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Leadership & Culture Archives - How to be Awesome at Your Job

1053: How to Create Win-Win Workplaces with Dr. Angela Jackson

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Dr. Angela Jackson reveals how practices that help employees thrive translate into enhanced business results.

You’ll Learn

  1. What’s really driving disengagement at work
  2. How the social contract of work has changed
  3. The best way to get your boss’ support 

About Angela

Dr. Angela Jackson, a Workplace Futurist and ESG expert, is at the forefront of reshaping the future of work. As a lecturer at Harvard University on leadership and organizational change and as the founder of Future Forward Strategies, a labor market intelligence and strategy firm, she collaborates with Fortune 500 companies, growth-stage startups, and policymakers, offering valuable research and insights into the ever-evolving landscape of work.

As a subject matter expert in the future of work and learning, Dr. Jackson is widely published in leading journals, including Fast Company, Fortune, Forbes, Newsweek, Harvard Business Review, and Stanford Social Innovation Review, and has spoken at numerous conferences, including the Economist, Wall Street Journal, and TED conferences. Her forthcoming book, The Win-Win Workplace: How Thriving Employees Drive Bottom-Line Success, releases on March 11, 2025. 

Resources Mentioned

Dr. Angela Jackson Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Angela, welcome.

Angela Jackson
Hey, Pete, thank you for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to hear your wisdom, talking about “The Win-Win Workplace.” And I’d like for you to kick us off by sharing any particularly surprising, fascinating, counterintuitive discoveries you’ve made about us humans at work during the course of you putting this together.

Angela Jackson
So, the research that I do at Harvard University that really undergirds this book is really around what helps people thrive in the workplace. And just a simple one-liner that came out for me that was really surprising, that won’t be surprising to others, that at its base, people just want to know that they matter.

And that can be realized and seen in many different ways. And what we tried to do in “The Win-Win Workplace” book was to identify nine ways that, when people experience these strategies, these behaviors, that they feel like they matter at work.

Pete Mockaitis
I feel like we could talk for 40-ish minutes about that sentence alone, “We just want to feel like we matter.” So, can you maybe unpack that a little bit in terms of what are some work experiences that just say, “Wow, I feel like I matter a whole lot” versus some work experiences that are like, “Wow, I feel like I absolutely do not matter”?

Angela Jackson
Yeah, and I just want to be clear. A lot of my work, and I’ve looked at over 1700 companies, I’ve never met a CEO or a leadership team who said they don’t care about their employees. But what’s so fascinating is that when you go and ask rank-and-file employees, does the company care about them, you have upwards of 60% saying that they don’t. So, there’s this huge disconnect in between what employers, management teams, leaders, executive leaders think that they’re doing and what’s being actually felt.

And so, when we talk to like actual everyday workers, things that they said mattered to them was that, one, that there’s a recognition from their manager or from the company that they have a life outside of work, and that their life outside of work, their lived realities, really impacts their ability to show up engaged in work.

So, being very specific, if you think about, like, we’re all in this sandwich generation today where we have kids of our own, we have parents who are elderly, and we know the numbers of boomers who are retiring. And so, because of that, what we’re seeing more and more are that workers are asking for flexibility, not because they want to sit at home and twiddle their thumbs. It’s because they’re playing defense at all levels.

You know, how are you there for your parents, how are you there for your kids and showing up. And so, a bit of flexibility in saying to people, “Can I adjust your hours by coming in maybe a little bit late? Is there a one or two days that you can work from home?” To them, to employees, they told me that means that their employer actually sees them as a full human.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you, yes. What’s intriguing is, with regard to the senior folks, you said they don’t say, “Our people don’t matter.” And yet, it is felt at 60% perhaps that it feels that way, that as though, “We don’t matter,” or, “They don’t care.” And it’s intriguing in terms of just like the mental processes at work. What’s behind that? Is it perhaps that the senior folks are just so fixated on the results and the pressure and bottom line and delivering, delivering, delivering, or what do you think is at the root of this?

Angela Jackson
Yeah, Pete, I think about this a lot and I talk about, in the book, we’ve got these win-win workplaces and we have this other phenomenon that I call zero-sum workplaces. And how I describe a zero-sum workplace are these are very traditional workplaces. They’re the ones that say, “You have to come into the office because I came in the office. And when I came in the office, this is the way I was mentored.”

So, it’s really anchoring what that leadership’s experience was. It doesn’t matter that they’ve been 20 or 30 years out of the rank and file. And so, it’s what we’re asking for is like a re-questioning and a re-imagining of the workplaces for this moment. And so, one is a lot of leaders are tied to nostalgia. They’ll tell you the great ways that they’ve been mentored and invested in and how they rose through the ranks. And so, it’s hard for them to reimagine how mentoring could happen, how development could happen at distance.

I was very fortunate early in my career. I worked for Nokia and we were a global firm, and I led teams that were based in Singapore, I had colleagues that were in the UK. I worked remotely 50% of the time and, because of the distance, because of the time zones, you really had to put trust in your people. And what I found as a manager is that if people weren’t doing their job, it became evident really quickly. But we shouldn’t penalize everyone because there are some people that might take advantage of a policy.

Pete Mockaitis
And what you said there really resonated in terms of, “Well, when I did this, it worked like this. Like, I had to hustle, to stay till midnight, to be abused verbally by higher-ups.” And it reminds me, we had a conversation with Rahaf Harfoush, who used the turn of phrase, performative suffering, which I thought was just perfect in terms of, like, “Whoa, well, we did it, and so look how much we suffered and we experienced the hardship and so, too, you must. And if not, something is going wrong, or it’s unfair, or I was cheated, or there’s something that ain’t right here.”

Angela Jackson
And people today have a different type of social contract with work. I’m Gen X, and I would think about what I was taught to do is you go into work, you put your head down, you get in before your boss, you leave later. And what you get in exchange for that is a good paycheck, right? Hopefully, a good paycheck.

What we’re seeing now when we’re looking at this next generation of workforce, many of them report, 42% said that they would take a pay cut if they could maybe work remotely, if they could have more flexibility. And what we’re seeing with all of the research is that people want purpose in their work. They’re willing to take less. Some of people want to go away from the big cities and want to be closer to home.

What I’m saying is there’s a very different calculation today than it was in previous generations. Gen X, the Boomers, you know, if we were born and raised like I was in Chicago, I was willing to go out to LA and go out to New York. Like, we’re willing to run and go wherever for that next milestone. And what we’re seeing with today’s generation, they’re not doing that.

The second thing is, I think about my grandfather who worked at a Chrysler factory, he was there for 40 years, he was part of a union, I was able to go to college because of that. That’s not the same social contract we have today.

So, you have everyday workers who are watching, mass layoffs, when we see that with government jobs that are typically the safest, people immediately think, “What’s in it for me? What’s in it for me to work at a job that could lay me off and I haven’t seen my kids in seven days because I’ve been traveling, because I’ve been going in late?”

And so, really, today when we think about employers and CEOs, they’re really thinking about, “What’s the value proposition that’s going to resonate most to employees today? That is how we’re going to keep people. That’s how we’re going to attract people.” And they’re actually putting a number on that.

So, by meeting their needs, reimagining their benefits, reimagining how people are trained and placed in their positions, they’re seeing lift on the financial side by implementing these practices. And I just think they’re going to be ever needed when we think about the climate now where no one’s hiring, right? Everyone is trying to do more with their incumbent workforce. Well, it becomes, “How do we keep them and keep them engaged, they’re not quiet-quitting?”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, wow, there’s so much to dig into here. Let’s talk about the social contract in terms of just really articulating that in terms of the old world versus the new world.

You highlighted that job security is no longer a thing, that’s just kind of not around, and so that changes the calculus. Could you elaborate on your articulation of the social contract between executives and lower-level employees in the olden times versus the now times?

Angela Jackson
So, one, you would have, and I think about my parents, your parents, people would stay at their job 20 or 30 years, right? There was loyalty. There were pensions at the time. There was sharing in the success of the company. It was beneficial for people to stay. They were getting bonuses at that time. They had factories and unions that were looking out and making sure that people had benefits and that they could pay for the latest hospital bill or emergency bill.

And what we’re seeing today is that people still expect those things, when I say people, everyday workers. For example, there was this Edelman Trust Barometer that came out, and it said that when people think about where they should be up-skilled for the future or learn these new future work skills, generative AI, they’re looking to their employer for that.

Typically, in the past, employers did invest in training their people. What we’re seeing now is the shift that people are left on their own. And so, what does that mean when you are thinking that you’re a cog in the wheel, at any time your job could be eliminated? And maybe that’s not because sales are down, maybe sales are great. And we’ve seen that with a lot of the tech companies, but they want their share price to rise. So, they’ll just, again, let people go as a signal to the market that they’re being more efficient.

Those are things we didn’t hear about in the past when we talk about that social contract. You were let go because typically you were underperforming. Someone had, whether you disagreed or disagreed, they had a real rationale. It wasn’t because we’re trying to manipulate the stock market, for example. And also thinking about that social contract, the other thing was the stability that you had raises. And you know, there was more employee ownership. There were more pensions.

Right now, when you negotiate your wage, that’s the best that you’re going to do when you’re going in the door. Most people know that. And so, to get that next raise, right, even if you are awesome at your job, you have to go somewhere else. And what we’re seeing now are companies who are letting their best people go because of small things.

This return to office is becoming a big thing. We have A-players, and there was research by colleagues out of MIT, where companies are losing their A-players because there’s inflexibility. And what I always say to CEOs are, “A-players always have optionality. So, it may not be just in this moment, but they’ll have one foot out the door.”

Pete Mockaitis
So, as you sort of lay out the social contract before versus now, it seems kind of like the employee’s contract is just worse now than it was then, and the “compensation” to keep it fair-ish, is that it’s like, “Well, loyalty is no longer something employees bring to the table.” And it just seems like, “Why would they? That’s normal.” So, is that a fair characterization? If the social contract is worse, what are the employees…are they just kind of out of luck or is there a counterbalance on their side?

Angela Jackson
I absolutely think it’s a counterbalance. There’s a set of employers who are still interested in that contract, and they’re interested in centering what employees want. I’ll give you an example. A couple months ago, Spotify put a billboard in Times Square, and it said in substance, “We let our people work remote because we hire adults.” And some would say, “Okay, that’s cheeky and it’s cute, but why did they do that in Times Square?”

Well, if you look down the street from Times Square, you have JP Morgan Chase that is requiring people to come back in the office. And they know some of those people will leave. And what Spotify is trying to do is say, “We’re different.” And they’re using that to actually attract talent, get A-talent. And they’re seeing a tangible benefit.

When I connected with their CEO, he was saying, “We attribute our flexibility and our policies and our people policies with keeping our teams. We let them work from wherever they want in the world. We want them to pursue their passions. Why? Because we know that if they’re excited in their lives, that they’ll bring that excitement to work, if we can sustain that.”

And so, while it’s broken with certain companies, there are a set of these companies that I write about in that I call win-win workplaces are actually using this as their competitive advantage, this moment and this differentiation.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, so in this new contract, Spotify is bringing some things to the table with regard to flexibility, etc. They will still fire you readily because they’ve had rounds of layoffs and such, but they’re bringing some other goodies, such as the flexibility. And any other key things you’d highlight there?

Angela Jackson
I think it’s flexibility. I think it’s passion. When you talk to their employees, they’re passionate about what they do. And what gets exciting about that piece, is when you’ve got employees who are passionate about the mission, that they feel supported, what you’re building towards is what I call an ownership mindset.

And those are the employees, my research shows, are the stickiest, the most loyal. Like, they feel bought into what the company is doing and they want to go the extra mile. And it’s not just about the paycheck. It’s because that company matches up with their values, the way that they live their life. There’s not that gap, that air in between the two.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. It seems like there’s got to be something going on in terms of bought into the mission or purpose, or we’re having fun solving problems, or there are colleagues that were just a blast to be around who inspire and are fun. Are there any other key bits of value on the employee side that are really getting accentuated these days?

Angela Jackson
Yeah, the big one is around agency. And so, we have a number of companies, the most famous one is we think about Google and their 20% time off to pursue an interest or an innovation. We’re seeing more and more companies actually give their people time to tinker. And by that, I mean some of them are doing it in different ways.

They may bring a problem of practice to an ERG group or a group of employees, and say, “If you can come up with the ideas, all ideas are welcome.” And giving people funding and budget to actually work on some of these ideas. Coca-Cola bottlers, in North Carolina, is doing something very similar. They had a challenge around frontline workers and how we retain them. And so, they challenged a group of rank-and-file employees to come together and solve that problem.

And that was an acknowledgment that these people are closest to the problem. So, of course, they might have some loose solutions to solve it. And so, it’s innovations like that where people are bringing rank and file into the thinking of the company, into the challenges, and also giving them the agency to begin solving some of these problems.

Pete Mockaitis
And I like that a lot in terms of, like, the Coca-Cola bottling example, with the solving of the problems, because when I think about purpose, and maybe I just have too high a standard, but I don’t imagine, I guess it depends on how you define purpose, and I’d love for you to expand on this, that folks are saying, “I am deeply inspired at my core by the mission of getting sugar water into the hands of more and more people and growing the market share,” right?

Like, I don’t think that purpose sense in the Coca-Cola context specifically is resonating. So, when you say purpose, are you thinking about something with more, broader, with additional facets, or maybe it’s like, “Hey, know what, purpose isn’t going to be so much of a motivator in certain organizations. So instead, hopefully, we’ve got some of that autonomous problem-solving goodness to offer”?

Angela Jackson
Yeah, I love that. And I love your push on this too, Pete. Purpose means different things to different people. And so, say you’re at a Coca-Cola bottlers, for example. For them, the purpose is, “At my job, can I be really good at it? And do I have a company that’s investing in me? And do I feel like my work matters?”

So, that’s having purpose versus being at the front line and you’re feeling, you’re just a number. No one knows your name and what you do. You don’t know what you do, how that connects to the overall vision of the company. And that’s hard sometimes when you’re at the front lines. How do you connect that to the overall strategy and show that through line? So that’s one set of purpose.

Then you have the other set of purpose where, you use a Spotify, or I even use my job at Harvard. I love the research I do. It gives me a sense of purpose that I can work on research around workplaces that help connect people to better companies that are willing to invest in them. And so, really thinking about, like, this is something I’d probably do for free, that I would talk about. And you have a set of people who are just really connected to what the business is delivering, and they find deep value in that.

And I believe if you go to some of those employees, they’ll tell you why they’re excited to get up every day and go to work, what they’re learning, how they’re growing, being an international company. They’re doing a lot of exciting things within the company to keep their people engaged.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’d love it if you could share perhaps a favorite story of an organization you’ve seen really make a transformation or an about-face in terms of getting with the program to creating more of a win-win workplace?

Angela Jackson
One that just came to mind was a CEO of a fast casual restaurant. He brought in me and my research team because, again, with their frontline workers, they were having a challenge around getting them to take advantage of the benefits that the company offered.

And the CEO, he was so excited and proud of himself because he offered rank-and-file employees, access to the 401k plans, but he was perplexed because no one took advantage of it. And so, he called me in, and he’s like, “Dr. Angela, tell me, what does your research say about this? Like, I would have killed for a benefit like that.” And I said, “Well, I don’t know.” “Have you asked them?” And he hadn’t asked them.

And to his credit, fast forward, he did end up asking them. And what he learned from his rank-and-file kind of employees is that the 401k was great, people appreciated it, but they had more present-day issues that they needed help with.

Pete Mockaitis
That was my guess, it’s like, “I’m paycheck to paycheck. Saving for retirement would be nice, but that feels more like a luxury at the moment.”

Angela Jackson
“Will I be able to retire,” right? And that was it. And so, to his credit, he acknowledged that. We did the listening, and what he did was the money they had allocated for that, they put into a flexible fund so that employees would have choice about how they wanted to spend those dollars. So, they could spend it on caregiving. They could spend it on transportation. They could spend it on a massage for themselves in the area.

But what he was able to acknowledge, and when we went back and talked to employees, one thing that they told us when we asked that same question, “Do you think your employer cares about or give us some examples?” they start citing that they had some agency over how these funds were spent. And everyone spent them differently.

And what was so interesting that we found after we tracked where they spent the dollars, many of them spent them in their local community, with local small- and medium-sized businesses. So, not only was it great for these employees and giving a sense that this company was actually shoulder to shoulder with them in what they need today, they also felt good that this was money being driven in the community where the business does business.

And I’d say one thing is, when we talk to actual employees, they would say, “We’re appreciative for the 401k, but I’m so happy that I actually get choice. I feel like they really see me and understand me.” And again, all of this is around perception, when we talk about how we feel at work.

So, there’s intentions, and then there’s like how those intentions are received. And what I’m seeing with these win-win companies are they’re really keen on tracking how it’s being felt and experienced by the rank-and-file employees so that they actually get it right and not assuming that they know what’s best and what they want.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes, that is, in my entrepreneurial journey, I have made that mistake numerous times, like, “People should want this because it’s cool,” as opposed to, “Well, do they actually?” and “You must ask.” So that’s handy. So, you lay out, in your book, “The Win-Win Workplace,” nine strategies for creating better workplaces. Could you share with us a favorite in terms of it just being tremendously transformational and high ROI? Like, “This is not that hard and yet it makes a world of a difference. So, come on, workplaces, everyone should just go ahead and do this.”

