This episode features a conversation between Phil Dillard, Founder of Thruline Networks, and Janice Fraiser, an author, public speaker, and leading advisor to innovation executives and startup founders. In this episode, Janice talks about bettering organizations by shaping company culture, the challenges of measuring impact in philanthropic ventures, and how to avoid the unintended consequences of well-intentioned social efforts.
This episode features a conversation between Phil Dillard, Founder of Thruline Networks, and Janice Fraiser, an author, public speaker, and leading advisor to innovation executives and startup founders.
A Silicon Valley veteran, Janice has built a storied career as a product manager, founder, facilitator, and confidant for entrepreneurs and enterprise executives alike. Her impact extends beyond Silicon Valley, with innovation and transformation projects at NASA, the Obama White House, Procter and Gamble, and many other companies in the Fortune 500. As an investor, she is particularly committed to championing and extending access to the brilliant entrepreneurs who are typically underrepresented in the world of venture-backed startups.
In this episode, Janice talks about bettering organizations by shaping company culture, the challenges of measuring impact in philanthropic ventures, and how to avoid the unintended consequences of well-intentioned social efforts.
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Guest Quote
“I invite participation in what I think are good and better ways of being. I can't make someone want to be anything other than what they want to be. But, I can invite them to be bolder versions of what they want to be and go farther. So, the first thing that I do is I try to give people permission to just be themselves, to be flawed, to be audacious. And, I'm saying this, and as it comes out it sounds so trite, but there's nothing more powerful than seeing people. There's nothing more powerful than validating that their existence is real.” - Janice Fraiser
Episode Timestamps
(01:59) Janice’s career
(07:02) Contributing to social change
(09:26) Shaping culture
(20:17) Driving change for organizations
(30:53) Relationship to capitalism
(34:47) Avoiding unintended consequences
(40:50) Challenges of measuring impact
(42:37) Influential figures in the space
(46:13) Final thoughts
Links
Phil Dillard: Hello and welcome to Thruline to the 4th Sector, where we're exploring fourth sector capitalism and impact investing as an invitation to innovation and changing the world. This episode features a conversation between Phil Dillard, Founder of Thruline Networks, and Janice Fraiser, an author, public speaker, and leading advisor to innovation executives and startup founders.
A Silicon Valley veteran, Janice has built a storied career as a product manager, founder, facilitator and confidant for entrepreneurs and enterprise executives alike. Her impact extends beyond Silicon Valley with innovation and transformation products at NASA, the Obama White House, Proctor and Gamble, and many other companies in the Fortune500. As an investor, she's particularly committed to championing and extending access to the brilliant entrepreneurs who are typically underrepresented in the world of venture backed startups.
In this episode, Janice talks about bettering organizations by shaping company culture, the challenge of measuring impact and philanthropic adventure, and how to avoid the unintended consequences of well-intended social efforts. Now, please enjoy this interview between Phil Dillard and Janice Fraiser.
Hello again everyone, and welcome to another addition of Thruline to the 4th Sector. I'm your host, Phil Dillard, here today with the amazing Janice Fraiser. How are you doing today, Janice?
Janice Fraiser: I'm great. Thank you so much.
Phil Dillard: Thank you so much for making the time to be here. It's really great to have a time to talk with you and to share some of your wisdom with folks. I've been a, a Janice fan for years now. It's like, I wanna say going on 6, 7, 8 years since I met her, maybe back at her pivotal days when we were at lead startup company.
But Janice has an amazing, um, Amazing background, an amazing history, and I would say a fortitude of her commitments and her spirit that is, uh, admirable that we need more of in this world. So start with a softball question. Janice, you have an amazing background and set of experiences. Can you walk us through your career, your whole, your whole career, but true. How did you get here today in your experience as a product development?
[00:02:16] Janice Fraiser: One of the things about being in your fifties is that you've had this mountain range of career, like there are highs and there are lows, and you know, you've done a whole bunch of things. And when I look back on that mountain range, what I see is that the best times were when I was working with people at the edge of whatever the new thing is.
[00:02:34] and we were making it boring. We were making it so that regular people could practice it with a high degree of reliability. So it's like, you know, first it was, you know, the internet. I was working at Netscape in 1996 and they're like, there's this internet thing. What do we do with that ? And you know, it was in the hands of the like elite few and we were trying to make it so that anybody could practice it.
[00:02:56] And um, and then it was how do we make. So that it doesn't suck, you know, so that these websites are not so bad. And that was, we started a company called Adaptive Path and we're one of the first user experience firms. And now there are thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of user experience designers.
[00:03:12] And so it's that kind of thing that really gets me excited. Those are the problems that get me interested. And so when I look back over my career, it's been a series of saying yes to interesting opportunities. And the opportunities that I found the most interesting were the ones where there was like a clear.
[00:03:29] Difficult new challenge that a small group of people were taking on, and I wanted to help be one of the people that unlocked that so that it could be practiced by
[00:03:38] Phil Dillard: a lot more folks. Cool. That's really interesting. You know, it's like OGs of the internet, right? helped created the web and then create ux.
[00:03:48] Now when we see user experience and customer experience, now it's like regular disciplines. It's great cuz you've seen firsthand a lot. Disciplines evolve into job descriptions that appear at all these different companies that didn't appear, that weren't there at the start. So the web user experience.
