No Private DMs
episode
“HR Heretics” | How CPOs, CHROs, Founders, and Boards Build High Performing Companies
18 min
2 speakers
7 chapters
transcribed 13 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the “No Private DMs” rule and why does it matter?
What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of HR Heretics. Alright, Kelly. Today we're gonna talk about a tweet from Anjani, who is a GP at Indreessen, and he said One of my fastest growing companies has a simple rule for Slack since day one. No private DMs. All DMs are sent in a public channel called private DMs with mentions. Anyone can instantly plug into any conversation across any team. It's amazing for culture. What do you think about that?
This is a this is a mind blow. I don't even know. Like let's try to wrap our heads around it first.
How might a company actually implement a no‑private‑DM policy?
Uh So th this means to me I'm picturing a three hundred person company with everyone able to fly in and out of every DM in one main channel.
I think it's more of like every team has a channel and all channels at the company are public by default. And so you can just look and see what everyone's talking about.
Okay. I mean oh I'm just thinking about our our company. Like most channels Our public, you can browse and join. Some aren't. I think first of all, like I I don't know about you, but so many people and like competent fast people have so many issues with dealing with Slack as is. Even like a direct DM to them. Like, Nolan, hi. So I just I don't know how this is functional. Like I bet a lot of things get missed in this company is my first reaction.
Okay.
I do like the transparency. I mean who who wouldn't? I mean I love that aspect of it. Like I love the spirit of this. I don't like anonymous AMAs. I don't like A bunch of hidden stuff. I don't like the underground Slack channel. And One level of underground slack channel is the usual just terrior of people slacking each other in meetings, you know, talking shit about the meeting or that that's one level. But I've seen and heard of like underground Slack channels with like leaders in the company, just getting people together, just not doing great stuff. And I just think that's awful for culture. So I do I do like the transparency part of this.
Yeah, it's I think it's like really aspirational. Like that was my take. Is like I get public by default. makes sense and having defaults be public is important because defaults are really, really important. The thing I think about though is like I you know, f putting myself in a situation in a company. I'm struggling with somebody on my team. They're underperforming. I'm going through all of the different, you know, machinations in my head to where I'm like, what do I do about this? How do I think about this? Typically what I would do. is I would DM another leader. Or you know, some like a close confidant. And I'd say, like, hey, I'm having an issue with this person. Like, can we talk about it?
Why do the hosts argue that underground Slack channels are toxic?
So those conversations still have to be happening, right? There's still going to be private conversations. There's no way that you can avoid those things. And I don't know, I guess like it feels a little bit performative to me. I think my overarching take. Is like okay, cool, like, but come on, there's still private conversations happening. Like, let's be serious.
Yeah, it's kinda like when companies are like, We don't have a rating system. People get fucking weird. Like you know what I mean? So I do think it's a little performative. I mean, look, what do we have here? Two hundred and forty five hearts, whatever that means in Twitter land. X land, sorry. Hundred and thirty nine shares, four hundred thousand view like. It is. It's interesting. It catches your attention. I would Give half my paycheck to go around and see how that works in practice at this company. I bet you at that place a lot of people spend a lot of time in Slack versus getting shit done would be my worry about that.
Ooh.
Because even, you know, like the past how long we've been using Slack. least fifteen years, twelve years, something like that. The biggest complaint I've heard about Slack and struggle for people is they can't keep up. And some of the biggest performance challenges, issues that I've dealt with personally as a People partner is people don't do any work. They just hang out and slack channels all day.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the “No Private DMs” rule and why does it matter?
0:13–0:50
2
How might a company actually implement a no‑private‑DM policy?
0:50–3:22
3
Why do the hosts argue that underground Slack channels are toxic?
3:22–6:26
4
Can leaders still have necessary private conversations under this rule?
6:26–9:40
5
Is radical transparency just performance art or a real productivity tool?
9:40–13:41
6
How can a “How We Slack” document create clear communication rules?
13:41–17:29
7
What can we learn from Jensen Huang’s approach to one‑on‑ones?
17:29–18:01
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from “HR Heretics” | How CPOs, CHROs, Founders, and Boards Build High Performing Companies
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