Lisa Bougie

Roy Notowitz: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the very first episode of How I Hire, a new podcast that taps directly into the best executive hiring advice and insights. I'm Roy Notowitz, Founder and President of Noto Group Executive Search. As a go-to firm for purpose-driven companies, we've been lucky to work with some of the world's most inspiring leaders as they've tackled the challenge of building high performance leadership teams.

On this podcast, I sit down with some of these very people to spark a conversation about how to achieve success in hiring and create strong purposeful leadership for the next generation of companies. I'm excited to host a great colleague, friend, and accomplished guest, Lisa Bougie, on How I Hire. She was most recently the Chief Merchandising Officer and General Manager of Stitch Fix, Women.

She joined Stitch Fix in 2013. She led the company's biggest business and expanded into new markets and product categories, which ultimately resulted in an IPO in late 2017. Prior to Stitch Fix, Lisa was the General Manager of the Direct to Consumer business at Nike and has also held product marketing and merchandising leadership roles at Patagonia and Gap.

In her current capacity as an independent director, advisor, and investor, Lisa has been dedicating her time, energy, and resources towards working with purpose leaders of environmentally conscious companies that also support wellness and gender equality. To this end, Lisa serves on the board of directors for EILEEN FISHER and Cora and is also an advisor to Bulletin.

Today, Lisa will share her hiring wisdom, beliefs, and frameworks, drawing upon her years of experience as an executive at Gap Patagonia, Nike, and Stitch Fix.

So I was introduced to Lisa about two years ago when I was conducting a board level search for a client in New York. And from the moment I started talking with her, I was so impressed with her values, her leadership, and her approach to building teams. So it's a great honor to have her on our show. Lisa, I appreciate you taking time to speak with us about how you hire.

Lisa Bougie: [00:02:23] Thank you so much, Roy. I am really happy to be here with you today. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:02:27] Okay, let's dive right in. Lisa, can you share with us today how important hiring has been to your success leading these fast-growing and innovative brands? 

Lisa Bougie: [00:02:36] I'd love to thank you. I think I have to start by sharing a belief that I hold which is that everything that happens in business comes down to the people and there is no way no how that I could have achieved what I have in my career without surrounding myself with exceptional people and exceptional certainly with regard to their area of expertise, but perhaps even more importantly, exceptional with regard to their values and their mindsets. You know, at Stitch Fix, part of the way that we evaluated leaders was based upon whether or not they hired people better than themselves. 

Like that was actually, like, part of the assessment process with regard to self-reflection, but also annual development and it takes courage to do that for so many reasons and yet, that's how world-class teams are made. So, you know, I think the better part is something that I have intuitively focused on but we kind of structured that in a way at Stitch Fix and not so much just better with regard to specific skills, but also with regard to growth mindset and building teams that are populated with individuals that are extraordinarily committed to growing and learning and making mistakes and getting better as a result of the learning that comes from those mistakes. 

And so with regard to your question, I think this growth mindset piece is particularly essential in a fast-growing an innovative company because the pace of iteration is so intense and if you aren't getting better with each rev, you're actually not keeping pace with the company. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:04:27] So, how did you evaluate, develop, and test the hiring competency within your leadership team? 

Lisa Bougie: [00:04:34] Yeah, I mean, I think it's two fold. So there definitely was a great deal of commitment within the company to teach, train, and also coach these skills. 

So at the moment that we kind of declared this as an important aspect to one's leadership responsibilities, we made that explicit kind of by codifying it and training it but then in more, you know day-to-day practical terms, part of the way in which we brought people in for assessment in hiring was intentionally multifaceted and a part of that included a panel interview. 

A panel interview is, I think, first of all just a great best practice, but in terms of kind of teasing and teaching in the moment, it creates an optimal circumstance whereby everyone that's a part of that panel interview has a simultaneous experience can then compare notes and actually where appropriate challenge each other so that if, as an example, there was an extraordinarily well suited candidate who may have been you know, air quote, better, but for whatever reason the hiring manager wasn't leaning into that then I could challenge that person and - 

So it was a really open and fluid process but because we had structure to guide the decision making, I think we were able to effectively kind of teach, train, and ultimately scale that model.