[00:04:06] Customer experience, is there anything that you, that stands out about seeing that happen that you're looking at going forward? You see? What do you see that's on the precipice of going into something that's new to something that's practiced with a high degree of reli? , that's
[00:04:20] Janice Fraiser: a really interesting question.
[00:04:22] I'm not exactly sure which of the things that I'm excited about are going to become commonplace, but I will say relevant, particularly to this conversation, we're in a massive cultural moment, like massive cultural moment, the pace of change. Astonishing. It's not gonna slow down anytime soon, and we're having to learn kind of new leadership behaviors to deal with it.
[00:04:50] But also we are seeing, particularly the gen, you know, the Gen Zs, and I don't even know what the generation, the kids who are 10, 11, 12 years old right now. These kids are so much more savvy than we were speaking only for myself here. But you know, maybe you can relate. Like I didn't know anything when. You know, 17, 18, 20 years old, they were like, really?
[00:05:11] I was clueless. And these kids are not having it. Like the problems that we have culturally, whether it's, you know, racial justice or environmental disasters or political shenanigans, like these young people are just not having it. And frankly, I think that we're not having it either. And so I think that we're at this moment of massive, profound cultural change.
[00:05:34] And so I see the next decade as bringing on whole new sectors of work. You know, so I, I'm gonna say, um, helping the planet not melt down is one. Figuring out how to change the criminal justice system. That's another, I think that there's some. Massive reckoning that we're gonna do around equity and concepts around justice that are gonna be big cultural, big cultural shifters.
[00:06:05] So mega trends happening right now that are gonna be very
[00:06:09] Phil Dillard: interesting. . Yeah, I totally would agree with that. There are big mega trends, domestic us and they're also the ones that are, that are global. The, the Gen Zs that we, it's really interesting in, in our, in our clubhouse and in our conversations there, there's always two or three continents represented mm-hmm.
[00:06:25] and there are usually four generations represented in, in all of these conversations. It is, I think, at a time where, A multi-generational conversation with a bias towards empowering youth for activity. Mm-hmm. and I haven't yet engaged, so I think they call 'em Gen Zero, right? Mm-hmm. , the, the ones who are under, cause if, uh, gen Y is 10 to 25, then Gen zero is under, under 10.
[00:06:49] That's the, the term that I've heard, but interesting points, right? Planets justice and equity, they tied to our fourth sector principles, which I'll come back to you later. . I'm curious though, for you, your history has been about product and building new things. What do you think of your contribution to that big social change, this cultural movement that we're we're going into right now?
[00:07:11] Janice Fraiser: Well, that's an interesting question. So it's funny, I have been a product person and I think like a product person and I make products, but my probably most significant. Impact has been in the mentorship and advisory work that I do. So my greatest influence is the leverage that I have in the conversations that I have.
[00:07:33] I do a lot of work with comp, big, big companies. I used to work with Nike as a consultant. Now I work with Proctor and Gamble. I've worked with the United States. Federal government, one of the biggest companies in South America I work with, and it's like whether I'm advising a startup or advising a big company, it's the conversation, the dialogue that I have with those people and bringing my values into that conversation that I think has had the most impact because that's when you have that heartfelt conversation.
[00:08:04] in the context of doing whatever it is that those people need to be doing. When you bring, you know these, what I consider to be progressive ideas to the table, you can really influence belief systems. You can start to shift how people think about themselves. You can start to shift how people think about what's possible.
[00:08:24] to do, to accomplish in the world. And at this point in my career, I don't think that my greatest contribution is a company that I made or a product that I made or whatever. It's the conversations literally, you know, bold, honest conversations that I have been privileged to have with people.
[00:08:42] Phil Dillard: Hmm. Powerful conversations that shift belief systems, that's, that sounds pretty amazing.
[00:08:49] Janice Fraiser: It's really important when people are willing to have big conversations
[00:08:54] Phil Dillard: together. Yeah, sure. I mean, in the similar work that I've done, not the same level, but in the similar work that I've done, people always talk about culture change. They talk about innovation to culture change or acting like startups so that they could change the culture.
[00:09:08] And it's not the action, it's the thought process where it's the, it's something more, right? So coming from a, from a product perspective, I'm always trying to encourage. To figure out what we could share with the, the audience so that if someone was a product person, they said, I wanna be like Janice . Um, you know, is there anything specific from the thought process or the methodology or the lessons from being a great product person that has empowered you to be able to make this shift in being into being a, a belief shifter and a, and a, and a culture shaper.
[00:09:40] Janice Fraiser: You know, I would say there are two things that really influenced me, and I, it's funny, I was just talking about this this morning. There's a book that was written a while ago, and you know, whenever I tell people about this book, everyone rolls their eyes. They're like, oh God, I, you know, I would rather poke my eyes out than read something that boring.
[00:10:00] Um, Extreme programming explained second edition, not first, which was co-written between Kent Beck and Cynthia Andres, who is his wife, and she's an organizational development person, and he was one of the early, early agile software people. So he was, you know, he wasn't one of the signers on the, the Agile Manifesto, if you're aware of what that is, right?
[00:10:20] That means that you're a geek just like me. But this book is organized into philosophy, principles, and practices, and the philosophy portion of the book you just read, the first seven. It'll take you an hour. It's not a big deal. But it really talks about the dynamics of respect and trust. Mm-hmm. . And so the, if you wanna have those impact influential conversations where you actually can shift people, you have to actually respect those people and be worthy of their trust.
