Workforce Revival: Rebuilding Company Culture in a Remote & AI World

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So as entrepreneurs, we have a lot of turmoil going on,
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a lot of things happening between working from home and
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AI and you know, you got this DEI stuff and
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all this kind of stuff. So today on the MULTIPLELDO Show,
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we're going to discover how to build a successful work
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culture in this scattered work environment. And we have an
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expert in this area, Jennifer Moss, who wrote the book
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why are We Here? I think that's the question that
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every entrepreneur asks themselves every day, why are we here?
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And then the subtitle I love is creating a work
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culture everyone wants and I want to add in there.
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I hope that includes including the owner that wants that
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work culture. It's not just the employees. We've been in
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a situation lately where employees have had so much power
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because there's been such a shortage. I'm convinced there's a
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shortage because people are so called working from home and
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they're not really working that many hours and that's why
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there's a shortage. But we'll get into that. So we'll
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talk about working from home and how do you create
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a culture when people aren't there so that's or do
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you just have to bring them all back. So with that, Jennifer,
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welcome to the Weal toa Bility show. And if you
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would give us a little of your background and how
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you got to studying company culture.
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That's a great question and I'm looking forward to this conversation.
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I'm sure it's going to be provocative and insightful, I
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think for many of your entrepreneurs, because I have to
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say I was an entrepreneur myself. I had a tech
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startup really early on in the days of well being
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and wellness and people, you know, a lot of CFOs
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are like, really, happiness at work. Shouldn't you just come
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in and do your job and get paid, And we
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were trying to convince them otherwise, and so we went
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from a startup to a stay up and then ended up,
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you know, moving the organization into a large organization. So,
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you know, we we as entrepreneurs have a really difficult
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time taking care of ourselves. We tend to are We're
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constantly thinking of feeding our staff, we feed ourselves last.
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I mean, it's just it's an exhausting process. And if
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you're ever in fun of raising I mean, it's just
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really difficult. And I have to say, as a woman,
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it's even harder. So I get that that hustle and
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burnout that happens with entrepreneurs. And you know, my my
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background was in journalism actually, and then it led me
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to work with an organization called Robert Half International, and
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I was working in research when it was all you know,
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employee employment, labor market research. And then we had this
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kind of moment where my husband, who's a pro athlete,
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ended up getting really sick and acutely paralyzed. And it
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was in that moment where we realized that so many
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athletes get coached early on, but when you're a high
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performing person and you're you're not know like he was
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he had a play, had a lacrostic, or he was
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you know, he had a puck, you don't get that
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same sort of development. And so we went on to
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try to create that. And when we started to combine
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those ideas of looking at well being and wellness and
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also leadership, that's when we look to culture and realize
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it's really broken, especially for entrepreneurs.
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So let me start with kind of the basic question,
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how do you define culture?
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That's a great question. I mean culture. It's so funny
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because I talk about culture like you can feel it
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in the walls, and you can feel it in you know,
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in your sense of cohesion, in your sense of connectivity
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you have shorthand with someone. You feel it when you
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walk in the office and people are feeling engaged and positive.
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There's an energy, there's relational energy. All of that. That
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is a sense that people feel when culture is good.
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When culture is bad, people are not friendly with one another,
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are disconnected, they're less productive, they're less engaged, and so,
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you know, culture is a feeling and culture is really
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foundational when it comes to successful organizations, and that means
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you have to have an ecosystem approach to culture. That
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means employees need to show up. They can't show up
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with learn helplessness. They need to do the work themselves
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in psychological fitness of mindset, and employers have to do
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the work to make sure that when people show up,
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they're not detracting from their psychological fitness and their resiliency.
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So it has to be working together. And when they
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work together and a culture is really fueled, it is
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sort of baked in to this culture of caring where
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you just care about each other, you care about the
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success of the business, and you have a shared vision
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that you're working towards.
