Hire your anti-hero - Aaron Huang

Guest Aaron Huang, Chief Marketing Officer at Lumity, talks about the power of hiring divergent superpowers and personalities to create diversity of thought, hiring your anti-hero, and explains why group-think is dangerous.

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​FULL TRANSCRIPT

Nate:               
Thanks for joining today, Aaron. I was thinking that maybe you could start by telling us a little bit about yourself, your current role at Lumity, anything you want to share.

Aaron Huang:        
Sure. I am the head of marketing at Lumity. I've got a background in finance, economics, behavioral economics, marketing, and now benefits. And I'm just really interested in making a difference in how employers and employees choose health plans and benefits. And hopefully lowering the cost of healthcare for them.

​Nate:               
Thanks for joining today, Aaron. I was thinking that maybe you could start by telling us a little bit about yourself, your current role at Lumity, anything you want to share.

Aaron Huang:        
Sure. I am the head of marketing at Lumity. I've got a background in finance, economics, behavioral economics, marketing, and now benefits. And I'm just really interested in making a difference in how employers and employees choose health plans and benefits. And hopefully lowering the cost of healthcare for them.

Nate:               
That's great. So it's a really interesting and different background than a lot of people in employee benefits, although I think it's fair to say that most people don't go to school to be an employee benefits guru.

Aaron Huang:        
Or an insurance broker, for that matter.

Nate:               
Right. Exactly. So how did you... what was that path like, and how do you feel about it now? I mean what's the interest there?

Aaron Huang:        
Yeah, it's a good question. The more I look into the healthcare space the more interesting it is. It's one of those industries that's highly complex. It's got a lot of regulation. In the past there hasn't been much innovation.

And yet it's an area that, you know, you talk to your family members, your friends, and they all have struggles with navigating health plans, health insurance, healthcare benefits. And so it's a real need that is in desperate need of a practical approach to solving this... so from that perspective it's been really interesting.

From a financial and behavioral economics standpoint it's been interesting because the way that health plans are designed today really don't speak much to the consumer. They speak really to underwriters and actuaries.

How do you design and communicate something as complex as a health plan to a 26 year old that's just gotten off their parents' health plan for the first time, and help them make good decisions?

I think a lot of companies that we're looking at now are undergoing this phase shift in generations, so it's a particularly apt time to enter this space and see if we can make a difference and upend some of those traditional mindsets in benefits.

Nate:               
Yeah, it's interesting. I was just having a conversation with somebody earlier who found themselves working in employee benefits--24 years old--and he basically said, "I hate interacting with the benefits system and health plans, and all of this stuff." And I thought to myself, I don't know anybody that does really enjoy it, so...

Aaron Huang:        
Yeah. I tell people, you know, it's basically like interacting with Comcast. You know, try canceling your subscription and see what happens. It's definitely not the greatest experience in the world. And I know there's a lot of companies that are trying to solve that, but absolutely I think that's a very... that's a very accurate reflection honestly of the experience right now.

Nate:               
Yeah. I know we're here to talk about organizational design, which has a million different permutations and areas you can look at it from. But I'm interested in diving deeper into your background and my background is pretty diverse as well.

So when you're specifically building teams that are in this HR/employee benefits space, do you think there's extra value in having people on the team who have diverse experiences, diverse backgrounds? Or do you think it's really imperative that they are domain experts? What's your view on setting up organizations around HR and benefits?

Aaron Huang:        
It's a good question. I think it depends on the role.

There are obviously some roles in which you do require specialists, particularly in benefits. A lot of folks even struggle with this, but the reason that they look for compliance experts is you're not looking necessarily for someone that's broad. You might need someone that's just focused on, you know, the New York area, the California market. To me it depends on the role.

Honestly, when we come to scaling teams, really I'm looking for someone almost with what I would call a wide breadth of personal experience, but maybe a more focused narrative around professional experience, particularly early in their career.

Aaron Huang:        
I think as you get higher up in seniority there is definitely something to be said about broader functional coverage and functional experience. Particularly in HR I think ... the interpretation of HR these days has evolved into people management, people operations, culture, inclusion, and leadership development.

And a lot of those things that are rebranding the industry, you're moving from really the definition of HR as being purely administrative function to something that can really develop the culture of a company.

      
So I do think when as you up level into some of those higher orders of thinking it's important to have as many models of culture leadership developing teams as possible to really form fit into the actual culture and the business model of the company that those folks are actually working from.

Nate:               
Yeah, it's a really interesting point. I think also, for me, whenever I've heard the term org design it feels mysterious and almost like magic because I've never really worked for an organization that seems to have a conscious organizational design. It is a little more organic sometimes.

Aaron Huang:        
Sure.

Nate:               
So I'm curious, when we say org design, what does that mean to you and how can we get to the point where we're ahead of the curve, and we're consciously creating organizations with certain outcomes in mind?

