Welcome to this Anthra life, where we unravel the complexities of the human experience
and explore the intricate webs that connect our lives or work in societies. I'm
your host, Adam Gamwell. Today we're diving into a world where creativity meets
technology, where the boundaries of work are redefined, and where talent transcends geography.
So join me as we journey through the story of Superside. It is
an organization around innovation in the digital landscape, and we're talking with its founders,
Frederick Thomlinson. Now, today our workplaces aren't confined by four walls,
but instead are surrounded by the vast expanse of the Internet. We might say,
I mean, even if you work in an office or a lab or
a classroom, chances aren't you have colleagues in other parts of the world who
connect or work with you remotely. The thing is well, online digital work
is becoming more of a norm. Equitable access and comparable pay across geographies and
countries and places are not givens. And the technology might be there, but
without also accounting for human well being, culture, or our willingness and ability
to adapt. The move to global digital work looks more like a techno utopian
dream for a few privileged countries or tech borrows. And this is the problem
that Frederick sets out to help solve. It's a world where your work opportunities
are not limited by where you live, but by your talent and your drive.
The superside, Frederick is not just building a design agency that brings in
top talent and makes it available to other organizations and companies. He's crafting a
future where work can be truly global and inclusive, shattering the barriers of traditional
employment and opening up a universe of potential for creative minds around the globe.
But how does such a vision come to life? You know what challenges lie
on the path of revolutionizing work, and more importantly, I'm going to ensure
that this digital transformation brings about a more equitable and accessible world for all.
So today's episode will take us into the heart of the future of work itself.
So stay tuned as we dissect the digital evolution with Frederick Thomason, exploring
the interplay of technology, culture, and creativity and shaping a world where anyone,
anywhere can contribute to the global canvas of innovation. So, when starting
the company. I was actually living in Indonesia and part of building an e
commerce company there and worked with a lot of incredibly talented people and thought to
myself, you know, these guys, if they could have been magically teleported
to the US, they would make ten to fifteen times as much. And
then obviously, you guys over there in America are building walls and you know,
keeping people out of the country, right, And so it felt like
the only solution would be the Internet. And I've felt very strongly that one
of the greatest transitions of the twenty first century would be work moving online,
and I just wanted to be a part of that one way or another.
And I think it's been a really interesting journey. It's still very early,
but every year now there's millions of people joining the online workforce from all over
the world, and you know, creating an equal and internet is helping create
a more equal playing field. And our mission is to create more equal opportunities
in the world by helping to accelerate this transition to online online work. And
so I had personally always been working in marketing and and sort of work as
journalists. For a while, worked in consulting, and they did primarily marketing
activities there and worked in e commerce, did marketing for within an e commerce
and it always we were always bottlenecked by the sign and creative and we're always
waiting for the designers to finish up. We were always feeling that we could
have better performance of our marketing programs if the creative was better, faster,
you know, more volume. There's always like new channels, new segments that
you want to target, but always just waiting for for the creative. And
it's not the designers fault. I mean the in my experience, they've always
seemed you know, overworked and tired and you know, always on their deadline
and stress, and all I want to do is is make cool stuff and
not be bothered, right, and and so that just felt like an unnecessary
situation. It's felt like it would be possible to solve that, and so
we start to build Superside, which aims to help marketing and creative teams you
know, get more, get more, and bottleneck design deliver greater performance on
creative campaigns. And so yeah, that's that's basically the genesis. That's really
interesting and I think that you've said a lot of things that really kind of
strike my my brain as an anthropologist and a former design educator and design teacher,
that you know, oftentimes the there is the the kind of creative artistic
bottleneck in terms of how fast can we produce intension with the idea that like
I want to take the time to you know, make the perfect design,
the perfect kind of campaign outlay, the perfect kind of graphic or motion design.
And you know, there is this interesting tension back and forth that I
hear you articulating, that is between the idea of speed and quality, right,
but then there is this you know, not not magical at this point,
but it still kind of feels magical, right that the power of working
online in the remote work right, that we can in fact connect across time
zones, across places in the globe. And you know, so the anthropologist
side of me is is, you know, the heart is warmed in terms
of it, how do we democratize access to work and well paid work right?
