together yeah if we talked a little bit about smart goals but it's an acronym for goals that are specific measurable attainable relevant time bound so there's not much else to say on that yeah basically don't say that you're going to build a gravity switch in a day because that's not it's not realistic it's not it's sure it's time bound but it's not really relevant to making triple projects it's not attainable as the biggest problem so it's interesting the feedback guidelines these are pretty much directly out of there it's like provide timely and specific balanced feedback don't give your feedback when angry which might not work super well because you have a scheduled time talking you're really pissed so you might have that's one example where you might want to reschedule a meeting that said don't shy away from the hard conversations because they need to happen even if no one really wants to be there and whenever possible just show genuine appreciation for what you know is going well and what value people bring to your team any time you can ask questions for clarity and then actually wait for the responses because maybe the feedback is something you need to improve but you know make sure you're improving the right thing or same which goes both ways because an employee might have feedback for managers just as much as a manager might have feedback for you well we encourage that open feedback and acknowledge the feedback you were given so it could be I hear you, acknowledge it in some way so it doesn't seem like you've checked out and on the management and I make sure if there are things that weren't met because the business changed or like scheduling changed like somebody had to do more project work instead of having their learning time we just make sure that's really written in there coming from the management as well it's like oh no no we pulled you off of your growth path for a couple of days because you were working on that make sure that's written down we know when people are being flexible and the mutually agreed upon kind of conversation so individual development plan which is that longer question this is not a performance improvement plan this is not the paper you're going to get if you're going to go which is often most companies use of the you're getting fired paper but we need to make a legal trail a lot of companies when they've done pips and stuff it's just the lineup for firing but we've heard a lot of different stories I believe the business summit about people using those performance performance improvement plans but not firing the people because people improve giving them a chance giving them a couple of chances so it works but this one is like what do you want to do when you grow up I was just going to say this is why it's more useful if you're somebody who's working independently it really can sometimes deepen the connection to what your goals are and how you can assess yourself a lot of people say they're bad at assessing themselves because they don't practice some people it's because they hate doing if you're working alone or you can take this if you happen to use it at work fill it out somewhere else you can do that first or as often as you want to really practice taking a step back and looking at what you do or don't know and objectively improving your ability to assess yourself which can help with even if you don't have a company that's using this the tools are nice to ask yourself those questions so what's next the key points is agency you are the driver of your growth and hopefully there's an environment to help lift you up and support you the motivation driven so no carrots although carrots are healthy carrots are a nice treat but don't have that be the only thing you're going after because I think most people have seen cartoons or other things where the carrots attached to you're never actually going to get there don't want to have that active listening thank you for actively listening today you guys are doing that much better than we are accountability but to yourself this is about you and then you bring that to the company and the team and the company has to be accountable for itself bringing it to the team and your growth it improves all those things that we have above this really your growth can create a greater sense of agency which leads to a sense of confidence and accomplishment and it usually will promote greater internal motivation you're like oh well I can do this I'm going to keep doing this this feels good and then lather rinse repeat yes and this is a huge thing not everything is rainbows and sunshine but they're coming you have to invest you have to have faith don't lose hope you can do this but you have to know that we are humans and there's a constant evolution of relationships and trust and that are required to have really a solid mutual growth relationship you might have a great plan companies on board with it everything looks great and it didn't quite work and so that's where coming back we visited go like okay what happened here and readjusting because maybe your plan wasn't quite right or maybe you just missed something so once again it's about open communication but the quality of communication and the empathy is there and it doesn't have to be too complex to make a change like that that PDF is only you know like 17 pages of a full like and it has all the instructions but it doesn't take too much time to change those first conversations and a huge benefits come from it and make sure you know or ask a lot of good questions why does this matter how are you doing where are you going and that we put links the slide deck is already attached to the session does any how do you have any questions thoughts does everyone know what they want to do when they grow up now or at least how to talk to someone else about it or yourself hopefully a little