Let's Talk Teams / Paul Browning / 002

Written By Noa Ronen

The conversation with Paul Browning, GTM Leader, delves into the essence of a strong team and how leaders build one. Exploring the dynamics of teamwork, balancing individual and team goals, defining a "good" team, and embracing failure and trust as key components of effective teamwork. The conversation delves into themes such as building trust and collaboration, balancing work and fun as a team, the roles of the leader and the team, and community building. It explores the role of leadership in fostering a high-performing team and the significance of community building and leadership in a broader context.


Takeaways

  • Team collaboration

  • Building trust Work hard, play hard

  • Balancing work and fun

  • Leadership in community building


Chapters

  • 00:00 The Jazz Ensemble Experience

  • 18:39 Defining a Good Team

  • 23:39 Embracing Failure and Trust

  • 29:52 Balancing Work and Fun

  • 39:22 Community Building and Leadership



Transcript:

Paul (00:01.004)

Good. I missed the background.

Noa (00:03.97)

Got to the recording. Do you need to approve recording?

Paul (00:08.045)

I don't think so. just said it's on.

Noa (00:14.665)

Okay, so yeah.

you

Okay, now I'm focused. Do you need a moment? Guys? mean, just seeing Ophir is like, it's like his face is all shiny seeing you, Paul, so.

Paul (00:37.422)

Good to see you.

Ofir (00:39.726)

feel like my face is very bright this morning with the light.

Paul (00:44.258)

Your place is?

Ofir (00:45.666)

My face, my face is bright. The light a little bit.

Noa (00:50.902)

Do Do you have both flights open? Yeah.

Paul (00:56.27)

I just noticed I have a reflection going on over here, so I'm gonna have to just...

Noa (01:02.976)

Yeah, had to, because you see I have the light from the morning, so if I sit here, so I have to...

Paul (01:09.294)

There you go. You have to adjust as the day goes on and rotate.

Noa (01:12.75)

Just for recording, you

Ofir (01:15.906)

I a problem on this side, where the window is this side.

Paul (01:21.294)

I like that though. I like seeing the window.

Noa (01:24.792)

Yeah. So Paul, we thought that we'll talk about how you are the master of building really, really strong teams. And I thought to start with.

Ofir (01:38.21)

That's before you start.

Noa (01:41.496)

We don't really officially start, we just warm up.

Ofir (01:44.16)

Just to give, I thought about it after our conversation yesterday. I think, Paul, you can not just talk about the different teams that you built within the business, but also the community that you built in what's called ISSA, right? computer, a cyber kind of community that Paul is involved in in Ohio. So

Paul (02:00.94)

that we're fighting.

Ofir (02:12.992)

building a community and building a team is very similar. So, and I know now you're passionate about communities. So that's another connection that we can make to throughout this conversation as well.

Paul (02:25.292)

Yeah, there's a lot of credit for that one, but definitely a part of it was fun.

Noa (02:29.432)

Do you feel comfortable talking about that? anything you don't feel comfortable or, you know, sometimes we do something where it's like, I'm not sure I want to share about that. So.

Paul (02:41.134)

No, I think in a lot of things, just trying to make sure I don't put out names and companies. So I'm just trying to be general in some of the facts and information. On the answer to say stuff, I didn't build that team just to be clear, just to make sure on the questions, but I was definitely part of it for almost a decade helping with it as a group.

Noa (03:01.794)

Just that you know, we don't really come with questions, maybe you're Ofir that you before we met, but we just try to have like right now have a conversation and see where it goes. And it might go in a different direction than what we.

Ofir (03:17.72)

There's no right or

Noa (03:20.014)

Good job, Ophir. No right or wrong. Whatever happens, happens. Yeah, so we'll kind of like start with just giving a context from the weekend about what we experience in the jazz competition and ask you to introduce yourself as much or little you want to do. You can go with a little sentence or whatever you want, okay? And then...

Ofir you might go with the first question after introduction if you feel comfortable we'll see what's going to happen. Are we ready to roll?

Paul (03:57.646)

Absolutely. What? I got my coffee so I'm ready to go.

Noa (03:58.84)

Sure. Okay. Well, we'll be jealous of you having the coffee.

Paul (04:07.212)

Not when you hear the type of coffee, then you won't be jealous.

Noa (04:11.009)

Justin says Starbucks.

Paul (04:13.678)

It's a simple drip-pour coffee from the jar, if you will. It's not the fancy stuff at home.

Noa (04:22.264)

Well, it's not instant coffee. do the mushroom. we still go with the mushroom. It goes first and then. Okay. so, Paul is in the room with us this morning. Paul is in the room with us today. And we thought talking about, we thought that we'll talk about teams and building teams. But before we'll go into introducing you, Paul, I wanted to share that

Paul (04:30.264)

Smart.

Noa (04:52.206)

And you know our family a little. So we went this weekend with our youngest son to, he's part of a jazz ensemble, jazz ensemble band. That's how we call it. And they compete in the jazz at Lincoln center as part of what they call the Essential Ellington. It's a big festival of high school kids coming from all over the U S.

to compete against each other, but it's actually really cool. They recognize each other when they play well. So even though it's a competition, it's very fun to watch how the kids embrace each other and validate the talent in the room. So it's really fun to watch.

And unfortunately, his group didn't win. but they did well. They got recognized for the saxophone section, et cetera. And as always, Ofir and I have conversations dissecting some experiences that we go through. And the three groups that won, they were like Ofir, right? They were mind blowing. Thank you for

Ofir (06:08.876)

going again.

Paul (06:11.086)

deserved it then, right?

Noa (06:12.746)

They deserve that. And each director went to the stage and said a few words. And our daughter was with us observing the experience. you know, art is about feeling, So we see the directors and I look at my daughter and I say, this is a leader. That's how you make a team win.

And you just see the experience with those kids and Ofir, feel free to add, but they are just having fun on stage. It's not just about them playing, but you see that they are dancing with the experience. And one of the directors really said that at the beginning, it's about learning who you are as a performer.