And we make this area and availability you know, you know, often
open to more kinds of people. And so I'd love to kind of think
about this. You know, obviously we're in a we're in late twenty twenty
two or recording this. So we're I don't know if we can say we're
a post pandemic, but we're we're, you know, towards the latter stage
of understanding living with something that has made so many people locked down, right
and moving work online. Right. I'm curious how that idea has also kind
of shifted some of the thinking. Did it did it kind of help launch
Superside even further? Or is this something that, like you, you felt
ultimately prepared for right because you're already in a remote space that we can deal
with kind of geographical challenges in different ways. I mean, COVID there's been
fantastic for accelerating the world's transition to online work. I think that's fair fair
to say, and a huge tail wind for Superside and just an incredibly important
proof point that it is possible to actually do work from home. You know,
people are actually working when they're at home. It's not like, you
know, people aren't just chilling around and you know, doing yoga and playing
music and you know, having a good time. People are actually working and
maybe actually people are working more when they're working from home. And so I
think increasingly people are seeing that it's possible to build better companies in a fully
remote context, or it's at the very least possible to embrace that as a
strategy to get access to more talent. I think a lot of companies out
there are feeling constrained by the lack of access to talent in their local labor
markets. And so if you're a company in Oslo, for example, which
is where I live in you know, mid sized capital in Europe, there's
just no chance you're going to have access to all of the skills that you
need to build you know, internationally competitive company within marketing and sales and creative
like you need specialists from from every field. And maybe there are few large
urban agglomerations in the world that can allow that that network, like you have
San Francisco Bay Area, I don't know, ten to fifteen million people all
working and thinking about technology, you know, New York, London and some
of the sort of Chinese place you know, perhaps, but like most other
places, you just wouldn't be able to get the level of access to talent
to a reasonable level. And so I think remote is the only strategy for
an ambitious technology company that is started in other places, and these large,
large international tech clusters I think that that's really interesting and a powerful point that
you know, if we are, if we're competing like in a global stage,
and how can we because yeah, there's are these these big giants and
some of the tech bohemoths in the United States can make it very difficult,
right they can they gobble up talent, you know, but this idea in
terms of that remote opens it up not only for I think the two sides,
right. There's there's the talent side, right, like what access do
I have as a creative to look for work? And then the other side,
to your point, is making a better organization that can be more agile
and work more quickly exactly talent, Yeah, exactly. And you know what's
surprising to us is that the companies that have been fastest to embrace our service
and the fastest to embrace online work in general, are the kind of existing
technology companies. You know, like seventy percent of our customers are technology companies,
and we would definitely be like a great solution for you know, a
mid sized company in a smaller city where the access to talent wasn't necessarily as
good. But we nevertheless see kind of more most are demand coming in San
Francisco, New York, Seattle, and you know, maybe that's a cultural
thing. Maybe it's more early adopters. They're you know, maybe in San
Francisco, your particular, like the kind of wages in the local labor markets
are so insanely high that its people find it hard. Maybe it's just hard
to find talent in those in those places. But yeah, nevertheless, just
a bit of a pustling situation that we're mostly embraced by the people that kind
of strictly speaking need it the least. Yeah, that is interesting, I
guess I mean thinking like putting on your Marketer hat to that from your your
other life as well. How how can we think about that, like what
is it? You know, are there ways to help, you know,
bring the conversation to smaller markets in Norway or smaller markets in Tanzania, you
know, or Jakarta that we can kind of familiarize ourselves with this this type
of working with with kind of liquid super teams, we might say. I
mean, I think technology obviously lends itself perfectly well to like in just cotributed
this way because the product that you're delivering is is digital and so distributed is
fine. Like if you have a factory and so on. It is,
it is, it is harder, and you definitely see more traditional industries resisting
transition too remote work more. I think that's a huge opportunity for people that
want to break break out of that to be to be perfectly honest, for
you know, consumer packaged goods company or a retail company or whatever, you
know, to have significant parts of the organization globally distributed. I think that's
a huge opportunit. And then I think we're gonna increasingly see companies or large
companies embracing that. That's kind of a competitive competitive edge. But it will
take time. But you know, the curve is exponential every year, you
know, millions of people. Over the next decade two decades, we're going
to probably see a few hundred people fully move online. And so so you
know, these exponential curves tend to you know, start small, but then
suddenly become pretty massive and feel like wholest revolutions that of cross across all of
all of society. So it will be will be interesting to see what it's
what is it going to do to kind of the global momo culture or you
know, global culture in general. Would be very interesting to say, yeah,
no, I agree to it. It's it's always this interesting conversation where
it's like how do we think about or like how do we imagine the stories
that we can tell right about what that future can be? You know,
and and you know, one of the ideas that that comes out of your
work in Superside is that you know, the internet has helped make and like
remote work has helped to make talent more about merit and not like how close
am I to an office? Right? And so I'd love to think about
this with you and kind of talk about you know, you mentioned the idea
of democratizing access to top talent into into work, and so let's break this
down, like what does it mean that we now have kind of a broader
ability to make our work about talent versus am I close to some certain place?
