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Welcome to The Culture Code podcast. On this podcast, you’ll learn how to grow, shape, and sustain a high-performance culture with the CEO of LEADx, Kevin Kruse. From designing and delivering highly effective leadership development programs, to measuring and improving the employee experience, you will understand what it takes to cultivate a thriving company culture. Through interviews with Chief People Officers, deep dives into key topics, and recordings of our invite-only community sessions, we bring you cutting-edge, data-backed insights from the most desirable companies to work for in the world.
Kruse: Hello everyone, I'm Kevin Kruse. Welcome to Culture Code. Our guest today is the Chief People Officer of Databricks, Dr. Amy Reichanadter. Amy, welcome and where are you joining from today?
Reichanadter: Thanks so much. I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area in California, and really happy to be here.
Kruse: Delighted to have you here. Normally I'm from the beautiful city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but I'm spending the month in San Jose. For those who might not be familiar with Databricks, how big is your organization and in plain language, what do you do?
Reichanadter: Great. So we have just crossed over 5,500 employees globally. We have offices around the world. Databricks is essentially the creator of the Data Lake House. What that means is we have a platform that combines the best of the data warehouse and data lake to provide a single place for organizations to unify their data and enable them to do analytics, machine learning, and AI use cases in one place. We were actually founded by the original creators of Apache Spark, if your audience knows that. We've been around for just over a decade, and we have over 10,000 organizations now using our platform.
Kruse: Incredible growth in just a decade, a thriving organization in a decade, really remarkable. How would you describe your company culture in just a few words?
Reichanadter: Yeah, maybe it would help if I just shared with you some of the history about how we created the culture, and we are very fortunate that we still have a number of active founders in the company. So many of the ideas for the culture come from them. But the way we established our culture was, we actually conducted a pretty extensive examination of the behavior of our employees. We looked at the behavior of employees who were the most successful in the organization and also the behaviors that were exhibited when we did our most innovative work. Then we looked at the other side of that, which is that we looked at the behaviors of employees who may have struggled here. Ultimately, that was the way we arrived at our cultural principles in the organization. These principles include being customer-obsessed, using first principles thinking, striving for what we call "raising the bar," having a bias for action, and putting Databricks first. You could remove the words "cultural principles," and I would describe them as ultimately sort of the keys for success. For employees to truly be successful at Databricks and, you know, be empowered to do the best work of their career here.
Kruse: So, I mean, it sounds very unique. And for our listeners, I want to ensure they caught that. You mentioned the word "behavior" many times in your answer, which doesn't surprise me since you're a clinical psychologist. And it comes naturally to you, right? What are some of the ways you foster or sustain this culture? Any unique rituals or traditions related to your culture?
Reichanadter: It's a great question, you know. We've grown extensively, as you know, and much of that growth during Covid when everyone was at home. So we had to be very intentional about the way that we wanted to continue to help employees understand what was important at Databricks, our culture, and then how we could reinforce that. And so a lot of the strategy that we took around that intentional approach was actually through our leaders. Because we were in a situation where, you know, we have employees working from home every day; they're not in the office where they can sort of organically understand how to operate.
And so we've invested a lot in leadership development and really saw that as the avenue for helping employees understand what was the key to success in terms of how they would grasp the Databricks culture and then live it in their day-to-day work here. So that's been a significant part of how we've helped indoctrinate new employees. And, you know, we talk a lot about culture. You could ask any employee in the organization what our culture is, our culture principles, and they would understand that. And it's not from having posters on the wall; we're not in the office anymore. But it's genuinely about the way that we guide behavior, the way we reinforce behavior; that's really the key to success for us. And much of that comes from the experience of managers directly with leaders, with employees, with their direct line leaders.
Kruse: Yeah. And you kind of read my mind because the next question, I'm really passionate about manager development because most of employee engagement is tied back to our experience through our manager, right? 70% of engagement is correlated to the manager, and front-line managers touch more employees than any other leadership group. What are some of the ways you develop your front-line managers?
Reichanadter: Yeah, we've taken a very employee-centric approach to the return to the office. But we also believe that being together in person is key to both innovation and employees' connection to the organization. So, we are back in the office one day a week right now for employees who are office-based, and we're sort of leaning towards increasing that over time. But we've taken a very stepwise approach to it to make sure that employees feel comfortable. And very much led with the "why," about what we're trying to accomplish by asking people to come back. And we are very data-driven, as you can imagine. So we've collected a lot of feedback from employees about what's working from home and what's been missing. And so we were able to feed back to them in a way that they could understand what was missing and what we heard from employees. That the sense of connection was starting to wane by being home all the time. So we tried to strike the balance of making it purposeful to be in the office. When people are in, they're not just sitting on Zoom all day long, and trying to really connect in person. And then for other meetings that can be effectively done remotely, we have them take it home.
