Nick Chang on 5 years at Nomadic

Jul 19, 2024

Robert M. Burnside Hi Nick, congratulations on being at Nomadic 5 years! What’s keeping you here so long?

nick chang Thanks Robert! I think it's been a good exercise for me to stay at a company this long. I think I'm a very typical millennial that honestly, after like 2 years, I start getting a little bit itchy, you know. I’m always asking that question, am I still growing here? Am I still doing something that's interesting to me?

Nomadic is the first company that I've stayed at this long. But I think it's actually been really rewarding for me to see how the world has changed while this part of my life has stayed relatively stable. I joined in 2019, so the world has changed a lot. But I think that in many ways, my job hasn't changed that much. The company has though, so seeing that change around me, and how that's impacted me has been good for me. I’ve seen how companies can evolve and how even working with the same people doesn't feel the same after 5 years, because, of course, nothing stays the same.

It's shown me that I can be sort of in the same place but that doesn't mean that I'm not growing, that I'm not developing or experiencing new things at the same time.

Robert M. Burnside Is it that the external circumstances of the company itself, which are changing in relation to the world, that change itself, makes what you're doing somewhat new, somehow changes it?

nick chang Yeah, when I first joined this company, my work started out being very client heavy because we were doing custom stuff for companies, and the Josh Bersin Academy, which was new at that time, had just been launched. And then we sort of cycled around to focusing mainly on the Josh Bersin Academy, and after that we decided to start the Nomadic Academy where we would make our own content. And now we're back to writing content for clients again. And I think it's funny because it's like we went through all that effort and now we're kind of back in the same place.

But again, I think, if you would ask me, does that sound like we're moving forward? No, it doesn't because it's like oh, we're just circling back. But we are! We’ve learned so much over those steps.

And I think that’s true for me too, right? I also have more perspective on this work. And when I work with a new client, it's always different in a way. It is a new way to do content because for every project, the internal client relationships, their learning needs, all of that, is different, and I think that helps it feel more like a fresh problem to solve rather than doing the same kind of work over and over again.

Robert M. Burnside That makes some sense to me that maybe in 2019 content was client says, Give me X. You wrote X, sent it to the client. Then we went through developing the Josh Bersin Academy, then the Nomadic Academy, and now back to clients. But now it's not client says X and you write it. Instead, now it’s more what are the dynamics of the client, the dynamics of Nomadic, the dynamics of this interchange? Can you write within all those dynamics in a way that meets the need? That does sound very different than few years ago.

nick chang I'm glad you brought that up, because I do think one of the big ways in which our content production has changed is that the people making the content, we are really deeply with the clients from the start, like from the selling process through to the finish and the production. I don't love having a lot more meetings, but I have to admit I do learn more about the clients, I get to know them not just as clients, but more as people. I do think that the content production used to be sort of one step removed from the client.

But now, I think, being able to hear directly from clients, and look at how they're thinking about things, what they care about, it does make the content better. It does help us produce something that's not just words on a page or videos. Instead, it’s words on a page and videos in a platform that's doing something for them. We told them, this is what we're trying to do, and they were like, yeah, that sounds good. And then we say, these are the things we think will make it work, and these are things that will probably make that hard, and let's figure that out together.

Robert M. Burnside Well, let me ask you, from your perspective, are you a craftsman who has a craft called writing or making content? Do you see yourself as having a craft? And in what ways do you feel that you have developed that craft over 5 years.

nick chang The way I think about what it means to write at Nomadic has definitely changed. You know, I think, that the primary way that it's changed is that if you think about other kinds of practical writing, like a news article, look at the way that AP or Reuters writes a news article, that's serving a very discrete purpose. It's like they're trying to inform people, and they're trying to be neutral, whatever that means.

So that is very different than like a long form article or feature in New Yorker magazine. I think that I have always, as a writer, my natural inclinations, are much more towards that sort of ambiguous, narrative storytelling, more like the New Yorker style of writing.

I think writing for a learning audience is interesting, because obviously we have certain elements we want to make interesting, sort of offbeat in a good way, inspiring, creative, and balance those with the very practical needs the clients have. We need to communicate this information, and we need to make people actually want to read it right?

