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Welcome to Hacking Your Leadership. I'm
Chris, and welcome to today's guest interview.

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Our guest interviews are long form interviews
with leaders from around the world.

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They've each been selected because of their
valuable perspective on leadership and the work they've

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accomplished in this space. Today,
we're joined by Jim Harder, chief scientist

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of workplace Management and well Being at
Gallup and co author of the new book

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Culture Shock, a book that explores
the shift to remote work in the COVID

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and post COVID era. Welcome,
Jim, say How to our audience.

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Hi everybody, thanks for having me
again. Chris. Great to be with

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you. It's a pleasure to have
you back. For those who didn't know,

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Jim is the first repeat guest we've
had on Hacking Your Leadership. He

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was here back in April of twenty
one talking about building thriving and resilient teams.

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Clearly a lot has happened over the
last two years with regard to the

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work you do. In fact,
your book calls this the biggest leadership issue

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of our time. I know,
Lorenzo and I spent several hours on the

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show discussing the implications of remote versus
office versus hybrid environments. So what I

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want to know is at what point
did the data start to say there was

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a problem here, Because for the
longest time, I thought that culturally the

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Western workforce was already shifting to flexible
work environments and COVID just kind of sped

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it up. COVID did speed it
up significantly, maybe by a couple of

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decades or maybe more than that,
because the trend was shifting slowly toward more

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flexible work. It was the most
desired perk wasn't happening quite as often as

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it is now. But we shifted
from for remote ready jobs. Nine out

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of ten people now want out of
it. From this experience from COVID,

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now want some type of flexible work
arrangement. So it's a shift mentally as

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well as as what we actually So
the experience led to some experiences that I

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think are positives in terms of how
we can work and live. But I

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think it's created some risks as well. But I think we could build Chris

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that the best workplaces ever if we
if we combine what we learned through this

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forced experiment and and also bring in
you know, upgraded management. I'd say

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I think manage years are in the
most difficult positions they've been in historically.

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In my tenure anyway, a very
difficult job right now, and leaders have

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to be more nuanced than ever before. Yeah, there's an analogy that I

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kind of think about when I think
about this, this remote work versus you

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know, returning to office. It's
like, you know, before twenty twenty,

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you know, people went to the
office. That's just that's just what

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we did. And that's I liken
that to the equivalent of having you know,

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chicken and broccoli every night for dinner, and that it's it's you know,

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it's fine, it's boring, but
it's not going to kill you.

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Uh. And and all of a
sudden, somebody put a plate of donuts

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out there and said, hey,
I'm so sorry. This is all we

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have right now, and no one
had ever tasted the one before, and

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they go, oh, I'm okay
with this. This is this is totally

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fine with me. And then all
of a sudden, we're trying to say,

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all right, now, look at
this. You're gonna die if you

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just eat donuts every day. We
need to at the very least, you

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know, you gotta have the chicken
and the vegetables most nights or some nights,

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and then have the donuts and and
and the people who are saying this,

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they're not the healthcare professionals that went
to school for this and that,

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and that their motivation is the well
being of the of the person. That

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they're being told this by people who
they perceive as having ulterior motives. It's

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like, wait a minute, you're
you're not looking out for my health.

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You just want to be able to
watch me or have me sit there.

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So I don't believe what you're saying. So even if what they're saying is

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right, they're not they're not believed
because they have ulterior motives. It's it's

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a great way to kind of think
about it. We all experienced to an

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endowment effect, at least those who
were able to work remotely were. You

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know, the endowment effect is a
behavioral economic phenomenon where you know, when

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we get something, it becomes more
valuable and it takes a lot more to

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give it up than the value placed
on it when you originally got it.

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And experiments have shown that even with
coffee mugs, it's it's they picket more

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valuable once you get them, and
it's tough to let go of even something

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that that's small. But this is
no coffee mug. This is our livelihood,

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and people experience the new livelihood.
And you make a great point about

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the challenge for leadership, and people
don't want mandates. When we ask questions

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of employees about being mandated to do
anything or being required to do anything,

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you get very negative responses, very
low levels of engagement, higher levels of

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burnout, all the negative outcomes.
So leaders are in a tough position where

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they've got to think about how do
we make this work? And you know,

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have highly productive environments, and I
think it all us to kind of

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set on some criteria that we filter
all of our decisions through. And one

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is how we are individually productive.
I think people have learned new ways to

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be productive and we had to honor
that. And the second is how we

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collaborate better as teams and how we
collaborate better with our team. And most

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people decide how where they work not
based on a conversation with their team,

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but whether whether the whe whether leadership
tells them, whatever their manager tells them,

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or whatever they decide as best for
them themselves. But thirteen percent of

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people decide with their team. But
a decision based on a discussion with your

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team is the most highly related to
engagement. But for a few people are

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doing that, And so that's one
one method, the other the other criteria

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I think that we should filter these
decisions through. Maybe the most important is

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the value we bring to customers.
Customer satisfactions have been dropping. Employees feeling

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responsible for the quality of service customers
receive have been has been dropping. And

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so the big risk here right now
that we can solve for, but we

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and we really need to is the
deterioration of the relationship between employee and employer,

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which then which then ends up manifesting
itself in the deterioration between the organization

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and the customers. Yeah, the
two things that when I read them in

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the book that seemed inherently at odds
to me are engagement being at a seven

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year low, but also that employees
are experiencing a new way to work that

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serves their lives better. I mean, leaders have been told for more than

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two decades that the happier the employees
are, the more engaged they are,

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and it seems like, you know
it almost it almost means that you have

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to redefine what it means to be
engaged. Engaged doesn't necessarily mean supportive and

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happy with your with your job.
It means supportive and happy and productive as

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defined by your employer. Yeah,
the how we approach it engagement is very

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different now, and that we've found
that the frequency of the connection because because

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we have so much hybrid work and
we have less predictability, we've got to

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build in predictability into our environments,
into our workplace environments. We want to

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make it work, and that means
we have to have managers who are in

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touch with people. And we found, you know, one area of low

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hanging fruit is to upscale managers or
reskill them to have at least one meaningful

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conversation every week with each employee that
they work with. And there's a lot

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that goes into making it meaningful.
The word feedback itself has been kind of

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a people repellent for you know,
a couple of centuries. But when you

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put meaningful in front of feedback,
it actually is something that attracts people.

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But you got to get the right
elements in there to make it work.

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So I really feel like we can
solve for this, but it is an

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interesting paradox almost were you know,
and you know what what engages people right

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now is you know, autonomy,
But what builds a productive culture involves some

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discipline and some predictability. I call
it where we actually have a plan so

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that when we show up, we
make the commitment with that community that other

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people are there too, and we
can re experience what that in person time

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actually feels like and what actually happens. And a lot of people kind of

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forget about that. It's good for
us mentally too to have in person time

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and so psychologically there their benefits for
the individual and if we do it right

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for the organization, there are cultural
benefits. We're you know, particularly for

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young people developing young people. We've
young people have historically always had a development

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advantage for the right reasons, but
that's been deteriorating as of late. And

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I think it is has something to
do with the distance and not running into

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people in the office and not having
those kinds of relationships, and that's a

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big risk as well. Yeah,
we are we are social creatures. And

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you know, by the time you
are in your thirties and forties, I

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think you know the what you gravitate
towards in terms of a mix between that

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you find the the the extroverts and
the introverts and the introverted extroverts and vice

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versa. All that kind of happens, and then and then you are who

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you are. But if if something
like this occurs where we're things are kind

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of up ended while that part of
you is developing, while you're kind of

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figuring out what works best for you, it's almost it's almost forced upon you,

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as opposed to just allowing you to
figure out what works best for you

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on your own terms. But also
you know, really what works best for

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society, what works best If everybody
only did what worked best for them,

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society would crumble. Yeah, And
it's almost like a gig worker mentality,

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and that's a risk, you know, where there is no sense of loyalty

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necessarily to the organization's just to the
to the work itself. And most work,

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most jobs, now, you could
even look at production jobs, most

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of them require some level of discretionary
effort. Where you might have a colleague

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needs something from you, You might
have you might have a customer who randomly

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needs something from you. You can't
just say I'm going to do the minimum

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required and that fit into you know
what anybody, any any organization's values represent.

