Building Remote Teams Through Culture with Leandro Cartelli

Talent acquisition remains stuck in the past while organizations have drastically evolved. "We still hire like it's 1999," explains Leandro Cartelli, CEO of Lana Talent, highlighting a critical disconnect between modern business needs and outdated hiring practices.

In this episode,  Dave and Peter explore with Leandro how successful teams are built through strategic cultural assessment rather than simple skill matching. The conversation reveals the difference between "cultural fit" and "cultural add," and how one retail company reduced their 80% turnover rate by half, saving millions through targeted assessment questions.

Leandro breaks down why remote team success hinges on comprehensive onboarding (which drives 80% better retention) and intentional connection building beyond work tasks. Without deliberate efforts like virtual team activities and structured check-ins, remote work becomes "just a slogan" rather than a successful strategy.

Key Takeaways:

• Culture encompasses both fit and add - assess how candidates navigate existing dynamics while bringing fresh perspectives
• Remote work requires intentional investment - comprehensive onboarding and dedicated connection-building are non-negotiable
• Treat talent acquisition strategically - connect hiring with development plans and performance expectations for real business impact

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Leandro and Lana Talent
• 4:18 Building Remote Teams: Individual vs Team Hiring
• 8:26 Creating Great Teams: Cultural Fit and Add
• 15:42 Assessing Company Culture for Better Hiring
• 22:07 Breaking Silos: Cross-Functional Team Dynamics
• 27:26 The Business Impact of Poor Hiring Decisions
• 31:45 Effective Remote Team Management
• 35:59 Key Takeaways and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Peter (0:04): Welcome to Definitely Maybe Agile, the podcast where Peter Maddison and David Sharrock discuss the complexities of adopting new ways of working at scale. Hello everybody! I'm here with Dave again, and we're joined by Leandro. I'm looking forward to an interesting conversation. So how about we get started, Leandro? Give us a quick introduction and let's dive in.

Leandro (0:27): Awesome, thank you Peter, and thanks for having me today. I'm Leandro, CEO and founder of Lana Talent. We basically help small and medium businesses and startups with their talent needs, specializing in Latin American talent. I've got over 15 years of recruiting experience in LATAM—started at big corporate companies like Accenture, then gradually moved to smaller companies until I founded my own. Now I try to bring all that experience and value to smaller businesses that maybe don't have the infrastructure that Accenture had for hiring in Latin America.

Dave (1:06): Before we jump into what you're describing there, Leandro, can you talk about what the typical needs are? We're going to have conversations about teams, so I'm wondering—are your clients typically trying to source complete teams, or are they looking for individual contributors? Share a bit about that.

Leandro (1:26): Yeah, it really depends on two things: the scale and stage of the company, and whether they're used to the remote model. We mainly do staffing, so companies that aren't used to staffing often start small. Smaller companies at a growth stage typically go with individual contributors first. Then, as they continue to grow and see it works, they decide to scale up—maybe they hire one developer, then three months later they want a second person, and a year later they want the full team.

We also see this with bigger companies—a few hundred people—who don't have talent in Latin America or have never staffed in the region. They start with one person, give it a go, and if they see it works for them, then they grow the team.

Leandro (2:17): Then you have companies that are more used to having remote talent—maybe not in Latin America but elsewhere. They're used to working remotely, so they already know how to manage, they have processes, and they have a very dynamic culture to ensure it works, including onboarding to help people be successful. So they already go into "let's do a five-person team." I say tech because it's maybe the most common, but you see this across the board—a tech lead and then four individual contributors, a mix of seniors. So it really depends on a couple of things. I've seen both, but I'd say for the most part, the type of clients we serve start with one and then grow from there.

Dave (3:00): We were chatting about this earlier—I'm really interested in team dynamics and how they build up. What do you look for? If I can jump into the team side, what's your experience about how to create great teams? Let's start with that focus. You're talking to somebody who wants to create great teams—what would you talk to them about? What would you recommend?