[00:10:53] And so that book, I read it probably. . Well, I know exactly when it was. It was 2007. I had gone to a company called Pivotal and asked them to build the prototype of my, of my startup. Right. I had just gotten a, my first ever venture capital check, $250,000. And I took it to, you know, took it to Rob and I was like, Rob me, would you please build this thing for me?
[00:11:16] Here's some money. And he's like, here, read this book and then we'll talk. And it was, it crystallized so much of what. Really appreciated about my best work experiences to date and about the most influential relations work relationships that I have had to date. And it has been a touchstone. And for many years I would just read those first seven chapters, you know, once a year just to refresh my memory about like, What is it that I'm trying to create in the world and this idea that, you know, that we can respect one another enough to have really deep conversations.
[00:11:53] I attribute a lot of that skill to kind of the influence that that book had on my life.
[00:11:57] Phil Dillard: That's awesome. You know, I have to say, I am, I guess, officially defined as a nerd by Janice, because I know what the Agile Manifesto is, and I've read it . Um, but I don't have this book on my bookshelf, but I'm, I'm definitely will add it.
[00:12:11] I've, I've underlined it and bolded. And the thing that I, one of the things I love about what you said about is that the dynamics of respect and trust, because in a time where so many things are, And where people have very little trust in faith, in religion, in institutions, in experts, in governments, and on and on and on, right?
[00:12:31] Yeah. In institutions. Those times where we can build those dynamics, I think are the opportunities when people then can come together and they can, they can build something, they can, they can lead to something, something new. And I think I'm seeing this in the peer groups that are coming together, rallying around pause like the four sector or something like that.
[00:12:49] Mm-hmm. , I'm curious if you could share an example of something in the vast experience that you've had of a time when. The dynamics of respect and trust have taken something from what could have been a nuclear explosion at a massive company and ma and made it into something, something new. And it doesn't have to be a massive company, but just one of those examples of something that, where they really, where they showed the fruit of the, of what you knew to be true.
[00:13:14] Can you share something like that? You
[00:13:16] Janice Fraiser: know, there's a lot of my work that I can't talk about in name, so I'm gonna have to prevaricate a little. Sure there's a very large organization, it's part of the federal government. They are doing big heavy duty engineering projects all the time. They're, you know, one of the big agencies.
[00:13:33] You know, often in corporate America, we're used to reorgs, right? We're used to, you're gonna centralize everything and then you're gonna decentralize it. You're gonna organize by region, you're gonna organize by, right? And we're used to that kind of shifting. But in this particular agency, it had been organized exactly the same way since its formation, decades and decades ago.
[00:13:54] It had been organized exactly the same way, but they were no longer, they were in danger of becoming irrelevant. In danger of no longer having an important mission. And that's because of external forces, right? And so they knew that they needed to retool and they asked the National Academy of Sciences to convene a workshop, a two day workshop, and I was on the planning committee for that.
[00:14:16] What we did is we brought 200 leaders together from their leadership level, like mid-level manager and up kind of workforce. We brought 200 people together for these two days. and we put them through the kinds of workshopy activity type things that, you know, in the software world we're used to, like, we're used to, you know, scrum meetings and we're used to ideation sessions and persona making and whatever, whatever.
[00:14:44] So we applied some of that design thinking or you know, these hands-on manipulations. Now these are scientists and and they're skeptic. and they're in a threatened position, right? So we're bringing them together because they need to kind of reconceive themselves. You know, the two words, trust and respect.
[00:15:08] You put, let's say 25 people in a room and we had them do this activity. And another, another book to read. There's a guy named Dan Ward, Lieutenant Colonel Dan Ward, formerly of the Air Force. He developed a protocol for something called a pre-mortem, and so we put 20 people at a time into a room and said, it's 2030.
[00:15:32] Imagine that you have utterly failed. Completely, utterly failed. , let's tell the story of why that failure happened and you do this as a way to envision how success happens. Mm-hmm. . And what was wonderful was I was watching, I was watching Dan facilitate this, this conversation, and. There, there was so much conflict and so much tension at the beginning of the session, which, you know, I mean, you can see why, I mean, the, the deck is stacked to be tense and conflict laden.
[00:16:04] You're like, you're like, okay, imagine that you failed. Why did you fail? Well, he did it and he did it, and he did it. But watching Dan create this like instantly safe environment where people could say their worst fears. Worst fears. Here's what I'm afraid could, could happen. Right. You know, Congress cuts all our funding or whatever, right?
[00:16:27] And then have this conversation. Once you say the hardest thing, everything else gets easier. , right? And so he didn't need to, you know, I can be a little bit controlling in those situations and I try and make sure everybody's okay, but I learned so much just watching the gentle guidance where you get people to say the worst thing, that's the first thing you do.
[00:16:51] And then everything gets easier. And so what I saw in, you know, and I saw him do this a couple different times over the course of those two. , and what I saw there was that when you create an environment where it's okay to tell the worst, scariest version of the truth and just have it out there for everyone to just plainly see, you take a lot of the emotion out of it.
[00:17:17] right? I could examine the dynamics of trust and respect there. He respected them enough to know that they could handle the truths. They trusted each other enough to get to the truth. And as a result of that, they were able to envision what success looked like in really concrete, aggressive, bold terms. So it's like instead of saying like, Hey, what does success look like in getting this far?
[00:17:38] They were like, what does failure look like? And they got this. ,
[00:17:42] Phil Dillard: right? Because everybody can talk about the, talk about failure. It's, it's easy to say, oh my God, the worst things that could happen are this, this, and this, right? And then you debate, okay, how bad is that? Yeah. The other thing is,
[00:17:52] Janice Fraiser: why did that come to pass?