Then understanding since it's a band, it's not just about the individual, it's about how we play together and really understanding how we play and listen to each other and use the word dancing with each other, which I thought was really cool talking about the experience. So this is where we want to take the conversation of what makes the difference between a team that dances together, win together.

and other teams that might be amazing, like my son's ensemble, but sometimes they don't win because something is missing in the ingredients. maybe many ingredients are missing there. Ofir you want to add something? It was a long context.

Ofir (07:53.898)

Noooo

say what you kind of summarize what you said, I think it's a work hard play hard. These bands and well, ask Paul in a second. perspective on this. Every group that wants to be successful needs to work very hard, both on the individual level and as a group. But I think from the jazz experience, the play hard as well, right, they had a lot of fun together. And it's

seems like a cycle that when the band is having fun together, they're then willing to work harder, not just for themselves, but then they start working for each other. And it's a cycle that feed itself if you build it properly in a very positive way. So I think before we just kind of dive into this, Paul, maybe you want to introduce yourself. Yeah, I can that.

get your take on that work hard, pay hard.

Paul (08:58.638)

Yeah, that's what my dad taught me too. So yeah, Paul Browning, I've been, I'll say I am a father of three. That's where I always kind of prioritize who I am. Father, husband, Marine veteran, Army National Guard veteran. I've been, as you all know and met you, I've been in the IT and cybersecurity industry for well over 20 years, dating back to my early days in the Marine Corps in the 2000s. I've seen and done a lot of different things, worked in a lot of different professions.

I think that's what's really helped me on the leadership side. I've seen a lot of really bad leaders. I've seen a few really good leaders and I've tried to take something that I wanted or did not want to do from all of them. I think that's really helped me in my lifetime. Regarding the jazz and that's an area that I am very for really knowledgeable about. I don't know anything about jazz. You sent me the video for you and I was like, I don't think I've ever actually watched a jazz concert in my entire life. I don't think I've seen anything other than what's in movies.

But describing the leader you talked about, one thing I can say that I noticed in the way you're talking about it is that they're all having fun. They're cheering each other on. There's something to be said about competition and then there's toxic competition. I've seen toxic competition, especially in football, either both growing up and even in watching the kids, but you see, especially in the artistic, but even in the track world, right? It's more of an individual score, but everybody's cheering each other on when they're cheering each other on.

Then you don't want to let your friends down. So you want to perform because they're all rooting for you. And then you give it back to them. And then it becomes a cycle where everybody's helping and pushing each other. It becomes a dance becomes more exciting and becomes fun. And it drives everybody forward. I'll say that in the jujitsu world, it's very similar. We always say iron sharpens iron. It's a very common term or saying, but everybody pushing each other and makes everybody better. And it drives everybody better a lot quicker than, you know, everybody just kind of doing the status quo. So I'd say that's probably the one thing that stood out the most.

Ofir (10:55.072)

So how in your experience, how do you bring this to the cruel business world where if you're in sales, every rep for themselves, right, they have their own quota, they need to meet their number. They don't necessarily get impacted by other people's numbers. If you're in a technical role, you have your own domain that you need to maintain, that you need to rather develop the code or build a network and make sure that your piece is working.

whether it's a customer success world, which is where you and I met, or again, you have your own portfolio of accounts and you're responsible to your own set of customers. So how do you take in all of those different perspectives, how do you take a group of people that have the same role on paper, but they don't necessarily always have the same set of aligned responsibilities on the same group of customers or tasks?

and make them feel like a jazz band.

Paul (11:57.762)

Yeah. would say that's probably why I never became a sales rep. sales reps are very, very money driven. They're not very team oriented, as you said, but sales engineers, they're, they're, they're money driven. Don't get me wrong. They enjoy making good money, but they're the way they're paid is different. It's a higher base, lower commission, but they are generally what I found is more team oriented people. They want the customer succeed. They want to succeed. They want to help their team succeed.

As long as they're getting paid and they're making good money, don't care if they're usually they don't care if they're the top, right? They want to, they are happy if their team's doing good. Cause if they're doing good, the team's doing good. And I've generally found that they're willing to help each other out. Sales reps are a little bit different on that. And you have to develop them. I have not led sales reps. I've worked with a lot of them. I've been able to kind of get them on the team concept, but as you said, they're very financially driven. But the engineers that I've led and worked with, I always developed them as a team and

One example would be if one took PTO and took time off, then I would ask another one, hey, can you come in and fill that void and cover for them? Now they might not want to because they might be part of something that closes a deal, but they also know that when they take PTO, the other person's going to help them. And over time, when they see that, then they end up helping each other and they just stay in their lane and they root for each other. They might not win all the deals, but someone on their team won the deals. Now they become part of that and they feel the win, even though they might not necessarily financially feel it.

And that becomes part of a culture where it becomes a team oriented approach. Does that make sense?

Noa (13:33.81)

I really like your approach is how as a leader, we create the experience without us that we can remove ourselves and the team can do that without us. so how, how do you create that experience to the two of you? How, how did you create it that the along your career that you can remove yourself and allow the team to.

even hold each other accountable or focus on winning together rather than winning for my goals.

Paul (14:12.69)

I know a Ofir has got some to add to this. I'll go ahead and say, I, I think your team has to believe that you can do the job and are willing to do the job. So sometimes I would cover in that instance where someone went on vacation, I might cover for them. But what I might do is to try to drive the team effort. It would be to say, Hey, can we get somebody to cover? And if nobody would, then I would jump in. And I think by them all knowing I would be willing to jump in, they would actually want to jump in first to say, no, don't worry. I'll take care of that.

because I know, you know, Joe, Mike, Bob, whatever, they'll help me later. And again, that cycle kind of feeds itself over time, but that willingness to, they know that I'm willing to step in and do the work. They know I'm capable of doing it. So they trust in me, but also when I'm asking them or I asked them to ask each other, they don't want to let each other, each other down. So I think first is just knowing that I can do it. And then I try to drive them to work together.