Leandro (3:21): I think there are two things, maybe even three. The first one is the basics—what are the skills you need in that role? If I need a content creator, what type of content do they need to create? What type of experience do they need? Is it industry-specific or not? So first, you start with those basic skills. That's the foundational piece, and that's where many SMBs stay—and that's where they mostly fail. You can have a checklist of skills, but then you're not going to have the right person, and you're definitely not going to have the right team.

Leandro (3:58): The second part is what we focus a lot on and what I think makes a big difference—cultural fit. I always talk about cultural fit and cultural add. Cultural fit is all around whether this person can navigate the dynamics of the company. You might be a team of people who are super direct and tell things to your face, so if you have someone who can't handle that, then they're not going to be a good fit.

The cultural add is—well, if you're a team of extroverts, maybe an introvert is good, or vice versa. Or if you have people who like to propose ideas and innovate (which is great), but then you need someone who's really big on execution, so you try to complement the things you already have.

Leandro (5:01): But that never works unless you have clarity on what that is, and that's one of the things we see a lot. Companies want us to help them find someone who's the right cultural fit and cultural add, but they don't know what their culture is all about. So it really starts by assessing the culture of your own business and company. They're all different, they're all unique, and then with that clarity, you can go out to the market and find the right person. There are a lot of things that come after hiring—I'm just focusing on hiring right now—but that's where it all starts. If you don't really know your culture, then you can talk about wanting someone who's the perfect cultural fit, but what IS your culture?

Peter (5:29): How do you help companies with those different processes? You mentioned a few different things—assessing the candidate for cultural fit, but there's also assessing the organization. How do you go through that process?

Leandro (5:41): What we basically do is first ask: Have you already gone through defining what the current culture is and what culture you want to have? Depending on where they are, we approach it differently. There are smaller companies that have done their homework, and that typically happens when you have a mix of founders—some from the entrepreneur world and some from the corporate world. When you get that mix, you typically have the entrepreneur person who's all about execution, doing, go-go-go. And then the corporate side that's more "Well, okay, let's build some processes and think about longer-term decisions that will impact what we do." When businesses and startups have that mix in the founders, they typically have their work done, so all we have to do is ask.

Leandro (6:37): When they don't, we try to do a bit of an assessment. We invest time with them and their team to discuss what it feels like to work there on a day-to-day basis. It's not the same what maybe the leadership and CEO want the culture to be versus what it actually is. You have to talk with the people about what it feels like to work there and how they would describe their company to someone they're talking to.

Once you have those conversations, you try to curate that into a few very clear lines: "Yes, we're a dynamic team. We prioritize solutions over problems. We like to have open conversations, but we're very careful and respectful when we talk to people. Sometimes we take a bit longer than we should to make decisions, which is fine."

Leandro (7:28): With that, we go to the market and talk to candidates. The way we ensure we're finding the right fit is by doing deep assessments. We do it ourselves—we have some lovely AI tools to help us—but we also provide our partners an overview based on the skills they're looking for (not only hard skills but really soft skills), what type of questions they should be asking, and what they need to be looking for.

So it's not only us, but it's them, and we complement each other. If I'm going to look at whether someone is agile, then you're going to look at how they work with the team. We're going to look at different things throughout the process, then put all that together and make a decision that's as structured as possible. Never without risk—talent decisions always have some level of risk—but that's how we do it at a high level and how we help our partners.

Dave (8:18): I feel like we're just peppering you with questions, but the reality is that Peter and I have lots of conversations about agile teams—small, dedicated, cross-functional teams. We've had really good experiences with both productivity and innovation, the contribution that these small, dedicated teams can have. Is this something you see in the market? Do you see that same thing, or is it really just the Agile and DevOps folks that see that? Do you see the same sort of behaviors in teams?

Leandro (8:57): Yes, but I think some functions are typically, even in 2025, slower than others. If you think about agility and work dynamics—and I'm going to talk about what I do, which is recruiting and talent, which I think is a perfect example—in a lot of senses, we still hire like it's 1999. We have the same job descriptions, it's a waterfall approach. You get the job description, you have a need, you build the job description, then you move on to the entire process. How you collaborate with other teams—because hiring is something that belongs to multiple teams—tends to be very slow, very bureaucratic.

