Lakshmi Rengarajan: [00:00:00] Dating a sort of this dance where you're trying to suss out the other person, do they share my values? Is this someone I want to spend time with? Am I drawn to this person? And you're doing that exact same thing when you're in the word.

David Fano: Alright, thanks for joining we're with Lakshmi Ren garage and who I have had the great pleasure of working with and have had direct exposure to her brilliance. And now you guys are going to get some of it through this podcast. Um, but I think it's always better to hear it directly from the person. So Lakshmi, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Ooh.

Lakshmi Rengarajan: Okay. So the best way to describe what I do now is I. I have always been fascinated and concerned with helping to answer the question, how do people get to know each other? And that has taken a lot of different forms. Um, and I think most recently [00:01:00] when we got to work together, um, there was this amazing opportunity where it actually became my job is helping an entire organization answer that question and then hopefully like spread it out to other people.

And, um, it's always been a difficult thing to explain. 'cause I think, you know, most job titles are sort of vaguely specific for a reason, Dick, just enough information that you can kind of wrap your head around it, but also like sort of vague. And so I have to often explain what I do, and I usually have a couple of different versions, metaphors analogies, and, um, but I think at the end of the day, that's what I do.

And I think right now with. With the way that the world is, this question is finally getting the attention it deserves.

David Fano: So I want to build up to how you gain that clarity on what you, cause I think a lot of people spend a whole life without that level of clarity of what they want their [00:02:00] days to sort of look like in terms of, well, how we define like what our work is, who cares.

But, um, when I like to kick this off with. When was the first time in your life that you really started to think about like your career, right? I not the, Hey, when you grow up, what do you want to be? Or what do you wanna be when you grow up? But like, when you're like, okay, these actions I'm taking are going to lead towards the things I, I do, uh, could have been like what you chose to study in school or whatever, you know?

But like when, when you feel that. Yeah.

Lakshmi Rengarajan: Oh, I was thinking about this cause I saw, you know, kind of like how you're trying to shape the podcast. And there were a bunch of moments, but I was trying to think of one. Um, so one thing was like, I, I think I took sort of a circuitous path to the corporate world.

I'll just say that. And I worked in food service for a long time. Um, I dropped out of college and kind of didn't [00:03:00] really know what I was doing. And, um, so I did a lot of jobs that I think don't necessarily aren't necessarily associated with, you know, um, being stable or the, the, the way to showcase your intelligence.

And I remember I was, I was like, you know, I bartended for a long time. And, um, I came across this book by Mike Rose, which is actually like, pulled it out today and it's, um, it was called the mind at work. And it was about, um, valuing the intelligence of the American worker in every, in every way. And he kind of opens it with, um, actually his mother was a waitress and for so long, he just saw her as a waitress and he was looking back at what she was doing and just the incredible processing power that it takes to be, to like run, run a diner and.

I think honestly, [00:04:00] like I never really saw myself as intelligent because I was always like wearing an apron or serving people, food, or, you know, running their check or making a martini. And I think that was the first time I actually gave that kind of work credit for how smart you have to be to do it well.

And I think, um, I realized that the thing that I pay a lot of attention to is I'm always paying attention to how people get to know each other. Like always, I've always paid attention to that. And I never really thought that that was something that would ever be valuable to a company or to an organization.

And it took a while. And honestly, it was always, the many people recognize me for, but going to rework was the first time that someone said, you know what, this is going to be all you do. And I think when I started to see that what I was doing, um, did have valid. And there was actually a lot of strategy and a lot of thought that I was putting into it.

Then I started to see myself differently. [00:05:00]

David Fano: You were doing that stuff, then you get, um, a job and like a more

Lakshmi Rengarajan: corporate job. That's much later on. Like,

David Fano: what was like, what, what was that like when you stopped doing that? What was the kind of like Pitt, what was the thought process? What was like the sequence of events that you're like, okay, cool.

I'm not doing this anymore. I'm going to go do something else. And it's this.

Lakshmi Rengarajan: Great question. So, um, I remember I was, I was, I was bartending in a college town and, um, people used to say to me like, oh, you're no, you're, you're, you're really good at marketing, or you're really good at like communicating. And I was like, kind of took that as like an insult.

I was like, what do you mean? Like, what does that mean?

David Fano: Um, right.