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Culture is much bigger than that,
and and you know, we're we're

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just the other week we had a
few of us in the office, probably

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like like ten of us together and
we solved a problem in ten minutes that

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we may not have even thought of
solving and nobody maybe would have even scheduled

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a call about it, you know. So it's it's things like that that

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happened that people have to rerealize what
not only the production part for the company,

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but also the fun things that happened
when we run into people in the

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office that you know, those of
us who have built relationships for a long

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time, It was seamless to get
on video and we still had those relationships

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to that trust. The work was
very seamless. But I really I feel

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like the risk is for the more
than anything for the younger people. But

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the onus is on the older people
too to show up and be you know,

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to be part of that culture and
to be mentors and not just put

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it on the younger people to show
up. But I think there's got to

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be a plan. We found like
two to three days for most jobs,

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most jobs that requires some level of
collaboration, is that is the right mix.

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It's going to vary by organization.
But I'd also say, Chris,

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the plan about when we're together is
only a small part of the overall puzzle.

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And getting this right and getting the
mixed right, we have to have

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a plan about that. It helps
a lot, but we've got to have

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the management there first. We can
have people in the office, and if

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there's poor management, it doesn't matter. Well. I mean, an argument

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can be made that that part of
the push to be remote is from a

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large kind of swath of the population
who didn't like their leader, and and

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their idea that they want to be
remote is not because they didn't want to

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be in an office. It's because
they didn't want to be with their leader.

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And being remote just says, I
get to I have to spend less

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time with this person who who who
just drains me emotionally and doesn't you know,

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add to my life, and and
so it was the it was the

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perfect solution to a problem that already
existed, you know, is going remote.

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And it's really difficult to get people
to say, all right, I

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can separate the two you know,
we said for the longest time, people

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don't leave companies, they leave leaders. And if people don't leave companies,

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they leave leaders. That's essentially what
they've done. They found a way to

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leave their leader without necessarily leaving their
company. Yeah, and this has cut

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through all the research we've done historically
where we look at policies and look at

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the quality of the work experience.
You've got to put the quality of the

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work experience first. I'm not saying
policies aren't important. They are. We've

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given some examples here of how they
can be important in building some predictability and

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structure to an organization, to an
organization for cultural purposes. So there needs

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to be a plan, but the
work experience itself will will by far surpass

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the number of days that we're together
in the in the office. In fact,

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in our global data, when you
look at outcomes like stress engagement at

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work, how engaged people are as
four times more important than where they're where

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they're sitting. So it's it's a
we got to get the order right and

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the first the first level ought to
be to reskill managers to be more like

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coaches than bosses. And it can
be done there's some managers that just won't

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ever be able to pick it up. They're just not naturally there. But

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most managers can pick up and get
some insights if they leverage the strengths of

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the people that they're working with.
They can learn how to involve people in

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goal setting and have continuous conversations about
goals. They can have an environment with

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high accountability where people want accountability because
it shows them how good they are.

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So, you know, engagement,
strengths, performance management, those things can

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all be blended together for managers to
do a great job in this current environment

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and to be in touch with people
and have that combination of some autonomy and

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high performance as well. Yeah.
I like in leadership a lot on our

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show to parenting because I have three
young kids and you know they the idea

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of having routines and structure and accountability
in place is something that that people don't

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necessarily say that they want, but
but they do want it. People do

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want it. And it's not just
that it makes my life easier when my

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kids are held accountable. It makes
them happier people. When they are they

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are happier people, and they are
nicer to each other and nicer to the

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world around them. When there is
some structure and accountability, it's it's inherent

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and and without that, they might
say they're having more fun in the short

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term, but in the long term, I think it it's it becomes this

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this depressive cycle where they they can't
tie it together, like, well,

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I'm I don't like everything right now, nothing's good, but I have all

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the I can do whatever I want
to do. But yet I'm still not

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happy. And they believe that there's
a disconnectween the two. It's like that

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that couldn't possibly be related, but
it is related. It's exactly why they

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are unhappy is because they're allowed to
do whatever they want to do as opposed

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to having some type of structure.
Yeah, you know, and a lot

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of us experiences ourselves personally, I
did I know, you know, I'm

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I always had some time planned to
because I write and do research and absorb

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get very absorbed in in our work. And so I've always had planned,

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planned time an office at home every
week when I wasn't traveling. But then

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suddenly, you know, I was
here every day and it wasn't it wasn't

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that bad, and I could easily
get into the mindset of this is just

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the way I'm going to work forever
because it works. And I've already got

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relationships bill with my colleagues. But
we have a bunch of interns coming in

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every summer, you know, and
uh, and if you force yourself and

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I don't, it's not really a
force you've got to drive into work.

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But but but when you're there with
the people again, you start noticing what

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you actually experienced in person. Again, it's easy to forget that. I

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think I think all of us can
can who've done it, can relate to

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that. But you also build relationships
with the new people. You know,

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Internships are a great way to build
future employees because it's good for them,

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you know, to get the to
have smart projects to work on and to

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get that experience. But it's also
good for the organization to see some of

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that game film in terms of how
they actually collaborate with one another. It's

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hard to see that from a distance. You need to work with them with

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them, and I think you make
great points Chris, that we've we've got

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to have some structured plans so that
we build a real cultures inside organizations.

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Otherwise you got a bunch of independent
workers who aren't as end up not being

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as happy, they're not as engaged, they're not as interested in their work

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over time. And there's nothing better
in my mind than achieving something with a

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team. And it's it's just a
great fulfilling experience to achieve something big,

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to complete a big project with a
team of people, and that works a

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lot better when you have some of
that in person time. Right. Well,

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there's a video that I saw probably
five or six years ago now out

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from Simon Sinek, and one of
the things that he says is that the

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relationships are not built in the meeting. They're built in the five minutes before

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the meeting. You know, they're
built when people are kind of mingling.

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You know that you arrive at the
meeting room and there's a there's a there's

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a three to five minute time when
people are just kind of chatting with each

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other before whoever's running the meeting kind
of starts things off and gets into the

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agenda. And you know, I
know that that doesn't happen over Zoom.

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You know that doesn't happen over Microsoft
teams. The meeting starts. You get

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there at a certain time and we're
going right into the agenda. And it's

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because it's not it's not inherently easy
to mingle and have small talk when every

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voice is over every voice, you
know, you you have those that small

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talk, those mingling moments are just
between you and one other person, and

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and that's where the relationship happens.
That's how you build trust between two people

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is talking with them about things that
might have nothing to do with work.

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They're just about who that person is. And you build a relationship and you

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build trust, and then that's the
kind of person you want to work with

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on the next team. And then
you get your best work done alongside that

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person. And we've we've gone right
from the the you know, hi,

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how are you to? Let's get
the work done. And that doesn't necessarily

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mean that it's that it's not going
to get done, that the work isn't

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going to be good work. But
over a long enough period of time,

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there's no question there's going to be
a decline. There's you can't sustain that

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without the levels of trust and relationship
and camaraderie that existed before. It just

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doesn't happen. People won't do their
best work for someone who they don't have

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that relationship with I completely agree with
that. When we've studied even before the

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pandemic, we did a big study
of social time and what types of social

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time matter the most, and we
looked at different moods that people were in

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during different activities, and most forms
of social time, even technological social time,

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matter from a mood perspective, But
the total amount of time, particularly

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for in person time. In person
time, by the way, it mattered

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the most, particularly when you're doing
something with someone like eating with them or

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just casual times like that seem to
matter the most from a mood perspective,

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But the total amount of time,
and I think this is an important principle

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to pull away from all this.
The total amount of time mattered less than

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actually making it happen. So having
some ritual, some habits where you actually

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make sure that it happens, some
plans is more important than saying I've got

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to spend you know, every day
every week or x number of days every

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week with the same people in person, but having a plan for it.