Leandro (9:36): What we've seen is the most agile teams are definitely the ones that collaborate cross-functionally when you do recruiting, for example, and are very close with—for technology profiles—CTOs. They have very different dynamics in terms of working, so you get that... I don't want to say cascade, but I don't want to use words like pandemic, but it's contagious. The dynamics and the agility—that's also the cultural part. If you get teams to collaborate closely and then you have maybe a product and tech team, they typically have agile methodologies, so they bring that to other functions. As long as you're able to make them collaborate and work closely. If not, if they work in silos, then that's never going to get across to other teams, so you need to break those silos to make it work.

I believe that's also culture. You have some companies that work with silos and others that work with more cross-functional, project-based, agile methodologies, and those tend to work better for everyone. Because again, it's not only the tech teams or product teams—it goes to marketing and finance. That's how you build a culture that's relevant for everyone and can have an impact on your business in all areas of the team.

Peter (10:55): So when a customer comes to you and says, "Hey, I want a team," do you look at how the organization is operating today and think about what sort of ways of working they might have in place, how they look at engaging? Whether having an agile team coming in would make more sense than maybe a more directive product team?

Leandro (11:17): We do, and I think for some companies, they just need something that... Again, if you don't have—and that's fair—it may be possible. I always say there's... not every company is for every person, and not every person is for every company, and that's a cultural part. So you might have companies that are more agile, and the cultural add of having someone who's a bit more structured will work and help them maybe build processes that are sustainable and scalable. Other companies, it's the exact opposite.

Now, having said that, what we do is this assessment process. When you're on the outside, it's always hard because you can always recommend something, but the business needs to make that call. That's where—I think this is not just me and the staffing and recruiting industry, but even within bigger companies—HR needs to have a seat at the table. That's something that has been discussed for a long time in the broader HR industry: How do you get HR leaders and talent leaders in the conversation so that they're not basically order takers?

Leandro (12:45): The business tends to—I believe many times—neglect... Business leaders tend to neglect the value and impact of these challenges. So from my side and our side, when we're on the outside, we can recommend and we do the assessment and we recommend. They make the call at the end of the day.

What we try to do, for example for other companies, is... we do recruiting. Typically in the recruiting industry, you give a guarantee—if the person leaves within three months, then we messed up somehow together, so we'll replace them for free. We typically do that longer. We do five or six months guarantee, simply because we believe that we do a good assessment at the beginning. But it really depends on the business making that decision.

Leandro (13:07): I've seen it... For example, I used to work at PedidosYa. PedidosYa is the DoorDash of Latin America—market leader, they're great. I joined there to lead their talent function during a hyper-growth stage, from 2,000 to 6,000 people. One of the things we saw early on was there was a lot of business resistance from the business to invest the time in discussing with our talent team the development plans, the growth plans, the headcount growth, the profiles they needed, or even going to the... When we started to talk in business language, then that changed. For example, we started to talk about the impact of making a bad hire. If you make a bad hire, it can cost you up to the entire annual salary. You're never going to know what you...

Dave (13:50): I wanted to pick up on something you said that has to do with everything you're talking about. My brain keeps going back to it—you said that recruitment, talent acquisition, is a lot like it's 1999. I feel like that was this little thing that kind of drifted off, and I'm thinking, "Well, that's a really interesting observation." If I think of how organizations have changed, they've changed hugely in the last two to three decades, and you're describing part of that—that talent acquisition, maybe the expectations at least haven't changed. What is it that you want to see change? Or what do you see change in the organizations that are at the cutting edge of that field?