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So I see that. That's so. I've had multiple businesses
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over my career. I've found that very not that difficult
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in when everybody prior to twenty twenty, when everybody was
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in the office. Since then, I found it very, very,
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very difficult. And what we're seeing is more and more
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companies requiring their employees to come back to work, to
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the office. And I've got to wonder if it isn't
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part of it because of that culture, how do you
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develop i mean, particularly with new employees. Okay, with people
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who are there in twenty nineteen, you'd already developed the
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culture a little easier to continue that even when you're
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not in a physical presence. But physical energy is different
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than virtual energy. I mean, if we were doing this
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conversation in person, it would be a different energy than
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it is online. The energy gets dispersed, and in my view,
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it gets dispersed when you're when you're on Zoom or
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any other you know, any other virtual media. So how
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do you do that in a virtual environment? I mean,
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that's that's my first question. Or is it even possible?
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You know, One of the things that we are learning
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about kind of this new workforce and why I wrote
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why are we here? It's an existential question for an
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existential you know time. I think the reason why we're
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having such a difficulty in engaging people right now is
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that we're not recognizing that human beings just developed a
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totally new framework and heuristic over the last few years.
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And you know, you're talking about trying to go back
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to existing frameworks, and we need to rethink the whole
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experience of work and the whole experience of being in
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the office. You know, we can't just kind of use
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men in black kind of light flash in front of
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people's eyes and have them forget what it was like
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to have that kind of flexibility. And flexibility for people
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means freedom. And I wrote this chapter in the book
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about freedom. We are so genetically embedded and connected to
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our sense of freedom and what happens and what happened
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over the pandemic humans kind of developed all I shouldn't say,
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you know, humans are the workforce. Anyone that was working
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developed this feeling of freedom from being able to have again,
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like ability to be flexible, the ability to pick up
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kids if you need to at the end of the day,
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or you know, doing some of those things that made
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you feel like you had more work life balance. All
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of the data shows that we were, you know, justice
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productive or even more productive working remotely. So when the
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data comes in to say, actually, these return to office
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mandates aren't necessarily improving that cohesion or that connectedness, disengagement
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is still low and even lower for those that had
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return to office mandates talent leaves. When we have a
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return to office mandate, you look at team building and relationships,
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The relationship relational energy has gone. And this is Stanford
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research by you know, Nick Bloom and Mark ma And
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one of the reasons, I think is that when you
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give someone freedom and you clop back, we will fight
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at all personal costs to hold on to that. And
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so we're dealing with behavioral you know, mindset, and that
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mindset is to now resist, is to rebel, even if
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it is good for us, we don't. We feel like
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something was taken away. And so leaders recognizing that it's
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there's a root cause that we have to address, not
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just kind of tell everyone they have to come back.
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We need to realize that there is a sense of
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rebellion happening in the workforce. And on top of that,
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we are still, you know, having people come back in
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the office and doing the same things they could be
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doing at home. So then it fiells arbitrary. The office
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needs to be a place where people come in and
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they connect, they collaborate, where there's moments that matter, like
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Microsoft does, where it's fifty percent time. You don't necessarily
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have to come in through a commute. You're there for
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a very specific reason and that's for onboarding. Maybe it's
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a real like sprint with new onboards, younger generation coming in,
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giving them a sprint where they're in the office like
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every day for six weeks to two months, but then
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we give them that flexibility. It's about creating bonding when
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we're there, not just sitting on a zoom meeting with
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some other person. All of these things need to be
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rethought and we haven't rethought them, and that's where we're
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seeing the disengagement and the disconnect happen.
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So I'm gonna be a little skeptic here, if that's okay,
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y kind of push push it a little bit, because
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you know, I'm a CPA. I have hundreds of clients,
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and not one of my clients feels like their workforce
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has been as productive at home as they were when
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they were in the office. So I don't know what
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the studies who they're looking at. Maybe they're looking at Google,
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maybe they're not looking at the small business. I don't know,
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but I'm just saying that's not the feeling that is
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out there, Okay, And yes there are some people that do.
