My guest today is Erik Reagan, who is the founder of the multi-million dollar agency Focus Lab. In this episode, we discuss what are assumed constraints, how do assumed constraints affect design entrepreneurs, hiring coaches to direct you in the right direction, how Erik met his cofounder on the internet, beauty of friendships formed via business, reading memoirs of successful folks, difficulty of starting a business with close friends, accepting that employees will leave you to do their own thing, designing an amazing workplace culture, example of having difficult conversations, being vulnerable as a design entrepreneur, hart part of laying off employees, and much more! For show notes, guest bio, and more, please visit: www.designmba.show Level Up Your Design Career (Free Email Course): https://levelup.designmba.show/
If you had asked the high school version of Erik what he would be doing for a career, you would have heard something like a rock star or studio producer. In college, Erik studied music with the intention of becoming an educator and following in his parents’ footsteps. His predilection for technology won the career battle though, and he moved on to start Focus Lab. Transitioning from musician to developer, to entrepreneur, Erik has a variety of interests these days. What ties them all together, though, is a hunger to learn how and why things work. When Erik isn’t at work, he’s probably chillin’ with his kids, his wife, his church, or a combination of the three. He's also enjoying the beginnings of a hobby in woodworking. If he’s not doing those things, there’s a really good chance he’s enjoying peace and quiet somewhere.
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Jayneil Dalal: Today's guest is the amazing Eric Reagan. So, chances are, if you've spoken to Eric Reagan for any length of time, you've heard him talk about his family. His beautiful wife and kids are his world and it does not take long to discover that. He is a huge proponent of being intentional with time and keeping work at work. His wife thinks that's pretty cool. Eric's career has been an evolution from musician to developer to entrepreneur. He has a variety of interests these days but what ties them all together is a hunger to learn how and why things work. What was once “How does this core progression work?” turned into “How does a dependable website get built?” and eventually became “What does it take to build and sustain a great company?” He has the pleasure and privilege of leading a wonderful team at the brand agency Focus Lab, a multi-million-dollar agency that was built from scratch.
Without further ado, Eric, super excited to be talking with you, man. Welcome on the show.
Eric Reagan: Thanks, man. It's a pleasure to be here.
Jayneil: Do you ever get this compliment that you are literally an Aston Kutcher look alike?
Erik: I haven't heard Ashton Kutcher since he did a movie The Butterfly Effect. And at that point, I heard it here and there. I’ve heard it probably, I’d say, an average of like once every couple of years for the decade or so but what I get almost once a week is Jesus, which is really funny.
Jayneil: Oh my God, yeah.
Erik: Yeah, I mean western Americanized white Jesus. Apparently, I kind of looked like him.
Jayneil: I was watching this trailer of this Steve Jobs movie from time to time and then there's this phase where he's got a beard like you. Oh my God, the similarity is uncanny.
Erik: And funny enough, I got curious and looked into it and apparently, he and I are of similar heights even.
Jayneil: And what is that height? 6-2?
Erik: 6-3-ish.
Jayneil: Oh wow! Damn! That is amazing. Man, I’ve read your blogs at ErikReagan.com and some of the stuff I got away from it has just been really transformative for me and I just want to dig right into it. You had this article on assume constraints. Can you just tell according to you, what is an assumed constraint? And if you can, I love that elephant story in there. I think it was an amazing analogy.