Angela Jackson
Yeah. And I have to say, a lot of this book, and what pleased me about it, is these are common sense things. And what we noticed with our conversations with leadership is that it’s harder to put them into place because what it really takes is, one, intention; two, and what we write about this in the book is a commitment to measuring this.

We do lots of things for people. We don’t ask their feedback on them. The second thing is we don’t measure if it’s effective. And this is a problem with a lot of the plans and trainings that we do in the world and, again, billions of dollars spent, but the outcomes, we’re not really seeing any of them. And so, what we’re asking companies to do in this moment is to reevaluate how you’re training people, how you’re developing people, and really think about what’s adding value for them and making sure that it’s actually adding value for the bottom line.

And these nine practices, in particular, they show a correlation to output, a lift on the financial side, and that’s really important because what we’re trying to do is move conversations around investing in people just as an expense or the charitable thing to do to, one, actually seeing it as a revenue driver.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, and I totally buy it in terms of, maybe if you could just specify the mechanism of action here, because it kind of seems like the extent to which people, human beings, are feeling good things, and able to take care of themselves, their lives, that which is important to them, their health, they are able to show up and be smart and creative and engaged and rocking and rolling. And so, that just seems intuitively commonsensically true, but it is kind of a trickier thing to measure.

Angela Jackson
It is and it isn’t. So, the one way that we’ve mapped out, and for this case study, we talk about the private equity firm Blackstone. They have hundreds of portfolio companies, and one thing that they did is they did their research across their portfolio companies. They saw that, investments in talent, they were able to map out an ROI.

And so, what we found were, and what they found were, investing in actually training people to manage people had an ROI. And how they mapped that was amongst retention. They did pulse surveys about frontline, “How did they feel about their managers? Would they recommend their managers?” And then what they were able to do in terms of some of the financial institutions that they looked at, they had measures, for example, on like cash on hand and assets under management.

They noticed that people, when the employees were happier and that they felt great about their manager, that some of their businesses had more assets under management and they had higher sales. And so, they were able to disaggregate that. And so, we tell employers, “Find two to three metrics that you think are key, that you think would show you the health of your employees.”

“Have those metrics on the same dashboard that you’re thinking about, ‘What’s our sales over this quarter? How many products have we produced? What services have we put out?’ And have those same three metrics? So, you should be looking at them. So, one, get a baseline. Two, think about the problem of practice or opportunity you see with your talent. Is it around training? Is it around training managers? Is it about reimagining benefits? Is it about like building your deep pipeline? And just think about what those two to three measurements are, and begin to measure them quarter over quarter.”

And again, it’s going to vary from company to company, but just once you have those three metrics, you’re going to have two measurements that you’d say, “If this is going right, this is how we know. This is the effect that it will have on the bottom line.”

So, it’s an art and a science, but it’s absolutely doable and it doesn’t have to be cumbersome. We’re not saying measure 20 different things. We’re saying, “What are the two to three people metrics that are most important to your business and the business model and the bottom line?”

Pete Mockaitis
This brings me back to one of my favorite consulting projects in which we were trying to reduce attrition at some call centers. And so, as a lowly analyst, my job was to create an actual tool that actually measured real attrition.

And so, I was creating this spreadsheet, and it was so fun because, like, every day or a couple days, more people said, “Oh, hey, can you add me to that daily list?” And so, it’s like I was the keeper of the real attrition numbers. And I had, I guess, my first professional audience, the email list was growing and growing and growing. And, sure enough, once they got engaged, there was real numbers, the excuses disappeared, and we got real about the interventions.

And we could see, in terms of more experienced representatives have a lower average handle time on the phone, resulting in more cost-effective solutions and answers to customers. And so, we could sort of see that line very clearly and it’s cool. Can you share with us, in terms of you mentioned higher sales or assets under management, can you connect the dots a little bit between “We did a thing and it made people happier, and somehow dollars came out the other side”?

Angela Jackson
Yeah, absolutely. So, there was a healthcare system, and what they were having issues with, with all healthcare systems across the country, is retaining talent. You have nursing shortage. You have frontline kind of worker shortage in healthcare. And so, what they did was implement two things that they did were great. One was a flexibility around scheduling.

So, many people who are listening and know healthcare, it’s one of those tenured issues. Like, if you’re the new nurse in, you get the worst shift. If you’re tenured, you get the better shift. They tried to, one, is just reimagine that, and be more equitable, and fair in their scheduling so that new nurses don’t always get the most terrible shifts, because what they found out through measuring it, that was actually burning them out.

They were able to reduce turnover with nurses by 10%. That was really significant because the average turnover they said of a nurse cost them $180,000. So, when you think about that across 3,000 nurses, that’s real dollars and cents that they were able just, by tweaking the schedule and understanding they started with listening, trying to understand “What were the barriers? Why were people leaving? And what would make them stay?”

Two, they knew what their baseline is. And then, three, they got real about what you said, the cost of attrition. I was surprised with my number of companies that how many of them didn’t have a real grasp on the cost of attrition. So, most people might think attrition is just the person leaving their job. Attrition is also the time that you spent finding that person, the time that you spent training them over the years, the value that they had.

And now it’s the cost you need to find someone else and to train them, and they’re not going to be as good as the person who’s been there for four or five years because it takes that onboarding time and getting up to productive speed.

The second thing this healthcare center did, and we found, they found that one thing in common is that people wanted training. And so, what they begin doing is offering training benefits. If it was anything related to a person’s job that they wanted to learn, or if they wanted to go back to get their degree, they were giving them a pool of funds. And they watched, of the people who took advantage of this training, how longer they stayed versus others.

The people who took advantage of training stayed 30% longer. And, again, in a healthcare field where tenure actually really matters, people get better at their jobs and costs are going up when you’re trying to replace talent, like 30% longer became very substantial to their bottom line. And so, they reinvested those dollars into more training, more internship, and just doubling down on what the nurses and other healthcare providers said they needed.

Pete Mockaitis
And, Angela, I’d love your take, if we could shift gears for a moment away from the executive strategic level, to, let’s say you are an individual contributor listening to this and saying, “Okay, that sounds really cool. I’d like some of these goodies,” do you have any pro tips on how we can make the case for whatever it is that we think would help us to flourish?

It sounds like we’ve got a clear situation along the lines of getting some numbers and a financial ROI case to be made? What are some of your other pro tips for folks who find themselves in that position?

Angela Jackson
I think the biggest thing you can do to be awesome at your job is to know your value. You need to understand how you add value in ways that line up with the business and the business strategy.

So, for one, every company that I’m out talking to now, they’re thinking about their generative AI strategy. This is new for everyone. And what a rank-and-file person who’s working, you know your job intimately, you’re an expert at your job, you should be thinking about how do you add value with the new technology? How are you saving money? How are you saving time? How are you being more productive? And have an analysis on that.

When you go in and you’re talking to your manager, the second thing you need to do is speak their language. And so, going in and knowing how you’ve been more productive, what you’ve added in your value, and talking about that in terms, starting with that, and then telling your manager or leadership who you’re in front of, what they can do to help you be even more efficient.

So, you’re really couching it in it’s in their best interest to do this. You’re saying, “I’m an A player. This is what I’ve delivered. And from my job, I’ve noticed if I could get XYZ support, I could be even more productive.”

So, for example, I’m in Boston. We have the worst traffic in the country. And so, what I saw one employee do, she went in and instead of saying, “I want more flexibility to work,” she’d say, “You know, this is what I produced last year, but I did notice that I spent four hours,” her commute was two hours back and forth, “in traffic.”

“I think that if I could leave and show up to work either flexible 6:00 a.m. and get off earlier, come in late, that I could be more productive. I could also be more productive if I could have one day of non-commute time.” Laying it out like that, she got a great response because you’re leading on with curiosity, you’re coming in with data, and again, you’re centering what matters most to them and helping you, you’re helping them help you help them.

Pete Mockaitis
Is that a movie, “Help me help you help them”? That’s good. Well, Angela, tell me any other key things you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Angela Jackson
Yeah, I think the biggest thing, and I just want to just double down on the point I just made, in this time and in this moment, particularly, we have to advocate for ourselves. I think about people who are in jobs today who have ideas on how to improve the company, how they can be more productive. Make sure you’re communicating those to your direct manager. Make sure that you’re getting face time with a more senior management. Make it your business to do that. People need to know you exist.

I’ll give you an example. I have a very dear friend that was in DC and she was part of the latest rounds and cuts at the IRS, and she’s a tax attorney. And she goes, “You know, for a time I didn’t even have a manager for months.” And I told her, “I wish I would have known, because if you can’t find the person who manages you, or if they’re not paying attention, you need to find the next person up the rung to do that.”

And then, two, these strategies give you that economic case and argument. And so, once you make it to your employer, they may respond favorably, they may not. I always say that’s data. If they’re not giving you what you need, there’s a host of employers who are looking for people like you, who are adding value, and who are thinking differently. So, I’d say be on the lookout for those employers and also bring the ways that you’ve been adding. Lead with the ways that you’re adding value when you speak to them.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Angela Jackson
“Whatever you can, do, and whatever you do, do it to the best.” And that’s one of the Goethe quotes. And then I love this other one by Howard Thurman, and I actually just write it in my book.

It says, “Whatever you want to do in the world, do something that lights you up because the world needs more people who are lit up.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Angela Jackson
Oh, gosh, my favorite one was putting up a worker advisory board. We had 200 workers from across the U.S., red states, blue states, across different sectors, and really worked with them to help place them in jobs that were impacted by the pandemic, and we’re able to study what happened to them once they were placed in the jobs.

And that actually became the research that undergirds the book. You know, we found somewhere in these, what we now call win-win workplaces, and the others were in what we call a zero-sum where people didn’t want to work there. They were quitting. They weren’t staying. They had regular turnover. And just really understood that the difference between the workplaces were these nine strategies, how they were investing in their people.

Pete Mockaitis
So, as we contrast a win-win workplace versus a zero-sum workplace, could you give us a couple telltale signs, maybe it’s a number or a metric, or maybe it’s a vibe that’s like, “Okay, yeah, this sounds like what a win-win workplace is versus this sounds like what a zero-sum workplace is”?

Angela Jackson
So, I’ll give you an example of one and it just popped in my mind. So, a few weeks ago, some of your listeners may have seen Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan Chase. They had a town hall meeting. They invited all of their employees to ask questions.

One brave soul, he stood up, and he asked this question around the return-to-work policy to Jamie Diamond. I think Jamie would say it wasn’t his best day. He totally went off. And then the person went back to their desk, and their direct manager said, “I can’t believe you asked that question. You’re fired.”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, really?

Angela Jackson
Oh, really.

Pete Mockaitis
I didn’t know that part of the story. Okay.

Angela Jackson
Yeah, let me tell you more about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Keep going.

Angela Jackson
So, Jamie Dimon didn’t, I’m sure, and I’m certain that Jamie didn’t say to that manager, “Fire him for asking that question,” but what that manager was operating on is that zero-sum workplace. That zero-sum workplace means if you say anything that ticks off the big boss, you are gone. No questions asked. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, right?

And what that did in that moment, you know, they subsequently told him he could keep his job. And so, the person stayed there, but you have to think about all of the thousands of people who were watching that moment. We say centering worker voice and these town halls are important, but as leaders, how we show up in those spaces really matter and it builds or decreases psychological safety. Like, who’s going to ask the next question that they think, might think, might tick off Jamie? Probably it’s not coming anytime soon.

The second is, “How do we train our managers differently,” right? This manager had an old-school frame, and if he had been actually trained, knew the policies and procedures, had talked to someone and got advice, that person wouldn’t have lost their job, and I wouldn’t be able to tell this story today, which is not the best shining example of JP Morgan Chase.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s just…I am shocked at that notion. It’s about as antithetical to psychological safety as you can get, “You said a thing we didn’t like, so you’re fired.” It’s like, “Okay, well, good luck getting any kind of creativity or quality constructive friction in conversation that leads to goodness if that’s the vibe that we’re all keenly aware of here.”

Angela Jackson
Yeah, and you’re being invited into a town hall, right? And so, this is why we talked about that disconnect. Companies spend billions of dollars on saying that they listen to their people, but it’s not felt. Those are just one of those moments, “You invite me in to listen. You ask for my advice and then you blow up.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Angela Jackson
And so, that’s a classic. There’s many more samples and flavors of that zero-sum workplace. I’m sure what your listeners can listen and lean in on how that looks like. Like, we’ve all had the bad bosses, but it becomes the norm, right? And that’s really unfortunate because instead of operating out of creativity, there’s a lot of fear. And in general, there’s a lot of anxiety in the world today. When you’re bringing that in the world of work, it just becomes closer to home.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Angela Jackson
I think my biggest one is “Outrageous Openness” And it’s just around being open to what’s happening in the world, being curious and outreaching.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite tool?

Angela Jackson
Right now, my favorite tool, honestly, is ChatGPT. And can I tell you why?

Pete Mockaitis
Yes.

Angela Jackson
When we talk about being productive, some people have zero inbox, I’ve not gotten there yet. But it helps me be more productive with my responses and doing it in a more timely fashion.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m a huge fan of the Superhuman email app, and they’ve incorporated some AI features that I’m genuinely impressed. It can now clearly label podcast pitch in all of my incoming emails. And so, I can just very quickly go, “Hmm, forward, forward, forward, forward, forward, so my producers get those fast.” It’s like, “Okay, well, that’s 90 emails out of my inbox in about three minutes. That felt pretty productive. What else?”

Angela Jackson
And don’t you feel good at the end of the day? You’re like, “I’ve done my job. I’m not the bottleneck.” It’s like playing tennis, you know, get the ball over the net.

Pete Mockaitis
Totally. And a favorite habit?

Angela Jackson
My favorite habit is meditating. Every morning, I don’t do it for long, I’m not one of those gurus. I do about five minutes. I get clear on the day. I say what I’m grateful for from the day before and it actually centers me to have a better day.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really connects and resonates with folks that you’re known for?

Angela Jackson
The time to make friends is before you need them.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Angela Jackson
So, they can go more in the book, they can go to ReadWinWinWorkplace.com. Also, I’d love to share with your listeners. We’re doing our first summit on “The Win-Win Workplace.” We’ve got 80 employers who are actually practicing these principles and using these strategies to see their ROI. We’re doing that in Chicago on May 5th and 6th, and it’s open to everyone. I say employers, managers come, but even people who are looking for their next opportunity, these are the employers you want to be in front of. They’ll be in that room. And you can go to WinWinSummit.org for that.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Angela, this is fun. Thank you.

Angela Jackson
Pete, thank you again for having me. I appreciate it.

1047: How to Reignite Purpose, Happiness, and Motivation at Work with Jennifer Moss

By | Podcasts | One Comment

Jennifer Moss gets to the heart of why so many are dissatisfied at work—and what we can do about it.

You’ll Learn

  1. The driving force behind our unhappiness at work
  2. 20-minute practices that rebuild hope and morale
  3. Why remote work isn’t the culprit for loneliness—and what is

About Jennifer

Jennifer Moss specializes in future-focused leadership development, expertly balancing employee well-being with performance. As an award-winning writer and internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, she specializes in transforming workplace culture using data-driven leadership strategies. She writes for Harvard Business Review, sat on the United Nations’ Global Happiness Council, was named to the Thinkers50 radar, and has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, CNN, Marketplace, TIME, Fortune, Fast Company, and more. Her book The Burnout Epidemic tackled employee burnout and was among Thinkers50’s “10 Best New Management Books for 2022.”

Resources Mentioned

Thank You, Sponsors!

Jennifer Moss Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Jen, welcome back.

Jennifer Moss
I’m so glad to be back. It’s been a while.

Pete Mockaitis
It sure has. Eight whole years. Boy, a lot could happen in that timeframe. Can you share with us something transformational you’ve learned over the last eight years?

Jennifer Moss
As I’ve gotten older and I think become a little bit more, aware that change takes a really long time to happen, and you sometimes move sideways, and you move backwards.

And yet there has been, when I look back to when I first wrote Unlocking Happiness at Work, and now Why Are We Here, there has been some real advancement in the discussion around happiness and well-being at work and that’s a positive thing that I think has been really impactful on me and my level of hope for the future.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Hope is good. We like hope. More of that, please. So, tell us, in your book, Why Are We Here?: Creating a Work Culture Everyone Wants, any particularly fascinating discoveries you’ve made along the way?

Jennifer Moss
There is just such brilliant research going on out there that’s been untapped and we need to spend more time, I think, with our academic partners in workplaces because it’s just so necessary to learn that there are ways that we can actually improve the workforce.

And I broke the book out into these three parts, the foundations, which is really hope, purpose, and community, and then I go into the second part, which is all of these unbelievable shifts that have happened at work in the last five years that feel like we’re in the multiverse of work. This isn’t the future of work. It’s the multiverse of work. And it really is dealing with AI and the rapid evolution of technology and generational bias and how that’s polarized the workforce. And then also just flexibility now, a right not a perk.