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Some people might relate this to holidays. They might know that they show up

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to holidays, have a good time
for a while, and then it's it's

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fine to leave, not maybe not
all their relatives or people that hang out

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with all the time, but showing
up matters and it builds those relationships over

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time. I want to talk about
more about what you said about meaningful feedback,

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because I agree that in order to
convince people that the person talking to

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them has their best interests, That's
that's kind of where the rebber meets the

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road here. If I if I
give you feedback and the feedback is coming

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from a place forget the words themselves. If in my mind I'm thinking,

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how what do I say to Jim
so that he stops making my life more

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difficult, then then that means that
the feedback I'm giving you is not inherently

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based around what is best for you. It's based on what's best for me.

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And and if the feedback switches to
what can I say to Jim that

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will help him be a better employee, a better human being, open up

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doors for him in the long term, and whether or not he does that

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has no impact on my personal life. I am. I am simply a

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conduit for this information, and Jim
will see that it is coming from a

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place of I just want what's best
for Jim. Then over time, you

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you get that trust. And and
if the leaders who are saying come back

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to the office, there's saying come
back to the office because it makes my

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job easier. They're not saying,
come back to the office because this will

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inherently make your you a better employee
and you'll accomplish better work. They're saying

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that, but they don't have the
credibility to say that because forever they've given

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feedback that was based on how to
make their own lives easier, you know.

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The the that's a switch that is
I don't want to say it can't

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be taught, because it can.
It absolutely can be taught, but it

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has to start with the leader actually
genuinely liking people. They have to care

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about people, and that's a tough
one to teach. You have to either

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like people already and care about them
or you might be you know, kind

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of missing the cost of admission there. Well, and it starts, you

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know, for for executive leaders,
it starts with the people that report directly

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to them. That's how you build
an authentic culture. And they've got to

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also have you know, meaningful weekly
conversations with those folks. And there are

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there are ways to do it.
But I agree with you, Chris.

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It starts with trust. If you
don't have trust, you can give people

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critique and it feels like criticism.
People actually want critique, they want they

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want that type of feedback, but
they want it from someone who, as

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you said, is genuinely interested in
them, in their in their future.

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And but as you said, leaders
need to explain why the why part.

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But the components to go into a
meaningful feedback are really pretty basic. It's

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kind of low hanging fruit. Actually
one of them is recognition, but that's

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we actually studied people who said they
had extremely meaningful feedback. Those people,

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by the way, eighty percent were
engaged in the US averages now thirty thirty

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one and the global average is twenty
three. So just that one actor,

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it's really hard to in science to
find something like that, you know,

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meaningful conversation or meaningful feedback, boosting
it up to eighty percent. But so

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a recognition was one of them.
But to get recognition right, you've got

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to actually be in touch with what
someone's working on. You got to you

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gotta know what they accomplish, so
it's authentic recognition. You also need to

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know how they like to be recognized. It's only ten percent of people are

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even asked how they like to be
recognized. There's more to lohanging fruit.

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Another element of meaningful feedback is discussing
collaboration, how how the individual collaborates with

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with others. And I'm not talking
about critiquing it, but more a managers

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in position where they know all the
colleagues on the team, and they know

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where collaboration works best, and they
know you know who should be collaborating with

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who to get the right results for
the organization. And they also know the

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strengths of each person ideally so that
they can match people together that have complementary

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strengths or even common common strengths to
get the work done. Goals and priorities.

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Of course, it is an important
component of having meaningful feedback every week,

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So goals change, priorities change pretty
quickly. If we don't do it

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every week, we don't have that
cadence, could easily be backtracking trying to

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correct something that should have been corrected
earlier. So having that cadence and also

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makes it makes the conversation performance related, uh and you can you can.

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It also feeds into that recognition component
down the road as those goals get accomplished.

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And then I mentioned this, but
strengths. People said strengths were a

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part of meaningful conversations and that even
before the pandemic, the younger generation was

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asking for a workplace that emphasize their
strengths. And I'm not talking about everybody's

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saying ignore my weaknesses. It's more
I want you to lead with who I

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am and help me develop through who
I am instead of trying to make me

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be everybody else. And you know, we've got a tool, clift and

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strengths been used by thirty million people
now and it's been a really effective tool

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in identifying strengths. But it doesn't
solve the issue. It opens the door

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for having a meaningful conversation with somebody
in a more efficient way. So so

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that's been useful as well and just
making managers jobs more efficient. But that's

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how you build trust. And when
you have that kind of cadence and you

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build trust, then you can ask
people to do things and and and they'll

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say, I can see why now
because it fits into this bigger picture of

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what we're trying to get done.
So I want to talk about the term

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quiet quitting a little bit because it
has gone from something that like I saw

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it and it was intriguing, The
idea of it was intriguing, like I

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wonder, you know, this is
this is kind of a new thing.

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And and then it it became almost
like co opted towards everything else. Now

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now we have you know, quiet
firing and quiet hiring and quite all these

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different things, and it's become a
buzzword. But at the heart of it

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seems to be this idea that the
definition of what it is is different from

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for a lot of people. So
let me let me tell you what I

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mean with that. If you if
you talk to a leader, they might

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say that quiet quitting is someone who
is, you know, not fully engaged

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in their word work. They have
just decided to phone it in, you

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know. And that could be.
This can be done in an office versus

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or remote, doesn't matter. If
I just don't care, I'm doing the

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bare minimum in order to not get
fired. And then there are there are

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employees out there who say, if
you're talking about going above and beyond,

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what you're saying is you want me
to do more than what you're paying me

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for, Like you you're you're saying, this is the job you hired me

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for, you're paying me this,
I'm getting this job done, and now

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you want me to do more than
that. You want me you want me

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to go to me above and beyond
says you want me to do work for

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free, essentially, And and that's
a that's a really tough conversation to have.

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I think I think a lot of
people are they're getting lost in translation

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here because I grew up in an
era that said do the job that you

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want, not the job that you
have. Show people that you can do

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the job that you want, and
then then they'll have an easier time putting

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you in that job when you want
it. And I think it's it's a

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lot harder now for people to do
that. They want to inherently say,

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give me the job first, then
I'll show you that I can do it.

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And that's a lot tougher for a
leader or an organization to kind of

384
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just, you know, to place
a bet on without seeing how it's going

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to work out in advance. Neither
entity is inherently one percent wrong. So

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how do we how do we kind
of bridge that gap here to where people

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understand that they're not being asked to
do work that up being paid for,

388
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but that that you you have to
show that you want something by doing it

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before you actually be you know,
before actually giving it. Yeah, it's

390
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been. It became a really hot
topic last summer, about about a year

391
00:27:36.920 --> 00:27:41.000
ago. Actually, the lesson that
it started taking off in the media and

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through TikTok, and some of the
people who call themselves quiet quitters were actually

393
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or quiet quitting. We're actually loud
quitting because they're getting on TikTok and talking

394
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about how they're gonna do the minimum
required in front of everybody, including their

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employer, which is kind of interesting. But but the psychology behind and the

396
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contrast you just put in front of
everybody, I think is a really important

397
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one because bridging that gap is really
about having good management again, and I

398
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don't point at the individuals as much. And you know, there's some people

399
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that probably just don't want to work
hard, and we know that there's some

400
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variants there, but most people come
to work wanting to make a difference.

