The Culture Code: Max Yoder on Building Winning Teams
In this episode of Rooted and Reaching, we sit down with Max Yoder, co-founder of Lessonly and author of the book ‘Do Better Work.' Our conversation centers on the power of communication in teams, especially Max’s idea of “sharing before you’re ready,” a practice that encourages early feedback and deeper collaboration during the creative process.
Max reflects on his journey of growing a small startup into a thriving organization, highlighting why clear and compassionate communication becomes even more vital as teams expand. Together, we explore practical frameworks for navigating tough conversations, including the principles of nonviolent communication, which help foster empathy, understanding, and stronger connections.
RESOURCES
Milad: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miladalucozai/
CONTACT
Martin Mechtenberg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-mechtenberg-515a648/
Susan Ford: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-howard-ford-8446441/
Transcript
Welcome to season three of Rooted and Reaching, where we talk with dreamers, doers, and difference makers building an innovative future right here in the South Bend Elkhart region. Entrepreneurs know that where we're rooted matters, and where we're reaching matters even more.
Today we're talking with Max Yoder, co founder of Lessonly and author of the impactful book Do Work Better. Let's start up.
Marty:Max.
Max:Marty. Good to see you. So glad you're here today.
Max:Yeah, man, you too.
Marty: we started Planning Idea Week: Max:Thanks for having me.
Marty:And was really thrilled when you said, yes, you could make it.
Max:I love doing this. I think it's important.
Marty:Yeah.
Marty:And we're, I think, very excited about your talk, and I think the community here is going to benefit from hearing what you have to say.
Max:Thank you. I'm glad to hear. I hope so.
Marty:So, so tell us a little bit here. You founded a company.
Max:Yes.
Marty:Called Lessonly. And sold it.
Max:Yes.
Marty:And part of what you talk about is what you learned during that journey.
Max:Yeah.
Max:Correct. So we built the business from a few of us, some friends together, to 300 employees over nine years.
Max:Wow.
Max:It's a tremendous amount of coordination, but really a tremendous amount of communication. I mean, you're putting on this event right now. You know what coordination it takes to bring hundreds of people together.
Marty:Yes.
Max:It wasn't that hard. Every week it just, you know, every week somebody's going through something big. There's constantly a challenge.
At 300 people, we're no longer feeling small enough to feel like it's one team. You know, it starts to feel more faction. Like that really started to happen around 100, 100, 150 people.
Anyhow, along the way, we realized there's certain ways we communicate that really bring us together. There's other ways. We're basically the opposite of those ways that bring us together, that pull us apart.
And it got really important at around 100 people to begin documenting those more clearly, to be specific. Like, one of the things we saw happen a lot at Lee when we were kind of losing momentum was people would not share before they were ready.
They would take a project.
Marty:I see.
Max:And they would work on that project in a vacuum, basically, not talking to other people, not showing them what they were doing. They'd hope that it would be a big ta da moment when they were done. Hey, I just saved the day. Finish this.
They'd bring it to the team, they'd say, here's what I've been doing. And the team would go, what is this? And that person might have spent two months on the thing right in their little vacuum. I made this mistake.
Plenty of people made the mistake. We weren't communicating as we worked.
Marty:So you got to a certain point where you saw this happening so many times, you were like, wait a minute, it keeps happening.
Max:Okay.
Max:So we developed a framework around it, basically some words around it, and then created a framework. One of my best buddies, third employee Leslie Corey Keim, he coined sharing before you're ready.
And sharing before you're ready is this idea of if you wait until you're ready, you've probably baked that thing a bit too long. We kind of use clay as a metaphor when you're molding clay, when it's still in the clay stages, before it's been fired in the kiln.
We can adjust the chin if we need to on the bust, but if we put it in the kiln and then we show it to people and they're like, hey, that chin's not working for me. It's a bit too late. So we're just like, get some feedback in the play stages and get it as much as you think is appropriate.
Max:Yeah, yeah.