[00:17:54] Right? And if you know why it came to pass, if you can imagine why it came to pass, you can imagine how to avoid that, right? You can develop some explicit strategies for not. Going there,
[00:18:04] Phil Dillard: right? You can do reductive logic from the worst case scenarios and not, not be speculating on a whole range of scenarios, but start with one or two that people say, yeah, these are, this is how bad it is.
[00:18:14] Okay, let's work our way backward. Right? So, you know, and they're engineers and scientists, so they're designing a solution. So they're used to working their way back.
[00:18:21] Janice Fraiser: How often have you sat in a meeting where you knew that there was an undercurrent and that people were thinking stuff and nobody was saying it out?
[00:18:29] Right, sure. And the urge is there, like I just wanna say out loud the thing everyone's afraid of, I wanna say it out loud so that we can all just cope with it. And then he developed this way of doing it where you say that thing
[00:18:39] Phil Dillard: first, which is, it's pretty brilliant actually, because we have that, you know, in those types of environments, I would be looking for the person who would say that you could see it on their face, you could see their body language or their arms crossed, whichever.
[00:18:51] And then I would wait for a, a good time. To call on that person and then say, so, you know, what, what are you thinking? And I, I don't feel like you're buying this. What, what's, what's your concern? And I was confident enough that we could handle the challenge, but still, um, we would still, that was waiting and, and potentially festering.
[00:19:09] And actually then you take the risk of actually that person, uh, having some something that draws other people out as opposed to changing the whole dynamic and putting that out upfront that this is an open and safe and vulnerable space. Mm-hmm. . And I think that makes a lot of sense, especially in. At a time where people don't feel like there are safe spaces to talk, to talk, or there are safe spaces to hang out or there's safe spaces to, to disagree without being canceled or without being judged or without being, uh, told what's wrong with them or how they need to be schooled or That's right.
[00:19:42] Or something of that nature. That's right. That's right. That
[00:19:44] Janice Fraiser: makes a ton of. And they were, as a result, they were able to make so much more progress on the challenges, like so much more progress. Like, you know, in Silicon Valley we like to say 10 x a lot and it was 10 x the progress. Mm-hmm. ,
[00:19:56] Phil Dillard: you know. That's great.
[00:19:58] So if you go from experiences like that, and now you've gone through it and we, we, we share with the people in the notes the path through your, your career, and now you're at this point where you're startup advisor, right? Um, how do you then start to drive change for tho those types of organizations that you choose to serve?
[00:20:17] Janice Fraiser: It's funny cause I don't actually think about it as driving change. Mm-hmm. , I invite participation in what I think are good and better ways of being. Right. And that sounds super California. Woo woo. I don't know, but it's. , it's like I can't make someone wanna be anything other than what they wanna be, but I can invite them to be bolder versions of what they wanna be and go farther.
[00:20:44] So, you know, the first, the first thing that I do is I try to give people permission. To, well just to be, to be themselves, to be flawed, to be audacious. And I'm saying this, and as it comes out, it sounds so trite, but there's nothing more powerful than seeing people. There's nothing more powerful than validating that their existence is real.
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[00:22:12] And now back to the interview. Actually, I don't think it sounds tread tread at all. If you think about the situation that we. and you started off telling people that the rate of change is. Going to slow down anytime soon, which I fully believe. If you're already feeling like you're running at full speed, you're like, wait, wait a minute.
[00:22:30] What? And if you're with the past 18 months and you say, I'm running full speed, but where am I going? Which is what we're hearing a lot of people say, where am I going? Right? I had a conversation recently with a, with somebody who before the pandemic, they were on the top, their company was at the top of their industry on a list of best places to work.
[00:22:49] And you know, their trouble. Picking which people to hire from. All the people wanted to be there and they lost 25% of their workforce. We said, whoa, I want to go do something different. I wanna do something now. This is who I wanna be. Top to bottom, not just like the bottom, like executives, senior managers, like all the way down.
[00:23:08] Turnover of people who said, I'm rethinking my life. And, and it was growing before the. , but, and I learned that from the coaching work I was doing, but it's step function now. So not tread to not tread at all. Right. People like being seen and, and being recognized that knowing that their full self is out there and able to put their full self to whatever they're doing every day.
[00:23:32] Lots of people are, are, are either have made or are making that trans translation. Mm-hmm. , so I think the credit employee mm-hmm. . So if you, if you invite their participation and they open the door and they embrace that, then where does it. Are you then more than an advisor? . .
[00:23:48] Janice Fraiser: So it's funny, I think of myself in my advisory relationships as not being an advisor to a company.
[00:23:53] I'm an advisor to a founder. I like working with the founders in particular. Other people work with, you know, v p E or whatever. But I really like working with the founders because I think there's a particular set of challenges that I empathize with and have unique value for where it goes from there.
[00:24:12] You know, it's a crapshoot. Who knows? Right. So, uh, I was doing a fund a while ago, um, called Seneca bc, which you're aware of. Yep. And, um, one of the investments that we made was when in a women's co-working community, Called the coven here in Minneapolis, which is where I am right now. And they're just amazing.
[00:24:32] Four women founders, really interesting kind of concept for the, the space and the service that they were gonna provide. But our investment in them was in. What, 2019? And then, you know, they were ready , they were ready to close around to funding and open their second location and plans for the third location in another city.