401
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But the problem starts with when people
start assuming that work is just a bunch

402
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of tasks that I've got job requirements, and unless it's a very task oriented

403
00:28:37.720 --> 00:28:45.160
job. Most jobs anymore require some
discretionary effort to to take care of something

404
00:28:45.200 --> 00:28:48.880
for a colleague randomly that comes up, or to take care of something for

405
00:28:48.920 --> 00:28:52.039
a customer that randomly comes up.
And if an employee thinks that that is

406
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beyond the job description, then they
probably aren't very closely in touch with what

407
00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:03.279
the culture the organization is really about, what the objectives of the organization is

408
00:29:03.319 --> 00:29:08.440
really about. And most jobs nowadays
or knowledge type jobs, and you could

409
00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:14.079
even go to you know, many
production jobs where discretionary effort is involved,

410
00:29:14.079 --> 00:29:18.319
but most other jobs as well are
highly and knowledge related jobs where we have

411
00:29:18.359 --> 00:29:23.480
to make decisions and we have to
use discretionary effort. But I think this

412
00:29:23.680 --> 00:29:30.160
quiet quitting it aligns with a construct
of engagement we've been measuring for quite some

413
00:29:30.200 --> 00:29:33.240
time, and the category not engaged, which is showing up to the memo

414
00:29:33.279 --> 00:29:40.400
required. But the cause of it
rests in not taking care of the basics

415
00:29:40.400 --> 00:29:44.960
of management, like whether people have
clear expectations. When people don't clearly know

416
00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:48.480
what's expected of them, they start
psychologically separating from the organization. It's me

417
00:29:48.640 --> 00:29:52.440
versus them. If they don't feel
connected to the mission or purpose of the

418
00:29:52.440 --> 00:29:55.480
company, and don't feel like they
can see how their work connects to the

419
00:29:55.480 --> 00:30:00.559
bigger purpose. Then they start getting
more burned out. If they don't feel

420
00:30:00.640 --> 00:30:03.240
like they're recognized when they do good
work and their managers and in touch with

421
00:30:03.279 --> 00:30:07.000
them, they start getting more burned
out and they feel like they need to

422
00:30:07.039 --> 00:30:11.359
separate. So this work life kind
of continuum I think is really important to

423
00:30:11.400 --> 00:30:15.960
consider. Now give you another little
example. Some employees consider themselves more like

424
00:30:17.559 --> 00:30:22.680
splitters in that they like to split
work in life. Some are more blenders

425
00:30:22.680 --> 00:30:26.519
where they their best life imaginable is
where work in life are blended throughout the

426
00:30:26.599 --> 00:30:36.680
day. That those two psychological preferences
with work in life are about fifty fifty

427
00:30:36.720 --> 00:30:41.279
in the US population US working population. Both can be productive, but managers

428
00:30:41.359 --> 00:30:47.759
need to understand that they understand each
person's work life preference. Think about how

429
00:30:47.759 --> 00:30:52.079
easily you could offend somebody if you
don't know that they like their work in

430
00:30:52.119 --> 00:30:55.240
life separated or if they like it
blended. I mean, if they like

431
00:30:55.319 --> 00:31:00.359
to blend. They may not be
online at a particular time, but you

432
00:31:00.359 --> 00:31:03.640
know they're going to be working later
on on some projects, and you know

433
00:31:03.720 --> 00:31:08.680
that they're going to be productive in
their own way, if they want work

434
00:31:08.680 --> 00:31:15.599
in life split and you connect with
them on off hours when when they are

435
00:31:15.599 --> 00:31:19.759
taking care of other family duties or
whatever they do in their non work time,

436
00:31:19.960 --> 00:31:25.319
you could easily offend them then,
but knowing that preference and that preference

437
00:31:25.400 --> 00:31:29.720
might change throughout someone's life depending on
their life situation, but knowing that both

438
00:31:29.759 --> 00:31:34.400
can be engaged in productive and if
we know, but if we don't,

439
00:31:34.480 --> 00:31:38.200
if we don't ask, we don't
know, and we can't assume that everybody

440
00:31:38.200 --> 00:31:41.680
has the same work life situations.
So I think a lot of this went

441
00:31:41.720 --> 00:31:45.720
a little bit of tangent there,
But I think a lot of this quiet

442
00:31:45.759 --> 00:31:52.720
quitting phenomenon is can be pinned back
on just managers not listening, managers not

443
00:31:52.400 --> 00:31:56.519
being reskilled to manage people in the
right ways right now, and then we

444
00:31:56.599 --> 00:32:00.400
end up with that gig worker type
mentality where it's just me versus the company

445
00:32:00.440 --> 00:32:05.079
and if you're asking me to do
anything besides these very specific job tests,

446
00:32:05.079 --> 00:32:07.880
then it's more than you're paying me
for. Yeah. I think a lot

447
00:32:07.880 --> 00:32:10.920
of leaders would hear what you just
said and they would interpret that. They

448
00:32:10.920 --> 00:32:14.640
would say, well, that means
I have to be both if I have

449
00:32:14.680 --> 00:32:19.039
a team of ten people, and
five of them are splitters and five of

450
00:32:19.039 --> 00:32:22.160
them are are blenders. That means
that I have to be both. That

451
00:32:22.160 --> 00:32:28.400
means I'm essentially working any time my
people want to work, which which if

452
00:32:28.400 --> 00:32:30.799
I'm one or the other. If
I'm one of those and not the other,

453
00:32:30.880 --> 00:32:34.400
because people are inherently one or the
other, that seems inherently unfair to

454
00:32:34.440 --> 00:32:36.759
me as the leader. If I'm
a leader, I should be able to

455
00:32:36.799 --> 00:32:40.400
say this, this is what the
expectation is of the team. And it's

456
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:45.759
one that kind of doesn't make everybody
one percent happy, but it's one that

457
00:32:45.839 --> 00:32:50.359
allows people to, you know,
kind of have you know, some some

458
00:32:50.440 --> 00:32:53.240
of the blending and some of this
of the splitting, and and and to

459
00:32:53.359 --> 00:32:55.720
know that at the end of the
day, we're not individuals. We are

460
00:32:55.759 --> 00:33:00.400
a team, and at some point
in time, the team has to be

461
00:33:00.559 --> 00:33:06.039
together. You know that that seems
like a fair thing. And if I

462
00:33:06.079 --> 00:33:09.960
need to accommodate each person with what
they want, that seems like it's inherently

463
00:33:10.039 --> 00:33:13.240
unfair to the leader. That's why
we have to have a plan. And

464
00:33:13.359 --> 00:33:16.519
I would also contend that the leader
needs to communicate with their with their best

465
00:33:16.599 --> 00:33:20.880
work life is leaders are going to
have more on their shoulders for sure,

466
00:33:21.160 --> 00:33:23.680
because that's part of the role of
being a leader. They they're probably gonna

467
00:33:23.680 --> 00:33:28.720
have to at certain times step if
they are a splitter, they might have

468
00:33:28.759 --> 00:33:31.160
to make some accommodations for that.
But but but if their team knows that

469
00:33:31.200 --> 00:33:37.519
about them, then we have mutual
respect about how we work. And you

470
00:33:37.519 --> 00:33:40.839
know, somebody knows to send their
leader, you know, an email or

471
00:33:40.599 --> 00:33:45.200
a request, you know, at
eight am instead of in the middle of

472
00:33:45.200 --> 00:33:49.319
the night, or they know that
they won't read it until then. But

473
00:33:49.359 --> 00:33:52.559
there's that kind of mutual mutual respect. But there might also be, you

474
00:33:52.559 --> 00:33:54.319
know, crises that they need to
solve for. If you're a leader,

475
00:33:54.319 --> 00:33:57.480
you're gonna have to help solve for
those crises, and that's going to be

476
00:33:57.559 --> 00:34:00.039
part of the part of the job. I work in an international organization,

477
00:34:00.079 --> 00:34:04.119
and I know that I even if
I am a blender, but even if

478
00:34:04.119 --> 00:34:07.280
I were a splitter, I know
that I'd have to accommodate some international things

479
00:34:07.679 --> 00:34:10.679
and have some meetings at night.
You know, It's just part of part

480
00:34:10.679 --> 00:34:16.440
of my job. And so there
is that reality in being a leader in

481
00:34:16.480 --> 00:34:22.159
an organization. But I think if
we communicate those things with one another,

482
00:34:22.719 --> 00:34:28.000
we have a much better chance of
respecting one another's preferences. It doesn't mean

483
00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:30.639
everything is always going to be perfect, and that goes with team members as

484
00:34:30.639 --> 00:34:34.639
well. At the end of the
day, here this, all of this

485
00:34:34.719 --> 00:34:39.840
comes down to the you know,
acquiring and maintaining relationships with customers, whoever

486
00:34:39.840 --> 00:34:45.800
your customer is. That's the lifeblood
of whatever your organization is, whatever whoever

487
00:34:45.800 --> 00:34:50.880
the client is. And if you
know, we know that a highly engaged

488
00:34:50.920 --> 00:34:55.880
employee will be more likely to drive
a highly engaged set of customers, and

489
00:34:57.119 --> 00:35:01.079
you know, disengaged employees will will
not cultivate those those customer relationships. You

