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explains Leandro Cartelli, CEO of Lana Talent, highlighting a critical disconnect between modern business needs and outdated hiring practices.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, and so I'm here with Dave again, and we're joined by Leandro, and I'm looking forward to an interesting conversation. So how about we get started by Leandro? Give a quick introduction to yourself and get into it.

Leandro: 0:27

That's awesome. Thank you, peter, and thank you guys for having me today. I'm Leandro and I'm the CEO and founder of Lana Talent. So in Lana we basically help small, medium businesses startups with their talent needs. We specialize in Latin American talent. So you know I've done more than 15 years of recruiting in LATAM and so you know big corporate companies Accenture for example and then I slowly moved into smaller, smaller companies until I founded my own, and so now I try to bring sort of all that experience and value to other smaller businesses that maybe don't have the infrastructure that Accenture had to hire in Latin America right.

Dave: 1:06

Can you maybe just, rather than jump straight away from what you're describing there, Leandro, just talk a little bit about what are the typical needs? So again, we're going to have conversations about teams and I'm just wondering whether your clients are typically trying to source teams or they're looking for individual contributors on those teams. Maybe just share a bit about that?

Leandro: 1:26

Yeah, I would say, you know, it depends on two things, right? One, the scale of the company and the stage, and then two, whether they're used to. You know the remote model. You know we do mainly staffing, and so maybe companies are not used to staffing. And so I would say, smaller companies and you know, at a growth stage they typically go with individual contributors and then, as they continue to grow and they see it works, they decide to scale that and so maybe they hire, you know, a developer, you know one, and then three months later they want the second person, and then you know, a year later they want the full team, right? And then you know, we also see that with companies that might be bigger, you know a few hundred people, but don't have talent in Latin America, or never staffed, and so you know, in the region, and so they start with one, they give it a go. If they see it works for them, then they grow the team.

Leandro: 2:17

You then have, you know, companies that are more used to having remote talent, maybe not in Latin America, you know elsewhere, but they're used to working remote, and so what they typically do is, you know, they already know how to manage, they have you know processes and they have a very dynamic culture to. You know to ensure that it works, and you know onboarding to help them be successful, and so they already go into. You know let's do five people team right. I say tech because it's maybe the most known and common, but you know, you see this across the board. You know a tech lead and then you know four, um, individual contributors. You know a mix of seniors, you know. So it really depends on a couple of things I've seen, you know. I've seen both. I would say for the most part, companies start and the type of clients who serve start with one and then they go away from and, as I said, I'm really.

Dave: 3:00

we were chatting about this, I'm really interested in in the team dynamics and how they go out from there and, as I said, I'm really we were chatting about this I'm really interested in the team dynamics and how they build up. What do you look for If I can jump into the team side maybe what's your experience about how to create great teams? Let's just start something with that focus. You're talking to somebody they want to create great teams. What would you talk to them about? What would you recommend?

Leandro: 3:21

Yeah. So I think there's two things for the most part, maybe even three. The first one is the basics, right. So what are the skills that you need in that role, right? So if I need a content creator, well, you know what type of content do they need to create. You know what type of experience do they need. Is it industry specific or not? So first you start with those sort of basic skills, right, I think that's the foundational piece and that's, for the most part, where many SMBs stay and that's where they mostly fail. Right, Because you can have a list of skills, a checklist, but then you're not going to have the right person and you're definitely not going to do the right team.

Leandro: 3:58

And so the second part is what we focus a lot on and what I think makes a big difference, which is the cultural fit, and I always talk about cultural fit and cultural art, right. So cultural fit is all around. You know, does this person, you know, can this person navigate the dynamics of the company? Right, and so you know, you might be a team of people that just are super direct and tell things to the face, and you know, if you have someone that can handle that, then they're not going to be a good fit, right. So that's the cultural fit part. The cultural add is well, if you're a team of extroverts, maybe an introvert is good, or vice versa, right. Or if you have people that like to propose ideas and you know which is great, and they innovate, but then you need someone that's really big on execution, and so you try to complement the things that you already have, right. That never works unless you have clarity on what that is, and that's also one of the things that we see a lot, right. So companies are, you know, we want to help them find someone. That's the right cultural fit and cultural ad.