Marty:And an interesting phrase, sharing before you're ready. Because at first glance it sounds like maybe that's not a good thing.
Speaker F:Right.
Marty:But you're actually saying, no, it is a good thing.
Max:It's context dependent.
Speaker F:Right.
Max:Certain things we wouldn't go to our customers and share before we're ready on, because we need to be a little more thoughtful. They're maybe not going to have the full context.
They're maybe not the people we want to bring first to the plate, but maybe to a teammate, hey, this is half baked, but I want to see if there's reason to bake it longer, you know, and we should have trust and camaraderie there and enough time to really be clear with one Another customer. They're coming in and out of our lives.
Marty:Sure.
Max:They might not have the time for clarifying questions. They might not have time for office hours. It's not to say we shouldn't share before ready with them, but maybe we are more thoughtful about.
Marty:There's a different value in doing it internally while you're working on it.
Max:Yes.
Max:Yeah, yeah. We can take time to align, take time to ask clarifying questions. So that was one of the things. Another one is having difficult conversations.
Growing up, I Didn't have a framework for that. It was like argument or it was avoidance. And it turns out there are many frameworks.
Max:Yeah.
Max:Yeah. Tell me what you're thinking.
Marty:Well, I'm just thinking that's probably the experience a lot of us have seen argument or avoidance.
Max:Right.
Marty:It's so easy to fall into one of those two camps.
Speaker F:Right.
Max:It's two ends of the spectrum, Right? It is. I'm going to be aggressive about this, or I'm going to be the opposite of aggressive.
Speaker F:Right.
Max:A passive and avoidant. There's a middle ground. There's a divine middle, and it's communication.
And communication is really difficult if you don't have a lot of models for it. So since our parents probably did one or the other, we might have picked the opposite of what they did or did what they did. My ex was avoidant.
I'll be aggressive. Or X was avoidant. I'll be avoidant, too. But there's this middle path, and the middle path we ended up choosing was called nonviolent communication.
Max:Oh, yeah.
Max:And Marshall Rosenberg, sounds like you've heard of this amazing person who developed a framework for how we communicate without judgment and evaluation getting in the way. So a lot of our communication is, that was good, that was bad, that was right, that was wrong. It was stupid, that was dumb. Those are judgments.
Those are evaluative.
Speaker F:Right.
Max:I'm evaluating it. I'm not saying what it is. I'm not saying that's a ball. I'm saying it's a good ball.
Speaker F:Right.
Max:I'm not saying that's a seat. I'm saying it's a comfy seat.
Max:Got it.
Speaker F:Right.
Max:I'm putting my evaluation on top of it.
Max:Yeah.
Max:And when we communicate without evaluations, it's easier to hear one another. So, like, let's say you and I were having a challenge, and maybe I show up to something 15 minutes late. Thank goodness that did not happen today.
Marty:But let's say I am grateful that you're here on time.
Max: ked about you getting here at: Speaker F:Right.
Max: ir. Just these are the facts.:These are feelings. Completely fair for you to have an emotional reaction, whether it's pleasant or unpleasant, to a thing that happened.
What you're not saying in either of these is, max, you jerk, or Max, thanks for being not Thoughtful.
Speaker F:Right.
Max:You're saying this happened. I felt frustrated. I value consistency.
Speaker F:Right.
Max:We talked about a time. You value that time. I didn't bring consistency here. So that's causing.
Marty:Trying to run frustration.
Max:And I can hear you when you speak that way.
Speaker F:Right.
Max:The request might be, hey, I wish you would have called me ahead of time. If we ever do this again, let me know next time. Or just it really matters to be on time to this sort of thing. Can you please be more.
Potentially come earlier next time, you know, if you can. Making a request at the end.
Max:Right, right, right, right.
Max:Until you get to your request, you're really keeping entirely out of the realm of evaluation or opinion, you know?
Marty:Okay, so the request is when there's a little bit of that.