[00:24:57] And then the pandemic hit and every coworking space on the planet, including the huge women's communities imploded. Just gone. Just gone. Mm-hmm. . Um, and they didn't, they closed their doors. They started, uh, the, you know, for in-person they started an online thing. They were kind of retooling, they were trying to figure out what to do, you know, so I had some of these conversations with these, you know, with the Alex West Simon as the c e o, and I would have these conversations.
[00:25:25] And the conversation was just, you know, where are you? , how are you? What do you need to do in this moment? And their first location was in downtown Minneapolis, and then George Floyd was murdered and their office space was right across the, their co-working space was right across the street from, uh, the Federal Reserve Bank.
[00:25:47] So there was National Guard presence. And so, you know, and Alex is a black woman and they're running a co-working. at a time when there's a pandemic, and now literally at their front door is civil unrest. Mm-hmm. , she decided that their role was to be part of their community, and so they became a distribution hub for collecting and sending out into the neighborhoods that were affected by the fires and whatnot.
[00:26:18] Mm-hmm. , you know, formula and diapers and, and whatever the people. and so they. took themselves into the true meaning of community, and they participated in their community in the most meaningful way they could. They have in, in tile on the wall do the most good, and they took that mission and they did the most good.
[00:26:45] And of all the co-working spaces in the entire country that I know of, they. and they're doing, they're doing well. They've moved to a new location. They have their second location. They're building a software platform. They raised more money, and so these conversations that I have, at least the way that I advise is to help people be the.
[00:27:08] Most of themselves. That is authentic and true, and obviously everyone is in it. You know, we are still in a capitalist endeavor, right. When we're doing startup companies. Mm-hmm. . But the way to be a good capitalist is not to be mono focused. Right? Right. It's to bring your value is to bring your whole value.
[00:27:31] And that's what Alex and her teammates did. They're just am. They're an amazing team. I mean, the fact that they survived and not just survived, but they found out who they really are as a company.
[00:27:40] Phil Dillard: Mm. I don't even know how to categorize that type of pivot, but it's, you know, this do the most good vision or, or mantra or what, what they call it, and being challenged to ask themselves, what does that really.
[00:27:53] Right, because then you think co-working, you think, okay, I'm gonna do good by having companies out, the companies create wealth, and then financial wealth creates all these other things. But sometimes just providing, being a partner inside of the community, providing access to resources that other people need, provides value.
[00:28:11] Did you didn't expect to a contis constituent. Usually you didn't expect and un reveals new things and that, that sounds like a, a great revelation of an opportunity. Revelation of the Of a, of a mission. To me is it is what this fourth sector thinking about, and this is about, it's what's this mission-driven entrepreneurship was about.
[00:28:30] You know, their mission was to inspire a more diverse workforce and their, I just like to describe it now, using the language of their contribution to that mission was, we're gonna focus on bipo women because women, these spaces, or women in general because they need the. , right? Um, but then they were challenged by, by cir, by invents to ask themselves who they really were.
[00:28:49] And does achieving their mission really mean just to doing that with women. And it's interesting cuz when I roll back to some of those things and talk about the laws of universe and the laws of abundance, they say focus on the outcome and let the universe guide the guide the process. So if the actual outcome is more diversity and inclusion and a better society and a better community, and they are given an incredible opportunity to start at home and learn the value of an impact, impact business, that wasn't even the one that they expected.
[00:29:19] And that sounds like a validation of those, those, those things that we talk about there. Some of. Necessary sort of fufu things, but when you see them come to light in a time when there's so much uncertainty, and all you do is follow your values and follow what's in front of you, that's a heck
[00:29:35] Janice Fraiser: of a story.
[00:29:36] Absolutely. And, you know, their, their mission, um, I should be able to rattle it off right off the top of my head. Um, their, you know, do the most good is obviously they're, they're, you know, guiding light and they're inclusive. They include women, trans, non-binary folks like it, it's. But if the job to be done to take it to a real product focused place, right?
[00:29:58] Mm-hmm. , we think about jobs to be done. The job to be done is to make it possible for women, trans and non-binary folks to be as successful as possible at work. If that's the goal, then when the hardest part of your day is finding diapers for your baby, right? Then the thing to do is provide diapers
[00:30:18] Phil Dillard: for the baby.
[00:30:19] Absolutely. I mean, we learned, I learned this and I was president on board of a nonprofit in Oakland when, and it was educational, uh, nonprofit, uh, trying to get high school kids 17 and 26 to get high school diplomas and job training and the toughest challenges were getting them. Um, getting them fed, getting their kids taken care of, and, you know, uh, and getting them paid enough so that, that they're, they stuck with the program as opposed to doing something else that might pay them more.
[00:30:48] So it wasn't about the actual service. It wasn't actually about the, the content or the message, it was the wrapper around the, the content, the facilitation of actually being able to, to, to sit down and focus on the, the work without distractions was the most important thing that, that, that we could provide.
[00:31:06] So it's, it's interesting cause it makes me wonder, you said the job to be done. What is the job to be. By modern capitalism than in the, in the, in this, in this environment, in this context. Because to me, this is modern capitalism, right? To me, this is, you are adjusting to the situation on the ground. To innovate, to deliver value that's needed to a community.