bit yeah question hi thanks for everything you're presenting I think it's very valuable we use a product called know your company that you probably heard of and we find that it's hard to get people continually engaged with it and so you know we do regular monthly one-on-one check ins and we do a check in but I think I'm going to start using it how do you feel about know your company and maybe describe it for people who don't know what it is I'm going to give you my blanket answer for most of those tools you need to be human the tool that somebody else was using it was Michael from amazing it's open five is that what is what do you guys use no no not bamboo it's the little thing in the slack plug in that vibe yeah so it's this little thing in the slack that ask one specific question a day and you can target questions for each group because that is going to let them go think and then you can get the data over time about how the company is feeling but I often feel that tools have been great but nobody likes to deal with a tool so it has to be coupled with like personal communication like this stuff works that give somebody a tool and have a good day is not great and to keep the engagement going I know some people on our team have started like a five minute touch base weekly just be like in that you don't have to go over your expectation plan or anything else just like hey what's up you guys things kind of on path and if not you can schedule something more and come back to this we do random coffee breaks in slack where someone will start a zoom and random people will join that helps but these are very specific ones and in slack we have management specific channels where the employee can discuss openly like anything with their direct manager and HR always involved well no so they can say no it's like oh I have to take the dog to the vet and it's like an emergency okay then we just all know we're informed so it's making sure that is available but now we you have to make deliberate time for these there's like social time and stuff but it's deliberate time and at the p.m. and some of the other folks I have some people meet once a week I have some people meeting once every two weeks it just depends what their growth is and how tied to what the company is doing to make sure that we can go quickly my other thought on the engagement as it starts to drop is there's a smaller goal so there's a more frequent sense of like I'm doing something there's progress remade and we kind of glossed over the slide a follow through it can happen on either side but if management starts to drop the ball employees start to go I'm not going to bother because they are not bothering smaller goals help yeah thank you any questions any other thoughts but okay Stephanie what do you want to do when you grow up that's okay use these tools yeah exactly actually what I do want to say is I want to bring up one person on our team he part of his homework was to prepare his answers to the questions and he was doing lots of other things lots of other project work and we got to the meeting and he goes I just want to say I'm really bad at this stuff I don't know really how to do this for myself um and can you help us and what we did is we asked him in an interview type of not an interview but a discussion these questions and we helped explore that with him he needed someone to just self explore as well so even if you have a friend or a peer that you can ask that conversation that will provide you that time that's really important and did we judge them no but it was actually really positive and it was a good conversation did I did not judge him no I want to say something oh I wasn't looking at you I was looking at the sorry I'm normally too a lot of talks on my own so no it's only semi related she said something and I wanted to say something oh god oh you were talking about asking a friend or whatever that if you have someone who's close to you where you want to go when you grow up a little bit it can be really helpful ask them to write either a bio about you or answer the questions for you even if they're wrong it's a great conversation and it can be really really helpful because either they'll see something in you that you're like oh really or it'll just promote some conversation you're like oh no I don't think that's true here's why and it can help yeah and make sure I don't know you guys probably have planned to come to tomorrow for a sprint day and also please write us on the session deck and the slide deck is already on there so you can get all the links and stuff so thank you guys thank you my song to the hello song he's like what is playing we opened it up the book and says hello hello hi there oh you have one of the the Pink Floyd triple shirts as well yeah that's awesome yeah I was with an employee I was around with the who was just meeting him he used to do this he said to me I'm not that much nervous I just want to come and do my job and that's right and knowing that he's okay we still have to go through them all so we have someone that's like that and we just the answer is the same I would like to be a great developer I would still like to be a great developer and then we talk okay well then in your scope of your word how do we define great developer stay up to date learning new language it just becomes tactical practical and tactical I mean because that that's how they value it that's fine because maybe they're investing their time into doing something else in their life


