Fruitful Friction
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Audio Transcript:
My name is Alex Reneman. I've spent the last 20 years building a global technology company that continues to thrive today, in no small part because we redid everything we do in the simple but powerful philosophy of flourishing it. Over time, I've realized that flourishing isn't just a business principle, it's a life principle. It's shaped how behave as a founder, how I show up as a father and husband, and how I serve as a friend to my community.
In this podcast, I'll share the core tenets of how I see flourishing through stories and lessons from our journey so you can possibly find applicable value in your own life. Work in relationship with the goal. Not just success, but lasting flourishing.
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Just a few minutes online, whether it's social media or whatnot. You you can't avoid somebody talking about culture. I talk about it a lot. And sir, I've certainly found a key to our our company success. But, you know, there's there's just the talk, right? It's about culture. It's how to protect it, how to build it, how to scale it.
Start ups are obsessing over it. Fortune five hundreds, right. Manifestos about it. And the common view is build alignment, move fast, get everyone on the same page. I mean, you even see that at the, you know, at the national level, the global level. It's this, the create enough echo chambers. So you get to hear this thing you need to hear to be able to take the action you want to take.
And that that hides itself as, as effectiveness, as as team, as, as speed. but here's the thing. Sameness can be deadly. And I don't mean metaphorically, I mean literally. take the cheetah, for example, and I if I knew this before, I'd maybe forgotten, but I just recently was reading a book where it talked a little bit about.
This is an example for monocultures. Cheetah is the fastest land animal on the planet, as we know, sleek, agile, apex man. But it's also genetically brittle, nearly extinct. there are monoculture, basically, I guess, you know, descended from just a few survivors after, an extinction event in the past, maybe 10,000 years. Who knows how long ago it was, but they're basically all speed, no resilience.
They could be eliminated by, you know, some kind of virus or other, you know, environment changing event because there just is no genetic resilience in the cheetah. And that struck a chord with me because in business and in families and even in small towns, sameness can sneak in and look like strength until it breaks. And, you know, I was reminded that a little bit this week, we we just parted ways with, with someone recently, who just didn't fit our culture.
And I think some folks might see that and think, well, you know, here we go. Do we do we just want everybody to think the same and be the same and all of that. And it's it's not that it couldn't be further from the truth. The real story is, you know, we have a lot of structures that, that this, that basically, engender creative abrasion and engagement and a festival of ideas, if you will.
We have we have a narrative structure. We have foundries where everybody in the company together to be able to to basically decide, what's important for our company. And voices are heard across the organization. So anyone at any level can question, challenge and contribute. It's it's one of our clearest, strongest initiatives. It you know, those often start with someone disagreeing and that's not a flaw.
That's our engine. That's our power. That's part of what makes us, magic, honestly. And to ensure to encourage that is important and to discourage that is deadly. And, you know, I guess, you know, again, when, when, when folks don't fit, it doesn't mean that they're the two terrible people. They can be amazing people. And this person was it is, but it's just not a fit.
And the reality is there's a difference between conformity and sameness. to to company culture alignment and and knowing can. Okay, this is this is your this is your tribe. This is where you need to be to to flourish. And I think, you know, clarity is not conformity. We don't want people to blend in. We want them to belong.
And you know, you can't belong if your differences aren't welcome. Because we all have differences. you know, while the cheetah runs fast, it really can't handle, change in that way. And it, you know, at our company, we, we would rather mount large. We'd rather run smart and thrive when change hits. I mean, I see this in my family, you know, my my son and daughter are very different.
And if, if, if I tried to make them the same, that would be killer. And I know some parents we get we get caught up in that because, boy, it'd just be easier if they did all the same things and they, they, they ate the same things and whatever else. But man, some of that differences that just, that's what brings the magic, right?
I think, at least in my experience, it's been that way. And, so anyway, I think it's it's not my job as a dad to create mini me's, or for, for my wife's job to create more enemies of her. It's not. It's not my job at Mountain Leverage to create mini me's and people who are going to agree with me.
In fact, I. Yeah. Hey, agreement feels good, and that's great. But, let's have some spirited debate when needed as well. And, and so I just when you hear culture, I just especially when you see what's going on on the news today, it's like, if you don't feel exactly the way I do, then you're a problem and you're you're going to be we're going to be we're going to boot you out and we're going to we're going to destroy you.
Right? It's it's that kind of thinking. And boy, that is I just think that's so risky as, as a leader in a, in a company or in your family and certainly in your community. I mean, diversity and I know there's a lot of the, stuff, and I'm not getting political in that way. It's just, there's things to be overtaken, obviously, and made a big deal of.