490
00:35:01.079 --> 00:35:06.679
know, the book says that we're
starting to see this already, or I

491
00:35:06.920 --> 00:35:08.000
think we've been seeing it for a
while. I'm sure. I'm sure when

492
00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:12.000
those words were written, it was
probably you know, months ago, and

493
00:35:12.320 --> 00:35:15.400
it's even it's devolved even further since
they were put down on paper for the

494
00:35:15.440 --> 00:35:20.760
first time, so much so that
just in my own personal life, I've

495
00:35:20.760 --> 00:35:22.960
almost become numb to it. You
know, it started, you know,

496
00:35:22.960 --> 00:35:28.239
a year and a half ago,
where the service would decline at whatever the

497
00:35:28.239 --> 00:35:30.000
place is, it doesn't matter.
It was a it was a retail establishment

498
00:35:30.079 --> 00:35:35.960
or a restaurant or or literally anywhere
if the service was was in decline,

499
00:35:36.440 --> 00:35:37.599
I'd get up in arms about it
and just be like, this is this

500
00:35:37.639 --> 00:35:42.480
is insane. I'll never come back
here again. It became so ubiquitous that

501
00:35:42.559 --> 00:35:45.920
it's just almost like accepted, like
I this is how life is now,

502
00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:50.119
is that the service is poor in
a lot of places there. People are

503
00:35:50.159 --> 00:35:53.159
short staffed, there's there's less people
doing the same work they did they did

504
00:35:53.239 --> 00:35:59.119
before. And I've I've lowered my
standards as a customer, and I think

505
00:35:59.119 --> 00:36:00.920
a lot of customers have done that. A lot of customers haven't. A

506
00:36:00.920 --> 00:36:07.679
lot of customers are are responding to
that negatively, and they're they're taking it

507
00:36:07.719 --> 00:36:12.119
out on the employees, which then
further drives the employees into being disengaged,

508
00:36:12.159 --> 00:36:15.559
because why would they ever want to
go above and beyond or go the extra

509
00:36:15.599 --> 00:36:20.320
mile for a customer who just finished
yelling at them about something that they had

510
00:36:20.320 --> 00:36:23.039
no control over where they perceived they
have no control over this. We're kind

511
00:36:23.079 --> 00:36:28.920
of in this really bad cycle right
now, and it's going to be difficult

512
00:36:28.920 --> 00:36:32.199
to get out of it, especially
if more people like me start to become

513
00:36:32.559 --> 00:36:37.159
numb and accustomed to it. Yeah, and that was one of the outcomes

514
00:36:37.679 --> 00:36:42.639
that we saw with after the pan
or during the pandemic. I guess where

515
00:36:42.679 --> 00:36:47.440
you know, people realize they had
some choices, and those that were in

516
00:36:47.480 --> 00:36:52.119
customer facing jobs didn't want to deal
with customers anymore, found higher paying jobs

517
00:36:52.159 --> 00:36:58.119
with other organizations, maybe even even
in different industries. But to give you

518
00:36:58.119 --> 00:37:01.360
an example, and I'm not suggesting
this example works across the board, but

519
00:37:01.719 --> 00:37:07.840
certainly is one that I've experienced in
this space. A year ago, we

520
00:37:07.880 --> 00:37:12.599
have a local restaurant out here and
the service was terrible, understaffed. You

521
00:37:12.920 --> 00:37:15.159
couldn't get a drink or food for
if it was crowded, it would take

522
00:37:15.400 --> 00:37:24.239
well over an hour. New manager
this year, incredible staff, a lot

523
00:37:24.280 --> 00:37:29.239
of a lot of a lot of
staff there and isn't because there's there's more

524
00:37:29.280 --> 00:37:31.719
staff availability. He went and found
and he build a culture where people,

525
00:37:34.960 --> 00:37:37.440
I think look forward to doing the
work that they're doing. He found some

526
00:37:37.480 --> 00:37:45.440
local people to work there, some
kids as servers, and they respond much

527
00:37:45.440 --> 00:37:49.239
more quickly to service. It's it's
just completely changed, change the menu everything.

528
00:37:50.639 --> 00:37:52.960
But I think if you build the
right culture, you you will attract

529
00:37:54.039 --> 00:37:57.920
people who really want to make it
different. I'm not and I'm not discounting

530
00:37:57.960 --> 00:38:01.239
the labor shortage issue at all,
but I think there are ways to increase

531
00:38:01.280 --> 00:38:07.679
your probabilities of getting high quality people
that do serve customers effectively by building the

532
00:38:07.760 --> 00:38:09.920
right kind of culture and work environment
in the ways we've been describing, where

533
00:38:09.960 --> 00:38:15.320
people see the importance of their work
and feel committed to their co workers and

534
00:38:15.639 --> 00:38:20.559
want to show up because they have
feel a responsibility to their co workers and

535
00:38:20.639 --> 00:38:23.000
to their customers, and to start
building relationships with customers as well. There

536
00:38:23.000 --> 00:38:27.679
are very few things that I've heard
that have a bigger duh, like like

537
00:38:27.760 --> 00:38:30.360
that's that's the duh. But it's
so much easier said than done. If

538
00:38:30.400 --> 00:38:35.480
I'm a leader and I'm listening to
this, I'm thinking everything that he's saying

539
00:38:35.559 --> 00:38:39.920
is correct. But with the limited
resources that I have to do this,

540
00:38:40.440 --> 00:38:45.440
how do I do this? How
do I how what is the what is

541
00:38:45.480 --> 00:38:49.760
the step by step guide in making
this happen? Or at the very least,

542
00:38:49.840 --> 00:38:52.519
what is the first step, What
is the the you know, a

543
00:38:52.559 --> 00:38:54.960
couple of things that I have to
start with and then know that it will

544
00:38:55.000 --> 00:39:00.320
grow from there. If I just
feel like this is an overwhelming TA right

545
00:39:00.360 --> 00:39:01.480
now. Well, I think you've
got to start with the outcomes you want

546
00:39:01.480 --> 00:39:07.159
to achieve in the organization and then
build a culture where you're focusing on the

547
00:39:07.239 --> 00:39:10.599
right kind of elements with each employee. And it does. You know,

548
00:39:12.119 --> 00:39:14.599
you have to know the employees,
and you have to spend the time.

549
00:39:14.840 --> 00:39:19.760
And I could argue from our data, fifteen to thirty minutes a week with

550
00:39:19.840 --> 00:39:23.519
each person is enough if you do
it right. We've got an instrument called

551
00:39:23.960 --> 00:39:28.719
Q twelve that we've used for decades
across industries. It works effectively and building

552
00:39:28.760 --> 00:39:34.199
the right culture, and it does
start with knowing whether people know it's what

553
00:39:34.280 --> 00:39:36.719
their job is, what's expected of
them. People want to come to work

554
00:39:36.760 --> 00:39:40.960
and know what their role is and
know the importance of their work. People

555
00:39:42.360 --> 00:39:45.159
want to have a job where they
can use their strengths and do what they

556
00:39:45.199 --> 00:39:49.480
do best. Whether that's in a
you know, we're talking food service,

557
00:39:49.920 --> 00:39:55.519
whether it's in a customer facing role
or behind the behind the counter role.