Ofir (15:08.046)

Yeah, I think so. So Paul is touching on the trust, the mutual trust inside the team. I think what also helps teams is to understand the mutual goal, right? Yes, each one of us have our, we have our own tasks, our own mission within the bigger company, right? And take it to the military. It's the same thing, right? Every soldier, every unit has their own task. But when you're

able to see how all those little tasks, all those different pieces are combining to a bigger picture, right? How we as a company, how we as a military, how we as a community are benefiting as a whole from this mission, it's easier to see how your part is more important than just meeting your own personal goals.

And then it's creating not just, you know, the trust is one piece, but it's creating the accountability, the desire to, to do your part for the group. The contribution that you provide to the group is you see, when you see the impact that is doing beyond just the immediate KPIs, it's, it's a huge driver for people to be willing to do, go outside of their kind of.

traditional swimming lanes because they see how it's helping. And you take a little pain now, but you know the game later, right? You go to the gym, it's not fun, but you know what's coming after. It's the same thing here, right? You do stuff outside of your swimming lanes and you support other activities that are not always 100 % just within your swimming lanes. As a collective, it's helping to achieve bigger like

know, one and one equals five, if you're doing it right. And it's really important to just make sure that people keep seeing this and see how, where it's gonna take us, kind of looking into the future, sharing the vision, but also going back every time that you achieve something, right? As Paul said, you, one of your peers closed the deal, how did what you may help, the way you help them.

Ofir (17:24.664)

how did it impact this and help them be successful and how what they did help you be successful. it's creating the collective success and not just a personal success.

Noa (17:35.182)

And I will take it to the other side when I don't provide what my team members need or other people on my team don't provide what I need. It can get in a way. It's not about us fighting with each other, but it's about a real honest conversation that if we're not accountable to each other, we don't achieve the team's goals. So just adding that other side that we cannot win together.

Paul (17:35.47)

You've got something. Go ahead.

Noa (18:04.962)

Yeah, Sorry Paul

Paul (18:07.404)

Yeah, and something you brought up or Ofir and we kind of see this we know on good teams, everybody knows the mission, everybody knows that the KPIs were measured on and how to get there. Equally I've said I've seen a lot of bad leaders. Generally, all of them lack having a unified mission and everybody even knows where they're going. And when they don't know where they're going, they just start spinning the wheel and staying in their swim lane and they seem very, you know, narrowly focused. But just simply having a vision sometimes can help drive things but it's so

Crazy how lacking that is in many places.

Noa (18:39.886)

So I'm curious, you you said good team. I know it's the million dollar question, but how do we want to define a good team?

Paul (18:53.518)

I define it, I guess, in a team that's able to accomplish the mission, or at least are working towards the mission, but they're doing it in a way where people are excited, they're working together, and you're getting more than 100 % out of them. You're seeing people that not only are just doing what they're supposed to do, but they're reaching out, they're helping others, they want to do more, they're asking to do more. One of the other indicators I love is people are bringing ideas to the table.

And generally when I see people that are saying, hey, what if we did this? What if we did that? And we have leaders have to be open and asking for this information and empowering people to do that. But I see when people are bringing ideas to the table and they're getting listened to and things are happening, they get excited. That raises the bar for everybody. So that's one of my indicators. I love seeing this just of many out there.

Noa (19:42.766)

So that's for you to know that your team moved from one phase to the phase of like, okay, now I see it.

Paul (19:51.414)

On top of some of the other things we're talking about now, it can be a negative, right? You can have people that have all these ideas, but they're not contributing. it can be a very negative culture environment. I've walked into some of these where you come in and everybody just thinks they can do it better. So there's a difference between complaining, this could be better, this could be this, between people coming in and saying, hey, what if we made this one adjustment? I think I could be more efficient, or I think our team could do this better if we adjust it. There's a difference in that. I want to clarify.

But when I see that, usually it's, then I see a team driving together.

Noa (20:24.515)

So those are good indicators. What are the red flags as a leader that you see? And what are the things that you can say, this is where this is progress. We are heading there. Yeah.

Ofir (20:35.33)

Yeah, I think the performance or the results is maybe the first layer of a good team because you can do all those things, And if you don't get the results, it's hard to define the team as a good team, right? At least in a business environment. So that's maybe the basic, right? The team that can achieve their goals as a group. But what makes a great team are those things, the collaboration.

the innovation, the knowledge and the feeling that someone got your back, whether it's your leader or your peers, or ideally both, where then you can take those ideas and try and fail as a group until you find the right thing that works the best for everyone. But it needs to start with achieving your goals.

And then on top of this, it's much easier to build. It's harder to build those different ideas and trial and errors in a team that doesn't achieve the results because then it's creating a lot of tension and a lot of pressure on the team. So it's kind of the in the cheek or the chicken, the egg, right? Pick whoever comes first. If you don't have good results, it's very hard to build a stronger team.

So you need to work on both things in parallel, but make sure that you have a solid ground to build all this trust and collaboration and innovation on top of

Paul (22:13.868)

It's funny to say that because when you were talking earlier, I used to say that saying to my team of go break some eggs. she talked a little bit about failure. I try to encourage and I learned this in jujitsu was it's okay to fail. In fact, we call failing is learning. you lose in a competition. That's good. How much did you learn? That's when you learn the most. And I would tell the team, go fail, go break some eggs. I want you to push your, your, your boundaries. I want you to get better. And by failing, we celebrate it and we learn from it and we get better again. So it's.

Funny you bring that up.

Noa (22:45.496)

So I want to challenge that because a lot of times I will hear from leaders where they say, why my team is not failing? Why are they not feeling comfortable to do mistakes? And I ask them, how will they know that they can do mistakes? So how people can know, how can teams know? Because sometimes it's not the leader. It can be, as you said, right? Sometimes things not functioning well and it can be a member on the team. So.

What do we do when, you know, someone says, let's allow the team to fail and do mistakes and let's celebrate them. How people know that they are really safe to do that. What do we need to do there? I think it's a really core conversation that we are skipping. We move into the failing, but we don't talk about how people can feel safe there.

