Job interviews have always been a source of anxiety for many people. The pressure of showcasing your achievements to a stranger in an unnaturally structured conversation is not easy, and for many neuro-diverse people, it is pretty much impossible. The use of Ansychronous video interviews has helped the situation in some ways but doesn’t provide the opportunity for real-time conversation and exploration, which is critical in the later stages of the recruiting process.
Could a methodology initially designed to combat communication delays in space travel offer a solution that bridges the gap between synchronous and asynchronous interviewing in a way that is inclusive for everyone?
My guest week is Rob Brougham, Director & Co-Founder of Braided Communications. Rob worked with NASA to develop a unique way of helping astronauts have real-time conversations with people back on Earth on future missions to the moon and Mars. He is now using the same technology to make the recruiting process more inclusive and effective. So how does this all work? Just keep listening to find out more.
In the interview, we discuss:
• A simple way of defying the laws of physics in space travel
• How Braiding works
• Making the asynchronous synchronous.
• Co-presence and connection
• The importance of inclusive communication
• Applications in talent acquisition
• Making interviews real-time and inclusive
• What does the future of business communication look like?
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
Support for this podcast comes from smart recruiters. Smart Recruiters is your all in one platform for faster, smarter hiring, making recruiting easy and effortless. Smart recruiters are making some big changes, revamping their user experience, adding AI features and refreshing the ui. I know from experience that they truly are a company that really values the recruiter and the practitioner. They understand the intricacies of the recruiting business and this has always been reflected in their functionality and customer support. So it’s exciting to hear that they’re making a bunch of updates. If you’re ready to be part of the future of talent acquisition, head over to smartrecruiters.com and find out what they’re up to. Trust me, your team and your future hires will thank you.
Matt Alder [00:01:10]:
Hi there. Welcome to episode 639 of Recruiting Future with me, Matt Alder. Job interviews have always been a source of anxiety for many people. The pressure of showcasing your achievements to a stranger in an unnaturally structured conversation is. Is not easy. And for many neurodiverse people, it’s pretty much impossible. The use of asynchronous video interviewing has helped the situation in some ways, but doesn’t provide the opportunity for real time conversation and exploration, which is critical in the later stages of a recruiting process. So could a methodology that was originally designed to combat communication delays in space travel offer a solution that bridges the gap between synchronous and asynchronous interviewing in a way that’s inclusive for everyone? Hello everyone. My guest this week is Rob Brougham, director and co founder of Braided Communications. Rob worked with NASA to develop a unique way of helping astronauts have real time conversations with people back on Earth, on future missions to the moon and to Mars. He’s now using that same technology to make recruiting processes more inclusive and effective. So how does this all work? Just keep listening to find out more.
Matt Alder [00:02:27]:
Hi Rob and welcome to the podcast.
Rob Brougham [00:02:29]:
Hi Matt. Thanks very much for having me on the podcast.
Matt Alder [00:02:32]:
An absolute pleasure to have you on the show.
Matt Alder [00:02:34]:
Please could you introduce yourself and tell.
Matt Alder [00:02:36]:
Everyone what you do?
Rob Brougham [00:02:38]:
Yeah, of course.
Rob Brougham [00:02:39]:
So my name is Rob Brougham. I am co founder of a company called Braided Communications. And what we do is a couple of things. One of them is where we started.
Rob Brougham [00:02:50]:
Which is very strange, which is that.
Rob Brougham [00:02:52]:
We started in the space sector and now we also deliver inclusive communication.
Rob Brougham [00:02:57]:
So that’s me and the company in.
Rob Brougham [00:03:00]:
A very small nutshell I’m sure we’re into more detail soon.
Matt Alder [00:03:02]:
Well, absolutely.
Matt Alder [00:03:03]:
And really want to talk about inclusive communications, particularly in the context of talent acquisition. But I don’t think we can go any further before you give us a bit more of the backstory about space. So tell us the backstory. How did the company come? To be sure.