558
00:39:57.199 --> 00:40:02.320
They need to be positions where they
can do what they do best. I

559
00:40:02.320 --> 00:40:08.000
would also argue if you build a
culture that is highly engaging, word gets

560
00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:13.320
out very fast and you attract more
people, so you're going to increase your

561
00:40:13.320 --> 00:40:21.000
probability. Again, it doesn't it
doesn't overcome the economic issue around labor shortage,

562
00:40:21.000 --> 00:40:23.679
but it increases your probability of getting
the right people and also having people

563
00:40:23.760 --> 00:40:28.360
were let's say you have five people
that could do the work of seven people

564
00:40:28.400 --> 00:40:31.159
because they're just more engaged in their
work. So it does come down to

565
00:40:31.239 --> 00:40:36.239
quality managers, having managers who are
in touch with people, because that's that

566
00:40:36.280 --> 00:40:40.159
builds your employment brand and it attracts
the right individuals so that they can then

567
00:40:40.199 --> 00:40:46.039
attract the right customers. That link
between employee and customers very strong, and

568
00:40:49.320 --> 00:40:52.920
you're not going to build customer retention
or customer loyalty if you don't have employees

569
00:40:52.920 --> 00:40:59.559
who customers see that they're they're looking
out for their best interests, and you're

570
00:40:59.559 --> 00:41:01.559
not gonna have as many customers that
yell at people either. If if you've

571
00:41:01.599 --> 00:41:08.840
got employees who are who are not
just well trained, but also who are

572
00:41:09.039 --> 00:41:15.199
are recognized and who feel they have
opportunities to develop inside inside the organization,

573
00:41:15.480 --> 00:41:20.119
I think what you say about fifteen
to thirty minutes a week with each employee

574
00:41:20.639 --> 00:41:22.480
is enough if you know how to
do it. Right. I couldn't agree

575
00:41:22.519 --> 00:41:27.519
more with that. I think the
issue that a lot of leaders run into

576
00:41:27.760 --> 00:41:31.480
is one it can be very easy
to make that prescriptive, right. It

577
00:41:31.480 --> 00:41:35.920
can be very easy to think,
all right, here's here's my fifteen to

578
00:41:35.960 --> 00:41:38.639
thirty minutes with this employee and this
employe and this employee, and it could

579
00:41:38.719 --> 00:41:43.119
come off like they're just checking boxes
as opposed to, you know, kind

580
00:41:43.159 --> 00:41:45.760
of clearing out everything else that's going
on in their lives and really focusing on

581
00:41:45.800 --> 00:41:50.599
that employee for that fifteen to thirty
minutes for what it's designed to do,

582
00:41:50.639 --> 00:41:52.480
which is to build a relationship with
that employee, build trust with that employee,

583
00:41:52.519 --> 00:41:57.039
and figure out how best to serve
them as the as their leader,

584
00:41:57.400 --> 00:42:00.000
as opposed to just saying, oh, i've i've I've met with every employee

585
00:42:00.079 --> 00:42:04.199
this week. Yeah, now it's
time onto the next week. That That

586
00:42:04.719 --> 00:42:07.360
is the first step to it.
The second part of it, though,

587
00:42:07.559 --> 00:42:13.039
is that when you when people are
are meeting like this. I had a

588
00:42:13.079 --> 00:42:15.360
mentor once who said that a good
performance review can be done on a napkin,

589
00:42:16.039 --> 00:42:19.519
and and what you meant by that
basically is that if if if the

590
00:42:19.599 --> 00:42:22.599
relationship is there, you don't need
a form to fill out, and and

591
00:42:23.039 --> 00:42:29.400
that's mostly true. I think there's
there's some formality necessary in whatever that form

592
00:42:29.599 --> 00:42:31.960
is if you want to be able
to hold people accountable to objective standards and

593
00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:36.199
se show people when they're prepared to
be promoted and prepared to move up.

594
00:42:36.239 --> 00:42:38.800
But in general, those little conversations
they can be done on the back of

595
00:42:38.840 --> 00:42:43.679
a napkin or with no paper at
all. But a lot of organizations,

596
00:42:44.320 --> 00:42:46.960
in a desire to kind of make
up for the fact that a lot of

597
00:42:46.960 --> 00:42:52.079
their leaders are ill prepared to do
this, they come up with prescriptive forms

598
00:42:52.079 --> 00:42:53.760
for it. Here's the here's the
paper that you're going to have with you

599
00:42:53.800 --> 00:42:57.679
when you meet with your employees for
fifteen to thirty minutes every week, and

600
00:42:57.719 --> 00:43:01.400
here are the questions you can ask. And it becomes a meaningless fifteen to

601
00:43:01.400 --> 00:43:06.159
thirty minutes to the employee because they
think this isn't about me, this is

602
00:43:06.199 --> 00:43:09.400
about the leader checking off the box. And that's a real tough one for

603
00:43:09.519 --> 00:43:12.280
I think a lot of leaders to
get into it. Yeah it is.

604
00:43:12.480 --> 00:43:16.599
It can't feel inauthentic, and we
have found there are methods they don't take

605
00:43:16.639 --> 00:43:22.079
that long to reskill managers so that
they can have the right kind of conversations.

606
00:43:22.239 --> 00:43:23.639
And I'm not saying it'll work for
every management or work for most of

607
00:43:23.679 --> 00:43:29.320
them and making them better than they
were before, and light bulbs start to

608
00:43:29.320 --> 00:43:31.519
go off, and that includes helping
them with you know, how do I

609
00:43:31.559 --> 00:43:34.679
listen better? You know, how
do I ask the right questions so I

610
00:43:34.719 --> 00:43:37.880
can hear it? Because that the
people inside organizations are going to be closer

611
00:43:37.920 --> 00:43:40.920
to the customers than most leaders or
managers are, and they'll have some insights

612
00:43:42.320 --> 00:43:45.440
in terms of how things can get
better. And sometimes those are easy fixes

613
00:43:45.639 --> 00:43:49.159
for things to get better. So
there's a benefit to the organization. It's

614
00:43:49.159 --> 00:43:52.840
not just about I'm trying to make
this employee feel better. It's it's it's

615
00:43:53.159 --> 00:43:58.840
both ways. It's people want their
opinions to count, but organizations get better

616
00:43:58.880 --> 00:44:02.760
when people's opinions do count. And
that that makes it authentic, that makes

617
00:44:02.800 --> 00:44:06.559
it real. There's a real exchange
where this this employee, I don't care

618
00:44:06.599 --> 00:44:12.400
how young they are, where they
they see things and they want to contribute

619
00:44:12.760 --> 00:44:16.320
and they just need someone who's going
to check in with them and spend some

620
00:44:16.360 --> 00:44:19.480
time listening to And it's kind of
a lost art. Right now, only

621
00:44:19.480 --> 00:44:23.599
about one and four people strongly agree
that their opinions count. But there are

622
00:44:23.599 --> 00:44:29.000
methods that we've found that lead to
higher attention rates, lower turnover rates,

623
00:44:29.639 --> 00:44:32.840
higher levels of engagement for the manager, higher levels of engagement for for the

624
00:44:32.880 --> 00:44:38.000
manager's team. And it's really it's
education around how you move from that mentality

625
00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:45.079
of boss to coach and get leaders
and manages into a mindset where they're doing

626
00:44:45.119 --> 00:44:50.559
more coaching continuously. That starts to
build a culture where you start attracting more

627
00:44:50.599 --> 00:44:53.679
people and more employees end customers because
you build a brand about this is the

628
00:44:53.719 --> 00:44:58.320
place to work. And if you
don't think people don't share that, I

629
00:44:58.320 --> 00:45:00.159
mean even more so now than they
did in the pass through social media,

630
00:45:00.639 --> 00:45:05.800
then you're missing it, missing a
big point. Employment brand is really important

631
00:45:06.280 --> 00:45:09.599
and it doesn't happen unless you get
the right things happening in the organization where

632
00:45:10.519 --> 00:45:14.440
employees are having the right kinds of
experiences. And I don't care whether it's

633
00:45:14.480 --> 00:45:21.760
you know, part time retail jobs
or full time on site jobs or whatever

634
00:45:21.920 --> 00:45:24.679
industry you're talking about. You can
build a really strong employment brand if you

635
00:45:24.679 --> 00:45:30.280
have managers who are more like coaches
and have the right the right up skilling.

636
00:45:30.280 --> 00:45:32.599
And again it doesn't have to be
a major. They can learn things.