Paul (23:38.926)

think it goes back to trust. I'll give an instance that I gave a CSM on the customer success team, a lot of leeway. I I want you to go fail, right? And we had some boundaries of the failures, right? I didn't want you to just go break things, but I want you to try to do things. But one of those was making decisions on your own. I want you to not have to ask somebody for help for everything you do, just go do it.

And then we'll figure it out. And this person, you know, made a mistake. wasn't a huge mistake, but someone in another department, a sales department did not like the outcome of how that worked out. So when I say the trust factor, I had to go work with that salesperson. I took responsibility for that. Said, Hey, we worked on this. This is what's going to happen. This is on me. This was, you know, I took responsibility and did not let the CS person who I gave the runway to make mistakes on fall on that. So.

I did that and then I talked to the employee and explained the situation. Here's how we could have done that better. But then also say, hey, I love what you did. You made a decision. It's okay. Like sometimes we make bad decisions or maybe they're not all agreed upon by other parties. And we worked through it and said, just keep doing it, keep doing it. So I think when they saw that I was willing to take the accountability for their mistake, then they felt more relaxed to do it. They weren't so scared and rigid.

And when they're using people more relaxed, they actually make better decisions too. So it kind of went full circle, if you will, but it comes down to trust. Now I have to, you have to balance that. And that's the hardest thing because they can make really bad mistakes, but that's what we want them to do. We just have to kind of set some boundaries.

Noa (25:16.51)

I love that you add the boundaries. It's the same with delegation, go and just do that and then people come back and it's like, you made a crappy job, but what were the boundaries of going and do that? So that's a very interesting addition that you have boundaries around the go and try and do mistakes or experiment with something.

Ofir (25:40.116)

And another way to do it is go and do it yourself, right? And show them that it's okay to fail. Share your failures with your team. Tell them what you've done and how you failed and show them it's okay to make the mistake and it's okay to talk about the mistake because sometimes people will go and try things and maybe fail, but they're not comfortable and safe enough to come and share it with you. So if you go back and share your own mistakes,

Paul (25:50.21)

Yes.

Ofir (26:09.792)

and show them it's okay to talk about it. It's also building this trust and level of comfort and safety to come back and share with the team. And it takes a little bit of work at the beginning to build this trust, to build this culture of sharing mistakes and talking about this. But once you get into the cycle and you start building the level of comfort in the team, then it's...

really making it much easier for people and new people that come in see that, this is how it's done, it's okay. And they can do it much faster.

Paul (26:47.202)

I was laughing a little bit because when you're talking about this, you're reminding me, I actually tried this with my family once. The kids were maybe 10, 12 years old and we're sitting around the table and I heard this, I maybe it was on a podcast or something, it's probably 10 plus years ago. I said, hey everybody, I want everybody to share something you did today that you failed at so that we can celebrate it. And I want to hear about it. I don't want you to hide it away. And it lasted for a couple of days.

because I didn't fail at anything today. It was just like, okay, then that means you need to be pushing harder. So if you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough. But we did try that experiment. It just didn't go well. So I definitely learned from it in ways that you just mentioned, sharing your own failures.

Ofir (27:27.055)

We had the highs and lows around our table for a long time. was a similar concept.

Noa (27:33.814)

Yeah. And by the way, I really love that you started introducing yourself as a father of three because a family is also a team. And you can definitely see when a family is too competitive and become toxic in a not a winning way. So you can see everything that we talk about as in the business setting or art setting or whatever, it's also in a family setting. So

Paul (28:05.026)

That's, you bring that up and talk about jazz too. And I think about that in the way our family grew up, right? I had my daughter, she was really into horses. She rode horses and she competed. My sons eventually got into football and track and, know, with jazz or with horses, not racing horses, but just horses. When you ride around and it's how do you look, how do you ride? And it's very judged decision on who gets first place, who gets last place. So.

very subjective and it's you're at the mercy of that judge. And watching that, think we all learn to both not get upset with the placings or not get hung up on what place they got, but get more hung up on how they did or how they improved. And you're cheering, you know, in this case, my daughter on no matter how she placed. I think we learned that all very early. And then the boys, they kind of went into more goal oriented. There's, there's a clear winner, right? You get the fastest time.

you know, you get the highest score, it's easy to cheer for that. But I think because we watched our, their sister go through it, they've learned to just cheer everybody on no matter how well they did, because it's not always, you know, based on their performance or it's a judge's decision. So I think they learned that early on as, know, to cheer other people on and that kind of built that within the family. I never thought about that till just now, but it makes sense.

Noa (29:24.322)

Yeah. And it's about learning to cheer for yourself as well. And, and sit with that, The same way when we fail as a team or as individuals, but we are individuals in teams and we have setbacks and we have celebrations and how do we, with our mindset process that and look at that. And especially in spaces like tennis and that there is a lot of internal conversation with yourself and

And the people that are able to take it the extra mile are the people, the musicians as well, right? I didn't hit the note. So in all the more individualistic experiences is really to learn how you talk with yourself. And I do believe it replicates then to how you learn to talk with other people around you. Absolutely. Yeah.

Ofir (30:15.746)

I want to go back to the work hard, play hard.

Where do you put the balance between the work hard and the play hard? Like where is the line of, is there a thing of having too much fun at work?

Paul (30:32.034)

having too much fun at work.

Ofir (30:33.91)

Yeah, you know, some, you know, again, looking at going back to the jazz band, right? You see some of the musicians on stage, you know, waving their hands throughout the concert, they're playing one of the trumpet guys, right? He had the trumpet in one hand, in the other hand, he was like waving and kind of getting the crowd to cheer with the band.

Is it cheering with the band? Is it cheering for him? Where is this line? So the same goes in other scenarios. Is there a thing of having too much fun a thing that we need to be worried about when we tell the team to go and have fun as they work hard?