Rob Brougham [00:03:17]:
So the company came about when myself and my co founder, who sadly is no longer involved, sadly had to leave for health reasons. But we started by solving a problem for future space travel, which is when humans go back to the moon, as they should do in a few years and potentially sometime in the future, go further into space, perhaps even as far as Mars, maybe in 20, 25 years time, those astronauts will be so far.
Rob Brougham [00:03:45]:
From Earth that all their communication back to Earth will suffer from a time delay.
Rob Brougham [00:03:50]:
Because even though it’s using radio waves.
Rob Brougham [00:03:52]:
Which travel at the speed of light.
Rob Brougham [00:03:54]:
Which is the fastest possible speed in the universe, the distances are so vast that there’s going to be a time delay, which at the moon is about a second and a half.
Rob Brougham [00:04:04]:
And when human get to Mars, it’s.
Rob Brougham [00:04:06]:
Going to be measured in minutes. And if you can imagine trying to record a podcast with somebody where there.
Rob Brougham [00:04:10]:
Was a time delay of a few.
Rob Brougham [00:04:12]:
Seconds, even or even a few minutes between you and the guest, it’s impossible to have a natural communication. And because that’s caused by basic laws of physics, everybody in the space sector just assumed it could never be solved and that the space sector would need.
Rob Brougham [00:04:29]:
To find ways to kind of cope without a solution.
Rob Brougham [00:04:32]:
We came along with a solution which kind of shocked a lot of people. Just to be clear, we did not.
Rob Brougham [00:04:38]:
Break any laws of physics, so there’s.
Rob Brougham [00:04:39]:
Nothing like that going on.
Rob Brougham [00:04:41]:
But what we realized was that the.
Rob Brougham [00:04:43]:
Way human beings communicate is actually quite adaptable and plastic.
Rob Brougham [00:04:48]:
And what we did was we invented.
Rob Brougham [00:04:50]:
A methodology of communication that disguises latency. So if you were on Mars and I’m here on Earth, we could be.
Rob Brougham [00:04:59]:
Communicating in a way that would feel.
Rob Brougham [00:05:01]:
To both of us pretty much like a natural synchronous dialogue, even though there’s an underlying delay. And so we came up with that.
Rob Brougham [00:05:09]:
Idea, as I said, a way of.
Rob Brougham [00:05:11]:
Disguising, not removing latency. Managed to blag our way into a NASA conference, going back before lockdown, and.
Rob Brougham [00:05:21]:
Showed this to some of the people who’d done some research in this area.
Rob Brougham [00:05:24]:
And they were very excited. So actually we’re really proud of the.
Rob Brougham [00:05:27]:
Fact that as a small British company.
Rob Brougham [00:05:29]:
Our first income actually came originally from NASA to study this idea and see if it worked. And the short answer is it did.
Rob Brougham [00:05:36]:
So that’s now there as a published academic paper. So that’s where we started.
Matt Alder [00:05:40]:
Awesome. Tell us about how this works. I know that people will be fascinated that you are somehow breaking the laws of physics without breaking the laws of physics. So just tell us a little bit about how it works.
Rob Brougham [00:05:52]:
Yeah, sure. And it’s kind of super simple, but not obvious. And actually, at some points when I have this conversation with people, people kind of go, oh, is that it? I was expecting something a little bit more exciting with kind of bells and whistles and flashy lights on it. It’s actually really simple, as I said, and sometimes the best ideas are the simplest. So I’ll try and describe it. It’s very visual as well. So it’s a little bit difficult on a podcast, but essentially, if you can imagine if you were on Mars and I’m on Earth and we’re communicating and there’s a time delay of maybe five minutes. You know, you can’t just pick up.
Rob Brougham [00:06:24]:
The phone to me and call me.
Rob Brougham [00:06:25]:
Because it will take five minutes for my phone to ring.
Rob Brougham [00:06:28]:
So everything is kind of pre scheduled.
Rob Brougham [00:06:30]:
So we pro agree the day before that we’re going to have a communication session. And what we do is we agree the topics. So let’s say for the sake of.
Rob Brougham [00:06:40]:
Argument and simplicity, there are six topics.