Lakshmi Rengarajan: So there was there, I went to, I went to school in a college town and they had this like school for like marketing and communications. And again, remember I only thought of myself as. Uh, bartender who can do side jobs and internships. It's like, kind of all I really thought I was capable of.

And, um, I literally, [00:06:00] I put together on paper, like an application and I walked it into the school and I think they were kind of like a little bit like thrown off. They're like, I think you're supposed to like mail this in. I don't think people walk stuff in, but I was like, I'm in the area. I'll just like walk it in.

And they ended up having like a conversation with like the admissions person and, uh, and they. And, um, I, so I got, I got a master's in marketing and then here was like the, the big moment. Um, this is 2008. So like really are not a great year to be looking for a job. And my, um, my class head voted me to be the commencement speaker, not the valedictorian.

I was not the valedictorian. I was the commencement speaker. Cause people, you know, when you grab a microphone, people think you have like the top GPA. And I gave this, I gave it this speech. It was like my first public speech. Opportunity. And I gave this speech about, um, like what I thought marketing really was, and sort of the human dimensions and very much the stuff that I talk about now, but I didn't really realize it and [00:07:00] about relationships and, um, getting to know each other.

And there was a guy in the audience and he owned the biggest advertising agency in Chicago. And he came up to me afterwards and offered me a job. And I that's how I got into it. It was a culture shock that I did not expect. Like there were so many things that like, I was thought I was older, so it was just a lot of stuff that I hadn't worked.

It's just that I hadn't picked up office culture. Like, I didn't know what a meeting maker was. Cause I remember I invited some people to have a drink with me and they didn't show up and they were like, I was like, why didn't you show up? And they're like, well, you didn't send us a meeting. And I was like, oh shit.

Like, I didn't know. I was supposed to do that. You know, just like all these things, like, you know, making decks and PowerPoints and client inter interactions, just all this stuff that I didn't know. And I remember I was a little bit older and all the people that had just graduated from college, they were significantly younger than me.

And I just, I was very honest with them. I was like, I [00:08:00] know. Dumb, but I don't know a lot of this stuff and I'm not kidding you. They used to hang out with me after hours and teach me. I was so open to being taught that, um, my first year I kind of struggled and then I, like, I got a promotion every year after that.

I just like shut up, um, in, in relevance and importance. And so I was a brand strategist. And during that time, um, I became really fascinated with like, um, the dating. And online dating had just sort of taken off. It was not on apps yet. It was just a desktop. And I saw how it was sort of changing people's behavior.

And so, um, I sort of dove into that and I started my own company and it was to, to, I guess, to summarize. It was a singles event company that sort of modeled itself after like Ted talks. Okay. So I'll just, I'll just say that, but what it was really about was this question I'm always trying to answer, which is how do people get to know each other?[00:09:00]

Right. And I was just using dating as like the vehicle. It kind of took off and it was, it was inspiring, this really cool conversation. And the, you know, I got written up in the New York times and like, all this stuff started happening and the company that I worked at, I mean, they were phenomenal. They saw that this was happening and they allowed me to go part-time.

And work on my business in their building. So like they were sort of reacting to this idea of all, all these people, having, you know, kind of side projects and endeavors and, you know, um, nurturing their inner artist or however you want to say it. And they, um, created this residency for me and allowed me to do that.

And because they allowed me to do that, um, I ended up getting acquired Aqua hired by match.com. So they saw what I was doing. And so then they bought my company and hired me. And then that took me on a totally new chapter [00:10:00] into the dating industry. So they had noticed that people on their site were getting fatigued of being online.

And so they started doing these offline events, but they'd never actually thought through what does that look like? And that was all I think about all I think about is I go into a room and I'm like, how is, how is everything. Enabling people to have the ability to get to know each other, not necessarily like interact, I'm not forcing people to have interactions, but how are all of these different ingredients working together?

And I always was like, unpacking that and I'd stuck, basically studied that for three and a half years. And so I brought that to match. And I think when I got there, um, obviously, you know, they were at the time they were holding hundreds of events every week, every month. You know, some of the scalability issues were challenging sometimes, but, um, what it did do is it got me, they allowed me to work on multiple different dating apps.

I got to like really, really know that industry. And I got, I kind [00:11:00] of got to have a front row seat to how, um, the, the changing nature of human interacts. Um, and so I, I got to see that unfold for, you know, three and a half years at match. And then all of a sudden the things that I was doing for singles, I started doing it for the employees.