637
00:45:32.639 --> 00:45:36.360
I guess my point is they can
learn things very quickly, like how

638
00:45:36.400 --> 00:45:42.280
to leverage someone's strengths, how to
aim those strengths at expectations and accountability and

639
00:45:42.559 --> 00:45:45.559
all the things organizations want. Yeah. I was in human resources at best

640
00:45:45.559 --> 00:45:52.280
Buy fifteen years ago and that was
right at the time when the Home office

641
00:45:52.800 --> 00:46:00.000
was incorporating the ROW you know environment, the ROW Results oriented work environments,

642
00:46:00.440 --> 00:46:04.800
and it was basically the first kind
of iteration of kind of flexible work environments,

643
00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:07.760
you know, work from home and
and come, you know, come

644
00:46:07.760 --> 00:46:09.280
to the office. You know,
this is we're not going to hold you

645
00:46:09.320 --> 00:46:14.159
to the number of times your name
badge punches in. It's going to be

646
00:46:14.559 --> 00:46:17.480
whatever you work out with your team. And after a year of doing this,

647
00:46:17.800 --> 00:46:24.599
there was just incredible uh gaps between
the different teams reporting whether or not

648
00:46:24.639 --> 00:46:28.480
this was successful. Some teams were
saying this is amazing, we love this,

649
00:46:28.800 --> 00:46:31.519
and some teams were saying this is
terrible, we don't love this.

650
00:46:31.760 --> 00:46:36.119
The people who were saying it was
terrible were the leaders, not the employees.

651
00:46:36.639 --> 00:46:40.119
And it was it really came down
to if the if the leader made

652
00:46:40.159 --> 00:46:45.880
something you know, kind of prescriptive
to everybody, then it was inherently taken

653
00:46:45.880 --> 00:46:49.199
as a mandate, like this is
what you know, We're going to meet

654
00:46:49.239 --> 00:46:52.440
at this time every day, and
you know, if you talk to me

655
00:46:52.480 --> 00:46:54.320
if you want some time off or
you want some time away. Other other

656
00:46:54.440 --> 00:46:59.960
leaders reported the employees were in the
office just as much as from the other

657
00:47:00.199 --> 00:47:02.800
teams, but that they felt they
had complete flexibility to kind of you know,

658
00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:07.400
you know, come and go and
and it really came down to the

659
00:47:07.079 --> 00:47:13.119
teams where ROW was successful, where
the teams were the employees reported incredibly high

660
00:47:13.119 --> 00:47:15.559
engagement already they already they liked their
leaders, they liked their team members,

661
00:47:15.599 --> 00:47:19.480
they wanted to be with them.
They just loved the idea of that,

662
00:47:19.519 --> 00:47:21.239
hey, you know what, if
my kid has a soccer game on this

663
00:47:21.320 --> 00:47:24.320
day, I can go to that. It wasn't you know, I'm gone

664
00:47:24.719 --> 00:47:28.920
and let me know if you want
me there and I'll see if it fits

665
00:47:28.920 --> 00:47:32.760
into my schedule. It's I have
some flexibility now, And I think in

666
00:47:32.760 --> 00:47:37.119
a lot of organizations, and you've
seen this in you know, as the

667
00:47:37.159 --> 00:47:43.880
return to work movement started out by
a lot of companies having these mandates or

668
00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:49.800
prescriptive things, even if it was
remote forever, that that impacted their entire

669
00:47:49.880 --> 00:47:53.199
organization, right from the CEO,
whether they had forty employees or four thousand

670
00:47:53.199 --> 00:47:58.880
employees, and it's everybody's the same
thing now. And those were the ones

671
00:47:58.920 --> 00:48:02.280
that it seemed like it didn't work
because four thousand people, no one,

672
00:48:02.880 --> 00:48:07.800
they're not all the same on anything, let alone being home or being remote

673
00:48:07.880 --> 00:48:12.320
or working from the office or or
whatever. And in the areas where it

674
00:48:12.400 --> 00:48:16.119
was left to the decision process of
the individual leader with a five to twelve

675
00:48:16.119 --> 00:48:22.559
person team, it tended to be
more successful, even though inherently you might

676
00:48:22.599 --> 00:48:24.719
think it wouldn't be because you're not
talking about objective criteria for everybody. You're

677
00:48:24.719 --> 00:48:28.079
like, hey, every team can
decide this on their own. Well,

678
00:48:28.079 --> 00:48:29.920
what do you mean they get to
be remote and I have to come to

679
00:48:29.960 --> 00:48:32.400
the office. No, if that's
the if that's the response, then you

680
00:48:32.480 --> 00:48:36.599
already have a poor culture that has
to be you know, kind of combated

681
00:48:36.639 --> 00:48:39.480
against to begin with. But when
it worked, it's because everybody felt like

682
00:48:39.480 --> 00:48:43.920
they could do what they what worked
best for them, and it isn't the

683
00:48:43.960 --> 00:48:46.079
same thing for every employee. In
fact, it might be ten different things

684
00:48:46.159 --> 00:48:50.039
depending on the types of work you're
doing and the types of teams you have.

685
00:48:50.159 --> 00:48:54.119
Well, that's kind of in a
nutshell with that combination of every organization

686
00:48:54.119 --> 00:48:59.119
needs to be thinking about in this
new world as a combination of autonomy and

687
00:48:59.280 --> 00:49:02.320
some structure, right, and the
structure can flow through the team's individually.

688
00:49:02.480 --> 00:49:07.960
I think organizations also need to have
some organizational predictability, like and we say

689
00:49:07.960 --> 00:49:14.159
this in the book, just make
don't take this literally, but or maybe

690
00:49:14.159 --> 00:49:16.880
you do. Maybe do. But
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are in person

691
00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:21.039
days. It doesn't mean there's not
going to be exceptions, but those are

692
00:49:21.039 --> 00:49:22.920
the days when you come in the
office you can see other people there,

693
00:49:23.519 --> 00:49:30.559
and we build a lot of in
person things around those days. And that

694
00:49:30.599 --> 00:49:32.760
seems to work really well because it
fits with the research in terms of the

695
00:49:32.760 --> 00:49:36.679
amount of in person time people need. And I'm talking about remote ready jobs

696
00:49:36.679 --> 00:49:38.400
again, it doesn't fit for it. There's other ways to being flexible for

697
00:49:38.440 --> 00:49:45.519
on site jobs, but it builds
in that autonomy plus and for some people

698
00:49:45.559 --> 00:49:50.440
it takes a little push also.
But if they do work through their team,

699
00:49:51.440 --> 00:49:55.079
then they think about it as a
responsibility to my team not to leadership,

700
00:49:57.119 --> 00:50:00.519
and if they think about as responsibility
to their team, there's a little

701
00:50:00.559 --> 00:50:05.000
bit more social pressure to re experience
what that in person time is like.

702
00:50:06.599 --> 00:50:10.679
I think that that actually works if
you if you have an overall leadership structure

703
00:50:10.679 --> 00:50:15.000
that isn't a mandate but says here's
our here's our days when you can expect

704
00:50:15.039 --> 00:50:16.679
to see your colleagues in the office
and these are these are the days.

705
00:50:16.719 --> 00:50:21.760
It's not a requirement, but it's
a strong push that that this is when

706
00:50:21.760 --> 00:50:23.679
we're going to be together. At
the same time, you balance that with

707
00:50:23.719 --> 00:50:28.719
what you said, the autonomy of
working through the team and the responsibility of

708
00:50:28.760 --> 00:50:31.000
working through the team so that we're
meeting customer objectives. I think there's another

709
00:50:31.039 --> 00:50:35.440
element to this too, which is
that when when the return to office push

710
00:50:35.599 --> 00:50:42.159
first started, there was there was
an incorporation of that along with still a

711
00:50:42.559 --> 00:50:46.559
heightened sense of COVID awareness and COVID
safety, and so it became this you

712
00:50:46.559 --> 00:50:50.840
know this team, you know these
people come to the office on these days.

713
00:50:51.199 --> 00:50:54.559
These people come to the office on
these days, and and good luck

714
00:50:54.639 --> 00:50:59.519
convincing an employee that they are more
productive in the office when they just come

715
00:50:59.559 --> 00:51:02.760
to the office and the closest employees
thirty feet away, and they can't talk

716
00:51:02.760 --> 00:51:05.920
to them anyway. They're not allowed
to be in the same room with them.

717
00:51:06.159 --> 00:51:07.199
If they get within six feet,
they got to put a mask on.

718
00:51:07.599 --> 00:51:10.519
You know. It's like, yeah, of course that doesn't do anything.