Robert M. Burnside It sounds to me like you want to combine both the storytelling and the practical information.

nick chang Yes, finding that right mix and realizing it for the client. Different clients have different appetites for various parts of that, and I think that has actually helped me sort of hone my craft, letting go a little bit of the preciousness of words.

Interestingly, ChatGPT has also helped me with that, too, because ChatGPT is not precious about words at all. We can talk about whether that's good or bad for humanity. But in terms of doing this job, it's great for me. It helps me iterate really quickly, you know, it helps me be like, okay, this is not good, but why do I think it's not good? Oh, I can write something better. I don't have to start from a blank page.

In the past I would say I was more focused on, is this beautiful writing? Maybe that sounds sad, that I'm not trying to do beautiful writing anymore, but I don't need to focus on that at work all the time. I can do that outside of work too. So I think it's been good for me to just practice focusing like, okay, we need to do this work, we need to be doing these things, and that's what keeps clients happy. That in and of itself is a different craft.

Robert M. Burnside Yeah, I can relate to that. There is growth when one takes what one's talent or inclinations are and puts that out there in the real world and lets the real world interact with it without losing it. But also, like you say, not thinking it's so precious nothing should touch it. An example from my own history is I came up through political science, and I always thought of myself as a people person. I know how to relate to people. I'm really good at that, and I don't want anything to do with the spreadsheets and the numbers, all the math. I'm more of a literary guy. At one point I worked 15 years for a not for profit institution which had a vibe of being very people oriented and looking down on spreadsheets and making profit.

Near the end of that I thought, oh the hell with it and I went and got an MBA from Duke University. So this was against my grain. It nearly killed me because I was working full time, but as a result I could do spreadsheets, and later, when I took a job in public relations as a Chief Learning Officer, I could sit across from the chief financial officer eye to eye, and he could say, What is this learning cost, is it going to give us any return on investment? And I could say, yes, let me show you, let's look at the numbers, you know. It really increased my ability to be who I was. It's like you're saying, it's a both/and. Can you bring what you got and then let the world interact with it and try not to fall apart, keep growing and adding to it.

nick chang I think that there's real wisdom in thinking about like, okay, this aspect of my work feels necessary but I don't like doing it, or it doesn't feel natural or in some ways there feels like some sort of friction, I guess internal friction about, why don’t I like it? Why am I not interested in this? Why do I feel some tension in this? And I‘ve been slowing myself down a little bit and asking why? Because I think it's wrong? No.

So then, it's not a moral violation for me to explore this or think about. Should I be doing this a little bit more? Should I learn how to do this? And sort of circling back to what we were talking about earlier, I think that there is, in a way, a nice freedom in knowing that I've been at this company, people here know my work. People are confident I can do it so I can sort of play around a little bit. Not with deadlines, but like, okay, I'm going to try something a little bit different.

Robert M. Burnside Well, it sounds like part of what I hear is by having stayed a few years, then people got to know your work, and they trust your work. That gave you a little more freedom because they said, oh, Nick knows how to do this stuff, and then they let you kind of do it more rather than tell you what to do or tell you exactly how it should be. They say, now give it the Nick treatment cause they sort of trust what you're doing, and that gave you some freedom to play. Something like that.

nick chang Yeah, I'm not obviously experimenting, you know, in huge ways. I'm not changing the voice or going for a different learning design without talking to anyone. But I do think that I have this trust because we have established relationships with clients saying, okay, what are the different ways that we can make this content? And I can ask myself, what are the different ways that I can do this writing in a way that is also interesting for me? I think that's what I mean by play around.

Robert M. Burnside That’s interesting. In the Learning and Development Disruptor interviews I'm doing, what they say is, learning takes time, you don't just learn by pushing a button, done that, got it and move on. Learning really takes time.

So maybe because you stayed here 5 years, you're able to do this growth and development. What I'm thinking is, if you went to 3 other companies in the meantime, you would have still been at that starting place in an organization where you're trying to build trust. Trust needs time, too. You know. It just needs time.