Leandro (14:36): I think one of the biggest things is... I'd say two things. One is the value and relevancy that we give to the function. Many times business leaders don't realize, but for the most part, most companies—this is just high-level average—replace between 20 to 30% of their organization on a yearly basis. So two or three people out of 10 are leaving for any reason, and you're getting two or three new ones. That's a lot of people changing every single year. Then the impact in terms of revenue growth... understanding that if you have diverse talent, you typically have 30 to 40% higher revenue. Those kinds of things.

Leandro (15:17): So many times business leaders don't really realize the impact that talent decisions have, and strategic decisions are being made without that in mind. We've seen the trend—for example, pandemic hit in 2020, layoffs all across the board, shrinking talent teams, and then suddenly you saw that grow from one day to the next. The impact of that shrinking and growing and hiring and firing is massive in terms of engagement, in terms of tenure, but also in terms of performance and business results and outcomes. So I think that's part one—really understanding and putting it as a top priority when you're making business decisions.

Leandro (16:21): The second part is having a more holistic view of talent. We typically have talent acquisition, and that's one silo. Then you have talent development, that's a different silo. Talent functions tend to be separate. Many of us in this industry have been advocating for a long time that it should be one single talent function that looks at the entire journey.

Because at the end of the day, you can look at... just making a simple example, you can look at your company and know where you hire people from—which companies or which channels you use (for example, referrals)—and whether people that you hire through a specific channel stay longer and perform better and grow more. When you do that, you're connecting the dots.

Leandro (16:43): I can look at my development plans for the team and think about which skills I'm developing and growing, but if I don't connect that with my hiring strategy... Do I need to reskill? Do I need to build or buy or borrow? If you don't connect those dots, you're not making the right decisions. We hire for X, but then we assess and evaluate performance for Y—that doesn't make any sense. So I think that's something that really needs to change.

There are some companies that do it, which is great, and you definitely see the difference, because you hire for the right things and you develop people for the right things. And when they leave, they leave for the right reasons. But for the most part, you see those functions being siloed, separate strategies. And again, when you connect that with the business or HR not having a seat at the table and making strategic business decisions...

Peter (17:55): You've been talking about cultural fit of the organization and the characteristics of the people we're looking to hire. There's this piece of how do we connect these and make sure we get the right puzzle piece for the team.

Leandro (18:00): Having and executing the right process is absolutely relevant to this. A lot of times, hiring is intuition, and many companies... I would say it needs to be 80% process, 20% intuition. Because there's always that feel that you get from people, and that's super relevant. You need to listen to that. But process is absolutely relevant, Peter.

To your point, I think there are a couple of things here. Executing a process is not just having the right steps, but the complementarity of those steps. I always talk about when you're going to hire someone, you need to have consistent assessment. How do you assess different skills? But then what do you assess at each stage, and who is going to look at what? How are you going to share that feedback with others, and how are you going to evaluate objectively every single candidate? You need scorecards, you need methodology for interviewing, you need agreement between all the parts that are part of that.

Leandro (19:19): From a process perspective, that's everything you need. Then, of course, there are a couple of nuances and the basics—step one, step two, we go out there and hunt for talent through this channel, then interview one, two, three, all of that.

What happens for the most part is these conversations to agree on all of that require time. You need people to sit down. You need business leaders and hiring managers to actually learn how to ask questions, which questions they need to ask, and what they need to be looking for. They don't do it, for the most part. A lot of leaders are great at it, but for the most part, you see that they don't invest the time because they're not necessarily hiring all the time, and that's fair.

Leandro (19:40): In certain businesses, you have business leaders that are hiring all the time. In those cases, they better invest the time to learn. But many times it's one hire every couple of months, so it does require time investment. If you ask me, of course it's time well invested in that process and in learning what you need to do. But many times business leaders don't do it, and that's where it all breaks. I've seen recruiting teams for the most part have the basics covered, but getting the rest of the organization mobilized and on board—that's one of the most difficult parts of achieving the outcomes.

Dave (20:21): I find it fascinating as we learn... As you go through an organization and look at organizational structure and the work they're trying to do and understand processes and work to improve them, a couple of things really jump out. One is that you can become an expert in whatever that process is—every element of it. We're really drilling into the talent acquisition and talent support side in this conversation.