Paul (31:21.88)

There can be for sure. I think if it impacts the overall team, are they still, is the fun leading to accomplishing the mission? When the fun deviates from the mission, then it can be a bad thing. Now, does it deviate temporarily to just do a, you I'll give an example. Are we having fun because we're doing team building that, you know, brings them together so that we can get back on the mission? Cool.

that works, but is the fun where, we're going out and we're partying all day long. Like, yeah, we're still doing our work, but we're not really work focused. Then the balance is too much fun. So there definitely can be a line where it can become a negative, but generally what I see is a high performing team. They know how to have fun while getting the mission accomplished and they're never, they might be out. One person might take their moment on stage, but it's short lived. And then they.

cheer on the next person who takes their moment on stage. I think that's, there is a balance, it can sway, but I think when too much work affects the play or too much play affects the work, that's when you start to see that. But I think it ebbs and flows a little bit as you grow.

Noa (32:28.11)

For me, I think when I listen to you, it's that range. And it could be that the team will go for a moment too far with the fun. And again, it's how do we learn as a team to say, okay, let's come back because we are missing something there and too much playful and less doing the work. And I'm wondering if, you know, the teams that we saw there, the bands that we saw there,

They work hard, but they're also having fun together. But I do believe there are moments that there is no fun. Why? They were performing and they were giving their 180 % for the audience to enjoy what's happening there. But I think there are lots of moments for you to be such a good performer that there is a lot of hard work. There is the rehearsing, there is the not hitting the note and doing it again and again and again.

and taking a specific section in the music and repeat, repeat, repeat until you get there. But if you over-repeat it, you don't get the results that way. Over-rehearsing that again will take you on the wrong direction as a band. I love that analogy between those groups of kids and yeah, I see you there Paul, want to say something, so go for it.

Paul (33:51.416)

There's so much. First thing I'd say is that a few times that I've talked to Ofir and there's not something that's come up about his son training for the jazz competition. He's going to school and there's a practice. So like you said, they're working hard. There's so much that people don't see in the background where it's work, you're grinding, they're getting at it. And then what they see is the few minutes on stage and they're all having fun. They're like, it must be like that all the time. But what again, they don't see is the blood, sweat and tears, as we used to say.

It's funny because I just was at a jujitsu competition this weekend. My daughter competed and it was, she's up and we're, we're trying to make sure they're relaxed. Cause a lot of times people will tense up and then, you know, some people will tense up so much. can't think their adrenaline's going on. They're not having any fun. It's just, it's just all business and then they can't perform. So they're not there. They forgot to bring the fun. And our daughter was having a little fun. was even doing a little dance before she went out on the mats to actually compete. And it's like, you should be in a killer mindset right now. She's.

totally loose. I think for her, she found that good balance of, you know, work hard, play hard. But when she gets out there, it's all business, but she's having fun in the moment too, because of all that work she put in, just like your son, where, you know, there's so much again, that people don't see that they're going through it. There's hard days, there might be tears, there might be just a lot of stress and that's okay because it leads to the fun and they know that. So we got to let them have fun too.

Ofir (35:13.272)

So how do you take the blood, sweat and tear that happens on the backend and use a leader can see it, the rest of the company doesn't. How can you leverage that in order to get more buying across the company to supporting your team to where's the balance of showing this in a productive way versus showing it in a kind of a whining way. Look at how hard we work.

Paul (35:43.47)

Yeah, I think it's the I've learned that lesson is you can't show how hard we're working because everybody just assumes everyone's working hard. So that's not a that's not a measurable. So saying a customer is happy. That's not a measurable. But you I have to as a leader champion the wins and I have to measure those wins and measure the progress. If we're in a grinding phase and we're doing something generally, you know, we might have a mission, right? We want to get to the moon, for instance.

but we've got to build a rocket, we've got to test the engines, we've got to test the heat, we've got to do all these things. But the mission is still to get to the moon. I can't report that we've gotten to the moon if we haven't done these other things. But if we haven't, if people don't know what those steps are and that we're achieving those steps, then I'm failing as a leader, both to my team, seeing what those steps are, how to get there, but also to my leadership and the rest of the company for them to know what our team is working on and how we're getting there.

It gets more succinct with the rest of the company and they need to see quickly. But I need to get their buy-in to know that these are the steps to get to the moon and then report on that. But equally to my team, they know they're in a grind. There might be this little sprint phase where, we've got to build the rocket today. We've got to test the engines today. And if we can do that, then they will be very focused. That'll be the blood, sweat, and tears. But again, I have to be able to communicate and champion that across the board as well.

Noa (37:04.654)

I want to add to that question of Ofir because for me it's the same way it happens inside a team, how the executive team making sure that there is that experience across the organization, that we win together in the end. It's not just about Paul's team or your team or my team to get there, but it's how all our teams get to the moon.

So for me, it's part of that systemic approach. Are we winning for our department division or are we winning as a company or as a community or as a Jiu Jitsu organization in that martial arts space? So that's that one for me that was missing in the conversation right now.

Ofir (37:55.16)

This is where we are sharing the vision of how each team's task is contributing to the bigger mission of the organization. Every piece of the organization have a different mission, different task. Not everyone, there's only one, right? Like you send them, there was this mission couple of weeks ago to circle the moon. There are like, think four people on the shuttle, but there are...

thousands of people working behind them. Each one of those thousands of people and probably dozens if not hundreds of different groups that work within this organization had one piece of a very important task that if not done well, the whole mission can't work. So the same way that if you say, the sales rep is the one that closes the deal.

but there is so much work from the engineers on the back end to build the product and from the marketing guys to market the product, right? Like there are a lot of different tasks that are maybe don't get the same glory from the outside. They're not as visible from the outside, but they're not less important. Yeah.

Paul (39:00.94)

me.

Paul (39:08.142)

100%. If those parachutes don't deploy, it becomes a really failed mission, right? So everybody has a part to play and equally, especially in this shuttle scenario, one failure in any of those is catastrophic.