[00:31:32] Listen and learn, create new products and services, deliver them for a for a fee, and take the benefits of that and improve your living condition and the ability to scale that, to do more. And it's not, as some people say. Well, I should say I'm speculate what it is and what it's not, but I'm curious like, is that the job to be done by, by capitalism?
[00:31:52] Is that an example of, of what it is, or is it bigger than that different? That I'm curious.
[00:31:57] Janice Fraiser: You know, I have to say, my relationship to capitalism, you know, is this last year has made me really challenged what is my relationship to capitalism. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Because I think that we're seeing, you know, I have a Gen Z son.
[00:32:12] He likes to talk about late stage capitalism. Like, he's like, this is the end of capitalism. I'm like, okay. Okay. Slowly roll, dude. Um, there are some really powerful forces that would say otherwise the thing that is no longer valuable. Wow. I'm gonna say a couple things in a recording that I've never said on a recording before.
[00:32:33] Mm-hmm. , um, the way that we practice capitalism in the United States is sociopathic. It deliberately omits impact and impact on humanity. Impact on the planets. Mm-hmm. , it deliberately omits those, um, in the way that it's practiced now. This wasn't always the case. That's right. The concept of maximized shareholder value over all other outcomes is actually relatively new.
[00:32:57] It's only what, 30 years? . The end result of that philosophy is that we have a very expensive healthcare system in a country with people who are ill. Mm-hmm. , we have a sick care system, not a well care system. Mm-hmm. , we have huge wealth gap, huge poverty, more homelessness than ever. Our country's burning down, literally burning.
[00:33:25] and I would say that capitalism is not serving us, so we need to redefine the rules of the game somehow because it's non-functional for most of the humans in the system. I am not a trained economist, and I. spend more time observing humans than observing money. Mm-hmm. . So that makes me, you know, probably not the right person to say what the solution ought to be.
[00:33:54] So I, I'm gonna not say what the solution ought to be, but I can tell you what the problem is. The problem is that we value and worship capital and the accumulation of capital more than we value and worship the humans that the capitol. Could be serving. And that's upside down in my
[00:34:14] Phil Dillard: view. I'm with you on that, and I will try not to ask you to, to, to talk about what should be or is or should be.
[00:34:22] Um, but I'm curious if you see outside of the, for example, outside of the, um, coven, if you see examples of other organizations that are, that seem to be doing it right, other players that seem to be getting the game.
[00:34:38] Janice Fraiser: I think getting it right, getting it wrong are a little too absolute. I've kind of only work with organizations that are trying really hard to do better to get it right, or I've been working with Proctor and Gamble for a long time.
[00:34:52] and as someone who, you know, tries to buy green as much as possible, working with a company like Proctor and Gamble, like I had to think a lot about, you know, where does that sit in my value spectrum? Mm-hmm. , you know, I know that me working with Proctor and Gamble has helped Proctor and Gamble be more values aligned.
[00:35:13] I see things that they do that are really extraordinarily. Moves. Are they a good actor in the system or a bad actor in the system? Well, you know, is that really an answerable question? I, I dunno.
[00:35:26] Phil Dillard: I dunno. It's tough to say. If at least some part of the organization is trying to move in the, in the right direction and be right.
[00:35:34] Right. Yeah. Um, then we're or, or better, even, even better. That's, that's something we can consider. So how about this one? I think this is an easier question to talk about. How do we avoid some of the unintended consequences of well intended? Are there any sort of lessons you've had from people who've, who've said, we're gonna do this and it looks great, and then down the road they realized that it what looked great at the time, there were some unknown unknowns that turned out to derail the intent of the
[00:36:04] Janice Fraiser: action.
[00:36:05] For sure. This is like dumping rice or in Haiti, right? Thereby wiping out the entire, you know, agricultural sector there. Well, you. . It's like we all have learned the Tom's shoes example, you know, the buy one, give one charity. I, you know, I'm gonna say that, that maybe charity doesn't work so well and maybe development Does
[00:36:27] Phil Dillard: the, can you speak a little about that a little more specifically?
[00:36:30] Janice Fraiser: Sure, sure. Um, Let's say there's a hurricane and you know, people need to be fed. And so some very well intended people get together and they send a bunch of rice, and that's charity. That's a good thing. It's a benevolent act. Um, potentially a selfless act. Obviously, we get some payback for it. We get to feel good about ourselves and to feel altruistic.
[00:36:57] But, you know, I, I come down on the side of like, that's. . That's a noble gesture. That's a good thing to do, care for people in need. Great idea. But in the case of Haiti, my understanding is that it went way farther than it should have, and the market in Haiti was flooded with free rice. being sent from overseas, from well-intended people overseas.
[00:37:21] And what, what happened was that the people who grow rice in Haiti, then, you know, the price, the market fell apart. Um, the price of rice fell, um, fell radically, and those people were not able to make a living. And so it really devastated, um, the agricultural. So the impact of charity, when I give you a bunch of stuff that can be a real problem because of the unintended consequences.
[00:37:47] Mm-hmm. cause of like, kind of you're then preventing people or making it more difficult for people to solve their own problems themselves. Um, development on the other hand, um, is a different approach. So rather than giving your, providing the means by which people can produce for themselves, so it's investing and enabling in, um, A self-sustaining outcome rather than a, a sort of giving outcome.
[00:38:15] I, I'm not the best person to explain that. I apologize if it wasn't clear, but development is about, again, it's about respecting people enough to know that they are capable of taking care of themselves. Mm-hmm. . Sure. And Charity says you cannot take care of yourself, so I'm going to give to you. what you can't give to yourself.