And so, I talk about that from a sense of compassionate leadership and leaders having a sense of openness as a leader, and really around understanding freedom. And then the third part is how we’re going to get there as a collective, and that’s belonging and recognition. And so, this, for me, across the board, every single chapter was this real understanding of the psychological barriers that we’re all facing as human beings that keep us from feeling and behaving with those kinds of traits. And so, it was a lot of learning and a lot of self-discovery too, as a leader myself.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, there’s a lot of rich stuff to dig into here. Thank you. Can you tell us, in terms of the academic community, sort of researchers doing studies and publishing them in journals, is there a particular discovery or thing that is well understood amongst academics looking at this stuff, that is generally not at all, or not frequently, implemented in the real world?

Jennifer Moss
Yes, and, one, is I would say it’s the first chapter, which is really interesting because today Gallup just put a note, basically, that hope is what every single organization needs to be fostering to be able to build out a future-ready organization, and it is the first chapter of my book. And, actually, John Clifton was interviewed, and he’s the CEO of Gallup, and talked about kind of the book and the importance of the book, and I think it’s because he had been seeing this hope need and this loss of hope inside of organizations.

And the thing is we constantly say in leadership, “Hope isn’t a strategy, and we can’t make hope a strategy.” And the thing is that leaders are getting that completely wrong. When I interviewed senior leaders in the military, they said hope is their only strategy. They always make hope foundational to the mission because how is anyone going to put their life on the line if they don’t have hope that they’re going to be able to achieve the end goal?

And so, in the book, I talk about how practical it is to build hope. It’s easier than building empathy and almost any other trait because it’s really, it’s tactical and you build it through these small incremental settings of goals, having the agency and the support to get to those goals, and then creating plan Bs and plan Cs so that if one plan to your goal fails, you have another plan as a backup.

And so, I talk about how we can do this, like 20 minutes every single week can build cognitive hope in an organization. It’s not hard, and I think that it’s been easy to put it off as something that’s simple and too simple to be valuable, and instead, it’s actually so needed right now.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so hope, we need it, got to have it, are missing it. Can you define, specifically, what do we mean by hope?

Jennifer Moss
Hope right now is this kind of key trait that we need to get people to feel like they can see themselves inside of society, writ large, but also inside of our organizations. If you don’t have hope, you feel disconnected from the mission because you don’t see yourself as part of the future. You also have anxiety around things that are new. AI, for example, if you see yourself as becoming obsolete, and you don’t have hope that you are part of that picture of an organization, you disengage, you’re less productive.

Hopelessness makes you have to be in a survivor state every day and you’re not thriving so you’re not actually thinking about the future, which is what we need right now. We’re just moving so quickly that if we don’t have a future perspective in our organizations, and people are in just survivor mode every day, we’re going to see attrition or we’re going to see what Gallup calls the Great Detachment, which people are at work, but they’re extremely unhappy, they’re actively disengaged, and they’re actually spending time trying to get other people to be as unhappy as they are, which creates a social contagion and it’s really unhealthy.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. So, hope, very important. And so, what exactly is hope?

Jennifer Moss
Hope is a sense of feeling that you are encouraged by the future, that you see that yourself in the future, that you feel like you have a legacy, that you have a sense of mattering and meaning in the world, that the world itself cares about you, that the world itself is safe, and you feel psychologically safe in it. Hope comes a lot with a sense of community. So, you believe that there are people there for you in a time of need.

Whether it’s actually tested or not, it’s a perception that you have social support, and that’s a big part of a sense of hopefulness inside of your community, inside of society, and your place inside the world.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, I’m hearing that hope is a belief, and it seems to encompass a lot of things. Could you tell me in one sentence, how are we defining hope in this context?

Jennifer Moss
I think I just described it, but, yeah, hope is…

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I guess it’s like a lot of things, but like what is the umbrella that is encompassing all of those things?

Jennifer Moss
Hope is a sense that everything is going to be all right.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, cool. A sense that everything’s going to be all right. And so, then we’ve sort of already gotten a sneak peek at some of those segments there. And so, within everything being all rightness, there’s a component associated with the future, like what will unfold. There’s a component associated with community and people and relationships, like I feel a sense of comfort and belonging in their midst. And I guess, are those the key pillars? Or, what would be the subcomponents of this belief?

Jennifer Moss
I mean, you just listed really all of what those subcomponents are to hope. But I think the important part right now to, I think, for us to focus on is the fact that we have a high rate of hopelessness inside of our world right now.

Globally, the sense of hope is significantly reduced. And that’s because we have moved from a state of the pandemic being a crisis, but we’re in poly-crisis right now, which is a cluster of crises that have all come together to make each crisis actually worse than if it was individually on its own. And so, that poly-crisis, that sense of always feeling uncertain, that fluidity of our lives and never feeling on solid ground, that is creating a lot of questioning.

This is why I wrote the book Why Are We Here? because people are feeling like a lot of “what’s the point-ism?” And you feel that if you don’t have a sense of hope that you are doing something that actually is going to make a difference, that the belief systems that you had and the infrastructure that you trusted is going to stay a trustworthy institution. And our hope is being eroded by a lot of the issues around the world and poly-crisis and this political instability, and that is eroding our connection to each other and our sense of who we are as human beings.

I mean, progress and cooperation are a big part of what make humans, humans, and successful. And we’re not going to feel cooperative if we haven’t felt hopeful that there’s a reason for it. And hope gives you a reason for being, and without that, we lose progress, we lose innovation, we lose a sense of societal congruency, which is, I think, one of the biggest problems that we’re seeing right now is this real separation and disconnectedness amongst people today.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s a cluster all right, Jen. Poly-crisis, that’s a good turn of a phrase. I hear you in that when there’s multiple things, it does really feel greater than the sum of its parts, like, “Let’s worry about one thing, and take your pick, politics, climate change, my economic footing, AI is going to take away my job, like, fill in the blank.”

And then if you have multiple, you can just leap from crisis to crisis and really dwell in it. And once one gets boring for your brain, oh, not to worry, we can anxiously stew and ruminate on another one. I served up right for you. So, a cluster, indeed. And so, the “What’s the point?” I think that really hits it for me.

And I was grilling you a few times on the precise definition of hope, it’s like I think the “what’s the point-ness” really does feel, at an emotional gut level, like the vibe, the experiential definition of hopelessness. And then I guess if we take the opposite of that, it’s like, “Well, what’s the point?” I mean, like, “Hey, we’re making a cool thing happen with people we care about to make things better for all of us and a group of folks that we’re serving. That’s the point. So, we’re going to get after that, and that feels pretty good to our just basic human longings for progress and cooperation.”

Jennifer Moss
Yeah, and if people feel like everything they’re working on is some sort of pipe dream that’s not going to be realized, you can imagine inside of organizations that want to build new things and get people excited about new innovations. productizations of cool stuff that it just will, you know, it just makes people feel like, “Why bother? If I’m going to see this thing through and at the end, it’s just not going to actually matter or it’s not going to affect any change.”

And when you look at the data around people that have a sense of purpose and their goals being realized, it’s such a different type of mentality and level of performance in an employee. If you feel like, “Okay, I have leadership that’s going to see my project through, they support me, they give me the resources, and then they’re going to amplify it or use it,” you’re much more eager to try new things and experiment and put yourself at risk.

You’re not going to see that if people feel like they’re constantly in this rotation of projects that never actually end up going anywhere, or that the organization is only building something that isn’t going to improve the world. You see so many Gen Z’s attracted to organizations with purpose, they feel tied to the end goals, and they’re rejecting organizations that don’t foster that.

And so, we need to be able to recognize that when there’s hopelessness, people are seeking hope, so they’re going to be more even more inclined to be attracted to companies and work that support that sense of purpose.

Pete Mockaitis
And you said there’s a 20-minute practice that builds hope. What is it?

Jennifer Moss
Well, and I keep saying, like, culture can be built in 20 minutes or less, and middle managers play a huge role in that, and hope can be built just through this idea of setting a goal and having a manager and the organization support you getting to that goal without micromanaging you or making it about hours worked, not the goal itself. Like, the productivity measure shouldn’t even be relevant here. And then having people come up with different pathways to getting there.

This is Snyder’s theory of hope and it’s really applicable in the workforce. You see Google with their OKRs they’re really looking at, and the way that they do goal setting within the organization. It really is peer supported. They co-create their goals. They talk about it transparently with the organization so people can support. There’s a lot of support for continuing development to hit those goals. Those goals are challenging enough, but not so challenging that you can never actually achieve them, so you’re always building hope.

And it’s also that you have milestones, so you’re celebrating along the way, instead of it being like, “Oh, we sold a million-dollar, you know, whatever product,” or, “Landed a client,” and/or, “The project is finally done after three years and then we finally celebrate.” It’s about incrementally reminding people that they’re hitting milestones, which builds cognitive hope. So again, it’s just weekly and then incrementally, and then over time it really does change the atmosphere of innovation inside of these organizations that obviously are known for their innovative thinking.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, this is resonating. And it just sounds like we’ve had previous guests talk about the intrinsic motivators of play, like it is fun to solve problems. You feel like you’re actually getting to use your brain. And some people pay good money for the pleasure of solving problems with video games or whatever, they’re at kind of escape rooms, activities that they’re into.

So, could you tell us a story about a team that had a cool shift in terms of they were doing things the hopeless way, and they made some changes, they started doing some things hopefully, and cool results unfolded?

Jennifer Moss
Well, I go back to Atlassian, who’s a great example of distributed workforce, and they just do things really well. They were finding that people were not using the space, and they were dealing with a sense of loneliness, and they started to test, “How do we make it so that people feel excited and that they’re inspired by the organization?”

And they started their hackathons as one, where everyone comes to the table once a quarter, and they just play and do cool things, and everyone’s so excited about it, and that really has led to some incredible innovations, but, plus, it also created this other part of the hope strategy is that they were bringing people together. And there was another part of, again, that these satellite offices were, now they’re 91% occupied in an, interestingly, fully remote workforce.

They have all this in-person time, and they realized, “Okay. Well, at this point, we’re not necessarily giving people a sense of their product or their work being seen.” So, they started this togetherness focus and started to have people go and work in other offices, and really championed and supported people actually going and spending a week with a peer in another market. So, at any one time in New York, 50% of the office is occupied by people from around the entire organization.

And in these environments, they also are bringing CEOs and C-level executives to come into these spaces, so there’s an opportunity for everyone’s ideas to be seen, which makes you feel like, “I’m not just doing things in a vacuum. I actually am being evaluated and supported by some of the senior people around the organization.”

And so, they’ve done a really great job of pushing back on this idea that you can’t have remote workers be cohesive or have friendships or it’s just always loneliness for those people working remotely. They totally bucked that myth. And they do that by building up their workforce to still feel like when you’re together, it’s not about distraction, it’s about getting what they call “getting s**t done,” that’s their motto. And you go in the office to still get s**t done, but you are also focusing on building a sense of pride in the work that you do, and for others to see what you’re working on.

Pete Mockaitis
That is so cool and fun, and that just lights me up in terms of whenever there’s just a beautiful win-win in terms of people experience, as well as organizational functioning and profitability. And, like, building the remote offices, I’m sure like, from one frame of reference, I imagine there is a finance employee somewhere at the spreadsheet, saying, “No, no, no, no, this is not net present value positive for these funds into this purpose.” Because it can be hard to see a measure. Well, what is the value of people feeling like they’re seen, and like they belong, and like they have friends, and the engagement and reduced attrition that comes with it? It’s hard to quantify.

But I recall, and I just sort of thought Bain was really nice to us with regard to some of the investments they made. Like, you could just transfer to another office in the world for six months, and I was like, “Oh, that’s kind of cool of them. How generous.” And maybe there’s a part of that, but, really, it was a deliberate move to facilitate best practice sharing across the worldwide network.

Jennifer Moss
I love what you’re saying because I’ve been, for many years, an advocate of spending money on making sure that people get to see each other and investing in that travel spend. I mean, right now, we’re supposed to be saving money on our commercial real estate, hopefully, the people that have downsized. Why aren’t we moving people around so that we can get them to see each other?

Because one of the things in the book that I learned is that we have this real shift in the last five years where people used to see other people in their organization. They used to make friends with people because you talked about your kids’ baseball team, or you were friends because you like the same type of movies. And it would create these ad hoc kind of outside of work relationships so we move from these simplex relationships, which are just transactional to multiplex relationships, which include knowing about each other.

And since the pandemic, we are really much more focused on simplex relationships, it’s much more transactional, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that we’re only seeing our team. And I’ve heard this across the board in my interviews, “I just feel like I only know my team. I don’t know anyone else in the organization. We’re so siloed.” And that was already problematic, but there were ways that we fixed that by just creating opportunities to meet and connect.

And so, it doesn’t need to be five days in the office. Lots of data shows that’s actually counter to cohesion, but it is concentrated focus on getting real time with each other, that has more meaning and develops these multiplex relationships. And we’re not doing that very well, so we just blame it on it being remote work that’s created loneliness. But it’s actually so much more complex than that, but the solutions are much easier than people think. And it isn’t just like, “Yeah, that strategy of forcing everyone back through return to office mandates.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, a couple follow-ups there. Five days in the office is counter to cohesion. What is optimal for cohesion?

Jennifer Moss
Well, Gallup says one to two days in the office per week and then you have others that say, I mean, hybrid is optimal if hybrid is done right. I mean, Mark Ma, from University of Pittsburgh, and Nick Bloom from Stanford, they’ve done lots of lots of research and found that, from a purely capitalist standpoint, the most financially viable is hybrid. People feel like that’s an okay meet in the middle.

And that five days a week, it ends up, actually, making people feel less connected, they’re more resentful to the organization and feeling less loyal, so they don’t invest in relationships in the same way. We also see organizations that have been focused on return to office mandates tend to also, as part of their kind of work personas, they’re overworking and there’s a lot of burn out there. And when you’re burned out, you also don’t really want to hang out after work or spend a lot of time chit-chatting. You feel like that 20 minutes of just having lunch every week could mean an extra hour in your pajamas at 11 o’clock at night so you avoid it.

And so, we’re seeing a lot of data that shows that that’s not great.

And fully remote is not great either in many ways. Some organizations, like Atlassian and others do it well, but from a purely capitalist standpoint, it is kind of that Goldilocks zone where there’s a little bit of both. But ones that are most successful are like the ones like Microsoft where it’s 50% of your time, not Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It’s sort of fluid, and managers get to say, “Hey, let’s talk about what makes sense.”

They have moments that matter, which is like, you know, an onboarding or a project that they really want to work on, or some specific reason why you’re in it together, but that can be fluid from week to week. And so, that kind of autonomy but a little bit of time together that’s used in a better way is where we see higher cohesion and happier workers.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, we talked about hope a lot, but you actually mentioned eight areas for folks to address. Could you give us the quick one sentence, what do you mean by this area, and then maybe one quick tip for giving that a boost?

Jennifer Moss
So, purpose is the second chapter. I was able to talk with Adam Grant. He and I are really aligned on this idea of that leaders get this purpose wrong. It’s like part of the mission statement, your values and your purpose, and it’s always tied to this big grand mission statement. But no one really cares about that unless you’re in this executive group. There’s about 20% at the highest level that really feel connected to the purpose. Most people just want to tie their daily values to work.

So, one of the things that we recommend is that leaders of their teams have this one meeting every single week. And I know we’re meeting fatigued, but it’s 20 minutes, again 20 minutes to fix culture, and it’s a non-work-related check-in. You ask, “What lit you up this week? What stressed you out?” and everyone goes around and talks about that. And then, “What can we do to make next week easier?”

Because purpose really is about, “Does the thing I do every day, even the tedious and boring things that I do every day, do they matter? Does anyone care about it?” And if that’s connected to who you are and you feel good about it, you feel like you have purpose. And so, “What lights you up?” that’s like pure magic for managers to motivate. You know, “Okay, now I know you like this. Now that makes you excited. Oh, let’s try to create some of that thinking and fuel your work with that.”

And then, “What stresses you out?” that’s how you prevent burnout. That’s how you make sure that someone saying they haven’t slept every single time you ask them this question or they’re not sleeping, you can dig into it. Then you have managers as mental health conduits, not professionals, and they’re just able to get to it.

And then, “What can we do for each other to make next week easier?” builds that sense of shared goal-setting and helping each other and quick wins, which also builds cognitive hope. And it really, from the interventions where we’ve tried this, it’s really done incredible shifts in morale. And so, I think, like, that’s purpose and why I really feel like that’s a key critical thing that we should be working on.

Pete Mockaitis
And community?

Jennifer Moss
Community is just we’re all lonely. We need to have friends again. And the way that we’re seeking out friendships right now are based on accountability and conscientiousness. It’s a huge switch from pre-pandemic, where we were looking at shared interests, likeability, someone made you laugh, but now it’s like, “Can you get your job done because that’s all I care about?” And so, we need to bring rituals back.

We used to have what is called, I think, before it was called forced fun. And we don’t want forced fun, but we want rituals because that’s how you build social contagions, and people feel like going to work isn’t just like going to school without our gym or recess. It’s super boring right now. So, building friendships through rituals.

And then when we look at solving the big problems, compassion is how we, as leaders, address AI anxiety. We have to understand that there’s a lot of people, especially our younger cohort, one in two are feeling AI anxiety, which Gallup calls FOBO, fear of becoming obsolete. And so, compassion is how we do that because empathy is listening, compassion is taking that listening and putting it into action.