Well, it means a ton And it's a great question, and especially
means a lot to people that were previously discriminated against straight And I think there's
a lot of groups that have smaller or larger labor market discrimination issues. I
mean, if the male female they wage gap is you know, often talked
about, and it's you know, still persistent and pretty big even in you
know, Norway and the US, like reasonably, you know, mature economists
on the internet, you actually don't see that difference. And you know,
you look at data from the payment provider Paionaire or from at work and any
of these large platforms and you basically see general wage gap across skills is basically
non existent. And you see many examples, and our own companies is a
case in point of of people with various you know, attitudes or you know,
the LGBT community, people with like various you know, behavioral or people
that really wants to be at home. Like all these type of people that
are handicapped or beast or whatever like that we're historically like massively discriminated against in
the local labor market are now seeing just massive amount they will be like relatively
speaking, the big winners on the internet because it's just working on this person
remote and it's ACYNC and some gurgle shit and once in a while you log
onto it like why would you carry you know, like there's no reason to
discriminate anymore. Like all you care about is getting the best people to do
the best work. And you know when you when you are then applying this
this very kind of systematic, data driven, meritocratic approach to screening talent,
it turns out that you just get this like rainbow of people and that's that's
fantastic now and so and for us, it's like one of the most fulfilling
new parts of building this company, seeing this incredible diversity that we've built up
and it's not been by the sign And I can understand why people are like
annoyed we need to quote us for these things, and like, I understand
that it can be like people can be in opposition to that. But we
haven't assigned our company to become diverse, right, We've decided our company to
become high highly performant. Like we've designed our company to be very very rigorous
in the way we assess people. And then the outcome of that is,
you know, this hugely diverse company, you know of eight hundred people in
seventy five different countries, with all kinds of shapes and sizes and colors and
hair colors and hairstyles. It's it's always you know, it's always like a
surprise to log onto some video call and just see like ten people and it's
all like looking so so different, and I think we're out there to prove
that that that's just a great way to to build a business, right.
I think the story it's much it's it's it's it's very important to to not
tell the story that it's kind of bad for business, but we still should
go out and hire more women, you know, like if you start to
have that story that sort of tends to tain that particular group or tends to
kind of say women are less talented and then men, but we're still gonna
like that that has that implicit bias in So I think it's much more important
to say, actually, it's you should revisit the way you're hiring people,
you should revisit the way you screen people. And if you do, and
if you do it in a fair data driven way, the outcome will most
likely be a pretty diverse company. And if you don't have a diverse company
today, that's probably ours salt of implicit biases that you've built into your screening
process. And it's sort of like a data on measurement error. So that's
a little bit our approach to it. That's really interesting And I love this
idea too, kind of like it's it's how do we widen that conversation but
also be serious about the fact that oftentimes, if organizations have a lack of
diversity, it's actually often implicit bias of their screening processes, right of how
they're like getting talent and looking for folks in the first place, and tending
to have like a confirmation bias where I want to hire something that looks like
me, even if I don't think I'm doing that, if i'm if I'm
screening people based on names, and then how the interview process goes. I
like the idea of thinking about this as a data err or too. That's
a nice, a nice kind of additional piece that we could think about that
it's it's like a flaw in our in our kind of models using our human
minds versus versus different kind of data, different approaches that are not based on
some of the more subjective qualities that people kind of implicitly carry in their in
their heads. And I think also this this idea, I think it really
stands out important too, is that you know, as you noted, that
diversity tends to be a like natural outcome if we can say natural, you
know, but just like a common outcome when you're using the you know,
different kind of data, different approach that's like premised on let's get the best
talent, right and the best kind of folks that are that are able to
provide the best services. And I think that's really interesting and important as a
way to help wake up I think other organizations too, in terms of there
are better ways we can hire and that we can screen for work, and
it can be based on doing good work right and not get stuck in these
these kind of typical resume boxes of you know, hit these five marks and