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But I will tell you when I go to the gym,
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I'm working all sorts of hours, right, So I'm like,
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I start my morning at six and I end up
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when it ends. So I take when I can, I
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take that time to go to the gym. So I
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go to gym at eleven o'clock in the morning. The
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other day it's packed. I go to the gym on
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a weekend, it's empty. Now that used to be just
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the opposite, right, If you went during the day, it
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was empty. If if you went during the workday, it
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was empty. If you went on the weekend, it was packed.
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Now it's just the opposite. So so I'm challenged with
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this idea. And I don't think anybody in my office
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feels more connected. I have two offices. One of them's remote,
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one of them's in person. The one in person I
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find that they are really connected and the one that's
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remote is not as connected. Let me put in my
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view and what I can see. So what do you
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do differently, because you have to do something differently if
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you're remote than if you're in person, because if you're
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in person, you talk about, for example, you talk about, well,
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you know you're going to come in for pursposeful to connect. Well,
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but the connections when you're in the office happen serendipitously
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right that you're having that connection just because you're there,
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not because you came in to have the connection. So
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it almost feels like a little forced to say, Okay,
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well you're going to come in this one day week
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and you're going to connect with people. Darn it, You're
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going to connect with people, and that's what it's going
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to be. I'm sorry, but I'm I'm having a tough
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time getting my arms around this.
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You know, I think it's it's fair. There's leaders that
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are struggling with this question. And the return to office
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mandate is you know, is frustrating for some because and
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even just you know, being in the office, uh and
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not having employees really want to be there. It's a
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struggle and I get leaders are in this sort of
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sandwich world where they're trying to meet demands and then
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also make sure that their workforce is engaged and they
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have you know, they they are getting resistance, which is difficult.
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But I mean the data is quite robust. It's it's
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global data, and it's looking at entrepreneurs and large organizations.
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It's you know, tens of thousands of data points and
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employees that were represented and now we're seeing that grow.
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But I think the most important thing, and what you're
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asking is like, how do we engage that group that
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is going to be remote? And I think they're pulling
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everyone back in the office. Has proven that that's not successful,
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and five days a week is the is actually going
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to be a detriment to revenue and shareholder value. And
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I mean and I mean, I know entrepreneurs are not
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necessarily dealing with shareholder value, but they're dealing with well,
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if they're a startup.
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LD value, they're the shareholder, they're shared.
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Of value, and they're dealing with you know, revenue, you know,
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all of those metrics that matter to see. What they
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find is that fully remote is not the most capitalist
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way of looking at it. It's not the best work
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mode if you're purely in a you know, a capitalist mode,
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and all you're caring about is that data point hybrid
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is the best approach where it is several days in
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the office. It could be one or two, it doesn't
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need to be three even, but a couple days in
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the office and five days is actually worse than fully remote.
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They're finding that the data shows that people are just
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feeling exhausted. There's a lot of burnout that we're seeing
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across the board. So unless we're fully preventing burnout, five
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days in the office actually adds to burnout. So we
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need to look at prevention for people to feel like
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they're engaged and give them their time back and make
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sure that that's prioritized their well being and work life balance.
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But you know, having a couple of days in the
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office every week is still very good because we do
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need face to face time. And that's why I say,
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you know, my, I'm not advocating for fully remote because
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it isn't the most you know, it isn't the perfect
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mode for making the most money and having the best
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kind of outcomes measures. So we need to just look
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though at when people are coming in. It's not just
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about forcing connection. It's about bringing rituals back like we
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used to have we've lost we've lost rituals. It's like
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bringing rituals back, bringing things back that we've lost sight
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of understanding that friendships and relationships really matter and we
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need to build them. So it isn't just you know,
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forced fun, but it is creating those sipitous moments. We
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found that even twenty minutes of having lunch once a
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week within one organization in this Cornell study, that even
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just twenty minutes once a week eating together improves job satisfaction, engagement, connectivity.
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So it's more about just starting small and also recognizing
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that what happened in the pandemic is that people did
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develop a lot of social anxiety. They were told that
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other human beings are scary and that they could hurt you,
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and that has developed this subconscious habit of feeling nervous
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around other people. Not networking. Young younger generation right now
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are having a really difficult time with the soft skill
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of networking and conflict management. So we have to use
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that time in the office to train those soft skills,
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to develop people in a way that's really focused on
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continuous learning, to have lunch together, to bring rituals back,
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and we're not doing that. It's just come back in
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the office. And maybe you're doing it, but most organizations
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that I work with are not focusing on that. Instead,
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it's just a lot of overwork. And when people are overworked,
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they don't have time for doing the rituals or the
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friendships or that.