Rob Brougham [00:06:42]:
We want to discuss when the session starts.
Rob Brougham [00:06:46]:
You’re on Mars, I’m on Earth.
Rob Brougham [00:06:47]:
Both of us log on to our computers to communicate. Braiding is entirely written.
Rob Brougham [00:06:53]:
There’s no audio and no video.
Rob Brougham [00:06:54]:
What you see on your screen is kind of a chat window. And what I see on my screen is another chat window, which is a different subject. Those two chat windows are two of.
Rob Brougham [00:07:07]:
Let’S say, six chat windows arranged on.
Rob Brougham [00:07:09]:
A carousel that rotates between us kind of one step at a time. You’re typing in one, I’m typing in another on the other side of the carousel. After maybe two minutes, the carousel rotates one step. The content you type begins its journey to me. The content I type begins its journey to you. And you then have a fresh braid, as we call it, to type on. And so do I. And the same thing happens a couple of times. And then after that carousel that we.
Rob Brougham [00:07:43]:
Have between us has rotated half a.
Rob Brougham [00:07:44]:
Rotation, you get the first message from me that I typed about seven or eight minutes ago.
Rob Brougham [00:07:50]:
And it’s taken five minutes to travel.
Rob Brougham [00:07:52]:
Across the void to you. At the same instant, I get the first message from you.
Rob Brougham [00:07:57]:
And from that Moment onwards, as the carousel rotates, each of us gets a.
Rob Brougham [00:08:01]:
Fresh message from the other person, even though that other person wrote it ages ago.
Rob Brougham [00:08:07]:
Five, six, seven minutes.
Rob Brougham [00:08:08]:
Whatever it is, it doesn’t actually matter.
Rob Brougham [00:08:10]:
To each of us. It feels like a message just received.
Rob Brougham [00:08:13]:
From the other person.
Rob Brougham [00:08:14]:
So that’s why to us as human beings, it feels like a natural synchronous dialogue.
Rob Brougham [00:08:19]:
So I said, super simple, very visual. So, you know, maybe the listeners can go and see on our website and see some visuals of this.
Rob Brougham [00:08:26]:
But it works amazingly well and it’s.
Rob Brougham [00:08:28]:
Now been studied in academic studies and shown to work.
Matt Alder [00:08:32]:
So this was before the pandemic. The pandemic obviously comes along and changes the way that people work. So we have far more remote work, we have teams working remotely, people getting very burnt out by constantly being on video and, you know, companies looking for new ways of communicating and communicating more effectively. How did what you do evolve based on that?
Rob Brougham [00:08:56]:
You’re absolutely right.
Rob Brougham [00:08:57]:
All those things were happening and actually.
Rob Brougham [00:09:00]:
What happened to allow us to kind of take what we invented for space and, and adapt it to, to here on Earth was that when we were building it, as we were testing it, we, and this is, this is, myself.
Rob Brougham [00:09:12]:
And my co founder began to realize.
Rob Brougham [00:09:14]:
That, that this, this strange thing we.
Rob Brougham [00:09:16]:
Invented for space was allowing the two of us to communicate to better, Better.
Rob Brougham [00:09:21]:
Together, or perhaps might be better to say, communicate differently. So like everyone else, we use emails, we use phone calls, we use zoom and meet and teams and other things. And all of those, each of them had like, if you like, different weaknesses in some senses. And they were all, they were all kind of very similar in other ways. You know, all meeting technologies are broadly.
Rob Brougham [00:09:45]:
The same in that they allow people to communicate together and talk together.
Rob Brougham [00:09:49]:
What we realized was this braiding thing was allowing us to communicate in a.
Rob Brougham [00:09:53]:
Synchronous manner, but without some of the.
Rob Brougham [00:09:55]:
Weaknesses that were impacting on some of our meetings. So one of the biggest problems, and this is a challenge for you here, Matt, is one of my biggest weaknesses is I talk too much. And I do ever have it in meetings of sometimes talking too much and dominating the meeting. I try hard not to. I’m very aware of that. But obviously for me, that means I.