then ultimately let me interview you. But I'm gonna get the person that looks
the most like me or that that that reminds me of me, even if
that's implicit, right, And I mean that's one of the other kind of
insidious parts we find with interviews. Absolutely, And I mean I think there's
lots of problems with with resumes, and it's just very hard to avoid looking
at them. Right. But it's at the best like a weak correlation between
like the pedigree of your prior institution and the actual you know, quot the
job that this person will will will perform and and and we've made the Missike
a lot of times of hiring. You know this like classic archetype from you
know, Harvard or some other prestigious places and you're going to concerting firm and
like it might it might be good, but it might not. You know,
it's like very hard to say. And I think our approach you really
believe in is tom plays a much greater weight on evolving our capabilities to test
skills and the test abilities and values in a more structured way. And so
we play a much greater reliance on case assessments and various other structured tests that
we're doing. And you praise a great deal of importance on screening for values,
and it's something that we're trying to do in an explicit way. But
it's obviously, as you know, answer apologies is you know hard to like
assess people for values. But something we try to think about, you know,
our number one value in supersidors is to be kind and so and so
so, so that is something that we try to like understand through like into
your process and try to you know, elicit from reference checking and and a
song. But but it is obviously, you know, very hard because most
people are generally you know, behaving pretty nicely in and into context. So
yeah, you have to give like a little little stories, right, like
read the story and then see whould you help and how would you help them?
Yeah, it's like ethical apuzzles. Yeah, you know you have the
tram and then five people, and then you put it and then one people
and the other the other tracks. I don't know, no, but I
guess our recommendation is to really put the great amount of thinking into standardized testing.
Standardized testing has gotten a very bad rep because it's basically, in people's
mind means the SAT or something and SAT probably has a lot of flaws,
or IQ testing and IQ testing probably has a lot of flaws, right,
and so so, but there's a little bit of it. That doesn't mean
it's not possible to create structured assessment frameworks. It just means that we need
to evolve beyond it is, beyond IQ testing toward more sophisticated ways of testing.
And that's what we're sort of constantly working on and trying to improve and
trying to make into our one of the kind of key company ips that that
we have. That sounds great, and I think that that's a really valuable
point too, where you know. Oftentimes It's like the anthropologist and ethnographer Tricia
Wong, you know, talks about that oftentimes, like one of the challenges
when we try to quantify and measure things that sometimes will be more subjective things
like a value, right, it's that we can put the numbers on the
wrong things. But then the flip side, I mean, also what you're
saying here is that we're trying to measure what actually matters to people, right,
and that's that's what we need to do in that I think I take
your point. It's it's well said. In terms of the standardized testing tends
to get a bad rap because it is like the s A T or or
you know, different tests per grade for students. They don't tell us much
about the you know, the ability for someone to succeed in a space.
Right. It's more just like can you can you answer these questions in a
way that than is satisfactory to the test. But but to your point,
like why couldn't we have all those kinds of questions, right? And we
do that all the time with other and other industries in other areas, you
know. I mean the example that comes to mind is the biological anthropologist Helen
Fisher. Doctor Helen Fisher has done a number of really interesting studies both for
match dot com, the dating website, and Chemistry there, their parent company,
on how we ask standardized questions of match and mate finding, and so
it's like these sites actually have some of the best ways of engaging with people,
you know, but in part because they're designed qualitatively like with with you
know, this kind of an I think, you know, I'm biased,
but my anthropological mindset, you know, in terms of how do we ask
questions that really to the heart of what people value, right, and then
if we do that enough over time with data, then we actually can begin
to see patterns right in builds some correlations, absolutely absolutely, And it's also
like kind of a discredited field historically where we have you know, the m
METI and the Big five and these things, which is like both both with
like serious methodological problems and also with this like pretty fair criticism in my opinion,
which is it sort of like takes a human and reduces it to like
these these dimensions. When annual animally takes this test is life, does it
like fully adequately explain me special my special self to have like extrovert introvert like,
thinker feeler like, or you know, is that like a useful way?