But but the notion of biodiverse ity and, and the, the notion of diversity of culture in a, in an ecosystem or an organism for that matter, when you talk genetically or in an organization, in this case, it's just it's just really valuable. And so, I guess, you know, that posture, that whole posture of, of a, of a mission aligned to diversity, it's made our company more resilient.
And now in lots of ways, you can look at us all and say, well, you're homogenized group of all the same people. We're not. There's some tenets that we hold really closely together, but generally we have lots of different kinds of thinking and actions and biases and all that kind of stuff. And it's part of what makes it makes it fun.
I mean, we're more adaptable, we're more human. And it's led to unexpected wins throughout the years and tighter bonds and people staying longer term because they fit in, but only really not not because they're exactly the same, but because they flourish here. And so flourishing isn't about frictionless living. That's that's not at all. It's about fruitful friction, if you will.
We call it creative abrasion all the time. But I like, you know, instead of friction loss living, it's fruitful friction. You know, you say that 15 times, fast. Right. But it's where challenge and care coexist, where kids, teammates, community members, whatever it is, don't have to fit a mold, but they have to stand for something, right? There has to be some alignment.
And what we're trying to do some purpose where we can align and, you know, not not exactly of we're all gonna be the same, but but there's this notion of who we are, and how we treat one another. And those things. That's where the alignment comes from is what are we about and how are we? What's this environment we're looking for, this context, this culture, whether it is your organization or your family or your community, what's the culture that you want there?
And candidly, if it's one of intolerance for any differences, that's gonna be hard. That's going to be hard for for you to be resilient when challenges come. And right now when you look across the economy, but the challenges are there now, again, if you are right now just just breathing political stuff and everything's political, you're going to miss the message I'm saying here.
I'm not I'm not talking to any single type of diversity. I'm just talking about diverse thinking, diverse personalities, diverse backgrounds, all those things. When you put that together, it's a it's a hard thing to beat. But again, there has to be alignment, right? So it's this it's this weird line of walking alignment versus diversity versus, you know, homogenization versus this, this notion of challenging one another and having that fruitful friction.
It's just important. So I don't know, maybe your mileage may vary on this, but for, for me, it's it's been a it's been a key point. I, you know, I think it was the phrase that was used maybe, maybe Lincoln use it or they use it about Lincoln, a team of rivals. I think it was even autobiography written with that phrase.
A team of rivals. And it's not that you want somebody up in your grill constantly, but you need, you know, I've found you need people around the you aren't just going to be yes men or sycophants or whatever. it's important. So I think maybe, maybe this week you ask yourself, you know, where are you creating speed at the cost of resilience?
where might you need more voices and maybe fewer echoes? I think if more of us and certainly I look across, the news today, if more of us would look at that more voices and have this festival of ideas as opposed to trying to shrink the echo chamber down to only the things you want to hear, it's, things could go, could go very differently in a, in a really good way.
flourishes and flourish is not found in sameness. I just, I really feel strongly about that. It's found in shared purpose and, and, you know, courageous differences for that matter. and it's not about we're going to show, you know, we're going to beat each other up with our differences or wave banners about how different we are. It's just the, the, the acceptance, the appreciation of a different perspective.
And that's how you avoid defeat of the cheetah, even while running fast. Right. I think that you begin to pick up speed because there is a shared alignment in terms of culture, and it allows you to be different. While also being aligned. And so it's kind of crazy. But but anyway, that's that's the message for today, I hope, for for you you are you are finding, voices out there that help support you, balanced with voices that are challenging you, challenging you to be better, challenging you to think differently, challenging you in a way to flourish.
Right? So, hey, I hope, I hope with what we've talked about today is interesting to you or valuable to you. I'd love it if you could go in and review it. So some stars in the comments, whatever you found helpful. Today's episode. And I just really appreciate it because again, we talked about it last episode. That's hey, that's the way these podcasts grow.
And I've loved so many of the comments we've gotten from folks, and I'd love to, for others to, to hear what we're doing here and, and engage and hear their voice and get their diverse level of thinking into what we're trying to accomplish here and flourishing on this podcast. So anyway, with that said, I hope wherever you may be, you are flourishing.
Alex Reneman is the founder of Mountain Leverage and Unleash Tygart and host of Flourishing w/ Alex Reneman. For 20+ years he has worked as CEO of Mountain Leverage, honing the concept of flourishing and experimenting with it in the business. In July of 2024, he decided to begin to share this idea with others, which led to his podcast, social content, and the plans for other initiatives in the future.