Aaron Huang:        
I mean, it's a great question again. I mean, I'm basically putting my marketing hat back on because I usually say well is there an intention to begin with? It really depends on the backgrounds, honestly, of the founder and the co-founders of the CEO. They set the tone, direction, breadth, and the pace of organizational design and culture.

And on a broader perspective if you zoom out from there, you know, at least in our capitalist society, the shareholders also set up that tenor and that tone.
      
There's always tension, I think, between all these different groups of people that have influence over a culture. And that culture then influences down how that organization is designed. I think it depends really on a broader vision, really for the management and the C levels around how do we structure the company for success.

To me the building block of that is how do we make sure that we design and essentially job craft each role where each person thinks about and knows what the criteria for success are.

To me that's almost a foundational piece. And I do think that every company undergoes some iteration, whether it's intentional or not, around that specific aspect because that's essentially what capitalism and efficiency and organizational design intersect at, at the base... at a like core founding principles.

Beyond that, I think there's a lot of constructs that live out there. But I do think, you know, this is better left for companies that are larger that have larger sample sizes to be able to look at this from a population perspective.

Really, to me, smaller companies, you know, the core focus should be, especially as they're growing and evolving: How do we evolve? How do we bring our people with us? What roles and what types of people are gonna be successful for each role?

That's basically the foundation to me of organizational design and culture. That's, I think, almost a very organic process and discussion that I think most entrepreneurs and most management teams have with their employees and their front line staff.

Nate:               
Yeah, and you mentioned the term job crafting. Job design is another concept I've seen out there. Are there any trends or thoughts that you might have?

You've got a view being on the provider side into a lot of organizations, and you've seen a lot of different types of structures I'm sure. Are there any trends out there that you find particularly appealing? Maybe some thoughts about job crafting, job design, hiring skills, that world?

Aaron Huang:        
I think there's definitely a point in terms of, at least my own philosophy, which is group think is dangerous in many ways. The hiring manager should really have a vision and drive towards a specific goal or objective. But the singular mindset needs to be essentially complimented with more diversions, opinions, thoughts, and views on the team.

It's not to say that they should be diametrically opposed, obviously, to the goal. But just adding essentially a more diverse flavor to the team always produces, to me at least, better outcomes than having too much of a group think mentality.

Nate:               
This gets to that theory around people tend to hire themselves, or people like themselves.

Aaron Huang:        
Right.

Nate:               
So really what you're saying is you should hire your anti-hero?

Aaron Huang:        
If you look at the debate around Silicon Valley, around the indictment, if you will, of tech bro culture. On one side the folks there in that culture say, "Well, you know, when you're in a certain culture it's easier to collaborate and execute."

And I will give some credit and it's easier to communicate when you have a similar background or a shared history, or a shared narrative, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's gonna make the team successful in the long run. Because in the long run the ability to outthink your competitor, your opponent, comes down to the fact that you're gonna have to have some diverse opinions and thoughts within the group.

And it may not have to do with even racial diversity. That's just one facet of this. It really just has to do with: Do you have the right sets of opinions that you need as a decision maker or a leader to make the best possible decision? And if not, understand what perspective you think you need and go out and hire for it.

Your team should be not only just executors, but in my experience, and in my opinion, they should also be treated as co-creators or advisors, given the fact that especially even with specialists they have certain viewpoints in their deeper realm that a lot of decision makers just don't have.

It's important to just hold that space, hold that container, provide the boundary conditions and the guidelines, but then hire people with that wider container in mind to be able to make sure that there's all blind spots are adequately covered.

Nate:               
That's great. I think there's... I had a manager many years ago that liked to talk about different people's superpowers. So, you know, and each individual does have something that they bring that they do extremely well compared to somebody else. And he used to find it hilarious.

In team meetings he would look around and go, "All of you guys are using your superpowers against each other right now." And I think people do have a tendency to do that, to stand on their side of the super power and not look at their weaknesses and try to view things from other people's point of view.

Aaron Huang:        
Right.

Nate:              
So I guess one of my last questions for you then is what is Aaron's superpower?

Aaron Huang:        
I think one of my best super powers is the fact that I just, you know, I think my s--t stinks. I'm not one of those people that doesn't think their s--t stinks. And that's the culture and philosophy that I push down to my team, which is, to reflect your earlier point, everyone's strengths is their greatest weakness, and so know when and when not to use your superpower.

And understand where your weaknesses are and hire out for them collectively. And drive towards a common vision that makes sense for the goals and the objectives of the company. But interpret it down to different layers and different levels so that everyone understands what the goals and objectives from their point of view. I think that is one of my strengths.

Nate:               
Awesome. Well, thanks again for joining me today. I really appreciate it.

Aaron Huang:        
Yeah, you're welcome. This has been great.