And then when it comes to really looking at openness, if we create openness, this is going to solve that generational divide that we have right now. A lot of mature workers say, “I don’t fit into this workforce. Like, this is not at all my philosophy, and I don’t really want to worry about obsolescence in my final years of work.” So, we’re seeing them, a lot of mature workers leave early, and I think that’s actually going to be a major labor force catastrophe if we’re not careful with that group.

And young people are just opting out. So, we need to stop this hyperbolic, “Boomers can’t Google, and they’re micromanaging,” or, “Gen Z’s are lazy and entitled, and they’d afford a home if they just stop buying avocado toast.” That, to me, is just like, people think it’s funny, and, actually, it’s creating a real sense of ageism at work.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, so you’re saying, in both directions.

Jennifer Moss
In both directions.

Pete Mockaitis
So, the Millennials think that the Boomer is an idiot who can’t Google, and the Boomer thinks that the youngsters are irresponsibly burning their cash. Whereas, like, there are realities associated with, like, affordability is harder now. And then on the other side, it’s like, “Hey, technology is changing much more rapidly now.” Like, that’s also true, and that is also hard, and it needs to be acknowledged.

Jennifer Moss
It is. And you know what? I keep saying, like, stop using terms like “reverse mentoring.” We use that all the time. And it assumes that an older worker knows less about technology or something than a younger one, and we talk about Boomers know this and Gen Z knows this. We see this always when we talk about technology, and it’s just assumed that one generation knows something more than the other, which is not accurate.

Like, look at Dr. Hinton, he was the founder of AI, probably knows a lot about AI, and he’s in his late 60s. And so, this idea that we have to learn in this reverse way, instead of peer mentorship is a way better approach to talking about it. And, really, in the book, I just go through all the language that we don’t realize we’re using, the narratives that we use a lot, and that it just creates this continued labeling of an entire generation as being a very specific thing. And instead of just taking those assumptions away and looking at it, I think, with an openness, that’s what leaders need to do.

And then I think my favorite chapter was freedom because this whole idea of the reason why workers don’t want to have these RTO mandates, or don’t want to go back to work is that we’re missing the psychological barriers that people are feeling right now, which is, “I had my freedom in this certain area of work,” and it goes across the board, not just with return to office, but across the board.

There was more investment in well-being, DEI, you know, all of these commitments, and promises that were made to people. And when they started getting those clawed back, it felt like, “Wow, now my freedom, my sense of freedom is being taken away.” I talk about this from a neuroscience standpoint, and our sense of freedom is deeply baked in our neural wiring. It’s something we would go to great peril to stand up for, and a lot of this resistance is subconscious.

It’s conscious and subconscious because we’re fighting for something that we feel like is ours now. And so, that trust is a big factor, and so organizations that are making these choices really quickly and just sort of throwing it at employees is why I believe that this whole issue has continued to be so polarizing. Instead of understanding that people shot up when it comes to the rates of social anxiety from 4% to 36% of people explain that they had social anxiety through the pandemic.

So, you’re not just saying, “People, go back to work. Deal with it,” and if they’re resistant, it’s because they’re lazy. It’s because they have generalized and high levels of social anxiety. So, I think this, for me, was a big aha, recognizing why the pushback and why the resistance is so, so difficult for leaders and employees to get on the same page.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m curious, could you share, if folks are in the individual contributor role of things, and they’re vibing with what you’re saying, like, “Yes, Jen, this sounds right and true and good, and I wish my organization would do some of this enlightened stuff,” what do you recommend they do?

Jennifer Moss
Well, as an individual contributor, your life is still—you’re still in charge of it, and although happiness at work, it really needs to have societal and policy change. You need to have leadership and high-level executive managers and individuals all play a role to make it the kind of culture that everyone wants. We have a lot of responsibility too of our own choices. It’s a privilege to just quit so I don’t just say, “Oh, everyone can quit.”

Not everyone can quit. It’s not that easy to do. But I do say that there are a lot of things that have happened, habits that have been imposed on us and self-inflicted habits. Like, I just wrote this article for HBR that was really, I think, well-received and it was titled “Let’s End Toxic Productivity.” And we’ve become toxically productive. We’re waking up in the morning and checking, we’re sitting in our pajamas, we’re calling it fun work. We have our glass of wine while we’re doing admin, and it’s like, “Oh, this is fun work because I’m drinking and I’m doing my admin work.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s one way to do it.

Jennifer Moss
Yeah. It’s like, “No, this is still not healthy.” And you see this increase specifically in women that are just completely burning out, and they’re hitting that wall. So, we do feel a sense of pressure that, again, it’s like institutional stress, but it’s also us feeling like we need to perform at these high levels. And a lot of that is because we’re still in this sense of urgency mode. We’re still in surge capacity mode, and we haven’t stopped that, reset that habit and replace those with more boundaries.

We can’t always make those choices because there’s a lot of reasons for it, but in the book, the first chapter was me interviewing Kara, who was on track to be the first female black partner in her law firm, and she lost three members of her family. And when I met her, she was driving an Uber, and I said, “Wow, that’s intense. And what made you choose to do that?” And she said, “Life is short. I’m working on my nonprofit in Costa Rica, giving microloans to women, and, yeah, I’m making less money, but I just feel like I needed to do this. Like, I’m compelled to do this.”

And you’re seeing more women, why we have the thinnest executive pipeline in history right now. And for the first time in a decade, we see the global CEOs of females decline, and a lot of it is just a purpose shifting, and we’re going to lose a lot of talent because people are just, overwhelmed. But we do have the choice, and I have had so many interviews.

I interviewed over a hundred Uber drivers for the book, and every single one of them said, “I feel better.” And it’s shocking because we would think, “Really?” Our perception is, “No way. You had this opportunity to be the first black female partner, like, how could you be happier?” And she said, “I am. It’s extraordinary how much healthier I am and happier I am in this role.”

And I think, when you face your mortality, you realize that. And a lot of us have collectively faced our mortality over the last five years or have a sense of it potentially being uncertain, and that changes you. And this is what we need to look at, it’s like, “What are our deathbed regrets?” And if that doesn’t fit into the schematic of, “Okay, is answering an email at 11 o’clock at night drunk, is that going to be our deathbed regret? Probably. Or, is missing time with my family, or is being healthy, or is actually setting boundaries?” And that is where I see a lot more people making those choices for their own happiness and healthiness.

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s zoom on this, you interviewed a hundred Uber drivers, and all of them said they were happier driving Uber than doing another job.

Jennifer Moss
Well, I would say maybe 80 to 85 percent of them did, 15% were just like, “I’ve been always driving this car and it’s good for me because I…” That 15% and I found were really proud of making a paycheck to be able to put their kids through school or giving them a better life, and so there was still a sense of pride. They hadn’t left another job, but the majority of them had.

And there was three people I interviewed that had left Wall Street. They were making lots of money and, fortunately, they had some money to be able to support that. I saw a lot of retirees that took early retirement but didn’t want to return to corporate, so they were driving an Uber just to continue making money, but they had no desire to actually go back. And a lot of them had very solid positions within their company. They made good money, but they didn’t want to be in that environment.

This is where they would say things like, “I just don’t fit. Like, this is good for me, this pace.” And I also found, too, what was a really interesting data point is that 20% of American grandparents are primary caregivers. And so, we never think of that, and now we’re seeing more organizations have grandternity benefits, which I think are fantastic.

But we think only older Gen Z’s and Millennials need that help with the kind of paternity and maternity leave, but grandparents are taking on primary care, so flexibility has become extremely important for them. And so, so organizations that didn’t offer that, that was leading them to go into places where there was flexibility. And I would say across the board, that was one of the main factors, was just “The flexibility to be able to do what I needed to do as a parent, as a grandparent, or even just for my own passion pursuits.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I mean, I think that is so stark in terms of many workplaces are failing their workers so profoundly, in terms of flexibility, purpose, belonging, that folks would prefer to receive a fourth or less the compensation in order to just drive a car and not have to deal with all that crap.

Jennifer Moss
Yes. And, really, again, it’s the focal point of the book because people described what they were missing, and the data shows that the big Gallup whirlpool that goes into the happiness report found that people would take 37% less pay if it meant higher work-life balance and flexibility. I mean, we can solve these problems and yet now we’re seeing more people double and triple down on less flexibility, which just erodes that trust, and I think the data is there.

There’s so much evidence to show that if you provide autonomy and trust in your workers that you hired, that you spent a lot of money to recruit and retain, they’re adults, you hired adults, so why are you treating them like children when you bring them into the organization? And so, to me, the freedom chapter of flexibility, specifically, it’s like, it’s just such a no-brainer, and organizations are just making this real play to have control, and it’s turning people off.

And they are willing, at this point, to take much less pay to have a life that feels like that there’s a sense of freedom in it. And that’s why you’re seeing this high level of disengagement, this constant turnover. People, even if you’re in the organization, are just not feeling like they care about work. Quiet quitting, and disengagement is so high, that you’re not even getting the most out of your people. You’re actually getting a fraction of what you could be getting from your people if you just let go of the power and looked at this as a mutual respect of transferring skills and just working together.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. Well, Jen, tell me, anything else you want to mention before we hear about your favorite things?

Jennifer Moss
I just really hope that people just start caring more about each other, and putting five percent more of their effort into just being kind and altruistic. And, you know, it really is 20 minutes, 20 minutes of eating lunch with each other, Cornell found, actually improves well-being and happiness at work. It’s just one lunch every single week together.

If I can tell people to just take 20 minutes of thinking of some sort of tactical strategy that you could do to make someone in your organization’s life better, you will feel better for it. And if we could create a bit of a social network or contagion around that, I think it would spill over into something really, really transformational.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Jennifer Moss
“You can have anything, not everything.”

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Jennifer Moss
I love Dr. William’s study that he did for the Oxford Wellbeing Institute this year, and he said, basically, well-being programs aren’t working, wellness is not working, but the one thing that does work is volunteering and altruism. So, just being nice to other people is the one well-being program that we should be focusing on this year.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Jennifer Moss
I love A Little Life. It’s so painful but it is the most beautiful book I’ve ever read.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool?

Jennifer Moss
One of my favorite tools right now is ResearchGate. Being able to have the ability to go through there and be able to use it for really incredible research that you can, as a journalist and as an author, be using so that we aren’t spreading misinformation, so that we really are getting it from peer-reviewed sources.

That makes me feel so much better about the content I’m putting out, and that people are reading something that I know has been backed through evidence. And I think every single writer and journalist, and anyone communicating to the public, should be using that source instead of some of the AI sources that might be not as accurate.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Jennifer Moss
I do practice gratitude. And I know that sounds hokey but it’s something that I really try to do. We do it around the dinner table but, lately, just for me, it’s like, “What went well this week? What can I work with that I have versus what I don’t have?” and it does work. It gets me out of my habit.

And just taking a moment to take a breath, and realize that there’s still a lot of good things in the world that I appreciate. It does ground me in this time of poly-crisis.

Pete Mockaitis
And, if I may, when it comes to practicing gratitude, I think that there’s some nuance in doing this excellently, because sometimes I can list a thing that is objectively a blessing or, “This is a good thing, and I am noting it, I am listing it, I am acknowledging it.” But sometimes when I’m doing gratitude, I actually feel gratitude for the thing that is objectively good, and other times, I don’t have the feelings. And since you’re a good researcher, can you tell me, does that matter in terms of doing a gratitude practice? Or how should I do it optimally?

Jennifer Moss
Dr. Robert Emmons in his book Thanks, and a lot of his research, are so useful on this concept of gratitude and how it impacts. And sometimes it is tail that wags the dog, you know, like that idea that you think about these things, it is a narrative that your brain is using. So, anytime that you refocus on something that maybe you’re not feeling, but you know is valuable, like, “Oh, be thankful for having clean water.” And at the moment, I’m just not like, “Oh, I’m so grateful for clean water,” but I’ll mention it.

And it does help you have perspective-taking because from a neuroscience standpoint, it does take out the things that you could be focusing on that are not positive. You have only so much you can attend to at any one time. It’s like 40 things that you can attend to in the moment while you’re processing tens of billions of pieces of information. But if you’re attending to something, even if you don’t feel those, you know, necessarily those chemical reactions to it, it is creating a desire path in the brain.

So, the more that you put that focus, that neural wiring, and you go over it and over and over again, you create what is called gratitude fluency. So, you go from practicing gratitude to being grateful, and that happens over time. It’s like a language that you learn and you become fluent in gratitude, and so then it’s an automatic response to feel gratitude towards something versus having to practice it. But it is something, as it works through your life, it does change the chemistry as well. It just takes time.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that is helpful. And if nothing else, the fact that I have oriented my thoughts towards a thing worthy of gratitude means that I wasn’t like whining about “This water doesn’t taste very good. And a key nugget, something that you share that seems to connect and resonate with folks?

Jennifer Moss
One of the things I would say is that we have more agency sometimes than we think if we’re really stressed and burned out. And one of the best things that we can do is really do a values assessment. What do you care about? What do you love? And then make your priorities for the year. Focus on that.

And if you’re saying yes to something, like a project that maybe you’re excited to participate in but it’s going to take that extra 20% of your time, put it on that scale of “Is this FOMO? Is this something I have to do? Or, is this another thing where I’m going to regret saying yes in the future?” And take some time to rest.

Rest is not a four-letter word. Look at what you can be doing with that time for work, and instead refocus it on making sure that you’re well and healthy and prioritize your own well-being and the well-being of the people around you first. And then, hopefully, you’ll start to see the benefits of that.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more get in touch, where would you point them?

Jennifer Moss
Jennifer-Moss.com.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Jennifer Moss
I would love for all of you to spend the next month and every day say something nice about another person behind their back. Spreading positive gossip inside of an organization actually improves psychological safety for those people coming into the space. And when it gets around to someone that you said some awesome thing about them, it really does make them feel incredibly special. So, just for the next month, just talk nicely about all your co-workers and see how that spreads a positivity contagion.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Jen, thank you. This is fun.

Jennifer Moss
Thank you so much, Pete. It was great. Too many years in between, but maybe it’ll be less next time.

1044: Becoming the Boss that Everyone Wants to Work For with Sabina Nawaz

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Sabina Nawaz shows you how to cope with the pressures that come with leadership.

You’ll Learn

  1. The perils of getting promoted
  2. Why asking for feedback isn’t enough
  3. The power of shutting up

About Sabina

Sabina Nawaz is an elite executive coach who advises C-level executives and teams at Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies, nonprofits, and academic institutions around the world. During her fourteen-year tenure at Microsoft, she went from managing software development teams to leading the company’s executive development and succession planning efforts for over 11,000 managers and nearly a thousand executives.  She is the author of YOU’RE THE BOSS: Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need).

 

Resources Mentioned

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Sabina Nawaz Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Sabina, welcome!

Sabina Nawaz
Thanks so much, Pete. Looking forward to this.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited. You have studied managers up close and personal and in the trenches with them. Could you start us off by sharing one of the most particularly surprising and fascinating and counterintuitive discoveries you’ve made about us humans and managing from all your years at work here?

Sabina Nawaz
So, this book is not about how to become successful. It’s how to remain successful, and it’s about not all the things that people know, but what do they not know, as you said, counterintuitive stuff. Three of those.

One, being promoted is the riskiest time in your career. It is not power that corrupts, but pressure that corrupts. Pressure changes, not only stresses you out, but changes your actions. And power then blinds you to the impact of those actions. So, the higher you go, the less you know about the impact your actions are having on other people.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, those are big, and those are heavy. Well, I’m excited to dig into all of these promptly. But maybe, first, before we do, can you maybe just orient us to what’s the big idea or main message behind the book, You Are the Boss?

Sabina Nawaz
The main message is that pressure and power can be used for good or for harm. It’s your choice. And the choice comes from not needing to get a personality transplant, or to go on retreats for weeks on end, or to study emotional intelligence for the rest of your life, which I would still recommend you do, but by making a choice to use some simple tools and strategies to tackle the combined effect of the diabolical twins of power and pressure. The higher you go, the more important this becomes.

Pete Mockaitis
Diabolical twins. Okay. We’re sounding the alarm. We’re raising the flag. Okay. Well, so maybe could you share with us a story of the destructive potential that might be lurking for us that we’re not even aware of? So how about you give us a twin tale? Let’s hear a tale of surprised destruction, and a tale of disaster averted through prudent preparation.

Sabina Nawaz
Well, I’ll start with my own tale, because I tell a lot of tales in the book about a number of my clients, and I am not immune from this. I was a lousy manager at Microsoft, but that wasn’t always true. At first, I managed software teams and most of my people said I was the best boss they ever had, I cared for them, I coached them. Those were great years. And then everything changed.

I was running Microsoft’s management development when I was about eight months pregnant. My boss left the company so I took on her job responsibilities, and on my first day, as I’m getting ready to get back to work from parental leave, my assistant Lori calls me, frantic, “Where are you? Steve’s expecting you in 30 minutes.”