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So I saw a study not too long ago suggested
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this is one researcher, of course, that was suggesting that
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a work day of seven to one is a much
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more productive work day than a workday of eight to five.
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Have you looked at those studies as that, I mean,
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is it not just is it not just the number
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of days in the week in the office, but actually
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the number of hours in the office.
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Well, see, and I'm a big proponent of goals not hours.
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If you give people goals, then and you're really good
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at understanding what people's capacity are and if people work
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fast or work slow, or you know, you learn when
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you set goals that it's more about understanding what that
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person's needs are and what their strengths are and where
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their deficits are so you can train them. When we
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just focus on people being there and the hours they work,
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it actually ends up going against us. It's antithetical to
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hitting those targets. So, you know, even the four day
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work week we've found, or thirty five hour work week,
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I don't like to say four day because often it's
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just thirty five over five days, people end up being
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equally or more productive than those people working fifty sixty
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seventy hours a week. We actually have found that over
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anything over fifty hours, you're not actually getting any more
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work done. So this idea of hustle culture in the
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startup world, in the entrepreneurial world, it's not it's a myth.
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We need to just be better at having bespoke and
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you know, personalized goal setting with our individual employees, and
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managers need to run that and then figure out, you know,
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how I can leverage the best and most optimal way
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that my employee is working. And often we just we
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get it really wrong in this in this world. And
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I've been there and I've done that, so I know.
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Do you think it is individual specific or do you
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think it's more across the company. So are there particular
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individuals that you think, well, maybe their job is more
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of a remote job and others that need to be
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in the office four or five days a week.
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One of the things that you know, and I get
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asked that too, you know, is this personal? Is this
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across the board? I think what is across the board
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is that we need to have personalized individual relationships. And
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this is why at the employer level we need to
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really empower our managers to make those decisions. However, I
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do think that there are some roles that are really
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work really well remotely. When you look at programmers and
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software developers and you know those folks are they require
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heads down time and they need at least three or
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four hours of uninterrupted time every day. And when you're
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in a you know, an open office, your back is
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to the rest of the organization. The way the space
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is set up can really impact that. But I think
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someone in marketing and sales that's a totally different kind
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of relationship. And so it is understanding the role the
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team dynamic. But I do think that everyone does need
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time where it's protected, where they can get that administrative
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work done, and they do not need to do that
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in the office. So it's about no showing what part
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of your week, and this is why I think Microsoft
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does a good job. They have fifty percent time, but
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it really is manager led. So they have discussions kind
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of every week about when people will be in the
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office and making sure that time is productive when they're
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together and then when they're out. And it's fluid, and
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sometimes you might need more in a project, maybe to
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get it over the finish line, and sometimes you might
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need less. And having that fluidity of being able to
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be agile is one of the best ways for us
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to be leading in this kind of this very fluid
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changing environment of remote work.
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Yeah, so speaking of fluid and changing, so AI is
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like I'm watching I mean, we all are, right, We're
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watching AI develop so fast just in the last nine months.
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I was in my Mastermind group nine months ago. One
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of my colleagues he shows us this AI and it
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was it was good. Last week he shows it and
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it's like, you can't even tell it's not I mean,
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this was a sales call. You can't tell it's not
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a real person. You literally cannot tell. And that's how
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fast it's evolving. And so he was actually able to
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decrease his appointment centers from like three hundred to five.
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So how are how should we be dealing now? As entrepreneurs,
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we're good with that. We've got you know, for us,
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it's changed your dye, right, so not a big issue
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for us. But with our employees, you know a lot
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of them, they're worried about it, they're stressed about it,
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and from my point of view, they're just going to
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be more productive. How do you know? How do you
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how do you deal with that?