Roy Notowitz: [00:06:01] How did you keep people from the groupthink mentality? So if you're doing panel interviews and the first person to speak in the feedback has a certain perspective that could shape or influence other people's perspective. How did you keep things objective in that type of format? 

Lisa Bougie: [00:06:16] I mean, one of the best practices that I learned kind of throughout my career journey, specifically at Nike - I think Nike was extraordinarily good at being clear up front on kind of the problem they were trying to solve with regard to the hire and with that kind of rigor, the hiring manager also was responsible for identifying the key competencies that would lead to an individual's success in that role. I brought this to Stitch Fix as well. 

But ultimately once those competencies were defined, we assigned actual competencies to each individual that was on the panel so that the role that the person in the panel was playing was also very specific and intentional and we could kind of move off and move through topics as we needed to in order to get a holistic assessment, as, you know, was set out in the objective of the interview to begin with. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:07:13] So that was a method that you learned at Nike. As you were moving up through the ranks in other companies, what other skill sets or things did you develop with regard to hiring from say Patagonia or Stitch Fix? 

Lisa Bougie: [00:07:24] It's really interesting. I don't know if you've ever had this experience in your life, but sometimes only with the benefit of hindsight can you appreciate how each experience that you've had has helped to identify, like, a key ingredient to the perfect recipe. Kind of a weird analogy, but that's actually what's coming to me.

Like I feel like I picked up great best practices at Gap, at Patagonia, at Nike and then was able to put together the recipe at Stitch Fix because it was a ground up situation. So I think, you know, Patagonia, I'll take the opportunity to focus in on for a moment. In the sense that... Clearly mission-driven company, which is why on a personal level I was attracted to it in the first place but so much about the interview process there is about assessing value alignment and culture fit and...

Actually, I learned this as a candidate when I was preparing for an interview and a friend of mine - she did not work at Patagonia - and she said, you realize that you're going to be interviewed for fit not for technical skills.

Like they already know your skill. Now, they're just looking to see if kind of the cultural assimilation piece is there and that really helped to flip a switch in my mind in terms of, in that moment, better understanding the prioritization of vetting for that upfront in the process and that's something that we brought to Stitch Fix too. Fortunately, my friend Margo Downs who was the Chief People and Culture Officer at Stitch Fix had a similar experience in her time at lululemon and also at Starbucks.

So there were a few of us in those early days that kind of brought with us the value of that and that became also quite pivotal in the hiring process at Stitch Fix. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:09:05] So, you talk about art and science in hiring. How did you apply those principles when you were hiring people at Stitch Fix? 

Lisa Bougie: [00:09:14] You know at Stitch Fix there's a continuum, of course in terms of the role itself. So each role has a different equilibrium, if you will, between art and science. So there is no short answer to that question. It really depended on, on the role. But ultimately from an art perspective, I think the way that we thought about it is talent mining is a science that machines can do and interviewing is a art that only people can do and so kind of that the way in which we created structure and, and consistency -

Consistency is really important in the interviewing process. I think, you know helped to yield a really effective system and because we had also done the work upfront relative to defining the cultural side of things, our operating system, we could also hold hiring managers accountable to that in a way that again machines can't do.

Roy Notowitz: [00:10:12] So, I'm interested in talking a little bit about the operating system. We had talked about that in the past at Stitch Fix. It's fascinating and compelling and I'm interested in if you can share how you're able to hire within that framework and how that helped you when you were hiring people to make sure you had the right fit.

Lisa Bougie: [00:10:31] I mean another belief that I hold is that a strong adaptive culture is a source of massive competitive advantage. I was not alone in that belief either fortunately with my peer group at Stitch Fix in terms of the early leaders. And so we took the time, we made the time, we made it a priority to codify what we called our operating system, which ultimately informed the company's culture that we aspire to create.