Erik: I first learned about this term or phrase ‘assumed constraints’, I think, when reading a book called Self Leadership and The One Minute Manager. If you're not familiar with that title, it's actually a pretty popular title. It's a really short book and it became kind of a One Minute Manager series. The main author is Ken Blanchard. He has a lot of books, probably dozens of books that he's written. And he has co-authors for many of them. I don't know their names off the top of my head but this one, I think, I first read about in Self Leadership and The One Minute Manager. Really short book. Depending on who you are, it might even be kind of a cheesy book to read because it's taught as a fable almost. There are only maybe four to six key ideas in the book and each of them is kind of brought to life and demonstrated through this fable or story. The assumed constraint idea is best illustrated, at least as far as I know, through this elephant story that you referenced. And I don't know the legitimacy of this in terms of the circus industry but the idea is that if you picture a circus that has an elephant that they need to train, they have to start when the elephant is young. They start by chaining the elephant's leg or foot to a steel rod or pole that's dug feet down into the ground. It has to be very deep. Even a baby elephant is massive compared to us, very heavy, very strong. And so, the elephant is chained with an actual steel chain to this pole and if they try to tug away, they can't. They're stuck. And all they can do is walk, let's call it five feet away from the center of this pole and they've got a five-foot radius so they can kind of walk around. And the elephant is growing accustomed to only being able to walk five feet away from that pole and growing accustomed to “If I pull away from that pole, I don't move. I can't do anything. I can't break free of this thing.” And so, the elephant grows up, I don't know if it's weeks, months or years, but kind of mentally develops a memory and neural pathway that says “I can't go farther than this” or “I can't break free from that thing.” And the illustration claims, and I imagine maybe this is true, that over time, the elephant stops trying to go farther or stops trying to break free. And at that point, you can actually start to tether this large and growing elephant with something that's not steel, something that's just like a rope or something that is just basically nothing compared to their strength. The elephant is conditioned to have the knowledge and the experience that they can't break free of that thing. And so, they won't even try. So, over time, after this elephant has been conditioned, you can tether it with something very weak, something far weaker than it is. It in fact has by 10 or 100 times the capacity to break free of this tether. Yet it does not try. And so, the elephant illustration here basically says that we probably all have our own assumed constraints that we've either been conditioned with or we've just had going on in the background of our minds that we've not thought much about, whether it's “Yeah, I can't jump that high. I’m not going to be able to jump this high” or “I’m not going to run for that long” or “I’m not going to be able to memorize a speech.” We've got these things that we've just kind of grown up and accepted or maybe they've even been kind of shoved in our face yeah and we accept them and they become this assumed constraint but the reality is that those constraints, they're like the little string that's tethering us to the pole and we're a freaking elephant and we don't realize it. And so, we can just walk away from that and that tether is going to just break but we're so conditioned that we don't even try. So, that's kind of the gist of assumed constraints and this kind of elephant illustration.
Jayneil: I love the analogy in the story. Thank you. And for the legitimacy, the thing is my grandfather in India used to own a circus. So, there I’ve seen this, I don't even know how much grown elephants weigh but I’m assuming it's like tons, maybe two to five tons or something, and they had this kind of beige colored sailor rope, if you know what I’m talking about, the one you see on the docks. They had that kind of rope tie all their feet together and then obviously it was tied to that pole. So, I was very small when I saw that but I do remember vividly seeing that and I think one time I’d asked him briefly. As a backup, what they had was, I wouldn't say like a bull but an elephant tranquilizer or some kind of gun or something where if the elephant does go crazy, then they have to tranquilize him or shoot him because this is going to be complete mania but in all the times that I went to a circus, it was just so amazing for me to see that this giant elephant that could break down the whole circus is so calm and chained to that pole by this piece of nylon rope.
Erik: Wow! That's good to kind of hear the closeness, the proximity to the illustration that you have. That's really neat.
Jayneil: And it kind of makes me wonder, as you started on your journey to start Focus Lab, what were some of the assumed constraints that you had, some of the top ones that come to mind that you had to overcome?
Erik: Early days, I think, some of my assumed constraints practically could include needing to be at my desk to make money, which may not be the first thing to think of but it's something that for a long time, and a lot of people in in the creative industry or profession, they equate hours to dollars. I’d say that that's a form of an assumed constraint because I know you've had interviews with other folks who are building and selling products where they can be asleep and make money. And I would say that design industry, creative industry, it's almost structured in a way that there's this built-in assumed constraint that “If I’m not actually working on something, I’m not making money.” And so, that's one that comes to mind.
Another would be that I need to know a lot before I can hire somebody. I assumed that unless I had a certain amount of knowledge or awareness about taxes or healthcare or whatever that I wasn't ready to hire somebody. That was an assumed constraint of mine. There are probably a lot that could come to mind but those are the first two.
Jayneil: The second one, I think, I suffer from it too like “Oh, I need to hire a guy to manage the finances. Okay, I think I must read all these books before.” And it's kind of this fear that they might rip me off or I might not get the maximum from this deal or this exchange they were doing. So, I also “Oh, if I need to hire a developer, then I need to learn everything about coding.”