Max:That it's your particular request that I don't have to meet or not. You know, ideally you say things like, you know, next time, could you give me a call in advance? And I say, like, that makes a lot of sense to me.
I'm in.
Max:Yeah.
Max:Before that, it's the observation, what happened, the feeling and. And the need. And I'm not trying to be like. To go into this too deeply.
I just think it's tremendously important because we have difficult conversation possibilities every day. I learned in school a lot things about physics and geometry and many cool topics that I do not need to use every day. You're an architect.
You're probably using a lot of things.
Marty:That's a good point.
Max:Yeah.
Max:But I'm having a difficult conversation very regularly if I'm alive and out in the world, and I would have liked more schooling on it.
Marty:Do you think. Do you think this is something we should be addressing at the school level?
Max:Absolutely. There is a basic, fundamental ability to communicate without judging that we lack as a culture.
We teach one another to judge as opposed to speaking about what's happening and how we feel about it, which is much more vulnerable. If I say I'm frustrated, I'm being vulnerable there. Instead of, that's dumb. Which. That doesn't require vulnerability.
Marty:So when you were at Lesnle and you saw this happening in a team, how did you. How did you get to this idea? The nonviolent communication technique? Did you read something about it?
Did someone introduce the concept to you and you're like, this is what we need.
Max:Yes, that's exactly what happened. Okay. So we were looking for a frame. I was looking for a framework because people.
I was encouraging difficult conversations but having a tough time teaching it, which meant I didn't really understand how to do it as well as I hoped, you know, like, I didn't know how to teach it. Yeah, but you felt like I knew in my situations I could work my way through it and try to be patient, but I needed help.
I wasn't going to be able to learn how to teach it in the amount of time, you know, got it. And it turns out people already learned how to teach it.
Speaker F:Right.
Max:And so I asked those folks, what's your methods that you found most helpful? What books have you found most helpful? And I got, like, four or five books on my desk. One of them was nonviolent communication.
It was the only one that resonated with me in, like a. Just a deeply. Like a spiritual level. It felt to me like, oh, this is what I've been looking for.
Max:Wow.
Max:You know, like, this is. This feels. It doesn't require a lot of. What's the word? For intellectual understanding to be, like, have it resonate with my soul.
Marty:Sure. You know, so you read this and you were like, yep.
Max:Yeah, this is beautiful.
Marty:This is what we need.
Max:This is beautiful. Trying it. I see it work. And I don't mean work as if, like, it's not a Jedi mind trick. Like, I don't bring nonviolent communication.
Then you go, oh, I will do whatever you say. But I've heard right. And I can be proud of how I showed up. Instead of argumentative, which I'm more aggressive than I'm avoidant.
You know, I could get into an argument. So it was saving me from that stuff. So this woman, Casey Cumbo, puts the book on her desk. She's a teammate. She ends up teaching us.
Cause she has learned how to do it. And it spreads. And people are a little reluctant.
Marty:I was gonna ask about that. Like, was it easy adoption or people. I mean, being vulnerable is scary.
Speaker F:Right, Right, Right.
Marty:I'm sure you had teammates who maybe felt scared.
Max:Yeah.
Max:Like, why are we doing this at work? You know, like, I came here to look at a spreadsheet.
Max:Right.
Max:And the spreadsheet doesn't need me to be sensitive.
Marty:Sure.
Max:You know, like, that was not, like a wide. People had different perspectives. Some people, like, this is awesome. Some people are like, I'm scared of this.
Max:Yeah.
Max:And I'm sure I felt like both, you know, but as we rolled it out, what we would hear when people would. They would share in their shoutouts channel. Shout out to nonviolent communication.
I had a conversation that I've been meaning to have with maybe a family friend.
Max:Okay.
Max:And they would talk about it in ways that were just, like, so heartwarming. Just like, I. I can't believe how much better I feel and how much easier it was having the ability to think about it ahead of time.
Get that framework so people would hear that. Then you go, well, maybe there's something here. You know, the proof is in the pudding.