And so I strongly believe that there needs to be lots of innovation in
this particular field of assessing value match with an organization because it is incredibly important
both for you as an individual and your own well being, Like what is
this place? You know? Like will I be happy here? You know?
What are all these guys talking about? And for the organization as a
whole. You tend to see just and this is our experience, and I
think a lot of other people's experience, but I think you tend to see
that it's just so much easier to collaborate if you share a set of values
and if you are aligned around a common vision for the future. But it's
still just so hard to assess. And we just constantly make mistakes, right,
And I would say nine outs or ten times that we make a hiring
error, it is because of values. It is not because of performance.
It is someone that it doesn't necessarily like to work hard, or isn't necessarily
that nice, or you know, isn't truth seeking political Like we have all
of these values that we care about, obviously, But and so if we
would be if we would improve our ability to assess values, we would dramatically
reduce the number of hiring mistakes, which would be better for us and then
obviously a lot better for the for the people. Like most of the times
when we've made these hiring mistakes, then this person goes on to have like
tremendously you know, like a successful career else elsewhere where there's just a better,
a better you know, cultural cultural. Yeah, that's a really I
think it's a really fascinating point too. And you know, especially unlike the
employe or the talent side, when you're looking for an organization to work at
or with, it is, it can be often hard to assess that value
question right and like will that line up, especially because there's a lot of
you know, as we know, uncertainty and emotion in the process of applying
for a job traditionally too, right, you know, the interview process,
the resume, whether you're doing case studies, you know, to kind of
how you're how you're of vetted. Uh and and there's a lot of a
lot at stake in terms of that. Oftentimes people I don't know have to
if I have to say lie, but like a lot of people will like
stretch how much they care about something or because they want to get a job,
not because they're they're trying to like be untruthful, but just like it's
also important that I get paid, you know, and then I can I
can sustain myself, you know. So there's an interesting like conundrum there.
I appreciate the line of thinking here and how we can happen for sure.
And that's the type of thing, right, Yeah, you present someone with
like a big five questionnaire during a job into an surprise, surprise, everyone
is like incredibly conscientious all of a sudden, and so yeah, it's it's
easy. There needs to be ways to like assist it. That doesn't you
know, rely on this requirement to feel or to place the candidates under in
this position or where they feel that they need to lie for sure? Do
you think that like something that stands out too that that how super Side talks
about the kind of work that you do, is that like you have you
know, one of your immuitions is like creating jobs that are like eco opportunity.
We've kind of we've kind of been talking about this obviously remote there's an
important part of flexibility there, but also the deal of happy, like that
the employees can be happy and feel good about that work. And so I
feel like that the value question and the culture question that we're talking about here
is really important to that that part. But I love to hear you know,
all these the elements are like other other elements that as you think about,
how do we know what makes a job happy for people and how do
we help like provide that that process. Yeah, look, I mean I
think it's important. I think it's important for a lot of people this question
on on values and mission and working for for a company that cares about that.
But at the end of the day, there's there's also a lot of
pretty basic things that people want. You know, people really want to get
paid on time every month, so that's really nice if that happens. People
ideally want to kind of make more over time. And if you work hard,
do you want to get promoted? And you want to know if you're
doing a good job or not, and you want that feedback to be given
to you in a professional way by a manager that cares about your well being.