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On Saturday the 28th November 2015, Kasturi and Sons have launched the first edition of the Hindu in Mumbai. Already this newspaper is published from 17 major cities across India which makes the Mumbai edition now its 41st. So here's a paper that has traditionally had a strong hold in the southern markets. In Mumbai of course it's going to face some stiff competition to get its share of readers. It goes head to head against the times of India, Hindustan times DNA, the Indian Express, Asian age, even tabloids like Mumbai, Meera and Midday. So how are advertisers looking at this debut given that Mumbai is India's largest advertising market? We've spoken to a cross section and we've read between their lines as well in this which is our top story of the week. The Hindu is India's third largest red English daily and has arguably created a niche for itself as a conservative, intellectual and long format English broadsheet over the past 137 years. But traditionally its strongest markets have been in the southern states where it has a loyal leadership base. While it has a pan-India presence as well, including a Delhi edition, it has chosen to stay away from the more fast-paced Mumbai market. So why did the decision to launch a Mumbai edition come about now? In the early 1950s there was an idea back of the mind idea to start a Mumbai edition but for various historical reasons it couldn't be done, wasn't done at that time or couldn't be done. But I think it's overdue because the times of India is way ahead of the number one player here but the others have entered the market and I think we have something to contribute in terms of trustworthy journalism, relevant journalism and fairly comprehensive coverage and also a forward-looking outlook. So I think we have a place here and it should be surprising if we didn't enter at some point. It's taken a long while but this is a good time to enter because we are now on a growth path. We had a couple of difficult years but we now are clearly on a growth path both in a business sense and also editorially. The Hindu's entry into the Mumbai market this week marks a turning point for print media here but this entry has been fairly discreet. In sharp contrast the last big launch of a English newspaper in Mumbai was the daily news and analysis or DNA which is launched in 2005 amidst much fanfare and an estimated expense of rupees 100 crores. So is Hindu's low-profile advertising enough to really make an impact? Perhaps keeping in line with the Hindu's understated positioning I would think it was a bit understated. I don't think it was as impactful as it could have been particularly because it's a launch that you're doing in a new market. I was particularly disappointed about their out-of-home. Usually out-of-home is a very important medium for the newspaper and while you did one did see some of it it wasn't impactful at all. Digital needs to be used in a big way because today the readers are becoming digital. So I would say I would say it could have been handled much better but then I can understand the tone of the communication because that's a part of the personality of the Hindu. Print advertising in India is a 16,875 crore industry accounting for 34.5% of the total advertising market which stands at 48,976 crores. Mumbai where the Hindu has just set foot is also the largest print advertising market in the country. So how are advertisers and media planners viewing this latest entry? Better late than never is all I'll say. There's a good viewership that the people enjoyed so it's a great product. I still believe it's a great product but the fact that they have come in it's a very good opening. I can only repeat better late than never. There's a core English audience you'll find everywhere whether they're followers of those experience the product in Tamil Nadu or not it works for them. Well I think it's an interesting development that we have the Hindu finally coming into Mumbai. I think it's firstly for advertisers and media planners it's great news wherever there are more options you know more media formats channels available in markets and especially for a market like Mumbai which is obviously a very big market for most media plans it just gives us additional opportunity. The Hindu of course has got an extremely credible lineage and you know we've been waiting for this for years and knowing the times group I'm sure they're going to you know take this in this not just take this in their stride but do whatever it takes to stay number one and it's another fantastic brand so yeah I think all in all it's good news I think it's a win-win for all concerned for advertisers for readers you know and I think the existing brands would also emerge stronger. For the Hindu while entering the Mumbai market is a milestone how does it plan to localize its content to stand out from its competitors and really give its readers a differentiated offer. It'll be very different we'll be special coverage of Mumbai at least eight pages and different because Mumbai has distinctive characteristics not only as a financial capital but you know it's the it's a very it's very cosmopolitan place despite some forces trying to you know impose that narrow agendas here so I think Mumbai has has this this is a great city and it was not for nothing that it was labeled a maximum city so everything is maximum here and I think we we have to we have to devote special attention to it so it'll be different from our Delhi edition it'll be different from our Chennai edition that's our strongest edition but we have something to contribute here. Now the Hindus entry into Mumbai could certainly shake things up for the print media here but its advantage readers they get a wider range of mastheads and content to wake up to each morning but whether or not the Hindus entry into the commercial capital of India pays off for them is a space we'll be watching very closely. We take a short break now on the other side we speak to R.S. Kulsey the executive director of marketing and sales at India's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki how's their next sub bet working out we'll ask him to stay with us.