[00:38:34] Phil Dillard: Yes. Now I'm gonna exclude any sort of commentary about, uh, political ideology that might tie, cause that gets even more complicated. And, and we, this will be an even longer conversation. , uh, I'm curious about from the discipline that you bring, you know, in lean or agile or product, you know, consumer centered design from those sort of.
[00:38:57] Do you think that there are disciplines that folks could do who are well-intended, mission-driven entrepreneurs to get ahead of hype cycles or misinformation so that they can, they can avoid that sort of outcome? How would you guide people to, to think or structure their thinking to make sure that they didn't make the same mistake?
[00:39:17] Sure.
[00:39:17] Janice Fraiser: And I think that that's a, that's a really good build. The principle that I have, you know, adopted for myself mm-hmm. , is to go to the source as much as I can. I mean, one of the nice things about social media is that you can start following people unlike yourself, people who are actually in the situation.
[00:39:35] Now, I, I understand that that doesn't work in every, in every situation, but it's, it's pretty easy these days to listen to, um, communi. Talk, whether it's in, you know, the audio format, if you're, you know, listening in on Clubhouse or if you're watching Twitter or Instagram or whomever, but people talking to each other from the community that's affected.
[00:40:01] Like that's the best way to know what it is that they're thinking and the what they need and want. At least it's a start. I won't say it's the best way. Mm-hmm. . At least it's a start, and you can educate yourself. You know, if people in Haiti are saying, you know what we need. Is wet wipes, you know, which is, was one of the big things that people were asking for because they needed sanitation solutions.
[00:40:26] After the earthquake like that, then, okay, we can do that.
[00:40:30] Phil Dillard: Yes. And it, it reminds me also a story that popped in the mind was around Afghanistan's and, and, and wells. And they, they said the people said they needed, they needed water. And the people we observed that the people needed water so that we created them wells and then the Afghans would fill in the.
[00:40:45] Did you ever hear this story? No. We would dig the wells, the Afghans would fill in the wells, like come back. I'm like, huh. Taliban must have filled in the wells. It came back figured out after a while that it wasn't the Taliban who was filling the wells. It was the women in the village, because the women in the village says, yes, we want clean water, but the only way that we get away from our daily life in the village is our walking down to the.
[00:41:07] To actually get our water and stuff, and we have time. You're interrupting our social perspective. So it gave me a thing that says this whole 360 view that you alluded to, right? You have to think about, you have to talk to the people, but you have to think. Holistically about how they see that. Cuz they might have been saying wet wipes because they really want wet wipes to clean up.
[00:41:23] They might've been saying wet wipes for a totally different reason. Might, but you should better understand why. So that you help with the, with the root cause of the problem, but you're not trying to solve the problem for someone. It's a tricky, tricky, tricky combination.
[00:41:37] Janice Fraiser: But the, the bottom line lesson there in both cases is talk to the people.
[00:41:42] Right. Respect and trust them. Yeah,
[00:41:45] Phil Dillard: respect and trust them. And if you're in that situation and how do you know whether or not something is working?
[00:41:53] Janice Fraiser: You're, you're, oh, that's, that's, that can be a very difficult question to answer. So, you know, you brought up the point that, you know, you don't just say it's wet wipes.
[00:42:01] You say, well, how would your life be different if you had wet wipes? And maybe they're like, well, that's the thing. That's the hottest commodity and I need to be able to trade, and that's the best barter currency. That's a really different use case. Then, you know, I need to be able to wash my face and wipe my hands.
[00:42:17] So you figure out what, and then you, you ask why. And um, once you know why, then the way that you can follow up is to ask, you know, is that still true? Has it lessened? Right? So once you know what the objective is, then you know how to measure. Impact. I think measuring impact is, um, is really challenging and it's imperfect at best.
[00:42:42] Yeah. Um, and I think that that's okay. You know, you still measure, even if it's an imperfect approximation metric, you still measure. .
[00:42:51] Phil Dillard: Yes. Uh, love all that. Right. Um, and I, and I may borrow that cuz I use, I've borrowed from some the, the, if you could wave a magic wand, but this isn't even better, right?
[00:42:59] Because you say, why do you need this? How would your life be different if you had this mm-hmm. . And then after you give this person this and you observe it and you say, I think it's better, or I think it's worse, and you say, you have this now, how is it now you have this whole. Of a conversation where you can e iterate with that, that person or that group to figure out something better.
[00:43:18] Mm-hmm. super, super, super powerful. So I know we, we could keep going for a while, but we only have a few minutes left, . Um, two more questions really. One is about people who you think are influential in this conversation and what, why this really matters to you. So I'll go with the first one. Are there any.
[00:43:34] If for the folks who are listening, are there any thinkers or economists or, or folks you know, who are out there that you would say, you know, I'd recommend maybe taking a peek at this person cause I think this person gets it right, or Has been very helpful for you in, in formulating a more nuanced opinion.
[00:43:50] Janice Fraiser: Absolutely. Well, I'm gonna give a shout out to someone who has been very influential in my life. I'm, I'm pleased that she's one of my friends. Um, her name is Hannah Jones. Mm-hmm. . And she just, uh, this year left Nike. I met her because we worked together, you know, when I was a consultant at Nike and she recently left.