She reads the memo I’m supposed to discuss with Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, as I’m hitting warp speed on my way to the freeway. And that set the tone, Pete, for overflowing inbox, packed calendar, infant at home, no peace, no sleep, no patience. I’m sure this sounds familiar to you and to your listeners. And, in a moment, I went from being caring and compassionate to snippy and short. Still 5’3″, but now short-tempered.

In my rush to meet those deadlines, I had no time for detailed instructions or to repeat myself, and I thought I was being efficient. I also micromanaged because I was worried that my team or I would look incompetent to these high-level executives. So, I’m thinking, “I’m killing it. I’m being efficient. Look at how much we’re getting done for the senior-most people in the organization,” until my colleague, Joe, comes to me.

And I take one look at Joe and I know he’s about to give me bad news. My shoulders are tightening, and then Joe says, “Zach is crying in his office because of what you said.” And my gut falls to the floor. Joe has my full attention, not multitasking as usual, and I feel my whole body turned hot from shame, I cannot make eye contact with Joe, I feel so guilty, and I think, “How did I get here? How did I go from being caring and compassionate to this, somebody people apparently fear and really don’t like?”

So, I take a drink of water, I walked across the hallway, knocked on Zach’s door, “Will you go for a walk with me?” And a minute into the walk, I say, “Zach, I’m so sorry. There’s no excuse for how I reacted in that meeting.” And Zach’s eyes brim with tears. And it was in that moment of connection, Pete, I realized, “This is what I want, to treat people with humanity.”

But why had I started behaving badly all of a sudden? Why did I have no idea about it, the impact it was having? And why did more people not tell me? Because pressure corrupts. I wasn’t a bad person. I was a boss behaving badly. But the worst part is I had no idea because power then insulates us. So, that would be a story where things did not go well.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you. And, Sabina, I hate to bring you into, it sounds like, a genuinely traumatic experience for you. But for the question mark lingering of curiosity for our listeners, they got to know, what did you say to Zach?

Sabina Nawaz
It wasn’t just one thing. The problem was it was a whole stream of things, which sounded like a stream of being discounted and insulted to Zach. So, he was about to bring up a new idea, and I said, “Nope.” And not only did I say it, I had my hand out there, right almost at his face, going, “We don’t have time for that,” expletive. “We need to get going. Did you not hear me the first time? We are under a really tight timeline.”

So, my voice is elevated. I’m cursing. My hand is out there in front of his face. And then another, a little later in the meeting, Zach says, “It’s okay if you say no to this idea, but can I bring it up?” And I said, “Yes.” And he brought up another new idea, and I said, “No,” right away. No, “Thank you for thinking through ideas. What made you suggest this right now?” None of that.

So, it was this very abrupt, shutting-down action that I reacted to. I stopped thinking. I certainly wasn’t leading. I wasn’t even thinking, and I’m just reacting, reacting to my circumstances and the pressure in an inexcusable fashion. And, you know, of course, as I’m sure you’re aware, when managers treat employees badly, employees then go back to their office, not just crying, but they play video games or research shows that they even deliberately sabotage results.

Pete Mockaitis
Update their LinkedIn, take a look at the opportunities out there.

Sabina Nawaz
Yes, start a secret group chat about you.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure. Yeah, and thank you for sharing that. What’s really intriguing here is that, I think we hear stories associated with bosses behaving badly in these ways. And I’m thinking about Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk, where he talks about demon mode, or, you know, tales of Steve Jobs, or any number of famous hard-charging executives. And I think what people often tend to assume is like, “Oh, that’s just their personality. That’s just their management style.”

And so, you’re posing something quite fresh, and it’s like, “Oh, no, perhaps we have a whole lot of humanity buried under there, and it’s these diabolical twins that is going to work on some of these people, and that’s why we see these behaviors manifesting.”

Sabina Nawaz
Absolutely. Absolutely. With very rare exceptions, just like there are no purely good people or purely bad people, we all have good behaviors and bad behaviors in us, there are no purely good bosses or bad bosses. It’s our reaction to the circumstances. That doesn’t mean it should take us off the hook, but it’s not inherent in our personalities.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Okay. Well, so then, by contrast, could you share with us a tale of someone who got the heads up and didn’t end up succumbing?

Sabina Nawaz
Well, I’ll share the tale of somebody who did succumb, then got the heads up, because that’s what usually happens. I come in; the feedback I’d gotten about this person was he was terrible to work with. He was a bully, people called him a thug, and much worse, words that I won’t use on your show. And we worked together.

Now, this guy, Adam, suffered from what many of my clients suffer from, where they think they’re successful because of some of these traits, not despite these. So, they become innocent saboteurs in their own fate and the fate of their organizations, and that was certainly the case for Adam. He made jokes because he thought that was encouraging people. He used sarcasm to motivate them. Of course, this was all coming across as bullying behavior.

Once he recognized that, so this is why I was saying the heads up comes after the fact often, because nobody wants to tell the person in a position of power what they think they don’t want to hear.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, especially when they’re behaving in a way that says, “I might get my head ripped off for this.”

Sabina Nawaz
Exactly. “Who in their right mind is going to do that? Not only get my head ripped off, I might lose my job.” So, you continue on thinking you’re doing just fine, because, of course, people would give you feedback. You’ve asked for the feedback, haven’t you? Asking for feedback is a waste of time when you have high authority. You’ve got to deploy some other techniques.

And so, in Adam’s case, when I interviewed a bunch of his co-workers and got this devastating feedback, he did work to turn that around. By the way, I never experienced Adam as a bully or a jerk. I experienced him as a wonderful human being, because, of course, we didn’t have that power gap in our relationship through which everything gets filtered as more dire, more directed personally at us either.

And a year later, I interviewed people again, and then people said, “Oh, I was dreading having to work for him again. He’s so much more respectful. I trust him so much more. He is a thousand percent better.” So, that was a beautiful ending to that story.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, indeed. Okay. So, well then, let’s dig into these particular truths that you shared. When we’re promoted, it’s the riskiest time in our career. Can you expand on that?

Sabina Nawaz
Well, of course, it’s also a time for celebration when you’re promoted, but once the bubbly settles, what you might realize is that the very strengths, the superpowers that have gotten you there, are now going to be seen in a very different light. So, for example, as a manager, you can say exactly the same things you said before, but now they’re going to take on a harsher light, a louder tone, a more personal note for the next that are craning up. Their views are less charitable.

Let me give you a couple of examples. Let’s say you are somebody who’s assiduous about details, how might you be seen as a manager?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, a micromanager.

Sabina Nawaz
Yes, a micromanager. Let’s say you’re really calm under pressure, how might that come across?

Pete Mockaitis
You don’t care. You’re not invested.

Sabina Nawaz
Exactly. Ooh, we could keep going back and forth like this, but you get the idea. Strategic becomes manipulative. All of these things can be seen in a whole different light. You need to start to look at your strengths not from how you see them, but how they’re going to be seen from people below. The higher you go, the more that view gets distorted, like a funhouse mirror.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And what do you recommend we do when we find ourselves in such a spot?

Sabina Nawaz
One of the first things you can do is, actually, inventory your strengths and start writing down ways in which others might describe it, and put yourself in those shoes. So, one of my direct reports, what would they say? One of my skip levels, what would they say? Somebody who’s a junior employee who reports to one of my peers? Somebody from the outside who now sees my bigger title? So, imagine those soundbites coming at you, and once you see that, you can start to temper things.

Somebody I worked with was very, very strategic, and she would take her time speaking up in meetings because she wanted to see where the thread of the conversation was going, who was speaking, who wasn’t speaking, what was the tone, what was the vibe of the meeting, and, people started thinking that she was very political instead of strategic. They said, “Oh, she’s going to go where the wind is blowing. She wants to see what people above her are saying,” and so on.

Once she recognized that piece of feedback, she went back to her team to explain to them what she was doing, “This is why I’m doing what I’m doing. I have a rule. I don’t speak up right away. And then let me show you, let me demonstrate to you how that has benefited. For example, I was going to go to this meeting and I went in with this particular point of view, but it wasn’t until I heard the third person speaking that I realized this point of view is actually incorrect and it’s going to antagonize, unintentionally, three people in that meeting. Wasn’t it better not to speak up first in that particular case?”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s handy. Okay. Well, so it sounds like the master keys there are just let’s get a sense of what is the perception and then let’s provide some context, some explanation. It’s funny, that takes humility on both sides of that there.

First, to put yourself in a position where you’re willing to hear it, and then, secondly, to explain it. Because you might say, if you were less humble, “I’m the boss. I don’t have to explain myself to these folks.” And yet, it seems that, in order to be a great manager, maybe you very well do, in fact, need to.

Sabina Nawaz
Absolutely. Absolutely. And if you’re a manager who has a “yeah, but” raging at the moment, saying, “Yeah, but I don’t have time to do it,” think about how much time you spend undoing things and that it would take a fraction of the time to do it instead.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And you said simply asking for feedback doesn’t work. What’s the means by which we get to the truth?

Sabina Nawaz
Yes, this is really tough because here you have a boss who has no idea how they’re coming across, and an employee who’s not willing to tell you because of the fear that they have across this power gap. So, simply saying, “Hey, would you give me feedback when you notice something?” employees are going to say, “Yes, boss,” and all they’re going to give you is very mild stuff, cushioned in praise.

So, when they tell you everything is fine, what they’re actually meaning is, “Oh, what an ass.” So, you have no idea. So, first of all, any feedback you get, you might want to add a couple of numbers to it to upgrade the severity of what they’re saying. But here’s the other thing, you can actually ask more specific questions, because the quality of feedback you receive is directly proportional to the quality of the question you ask.

If you simply say, “How did I do in that presentation or that meeting?” people are going to say, “You were fantastic. In fact, you should get on the TED stage next week,” because that is not asking for feedback. That is simply asking for reassurance. Instead, if you said, “On a scale of 1 to 10, where was I?” Let’s say they say 8, which you know is going to actually mean a 6 or a 5.

Then you can say, “What would it take, what’s one thing I could do to get to a 9, to get to a plus 1? What’s one thing I did that worked well? What’s one thing I can do to get to a plus 1?” Don’t ask for too much feedback. If you cut it down to one thing, people are more likely to be able to give you something, and you’re more likely to be able to act on it.

One other way to ask for feedback is to externalize the ask. So, instead of saying, “Pete, what’s one thing I could do better at on this podcast?” I might say, “Pete, if you were to channel your most skeptical, your crustiest listener, what would they say about the one thing I could do better?” Now, Pete is freed up, it doesn’t impact our relationship. In fact, it looks like Pete is working for me by channeling some of his listeners.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I like that a lot, especially when you’re the one asking for the feedback and you suggest the third-party voice. That seems like a real powerful combo. And I’m reminded of, well, some interviewers, I think John Stossel, in particular. He’s just always devil’s advocating, John Stossel. It’s like, “Well, some might say that this is just a means of bringing costs down, and that’s necessary.” He even has the voice, you know, which just cracks me up.

And so, it almost feels a little bit less than courageous when he says, “Hey, I’m not saying it, but it’s some third party,” which, at the same time, as an interviewer, can make your interviewee feel more comfortable, and so, you know, it works. But it’s even better to invite them to think about that third party.

Sabina Nawaz
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Very good. Well, so then, in terms of, like, the asking, is this sort of in person, via survey, email, all of the above? What’s the mechanism of collection that you favor?

Sabina Nawaz
All of the above is great. I favor direct conversation, in-person or virtual, of course, these days, especially, but somewhere where we are making eye contact, looking at each other and having a live conversation because you can start to read the cues of the person who’s providing you with that feedback as well, and you can tone it down a little bit more.

You can make sure you’re conveying nonverbal feedback at all times, because they’re, of course, hyper-aware of any twitch that’s going on on your face, because they’re going to go, “Oh, my gosh, I’m fired.” So, it allows for more information to be exchanged as you’re doing this process. It also shows that you truly care. You’re willing to invest live time for it as opposed to a survey.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, okay. Well, thank you. Well, now let’s dig into a little bit the second thing you dropped there with regard to it’s not the power but the pressure that corrupts. Can you expand on that?

Sabina Nawaz
It’s just like when I had all that pressure in that job and I started acting out. So, by corrupting, I mean your behaviors change. Your behaviors change in a way that impact other people adversely. You raise your voice. You have a tone to your voice. You provide harsher criticism than necessary. You cut people off. You interrupt them. All of those things show up when you’re under pressure.

Now, of course, there’s not a single person on the planet who’s not under pressure both at work and outside of work. And I’m sure, Pete, that you have moments where you’ve been under pressure and you’ve done something you’re not proud of, and, gosh, it would be mortifying if that was caught on video and put up on YouTube or TikTok.

And so, it’s no different for bosses. The problem is that the higher we go, the more pressure we have on us, and the more likely we are that one of those is going to subvert our actions and take over.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, then when we are in that spot where we are feeling the pressure, what are the best practices to not being a jerk?

Sabina Nawaz
The first thing is to just shut up, and I have this term called your shut-up muscle. And as a manager, it becomes important to buff up your shut-up muscle. So, there’s a shut-up exercise which has many steps, but a couple of those. First of all, be, at least, the third person to speak. There’s no reason for you to jump in the minute somebody asks a question.

All you’re doing there is training everyone to become over-reliant on you and take the back seat, be lazy, or not grow, or feel disempowered on the other side. So, be the third or later to speak. That would be one way to exercise your shut-up muscle.

Another, when you’re on video calls, put yourself on mute by default. So, when you have that fast twitch desire to speak, you can speak, and people are going to go, “Oh, you’re on mute.” And by the time you unmute, you can go, “Oh, actually, that train has passed. I’m good.” It gives your brain a moment to get out of that reactive mode and get back to your senses to be more strategic, and say, “Do I really need to say this thing? Not really.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s great. The shut-up muscle, that’s really good, because sometimes, in my experience, I am quick to speak because I’m excited, it’s like, “Oh, oh, that thing that you said. Also, this!” And so, I can see what you’re saying when you compare it to a muscle, is it takes some discipline, some restraint, some strength to say, “Yes, I’m very excited. And I can share that in 90 seconds, if it still seems valuable then, and that’s okay.”

Sabina Nawaz
And that’s another key piece, if it still feels valuable then. Another tool for the shut-up muscle is to take margin notes. That is, you’ve got your notepad, and, then in the margin, write down all of your ideas that you’re so excited about, that are getting in the way of you being fully present and likely to cause you to interrupt other people.

If you wait for a while, let’s say you have five notes in your margin, three of those might be suggested by somebody else. That’s great. That means that they’re taking initiative. They’re going to start working harder than you for a change and reduce some of the pressure on you. And the two things that haven’t been said, maybe only one of them needs to be said.

Now you’re going to have a lot more impact because you’ve gotten rid of what I call a communication fault line, which is verbal overkill. If you have just one thing to share and that one thing is shared just by you, it’s not an idea other people thought about, that’s a way you can truly add value in a meeting.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. And can we hear about the power blinding us?

Sabina Nawaz
Well, it’s the part about “Who wants to get their head bitten off?” And also, with power comes the, well, power to take away or give things to other people that matter to them: a raise, a promotion, their very jobs. As a result, people are not going to say things to you that they think will displease you and that don’t feel safe. So, as a result, you’re cushioned by people who are saying yes all the time, cushioned by a lot of praise.

A CEO I worked with, it was the day before their CEO ship was going to get announced, and they said, “You know what, tomorrow I’m going to become the funniest person in this company,” because your jokes suddenly are funny, your ideas suddenly are brilliant. So, you get blind to what else might be going on.

Pete Mockaitis
And what shall we do in that scenario?

Sabina Nawaz
The end of the book has an assessment of 40-plus questions called “360 Yourself,” and it looks at every power gap, every kind of power gap and every kind of pressure pitfall you can fall into, and ask you a few questions to say, “Which of these do you fall into the most?” If you don’t have time, 15 minutes or so, to look at those 40 questions, think about these few.

One, you never receive pushback or different ideas once you’ve shared your idea. That might mean you’re in one of those blind power traps. People think you’re funnier, smarter, faster than you know you are. You justify all of your actions with a “yeah, but.” All of these so you can self-diagnose, “Hmm, yep, that’s happened, that’s never happened, this always happens, therefore, it must mean I’m surrounded in my own echo chamber.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, good to know. Well, Sabina, tell me, any other top do’s and don’ts you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Sabina Nawaz
Because pressure corrupts, and it’s so important to allow pressure to help you shine, like we sometimes do, you know, when we have that deadline and we’re at our most creative, we want pressure to fuel us, not eviscerate us. Our tendency when we get into pressure-full situations is to work harder, to hunker down.

So, my favorite strategy here is to employ what I call blank space, which is actually do nothing. It’s two hours a week, back-to-back, that you schedule to unplug. No reading, no online presence, no conversations. You simply sit and think. And if that’s too much for you, do it in baby steps. Start with 15 minutes or even 5 minutes or 30 seconds. We are human beings, not human doings, but we’re very uncomfortable just being.

Those clients who have taken that time to do blank space have had transformational results. They’ve transformed their companies, they’ve averted disaster from the competition, they’ve even changed their careers completely. It’s a game changer. It takes the calendar management discipline to actually take that time. And then you can do a variety of different things to make use of that time.