People can keep coming back and being like, oh, I gave it a try. And not. It's not like, again, it's not like it hypnotizes people. But at least I got. I was clear about my message.
Marty:Do you remember some specific examples as you implemented this technique that you were seeing people changing their behavior or something improved in the communication around a certain development?
Max:Yeah.
Marty:Not to put you on spot, but I just wonder if you remember anything.
Max:I remember of a teammate coming and talking about their spouse who was struggling with drinking.
Max:Oh, boy.
Max:And using some language from nonviolent communication to be clearer with that person.
Because I know in my situations where I've struggled personally or somebody else has struggled with something, it can be easy to get scared and try to intimidate that person into changing. You know, like, stop it. You know, like, basically shame, guilt, or shaming.
Marty:Right, right, right.
Max:Anything other than saying, I'm really scared.
Max:Yeah.
Max:You know, it's like, I'm really scared.
Marty:Vulnerability piece.
Speaker F:Yeah, right.
Max:That's really tough to do. So having somebody share that with me, that they were able to speak more clearly to their spouse about something they did not know how to talk about.
And that spouse. They. Those two ended up splitting up.
Max:Okay.
Max:I'm not suggesting this was the healing part of their marriage. I'm suggesting that this guy allowed somebody to speak when they did not necessarily know how to speak in a way that they could be heard, understood.
And not all marriages.
Marty:And they learned this at work.
Max:They learned this at work.
Marty:Were able to bring it back home to their relationship.
Max:Yeah.
Max:I see that as a win that two people were able to hear one another, whether they ended up saying, we can mend this fence or not.
Max:Yeah, yeah. Right.
Marty:Then they can make the decisions that they needed to make.
Max:Yes.
Max:Yeah.
Max:Yes.
Max:So that comes to mind. Yeah.
Max:Okay.
Max:Yeah.
Max:So basically, I just love talking about this stuff because there's certain ways we communicate where we tend to have more energy of connection, and there's other ways where we communicate where we get the opposite. And I think it is a really cool thing to do more of the former and less of the latter. And I still have plenty of the latter in my life.
You know, I lose my patience I hope today when we talk, it's very clear that I'm not suggesting that anybody's ever going to do this all the time.
Marty:Sure.
Max:This is more of a. Hey, when I feel like I'm struggling, maybe when I feel like I'm not approaching something in a way that is working, go back to the menu.
You know, Go back to the menu. Am I asking enough clarifying questions? Am I sharing before I'm ready? Am I having difficult conversations? I think about that.
Do better work the book as a menu of things that if I'm stuck, I can go to and maybe help myself get unstuck.
Marty:So tell us about the book.
Max:So, yes.
Marty:So you exited lessonly.
Max:Yes.
Marty:After this journey of. I think you said nine years.
Max:Yes.
Marty:Exit lesson. You learned these lessons along the way about communication within the company and also sounds like in personal lives as well.
How did that lead to a book?
Max:Yeah, so we actually wrote. I actually wrote the book during lessonly. So I'm like six years in my.
Marty:So you were running a company?
Max:Yeah, I had a great leadership, writing a book. Executive team.
Max:Yeah.
Max:The executive team basically had to take over. I was really not around for nine months. I was around, but I was thinking about the book the whole time. I was very nervous about writing a book.
Our chief marketing officer, Kyle Lacy, a good friend of mine, really encouraged it. I was writing to the team in these notes, in these emails, and he was like, hey, I think more people could benefit from this.
And we were reaching the scale where it became really clear that we were going to need to have some sort of thing. We could all go, this is what it looks like to be the teammate we want to be. You know, something that kind of links us together.
Marty:Right.
Max:We used to be able to do that by just being in the same room together. And after a while, you can't be that 300 people.
Speaker F:Right.
Marty:So, yeah.
Max:And, you know, at this point, we're probably 100, 150. It's. It really grew quickly. Anyhow, so six years in, I start writing the book. By year seven, it's published.