Leandro: 5:01

But they don't know what their culture is all about, and so it really starts by assessing, you know, the culture of your own business and company. They're all different. They, you know, they're all unique and then with that you can go out to the market and find the right person. There's a lot of things that come after hiring. Right, I'm just focusing on hiring right now. There's a lot of things after that, but, but that's where it all starts. Starts because if you don't really know that, then you know you can talk about yes, I want someone. That's the perfect culture of it. But what is my culture, right?

Peter: 5:29

yeah, how do you help companies with those different processes, both the, because you you mentioned a few different things. That one, the assessing the, the candidate for cultural fit, but there's also the assessing the organization. How do you go through that process with?

Leandro: 5:41

what we basically do is we first ask, right. So I think the the first thing is have you already gone through a sort of definition of, maybe, what the current culture is and what is the culture you want to have? And depending on where they are, we approach it differently. Right? There is a lot of maybe smaller companies that have done their deductions, to put it somehow, and that typically happens when you have a mix of founders that you know sort of come more from the entrepreneur world and then some of the founders or the team that come from the corporate world, right? So when you get that kind of mix, you know you typically have the entrepreneur person, that it's, you know, execution, a doer, it's go, go, go. And then the corporate side, that's more. Well, okay. So let's build a couple of processes and let's think about a couple of the longer term decisions that will impact what we do. And so you know, when we have those type of businesses and startups have that mix in the founders, they typically have their work done. So we all have you know.

Leandro: 6:37

All we have to do is ask right. When they don't, we do try to go through a bit of an assessment. So we invest time with them, to discuss with them and with their team, to discuss what it feels like to work there on a day-to-day basis, right, Because it's not the same what maybe the leadership and the CEO wants the culture to be than what it actually is. And so you have to talk about with the people what it feels like to work there, right, and how they would describe their company to someone're talking to, and so all of those things. Once you have those conversations, you then try to curate that into a few very clear lines on 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 and sometimes we take a bit of a longer time than we should to make, and, you know, sometimes we take a bit long. You know a bit of a longer time that we should to make some decisions, which is fine, right.

Leandro: 7:28

And so with that, we go to the market and talk to candidates, and when we do that, the way we ensure that we're finding the right fit is doing deep assessments, right. So we, you know we do it ourselves. We have a few lovely AI tools to help us with that, but we also provide. You know there is competency interviewing, and so we provide our partners an overview based on the skills they're looking for. You know, not only hard but really soft skills, what type of questions they should be asking and what they need to be looking for. And so it's not only us, but it's them and we complement. So if I'm going to look at whether someone is agile, then you're going to look at whether they're good, how they work with the team, right, and so we're going to look at different things throughout the process, and then we're going to put all that together and make a decision that's as structured as possible, never without risk. Right talent decisions always have some level, but that's at a very high level.

Dave: 8:18

How we do it and how we help you know our partners and um, I feel like, like at the moment it feels like we're just peppering you with questions. So, before I end, the reality is that. So Peter and I have lots of conversations about agile teams, about small, dedicated, cross-functional teams, and I think I mean we've had such really, really good experiences of both productivity, innovation, sort of contribution that these small, dedicated teams can have. Is this something that you see in the market? Do you see that same thing? Or is it really just the Agile and DevOps folks that see that? Or do you see the same sort of behaviors on a team?

Leandro: 8:57

Yes, but I think some functions are typically, even in 2025, slower than others. So, you know, if you think about agility and work dynamics, you know and I'm going to talk about what I do right, which is recruiting and talent, which I think it's a perfect example In a lot of senses we still hire like it's I don't know 1999, right, we have the same show description. It's a waterfall approach, right? So you get the show description, you have a need, so you get the subscription, you have a need, you then build the subscription and then you move on to the entire process and 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-function when you do, for example, recruiting, but are very close with you know for technology profiles and are very close to CTOs.

Leandro: 9:49

They have a very different dynamics in terms of working, so that you know, sort of, you get that cascade, or let me rephrase, that cascade, but I don't want to say but I don't want to use words like pandemic, for example, but you know it's contagious, right?