Kruse: Yeah, it's such a fascinating topic. How do you solicit feedback from employees about the culture and their engagement (e.g., engagement or other surveys, town halls, ?)
Reichanadter: Yeah, we have an incredibly transparent culture. And so we do a combination of open lines of communication. We bring the whole company together one time per week, actually, which I'm sure seems like a lot at our size. We have very open communication and dialogue. Every session starts with an AMA for the CEO, and employees will ask really hard questions here. I mean, I remember when I first started, actually, our CEO Ali had me come to an all-hands event even before I started, just to introduce me to the organization. And he asked the company, "Oh, does anybody have any questions for Amy?" And like 35 hands shot up. This is in person. And I was like, and they were asking all the hard questions like, "What's your compensation philosophy? What's your diary?" That's like, "Okay, I now understand. You know, we're exactly where we are." So it's lovely. I mean, it's really a wonderful part of our way of working together.
Besides that more informal mechanism, we do a lot of data collection from employees. And so we conduct a big annual engagement survey. We get an unbelievable level of participation. We're just closing our survey today this year, and we have a 90% participation rate. I mean, it's unheard of. But I think and then we do lots of pulse surveys or sort of point-in-time surveys around specific issues. But the reason why we have such a high level of engagement about it is two things. We have a very clear, stated philosophy about transparency on the results. So we will always give back the data to employees so that they feel like they're being heard. And the other one is that we have a rigorous commitment to action planning. So if we're going to ask employees to spend the time to give us feedback on something, we'll always, obviously, share the results with them. But then they know that something's going to happen because of it, and because of that, we have this sort of wonderful cycle of being able to get feedback and help employees feel like their voice matters here.
Kruse: Yeah, this is again for our listeners. So many interesting things here. First of all, 90% completion or participation engagement service. As you said, it's unprecedented. In fact, I've been doing engagement work for over 30 years, and when I get an organization or team's engagement results back, often people jump right to like, you know, a scale of one to 5. What's their score? What percent are engaged? I look at the participation rate. Because if it's over 80%, it means people care, they're engaged. They're taking the survey. If it's under 50%, there's a problem right? Either they don't believe it's gonna be anonymous. So there's a trust issue, or they're so checked out they don't even wanna answer the survey.
Reichanadter: We've had that level of participation pretty much every year. And as we've grown so aggressively, you know, people often are like, you're crazy. We're never gonna get 90% of what we want. You know if you do the right things afterwards, and people feel like it matters, then people will spend the time on it.
Kruse: You said the key. That's where I was going. It's because you're doing it. You're giving people the results and taking action on that data because the fastest way to disengage someone is to say, Go spend 20 min answering any questions on our annual survey, and then it goes into a black hole. Right? You have no idea. So then it comes around a year later, like, Oh, that's right. We did that last year. Nothing ever happened. I'm not doing it. So it's just a sign of engagement and, you know, quality action planning. But I gotta double click on this. A weekly AMA with the CEO. Did I hear that right?
Reichanadter: Exactly.
Kruse: So what is it? It's everybody comes online same time every week and gets an update and then asks questions?
Amy Reichanadter: We actually, and we do it in reverse to be honest. So every week we have our company all hands call, and the first thing we do is an AMA with the CEO and our executive team. It's, you know, any question is fair game. So we do it in Slack, and people can upload their particular questions that they're interested in, and Ali will spend as much time as we need on that. And then we go into the content that's prepared for the meeting.
Kruse: Wow! That's incredible. Now, I'm going deep on this because it's such a unique idea. I haven't heard of other organizations doing this kind of cadence. So on the prepared content, is it sort of an update on financials, goals, etc.? Are there ever learning pieces like, how do you use that time? Because it's precious. You've asked everybody in the organization to gather around the campfire. How are you investing that time?
Reichanadter: Yeah, it's usually focused on one of two things after we do the AMA. I mean, we're obviously a highly technical population at Databricks. And so oftentimes we do something that's focused on product updates. Or we'll focus on customers. Normally, they're in those two categories.
Kruse: Yeah, I love it. I love it so much. You've already talked about it. You can tell from my enthusiasm. Related to culture, are there any special initiatives or results you’re most proud of?