But also there's the business cost. Sometimes we see these things as supporting the function of the business, supporting what the business does, but we see them as costless in some way. They're just... we're getting people in, we're backfilling, we're doing whatever it might be. I really appreciated where you're touching on understanding the cost incurred by doing it poorly in terms of lost time, lost ramp-up times, looking for new roles, continuously having to find new talent to join the team, but also in terms of, if you do it right, how that really helps land on the team and deliver really well.

You mentioned in our introduction that you're a bit of a fan of data. Given that conversation around value and value to an organization, do you have any favorite anecdotes you can share of data that shows the value of doing these things right or the value of teams?

Leandro (21:49): Yeah, I have a bunch. To be honest, I always have my go-to not only stories but data points around this, because it's fascinating when you think about it. It's just so crystal clear.

I'll share an example from one of my previous companies—a tech company. We were seeing very high turnover. This was a retail company, so in retail you typically see high turnover, but this was 70-80% turnover every year. Think about that—eight out of 10 people were just leaving every single year. You had to replace them.

Leandro (22:23): We were spending, as a company, hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars because it's not only what you invest in recruiting, but it's what you invest in training people. And when they leave, there's the operational gap when they leave. We realized that, again, when you think about retail, it's fast-paced, so you need to find someone very quickly. In terms of the skills you're looking for, it's simpler. You don't look for very senior people, at least not for the stores, so it tends to be a process that doesn't receive the attention that it needs.

What we realized was, when we did the estimation, 80% turnover every single year was costing... I remember it was slightly north of a million dollars, to be very precise. We realized that the turnover was really around the engagement that people were having with their teams. Roughly 50-60% of people when they were leaving... we did exit interviews, and it was all about, "I just don't connect with my team, I don't have fun, I just have a bad time here, I just don't want to stay."

Leandro (23:49): Again, in this industry where you can so easily move and turnover is normal, if you have 50-60% of people just leaving because of that, that's something you need to solve.

What we did was basically an assessment. We asked people what they enjoyed. We did it both for people that were leaving—what was missing—and then for people that were staying, what they enjoyed and what they liked. Out of that, there were two or three things that related to... One was very much about work dynamics on a day-to-day basis, so it was all about work and there was no space to connect with others, to meet, to enjoy, to celebrate success together. The other was around exactly that cultural fit. You had people that were very high energy and then you had people that were lower energy, more introverts, and they felt exposed many times with that collaboration in team environments.

Leandro (24:35): So we just made some adjustments. We realized, because of the culture of the company, we needed more of that sort of high-energy type profile. We just added—this was very simple—two or three questions in the interview process. "What do you look for in a team?" This one I always like because it's a very simple way to ask about what is the right cultural fit for you: "What did you enjoy most about your previous work or job, and what didn't you?"

Those questions basically helped us assess talent better, and it was like two, three questions in the interview process. Throughout the first year, we were able to reduce turnover—which again, it's retail, so it's still high—to about 50-60%. But the interesting thing was that the turnover because of those reasons we discussed, which was 50-60%, throughout the first year we had decreased to about 25-30%. So that went to half.

Leandro (25:53): I don't honestly remember the exact dollar associated with the savings we generated, but I can tell you it was very significant because after that, we had our business leaders, especially the CFO, asking to do a bit more of that. That was a very clear example to me of how you can make a change to the business when you think about talent in a more strategic way.

Peter (25:53): I think there are some similar techniques that we use. When we start to talk to teams, we start to ask very similar questions about what are you enjoying, what's working here, what's not, and what do you want to see out of this. As we think about how to move forward, we also use techniques like retrospectives to look back at what has the team been doing, what could we do next, what would be even better, and start to use techniques like that to try and help them.

Before we started talking as well, you were talking a little bit about remote work and how that's impacted by this. What sort of advice or guidance do you have when you're bringing people in to work remotely?