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From a culture standpoint, this is a huge question right now.
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I just released my LinkedIn course that's you know, for
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leaders AI anxiety to AI action and really dealing with
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the stress of AI anxiety. There's a new term that
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Gallup came up with, phobo fear of becoming obsolete. And
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I think that there is this feeling across the board
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from employees and that's hard for culture. But you also
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want to be a leader that's going to be able
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to rapidly adopt AI that's going to help you and
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make you more effective and efficient and a lot more money.
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And I think what is getting missed in the communication
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right now is that we're not showing how our employees
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can be partnering with AI. We're finding that a lot
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of their tasks are being replaced. But because we're so
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busy and this does happen in the entrepreneurial world, you know,
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we get sort of heavy focused on the future. We
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forget sort of the development of our employees at all times.
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But we should be making sure that when those repetitive
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tasks are taken away, that we're giving that employee an
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opportunity to develop their skills in a value added way instead.
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I keep hearing from a lot of employees while now
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AI is doing the things I was doing, I'm supposed
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to be doing more creative work. Or you know, for example,
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I think you're person that gets your data. Now the
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AI is mining data for you, and that was something
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that you were doing. Well, why are we not training
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employees then to be able to interpret results or provide
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results and present results to clients. You know, we're missing
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that piece of when it's taken away, we're not developing them,
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and we're going to have a talent shortage of people
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that cannot support AI if we're not actually doubling down
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on this balance between future readiness, labor market readiness, our
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employees being skilled up, and adopting AI at a sustainable pace.
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So there's that mix of having both that I think
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is a gap right now, and also just explaining to
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employees this doesn't mean that I'm making you absolute. I'm
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actually going to enhance your job. But here's how I'm
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going to do it. Let's create a pathway. This is
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how we're going to map it out, create goals so
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people feel like they're moving along that path towards their goals.
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And you're going to have a really excited workforce about AI,
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which is exactly what you want. If they're afraid, they're
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going to be resistant and then they're either going to
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quit or they're not gonna embrace the technology that you're onboarding.
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Well, I think one of the great things about AI
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is it's really fun, right because you can't break it.
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You can't break AI, and and uh, you know so
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many employees I.
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Have Tom I'm not sure it might break us first.
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Well, it might, but what I'm saying is is that
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you know, you play with it, it's not gonna You're
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not gonna break it, right. You know, there's there are
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certain equipment you play with it, you could break it,
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but you can't. You can't break AI. You can only
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make it better. And and it actually I think allows
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people to be more engaged and use their brains more
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and actually do things that aren't dreary things. So I
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I think you're spot on that. I think AI it's
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almost like in my world it's going from our are
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you Are you the accuracy person? Are you the analysis person?
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And analysis is so much more fun and engaging than accuracy.
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I love that you said that because I use AI
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and it's been so helpful. I didn't have you know, chat,
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GBT and these other tools when I was writing The
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Burnout Epidemic. Now I can go and say, hey, can
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you give me ten academic journals and you know that
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are looking at you know, supporting this argument or negating
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this argument, making sure that I've a balanced approach to
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my journalism. It gives you a lot of data. I mean,
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I'm a person that's still you know, I don't have
439
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a ghostwriter. I write my own stuff. And I feel
440
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like that's just an old school like that I still
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read paper books. But I like the idea that you know,
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it can it can indicies stuff for me, it can
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fact check, you know, and you have to fact check
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a but it's gotten so much better. But it's just
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being able to provide you with the kind of time
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that we didn't have before, and you know, we were
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getting our time back with AI if we're using it right,
448
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and you know, being afraid of it is unfortunate because
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you're not actually developing your own skills, and so we
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need to get employees to play around with it to experiment.
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Another thing I recognize too, is that a lot of
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people don't realize how much AI they have in their
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own life, and so they're afraid of something because they
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see it as this kind of big I robot, you know,
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like mass extinction kind of technology. And when you ask people,
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you know, do you use Siri? Do you use maps?
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Like there's a lot of things that people are just using,
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and once you let them know how familiar they actually
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are with AI, they are more comfortable thinking about it
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in a much more normalized way.