Erik: I don't think it's stupid per se. I think that there's actually a level of wisdom to what you're getting at. I think it's just how we play it out could feel stupid or be stupid. An example that comes to mind is I had a friend named Paul. So, Focus Lab came to be in 2010 and I think I was having lunch or breakfast with Paul in maybe 2011. So, really early into our journey. And I asked him “Hey, who does your money stuff?” I think that's probably how I phrased it. “Who keeps track of your spending as a business?” And he said “Well, I’ll give you my answer but then I think I’ll get to the heart of your question which is what you should be doing. Right now, I have a CPA who does all my bookkeeping and blah, blah, blah.” And then he said “But I don't know if you should do that yet. I think that maybe you should just learn a little bit about bookkeeping and do it for Focus Lab so that down the road you know how to identify a good bookkeeper.” And so, to your point, I think that maybe we don't need to learn everything about development but I think there's some good foundational things that we could learn to discern when we're hiring a good one or a bad one. So, I’d say that there's still some value in knowing a bit about what the thing is that you you're possibly going to hire somebody to do.
Jayneil: I love the way you put it. Now it doesn't make me feel stupid about it. I know that you've hired a fitness trainer and I’ve worked with one over the years and his name is Adam Sanders. And one of the things that he told me is, he's like “Any trainer, no matter who you hire, they only put in as much as you put in.” So, if I read about something and bring that enthusiasm to our sessions, then he kind of brings in the same amount in a way. So, if I put 100%, he puts in 100%. So, I feel a little bit more comfortable in that situation where I feel like “Okay, I think I know the basic language where I can talk with you.”
Erik: Yes, having a shared language is going to be an investment in any relationship even if you don't know how to execute on that language. If you and Adam are able to talk about what it means for your muscle to break down and what it means for it to recover and what it means for it to grow, that makes the conversation about a movement you're doing, you both get it more whereas if you didn't really have a grasp on what it means for those muscles to break down and to recover and grow that, you might have no idea why you're being told to do a certain motion in a certain direction or you might not know why it's okay that something's hurting right now while you're actually exercising or working out.
Jayneil: And that was a personal assumed constraint of mine for years. I don't know how to phrase it but the way it was, was yes it cost 60 dollars a session with Adam. It's definitely expensive than watching free videos on YouTube. And the second part of it was I knew I wanted to get to the goal of being fit but maybe I was not as passionate about watching tutorials and stuff. I wanted someone who could just tell me what to do to get there but there was this mindset like “Oh but there's so much free stuff. Why not do it for free and pay somebody?” So, it took me a long time to see the value of investing in someone so that they invest in you. And I wonder, at your stage where you are, do you also have coaches that you hire in different areas of your life to take you to the next level?
Erik: Yeah. I think that in most cases I wouldn't look at a coach as someone who takes me to the next level. I think I would look at a coach who directs me, guides me and the getting to the next level is still all mine to do. They can't do any of that for me. They can't pick me up and throw me up to the next level. So, if you think about maybe climbing, which I have zero experience with, they might say “Hey, you see that hold right there. That's where you're going to want to grip and do it kind of at this angle because when you shift your weight this direction, I know from experience that you're going to feel this way.” So, the coach, in my mind, saves me time. That's generally what coaches are doing. They're saving me time. I can do a lot of this stuff by myself and get marginal success and learn hard lessons by experience but it's, in my opinion, much better to work with coaches who from experience know what to anticipate and know how to tell me what to expect, what to avoid and then also help me kind of learn when I do make mistakes along the way because that happens all the time. And that's not just like a business thing for me or an athletic thing. I don't always use the word ‘coach’ but I have different people who effectively are like coaches. I’ve got someone who's basically, I would consider, like a spiritual coach or mentor. And then I’ve got some other folks in my life who are just farther along than me. They're a couple decades older and they're more kind of just familial or personal life kind of mentors, if you will. And I value those relationships tremendously. And in each of those cases, they are saving me time in a sense because I can talk about something, I can put something on the table and they can help me process or help me reconsider things in a way I would have never thought to. And then in the case of a literal coach, they can really push me as well to challenge my own limits, to challenge what I might think is possible.
Jayneil: Wow! And then, as a way of giving back, you have your own coaching program on your website where if somebody wants mentorship, maybe they want to start an agency like you, they can contact you. I’m just curious about the fact that given that you have a blueprint in a way because you've made Focus Lab successful, did it ever cross your mind to do some kind of online course, something like a blueprint for starting your own agency and then make it into a course that just people can buy and scale it up even further?