It becomes something that the team can really latch onto. And it's six years later and I'm still talking about it, it's still selling. And I think that's because it's not like.
I'm not saying that because I put anything in it that was new. Nothing in this book was my original idea. This is not. This is not some brainchild of me. This is stuff that we've had in our culture for a long time.
Yeah, we just don't do it to the rate at which we. I think we'd be healthier if we did.
Max:Yeah. Yeah.
Max:You were not new.
Marty:Consolidate, though, and apply it to your own personal experience.
Max:Yeah.
Max:I think my gift was to relate it.
Max:Yeah. Yeah.
Max:To bring it together.
Marty:Tell me about that.
Max:Yeah, it was really just a lot of trial and error, like, in terms of writing the book and getting to things that I thought should go in and not go in. It was a lot of. I shed a lot of tears. There would be times when I'd be writing a chapter on a Saturday and I. And some.
And I'd be scared that somebody was going to think this was dumb. So, of course, plenty. Plenty of folks I'm sure did, but I was in this head space of, you know, this isn't going to be good enough.
It's not going to do what I want it to do or, you know, this. This chapter. I'm stuck. I'm stuck, I'm stuck. Just crying through that was really important to me. I always wanted to write a book.
I never actually thought I would. And when I finally had the chance, I was very scared.
Marty:Was there is this like an imposter syndrome kind of thing going on here? I mean, you're running a company and now you're an author.
Max:Totally, totally.
Max:Yeah.
Max:And that's why I think what really made the book work was writing about things I actually knew, not the things that I thought I should know.
Max:Yeah.
Max:You know, like, ultimately, the chapters that didn't get written were ones that I didn't know how to write. I did not know the material, and the ones that got written were ones I understood. There's no other way for me to write.
There was no chatgpt at the time to fill in the blanks. I worry about that with AI, it's like I got stuck and therefore I couldn't.
Marty:I think you would have if you had had an AI tool.
Max:Almost certainly.
Max:Yeah.
Max:I can't imagine being stuck on something and knowing that something could fill in the gaps and not wanting to see what I did.
Max:Yeah, yeah.
Marty:To give it a try. Give it a try.
Speaker F:Right.
Max:But I used to be stuck, and if I was stuck, I would just have to put it aside. And I think the benefit to being stuck and letting oneself be stuck is that just might not be something I know or understand.
And so we might have more things out in the world where people don't.
Marty:Really understand were the times when you were stuck and you were able to go back to it later. And unstick it.
Max:Oh, yeah, some things. Sometimes I was stuck because I wasn't at the root. There's a chapter called getting more Agreements.
Before that chapter became get more Agreements, it was owning the request. It was this approach of, hey, if you have a request, own it.
Because you can't just say one time, hey, I want this thing, and then be pissed that you didn't get it. I saw a lot of cultural challenges because people would say, well, I said it one time, you know, under my breath two months ago.
Marty:Right. Which is not why didn't it happen.
Max:You know, and maybe they didn't say it in the business, maybe they said it directly, but it's like how many things in your life change after a single conversation.
Max:Yeah, Very few.
Marty:Very few.
Max:So the idea was only the request and it was. I couldn't get that written. Ended up realizing, oh, I wasn't at the root of really what needs to happen here.
Getting agreements is what needs to happen. It's not a one sided thing. We need to be. And that's when it started to work. Right.
But like, hit my head, hit my head, hit my head and stopped hitting my head. When I figured out I wasn't, I was working on a branch, maybe not a root of the tree. So I'm seeing now that it's almost time to go do the talk.
Marty:It is almost time to go to talk.
Max:So I just want to tell you I enjoyed this.
Marty:Thank you. Thank you for joining us for this little podcast.
And we're really excited to hear you up on stage to flesh out and expand on, I think, the things we started talking about here.
Max:Thanks for having me.
Marty:All right, Max. Thanks, Marty.
Max:Appreciate it.
Max:Great. It.