Culture of course is generated by the people that make up the population of that place and the daily choices they make and the behaviors that they exhibit and I guess I'm taking the time to define that because I feel like culture is a bit overused these days. And to be clear when I talk about culture, I'm not talking about free snacks and craft beer. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:11:22] [Laughs]

Lisa Bougie: [00:11:23] I think sometimes especially in the startup world like culture is like this amorphous word that people are like wait, what does that mean? And so at Stitch Fix, what it meant is an actual architecture that consisted of three pillars: our people standards, our values and, our leadership qualities, and those pillars were supported by a foundation of feedback. 

So ultimately we had three people standards. We had four values. We had five leadership qualities, and we used that operating system every step of the way in the hiring process and so let me be more specific. So, we had a three step approach to hiring. The first was the phone screen.

We use that initial phone screen to vet specifically for people standards, we considered our people standards the cost of entry. Like if you don't meet our people standards - you might be the brightest person on the face of the planet for the job, but actually, sorry this isn't you know place for you.

Roy Notowitz: [00:12:29] What, what were those standards? 

Lisa Bougie: [00:12:31] Yeah, they were bright, kind, and goal-oriented and we chose those words with a tremendous amount of intention. Meaning that we chose bright and not smart. We chose goal-oriented not ambitious. We chose kind not nice. So we really put in the time and the energy to make sure that our word choice was as crisp as it possibly could be relative to the place that we wanted to create and so ultimately yeah, like if you didn't come off as bright, kind, and goal oriented in the phone screen, you didn't move to the next step.

Roy Notowitz: [00:13:11] So that's really interesting because a lot times people define culture individually and then there's all these people within the organization defining it individually. So one person's idea of culture fit might not be the same exactly as another. So how did you create sort of a common knowledge of what you're listening for when you're asking questions around that like the difference between kind and nice and smart and bright.

Lisa Bougie: [00:13:35] Yeah, we trained to it. So, we spent two days with every employee in the company. It didn't matter if you were technically a hiring manager or not. Every single person went through the training and it was essentially kind of cultural assimilation for us to be every bit as explicit in the whys behind the choices and then importantly how it was each of our responsibility to uphold those intentions and I think one of the things that was really important about our approach there is that oftentimes we would get this question from new hires.

How do you leaders keep the culture of this place so amazing? And we will be like. Well, wait a minute. It's actually all of our responsibilities to. generate this culture that isn't, like, relegated to a title or a person or whatever and so we upheld that and there was, like, the initial training that I've already talked about.

But also in the early days, we recognized and told stories every single week in, like, a meeting format about like, hey, I saw this person really exemplify this standard the other day. And so essentially reinforced behavior by sharing what we saw so that people could really understand how that came to life.

Roy Notowitz: [00:14:59] So we talked about people standards and the phone screen as being the first step. What was the second step? 

Lisa Bougie: [00:15:06] So the second step was a panel interview and then also some cross-functional one-on-ones and that step focused on the second pillar which was our values and ultimately in a similar way that I had shared our focus on competency-based questions at Nike, we also at Stitch fix assigned values for individuals to focus on really with the intent to cover as much territory as we could with the candidate and then at the end of the day would come together to share our observations of the candidate and compare notes.

And we found that to be a really effective way of ensuring that we were holistically evaluating the individual while also, obviously, as I expressed from my experience at Patagonia, making sure that the alignment was intact in a really authentic way. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:15:56] Can you remember what the values were? At Stitch Fix? I still remember the ones from Nike I could probably recite them. 

Lisa Bougie: [00:16:03] I know they kind of become second nature

Roy Notowitz: [00:16:04] [Laughs]

Lisa Bougie: [00:16:05] don't they? At Stitch Fix there were four and in no particular order: partnership, integrity, innovation, and responsibility and we even did a double click, like in the materials that we had posted around the office, but also taught and trained made sure that people really understood like, integrity meant we tell the truth and responsibility meant we create our future etc. 

So, I guess there's a theme here with regard to a belief that we held that is words matter and spending that time up front to be clear about what we were seeking to create I think was incredibly beneficial to vetting for the right candidates and ultimately making great hiring decisions, which was particularly important given the pace of the growth that we were experiencing. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:16:57] Yeah, it seems like, in order for somebody to succeed in a company like Stitch Fix, or even at Nike and Patagonia, you have to find somebody who matches, you know, not only the competencies but also the culture and so that might eliminate a lot of people.