Erik: Yeah, it's absolutely crossed my mind and it may have even crossed some notepads of mine, to be determined.
Jayneil: Wow! Now, when you started Focus Lab with your co-founder, you guys had first met on the internet, right? You guys did not just meet in person directly the first time.
Erik: Yeah, pretty much. So, both of us had day jobs. Both of us did freelance work. And I was looking for just additional freelance work. And this was probably December or November of 2006, I think. And so, I happened to cross a website for what looked like an agency called Ideal Design. And on this website, they had a little blurb that said “Looking for Flash developers” and I was like “Hey, I developed Flash stuff. I’ll reach out.” So, I reached out to them and realized them was him. So, the guy behind the name Ideal Design was Bill Kenny and he and I were both in Savannah, Georgia. And he had a project coming up he wanted to talk about and we were both in the same area. We met up at an Applebee's over lunch, talked about the project and by the end of lunch, Bill basically said “So, do you want to just like start a business together?” And my personality is not like that and I was like “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Hey, I’m here to talk about a project. You're talking about something way bigger than a project” but what Bill sensed, I think, was just that a lot of the same mindset about what freelancing could become someday. And he was a designer, I was a developer. So, our skills complemented one another well. We were both trying to design and develop on our own. And so, basically my code was fine but my design was terrible, his design was fine but his code was terrible. So, putting those two things together, we could just settle into our sweet spots and work on the same things together. So, that was the beginning of it. We didn't officially launch Focus Lab until 2010. That's when we quit our day jobs and there's plenty of journey in between those two dates but that's how we met. I saw something he had on his website and I hit him up.
Jayneil: And now you guys are friends or very good friends.
Erik: Yeah.
Jayneil: The reason I asked that is one of the quotes you've shared on your website is “A friendship founded on business is a good deal, better than a business founded on just friendship.” So, I would love for you to elaborate on that because usually the traditional route is I get to know someone, we become friends, then we do a business but in this case, you went the opposite route. You guys did business first and then became friends.
Erik: Yeah. Interestingly, that quote, I don't remember who said it. I remember where I read it which was a book by John D. Rockefeller, which he probably wrote in the 1910s, maybe somewhere in there and it's called Random Reminiscences of Men and Events. Terrible title.
Jayneil: Wow!
Erik: It's interesting, I really liked the book because it almost feels like I had a chance to read his journal. It kind of felt like he was writing a journal to pass down to someone in his family and they just ended up on a book shelf, the way he went about writing it. And I actually really like reading little memoirs or unpolished thoughts, in a sense. In fact, right next to me, I’ve got another book. This one was written in the 1930s and it's of a guy, basically what was published was journal entries that he took down and partial letters that he sent to his father. And I just really like reading that kind of stuff. In particular, I like to learn from people who are a lot older than me. And what that means is I’m learning from people who are deader than me. So, this quote came from that book but Rockefeller didn't say it himself. He was quoting someone else. So, all that to say, I don't know the full origin but when I heard it, it was probably around 2014-2015 when I read that book, and I just sat with that for a minute because it caused me to kind of pause and just reflect a little bit on my relationship with Bill because, in a lot of cases in life, we're in go mode. By nature, many of us don't stop and reflect. So, I read this in this book and thought “So, I’ve got a business partner but we're friendly and I think that just generally I’d say that we're friends as well but we weren't friends. So, let me think about that.” And I think really the core of the message here is that business can get really messy and really difficult and if you are starting a business with somebody who is a friend, you're putting that friendship in a pretty risky spot because you may discover that when it comes to business and not just kind of everyday living life that you can maybe really fundamentally disagree on some things and things that maybe wouldn't come up in casual conversation or in hobbies that you do together or whatever. On the other side, if you start as a business and just develop a friendship with someone, you almost have less baggage, in a sense. And it's not that you're able to compartmentalize that but it's just there's less relational risk on the table. So, I haven't really thought a ton about how that applies to others but I definitely thought a good bit about that particular idea, that quote and how I have experienced its reality within my own relationship with Bill, which has grown. At this point, we've known each other for 14 years or so.
Jayneil: Oh my God!
Erik: Almost.