Leandro: 10:02

So the dynamics and the agility, and so that's also the cultural part, right. If you get teams to collaborate closely and then you have maybe a team product and tech, they typically have a shell methodologies and so they bring that to other functions. As long as you're able to make them collaborate and work closely, right. If not, if they work as silos, then that's never going to get across to other teams, and so you need to break those silos to make it work. And I do believe that's also culture, right. 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, right? Because again, it's not only the tech teams or the product teams, it just goes to marketing and finance, and so you know that's how you build a culture that you know that's relevant for everyone, that can have an impact to your business in all the areas of the team.

Peter: 10:55

So when you're, if 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

maybe we do right, 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. You know, not every company is for every person and not every person is for every right, and that's a cultural part right, and so you might have companies that are more agile and you know the cultural art. So having someone that's a bit more structured will work and help them maybe build processes that are sustainable and scalable, and other companies that's the exact opposite. Now, having said that, what what we do is, you know, this assessment process. We go through that it's. You know, when you're on the outside, it's always hard right, because you know you can always recommend something, but the business needs to make that call. So that's where you know. I think this is, you know, not me and the staffing and recruiting industry, but even within bigger companies, hr needs to have a seat on the table, and so 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 table in the conversation so that they're not basically order takers, and so the business tends to, I believe, many times neglect. You know business leaders tend to neglect the value and the impact of these challenges. So from my side and from 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, right. And you know what we try to do, for example for other companies, is, you know, we do recruiting.

Leandro: 12:45

Typically in the recruiting industry you give, you know, a guarantee. So if the person leaves within three months, then you know we'll replace it for free. That you know we messed up somehow together so we'll replace. We typically do that longer. We do, you know, five or six months guarantee, simply because we also believe that we do a good assessment at the beginning. But it really depends on the business making that decision and I think you know, I've seen it.

Leandro: 13:07

So, for example, I you know I used to work at PedidoShop. Pedidoshop is your door dash of Latin America right Market leader. They're great. I joined there to lead their talent function. They were at hyper growth stage from 2000. We took it to 6,000, right and one of the things we saw early on is there was a lot 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 now. When we started to talk in business language, then that changed. So, for example, we started to talk about the impact of making a bad hire. Right, so if you make a bad hire, it can cost you, you know, up to the entire annual salary. You're never going to know what you.

Dave: 13:50

I just wanted to pick up on. I think you said this statement and it has to do with everything that you're just talking about and I think I kind of let it go through my brain and my brain keeps going back to it which is you said that recruitment, talent acquisition is a lot like it's 1999. And I feel like that was that little thing, and then it kind of drifted off. And I feel like that was that little thing you know, and then it kind of drifted off and I'm thinking well, it's a really interesting observation because if I think of how organizations have changed, they've changed like hugely in the last two decades, two to three decades, and you're describing part of that, that talent acquisition, which 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

So I think one of the biggest things is. So I would say two things right. One is the value and relevancy that we give to the function. Right, so many times business leaders don't realize, but you know, for the most part, and most companies realize, but you know, for the most part and most companies and this is, you know, just high level average you replace between 20 to 30% of your organization on a yearly basis, right, so two or three people out of 10, they're leaving for any reason and you're getting two or three new ones. Right, so, that's a lot of people changing every single year, right? And then you know the impact in terms of revenue growth. You know understanding that if you have diverse talent, you know you typically have 30 to 40% higher revenue. Those kinds of things right.

Leandro: 15:17

So many times the business leaders, you know, don't really realize the impact that talent decisions have, and so I think you know many strategic decisions are being made without that in mind. You know we've seen the trend, right, so, for example, you know pandemic hit 2020, layoffs all across the board. You know shrinking talent teams, for example, and then suddenly you saw that grow from one day to the next and the impact of that shrinking and growing and hiring and firing, that's massive in terms of engagement, in terms of tenure, but also in terms of performance and business results, right and outcomes. And so I think that's part one really understanding and putting it, you know, as a top priority when you're making business decisions. The second part is having a more holistic view to talent. We typically have talent acquisition, and that's one silo, and then you have talent development, that's a different silo, and then functions. You know talent functions tend to be separate and you know many of us in this industry have, you know, have been advocating for a long time that it should be one single talent function that looks at the entire journey.