Noa (39:22.424)

So Paul, I heard that you're also building communities. So what would you like to share with us about building a successful community?

Paul (39:34.35)

I can say, well, I'm kind of back into some advice someone gave me one time and then I'll kind of answer that. But I was told once by a mentor of mine that I should always seek to have a mentor. I should always be mentoring somebody and I should always have a little competition, if that makes sense. So that we always are learning from somebody, we're giving back to somebody and then we're competing with somebody that drives us forward. And I say that in the community that when I first got involved in the cyber community here in Columbus, Ohio,

that there was a budding community that had been growing and there was a particular leader in that community. And they call it the godmother, if you will. And that's something that she's always encouraged. So somebody encouraged me to seek her out. And so I sought her out and she got me involved in the community. And then just like someone paid it forward, hey, this is how you need to get started. Then I would find others and I would say, hey, this is what I would do to get started. First, get involved in community.

then let's get involved in the conferences and the monthly chapters. And then I started working with other people, but I also got involved with the chapter specifically to the point that it was like, all right, it's time to join the board and be official. I did this for probably 10 years. We had one of largest cybersecurity conferences here in Ohio. It's multiple days. There's like over 1,000, 1,500 people attending. We went through all of COVID with it. It's a very...

Big community here. would say I'm not the leader of the community. was part of it. And now it's what's the beauty. There are a couple of really big names, but the overall factors that from engineers, sales reps, account managers, but also the practitioners, right? The people that are actually hands on, know, stopping and preventing threats to the risk people, to the CISOs of the world. They're all together in this community. They're all attending this conference and they all talk to one another.

and an example of the, the mentor side of it, had a friend of mine that his son runs track with us, his older sons in the cybersecurity, you know, school. How do I get started? Well, first you need to come to this conference. So I paid for a ticket, get to the conference. I introduced a few people and, you know, he's a 20 year old kid and he decides to sit in on an executive, you know, briefing. was, it was open to everybody, but mostly the only executives sit there.

Paul (41:45.986)

And he's sitting to a CISO, one of the biggest retailers here in Columbus, Ohio, one that everybody would know the name of. And the CISO just starts talking to them and gets to know them and they knew each other by name, by the conference. And a few times they're walking by and saying hi. And, you know, then they found out that I was a mutual friend of both of them. And it was just great because what ends up happening in the community. And again, I was brought into this and I tried to give it back was just the connectivity. Everybody's helping. It's like jazz. Everybody's cheering for each other. Everybody's working towards a common goal.

Nobody's bigger than the moment. Again, it's a very good community in that sense. The toxicity gets rooted out pretty quickly.

Noa (42:21.656)

I'm wondering, I always recommend to leaders that want to improve leadership skills to go and volunteer because when you volunteer as a leader, there is no the carrot and the stick that you have as a leader inside the company. What did you learn about your leadership?

Paul (42:42.03)

Oh, in the community side of it?

Noa (42:43.734)

Yeah, what did you learn about yourself as a leader when you volunteer as a leader in this community?

Paul (42:53.054)

I learned that I will always put the mission first. an example of this, I, kind of picked an area to focus on. One was like building the website, building the apps and then making sure all the technology works. And then what I also realized was that I can't do it all. And this was a very, very vivid realization because you have to set everything up and you get about four hours to do it. It's midnight. Everybody else is asleep. And then you're trying to set up all the rooms and test everything out.

So I learned very quickly this can't be done by one person. It has to be done by a committee. And working through some of the others, we ended up having a tech team, if you will. We made that from three people to then we were like, we need volunteers during the actual event because we're running around. We have more steps than we can count on our watches. We need help. So then we started signing people into rooms and we worked together. And then we had a full tech team of a dozen plus people. learning that.

You can't do it all. have to rely on a team, even when you're volunteering, you know, you're volunteering. You want to be the hero, but the reality is that being a hero does not mean you have to kill yourself to do the job. It just means you have to work with others to do it better, if that makes sense. So I learned my limitations.

Noa (44:02.422)

Yeah, I think we learn as as volunteers really how we bring people that are not compensated by money to join the mission. And I think this is very interesting learning when you when you volunteer to see how you bring people to join you. What's that special thing that you do there that people will sign up to be in the rooms because they don't get anything from that for that. So what do you think?

created that ability for you to inspire people to join you, even though they are not compensated for their time and effort.

Paul (44:40.462)

It's a team effort. So everybody that's in the board, they would know people and you, when you're talking to people, you have to say, Hey, you should come out and try this and say, I don't know how to get started. Such as, you know, the college student I mentioned earlier, I tried to get him to be a volunteer. like, Hey, you're going to get started. You're not a professional yet. Just get acclimated, just get to know the industry and maybe you go pop in and watch a, um, a talk or something, or maybe just by sitting in the room, recording them, you get to listen to them all day for free.

So they get a little bit of training, they get to meet people, they build a community. And it's not widely, this doesn't widely happen, but one of those tech volunteers, she volunteered for about three years. I ended up hiring her as a sales engineer to work for me. She still works for that company. She's got a family, like she's totally grown and done all these amazing things. And it all was because she volunteered and she made connections. that network that she built.

And things just worked out, you know? So I think just telling people some of the stories of success they've had, but then we know that when they start to receive, eventually they're going to give. again, by giving to them, they might grow and prosper, but they're gonna give back. So just always pay it forward.

Noa (45:51.02)

Yeah, it's the peer ripple that we talk about.

Paul (45:53.859)

Never

Ofir (45:54.062)

And I think just to start wrapping up the community lesson that I take from here is that obviously, you know, money is important and people go to work because they want to make money and they want to have a lot of it. But without the shared mission and the trust in the people that you work with.

and doing it while having fun and finding some joy, neither a community or a commercial business are going to be successful. So it's the same attributes and the leader in both in a commercial business and in a volunteering-based community needs to bring the same skill sets and drive people in the same way for the same mission.

Paul (46:47.436)

Great. I agree.