You could simply do nothing. You could go for a walk. You could lie in a hammock. These are all things people have done that have worked with me. You could doodle, mind map, draw pictures, whatever, because research shows that our best insights come when we switch off this very busy working part of our brain, right? We’re in the shower. We’re running. We’re commuting. Those are the times where those answers come.

So, when you’re under pressure, thinking, “I’m such a loser. When am I going to get fired? I’ve got to double down,” stop and do nothing and trust that you already know the answer. All you have to do is let the noise die down so that the signal becomes amplified.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So then, it sounds like there’s a variety of things that are acceptable during doing-nothing time, but what’s not okay is talking to other people or engaging with our digital devices.

Sabina Nawaz
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
So, you can walk, you can lie, you can sit, you can have a notebook, and then just roll with it.

Sabina Nawaz
Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. And then, in so doing, that’s when these brilliant, transformational, creative ideas just emerge. It’s during the do-nothing time, or is it after the do-nothing time? Or is it both?

Sabina Nawaz
Both. Sometimes you come back, I had somebody who had a near panic attack before his first blank-space time, like, “What do you mean? Tell me again. I’m supposed to do nothing? Nothing at all? How is that going to work?” I said, “Just trust me. Just go do it.” He came back, he’s like, “Nothing happened.” I said, “Well, you know, at least your brain was better rested.” Guess what? After three blank space states, magic started happening. So, it might take a while, or it might be instantaneous.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now can we hear about a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Sabina Nawaz
My favorite quote is from the author who wrote The Little Prince, and I cannot pronounce his name. And it says something to the effect that perfection is not when there’s nothing more to add, but when there’s nothing more to take away.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Sabina Nawaz
It would be the one I referenced earlier, which is when employees are treated badly, they deliberately sabotage results. Now think about that, Pete. That means they’re screwing themselves over just to diss the boss. And I read about this in a book by Bob Sutton called The No Asshole Rule.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, we had Bob on the show. And a favorite book?

Sabina Nawaz
I am not monogamous in favorite books, and so it shifts quite a bit. Currently, my favorite book is Martyr by Akbar Kaveh.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Sabina Nawaz
I use the Pomodoro technique often, which is setting a timer for 25 minutes and using that as focus time so I’m not monkeying around with every little distraction that comes along.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with your clients and audiences, they quote it back to you often?

Sabina Nawaz
The one they quote back is actually the shut up, shut up more, and sense more as a result. Say less, sense more. Sense more what is going on because no one else is going to tell you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their job?

Sabina Nawaz
Take one thing that you’re going to do to improve, and you already know what that is. Everybody does. In fact, you have probably a list of a dozen things. Break it down into the smallest, most ridiculously small unit and do it every day as a micro habit.

So, if you are going to be awesome at your job by being a better listener, once a day, your job would be to paraphrase somebody, or, for five minutes a day, to detach yourself from your phone, leave your phone in another room.

If you’re going to be awesome at your job through better health and well-being, instead of thinking you’re going to go to the gym for 30 minutes a day, do one push-up a day. That’s what a micro-habit is

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Sabina, thank you.

Sabina Nawaz
Thank you, Pete.

1034: Simple Shifts that Form Exceptional Teams with Keith Ferrazzi

By | Podcasts | One Comment

Keith Ferrazzi shares the simple but powerful shifts all teams can make to elevate performance.

You’ll Learn

  1. What’s holding most teams back
  2. How to improve collaboration with fewer meetings 
  3. The practices that turn team members into co-leaders 

About Keith 

Keith Ferrazzi is an entrepreneur and global thought leader in high-performing teams and Chairman of Ferrazzi Greenlight and its Research Institute. He is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Who’s Got Your Back and bestsellers like Never Eat Alone, Leading Without Authority, and Competing in the New World of Work. He is a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Forbes, Inc, Fortune, and other many other publications.

Resources Mentioned

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Keith Ferrazzi Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Keith, welcome back!

Keith Ferrazzi
Pete, I’m excited about the call. And I love the name, that’s my father’s name. So anytime I get a chance to talk to a Peter, a Pete, or a Pietro, it always brings a smile to my face.

Pete Mockaitis
Ah, Pietro. A Pietro Ferrazzi.

Keith Ferrazzi
Si, è vero. È vero.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Oh, we already got some life, some energy in this. That’s good. Well, I’m excited to chat about your book, “Never Lead Alone,” and I am going to accidentally say Never Eat Alone, because I read your book back in the day.

Keith Ferrazzi
That’s okay. That’s what most people know me from 20 years ago. This is the anniversary, 20th year anniversary of Never Eat Alone, the book that redefined “How do you build relationships that open doors of opportunity for yourself?” And now, 20 years later, “How do you build the kind of relationships among the team that you work with that won’t let you fail?”

Pete Mockaitis
And just for funsies, we were talking before we pushed record, I want to know, Keith, are you still a conference commando?

Keith Ferrazzi
You know, I just came back from Davos, which is probably the holy grail of conferences, and I had the blessing of facilitating a roundtable of the CEO of two of the largest high-tech companies, the CEO of one of the biggest banks, the head of AI for Salesforce. What an amazing place, and it was all utilizing the simple practices of “How do you deepen and build relationships in this crazy world we’re living in today?”

And that’s what we’ve done. I mean, the book Never Eat Alone was so successful because it was like eating popcorn. “Try this, do this, 15 tips to be a conference commando.” And this new book is the same way, 10 shifts from traditional mediocre leadership to having your team step up in high-performing teamships, and 10 shifts and a bunch of little practices and it’s not that difficult. You just got to pick up and start trying some of the practices.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. And I know your style, your practices are based on a boatload of underlying research. Can you tell us a little bit about that research and any startling discoveries that made you go, “Whoa!” when you saw it?

Keith Ferrazzi
Yeah, 3,000 teams in our dataset. And what do you think the average team’s courage and candor is among a team on a scale of zero to five? What’s that?

Pete Mockaitis
Two point one.

Keith Ferrazzi
You read the book. Actually, it ranges between 1.8 and 2.2, and that is just shocking. How we could be sitting in collaborative dialogues and people aren’t courageous enough or transparent enough or desirous enough to make each other successful to be telling the truth in the room? That’s just sh**. And the average team is mediocre at best. And what I just kept discovering time and time again was how mediocre the average team was.

Now, there are some teams that crush it. Amazon’s team does an extraordinary job on many of the most important shifts of a high-performing team, and so do a lot of the young unicorns that are coming out of Stanford, disrupting large corporations. These companies are doing incredibly well. But the average entrepreneur and the average big-company executives, pretty mediocre.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, courage and candor at a two-ish level, what does that look, sound, feel like in practice as compared to a dream state of a five?

Keith Ferrazzi
Well, okay, we’re having a conversation about the lagging sales numbers this quarter, and we have a polite dialogue in the room, and then we leave the room, and the real talk happens, and that happens all the time. Or worse, people are DM-ing privately during the meeting, saying the sh** that they won’t say out in the meeting itself.

Keith Ferrazzi
So that’s in the average state. In the powerful state, and I’ll use a company that, really, is a lovely place to work, it’s called e.l.f. Beauty. At e.l.f. Beauty, everybody agrees when they’re hired that “We will have the fastest, most compelling growth as professionals while we’re working here. And a part of that is a commitment that we will always tell each other the truth. We’ll never let each other fail. It’s not throwing each other under the bus. It’s assuring that everybody is successful. We cross the finish line together,” all those kinds of words.

And as a result, in a meeting, somebody will say, “We’re lagging sales numbers,” and the head of sales will say, “You know it’s been very difficult to get the kind of leads we need for marketing because of our lagging competency in digital marketing.” And then the head of marketing will say, “You know, like I appreciate that. We’re down a gal that we used to have in that particular role, and it is an issue. But let’s talk about how we could reallocate resources.” And then the head of HR will pop in and say, “You know what? We’ve got an analytics person over there we could move.”

So, it’s that kind of a collaborative dialogue. Now, all of those one-off conversations would have happened in DMs or behind the scenes, and they wouldn’t have happened from a sense of what I call co-elevation, where people are collaborating in service of a mission, pushing each other higher. Instead, it would have been done in a more eviscerating-ly, kind of passive-aggressive way.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, like whiny, defensive, “Can you believe so-and-so?”

Keith Ferrazzi
Pointing fingers, and that just happens. I am so shocked by the most prominent businesses in the world. So, I have another one. I’m not going to say the name of the company, but this is a company I’m coaching right now, Fortune 50 company. And this business has self-professed that their candor levels are at 1.3 on a scale of 0 to 5, 1.3. And in one meeting, we practiced some practices.

So, my practices are researched. That was the original question, 3,000 teams, I’ve observed practices of successful teams. I take them out, dust them off, package them, put them in other teams to a point where I can prove that “If you do this practice, you will move the needle on the diagnostic and likely move the needle on performance.”

And the 1.3 company did this practice called a stress test. So, we had three critical initiatives that were being, or that are absolutely important for this company to thrive. Three critical initiatives presented. The first one presented and said, “Okay,” and they all present in the same way, “Here’s what we’ve achieved. Here’s where we’re struggling. Here’s where we’re going.”

But everybody knew that they had to individually write in a Google Doc what the challenge was. Like, “I listened to you. Here’s what I disagree with. Here’s a risk you’re not seeing, something. Here’s where I might offer an idea. And here’s where I’d be willing to help.” The entire group is writing this in, and then they go into breakout sessions, and they corroborate as small groups in three. Then we come back in and have a conversation.

And then I asked the team, “What’s the degree of candor you just experienced?” They all put into chat fours and fives. So, literally, one practice moved them from a standard of polite, passive-aggressiveness, and political dialogue to full transparency where they got all the stuff on the table and we were at fours and fives levels of candor in less than an hour of the meeting starting. This is what high-return practice is, and what the book can do for any team.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. And I’m curious, what do we think is underlying the low levels of candor?

Keith Ferrazzi
First of all, there’s a wrongheadedness about feedback and candor that was born within our culture as children. So, when your parents gave you feedback, were they giving you input? They were telling you something. They were giving you a directive, “Sit up straight,” “Don’t eat that way,” whatever. Feedback has always come in the forms of a directive. And when you got it from your teachers, coaches, bosses, it’s always a directive.

Now I’m telling your peers to unleash feedback. But if everybody thinks that what they’re doing is giving each other directives, that is a cluster. But that’s why we don’t do it. Right now, we think that feedback and directive are intertwined. We don’t do it. We don’t like when we receive it because we assume that it’s coming with a directive.

I unbundle that when I’m working with teams. I say, “Listen, what we’re looking for is bold, inclusive, direct, challenging data from all of the points of view. In fact, let’s get more inclusive. Let’s go ask people who actually have a dog in the hunt down at the front lines. Let’s go ask innovators outside. Let’s get insights that just blow us away. And then let’s just treat it all like individual datapoints that we don’t have to do anything with, except use to analyze for better answers.”

So, one of the reasons why I think the feedback is so supercharged and the ability to get it more fluidly is to disaggregate what supercharges it. That’s the connection to directive.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s handy. So, right there, it’s just like, “If you have a different perspective about what we’re doing, what we’re giving, what we’re receiving, that can be big right there,” because some folks might say, “Well, it’s not my place to direct this person because, I mean, I’m their peer, or I’m even at a lower level in the hierarchy of the organization.”

Keith Ferrazzi
That’s right. And instead, now it’s just like, “Oh, I want to give this person my data, my insight. They can do whatever they want to it,” but we start celebrating the desire to be bold and to throw out crazy ideas, and that’s the powerful element. Look, I think the other thing is, you know, in some places, there’s a sense of politicization, “So, hmm, if I make this person successful, do I look less successful?”

And the reality is that’s another reboot, which is the leader needs– and this is, by the way, everything I’m talking about, you can either learn it as a teammate and be the best teammate on the team, or you could read the book and learn it as a leader and get the whole team to behave that way. So, leaders lead differently when they’re asking teams to become high-performing teams.

So, if a good leader gives feedback, a great leader gets the team to give each other feedback. A good leader holds the team accountable; a great leader gets the team to hold each other accountable. A great leader will actually get the team to have each other’s back to the point where they won’t let each other fail.

Now, those are 10 shifts. I just gave you, three of them, you know, a shift from conflict avoidance to candor. The shift from accidental relationships, serendipitous relationships, walking down a hallway, to purposeful, engineered, more powerful relationships. So, there’s a whole series of these shifts. Everyone has simple practices that bring it to life.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, could you share with us another, a couple shifts and practices that you’ve seen be tremendously transformational?

Keith Ferrazzi
You know, one of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned, so I became a venture partner at a company called Lightspeed. It’s one of the largest VCs in the world, and I coach their portfolio companies. These extraordinary, thoughtful, fast-growth unicorn companies born out of Stanford University or IIT in India. And these companies, they very much collaborate differently than most other teams. They don’t use meetings as the way in which they collaborate.

So, one of the shifts is from collaborating in meetings to collaborating in technology. So, if I said to you, “We’re running slow on the sales this quarter. Let’s have a meeting on it,” we all get in the room and we start having a dialogue. There’s 12 of us, and four of us would think that we’d been hurt. It’s just, you don’t have time to hear everyone’s point of view. Some people aren’t bold and aggressive in meetings, others are more introverted, etc.

But if I said, “Let’s not have a meeting on it. Here’s a Google Sheet, and here’s all 12 people’s names. First column, what do you think the real problem is that has caused the sales to slow down? Second column is what is a bold solution that could get us back on track? Okay, now everybody writes that up and reads it before we show up in the meeting. Now we show up in the meeting, we probably already landed the plane and all we have to do is agree that one of those solutions or a combination of a couple is the way to go, and we’re off and running.”

The old way would have been the meeting, the meeting after the meeting, the meeting we walked down the hallway, the lobbying behind each other’s backs. I mean, meeting shifting is a major shift that these young, hot unicorn companies, they organically know how to collaborate in asynchronous formats, not meetings. That’s another shift.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I like that a lot because, you mentioned Amazon being high performing, and I understand that Amazon very much has a writing culture in which folks do some writing about some things and they might start a meeting with “We’re just reading the writing.” And to some, that sounds very intimidating, like, “Oh, my gosh, I have to write essays and pages and pages.” But what you’ve described sounds super easy, “I got two cells. I might be generating nine sentences, and we’re off to the races.”

Keith Ferrazzi
I love the purposefulness of the Amazon culture, but I do, on this particular issue, I see the value of it, but I would rather not read in a room. Also, I think that by the time you’re writing up a five-page document, you’re putting a stake in the ground relative to what this thing is. I’m talking about, like, that’s fine if you’re down here on the funnel of collaboration, you’re ready to close something. That’s editing where somebody, where we think we are.

But if you’re up here, and you’re trying to break through a problem, I don’t want you, I don’t want five pages of your opinion. That boxes us all in to your opinion and your solution. I want, “I’m up here. I want to hear what you think the problems are.” Because I’ve seen this where, in a large manufacturer that was retooling a significant part of its product line, they were falling behind, and everyone’s pointing fingers. And I said, “Let’s just do a meeting shift. Let’s everybody go online and we’re going to write ‘We are falling behind. But what do you think the reason is we’re falling behind and what’s a bold solution?’”

And, all of a sudden, we had all of these opinions from different functions. Some people said, “I want to send it down to the plant level and see what they think,” and etc. And, gosh, it just revealed itself. Truth came out of this tapestry of insight. And the person who came up with the boldest idea that worked, that we ended up implementing, was L4 from the people who were actually in the meetings originally, level four underneath the levels one and levels two that were naturally there.

Pete Mockaitis
I dig it. Okay. So, one, we’re exiting the meeting, and we’re getting all the bold thinking, just straight right out there in a Google Sheet or some sort of easy collaboration platform. Lay some more on us, Keith.

Keith Ferrazzi
The word “agile” is a word that came up in the 2000s as a way to re-engineer how you develop software, and it, frankly, was a genius re-engineering of workflow that should be used by all of us in all the projects we do. And, ironically, even companies that develop software don’t practice agile on other project management solutions.

Look, agile can be pretty time-consuming and very in-depth. It can be a bunch of spreadsheets. But here’s what I would say if there’s a critical initiative that you have this year, a wish, a desire, a hope, have your goals for the year around it, but ask yourself very clearly, “What does success look like after month one?”

And after month one, pause and say, “Okay, what have we achieved in month one? Where did we struggle in month one? And what are we planning to do in month two in order to make sure we hit our year goals?” If you work in those short agile sprints, month by month, or if there’s a lot of volatility in what you’re doing, you could do week by week sprints, and at the end of those sprints, utilizing the practice that I’d mentioned earlier called stress testing, where the group of people who are involved in that project, beat it up at the end of every sprint.

They go into breakout rooms and they write, “What risks or challenges do I see that they’re missing? What innovation might I offer? Where would I offer help?” And now, all of a sudden, the whole team is on one page beating this thing up, all full transparency on the table. The person now says, “Thank you. I’ve got all this new information. Here’s how I’m adjusting my next month, and I’m now on track to hit my annual goals.”

Whereas, in the past, we’d wake up at the end of Q1 or Q2 realizing, “There’s no way in hell we’re going to make our one-year goals. We’re already so far off track and we haven’t been listening more and robustly to all of the input.” So, just using simple, agile sprints and adjusting through stress testing at the end of every one is an amazing operating system for the world we’re living in today, the volatility, the need for change, etc.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, lovely. All right. So, we have a big goal, a big timeline, we split it up into segments, so we’re checking in regularly and seeing, “Are we on track and how do we fix it?” getting all the wisdom from the people. Nifty.