Leandro (26:34): There are two things that I believe make a big difference. And by the way, one comment, Peter, to what you just mentioned—that's exactly how we need to think about that, because I'm talking about recruiting and acquisition, but the conversation needs to continue afterwards. Exactly what you described—after three months, six months, or depending on the leader, we need to be having those conversations all the time. And by the way, connecting the conversation from "Hey, when we talked, when you were joining the company, you said that you wanted to learn—I don't know—AI, how to incorporate AI to your role in marketing. Are you doing that? Do you have the resources that you need? Are you enjoying it?" So connecting those thoughts along the way and having those conversations—I think that's great.

Leandro (27:22): Now, going back to your question about remote teams, I would say there are two things that really make a big difference. One is onboarding. Many times, especially in remote environments, talent is hired and there's no second thought to "Well, what happens their first day, their first week, and their first month?" So building a very comprehensive and detailed onboarding plan where you not only give them the tools—and you need to do this—describe their targets and objectives and discuss the role in detail and processes, whatever. But you also connect them with other people. Have a buddy program. Tell them who they need to talk to for different things. Create an organizational map that's not only focused on delivery and executing but is also focused on building meaningful connections.

When you do that with the onboarding process, that makes a huge difference to people. It's interesting that, again, being data-driven, I want to honor that—about 80% of the time you see an increase in retention of about 80% when you have good onboarding. That's huge.

Leandro (28:33): To incentivize good team dynamics, being very intentional with creating spaces and connections between team members that are not only focused on work. When you work in an office, there are things that are very hard to replace or impossible... I'm a big supporter of remote work, but I also believe there's a lot of value in being in person. When you're in person, you talk about the movie you watched yesterday, you talk about the season finale of The Last of Us—I won't spoil it, I promise. But that happens when you're live with someone. When you're remote, people get on a meeting and they work, and then "Are we done? Do we need anything else? No, thank you, goodbye." And there's no real connection.

Leandro (29:20): So you need to be—every business needs to be, when you have remote teams—very intentional in creating spaces that are dedicated fully to building team connections, to engaging, and driving culture. Maybe you do a 30-minute online game. We actually, with one of my teams, once we did an online escape room. I'm in Argentina, I was here, and then someone was in Poland and there was another person in the US. It was so much fun and it was 30 minutes, very well invested. We didn't get any work done, but we did escape the room and we talked about it afterwards.

There are a lot of small things you can do, but you need to be intentional because if you're not, then maybe one week, two weeks, a full month goes by that teams and people didn't connect with each other for anything outside of their actual work. Engagement is not the same. You don't feel like you're part of a team. When you connect with someone and you have fun with them and you call them a friend or a good work colleague—let's not even say friend—it feels different. The game is something that you're playing together, so you're willing to go maybe the extra mile. But you need to be intentional with creating those environments on a daily basis, I would say, or definitely weekly.

Dave (30:37): I couldn't agree more. I'm just smiling, remembering all those weird game things that we've done before.

Peter (30:42): So I guess one of the other pieces that you were talking about early on in the conversation is the work that you do with Latin American talent. You're bringing those people up. Do you see any differences bringing Latin American talent and working with either North American teams or with other parts of the world?

Leandro (31:03): I feel like I sound like a broken record, but I would say culture. I think in general... there are a couple of things. Culture is definitely one of those. But people in Latin America are very used to working remotely. They've been doing it for a long time, which in some countries more than others. For example, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico—they're more used to this type of work and they're very agile. But they bring...

I always say there's a good cultural fit between many people in certain Latin American countries and the US. But then there is a surplus which has to do with what people go through here. For example, I'm in Argentina, and politics and economics here are very unique, so people in this country tend to be super resilient, and that's something that they bring as an add.

Leandro (31:33): But I think there are other countries where it's not a great fit. For example, Peru or Ecuador, even in some parts of Mexico... in the US, people tend to be more direct in their communication. Many times the working style is more horizontal, and in some of these countries it's more vertical. They're very careful in maybe responding to someone that's higher up. They're very hierarchical. If you're a manager and I'm an analyst, then I might not speak my mind. Those are a few of the gaps that exist with some countries—not all, but in some countries—that I find to be a challenge sometimes.