[00:44:10] Nike, um, to go work at the Earth Prize, and she, she's working for, um, she's the c e O of Earth Prize now. Um, she's working for Prince William and it's like, it's like the xprize, but for the planet. Mm-hmm. , and she was Nike's chief sustainability officer for a long time and then became their president of innovation and mm-hmm.
[00:44:34] Um, I just think. , you know, I wanna, I wanna be just like her when I grew up, you know, like she's super smart, super direct, you know, has a long track record. She had a long experience paying attention to these issues. So how do you make an impact? You know, congratulations on your new job and I'm so excited to see what you all can do for the
[00:44:57] Phil Dillard: planet.
[00:44:58] Wow, that's amazing. I definitely will check that. Check that out. And thanks for, for sharing it with us. I mean, in closing, I think I have a feel for why this matters, but if you would say, you know, why this matters for you, I mean, how, how would you, how would you answer this question? Why, why does your work matter to you now in, in this phase, or in what way is it
[00:45:19] Janice Fraiser: So, you know, we've, we've all gone through this 18 month experience and we've all had a reckoning with ourselves as a result of that.
[00:45:27] I think most of us, and I almost don't think of it as work anymore. I do get paid money for certain parts of the work that I, of the things that I do, how I spend my days, you know, the value of that is incredible, obviously, but I think of it more as an integrated part of what my life, what life is, and I know why I work.
[00:45:49] I work, you know, I. to provide financial stability. I work because I wanna engage in a community of thinkers who are taking on hard problems, and that's very intellectually satisfying for me. I work because it's creating the physical environment that I wanna be a part of. Mm-hmm. , you know, it's working, it, it's, I work because it creates a community of conversations that I really wanna be part.
[00:46:15] Right. So like this conversation, is this work? I mean, yes. No, ultimately I decide it doesn't matter. I wanna spend my D days making the world that I wanna live in, and that world includes financial stability for my family, and it includes taking on hard problems.
[00:46:32] Phil Dillard: And it's funny because someone could take it, like we'd said earlier, they could take it like a, a trite comment.
[00:46:37] Like, if you love your work, you never work a day in your life. Which is, which is not what you're saying, right? I mean, I think it's something so fundamentally different that people should, should grab onto that. That says like, if, if every expression of your working day is an expression of building what you want in the.
[00:46:54] Then everything is work and, and it isn't work. It's, it's just life. Mm-hmm. and, and I think in any changing paradigm of the work-life balance is kind of, eh, I choose to be working when I'm working and I choose to be playing when I'm playing. But sometimes play turns into work if you're in this space.
[00:47:10] Right. Because I was having a conversation with a colleague the other day, I think just like this sort of thing, we were having a convers. And just about life. And then she said something, she said something else, and I was like, wait a minute. Well that relates to your startup that does this. We should have a meeting.
[00:47:24] And I'm like, you know, and people were listening like, did that just happen? I was like, really have to do that, you know? And we scheduled to turn her on to a couple million of investment. Right? There you go. . Right. Um, because the, the, the, the alignment is there. And also because the walls have come. Right, because we can work from anywhere and be effective because the world has proven it for 18 months, that many, many, many people, significant part of the workforce can do that.
[00:47:54] And then so now these lines are blurred and people are, people are, well, some people are more comfortable with it and some people are still figuring it out. And I think they'll get a lot of benefit out of those things to share. Mm. So with that, I wanna thank you so much, so much for your time. I'm curious if you have any sort of parting shots or kind of uh, uh, recommendation or parting word of wisdom that you'd like to give to folks who are.
[00:48:17] You know, aspiring to build the, the, the force sector. We're trying to, we're trying to not have it be terminal state capitalism. Mm-hmm. , but capitalism that, that operates inside of a fixed ecosystem where there are no externalities. And we need to think about the beginning, either the one and I life cycle of a product, but any sort of, tips or recording shots you would give for
[00:48:38] Janice Fraiser: folks?
[00:48:38] This might seem a little random, but the people I'm most interested in hearing from right now, uh, that I have started to follow, you know, on in Instagram as my primary social media these days. It's a little more positive than some of the other platforms right now. Mm-hmm. , um, our indigenous people. . So, you know, when I think about forest sector, when I think about, you know, I like not terminal stage capitalism.
[00:49:06] I like that a lot. I wanna know how, you know, how do indigenous people, particularly in North American indigenous people perceive, you know, their participation in capitalism and where do they see it going? Because I think they come with a really, really different perspective. I've just been learning a lot from the indigenous folks that I follow.
[00:49:26] Phil Dillard: Interesting. Awesome. I see a lot of activity in that world, so I'm very curious about that. Um, well, thank you again so much for My pleasure taking your time and your, your wisdom with us and, and it's really great to, um, cover these grounds with you. I look forward to, uh, everything that's next and seeing all the amazing things you touched.
[00:49:44] And, uh, if people wanna f. Find you, follow you, uh, learn about what you're doing and continue to learn from you. Where should they go?
[00:49:53] Janice Fraiser: Uh, so janice frazier.com is my website and um, you can always find me on Instagram, Janice Lee Frazier.
[00:50:03] Phil Dillard: Awesome. Well, thank you very much. It's been great talking with you, and thanks everyone else for joining us in this episode of Thruline to the 4th Sector. We'll see you next time. Have a great day.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Thruline to the 4th Sector. I'm your host, Phil Dillard. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a rating and tell a friend. To learn more about the four sector economy, visit thruline networks.com. That's T H R U L I N E networks.com. Thanks again and we hope to have you with us in the next episode.