461
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So it sounds like part of it is actually creating
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a culture of creativity and play where you can actually
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have fun. I've always felt, if you know, I find
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at your job, why are you there? That's my perspective
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on life. But to me, AI is the opportunity to
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do that. Get rid of my non creative tasks, get
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rid of. You know, here's the question I've got for you. So,
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how do you go about encouraging employees who've been doing
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the same thing for a long time, right, and encourage
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them to, hey, figure out how to make your job
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more fun, more productive, and more profitable.
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It's it's one of the things even just that you know,
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the tactics that I suggest to managers and how you
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can get people excited about it. Think about a problem
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that you want to solve in your life and then
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figure out where AI could maybe come in and solve
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that for you. And it can be experimental in your
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life and at work. But it's a great project to
479
00:26:52.359 --> 00:26:54.720
do as a team, and every week you kind of
480
00:26:54.759 --> 00:26:58.880
report on how it has improved your life, where you
481
00:26:59.480 --> 00:27:02.359
found the less where it went wrong, you know, And
482
00:27:02.440 --> 00:27:04.640
I think, what the more we do that and see
483
00:27:04.640 --> 00:27:06.960
that it can problem solve for us and we're actually
484
00:27:07.400 --> 00:27:12.519
being led by our leaders to be more autonomous and
485
00:27:12.640 --> 00:27:15.880
have agency in how we figured that out, the less
486
00:27:15.880 --> 00:27:19.920
it becomes top down here's AI. You're adopting it more like, hey,
487
00:27:20.119 --> 00:27:24.039
I can test this, I can be curious and creative
488
00:27:24.039 --> 00:27:26.680
cultures are you know, some of the best cultures curious
489
00:27:26.680 --> 00:27:29.400
cultures are the ones where you know, you get this
490
00:27:29.519 --> 00:27:33.240
ability to learn, and when you put that in employee's
491
00:27:33.240 --> 00:27:36.920
hands to just be experimental, it totally changes the way
492
00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:39.119
that they feel about it. And then you can go
493
00:27:39.200 --> 00:27:42.200
deeper into your own organization. You know, what are some
494
00:27:42.279 --> 00:27:45.440
things we want to solve. Here's some big, hairy, audacious goals.
495
00:27:45.480 --> 00:27:48.440
How could we implement AI? And if it's a weekly
496
00:27:48.559 --> 00:27:52.480
sort of you know, curiosity meeting around AI, it needs
497
00:27:52.480 --> 00:27:54.839
to be twenty minutes, half an hour. It really does
498
00:27:54.960 --> 00:27:56.079
change the dynamic.
499
00:27:57.039 --> 00:28:01.400
I love that. I love that, all right, So let's
500
00:28:01.440 --> 00:28:03.839
wrap up with two or three things that you think
501
00:28:04.440 --> 00:28:10.920
that the an entrepreneur ought to do to improve the
502
00:28:10.960 --> 00:28:14.920
culture in their company, especially given that I think most
503
00:28:14.920 --> 00:28:18.839
companies are at least either they're either virtual or they're
504
00:28:18.960 --> 00:28:19.799
somewhat virtual.
505
00:28:21.680 --> 00:28:24.400
Yeah. I think the first thing that I always say is,
506
00:28:24.880 --> 00:28:28.240
as a leader, what do I want to see changed?
507
00:28:28.920 --> 00:28:32.799
And then do a self audit. How many things am
508
00:28:32.839 --> 00:28:35.799
I saying I want to be changed? But I'm not doing?
509
00:28:35.960 --> 00:28:38.720
Am I not being curious about AI? Am I not
510
00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:42.039
you know, leading the charge when it comes to building relationships?
511
00:28:42.079 --> 00:28:45.920
Am I telling everyone I want them to focus more
512
00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:49.440
on you? Know on burnout prevention, but I'm burning out.
513
00:28:49.480 --> 00:28:52.039
I mean all of those things. Employees can't be what
514
00:28:52.079 --> 00:28:55.799
they can't see. So modeling the change is critical and
515
00:28:56.079 --> 00:28:58.359
that requires a bit of a self audit and maybe
516
00:28:58.400 --> 00:29:02.799
even some you know, opiness to having conversations with employees.