Jayneil: And the more I listen to you, I think I’ve experienced similar things where there are friends that I’ve known for a long time but if I were to go on a venture, it would definitely be an awkward conversation because you have that friendship and you don't want to risk it. At the same time, I’ve been teaching breaking into design course at SMU University in Dallas and I partnered with this guy Tony Daussat who actually inspired me to start my podcast. So, it was more of like two people with similar ideas like you and Bill and he's just mentoring me. And now, I’m teaching this course with him. So, it's like we started as a professional relationship so we could easily exchange ideas. There was no hard feelings because it was professional from the get-go but now, as we go for lunch or something, it's becoming this friendship and, I guess, there's none of that awkwardness or, like you said, nothing initially upfront at stake that's letting the relationship grow organically.
Erik: Right. And that's not to suggest that every business partnership must turn into a friendship but it definitely seems to be safer and more manageable for a friendship to develop as a result of a business partnership than the other way around.
Jayneil: I like your point. It's similar to where every co-worker that you work with doesn't have to be your best friend.
Erik: Right. It's like we can be cordial, friendly and even cut up together and enjoy one another at work but we don't have to go hang out or even want to go hang out together. That doesn't need to be part of work. It's okay.
Jayneil: This is going to sound like a shameless plug. One of my students, he's a brilliant industrial designer and he's finishing up his course in UX design and I was actually showing him your tweet about where, I think you might have already hired, but for a couple of positions you were hiring a couple of designers. And I was telling him that “Matt, listen. Erik is someone that really focuses on culture. I haven't met him in person but I already get the vibe that he's someone that if you work with him, he genuinely cares in your development.” So, I actually told him to reach out to you at some point but the point is how do you view that in just the culture development but also knowing that the designers who join you might as well want to start something like you, which means that they are going to leave your company and then start, I’m not saying competitor, but something similar.
Erik: Sure. Yeah, that has happened and it'll continue to happen. So, I have probably at this point of the 10 years that Focus Lab has been here, I’d say that six or seven of those years, I have been intentionally trying to make Focus Lab a place that's great to work at. I don't have a ton of experience being employed, ironically. I worked at a couple of different places but at a relatively young age, I started Focus Lab and quit my day job. So, I don't have a lot of experience, I don't know much about what it's like to work at places other than the workplace I’ve been making. So, it took me a little while to realize some of this but eventually, I realized that there is a ton of value in being able to go to work and leave work and not be burdened by whatever is going on at work or whatever you're working with like. And so, a big part of what I want our team, and for it's worth, I tend to not really say employee or employees because I look at it much more as a team, so I’ll say team or team members or teammates, just for quick definition there, I want our team to be able to, even if the work itself is very challenging or maybe there's like a project or a client issue that is legitimately difficult and taxing, I still want them to know that they can just go home or unplug at the end of the day. We're not going to ever ask them to be constantly plugged in. We're never going to suggest that the work that we're doing is going to be so crucial that they need to change their family life around for it. The reality is that the work that we do, while it brings a lot of value to our customers and while it does help people in a lot of great ways, we're not designing the ins and outs of medical hardware that literally could cost or save a life. You know what I mean? So, bottom line, we want people to be able to just live life without any added unnecessary weight or burden from the workplace. And I used to frame this in a way as we want people to be able to live life with a matter of joy and fulfillment but I’m learning over time the workplace is a big part of people's lives but certainly not the only part. And so, I can't make people have joy but I want Focus Lab as a workplace, as a culture to at least have as few barriers as possible and inject as much joy as possible into the team's lives. And so, for five or six years or so, I’ve been thinking about and working toward making that a reality. And part of this reality for our agency and I imagine for most agencies is that we're going to have people join, who are in chapter three of their ten-chapter life. And I’m not going to stop them from turning the page to chapter four if they realize “I’m ready to actually start my own freelancing business” or “I’m going to start an agency.” In fact, I actually get personally really excited when our team members go off on that path and I try to, as best I can, equip them when they do. And I think my buddy Carl Smith said it this way that he does not mind being the college team to somebody's pro athlete career. And I really think that I feel the same way about Focus Lab. If Focus Lab in the grand scheme of somebody's career becomes like their college ball days, I’m totally fine with that. I want to see them winning MVPs and doing other stuff in the pros and whatever the full lifecycle looks like. I would never want to kind of hinder their future in any way. And so, if anything, I want to be able to unlock potential so that they can continue running down that path.