Leandro (32:39): The other thing that I would say is sometimes, from the other side, I've seen... when you're in the US, so we focus on US and Canada... when you're in North America and you haven't really been exposed to Latin America or South America, there are a lot of things that you don't really know about the day-to-day reality of people here. I have seen certain frictions when it comes to—and I'm going to make a silly example—internet connection. Internet might drop. For the most part it's great, but in certain countries it's not as stable, and maybe the reaction you get is "Well, what's going on, you're not working?" when in reality, "Well, I mean, let's say I use Peru as an example... I'm in Peru and maybe internet is not as stable. One or two days a month, I just... it drops and I have a problem and I just can't get online."

Not understanding those local realities can create some level of friction in the collaboration, because from one side you get "Well, the person is not working or they don't want to work," and from the other, it's "Well, I just... my internet dropped, there's nothing I can do."

Leandro (34:06): Understanding those realities is important. So I would say those are two things that... that's why I always advise... I think it's important to advise on the right countries in the region and understand the needs of a company or a business to recommend that.

Then you make your decision. Well, people in Peru are going to hate me, but let's say Peru... Well, it might be more cost-effective, which is great. So what is your priority? Is it that it's cost-effective, or is it that the person is going to be online 100% of the time, internet is never going to fail? Well, in that case, yeah, maybe some places of Peru might not be the best, but it's still going to be more cost-effective. So you need to make that call, and sometimes those decisions are not made consciously and in the right way, and that creates friction along the way. That's when, after a month or two months, things are not working out and you need to make changes. I think with awareness and open conversation and transparency, those things are typically solved, but it does happen.

Peter (34:49): That's awesome. I really appreciate all the sharing and learning. Leandro, we're at time now at the end of our podcast, so at this point, we normally ask for three points that our listeners can take away, and since there's three of us, we each get one. So I'm going to ask you first, Dave—what would you share as your takeaway?

Dave (35:10): Oh okay, I'm just going to jump on one of my favorite topics, which is culture, and I think we've had a number of points where we've just touched on it. But we're ending right now with that realization that culture doesn't just necessarily mean the people—it can just be the infrastructure. Like every sort of touch point that we've had in the conversations, there's been that sort of layer or overview of cultural differences which I think adds so much color and so much to the opportunities there, but sometimes can be forgotten at a cost.

Peter (35:41): Leandro, what would you add as a takeaway from our conversation?

Leandro (35:44): Yeah, I would say if people, teams, businesses decide to build remote teams—which is what I do, so I definitely recommend it—make sure to invest the time to make it work. Make sure that you know what you need, what works for you, make sure that when you're hiring someone you do proper onboarding. Hiring remote or working remote only works when you're very intentional in investing the time to make it work. If not, it's just a slogan, it doesn't work. Don't waste your time. So I would say if you do remote, invest the time, make it work. If you're not going to invest the time, don't work with a remote team.

Peter (36:19): That's great. For my point, I liked the part where you were talking about the cultural assessment of the organizations as you look at them, and in particular, that it's not just about cultural fit—however you look at it, is this person going to be able to work within this organization—but also how might they add to the culture? Might there be differences where they can bring a different perspective or a different mindset to the organization that might be of value? Understanding that as a critical piece of thinking about who's the person that's most effective for these roles, because it's a very impactful decision that you're making.

So thank you both for a wonderfully enlightening conversation, as always, and our listeners can reach us at feedback@definitelymaybeagile.com or come visit our website at definitelymaybeagile.com, and I look forward to next time.

Dave (37:08): Thanks again, Leandro!

Leandro (37:09): Thank you guys. Thank you Dave, thank you Peter for having me. Great conversation, thank you.

Peter (37:12): You've been listening to Definitely Maybe Agile, the podcast where your hosts, Peter Maddison and David Sharrock, focus on the art and science of digital, agile, and DevOps at scale.