Rob Brougham [00:10:14]:
Have to think hard not to interrupt, which means I’m not thinking so much.
Rob Brougham [00:10:17]:
About the content of the meeting. What we realized was by taking our.
Rob Brougham [00:10:21]:
Braiding, our braided approach and adapting it.
Rob Brougham [00:10:24]:
Into a meeting on Earth, we were.
Rob Brougham [00:10:26]:
Able to create an environment where each.
Rob Brougham [00:10:28]:
Of us could contribute without me interrupting too much.
Rob Brougham [00:10:32]:
So that was one of the benefits.
Rob Brougham [00:10:34]:
There’s a whole bunch of others. Because actually what it turns out is that all individuals have different communication preferences, different environments in which they thrive. And when you look into some of the research for this, a traditional meeting.
Rob Brougham [00:10:47]:
Whether that’s face to face or video, is really only an ideal environment for.
Rob Brougham [00:10:52]:
People who are neurotypical, confident and extrovert. Anyone who doesn’t really fit that mold struggles in a face to face meeting. And that can apply to different people at different times. So someone might be really confident in one meeting, but go into a different.
Rob Brougham [00:11:07]:
Meeting where maybe there’s a different power dynamic or a different age profile or.
Rob Brougham [00:11:11]:
Whatever it might be, and that person suddenly feels unable to contribute. So traditional meetings don’t tend to adapt to all environments. So we all need other tools in the toolbox. And it’s turns out that braiding can be a new tool in the toolbox, particularly for inclusive and effective meetings.
Matt Alder [00:11:28]:
Yeah, I think that’s really interesting and I want to dive into the inclusive part of this in a second. But I think the interesting thing from that kind of meeting perspective is for years I’ve been interviewing people who run remote first companies, kind of before the pandemic. And asynchronous communication is such a big part of people who work like that, particularly if they’re working across time zones and things like that. But actually the kind of the technology around asynchronous communication isn’t particularly sophisticated. And it’s really interesting to see something that bridges the gap between very, very asynchronous communication, where people are getting replies hours later and ineffective real time video meetings. So I think it’s a gap that is definitely there to be filled.
Rob Brougham [00:12:15]:
Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right, Matt. And I think actually the word synchronous is a key point there. So some of the studies around the way people communicate is that for effective, really genuinely effective communication, you need to.
Rob Brougham [00:12:29]:
Have what’s called co presence.
Rob Brougham [00:12:31]:
You need to feel co present with other individuals. That isn’t always the same as co located. Co presence is a concept that’s enabled by synchrony.
Rob Brougham [00:12:41]:
But synchrony doesn’t necessarily mean at the same time. It means with a shared rhythm and a shared focus of attention in that psychological communication sense. And you can have people sat around.
Rob Brougham [00:12:52]:
A table or sat around a virtual video conference who don’t feel that sense of connection.
Rob Brougham [00:12:58]:
They don’t feel that sense of co presence.
Rob Brougham [00:13:00]:
And that’s one of the things that.
Rob Brougham [00:13:02]:
We’Ve realized that braiding does is it.
Rob Brougham [00:13:04]:
Brings that sense of co presence to more people in environments who otherwise would struggle to feel that sense of co presence and therefore struggle to communicate. And that’s why it kind of covers a gap in existing technologies where they’re.
Rob Brougham [00:13:21]:
Not actually able to provide that for everybody.
Matt Alder [00:13:26]:
Talk us through the applications of this talent acquisition.
Rob Brougham [00:13:30]:
So, yeah, in talent acquisition there’s one very, very simple application. And actually to me, the way I think about it is talent acquisition and.
Rob Brougham [00:13:39]:
Also talent retention, which is just as important.
Rob Brougham [00:13:41]:
So braiding as a technology can create meetings that are inclusive and effective, incredibly effective.
Rob Brougham [00:13:48]:
In fact, on average about eight times.
Rob Brougham [00:13:50]:
More efficient than the same meeting in a traditional manner. So if you’ve got a team that you want to retain and then build.