So I guess both learning and trust take time. But when it's there, then there's more freedom to be what you need to be, something like that.

nick chang I think that there's kind of confidence that builds up over time. When I first started this job, I was very nervous because I wanted to do a good job. But I also want people to know me as someone who does a good job. But now I can make the decisions I make about content, you know, how to write about particular things. I have more reasons for why I do things, and at the same time there's just more trust that I am making those decisions. I don't need to document and explain at every point, because I know what I'm doing and we have a good process.

We can make those decisions more quickly. And so it allows us to be more flexible in a way, and have deeper discussions when we are looking at things, like, okay, what's working here? If this particular Program didn't work that well, was it content? What were the different decisions we made?

Robert M. Burnside What I hear you saying is, the context around you grows. So you grow, the context around you grows, too. In other words, the Nomads trust that Nick's going to write well, he’ll give it the Nick treatment. But for that to happen, the context itself has to evolve, too. The surrounding environment has to figure out, oh, yeah, Nick knows what he's doing, and so we can, you know, let him do what he's doing. It's interesting to me as a learning guy, that both the person and the context need to co-evolve together for things to work out.

Let me ask you one more question. If someone who doesn’t know Nomadic asks you, what's it like to work at Nomadic? What would you say?

nick chang It's a question with a lot of answers. I think working at Nomadic is a lot of different things at the same time. It’s extremely fast. It's often ambiguous. Things pop up, opportunities, that are always coming at you really fast. I think it's really rewarding to work with people at the same time, though, who don't let that difficult part of job get in the way of just being good to each other.

I think there's a tremendous amount of trust with people to do their jobs. And I think that's sort of the default state of, okay, you were hired, or you've been doing this job, so I don't need to check up on you. I just need to say, this is what I need from you, and then you do it. And then we come back together and say, okay, this is what we've done. And then we move forward. I think that kind of wraps into why have I stayed, I think, because it's a really human place to work.

You know, even at the busiest times, there's no process for your Paid Time Off getting approved by somebody. It's like, okay, if you have a trip planned, just let us know, so that we can plan around it.

It’s a combination of a few things, right? There is all the hassle of normal work and getting caught up in deadlines and all of that. At the same time, I think the antidote to that is that we are realistic about what we're doing. We're not doing brain surgery. We're not saving lives. If we don't respond to that email within five minutes, nothing bad is going to happen.

Our work is important work, but it's not work that we need to make ourselves miserable to do. And then, at the same time, I think there's this real respect that everyone has their own thing going on. I am glad I don't think there's a single person at this company where their absolute number one all-the-time passion is work. It’s just a part of our lives that we do together, in addition to the other things that make us interesting, complete human beings.

And I am grateful that I never have to put on that façade, put on that face of like, oh, yeah, this is the most important thing I'm doing. It's not. It's not, quite frankly. And being able to be honest about that is huge.

Robert M. Burnside I agree, as human beings, we're more than our work. Our work is important to us, it's an identity, but we're more than our work. Another way I would say same thing you're saying, I would say, oh, yeah, you know, you can be a full human being there, I mean, crank out your work, of course but that's not the point. The point is to be human, a good human being with each other and get work done.

nick chang I think that as a millennial, work is really complicated for me, feeling really torn between the idea of, oh, work is just work. It's just a way to make a living. Who cares? And a sort of deeper sense of, no, actually, I want to feel good about the work I'm doing. I want to feel I'm doing work that feels important. I want to feel purpose in my life. And maybe it is important for me to do work that feels purposeful and important and meaningful to me.

And I think Nomadic has helped me really come to a clear answer about what is the role I want work to play in my life. I think this was a question for me for a long time. I think work actually is important to me, and I want to feel good about the work I'm doing.

And so I think having the room to really explore that idea, to having managers and coworkers, who are very open to talking about that, is great. And as a remote group we do have to talk about that all the time. I think it is kind of constantly a negotiation. That’s been really rewarding for me, having that here.

Robert M. Burnside I think being human is a constant negotiation. If that makes sense.

nick chang That’s one way to put it, definitely.