So how did you make sure that you enough of a diverse candidate pool? 

Lisa Bougie: [00:17:18] I think a couple things. So first off, we were very comfortable with the fact that not all cultures are for all people. I mean that certainly was our belief system that informed hiring decisions. But you know occasionally hiring mistakes happen as well and we were also really comfortable with that if it meant terminating a relationship with an employee, so that's one thing. And then in terms of your question of, like, was our pipeline big enough and did that ever create trouble?

I do not remember a time that we did not have enough candidates. I think ultimately what it meant is we probably talked to more people than most for every single role, but I can also share with you that there were very few hiring mistakes. So perhaps if we were to evaluate time my intuition would tell me it may have taken us a bit longer to hire the right person but they stayed.

Roy Notowitz: [00:18:15] Right.

Lisa Bougie: [00:18:15] And 10 times out of 10, I'll take the long-term play versus the short-term play, especially on people given the inextricable connection between achieving goals and, you know, having right people to do it. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:18:26] I think also, you touched on it earlier when you talked about having the right questions and words matter and knowing what to listen for, so maybe, you know, in some ways you're able to learn more about candidates coming through the pipeline because you were thoughtful on the front end. Do you think there's any truth in that? 

Lisa Bougie: [00:18:44] I absolutely do. I appreciate you saying that. You know, it's interesting because so much about the customer experience at Stitch Fix specifically is about understanding ones preferences, right and predispositions so that we could serve them with a personalized and curated product assortment and in some ways what you're making me think about is, although the hiring process wasn't exactly is data-driven as the styling process, there definitely were some intentional commonalities in terms of really taking the time to understand the individual to ensure, like, the best personal fit possible on both sides like, on Stitch Fix's side as well as on the candidate side. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:19:25] So, when it comes to hiring on your team, what's the process that you use and who did you involve in that process? 

Lisa Bougie: [00:19:31] It depended on the role but let's just say if it was a role that was reporting directly to myself, part of the DNA of Stitch Fix is it's a deeply cross-functionally integrated business model. That's actually one of the unique advantages of the business with regard to the deep integration of every function.

And so we incorporated that principle into our hiring process as well. So as an example, at a point in time when I was hiring a VP of Buying, as part of both the panel interview and also the project - and we should talk about the project because I think that was an important component but we always had a cross-functional team represented.

So on a panel you might have a data scientist. You might have someone from marketing. You would have a peer or two that would be commensurate with the role. We also included a couple of people that would be reporting to that individual. So it was very much a cross-section of what I would call the constituency that had a stake in the hire.

But ultimately, of course the hiring manager got to make the call. But I actually think that the diversity of those that were hiring also was extraordinarily beneficial to creating diverse outcomes with regard to those that we hired. So there is an interesting correlation and connection to think about whom are you asking to do the interviewing and how can that contribute to ensuring the development of a diverse team on the output side?

Roy Notowitz: [00:21:07] So you talked about people standards in the first part and then values in the second part, the panel, and then was there a third part - you mentioned the project. 

Lisa Bougie: [00:21:15] I really want to talk about this because I think, you know, we talked about some best practices from Patagonia around values and best practices from Nike around competency-based questions and Stitch Fix - like the recipe of them all.

The thing that was unique about Stitch Fix that I have become incredibly passionate about is the last step in the process, which was a project. So if an individual went through the phone screen, thumbs up, went through the interview, thumbs up, then the next stage was a project and that was held true for every single role in the company.

It didn't matter what role you were interviewing every single person had a project and that project was not so much to assess the technical skills. Although certainly the brief was related to the role itself, but actually it was more to understand the leadership qualities, which was the last pillar of the operating system, of which there were five, and to get a sense of how the candidate solves problems, how the candidate's ability to communicate in potentially a high-stress situation. 

Hopefully, we didn't create a stressful situation, but you know, it's possible. And also how they took feedback because, if you recall feedback was the foundation of our operating system.