719
00:51:10.519 --> 00:51:14.559
That's just you wanting somebody to be
in an office, right, And

720
00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.400
so a lot of employees I think
they came away from that thinking there's no

721
00:51:19.519 --> 00:51:22.119
benefit to being in the office,
and they're not thinking about the fact that

722
00:51:22.079 --> 00:51:25.639
no, there is just not under
the circumstances that you were first told to

723
00:51:25.639 --> 00:51:29.800
come back to the office. It's
it's the collaboration has to be there,

724
00:51:29.840 --> 00:51:34.519
you know. It's almost that like
that that masking experience in the office primed

725
00:51:34.559 --> 00:51:37.559
people into what the new experience or
the old experience would be again if they

726
00:51:37.599 --> 00:51:42.280
revisited it. But there's also there's
also that reality that you know, that

727
00:51:42.719 --> 00:51:47.039
commute has now become less tolerable,
and so people have to have a reason.

728
00:51:47.039 --> 00:51:51.199
You know, a thirty minute commute
now is intolerable for people where it

729
00:51:51.280 --> 00:51:53.840
used to be forty five. So
our perspective on a lot of things has

730
00:51:53.920 --> 00:51:59.360
changed. I think part of the
reason why a lot of the remote push

731
00:51:59.480 --> 00:52:02.239
is being done by younger people.
I think there's some economics associated with it

732
00:52:02.239 --> 00:52:07.280
too. I think a lot of
people they that are younger may have longer

733
00:52:07.320 --> 00:52:10.000
commutes because they can't afford to live
where they work, and so they live

734
00:52:10.039 --> 00:52:14.880
outside of whatever that metro areas or
city areas. And the idea of working

735
00:52:14.920 --> 00:52:17.800
remote said, oh, you know
what, if it's remote, I can

736
00:52:17.840 --> 00:52:22.039
I can buy a house that's two
hours away from the office, and if

737
00:52:22.039 --> 00:52:23.280
I'm only expected to be there,
you know, one Monday a month,

738
00:52:23.480 --> 00:52:25.840
I'll drive two hours one Monday a
month, you know, and then and

739
00:52:25.840 --> 00:52:29.559
I'll and I'll live two hours away. And now I can afford to be

740
00:52:29.599 --> 00:52:31.280
a homeowner where I couldn't afford that
before. And I think a lot of

741
00:52:31.280 --> 00:52:37.280
people think that that that the push
back to the office is the is like

742
00:52:37.320 --> 00:52:39.679
the final nail and the coffin of
them ever being able to kind of put

743
00:52:39.679 --> 00:52:44.960
down roots somewhere and buy a house
as the as the prices continue to you

744
00:52:45.000 --> 00:52:47.000
know, skyrocket worldwide, and so
I think there's a lot of push from

745
00:52:47.039 --> 00:52:49.840
that too. Are you are you
seeing that as well? I think there's

746
00:52:49.880 --> 00:52:52.960
that reality and I think leaders need
to understand that reality. I do think

747
00:52:52.280 --> 00:52:59.719
that though there's also you have to
be exceptional to be a full time remote

748
00:52:59.719 --> 00:53:02.000
work or I'm not you can do
it. We've got a lot of full

749
00:53:02.000 --> 00:53:06.360
time remote workers where where I work, and and we've got a lot of

750
00:53:06.360 --> 00:53:09.400
exceptional ones that do you know,
excellent work and connect with colleagues well,

751
00:53:09.880 --> 00:53:15.639
so it can happen. But and
I think we need to understand that economic

752
00:53:15.719 --> 00:53:19.199
situation as well. And the other
side of it is a lot of managers

753
00:53:19.199 --> 00:53:23.159
and leaders have relocated during during COVID
and if you don't have them in the

754
00:53:23.199 --> 00:53:28.400
office, then that makes it even
more difficult, you know, to to

755
00:53:28.400 --> 00:53:30.920
to get other people in there.
So I think I think it's it's kind

756
00:53:30.920 --> 00:53:35.199
of understanding the whole situation. And
I think there's some some people that are

757
00:53:37.119 --> 00:53:40.599
economically going to have a tough time
getting there, and so I think that's

758
00:53:40.639 --> 00:53:44.840
where the manager and the team come
into play and how we get the work

759
00:53:44.840 --> 00:53:50.519
done best. But for people that
are within within distance, within reasonable distance,

760
00:53:50.559 --> 00:53:54.280
I think you can build a strong
culture and in some cases that attracts

761
00:53:54.320 --> 00:53:59.280
people to find ways to do the
same thing. Eventually. Yeah, the

762
00:53:59.559 --> 00:54:00.960
last question don't have for you today, Jim, is that if if I'm

763
00:54:00.960 --> 00:54:05.599
a leader and I'm I'm listening to
this podcast right now, and I'm thinking

764
00:54:05.639 --> 00:54:08.679
that all the things that I'm hearing
are they resonate with me. I want

765
00:54:08.679 --> 00:54:14.760
to start taking steps to make changes, but I don't, you know,

766
00:54:14.840 --> 00:54:19.079
I can't just you know, magically
make more resources happen. I'm working in

767
00:54:19.159 --> 00:54:22.760
an org structure where I don't get
to decide my labor budgets or you know,

768
00:54:22.800 --> 00:54:24.559
how much time I have to do
certain things. What's one thing I

769
00:54:24.559 --> 00:54:30.199
can do right away to start this
process of trying to change the level of

770
00:54:30.199 --> 00:54:34.440
engagement my employees have and therefore the
level of engagement my customers have. I

771
00:54:34.519 --> 00:54:37.559
would start down the road of reskilling
your managers to have one meaningful conversation a

772
00:54:37.599 --> 00:54:42.239
week with each employee. And if
you don't do that, I don't think

773
00:54:42.280 --> 00:54:46.360
this hybrid working situation will will work
out. I really don't if if managers

774
00:54:46.360 --> 00:54:52.519
aren't doing that core fundamental once a
week and again, it just needs to

775
00:54:52.559 --> 00:54:54.639
be a habit, and it could
be fifteen to thirty minutes. Sometimes it'll

776
00:54:54.639 --> 00:54:58.159
need to be longer because of the
situations they're in. But if, if,

777
00:54:58.320 --> 00:55:01.000
if your managers aren't int with each
person if your leaders aren't in touch

778
00:55:01.000 --> 00:55:05.800
with the people they manage at least
once a week and having a meaningful conversation

779
00:55:05.840 --> 00:55:10.159
everything that goes into that, I
would strongly suggest that this, this hybrid

780
00:55:10.199 --> 00:55:15.400
working, massive experiment will not work
out for your organization very well. I'm

781
00:55:15.440 --> 00:55:17.920
inclined to agree with you. What's
an ask for our audience, Jim?

782
00:55:19.000 --> 00:55:21.760
What where can they go? We'll
put a link to the book in the

783
00:55:22.119 --> 00:55:24.679
podcast description, but give give our
audience and ask for you what can they

784
00:55:24.719 --> 00:55:28.440
do for you? Well, if
you want a copy of the book,

785
00:55:29.400 --> 00:55:32.280
you can just go to Amazon dot
com. It's on Amazon Books there.

786
00:55:32.679 --> 00:55:37.519
If you want more information about all
the reports we're producing at Gallop, we're

787
00:55:37.519 --> 00:55:43.320
continuously reporting new articles, new research, new reports, gallup dot com,

788
00:55:43.360 --> 00:55:45.320
gallup dot com. You can find
everything there. That's awesome. Thank you

789
00:55:45.360 --> 00:55:49.039
so so much for your time today, Gym. I've always love having on

790
00:55:49.079 --> 00:55:52.400
the show. I think this is
an incredible insight. I love how everything

791
00:55:52.480 --> 00:55:57.559
is so data driven and it's not
just kind of a you know, one

792
00:55:57.599 --> 00:56:00.880
person's emotional opinion on what's going on
based on what they see. It is

793
00:56:00.280 --> 00:56:04.000
truly backed up by the numbers.
And I think that's something that that Gallup

794
00:56:04.039 --> 00:56:06.079
has always gotten right. Well,
I appreciate that, Chris. Thanks for

795
00:56:06.119 --> 00:56:07.519
having me on again. Great talking
with you.