Jayneil: That would be godsent like so “dream come true” because I worked most of my years in corporate America and they're having side hustles like you want to do your podcast, you want to do your own branding stuff on the side. It's really frowned upon and very occasionally do we get bosses like you that would be like “You know what, just do it on the side. As long as you get the work done at the job, I don't care. If anything, I’ll help you too.” So, oh my God!
Erik: For me, when it comes to like having a side hustle or maybe even a business that you're trying to intentionally build on the side so it becomes your only hustle, the biggest thing for me as an agency owner is not whether you do it or don't. It's about can you do that and balance it where it's not impacting the work you do here or not impacting your teammates at Focus Lab because if that starts to happen, you're at a crossroads at that point like you got to do something because, just pragmatically, Focus Lab is hiring you to do a specific thing at a specific level of excellence. And if you can't hit that, then something needs to change if it's related to a business you're trying to build or something like that. So, while we don't tell people not to do stuff, we do try to be pretty clear in saying that “If this does impact your ability to do what you're hired to do here, we're going to figure something out. We're going to talk about it whether that is you scale back the side hustle thing or whether you are planning your graduation, so to say.”
Jayneil: Oh my God, man! It's like you seem to come across as a very nice guy but then I also see that you have this other side that's very pragmatic. Instead of like beating around the bush, you're very direct. So, if I were to work with you and in my freelance or side hustle that would impact the work at Focus Lab, how would you have that conversation with me?
Erik: I like the question. So, the way it would probably happen is I would probably already know that you have a side thing because you probably would have shared with me or most people in our industry, their side thing is almost by design visible, almost always. So, let's just assume for the conversation right here that I know that you do freelance work. So, I would start by assuming that your freelance work might be the reason that your performance at Focus Lab has changed. Now, when I internally think about that assumption, I have to stop myself and say “But I don't know that.” And so, the reality is that more often than not it's not freelance work that has been something that I would say is a singular cause for people's performance at Focus Lab to change. Usually it’s, because we all have lives and lives are complex, family issues, medical problems. There are just so many different things that could cause somebody's performance at work to change. So, even if an assumption or an idea that you might be busier than normal with freelance work or with your side work, I will start by saying “Hey, I’ve noticed that things at work are not the same. Why do you think that is?” We would basically just have a conversation about this and ultimately, I would need to be able to show you practically what's different like “Hey, this project over here, you took two extra weeks than normal. And then the next one also took you longer. So, there seems to be a pattern here and it's a pattern that I want to support you through. And I’m just kind of curious like what do you feel might be going on that's leading to this.” And maybe you'll say “I haven't been getting a lot of sleep. I’ve been staying up until 2 or 3 a.m. on this side project and I think that maybe my sleep's just kind of getting to me.” And then I would say “Well, that's exciting that you got that project but we need to figure out how that project is not going to impact your teammates or your clients at Focus Lab.” So, that's kind of how it would probably come up in a conversation. And I think, so far in the 10 years we've been doing this, only once that I can think of have we said to someone “We recommend you do less freelance work.” And that was because they didn't want to quit their job and do it forever. They just did it because they wanted extra money and they're not saying either way that that's good or bad, just saying that that was the reality for them. And so, what that conversation sounded like was “That's our recommendation. What you choose to do is completely up to you but if the performance continues in this direction, you're going to be on a path where you might not have a job here. And we're going to work with you through it first but that's the pattern that we're seeing and the path it looks like you might be on. So, let's cautiously and intentionally think about this and get you back in a position that'll allow you to thrive at Focus Lab.”
Jayneil: Wow! I love that. There's no official like the big companies have the HR and then the manager tells the HR and the HR tells you and is this like whole back and forth.
Erik: The way I’m describing this is very personal just because you and I are in a conversation together but everything I’ve just described, at different points along the way, it does involve other people. So, at this point, nobody on the design team reports to me, for example. So, I actually personally wouldn't be having any of those conversations. And we also do have somebody who heads up our HR work. And if it got to a certain point, she would become involved and we would actually document some of this and say “Hey, this is the 90-day window where we need to see the performance,” whatever the thing is, “improve. And this is what it looks like for it to improve. And if we don't get to this milestone by 90 days, then you won't have a job here.” That's the bottom line of it. We do have a bit of a formal process to it when we need it but we still try to approach it very relationally, very conversational. And there are formalities and they don't feel good, none of this stuff feels good but first and foremost, we prioritize respect and dignity for the other person. And so, I think that that part might be a little different from a corporate America context on average but again, that goes back to my limited experience. I’ve only heard that that's different. I haven't experienced it.