Leandro: 16:21

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

Leandro: 16:43

And you know I can look at my development plans for the team and think about which skills I'm developing and growing, but then if I don't connect that with my hiring strategy, you know, do I need to reskill?

Leandro: 16:54

Do I need to, you know, build or buy or borrow, if you don't connect those dots and you're not making the right decisions right, and so we hire for X, but then we assess, you know, and you know evaluate performance for Y, right, that doesn't make any sense. So I think that's something that really needs to change, and there have been. You know, there are some companies that do it, which is great, and you definitely see the difference, right, because you hire for the right things and you develop people for the right things and then when they leave, they leave for the right reason, but for the most part, you see those functions being siloed, you know 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, where we've got this Because you've been talking about the cultural fit of the organization and the characteristics of the people we're looking to hire.

Peter: 17:55

And there's this piece of how do we connect these and make sure we get the right puzzle piece for the pixel.

Leandro: 18:00

Having executing the right process is absolutely relevant to this, right. And so a lot of times, hiring is intuition, and many companies, you know, I would say you know it needs to be 80% process, 20% intuition. Right, because there's always that fuel that you get from people and that's super relevant. You need to listen to that. But process is absolutely relevant, peter, and to your point, I think you know there's a couple of things here, right? So executing a process is not just having the right steps, but the complementary of those steps, and so I always talk about when you're going to hire someone, you need to have consistent assessment. So how do you assess different skills? But then what do you assess at each stage and who is going to look at what? And then how you're going to share that feedback with others and how you're going to evaluate objectively every single candidate, right? And so you need scorecards and you need, you know, methodology for interviewing, you need agreement between all the parts that are part of that. So you know, from a process perspective, that's how you know, that's everything you need. And then, of course, there's a couple of nuances and you know the basics, right. So step one, step two we go out there and hand for time through this channel and then interview one, two, three. I don't know all of that right, what happens for the most part is these conversations. To agree on all of that. That requires time.

Leandro: 19:19

Right, 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 right for the most part. Right, 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

You know, 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, and so it does require time investment. And, 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 so that's where it all breaks. I've seen recruiting teams, for the most part have the basics covered, but getting you know, the rest of the organization mobilized and on board, that's that's one of the most difficult parts of of of achieving the outcomes I I find it um fascinating as we learn.

Dave: 20:21

so, so, as you go through an organization and you, you, you look at an organizational structure and the work they're trying to do and you understand processes and work to improve them and so on, the couple of things that really jump out.

Dave: 20:34

One is that everything you can become an expert in, whatever that process, is, every element of it, and we're really drilling into the talent acquisition and talent support side in this conversation.

Dave: 20:44

But also there's this this the business cost. Sometimes we see these things as they're supporting the function of the business, they're supporting what the business does, but we see them as costless in some way. They're just, you know, we're getting people in, we're backfilling, we're doing whatever it might be, and 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 employees or 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 right Now. You mentioned in our introduction, when we were just chatting around data and being a bit of a fan of data. So, given that conversation around value and value to an organization, do you have any like favorite anecdotes you can share of data that shows the value of doing these things right or the value of teams, whatever it might be?

Leandro: 21:49

Yeah, yeah, I have a bunch right. To be honest, I always have sort of 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 show an example of one of my previous companies tech company we were seeing very high turnover over. This was a retail company. So it's you know, in retail you typically see high turnover, but this was 70, 80% turnover every year. So think about that, right, eight out of 10 people were just leaving. Every single year. You had to replace them.

Leandro: 22:23

We're spending, as a company, hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars because, again, it's not only what you invest in the recruiting, but it's what you invest in training the people and when they leave and the operational gap when they leave. And so we realized that, again, when you think about retail, it's fast paced, right, and so you need to find someone very, very quickly. It's typically 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, and so you know it tends to be a process that doesn't receive the attention that it needs, right. And so what we realized was, when we did the estimation right, 80% turnover every single year was costing you know a lot of money, and so we basically changed that process. You know we discussed with the business, so we basically changed that process. You know, we discussed with the business. We basically I remember it was slightly north of a million dollars, to be very, very, you know, very precise with it we realized that the turnover was really around the engagement that people were having with their teams and so roughly 50, 60% of people when they were leaving. You know we did exit interviews and so it was all about, you know, I just I don't connect with my team, I don't have fun, you know, I just I have a bad time here, I just don't want to stay Right. And again, in this industry where you can so easily move and you know turnover is normal, then if you have 50, 60% of people just living because of that, that's something you need to solve.