Right. So there's remote teams and there's, um, you know, people joining the company. And so I started consulting on that cause they were just like, Hey, that stuff that you do for events, can you like, how can we bring that into the office? So I started working with office managers and the tech teams, and everybody was trying to figure out like, how do we get people to like get along, um, beyond the happy hour.

And then when I left match, um, I'm trying not to be too Securus. I was at this conference and someone asked this question and I raised my hand in the audience and I told them what I had done at match to help remote teams get to know each. And again, in the audience was Adam [00:12:00] Day, um, who ended up eventually bringing me to rework to say, do that talk at we work.

And so I was brought in as a guest speaker to we work and I did a talk called dating as work, and it was all about taking the lessons and learnings from the dating world into the workplace. And how do people get to know each other and who needs to get to know each other and do, is this. And, uh, I got a call the next day that said whatever that thing is, you do.

We're not sure what to call it. Can you do that here?

David Fano: When, when you left match, did you not have the next thing lined up or were you saying I'm going to go freelance a hundred percent? Like what, whatever details you can share on that, like

Lakshmi Rengarajan: that you're paying attention. Cause you're right. I did sort of skip over something.

Um, no, I love to match and I went back to Bart's. And went back to bartending and I was, um, consulting, um, for startups, a local startup in Dallas, um, about [00:13:00] like, they ha they were having the same problem. They were a small company, but they were scaling and they were starting to ramp up and they were like, um, we want to keep, we don't really know what our culture is.

And so I came in and did, um, basically helped them develop the traditions, artifacts, rituals, um, behaviors. That would sort of set the stage at that early, at that early stage for what their culture could become. Um, so very various, like very, very basic, but important questions. Like, do we celebrate birthdays?

What kind of snacks do we have in the kitchen? What is someone's, you know, first three days, like, do we have plants in the office? Um, You know, but I mean, obviously you're an architect, so I know you were thinking very much about the built environment, but I'm, I'm sort of thinking about all the little, like small, medium and large things that shape.

What is it like to be in this room and how does yeah. They

David Fano: taught us that in architecture school,

hopefully get them the [00:14:00] cover of magazines. Um, I'm going to go out on a leap here and say why, why? I think why you went back to Barton. Um, because from our conversations in the past, I feel like bartending for you was like your Petri dish. That was like your, your testing ground, um, for experimentation on human interaction.

Um, because I think I'm not making this up. I feel like you and I have kind of talked about that before. So can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think like on the surface, if you told someone, I went back to, I do this awesome job@match.com. Like one of, if not the biggest dating sites in the world.

And I went to go bartend, right? There's like an automatic ton of assumptions, but I actually think that there was a ton of intentionality there on a bigger intent that you had with your crew. And can you talk a little

Lakshmi Rengarajan: bit about that? I think there were a couple of things, reasons why I went back, I think, um, I wanted to make things with my hands again.

I think there was something that [00:15:00] I missed. I think I wanted to, you know, When you, when you, when you make a living, working with your hands and picking things up and moving things around you're, it's like very manual and very like, like your body is like such a big tool in it. Um, you miss that when it's not, and you're sitting at a desk and bartending is one of those.

So if you look at sort of like the trajectory of bartending, it actually is a reflection of like what we value. Um, and I, I feel the same way about dating. So when I was bartending in the nineties and two thousands, um, it was very much the martini Manhattan. Era. And so the drinks were, we're doing that too complicated.

And the biggest thing was speed, right? Being able to make a lot of drinks quickly. And, um, someone sort of, it changed. And then the craft cocktail really came back and all of a sudden you are having to work with like, you know, there's 15 ingredients in your drink and you got to shake it and like, I don't know, light something on fire or something, you know, like, [00:16:00] um, and before, when I was bartending, um, the first time around interacting with people was actually more important than your actual bar skills.

Your bar skills were secondary. And that was always like really important. Something we were always taught, like make a good cocktail, but your real job is to interact with people and like make sure that people are, you know, um, getting to know each other, um, fast forward, 20 years later, it all, it became all about the.

Right. So the presentation and you know, that this like sort of elevated experience of the drink and the social part was secondary. If not completely absent. I think we just go through different cycles where we w we are trying to figure out like what to showcase and what's important. And we keep playing with these ingredients.

And I think we overcompensate and we overheard. Um, and then we have to like go back and find some sort of like median. I think, um, one of the biggest things I learned and it really informs my work is that everybody wants to connect, but [00:17:00] how people experience connection is very innovative. Right. So, um, one of the things I was really proud of at my events, they attracted introverts more than extroverts.