I am such a believer in this process. There were many times where we thought we had an ace in the hole with the candidate, you know, based on steps one and two and then the project went sideways and it was a big no. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:22:42] We use projects a lot and I feel like it's a great way to have a dialogue beyond just questions and answers to really learn how somebody thinks, you know, if they think strategically, how they communicate, how it might be to actually work with them. And at the same time for the candidate, it gives them an opportunity to get a sense of what it might be like to work there or work within this environment and culture. So I think that's really powerful and it's, it's kind of cool. Did you do that at other companies as well? 

Lisa Bougie: [00:23:08] No, it was a new practice. So it was new to me as a candidate coming to Stitch Fix and, I mean I loved it, I love a project. [Laughs] But anyway, it was - I guess the reason I share that is that was a part of her kind of hiring tenants from the beginning.

Roy Notowitz: [00:23:25] Smart.

Lisa Bougie: [00:23:25] She established that practice and I, like I said, am quite an advocate for it.

Roy Notowitz: [00:23:31] Yeah, I mean - and also in those situations, it's almost like there's no right or wrong strategy or answer to the project. It's more around how they think and solve problems and how they might approach things. Is that right? 

Lisa Bougie: [00:23:42] That's right. That's absolutely right. And actually we would say that upfront when we shared the brief with the candidate. We would say precisely that so that they weren't paralyzed by getting the answer like right because actually there was no right.

Roy Notowitz: [00:23:57] Well, they might not have all the data or context right? So -

Lisa Bougie: [00:24:00] That's right.

Roy Notowitz: [00:24:00] They might have to make some assumptions 

Lisa Bougie: [00:24:02] Exactly. Exactly. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:24:03] Yeah. And usually you couldn't have them be completely cumbersome right? It had to be something you give them some information or data or the framework and then maybe they would do it on a Sunday afternoon or something like that? Or would it be like a big project that they'd have to work days and weeks on? 

Lisa Bougie: [00:24:18] Hopefully not

Roy Notowitz: [00:24:19] [Laughs]

Lisa Bougie: [00:24:19] That definitely was something that we tried to avoid.

Yes, you know if there's a bite-sized chunk in terms of a brief and generally included a data set, yeah, it was the type of project that could be completed hopefully in a few hours. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:24:34] So when it comes to hiring every executive has had successes and failures. So if you think about key learnings through those experiences that you've had getting it right and then sometimes not getting it right, can you pinpoint some of the success factors or failure points? 

Lisa Bougie: [00:24:52] The question actually reminds me of a leadership-focused book that I came in contact with a number of years ago at this point. It's called Head, Heart and Guts and it was written by a guy, David Dotlich, and his colleagues. The book's focus is about the importance of employing all three: head, heart and gut to be an effective leader and I think the same is true in hiring but it's important to acknowledge that that's only true if those three things are employed in some form of balance.

You know, so heart meaning, like, from an emotional perspective is there a connection? Head, like, rationally speaking does this individual meet the criteria of the job? Gut, I mean really just that. I think that the times that I made poor choices are when I leaned too much on one of those things.

You know, I think one of the most probably painful experiences that I had that was a mistake as a hiring manager involved hiring a friend and the situation didn't work out and ultimately it ended in a termination. I mean, obviously on a personal level that's a really hard thing to lead through. But if I reflect on, you know, really honestly, how did I get there?

I definitely leaned too much on the heart side of things on that one, you know and if I go back and like try to put myself in the most objective place possible, I can see where I went wrong. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:26:20] I've seen that happen before too, like, if somebody worked with somebody in one company and then they bring them into another company it's a different situation, a different context. And it hasn't worked in those situations sometimes as well because they immediately think, oh, they were successful at this company and that's your recollection, but they didn't ask the questions that might evaluate the new context in a different scenario.

Lisa Bougie: [00:26:44] Yes, in this situation that I'm referring to, it was precisely that and we thought we had done all the right things but in my heart of hearts, I probably knew that it was going to be a stretch. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:26:56] Yeah, and is there anything that you know now that you wish you knew 10, 20 years ago that somebody who doesn't have the benefit of all the years of experience that you and I have might want to know?