Jayneil: From the way you're describing it to me, man, I can literally tell you it's very, very different. If you don't mind me, how big is the team right now at Focus Lab?
Erik: We're about 20 people.
Jayneil: 20 people, yeah. So, you have people that come in, whenever I’ve gone, I had issues at work or something, it doesn't feel personal. It feels scripted. It feels like an attack. I always walk out from those experiences as like “If you only had asked me why my work suffered and I would have told you, well, it was because of this family issue or this issue.” And I do want to improve, you just give me a chance, but the way it always came across, it was always like a blame game like “We are putting you in that corner.” They call it the PIP or something, performance improvement plan. And that's really dreaded upon. And something that just strikes me, as I talk with you, is you're very vulnerable. And I know you shared this on your website too. If I asked you “Eric, how's the business going?”, you're not going to always have “Oh, it's amazing. Phenomenal.” You're going to say “Well, today's kind of okay.”
Erik: I literally had that conversation in a gas station before this interview, grabbing something inside a gas station store and I ran into a guy, also a business owner, somebody I went to high school with, and we haven't seen each other since this coronavirus shift in the world and he just said “So, hey, man. How's business?” And I’m like “Honestly?” And I just laid some stuff out for him and I said “How about you? How are things for you?” And I don't have like a good or deep relationship with him but I definitely don't mind saying “This is where we're challenged. This is where we're doing really well and this is kind of how I feel about it.” And I think vulnerability is a really important ingredient to just being a good leader. An example of that is today, in Slack, around 10 a.m., I said in our general water cooler channel where everyone is, I said “Hey, guys, I’m going to be out for an appointment with my counselor but I’ll be back in Slack later this afternoon.” So, even a something for me feels kind of small, as small as saying I see a counselor or I see a therapist, that's still another small way that I want to try and be vulnerable with my team. And I think that the team knows I’m there for them, I’ve got their back. The way I tend to look at it is that our team serves our Focus Lab customers. I serve our team. And so, our team is my customer and I want them to have a fantastic experience working at Focus Lab as the service or product to them. And I approach a lot of this from a very personal relational perspective. So, earlier you talked about how you're kind of getting a bit of a vibe that I’m really nice but I’m also direct when I need to be. The way that I think about that is at any given time, I’ve got a one-on-one relationship with somebody like right now you and I are having a personal conversation but there's also a broader picture where others might be impacted. So, if somebody's having a performance issue and it's more than just something that happened for a couple of weeks or something, if I don't bring it up to them and if I don't actually work to empower them and equip them through that struggle or challenge, that's not just them getting affected or me getting affected. It's their clients. It's our whole team. If we have a bad customer experience, that could be referral opportunities that we lose. There's a bit of pragmatic, as you said, kind of approach to the conversation where it's not just like “Hey, how are you feeling?” and “I want you to feel better.” It's a “I want you to feel better. I want you to be better but I also want to make sure that what's going on, as little as possible, does not impact your teammates and their jobs and their livelihoods.”
Jayneil: Oh my God. This is maybe a personal question but I’m assuming in your 10-year journey, you probably fired people at some point, right?
Erik: Yes.
Jayneil: Was it hard having that conversation?
Erik: So, in terms of ranking hardness of conversations, the hardest is laying off somebody because you can't pay them anymore because of a decision you made. So, as an example, the hardest thing for me so far has been having to tell someone that I can't pay them anymore. It's not that they did something that caused them to be fired. It's that I did something, at least in my perspective, because as an owner, as a leader, the buck stops here. I can play the blame game but that's too easy. Ultimately, if something's going wrong at Focus Lab, that goes straight up the chain straight to the CEO and owners of the organization that are accountable for whatever it was that was going wrong. So, that's the hardest conversation is to tell someone “I can't pay you anymore.” And I’ve had to do that and that is some of the toughest kind of experiences and memories that I have as an owner. It is hard to fire someone but I think that it's actually a lot easier than having to lay someone off. And the reason is, in my opinion, if it's done well, it's not a surprise to anyone. If you fire someone and it's a surprise, then something went wrong in the path.
Jayneil: I see your point.
