Giving Space vs. Jumping Into Convos, A/B Tests Tagline Idea [Business] That Talking Thing | S2, E11 That Talking Thing

Business-focused topics from Jason and Kim. We'll discuss giving your team space in conversations vs. stepping in — when is the right moment and how can you avoid stunting ideas while also course correcting and stopping unapproved tangents. We also talk about A/B testing, specifically how our current "tagline" is a bit vanilla. Could we try something more inspirational?







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Transcript: Season 2, Episode 11



Welcome back to that talking thing. I'm Kim and Jason. Uh, we have episode 11, season two with some business topics. The first one it's about giving your team some space, specifically, not jumping in, into conversations that are happening. So either on zoom meetings, we work remotely or in our slack channels.



If people are talking about something, I found like I have an opinion or like, or someone asked a question and they're like, what do you think? What should we be doing? And I'm like, of course I have an opinion on this. I try now with, you know, a team of 15 to 18 and, um, you know, more managers as well. Like I'll, I don't have to jump in early.



I have to give them some space to figure it out. There's someone else on the team who also has an. And at least half the time, like someone that's like great job, someone else says it, you know? And then I get a moment of like, I can agree. Like that was a good idea. Like either behind the scenes or in the moment, like, you know, like that's a good idea, Andrew has, which is the same idea I would have suggested.



And it's almost like it's better. It comes from someone else. So it's hard to keep that in mind, but that's almost something like I write on a note for meetings and, um, lately. I think I'm proactively doing this, also trying to let conversations happen before I jump in, because I know as an owner, once I respond and comment, everyone else's comments are shaded by what I've said.



Um, but the problem is lately I've seen conversations that I hold back from, go down a path. Major correction either because it doesn't align with our goals, with our vision, with our core values, uh, with, with things I know that are happening in other teams and, and these conversations go too far. And before stepping in, they've gotten to a place where it's very much off the rails.



Think they're excited about a new feature, but like, we should totally do that. Let's do that. Let's pitch it, dot that speech has got to be awesome. And then like me and mom, but like, you know, and you get to a point and that conversation has gotten so far, like a slack channel specifically. It doesn't happen in video call as often because I wouldn't let it go that far.



I wouldn't let people falsely believe that their idea was great and they all got together and went pretty far. And I would just sit there with my eyes. Um, but it has happened in a slack conversation I come to later and it's very hard to hold on everyone actually now, and not just sound like a complete ass.



I think it's like that just like with kids is like, this is a learning opportunity. And like, in her mind, maybe don't say that, but you say it to yourself. You're like, oh, this is like, this. Isn't like a problem. This is a learning opportunity. We are in the process we talked about before about, you know, sharing the core values with the team.



And so if it is that's, the issue is, is kind of like, Hey, like our core value, you can talk from that angle or man, a lot of the time it's like, we've tried this, or we thought about this, or like we were doing this. Or we looked into that, you know, as like new people are coming on the team, they don't know the history.



And it's like, this is a great idea. And you're