Leandro: 23:49

For what we did was basically an assessment. We asked people, you know, what they enjoyed. We did it both for people that were living, like what was missing, and then for people that were staying, what they enjoyed and what they liked. Out of that. You know there were two or three things that related, you know, 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 culture fit right. So 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, maybe team environments, and so we just made some adjustments.

Leandro: 24:35

We realized, because of the culture of the company, we needed more of that sort of high energy type profile, and so we just added. This was very simple. We just added two or three questions in the interview process. You know what you look for in the team. This one I always like because it's a very simple way to ask about the what is the right culture fit for you, and it's you know what did you enjoy most about your previous work or job and what didn't you Right?

Leandro: 25:02

And so those questions basically helped us assess time better and it was like two, three questions in the interview process and throughout the first year we were able to reduce turnover, which again it's you know, it's retail, so it's still high to about 50, 60%. But the interesting thing was that the turnover, because of you know, it's retail, so it's still high to about 50, 60%. But the interesting thing was that the turnover, because of you know, those reasons we discussed, which was 50, 60% throughout the first year, we still had decreased to about 25, 30%, right, so that went to half. I don't honestly remember the exact dollar associated to the savings we generated, but I can tell you it was very, very significant because after that we had, you know, our business leaders, especially, you know, the CFO, asking to do a bit more of that right, and so that was a very, very clear example to me of how you can, you know you can make a change to the business when you think about talent in a more strategic way.

Peter: 25:53

I was going to say I think there's some similar techniques right that we use. Right. 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 about a little bit about remote work and sort of how that's impacted by this. So what sort of advice or guidance do you have when you're bringing people in to work remotely?

Leandro: 26:34

So there's 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, right, because I'm talking about recruiting and acquisition, but the conversation needs to continue afterwards, right? And so exactly what you described, right, after three months, six months or depending on the leader, we need to be having those conversations all the time, right. And, by the way, connecting the conversation from hey, when we, you know, when we talked, when you were showing the company, you said that you wanted to learn I don't know AI, how to incorporate AI. Now, everyone's talking about AI, how to incorporate AI to you know, to your role and 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, so I think that's great.

Leandro: 27:22

Now, going back to your question for remote teams, I would say there's two things that really make a big difference. One is onboarding. Many times, especially in remote environments, talent is hired. There's no second thought to well, what happens their first day, their first week and their first, and so building a very comprehensive and detailed onboarding plan where you not only give them sort of the tools, and you know you don't only which you need to do right, describe their targets and objectives and discuss about the rules, the role in detail and process, whatever, but you also connect them with other people, right. So have a you know a body program, right, tell them who they need to talk to for different things. You know, create an organization, a map that's not only focused on delivery and executing but it's also focused on building meaningful connections. And so you know, 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 percent. You see an increase in retention of about 80 percent when you have good onboarding. That's huge right.

Leandro: 28:33

People join and you know to incentivize good team dynamics, being very intentional with creating spaces, you know, and connection between the team members that are not only focused on work. And so you know, when you work in office and there's things that are very hard to replace or impossible, you know 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 have, you know you talk about the movie you watched yesterday, right, and you talk about the season finale of the Last of Us. I won't spoil it, I promise. But you know that happens when you're live with someone, when you're remote. People get on a meeting and they work, and you know they are. People get on a meeting and they work, and you know they are.

Leandro: 29:20

We done, yes, we need anything else. No, thank you, goodbye, and there's no real connection and so, um, you need to be you know every business needs to be, when you have remote, uh, teams very intentional in creating spaces that are dedicated fully to building team connections, to engaging, um, you know, and driving culture. So maybe, you know, you do a 30-minute online game, right? We actually, with one of my teams, once we did an online escape and 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.