Keith Ferrazzi
So, I’m going to harken back to my first book a bit because one of the problems I saw in our coaching of teams is that most teams, do not effectively define what a team is. So, what I mean by that is, in most large companies, the big problem is we think our team is who reports to us, and we’re constantly banging our head against the wall because there are so many other interdependencies that are getting in our way of achieving the things we want to achieve. Well, that is the first shift that I talk about in the book, shifting from hub-and-spoke leadership, where control is what defines a team, to a team being the critical network of people you need to get the job done.

So, as a leader, your team is who you need to get the job done. I don’t work in a big company, I’m an entrepreneur, and my team includes other entrepreneurs, like Peter Diamandis, who’s a good buddy of mine, who’s a futurist in technology. He helped me design an entirely new business at Ferrazzi Greenlight that I hadn’t thought of, that was basically, it’s called Connected Success.

We take learners, you know, entrepreneurs, leaders. etc. who want to live the life of Keith Ferrazzi in terms of great relationships, transforming your life, transforming your career, etc., and we take them through an eight-week program. That is very different than the business model that I’ve always had, which is coaching executive teams. So, this is a very different business model.

And my teammate, Peter, incubated that with me, and he doesn’t work for me. I don’t pay him. I’m a partner of his and I do things for his and his teams, and he does things for me and my teams. All of a sudden, he’s a teammate, and if I didn’t define myself that way, I would have never tapped into his genius.

And in large corporations, you know, the software company that I was talking to you about earlier, the hardware and the software division are the same team in the growth of the business, and yet they think of themselves as other. And so, one team collaborates, and then they go try to get buy-in. Buy-in is BS. Buy-in is you’re trying to sell your ideas to people. You need to configure your team around the people you need to get the job done, independent of work charts.

And once that’s done, then you get that group to adopt what I call the social contract, “We’re going to be candid with each other. We’re going to push each other hard. We’re going to keep each other’s energy strong. We’re going to build strong, trusting relationships. We agree on this stuff, and then you do the practices.” So, just redefining team is such a critical component of high-performing teams and team-ship.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. And I’m curious, when you lay out this contract, do you encounter resistance? Or do people sign up readily, and then later on have trouble? Or is it smooth sailing through and through?

Keith Ferrazzi
You know, there’s usually, in every third team, there’s one a**hole that is just digging in out of self-preservation, fear, insecurity, selfishness, whatever, and they don’t want to really adjust to become a high-performing team. The reality is, in most teams, once they see, “Oh, wow, our score is 1.3? That’s pathetic. 

So, once you do the diagnostic, people are like, “Wow, that’s not who I want to be.” And now the question is, “It’s fine to be aware, but that doesn’t do anything. What are the practices? So, okay, I’m aware, now you’ve given me a stress test as a practice.” Or another practice is called a candor break, we’re in the middle of a meeting, everybody goes into groups of two, and they say, “Okay, what’s not being said in this meeting that should be said?” What a powerful question. They talk in groups of two, then they come back in the main room and they all share.

That’s turning the culture you wish you had into an assignment. It happens all the time in these practices. So, you become awake, you do the practice, and you’re like, “Wow, that’s a better way to live my life. I’m not banging my head against the wall about my frustration about another peer. I’m able to have a conversation with them about it.”

So, I think that the adoption rate is very high. Very high. Every once in a while, you get one that’s not, but then it also becomes very evident that that guy is the jerk that probably doesn’t last very long in the team.

Pete Mockaitis
I do love that question in the candor break, “What’s something that’s not being said that should be said?” because it kind of reverses the emotional pressure dynamics, you know? Whereas, before, it’s like, “Oh, it’s uncomfortable to say this thing because maybe it’ll hurt someone’s feelings, maybe I’ll look dumb, etc.” Then when you shift it, it then feels like the pressure is reversed. So, now the wrong answer is, “Uh, nothing. We’ve said everything.”

Keith Ferrazzi
Right. That’s the ridiculous answer. All I’ve done in most of these shifts, in the high-return practices, I have seen and curated practices that allow you to turn the kind of culture you dreamed of into simple assignments, and people don’t mind simple assignments, and in fact they’re pent up. You know, most organizations that are so overly polite that they don’t share what they’re thinking are usually highly political and they share behind each other’s back.

If you tell them, “Hey, we’re going to step up to a new standard of courage and transparency. Here’s how you’re going to do it. You’re going to go in small groups of two. You’re going to talk about what’s not being said. I know psychological safety is 85% higher in those small groups. Then we’re going to come into the main room. We’re going to have that discussion because you were assigned to do it so everyone has to have something to say,” and, boom, it’s all of a sudden on the table.

So, it’s actually, there’s a Fortune magazine article I wrote recently that says, you know, I’m tired of hearing people say, “Culture change is tough.” It’s not. Culture change changes when you just adopt simple new practices that change the culture.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And you also talk about the importance of praise, so this stuff isn’t necessarily all like, “Oh, say the hard courageous thing that’s going to upset people.” But also, we’re sharing some happy stuff, too.

Keith Ferrazzi
Praise and relationships, both are very happy. So, praise, there’s, “How do you shift from paltry limited leader-led praise?” which most companies don’t have enough praise. So, limited praise from leaders to abundant praise from peers. How do you create, and what do you do? If you’re a leader, let’s do a practice. Once a month, we’re going to do a gratitude circle where everybody goes around and shares one person on the team that they’re grateful for and why. Really simple practice. And you can do them even more frequently than once a month.

So, there’s a whole set of practices that shift from the leader being responsible for all the praise to the team. You can still do leader-led praise. You want certain behaviors dialed up on your team, you do an award for that kind of behavior, and you call out who that is. Very simple. It’s Pavlovian in nature, actually, right? It’s like the dog rings the bell; they get a treat. So, if you change your behavior, you get a treat, you get praised. So, that’s on the praise side. Very simple practices breed that kind of energy.

And relationships, you know, most teams have mediocre level of connection. I will go into a team, I’m like, I’ll do diagnostic interviews, “How close is your team?” “Oh, we’re so close. We grew up together. This team’s been together forever. Deep relationship. Deep caring relationships.” “Okay.” And we get in the room, and I ask the question, “Does my team have my back? Do I care about my team and what’s going on in their lives? Does my team know what I’m struggling with? And are they there to help lift me up?” “Oh, well. that’s kind of a high standard. That’s low twos, you know?”

And then I do a practice where everybody goes around and says, “What is my energy these days and what’s bringing it down?” And, all of a sudden, people come over to me, like, “Holy sh**, I’ve known this person for 10 years. I had no idea that their mother was suffering Alzheimer’s,” “I had no idea that they had an autistic son,” “I had no idea that they were struggling so much with this business leader that they serve in the business.” It’s amazing. We just don’t curate purposeful relationships.

Now when you have that, then you have a team that has more empathy, has more care, has more commitment. Yeah. So, I think of all of the interviews I’ve done, I think we’ve gotten through, like, more shifts here. Usually, I get to like three shifts. We got through, moving from candor, moving from conflict avoidance to candor, redefining the team itself as not an org chart but a network.

We moved from serendipitous relationships to purposeful relationships. We sort of threw in there the idea of moving from individual, “I got my own back. I’ve got to take care of my own resilience,” to team resilience. We talked about agile. We talked about celebration. We talked a little bit about peer-to-peer growth.

That’s one that I love where teams actually give each other critical feedback on a quarterly basis using an open 360 where everybody goes around, and says, “Pete, what I most respect and admire about you in the last quarter is X. Thank you. And, Pete, because I care about your success going forward, I might suggest,” everybody goes around. And they go, “Keith, same thing.”

That kind of peer-to-peer coaching, I call it an open 360 practice, really starts to prime the pump for a team to become each other’s coaches. Anyway, you’ve been abundant in navigating around the book, so this has been a fun interview.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. Well, now can you share with us a favorite quote?

Keith Ferrazzi
”You don’t think your way to a new way of acting. You act your way to a new way of thinking.”

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. And a favorite book?

Keith Ferrazzi
The Great Gatsby.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Keith Ferrazzi
I do a morning ritual, my fiancé and I, and I’ve just gotten engaged and we’re going to be married in June.

Pete Mockaitis
Congratulations.

Keith Ferrazzi
Thank you. The alarm goes off, we push snooze, and over the next 10 minutes, we both lie and meditate on what are three things we’re grateful for at that moment and three things we’re looking forward to in that day. And the three things that we’re grateful for, we’re never allowed to repeat the same one twice, ever in our lives. So, it’s a beautiful way to realize what kind of abundance we have around us.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Keith Ferrazzi
Look, this is more of a gift. If you’re excited about using the book, you can go to KeithFerrazzi.com, and we provided a video course around the book that you can certainly buy but you don’t have to. If you’re buying the book for your team, you get the video course for free. So, I think the challenge is just try some of these practices on. They’re so easy.

Can’t afford the book? Just go online and type “Keith Ferrazzi TeamShip.” I’ve published a lot of things on Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fortune, etc., so just try some of the practices. You’ll learn how game-changing they are.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, thank you, Keith. This is fun.

Keith Ferrazzi
Thanks, Pete. I appreciate your time.

1027: The Mindsets that Inspire Teams with Paula Davis

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Paula Davis shares best practices for keeping your team engaged and motivated.

You’ll Learn

  1. Why to shift focus from performance to people 
  2. How to keep your team connected and motivated 
  3. The tiny noticeable things that improve team dynamics

About Paula 

Paula Davis JD, MAPP, is the Founder and CEO of the Stress & Resilience Institute, a training and consulting firm that helps organizations reduce burnout and build resilience at the team, leader, and organizational level.

Paula left her law practice after seven years and earned a master’s degree in applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. She is also the author of Beating Burnout at Work: Why Teams Hold the Secret to Well-Being & Resilience and Lead Well: 5 Mindsets to Engage, Retain, and Inspire Your Team. 

Her expertise has been featured in numerous media outlets including The New York Times, and Psychology Today.

Resources Mentioned

Thank You, Sponsors!

Paula Davis Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Paula, welcome back.

Paula Davis
Hello, it’s so good to be back.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to hear you talking about Leading Well, and mindsets for engaging, retaining, and inspiring folks. Could you kick us off with any of the most surprising discoveries you’ve made when it comes to what it really takes to engage, retain, and inspire colleagues these days?

Paula Davis
One of the things that really surprised me was actually seeing the data around when companies take, not only at a performance focus, so looking at numbers and metrics and quarterly earnings and all of that, but also layer on sort of a people focus side, so combining that performance and people focus, the great business outcomes that come from it. So, really amplifying the business case was one of the things that I wanted to do in this book because I think it’s a piece of the puzzle that’s oftentimes left out when we’re talking about some of this human-focused psychology stuff.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, what kind of performance boosts are we talking here?

Paula Davis
So, we are talking about much lower attrition rates, sometimes cut in half. We’re talking about higher earnings. We are talking about, 4.3 times more likely than the average company to maintain top-tier financial performance for an extended period of time. And one of the pieces of the puzzle that I think is really important is that, because I hear from a lot of professional services firms, in particular, and other companies who say, “We’re meeting our numbers. We’re doing really, really well. We got lots of money rolling into the company. Like, why should we switch? Why is taking a performance focus so wrong?”

And the answer is it’s not wrong. But what the research talks about is that, in good times, you know, companies that perform financially well, those financial performance-focused companies do great, but when it comes to down times, when it comes to, say, the period of time during the pandemic, what have you, companies that have that balanced approach, that really add that people side to the equation, tend to go through the rough patches in a more smooth way. They take less bumps.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, could you perhaps paint a picture for what that looks, sounds, feels like in practice in terms of, “All right, this is what being in a company that has the hardcore financial performance focus feels like in terms of the vibe, and the messaging, and the experience, and infrastructure, all the stuff,” versus what a more balanced place feels like? And maybe share a story for how that plays out in practice.

Paula Davis
Sure, yeah. And so, what was interesting is the research that I just talked about found that only 9% of the companies that, this was a McKinsey report, researched actually fell in that balanced approach. So, we’re not talking about a lot of companies here. And one of the companies that I think comes to mind for me is one of the companies that I talked about in Chapter 3 of the book.

It’s a really large healthcare organization that has taken kind of its mindset around recognition and appreciation and has really codified it in some unique ways, not only within the organization but they’ve actually elevated it, that notion that, “This is what we’re going to do. This is one of the values that we’re going to really, really hit hard and kind of walk the talk about.” They’ve elevated it all the way up to the C-suite and board level strategy.

So, very rarely do I hear a company that either read about or that I’ve worked with actually say, you know, like, “Some of this well-being motivational engagement stuff is actually baked into the highest of the highest-level strategies that we’re thinking about.” And so, clearly, looking at this concept from a dollars and cents standpoint, right, because it’s part of the entire financial strategy that we’re looking at for the company, but that it trickles down throughout the organization in a number of different ways.

So, they have a Making Moments Matter platform where they are able to send these recognitions and appreciations to each other via a platform of technology that they have in the organization. They have a yearly event where they actually nominate people at every single level from around the entire system. And they have different categories of folks who are finalists, or what have you, and they pick somebody who, out of the entire organization of 50,000 plus people, most truly espouses these values, and then they honor them at a dinner.

And so, there’s just all these different ways that they have decided to take this one particular piece, this human piece of the puzzle, and actually build it in a number of different ways. And they actually have told me that they see this as their most, from an economic standpoint, valuable retention tool and talent attraction tool. And they can tell that when the people in the organization are truly kind of walking these values, they see better outcomes with their patients in a whole host of ways. So, that’s the best example I can think of.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, can we zoom in into like a Making Moments Matter type thing? Like, if I were there in that organization, like what would be happening as we do this stuff?

Paula Davis
Say, you had a wonderful interaction or encounter with a colleague, or you noticed somebody who was really walking the values of the organization, you could put a little message into this platform, and that would register and it would go not only to the person, but it would go to the person’s manager, and I think it might even go one level above that as well.

They’ve collected multiple millions of these individual sorts of appreciations and recognitions, and just talking about how that has really just helped to build a really strong cultural fabric.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, you know, I like that so much. It sounds really good. I read the book The Fund by Rob Copeland, which was talking about Bridgewater and their unique computer stuff and culture. And, at least the way he writes it, it sounds like a nightmare, like just a miserable place to be from Rob Copeland’s perspective in the book, because it was sort of doing almost the opposite of that in terms of like everybody was continuously tracking and ranking and rating and scoring everybody on all of these competency dimensions, they called it their baseball cards.

And so, there’s always sort of like this looming threat of, “Oh, someone could ding me for behaving in such a way,” and then others would pile on and you’d see your real-time, I guess, status, score, baseball card figures plummeting relative to the other people in the organization. It sounded horrendous, as Rob Copeland told it. And this is like the opposite. It’s like, “Here are some cool stuff that went down. Hooray! Let’s celebrate you publicly.”

Paula Davis
That does sound horrendous, and I didn’t dig into this, but I think you bring up a really good point, or he brings up a really good point, certainly, is that I think when you’re talking about making moments matter, or taking time to appreciate someone, or highlight something that they’ve done well, or recognize them, whatever word you want to use, I think that really has to be done authentically. And that’s I think one of the things you got to watch out for, I think, with any type of platform like this. It’s not about, like, “Ooh, I’ve got to get to 20 by the end of the week.” It’s about making them the most authentic that you can.

But I think that most of us zoom through work with our heads down, just, you know, we’ve got so much work to do, we’re just trying to get through the day, and so we’re at zero. So, kind of finding that balance between nothing and a race to get to a certain number.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And it’s funny how these things naturally come up in our brains in terms of, “Oh, wow, that was a really cool chat I had with Paula. That was great.” And then they do, they fly right out of our brains as we rush to finish the next thing that needs to be done, oh, so urgently. So, if you have an institutionalized system process methodology by which these things are captured, and you just know, “Oh! I know just the place to park this fun pleasant thought I had. Here we go!”

Paula Davis
And because I think a lot of organizations have, the recognition policies. So, like, “At five years we’re going to send you a something or at 10 years we’re going to send you something.” They have sort of codified ways to express appreciation and thanks but they don’t necessarily support or talk about or think about or highlight, like, everyday day-to-day practices.

And so, I talk about how important it is to start to kind of go in that direction because it kicks the door open to something much more deep, a fundamental human need for us to know that we matter. So, that’s whether we are at, you know, talking about our families, whether we’re talking about work, whether we’re talking about our communities, we want to know that we’re making an impact on some level, right?

And so, mattering is about both those moments of appreciation, but it’s also about those moments of achievement where I also know that I’m contributing something. I’m contributing something and other people are noticing or affirming or telling me that I am having that level of impact.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. Okay. So, the research is backing this up and, boy, 9%.

Paula Davis
A lot of room for improvement.

Pete Mockaitis
I guess if we find ourselves in an organization that’s doing some nice stuff this way, I guess we should feel grateful because it’s apparently rare.