And so these are kind of the basics that I think is a lot
more important for people and many of these other things we've been speaking about,
like, yes, it's nice that the company cares about the mission and the
vision and the future of work and those things, but like these things,
you know, if my boss hates me, or if I'm afraid of coming
into work every month, there because you know my boss is terrible, that
you know, that's obviously you know, much more impactful and much worse for
So we really try to focus on getting all of those basics in place and
just doing a really really good job around providing people with a very clear and
ideally very rapid career progression. And so our primary, let's ay pitch to
candidates's actually more around Superside being the fastest possible way for you to accelerate your
career. And so if you are ambitious and you are looking to learn and
grow as quickly as you can, you can join Superside and then within three
four years you can four or five x your salary, right, which is
pretty pretty incredible. And we provide a bunch of resources to be able to
to do that. And really we're incredibly passionate about our ability and the tools,
the training and the infrastructure that we provide that allow people to grow so
quickly that within a few years. Imagine an educational institution that you join and
then you spend three years there and then you make five times as much the
other side. You know, that's a pretty that would be a pretty incredible
university at most most coultues like you basically just like play bear pong for four
years and you know, hang around with the threat bros. And you know,
you learn a little bit and and and so we're a bit skeptical about
higher education in general, I guess, especially within a field like design,
which is such a feel that is that is, it's such like a craft
feel, like apprenticeship feel and where where where we feel if you do it
in a in a structure and good way, in a sort of learn on
the job type thing, you can massively you can massively grow. And so
so that's that's really what we're we're the most passionate about. And I think
that when people feel personal growth and when people feel company growth, that kind
of solves all problems, almost all problems, like and I'm not saying that
all the things aren't important, but like at the end of the day,
you know, company doubled every year, like what has been doing over the
past three years, almost nobody leaves, right if you yourself every every year
you improve it. So like I think, you know, you work in
some traditional agency, every year you're going down like five percent, five percent,
like TVs, like less and less advertising. You know, it's you're
struggling to hold on to clients, getting harder harder, like there's no room
to grow. Obviously, those people are looking for for alternative places to grow,
to get better opportunities. And then so then we're seeing this like,
yeah, we're seeing this massive influx of applications and people looking to escape the
agency world and work in a place where you get personal and in company growth.
That's fantastic too, I mean, and also congratulations, that's incredible to
here that's kind of doubling over the past the past three years and with like
such a load to note, turnover is also incredible, right because that's one
of the big questions we're seeing in organizations now, right, is that,
especially because of the pandemic, there's been a huge amount of turnover. Right
is, folks are the Great resignation some people call it, right or the
Great rethinking or whatever it is. Yeah, just logging on the new Google
hangoff Lincoln on one neck. It's yeah, yeah, right, yeah,
that says something really important. I think that that folks are kind of sticking
with it in that testament to kind of the space that's provided. Also,
you know, I like the way that you have kind of broken down these
two sides where there is the bigger picture of the right kind of culture fit
and values, but then also there's there's a lot of this concrete, we
might say right pieces of getting paid on time, But then also are we
helping people feel like they're growing. I think that's also one of the big
things. That's one of the big reasons that we see people have ever resigned
so much over the past few years too, is that they they don't feel
they're getting anywhere in their job and don't have definition of how that they're going
to get anywhere. And the number one recent people state in surveys why they
don't like or if when they're not happy with their job is is that they
don't like their That's the number one thing. And so yeah, it's obviously
very hard as an organization to control, but it's again it's like values thing,
yeah, and then creating like very clear requirements for bosses to follow,
Like managers everywhere in our organization have a very clear set of obligations that they
need to here to term toward their their individuality members. I think that that
that's a great point, right, because oftentimes people can get promoted into management
without having any management experience, and then there's no clear ways of how to
manage, and then that's oftentimes where you'll see the train derail for sure.
But I mean I'm not there, you know, I'm not sure if I'm
like the best boss ever. I think probably for everyone, it will be
some people that you're good for, some people that you don't, you're not
good for. It's like all it's like little chemistry kind of kind of question.