Reichanadter: Yeah, I mean, I think there are probably two things that are really important to us. And one has been how we thought about leadership development, and that we have all of our leadership programs. We have three parts of our leadership development framework. So one is for new managers, helping managers who are coming into leadership for the first time. The second one is that we put all managers across the organization through an intensive experience one time per year for a couple of days. And the focus of that is completely Databricks-specific. The course is actually taught by our founders and the executive team. It's all about what we call our leadership essentials, which is the framework that we have for our leaders and really about how to bring the Databricks culture to life in their leadership behavior at Databricks. That has probably been the cornerstone of our success around culture, that program, and many managers that went through it. We have very experienced leaders from much larger organizations than ours who said that it was the most valuable learning experience they've ever had. I think, you know, part of it, when I understand that feedback, I think it's largely because of the relevance, really hearing from leaders and founders about what works here and what's important. Also, just the context of being in this super hyper growth phase for so many years does cause leaders to really want to understand something that's very unique to our own experience. And then the third part of our program is that we have what we call a velocity program, which is a program that's dedicated to our highest potential senior leaders.
Kruse: On the high-potential program, it's great that you're supporting that population. One thing I find fascinating is that high-potential programs by their nature tend to be exclusive, you know, not everybody's invited. So is that a nomination-based program, or do people apply to it and then have some kind of process? How are you doing the selection?
Reichanadter: Yeah, we actually do it. They have to be nominated by the executives in their function. And then we look at things like their past performance review scores and their contribution to the business. You know, their citizenship, the way that they live our values, things like that. And then from there, they're nominated, and then they're reviewed by myself and the CEO.
Kruse: We, as you know, this is a short-format podcast. I could geek out on this stuff forever, many hours that we don't have. What book would you recommend that your colleagues read? (or podcast, video, etc.)
Reichanadter: It would definitely be "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team." And the reason why is that we, you know, growing at this pace, because, you know, we've been growing at an accelerated pace year over year, you know, since I've been here, which has been more than four years. And the dynamics of always adding people to teams is something that's, you know, fascinating. And it really does require people to understand the phases that teams go through in their own development. And then ultimately, one of our culture principles is what we call "Databricks First." But it's really a principle around alignment and the way that people think about the organization as a whole. And I found that "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" book is also very similar in mindset to the way that we think at Databricks. So for Databricks employees, it would be applicable across the organization for everyone to read.
Kruse: Sort of a similar question. What skill or behavior do you wish your employees did more of?
Reichanadter: You know, for me, it's probably more of a mindset than a skill set right now. The fact that the whole world has opened up to the impact of generative AI is so exciting for us because we're right at the forefront of that change. So when I think about what employees need, it's really probably a combination of three things. One is just curiosity for what's happening now, and that everything that we've ever known before is going away. We're sort of in the middle of this big revolution of what's happening. So I think that kind of curious mindset is really important right now. The other one is just a learning mindset, and that we're gonna you know, everything is changing and expanding around us. So having that kind of intellectual curiosity and a learning mindset, and the other one is just a positivity about the future. And you know, I think that that is something that really helps when there is a lot of change going on both in organizations and then in technology around us. The way that the business world is operating right now is really shifting. So I think that those three characteristics would be, you know, my wish for all employees if they could. If they really could embrace that, I think that it would help all of us as we move through this kind of period of change.
Kruse: Yeah, it's really unprecedented. What excites you the most about your company right now?
Reichanadter: You know, I think when I think about Databricks, I honestly see the highest potential opportunity I've ever seen in my career. And it's kind of a combination of three things, I would say. One is the fact that the world has opened up to the work that we do. So the ability to, you know, have a positive impact on technology, businesses, science, etc., is just amazing. The other piece for me is the level of innovation that we see within our organization right now. It has been remarkable, and the third one is the level of talent that we have. And I think the thing I'm most excited about is to see those three things come together at exactly this moment in time. It's a pretty extraordinary and, I would say, rare experience. So I feel very blessed to be a part of this organization and this team at this particular moment in time.
Kruse: It's exciting to hear. With all the growth and success you've already had, for you to basically say we're just getting started, the world has just opened up to what we're about. So wow, if you've been impressed with the last 10 years, look at what's coming for the next 10 years. Amy, big thanks, and congratulations on all the success of your company and with the culture, all the programs, and big thanks for taking some time just to share with your peers here some of what you're finding success with. I'm sure they're gonna appreciate it. Thanks for coming on.
Reichanadter: I appreciate you for having me. Thanks so much.