Paula Davis
Based on, certainly, that one research report from McKinsey, yes. In fact, I think they found it was 55%, which was the bigger category of the quadrants, so four quadrants. I think it was about 55% who actually didn’t show a high level on either category, not outperforming on the performance side and not outperforming on the people side either. So more than half are just kind of, you know, “Here we go.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so that’s some cool research. And would you say that’s the big idea behind Lead Well? Or how would you articulate the core thesis?

Paula Davis
Well, I think that’s definitely a piece of it. I think the big idea behind it is, I think wanting to let the world of work, and particularly leaders know, that they’re really driving the conversation when it comes to the fact that we’re looking at “Work has changed. And how has work changed? And why has work changed? Because that’s happened, what do we have to, how do they, how do leaders have to be thinking differently about that?”

If we want to continue to have or see good outcomes, if we want to sort of reverse this trend of burnout, if we want to reverse the trend of, we’re at an all-time low level at least for the last 11 years of disengagement, things that we keep seeing come up consistently over and over are taking root. And if we’re going to go in a different direction with that, how do we do it?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And when we talk about change, what would you say is the most pronounced change difference that the worker, let’s say the knowledge worker, is experiencing now as compared to, say, 15 years ago?

Paula Davis
So, certainly, I mean, we can’t avoid the conversation about AI, right? I think that the explosion of just new technology and new ways of thinking about doing work and really, honestly, potentially, being at a point where we might see some of those lower-level tasks, eventually at some point, potentially, be consumed by technology and other things, I think is much more realistic than it was 15 years ago.

I think, certainly, the outcomes associated with the pandemic, and I know we’re largely beyond that or however we want to word that, but I think, psychologically, what a lot of people and a lot of leaders don’t understand is that we’ve carried the effects of going through something so traumatic for a lot of people and cataclysmic for a lot of people with us.

And we’ve really, I think, very intentionally, started to look very differently at “How do I want my life to unfold? How do I want my world of work to look? How do I get both of those two things to integrate? And if I am not seeing a workplace that’s going to be supportive of my well-being and supportive of some of the human-centered aspects of work that I feel are much more important now, I may seriously consider going somewhere else.”

So, I don’t think we really– I mean, 15 years ago was when I stopped my law practice and I started down the path toward this work. We weren’t having these conversations at all about wellbeing in work. And so, I think the fact that that’s amplified has been a huge change as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, that’s intriguing, the COVID pandemic impact. It’s so funny, I think back to 2020, it was like another lifetime.

Paula Davis
I know.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’d heard that people don’t want to make any movies or TV shows set in that time, it’s like, “We all just want to forget that happened. That’s not entertaining in the least to return to such memories.” And so then, is there any cool research or data saying, “Whoa, here’s something that feels very different in 2025 as compared to even 2019”?

Paula Davis
Well, I think one of the pieces that helps explain why people feel so differently now because of that is something called post-traumatic growth. So, I think a lot of folks are familiar with the term post-traumatic stress disorder. Less people, I find, are familiar with the term post-traumatic growth. So really understanding that when we go through life’s big adversities, when we go through life’s big challenges and traumatic experiences, most of us will take a look and go, “I do not want that to happen again. I wish this thing hadn’t happened because it kind of changed things completely for me.”

But what we oftentimes find is that humans do come out the other side at some point and they share some characteristics. They talk about a renewed sense of connection. They really, really amplify the importance of their relationships. They really want a sense of meaning and some deeper sort of connection involved in their lives, and it’s not something that they can just erase or have go away. It’s sort of like a permanent shift in how their world has changed.

And so, I think that that helps to explain why a lot of people have come out of this now really talking about how “I would like meaning at work, and I would like to have a little bit more indicator of my impact,” or, “I do want a workplace that’s going to support my mental health and well-being. And if I don’t get those things, yeah, I might stay for a while.”

But, I mean, I don’t think our workplaces, our leaders really want to have their teams be thinking about how they’re going to be plotting their next choice of where they’re going to work. We want our workers to feel engaged and motivated and staying. So that has been a big piece for me to think about.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, tell us then, what are some of the top mindsets and practices and cool stories that show them in action, come to life, to give us a picture here?

Paula Davis
Yeah, so the first one, and I sort of alluded to this already in the story that we were just talking about, but it’s called “Prioritizing Sticky Recognition and Mattering.” And so, this chapter honestly really changed how I have looked at my friendships and my relationships with my family, and certainly my relationship with my eight-and-a-half-year-old, “Am I telling her enough?” Because I think a lot of times, we just assume that people know, like, “Hey you’re in my universe and so all is good to go.”

But, like, really amplifying that sense of showing people their impact, and then blooming that fundamental human need to matter, I think is really a cool starting place, and really low-hanging fruit for a lot of organizations. But then I talk about also the need to amplify what I call ABC needs. So that’s a lovely combination of autonomy, belonging, and challenge.

So, we need a sense of, in our lives, in our world of work, we need a combination of “Do I get to choose my own adventure?” That’s how I think about autonomy. “Do I belong? Do I show up to a place where people care about me and my leader has my back, and I know I’m part of a group that is doing something well? And do I feel challenged? Am I able to grow and sort of build my skills within my current world of work?”

And then workload sustainability. So, this was one of the hardest chapters for me to tackle, but I felt like this book would be incomplete unless I did, because unmanageable workloads are one of the, if we’re looking at the root causes or sources of disengagement and stress and burnout, by far and away has been the number one unmanageable workload that I have seen with all of the groups that I have worked with. And so, trying to unpeel all of that, getting into what makes for a more sustainable workload, was a big piece of the puzzle.

The fourth one is building systemic stress resilience. So, to deal with all of the uncertainty, and the challenge, and the change, and the setbacks, and the obstacles, and the stressors, we have to not just be thinking about resilience at the individual level, but how do our teams become more resilient and how can we fortify organizations to become more resilient?

And then lastly, I wanted to talk about values alignment and practices associated with leading in a meaningful way. Certainly, with the generational conversation, I think that notion of values alignment and meaning has been pushed to the forefront. And values misalignment is also another one of the core drivers of chronic stress and burnout and disengagement. And so, it’s that whole kind of piece, puzzle pieces together in terms of the mindsets that I want leaders to be thinking about.

Pete Mockaitis
And when you say workload sustainability, I’m curious, what do we know in terms of what makes a workload sustainable or unsustainable?

Paula Davis
Yeah, so basically it comes down to really two big buckets, and I decided to write about one of the buckets, and it’s really about better processes, procedures, and teaming practices. So, if I’m going to get my arms around building more workload sustainability, I got to figure out, like, “Why do we have so many open projects? Why are we doing so many things that are draining money?” and trying to get my arms around just even sort of where all of that is coming from?

And then the other piece of the puzzle, is recovery. Like, “Are we making enough time to really stop and pause? And what does that actually mean and look like in our day-to-day, in our week-to-week, month-to-month?” It’s not just the taking a vacation once every three years, that doesn’t do it.

So that notion, though, of really starting with leaders trying to dig in and just see, like, “What do we have? Why do we have so much? Why are we not focusing on certain things? Do we have Band-Aid initiatives going on where we’ve got so many open projects, but we don’t have the funding or the people or what have you to actually finish things and push them through, but they remain open?” So, there’s a lot of first steps, or kind of digging that leaders really need to engage in.

And then it becomes, “How are your meeting practices? Do you have information that’s located in places where everybody has access to it? Are people really clear about their roles and responsibilities? Do teams understand how we’re supposed to communicate with each other?” So, it gets back to a lot of very basic sort of teaming practices, very basic procedural things that I think when they’re done with more intentionality, can then start to help us understand how we can bring workload back into more of a sustainable realm.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a quantity, a number of hours or projects or something by which we can start to see, “Ah, this is where a workload begins dipping into the unsustainable level”?

Paula Davis
That’s the hard part because it’s so subjective, and I talk about this a lot associated with my burnout work, too, is that when we’re talking about an unsustainable workload, what’s unsustainable for me may be very different for you. What was unsustainable for me when I was 25 looks very different than what it is right now when I have an eight-and-a-half-year-old and a whole host of other just life obligations that I have to attend to at this age.

And so, I think it’s a fluid, subjective thing to be thinking about, and that’s why it can be so hard, I think, for leaders to really wrestle with “What does this mean?” because for one team in one department, it may look one way, and for a different team, it may look completely different. And so, you have to take it on kind of a team-by-team, case-by-case basis. So, there isn’t like a hard and fast metric. Like, I can’t say, “It’s seven projects for you, and three projects for you.” It’s totally like team and industry dependent.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about things in a similar light in terms of if what you’re doing is fascinating, riveting, engaging stuff that lights you up at your core and resembles play, it’s almost like there’s no limit in terms of like, “As long as you can, like, eat and exercise and sleep and see your loved ones, you might be able to bang out a massive number of hours.” And yet, if it feels like drudgery, then maybe even 20 hours a week is too much.

It has been sort of my subjective experience, and as I look at stories of like, I don’t know, I think about like hackers, it’s like, “These folks are just cranking away at their computer for hours upon hours upon hours,” and yet, it’s fun, fascinating, interesting, and juicy for them, because it’s so cool, “I’m learning, I’m exploring, I’m discovering. Oh, my gosh, this thing worked! Wow, I did not expect that to work! Oh, I made a discovery! I should probably share this with the world so that the world becomes safer! And I’m contributing to that and making a little bit of a name for myself.”

And yet, at the end of the day, they’re still seated, tapping on keys, looking at a screen, whereas another person can be doing the same distributed across dozens of inconsistently interrupted projects that they don’t really care that much about how they work out to be, and feel tremendously stressed, burnt out, flustered by the matter.

Paula Davis
Yes. And so, that’s an interesting example, but I think it goes back to the power of knowing and understanding the impact that you’re having and the impact that you’re making. And do you feel that C in the ABCs, right? Do you feel a sense of challenge and growth? Do you feel like you’re able to learn new things? Do you have people who are around you who can show you the ropes and help you get from point A to point B or wherever it is that you want to take in terms of the next step in your career?

And it’s interesting what you were just talking about, and I don’t know that you’ve talked or thought about it through game theory, but one of the small kind of strategies that I talk about in that particular part of the book is sort of adding gamification thinking to some of your work, for leaders to kind of introduce gaming concepts and practices.

So, when you think about playing a game, or like, for me I just inherently go to video games, part of the reason why they’re so consuming and they’re so enticing and you want to stay with them and it’s hard to break away from them is because the objective is really clear, “I have to get to level 20,” or, “I have to rescue this particular person.” So, there’s a clear end point, and there’s clear goals along the way, and while you’re going and trying to achieve that particular goal, or whatever getting to the next level looks like, there’s all sorts of phenomenal feedback cues.

There’s bells and whistles, and the point total gets higher, and you’re getting such immediate feedback that you’re on the right track or that you’re doing the right thing or that you’re not doing the right thing, so you can course correct. So, it’s the same types of concepts that can help leaders think about, like, “How do I build some of that into helping people still stay engaged and have fun with the work that they’re doing?” because a lot of us aren’t.

Pete Mockaitis

And so then, what are some of the coolest ways you’ve seen folks implement some of these principles, these gamifications into normal professional work life that have been fun and effective?

Paula Davis
One of the companies that I talk about, it’s actually a really big law firm that I talk about in the book. I don’t think we oftentimes think of like law firms as being, I certainly don’t, as having been in that world for a long time, as being ultra-forward thinking when it comes to these types of concepts.

But a big law firm that I talk about in the book really has created sort of this, almost like this separate sort of leadership education for their lawyers, and they actually give them titles. So, normally you’re just an associate, and then you’re a partner. But they actually give them new titles as they ascend through different pieces of this leadership academy.

And so, in addition to the titles, they get one-on-one coaching so they’re getting, I think, some of that more strategic feedback about how they’re doing and how they can continue to get better at each level. And there’s also, I believe, like a notification or something that goes out to the clients as well. This is an indicator to their clients that, “Hey, the lawyer who you’re working with is now ascended almost right into the different, the next level of the game of sorts, and here is the wealth of talent that they continue to bring.”

So, again, I don’t know that they or I were looking at that through the gamification lens, but you can see how, when you start to build sort of larger scale intentional programs like that, you can have those types of game theory sort of built in or used as a way to explain some of the beneficial outcomes.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And I would love to get your viewpoints in terms of, let’s say we’re in an organization where, unfortunately, not a lot of these cool best practices are at work, but we have our little sphere of influence in terms of a team, or even just a couple direct reports, or even ourselves. Any pro tips on how we can take advantage of some of these principles to make some good things happen?

Paula Davis
I think that the best place to start, and certainly where I advocated in my first book too, is with your team, with a team. And even if your team is just you and two other people, that’s a team. I think sometimes we think that teams have to be these really large entities, and that’s certainly not the case.

And so, I think starting with some of the best practices to implement some of that sticky recognition and mattering, just because the outcomes are so strong with that. So, that’s just simply, you know, one of the researchers I interviewed for that chapter said, “Sticky recognition and mattering lives at the day-to-day moments in your interactions.”

So those 10-minute moments when you’re walking down the hallway with someone or you’ve just patched into the Zoom and it’s a few of you just kind of hanging out, what do you say? Like, do you interact with somebody? How’s your day? How’s your family? What’s going on? What has your attention right now? Just sort of, I think, getting back to relearning how to see people when we’re so consumed by our work in technology, I think, is a really important starting point.

And then, one of the things that kept coming up as a thread in a lot of the successful companies and people that I interviewed was this notion of just, like, I call them Seinfeld meetings because Seinfeld was a show about nothing. And so, it’s these one-on-one moments to talk to people really about nothing, purposely without a business outcome associated with it.

So, again, just spending 15 minutes every other week just checking in on someone and asking them, “What has your attention right now?” can be hugely beneficial. Just talking to each other about just best teaming practices, “Are we all aligned together on how we’re communicating with each other, about how we see our team, about what the end result is? Are we all clear? Do we all have clear guardrails about where we’re supposed to start and where we’re supposed to end up?” So, again, I think some of these human practices in combination with some basic teaming practices, I think, is always a winning combination.

Pete Mockaitis
Alrighty. And could you share with us a cool story of a team or organization that really just put these principles into practice in a beautiful, illustrative, transformational way?

Paula Davis
One example that I mention is, it’s really a framework, so it’s less, I think, about a company, although there’s a few companies that are implementing this. In the Work Sustainability chapter talking about it’s called the US Bank Guidelines, where US banks’ in-house teams of sorts, have really intentionally thought about, “How do we want to create relationships with our outside vendors, our outside counsel, the outside people who we work with, and our internal folks that’s going to be supportive of intentional delegation; that’s going to try and minimize the fire drills and the urgency; that’s going to honor and respect communication practices and work-life integration boundaries and things of that nature?”

And so, talking about the different sort of principles that they have, that have become these guidelines that do just what I said, talking to them about how they’ve started to implement those, both internally and externally with the people who they work, have certainly been eye-opening. So, I think a lot of where we’re at right now with some of this is we’ve got to just try it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Paula Davis
So, I think, for me, one of the big takeaways from the book is that this comes down to this being leading well. It comes down to what I call tiny noticeable things, or TNTs, that are a combination of a little bit more human stuff and a little bit more team stuff that together, I think, become a really powerful source of motivational fuel for folks.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Paula Davis
One of my favorite quotes is “Between what is said but not meant, and what is meant but not said, a lot of love is lost.”

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Paula Davis
One of the research papers that I found really fascinating talked about how, and this is just kind of an interesting way that they were able to measure a team’s heart rate synchrony. And when teams’ heart rates were in sync, they, I think it was like more than 75% of the time, made good decisions together.

And so, it was really indicative of psychological safety and trust. So, I thought it was just really interesting look at some of these things from a physiological perspective and see how when heart rates were more in sync, there was more trust and better decision-making among teams.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. And a favorite book?

Paula Davis
I love Brigid Schulte’s latest book is called Overwork, so I’m obviously digging into all of the things work-related about how we can do work better and make work better. I keep coming back to, over and over again, Kelly McGonigal’s book The Upside of Stress.

Because I have spent so much time in the burnout space, I think, really, taking an interesting look at “What is stress meant to help us do?” It’s meant to help us connect. It’s meant to help us find meaning, and that a meaningful life is a stressful life on some level, and so that reminder is helpful.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote back to you often?

Paula Davis
Yes, there’s a skill that I talk about with that sticky recognition and mattering piece called a thank you plus, where so if you don’t say thank you very frequently, this could be at work or outside of work, start there. But the plus piece is to add the behavior or the strength that you saw that led to the good outcome.

So, it can be as simple as saying, “Thank you so much for summarizing the reports. The way that you did that helped me find the key takeaways quickly, and it made my life a lot easier and the conversation with my clients simpler.” Just that extra little smidge of peace really resonates with people. And so, I oftentimes will have people trying to practice a thank you plus to me or emailing me and calling out the fact that they were trying to do a thank you plus or mentioning that to me in some way.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Paula Davis
They can go to my website, which is StressAndResilience.com, or they can find me at Paula Davis on LinkedIn.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Paula Davis
I would say just don’t forget about the fundamental human need that we all have, to just make sure that we’re making an impact in our world, and just being really keen to share that with people when you notice it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Paula, thank you.

Paula Davis
Thanks so much, Pete.