But know what, I what I wanted to say is like I think
it's actually not necessarily that hard to like move into management. A lot of
people make a big, very big deal out of that, and a lot
of people when they become managers for the first time, they just try to
do all this kind of stuff, you know, like, but it's not
necessarily needed. Like most people are reasonably good at their job want to be
like more or less left alone, and when they have a problem, they
will come and say, hey, can you help me this thing? And
then yahn, the boss needs to then help with that thing and say hey,
good job, and that's it. You know, It's it's not that
complicated, but a lot of people kind of make it out to be way,
way too complicated. So we're we're trying to in our kind of internal
management training, it's just trying to simplify, simplify, and and align around
this idea that as a manager, your primary objective is to to help when
needed, people will come to you for problems. Yeah, that's really interesting
and I think an important point, right that we can frequently kind of overcomplicate
the story because it's like I have to do all these things now I have
this kind of new role. But then sometimes it's like the idea of ocom's
razor, right, the simplest answer can be the best, you know,
it's like be there to help and support and help them then get to the
next the next stage themselves. Yeah. The follow up question I was thinking
with this is the kind of importance of psychological safety right in the workplace and
how this is important especially for kind of the two things I've seen Superside kind
of talk about is like the importance of the psychological safety for things like speed
and creativity, right, that I can kind of take creative risks both as
a as a designer creator, but also I think as an employee too,
right, and then speed in terms of how the question of protactivity and what
kind of work I can do. So I'd love to kind of hear your
thoughts at about this this idea of this framework and how this plays into you
know, kind of supersides super growth, we might say, you know,
how do you think about this idea? So we have a value superside which
we call seek the Truth, and we fated protably incredibly important and we feel
it permits the organization and has really become a pretty powerful part of our of
our values of our culture. In order to seek the truth, you need
to have a lot of curiosity. You need to have people that challenge each
other. You need to have a lot of people asking stupid questions. Almost
always the questions that push the discussion to the truth are simple stupid questions about
why are we doing this? And in order to have everyone there ask those
questions, there needs to be a great amount of psychological safety. And I
feel very often organizations that taught that they are so truth seeking tend to build
cultures that are deliberately, like overtally aggressive towards people that are challenging authority,
and that definitely backfires. And and I don't think you can have a truth
seeking organization without having authority, you know, being massively open to criticism and
to challenges to your to your authority and and so so that's hard, right.
It's like, I don't know what kind of intelligence briefings Vladimir Putin is
getting from his like cronies in his intelligence services about how things are going really
like in Ukraine. Like maybe his vision is that he's, you know,
winning and everything's going super well. Like it's hard to say. It's hard
to create like a truth seeking a truth seeking culture. And so for me,
it's for me, it's something that I sort of constantly constantly think about
and and feel that it's like one of the most important responsibilities for me and
and also for for all of our management to to try to create the culture
that constantly challenges aus and tells me, hey, this is bullshit, you
know, like this this idea is not a good idea. I disagree with
this. And the way we try to do that, then I think we
can be a lot better. I like most people don't like it when people
say that my ideas are bad, right, and so very tempting to go
against it. But but the way we're trying to do that, and I
personally, hand to the heart, I believe that I am think that I
really enjoy being with people that challenge that challenge me, and I tend to
think much more highly of junior people, like people that report to me when
they say that they disagree, when they openly in a big meeting say hey,
I actually don't think this is a good then I'm like, okay,
wow, this is a this is a talented guy, like we need to
keep we need to keep this person around and give this person more. So,
so I think, yeah, so I think that's the most important piece
to like constantly reward that kind of behavior. And then when people see,
hey, this person there, you know, got promoted twice and but it's
constantly like going against the CEO, then then hopefully that sort of sets an
example that that's the way to behave in an organization. So that's that's how
we in theory think about it. And then you know, again it's never
felting people disagreee to Yeah, but it's but also but that's a that's a
well said area because it's it is both difficult, but at the same time,
I think it's nice because it's it's really up to leaders right to model
that right. It's okay to to dissent as a world like respectfully of course,
you know, but but the kind of say, I, you know,
respectfully disagree because I'm thinking about this this other way or something saw with
how evidence that another approach can work to or something. I think it's really
important. And so it seems that a lot you know today more top leadership
is also going to be open to this right. And obviously it's like the
great example of like political leaders are the ones that are most not upen to
this. So you kind of need business to kind of help us rethink that
absolutely absolutely and conflict is conflict isn't necessary. Like my style is personally,
my style is relatively confrontational, which I guess a lot of people feel probably
intimidated by or maybe just annoyed by. But it's it's to me also like
pretty important to like push pushed through to eleven where you know you kind of
get comfortable with conflict, you know, you get common, you get comfortable
with disagreeminent with my co founders where we've been shouting at each other for for
seven years. It feels just incredibly comfortable. It doesn't stress me out when
we have disagreements. I know. It's like part of the method to seek
to seek the truth. And so I think kind of conflict avoidance and being
true or avoiding confrontation is is pretty antithetical to truth seeking as well, but
have to be done in a you know, kind of respectful way. Of
course. That's funny. It's I feel like I hear your your journalism background
peaking out here. Yeah, I mean I was just working in like a
regional newspapers. I didn't get to do like that much like critical undercover journalism.
