Steve Hopkins - Coffee Connoisseur, Yammer, Culture Amp and Building Responsive Organizations

My guest today, Steve Hopkins (@Stevehopkins), is one of the original signators of the Responsive.org movement. In this interview we discuss Steve's history and his current work with the start-up, Culture Amp. We cover his experience building Yammer alongside our mutual friend, Adam Pisoni, why he moved to San Francisco from Australia, and his love of coffee.

We also touch on parenting and sports, to better understand how to manage people and work as a team.

I'm always impressed with Steve's dedication to customer service, and we explore this concept through his work at Culture Amp.

I hope you enjoy this interview on building more sustainable and resilient companies with Steve Hopkins.

BOOKS DISCUSSED

“Eleven Rings: The Sole of Success” by Phil Jackson

“Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography” by Guillem Balague

“Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World” by Stanley McChrystal

“Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari

SHOW NOTES

1:30 Defining Responsive.org

4:00 The beginning of the Responsive movement and Yammer

8:30 How Steve got to Yammer

13:30 Serving and building something alongside other people

16:00 Conway’s Law

19:00 Build amazing products, build your team thoughtfully, and build the culture

23:00 How Steve’s leadership helps build culture

26:30 Steve lets everyone makes their own decision and sets a high bar in participation

30:30 Steve’s experience with other great leaders and his hockey team

33:30 Building a cohesive network despite having an ego

36:00 Metaphor between sports teams and Responsive Organizations

38:30 Team of Teams Model - everyone has a mentor

41:00 How would Steve build a coffee shop as a responsive organization?

43:00 What it means to have self management

45:30 Myths that tie people together

48:30 The future of data to inform the business culture and shape of the organization

52:00 The importance of good managers, good leaders, and personal responsibility

Find Steve on twitter: @Stevehopkins or on Linkedin: Steve Hopkins