Lisa Bougie: [00:27:06] I feel like we've touched on the most important one, but I will take the opportunity to reiterate that resist the temptation to get it done fast and focus yourself on getting it done right even if that means having to endure kind of short-term pain of a role not being fulfilled or you know, the extenuating circumstances that that would create on, on the extended team, but my belief is truly that it's always worth the wait to find the right person. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:27:39] I know you're working as an advisor and board director now. So how do you support people and fast growth or innovative, disruptive companies in their hiring? And how do you help ensure that they get the right people? 

Lisa Bougie: [00:27:53] I think taking a page out of my Stitch Fix experience, making the time to define in very clear terms kind of the value system of the company that you aspire to create is extraordinarily important.

It never feels convenient to block out two days or whatever it takes to do the work and yet the return on investment is massive. I did this with a group of leaders on one of the boards that I'm on a couple of months ago and one of the things that we did in that working session was define kind of their version of people standards.

I got a call from the CEO the next week and he said I just have to tell you I cannot believe how many times we have referenced our people standards -

Roy Notowitz: [00:28:36] Wow.

Lisa Bougie: [00:28:36] Since five days ago.

Roy Notowitz: [00:28:37] That's awesome. 

Lisa Bougie: [00:28:38] I think you know, it's only through kind of this codifying process that we can hold one another accountable to the same standards and I mean obviously that's true for performance.

But that's also true for hiring and especially in younger companies where people are stretched really thin and the pace is so fast. It's kind of counterintuitive, but a little structure goes a long way. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:29:02] So if you're an entrepreneurial, small or emerging or fast-growth company, taking time to take a step back and think through your system for hiring and your values and your culture and the competencies that you need and getting that all dialed in and everybody aligned is probably one of the biggest things they can do to be successful moving forward. 

Lisa Bougie: [00:29:24] That is my belief and the other thing that I would add and I have and do do this with a lot of founders in companies is that it could feel overwhelming of like, oh my God, we have to create this operating system and where do we start? 

And, and so I think also taking it in bite-sized chunks can also be really helpful, as long as there's a commitment to, like, the end goal of within x amount of time we'll you know work all the way through this process. 

The other advantage of doing it that way is it gives the team or the balance of the organization time to adopt, assimilate, make it their own also in bite-sized chunks. So I think that approach I have seen work well. I'm in the middle of some of those and also from a time perspective could feel more realistic. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:30:11] Lisa, this has been amazing. Your insights are incredible and our listeners will surely be able to adapt and apply these concepts to their own situations.

But before we wrap things up, I'd like to know if you have any projects or interesting things coming up that you'd like to share with our audience. 

Lisa Bougie: [00:30:30] That may be the hardest question of the day because

Roy Notowitz: [00:30:32] [Laughs]

Lisa Bougie: [00:30:33] because I love all of the things that I'm working on and it feels a little bit like choosing between my children. So it hasn't yet been announced but I recently started advising an up-and-coming women's fitness brand. They are focused on becoming the go-to sport brand for her.

I am working with the CEO to develop an approach to a two-day session whereby we will actually be doing much of the things that we've been talking about in terms of creating their strategic framework inclusive of their culture and people practices obviously germane to today's conversation and it's a privilege for me, anyway, to help create the architecture that will support their mission, one that's deeply personal to me.

So that's a great highlight. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:31:23] Lisa, thank you so much for being on our podcast and for sharing how you hire. 

Lisa Bougie: [00:31:28] Roy, it was a pleasure. If you could see me now you would see me smile ear to ear. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:31:32] [Laughs]

Lisa Bougie: [00:31:32] It was really fun. 

Roy Notowitz: [00:31:34] Me too Lisa. I really appreciate you taking time today.

Thanks for listening to How I Hire. Do you want to know more about our show? Visit HowIHire.com. If you'd like to share your thoughts questions or feedback, you can leave us a review wherever you listen.

How I Hire is created by Noto Group, executive search for consumer brands that support healthy, active, and sustainable lifestyles. To learn more about Noto Group, visit NotoGroup.com. 

This podcast was produced by Anna McClain and our artwork is by Beth Alport.

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