Cause I think people always thought, well, you're, you're gonna attract extroverts. And what I learned is that, um, no introverts want to share or they want connection just as much, as much as much as anyone else. What, what they're concerned about is being interrupted or having to compete. So you want to make sure that you're designing for a moments where someone has the.

So a lot of times I'm coming and I'm doing keynotes and I'm just introducing concepts and frameworks, and then I'm seeing what people are attracted to and what, you know, what, what is like really like hitting them in the heart and the head. And then we, you know, and then we figure out, okay, like what is the plan and how do we execute it and make this actionable.

David Fano: So then you get. With an offer to come work at a company whose mission is to do this. Right. Um, get people [00:18:00] together. We're better together, you know, in the context of work. Um, you know, but that was, it's like, Hey yeah, exactly. We, we like what you're, we're picking up what you're putting down, come and help us do this more.

Lakshmi Rengarajan: Yes. Yes. Like, like literally, like, I mean, I, when I got that offer, like, Yeah, I'm pretty sure I cried, you know, because it was like, oh my God, I'm getting hired for being myself. And I think if I always like hope that everybody has that moment in their career,

David Fano: we're living in a time. Well, I think we've always, actually lived in a time that if you can gain that clarity on what you like doing, and you're able to sort of communicate the value of.

There's someone that needs it. Um, you felt you were able to do

Lakshmi Rengarajan: that. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, um, that's one of the reasons why one of the things I'm really like passionate about is helping people to see, um, [00:19:00] how, what they care about can, can transition into a page, a paid situation or a corporate job.

And one of the questions I like to ask people is, um, Like, what is something that you pay attention to more than other people, right. It's a very simple question. And as soon as people don't always know what that is, but if you can like really identify that in that is I think where you can start to put the puzzle pieces together and start to be like, okay, you know, unpack the strategy and unpack like how you're using your intelligence to pay more attention to this.

David Fano: You had what for all intensive purposes was the dream job. You got to label it wherever you wanted. Um, but there came a moment and again, I have sort of the insider view here, but that the company didn't want to pursue it. Right. And I think that that happens for a lot of. And like what were some learnings there?

Um, you know, obviously I think the, we work stories like [00:20:00] quite well-documented at this point and a lot of things started to change now being well on the other side of it, what are, what are some learnings and, you know, F you know, not necessarily like a play by play, but you had to move on from it.

Lakshmi Rengarajan: Um, I'm still figuring that out, but, um, I mean, the biggest.

It's kind of like what I said, the most important things are strangely the hardest to talk about. And so I think I'm constantly trying to like refine my message and give people ways to sample what I do. And without having to necessarily commit to giving me like a full-time person. So a lot of the work that I do works a lot better right now in the form of being a speaker and being a consultant.

Um, and then, you know, sort of slowly working my way in. So [00:21:00] I've, I've just had to find different ways to work with organizations, you know, And work with their, if their employee engagement team or their HR team or their L and D team or their D and I team and, or their commute head of heads of community is a big one that I work with now.

Right. So people kind of generally know that this is important, but actually like building a curriculum and a sequence. And how are you going to make this a part of your culture and a part of who you are.

David Fano: Well, lucky me, this was amazing. I think there's a lot of really great career insights. I think the big takeaway is like having clarity on what you want to pursue, but still being open to new ways to pursue it and like new contexts.

And I just think there's so much for people to learn from this conversation. So thank you. Thank

Lakshmi Rengarajan: you so much, Dave,

David Fano: how can people follow along with what you're doing if they want to. Hire you for consulting, learn about your career, where you're [00:22:00] putting content out. What's the best way wall that you're linked to the stuff in the show notes?

Lakshmi Rengarajan: Well, I do, I do have a podcast right now. It's called, um, paired by. And it's like, like I said, in this conversation, it's about dating, but it's about so much more than that. Um, so that's one place. And then, um, and then I just have my website, which is my first and last name.com.

David Fano: Awesome. Well, we will definitely link to those in the show notes and everyone should tune in and thank you again so much.

And that's it for this episode of Non Linear. If you enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe, share, and rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can learn more about Teal in our website tealhq.com, or follow us on social media @teal_hq. Thanks again, and please join us again to keep hearing about how we make decisions that shape our careers.