Rob Brougham [00:13:59]:
You need to create environments in which.
Rob Brougham [00:14:00]:
They can all communicate. And that’s where braided meetings exist. But then we have a sister product which we call braided Interviews because we’re really imaginative with our names, which is.
Rob Brougham [00:14:10]:
Very much focused on the talent acquisition part of this.
Rob Brougham [00:14:13]:
So there’s been a lot of, of studies and work recently about creating inclusive processes for recruitment and a lot of really good work and some things which.
Rob Brougham [00:14:25]:
With hindsight are kind of obvious, but none of us really thought of them before. So things like making sure your language.
Rob Brougham [00:14:30]:
Is really unambiguous, making sure you’re advertising.
Rob Brougham [00:14:34]:
Roles and searching for talent in places.
Rob Brougham [00:14:36]:
Where the talent might be, rather than, for want of a better word, where you’ve always looked before, and adapting processes to perhaps be more skills based, et cetera. But in most cases there’s still a desire for an interview to be part of the process.
Rob Brougham [00:14:54]:
So how do you interview people who perhaps might struggle with face to face.
Rob Brougham [00:14:58]:
Communication or that’s a key part of an interview process. Now, about a year or so ago, the kind of gold standard for inclusive interviewing was to say two things.
Rob Brougham [00:15:10]:
First of all, it’s really important to send the questions out in advance.
Rob Brougham [00:15:12]:
And actually that tends to be regarded as good practice for all interviews now.
Rob Brougham [00:15:17]:
So you send the questions out in.
Rob Brougham [00:15:18]:
Advance so people can at least prepare and not be completely caught off guard.
Rob Brougham [00:15:22]:
By a kind of left field question.
Rob Brougham [00:15:25]:
But then for inclusive interviews it was.
Rob Brougham [00:15:28]:
Well, the only thing you can then.
Rob Brougham [00:15:29]:
Do is get email answers back and then follow up with another email for.
Rob Brougham [00:15:34]:
A follow up question.
Rob Brougham [00:15:35]:
And that is a very asynchronous process and it puts the, the diverse candidate.
Rob Brougham [00:15:41]:
At a disadvantage because by the time you’ve gone through a process over three.
Rob Brougham [00:15:44]:
Or four days of questions and follow ups, by the time you’ve done that the neurotypical candidate’s probably already been offered and accepted the job. So instead of that you go to try a braided interview, which is using.
Rob Brougham [00:16:00]:
This braided methodology to allow the candidates.
Rob Brougham [00:16:03]:
To actually be interviewed in a synchronous real time environment with the interviewer, but.
Rob Brougham [00:16:09]:
Without any of the challenges that would make them struggle in a face to face interview.
Rob Brougham [00:16:13]:
So that’s what’s out there at the moment being used not by many people. This is still a very early stage business and this is a very early stage product. But this seems to be doing a great job of creating a fairer playing field where everybody can shine. So if someone chooses a braided interview, that gives them an equal chance to.
Rob Brougham [00:16:33]:
Shine compared to someone else who might.
Rob Brougham [00:16:34]:
Choose video or face to face.
Matt Alder [00:16:36]:
I think that’s really interesting because when it comes to neurodiversity in the recruiting process, it’s talked about a lot, a lot of the adjustments that are made to the interviewing process, they’re not very big adjustments, they’re not changing the process, they’re just kind of tweaking things slightly to swing it a little bit more in the favour of the neurodiverse candidate, but not fundamentally doing anything different. And it’s interesting to hear about this because it is a very different way.
Matt Alder [00:17:06]:
Of doing things, but it’s a way.
Matt Alder [00:17:07]:
Of doing things that could apply to all candidates, couldn’t it?
Rob Brougham [00:17:10]:
Absolutely it could.
Rob Brougham [00:17:11]:
And actually there’s another point there about the interviewer themselves as well.
Rob Brougham [00:17:15]:
But to apply to candidates, I mean, when we’re talking to companies who are looking at braided interviews, we’re careful to say it’s the company’s choice, obviously, but.