Noa (46:48.558)

So you are taking us into the key takeaways from the conversation today. So Paul, we have a little thing in the end of the conversation when we wrap up and we just all reflect on the conversation we had and take a moment to share what is the main key takeaway from our conversation today. So Ofir started that.

Paul (47:14.774)

I mean, I'll add

Ofir (47:16.695)

Easy one.

Noa (47:17.948)

What's that?

Ofir (47:19.788)

I covered all the easy ones. It's hard to get through it.

Paul (47:24.514)

Yeah, I the work hard, play hard. If you, I think just you stick on that one topic, that one saying, you can cover so much ground in team building. You know, are we working hard? Are we playing hard? What defines each? If the team's working hard, they're not playing. They might not be a team. If they're playing all the time, they're working. They might not be a successful team. So there's a balance between all that, but it also takes a good leader to drive their mission.

bring them all together and have them singular focused on what needs to happen, but do it in a way where they can accomplish and grow individually as much as a team. That's what I got.

Ofir (48:01.644)

Okay, Noa wrap it up with yours.

Noa (48:05.506)

really liked when Paul talked about the boundaries when communicating with his people about the boundaries when you fail. I think sometimes we're talking about mission when we send people on mission or the purpose of what and why we're doing what we're doing. We're missing that part of the boundaries and we send them on to fail, but really fail.

in a way that is not serving them. So how do we send people to fail while feeling successful with that? I know it sounds a little silly. Excuse me? Yes, successful failure. So do really well when you fail, but in a way that you can come back and learn from that. So for me, adding that boundaries piece, and I think it goes to other spaces with leaders and teams.

Ofir (48:41.678)

Successful failure.

Noa (49:02.542)

That's my biggest takeaway from today. So thank you for that, Paul. definitely, I just want to add listening to you that you are a wonderful influencer, just listening to people see where are their strengths and allowing them to grow and develop, whether if it's in the community, whether if it's in the Jiu Jitsu.

or in company setting, or with your family. So you really try to feel where are those people strengths and invite them to see something that they might not be able to see yet and open the door for them to, you know, the crack to pay attention and go that path with boundaries.

Paul (49:50.838)

one of the greatest rewards of a leader is when you see someone crack through that door and then they just evolve into this person that you knew they were, but they didn't actually see it yet. It's definitely one of the most rewarding things.

Ofir (50:03.022)

this.

Noa (50:03.502)

And that's, I always say that's a mature leader. So thank you for the opportunity to spend this morning with you. Definitely I don't need my coffee anymore after this conversation. I very energized. You do? Go make the coffee. Paul, thank you so much. We appreciate you.

Ofir (50:19.384)

in

Paul (50:28.334)

It's great to meet you as well and great to see you again Ofir Hope to see you more.

Ofir (50:32.078)

We hope that you didn't suffer too much.

Paul (50:34.584)

Yeah, it was fun. Thank you for this.

Noa (50:36.962)

Let's make the Peer ripple.

Paul (50:39.054)

Let's do it. Thank you all and good luck to you.

Ofir (50:42.318)

Thank you. Bye bye.

Noa (50:47.288)

keeping the recording. Yeah,

Paul (50:50.51)

I was wondering if you wanted to keep talking or not. So I do have to go get the.

Noa (50:54.254)

I think he saw you pushing the button, but I'm staying here to record just a little thing, but it's always that very weird moment in the camera. But thank you. Ofer is back.

Ofir (51:06.648)

Yeah.

Paul (51:10.974)

Nice to see you.

Ofir (51:12.334)

You're something. You're keeping something when they say goodbye. Yeah, sorry.

Noa (51:20.044)

No, no, it's fine. I say that it's always that awkward moment, but I'm going to keep it because I'm going to keep going with just the edition recording. But I wanted to say thank you to Paul. I hope you didn't suffer too much.

Paul (51:32.558)

No, no, I it's always just like sitting in a room and having a conversation and something that Every time I went down to North Carolina and sit with Ofir and we'd have coffee together. It was always I Talk about the mentor thing. I always looked at Ofir He was one of my mentors, right and I always learned something even if it was about coffee and how little I knew about coffee, right? it didn't have to be about work and Life-changing alternate things. It's what is an Americano to this day?

I feel so ashamed I didn't know what Americana was. But I actually shared that story with somebody recently, Ofir which is funny that nobody knows about Americana and like the history of it. And I'm so proud to share it now, but I always learn something.

Noa (52:13.006)

I think I need to learn what's the history of Americano. You will share with me later. I wanted to say something. I don't know. yeah, I wanted to ask you, since you are closer to this circle and we're still new to that, if you have feedback recommend, and it's good that it's recorded, feedback recommendations, something that we should do differently.

seriously no hard feelings as you know us both. You don't know me yet but we're still in the learning curve so I know boundaries.

Ofir (52:45.836)

Did we fail well?

Paul (52:47.723)

So.

I think it was good. was wondering where the jazz discussion was going, like how that going to lead in. thought that led in very well talking about the director. And then that also gave us something to tie in throughout the discussion. And it's interesting how much that did end up coming back into the discussion, right. And what a leader is, but also the type of people that you're leading. It was a good tie in. So I liked that opening. I liked that it was very comfortable. It was very conversational.

didn't feel like an interview. didn't feel like, I got a big hot white light probe, except the one above my head, you know, making me sweat. It was very comfortable and the time went very fast. So I don't have any good feedback. I haven't been on these. I've watched, you know, some, I've listened to podcasts that are four hours long. And the thing I think that was the best about them, they just felt like conversations I would have been in if I was in that room as well. So I think that's what makes people want to listen to whole thing.

Ofir (53:45.832)

That's what I feel about acquired. There is a podcast acquired that I've listened to. have episodes that are four hours, some of them. Like it's between two to four hours. And we're always like, how can you listen to this? so long. But like, it's like, it's a conversation that I would sit in in a room and listen to because it's interesting.

Paul (53:47.95)

What's that?

Paul (54:09.452)

Right. And like, this is, this is exactly what I want to talk about. So, yeah, those are the best ones.