Leandro: 29:53

We didn't get any work done, but we did escape the room and we talked about it afterwards, right, and so you know there's a lot of small things you can do, but you need to be intentional because if you're not, then it goes. You know, maybe one week, two weeks, you know full month that teams and people didn't connect with each other for anything outside of their actual work. You know engagement is not the same, right? I mean, 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 let's say good work colleague, let's not even say friend it feels different, right, the game is something that you're playing together and so you're willing to go maybe the extra mile, but you need to be intentional with creating those. You know those environments on a daily basis, I would say, or definitely in a week.

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

Yes, they were. So I guess one of the other pieces that you were talking about as well early on in the conversation is the work that you do with Latin American talents. I mean, you're bringing those up. Do you see any differences bringing with Latin American talent coming and working with either with 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. So no, I think you know in general. So there's a couple of things right. So culture is definitely one of those right, of course. But you know, people in Latin America are very used to working remotely. They've been doing it for a long time, which you know in some countries more than others. So, for example, you know Argentina, colombia, mexico, so they're, you know, they're more used to this type of work and you know they're very, they're very agile, but they bring.

Leandro: 31:33

So I always say you know there's a good culture fit between you know many people in certain Latin American countries and the US. But then there is a surplus which has to do with what you know people go through here. For example, I'm, you know, I'm in Argentina, and politics, economics here are very, very unique, and so you know people in this country tend to be super resilient and that's something that they bring as an ad right, I think. But I think there are other countries where it's not a great fit. So, for example, you know Peru or Ecuador, even in some parts of Mexico, in the US, people tend to be more direct in their communication. Maybe, you know, many times the working is more sort of horizontal and in you know, some of these countries is more sort of 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 right. And so those are a few of the gaps that exist with some countries not all, but in some countries that I find, to, you know, 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 know, when you're in the US, so you know we focus on US and Canada, right, when you're in North America and you haven't really been exposed to Latin America or South America, there is a lot of things that you don't really know about the day-to-day reality of people here, and so I have seen certain frictions when it comes to, you know and I'm going to make a silly example you know, let's say, internet connection, right, Internet might drop. It's not maybe in certain, you know, for the most part it's great, right, but in certain countries it's not as stable, right, and so 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 before I'm going to keep on using it. Well, I'm in Peru and maybe internet is not as stable in one or two days a month, I just, you know, it drops right and I have a problem and I just can't get online right. And so, you know, not understanding those local realities can create some level of friction in the collaboration, because, you know, 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, you know, my internet dropped, there's nothing I can do right. And understanding those realities is, I think, it's important. So I would say those are two things that you know. That's why I always advise. You know, I think it's important to advise on the right countries in the region and understand the needs of, you know, of a company or a business to recommend that.

Leandro: 34:06

And then, you know, you make your decision right. Well, you know, people in Peru are going to hate me, but let's say Peru, right, let's continue to talk about Peru. Well, it might be more cost effective, which is great, right? So what is your priority? Is it that it's cost effective, or is it that the person is going to be online? You know, 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 right, 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 those decisions are not made consciously and in the right way, and that creates friction along the way, and that's when you know, 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 we, at this point, normally ask for some 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, dave, what would you?

Dave: 35:10

dare as your. 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 just ending right now with that realization of culture doesn't just necessarily mean the people, it can just be the infrastructure. Even, 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 to take away from the conference?

Leandro: 35:44

Yeah, I would say, you know, if people, teams, businesses decide to build remote teams which you know, that's what I do. So you know, I definitely recommend 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. You know, 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, right. So I would say, you know, if you do remote, invest the time, make it work. If you're the remote, invest the time, make it work.

Peter: 36:19

It's great If you're not going to invest the time, don't work with the remote team, I think, 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 or, however you look at, is this person going to be able to work within this organization, but also how might they add to the culture 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 and understanding that as a critical piece of thinking about who's the person that's the most effective for these roles, because it's a very, 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 at definitelymaybeagilecom or come visit our website at definitelymaybeagilecom, and I look forward to next time.

Dave: 37:08

Thanks again, Liam and Greg.

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.