But no, definitely, definitely really cool occupation journalism. It's I think
anyone working in journalisms is a very envious it's a very envious job, but
really respect that profession for sure. Yeah, totally, totally. It is.
It is one of the I think, one of the hart jobs on
the planet. But it's important, Like I mean, it's based on truth
seeking. So I think this is this has been a really really fascinating piece
to see that like how that can also help us ask questions in this case
of like what are we doing in the C suite and how are we as
leaders frame our organizations too, So I think that's really powerful. This has
been a really fascinating conversation, and I'm super enthused, you know, to
share the kind of the world of Supersided with folks again, especially a lot
of the design community, and folks I think will be really excited to get
a sense of what's happening in the space and that there's there's opportunities for both
well thought out employment and also like the idea of kind of talent based to
work that we can really lean into and not be too worried about more traditional
biases of hiring practices and things like that. But then also having an organization
that is premised on this idea of kind of seeking the truth. And this
is interesting because a lot of designers, you know, when I was teaching
design a few years ago, you know, folks want to make beautiful things,
but at the same time too, there's something, there's some kind of
truth in the right kind of design. I would find a lot of students
talk about, you know, and so I think it's interesting too that the
field in which Superside is functioning, you know, both in terms of the
design service, is that design itself can be a way of kind of revealing
that truth we're hiding it, depending on what one it's trying to do.
Absolutely, I mean, I think there's no shadow in the doubt in my
mind that there is you know, objectively good and bad art and objectively good
and bad design. I think it was definitely like this whole post modern period
in human there was definitely like a side track and we clearly see no,
we we clearly see that, and I mean it's just simple things, you
know, like you know, around symmetry and around the logic of things and
alignment and color composition, and it's like there are some loss to it,
and there are there are differences, and so we really believe in in that
obviously, like lots of room for in subjective interpretation and creativity and so on,
but there's there's definitely it's definitely a craft, right, there are some
insituction learn right on, and I think craft is the right word. Yeah.
Yeah, but hey, Frederick, I want to say thank you so
much for joining me on the podcast. Say this is really really fascinating conversation.
Super enthus to hear about your organization and the work and learn about all
the great stuff that you're doing. And I'm excited to share this out with
the good people. Thanks a lot for having me. Really great to be
here and exciting to meet you. And there we have it. A deep
dive into the world of Superside, touching on the intersection of global talent,
remote work, and the transformative power of design. You know, it's fascinating
to see how in the midst of rapidly evolving work environments, companies like Superside
are not just adapting, but they're thriving. They're challenging traditional norms and paving
the way for a future where work knows no geographical bounds. Frederick's journey from
the world of journalism to revolutionizing the creative and marketing industries underscores a critical insight
that the future of work isn't just about where we work, but it's how
we work together, and supersides mission to democratize access to top tier talent,
regardless of their location, stands on this belief in the power of the Internet
to bridge divides and create opportunities on a global scale. And yet, as
we've explored today, this journey is not without us. Challenges, questions of
management, company culture, and truly echable opportunities still remain at the forefront.
It reminds us that as we chart this new territory, the technology might be
ready, but it's the human factors right our values, biases, and our
willingness to embrace change that will determine the success of a virtual workforce. So
this conversation with Frederick Thomason offers not just a glimpse into the operations of an
innovative company, but also into the evolving dynamics of work itself. So as
we wrap today's episode, let's take with us not only the story of Supersites
founding and growth, but a reflection of our own adaptability and openness to the
future of work. After all, in an increasingly connected world, our greatest
resource is not just the technology that we create, but the global community that
we can foster. So thanks for tuning in to this episode of this anthro
Life, and remember the future is now and it's up to us to build
it. I'm madam, weain well and until next time, keep thinking,
keep questioning. It is always, stay curious. Goodbye for now,