Rob Brougham [00:17:23]:
We would never recommend that they mandate braided interviews for all candidates because for some candidates it’s not the perfect environment, but for some it is.
Rob Brougham [00:17:30]:
So if you have a choice, one.
Rob Brougham [00:17:33]:
Of the most important things there is to bring consistency.
Rob Brougham [00:17:36]:
So if you’re interviewing two people, you should be saying these are the five.
Rob Brougham [00:17:39]:
Questions I’m going to ask you both.
Rob Brougham [00:17:41]:
You, whoever the candidates are. But if a candidate A chooses a.
Rob Brougham [00:17:45]:
Face to face interview and candidate B.
Rob Brougham [00:17:47]:
Chooses a braided interview, they’re going to.
Rob Brougham [00:17:49]:
Get the same five questions, they’re going to get the same chance to shine.
Rob Brougham [00:17:52]:
In their answers on those questions, but.
Rob Brougham [00:17:54]:
With a very different methodology that’s much more inclusive to many people.
Rob Brougham [00:17:59]:
As I said, the same thing I think will apply over time to interviewers as well. I mean, I’ve.
Rob Brougham [00:18:05]:
I’ve worked in a number of big.
Rob Brougham [00:18:07]:
Companies across my career and when I.
Rob Brougham [00:18:09]:
Look back now and you know, this.
Rob Brougham [00:18:11]:
Wasn’T something that was kind of discussed at the time, but there were always.
Rob Brougham [00:18:14]:
Some managers who really struggled with interviewing, and many of them kind of, you.
Rob Brougham [00:18:18]:
Know, didn’t want to and were delegated.
Rob Brougham [00:18:20]:
To other managers who then might not be the best qualified to assess the.
Rob Brougham [00:18:23]:
Candidates for the roles.
Rob Brougham [00:18:25]:
And, you know, maybe those, those managers.
Rob Brougham [00:18:29]:
Were neurodiverse in one way or another and probably didn’t even know it back in the 90s, early 2000s.
Rob Brougham [00:18:35]:
But if they had alternative methods with.
Rob Brougham [00:18:38]:
Which they could interview candidates, it may.
Rob Brougham [00:18:40]:
Well have helped them find better candidates for their vacancies.
Rob Brougham [00:18:43]:
So it sits on both sides of it, which I personally think is really interesting.
Matt Alder [00:18:48]:
So as a final question for you.
Matt Alder [00:18:49]:
What do you hope the future looks.
Matt Alder [00:18:52]:
Like in terms of recruiting and business communication in general?
Rob Brougham [00:18:57]:
That’s a big question. Obviously. I really hope it’s something that becomes more and more. More inclusive over time. Certainly, you know, in my career I’ve.
Rob Brougham [00:19:07]:
Seen some significant strides towards inclusivity and the embracing of diversity in all its aspects.
Rob Brougham [00:19:14]:
And that’s just, you know, fantastic.
Rob Brougham [00:19:15]:
One of my favorite phrases in that.
Rob Brougham [00:19:17]:
Is taking old phrase and slightly changing it. The old phrase of great minds think alike.
Rob Brougham [00:19:24]:
Absolute rubbish, in my opinion. Great minds do not think alike. If you have a diversity of thought, diversity of background, diversity of experience, you’re.
Rob Brougham [00:19:31]:
Much more likely to get better outcomes.
Rob Brougham [00:19:34]:
Better, better solutions to problems and more solutions to problems. So I personally am very excited by.
Rob Brougham [00:19:39]:
The opportunity to embrace and include more inclusivity over time, both in the talent acquisition process and in the general business process as well.
Matt Alder [00:19:51]:
Rob, thank you very much for talking to me.
Rob Brougham [00:19:53]:
Thanks very much, Matt. It’s been a pleasure.
Matt Alder [00:19:55]:
My thanks to Rob. You can follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts on Spotify, or via your podcasting app of choice. You can search all the past episodes@recruitingfuture.com on that site. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Recruiting Future Feast, and get the inside track on everything that’s coming up on the show. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