Erik: So, if somebody's performance has persisted in a poor way, they're going to see this coming. And in fact, they'll probably have had a deadline, a date where they knew they had to fix something before they were going to be let go. Another thing that probably should not be a surprise is let's say that there's some type of breach of how we should be working together or they do something that's just against our ethics or against something like we should have been so specific about what we expect from a team member that that's not surprising that that got them fired. Now, we actually have a pretty gracious approach to things like that. We have never just fired somebody on the spot for anything but in my opinion, firing somebody should never be a surprise. And so, it makes it easier in that way.
Jayneil: Wow! What advice would you give to designers who may not even know that they have these assumed constraints or maybe they know that they have these assumed constraints? And one of the common ones I see is imposter syndrome – “My design is not good” – or if they want to be entrepreneurial, it's somewhat on the lines of like “Well, I don't know, I don't have a following like Eric. I mean, I didn’t have clients in the past that I can reach out to and start my own agency.” What would you tell them?
Erik: When it comes to challenging your own assumed constraints, the hardest part is probably even discovering them, understanding them, finding them. By definition, we are cognitively unaware of them. So, I think that what might be necessary is to just talk to somebody else and allow them to question you. So, let's say that I at least know where I want to end up and I have no clue how to get there or if I even can get there, if I’m even capable of getting there. And let's just, for the sake of conversation, call that self-employment – “I work somewhere today. I want to be self-employed. I want to be a freelancer or in some form or fashion, I want to be self-employed. I don't have the clients or I don't have this or that.” And the assumption built in there is that “I need clients to start.” And if I just say “All right, I’m going to go and grab a friend who I trust. I’m going to invite them to ask me questions, kind of prod at my statements, I’m going to ask them to assume that I’m making excuses and to challenge me in some way.” And the simplest way to do that is to just tell them “Hey, I want you to ask me these two questions to get started. And then follow every response I give you with “But why?”” And if you just start there, you and I start, I might say “So, Jayneil, you said you've been working at this agency for five years. It sounds like it's gone well and you want to venture out on your own but there's something in the way. What's in the way?” And you might say something like “Well, first off, I don't even have any revenue. I don't have any income. I can't quit my job if I don't have any money. So, the biggest problem is I don't have clients.” So, then the retort should be “But why do you not have clients?” And so, then it goes to “Well, I guess I’m not looking for clients and maybe I should have a way to get clients.” And so, you kind of start digging. And it’s the hows and the whys that help dig in a lot of ways. And then it becomes the “What can I do?” So, you kind of have the hows and the why's and then the whats will bring maybe some clarity to what you should try to do. And then some of the trickiness is the when. And really just having a friend that you can talk to, who you kind of invite to break down your answers and be willing to be shown that you're wrong about something and that's really what an assumed constraint is. It's something you're wrong about. And so, you have to mentally be prepared to be shown that you're wrong, accept that, and then do something about it.
Jayneil: And I’m assuming that you have your coaches, mentors, and friends point out to you your assumed constraints over time?
Erik: Yeah. It's humbling. Even as recent as my counseling session this morning.
Jayneil: Wow! And how can people get in touch with you? If they want to drop you a note, follow your blogs, how can they reach you or follow you/
Erik: So, everything online for me is just my name. So, as long as you can spell my name, you're in good shape. So, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook if you're into Facebook, LinkedIn if you're into LinkedIn. I’m just @ErikReagan. And also, EriKReagan.com is kind of my catch-all for almost random content, I still occasionally write at our Focus Lab website which is FocusLabLLC.com but I think my personal site contains things all over the place from books that I’m reading to this idea like assumed constraints that you just referenced earlier to philosophy to spiritual, religious stuff. It's kind of a catch-all. And that's where I’ve got a little bit about coaching as well. So, Erik Reagan for most of these platforms. At some point, I think I’m going to end up having more video-based content talking about these things which would be still Erik Reagan on YouTube but that's not quite a thing just yet.
Jayneil: Awesome, man. And, by the way, please keep doing the book notes. I love them on your website. I see the key phrases and stuff. I just want to say thank you so much, Erik, for coming on the show. It's been a blast just chatting with you and trying to understand how I can overcome my assumed constraints.
Erik: Yeah, man. Thanks for having me. This was a lot of fun. And I always enjoy learning from others and I feel like I’ve even had a chance to soak some things up in our conversation as well, which I always am grateful for. So, thanks for having me on.
Jayneil: Thank you.
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