Noa (54:15.17)

Yeah, we'll do our best. if you listen to something and you think like, hey, you should listen to that to learn from them or so let us know. So we better. We'll set you free. Thank you. I'm gonna guys I'm gonna stay here just because I need to do kind of like, hey, thank you for listening. Can you the follow button? So I'm gonna stay here and do that. But you are free to go and Paul will give you

Paul (54:26.254)

I

Noa (54:45.088)

I will ping you when we release your episode.

Paul (54:48.984)

Okay. Thank you. It's good seeing you all.

Ofir (54:51.726)

Thank you. Thank you, Paul.

Noa (01:00:00.93)

Thank you for listening, if you liked what we shared with you.

Noa (01:00:09.102)

Thank so much for listening. If you liked something, we...

Thank you so much for listening. If you like this episode, please share it with your friends, teams, co-founders, and just reflect and have a good conversation. This is what this peer ripple is all about.

Noa (01:00:33.454)

Thank you for listening! If you liked this episode and feel like it's worth sharing, bleh!

Noa (01:00:46.264)

Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening. If you like this episode, please share it with your peers, teams.

Noa (01:01:02.338)

Thank you for listening. If you like this episode and you feel...

Noa (01:01:10.658)

Thank you for listening. If something landed here, please don't hesitate and share it. Thank you for listening. If you like this episode, please don't keep it to yourself and share it with a friend, peer.

UGH! Those dots, annoying dots.

Noa (01:01:37.08)

Thank you for listening. If you like this episode, don't save it to yourself and share it with a peer, your team, your co-founder, maybe even your board members. And have a good conversation about it. Reflect about it. Share your key takeaways from these conversations. This what is.

Noa (01:02:12.472)

Kofi and I want to thank you for listening to this episode. If something landed or sparked something in you, don't hesitate, don't sit on that. Just go and share it with a peer, your team.

Noa (01:02:34.04)

Hey, if you like this episode, don't sit on it alone. Share it with a peer, share it with your team, co-founder, a friend, and just have a good conversation.

Noa (01:02:50.648)

Thank you for listening. If you found something...

Thank you for listening. If something sparked an interest in this app.

Noa (01:03:03.672)

Thank you for listening. If you find it helpful, don't sit on it and share this episode with a peer, your team, your friends.

Noa (01:03:38.648)

Thank you for listening.

Noa (01:03:43.02)

If something here stayed with you...

Noa (01:03:48.182)

If something here stayed with, if something here's, thank you for listening. Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening. If something stayed with you, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with your peers, with your team, with your co-founder, even the board of directors. That's what the ripple effect is all about. Listening, reflecting, and learning together with your peers.

Noa (01:04:20.662)

And Ofir and I have a favor to ask. Please follow us.

Noa (01:04:33.132)

Ofir and I have a favor to ask. If you like this... Ofir and I have a favor to ask. If you like this episode...

Thank you for listening. Ofir and I have a favor to ask. If you found something interesting in this...

Noa (01:04:54.872)

Thank you for listening. Ofir and I have a favor to ask. If something here stayed with you, share with your peers, with your team, with your co-founder and have a good conversation. This is what the peer ripple is all about. And please follow us, subscribe and share because that's what brings the knowledge everywhere.

Noa (01:05:26.336)

And remember, if you follow and subscribe, that helps us know which information you like the best and give you more of that. So let's keep the ripple effect and see you next week.

Noa (01:05:56.458)

Last one. Thank you for listening. If something stayed with you, please share with your peers, team, co-founder, friends, family, and have a good conversation. This is what it's all about, the peer report.

Noa (01:06:16.984)

Thank you for, Ofir and I thank you for listening to this episode. And we have a favorite to ask. If something landed here, share with a peer, with your team, with your co-founder, friends, and just have a good conversation, reflecting together, learning together, and just doing the peer report.

Noa (01:06:41.442)

Ofir and I want to thank you for taking... Ofir and I have a favor to ask. If you like this episode, please follow, subscribe, and share with friends. If something stayed with you, have a good conversation with a...

Noa (01:07:05.88)

Thank you for listening. If something stayed with you from this conversation, please share with your peers, team, co-founder, friends, and have a good peer-ripple conversation. It's all about the listening together, learning together, and reflecting together, something we are missing today. And Ophira and I had just a favor to ask you. If you can follow and subscribe, it will help us a lot to know.

What is the information you would like to learn more about? See you next week. Cheers.

Noa (01:07:46.2)

Thank you for listening. If something landed for you, thank you for listening. If something stayed with you, please share with peers, team, family members, and have a good conversation. This is what the peer ripple is all about. Learning together, reflecting together, processing together. It's missing right now in our lives with all the go, go, go that we have.

And Ofir and I have a little favor to ask you, if you can follow and share and subscribe, that will help us a ton to know which episodes you really like and then create more of that material and information for you.

Noa (01:08:32.386)

Thank you for listening.

Noa (01:08:37.4)

Thank you for listening. If something stayed with you, don't hesitate to share with a peer, with your team, with other people, and just have a good conversation. We are missing the space to take time we listen to and reflect and learn with other people. So follow us, subscribe, share. It can help us make sure that we create the right information for you and your circle. Until next time, cheers.

Noa (01:09:10.488)

See you next time. Cheers.

Noa (01:09:19.0)

Thank you for listening. If something stayed with you, please share it with your peer, with your team, other people, co-founder.

Noa (01:09:30.306)

Thank you for listening.

Noa (01:09:39.735)

Thank you for listening. Ofeir and I want to thank you for listening and have a favor to ask you. If something stayed with you from this conversation, please share that with your peers, team, co-founder, anyone else that you want to have a good conversation about this topic. This is what the ripple effect is all about.

Noa (01:10:05.366)

And please follow and subscribe. This way we can know what information you want to learn more about and make sure we create more material around that. So until next time, cheers.

Noa (01:10:22.828)

Until next time, cheers.

Noa (01:10:32.47)

Until next time, cheers!


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