517
00:29:02.839 --> 00:29:05.079
I call them stay interviews. You know, you want to
518
00:29:05.119 --> 00:29:07.759
find out why people want to stay and why they
519
00:29:07.799 --> 00:29:10.400
want to go, and having those sit downs to say, like,
520
00:29:10.519 --> 00:29:13.359
let's have full transparency here and I want to know,
521
00:29:13.440 --> 00:29:15.480
like what it is that you love about your job?
522
00:29:15.920 --> 00:29:18.559
What do you want to stop doing because it feels
523
00:29:18.559 --> 00:29:20.680
tedious and one of the things that you're missing. This
524
00:29:20.759 --> 00:29:23.559
is a great opportunity for an AI conversation to say,
525
00:29:23.599 --> 00:29:27.079
like where do you feel your strengths are and where
526
00:29:27.079 --> 00:29:29.200
do you think that you need more training and development?
527
00:29:29.440 --> 00:29:31.759
Where do you see your career going? You know, these
528
00:29:31.799 --> 00:29:34.839
are all opportunities for us to gather data That isn't
529
00:29:34.880 --> 00:29:37.640
like an engagement or looking back survey. This is just
530
00:29:37.759 --> 00:29:41.160
sitting down, you know, with your people and making sure
531
00:29:41.200 --> 00:29:43.480
that you're a modeling the behaviors you want to see
532
00:29:43.559 --> 00:29:48.000
change and asking your employees how you can come together
533
00:29:48.359 --> 00:29:50.799
to do that. And then you really need to have
534
00:29:50.960 --> 00:29:55.839
actionable measures on if you are living up to the expectations.
535
00:29:56.079 --> 00:29:58.160
We see a lot of these conversations fall flat, and
536
00:29:58.160 --> 00:30:00.440
then employees just feel like, you know why, by what's
537
00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:03.599
the point? Why am I here? We need to show, Okay,
538
00:30:03.680 --> 00:30:06.039
I'm going to do this in six months or this
539
00:30:06.079 --> 00:30:08.039
is going to be incremental. I plan to get here
540
00:30:08.079 --> 00:30:11.839
in a year, and then talk about those outcomes, making
541
00:30:11.880 --> 00:30:15.079
sure that we build cognitive hope. Right now, hope we're hopeless.
542
00:30:15.079 --> 00:30:17.519
We're feeling a sense of hopelessness and it's really driving
543
00:30:17.559 --> 00:30:20.839
disengagement and that's just because of poly crisis and all
544
00:30:20.839 --> 00:30:22.920
the other crap going on in the world. We need
545
00:30:22.960 --> 00:30:25.720
to be leaders and give our employees hope. We do
546
00:30:25.799 --> 00:30:28.920
that by setting goals, meeting them, making sure that we
547
00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:31.200
set our goals and demonstrate that we're meeting them too,
548
00:30:31.440 --> 00:30:33.880
and then together you're going to have this really great
549
00:30:34.119 --> 00:30:37.240
momentum and that it's incremental, but you'll feel it change.
550
00:30:37.559 --> 00:30:39.400
And that's what I think is really about how we
551
00:30:39.440 --> 00:30:40.759
need to build culture right now.
552
00:30:41.720 --> 00:30:47.119
I love it. I often think about working with employees
553
00:30:47.319 --> 00:30:53.960
like parenting teenagers, and just because you know, you know teenagers,
554
00:30:53.960 --> 00:30:56.200
for example, they want to push the envelope, but they
555
00:30:56.200 --> 00:31:00.279
also want boundaries. And I feel that with employees lot.
556
00:31:00.359 --> 00:31:04.440
You know, they they want freedom, but they also want
557
00:31:06.680 --> 00:31:12.599
they want to feel like they're they're okay, right, they
558
00:31:12.640 --> 00:31:14.480
don't want to feel like they're just being put out there.
559
00:31:14.480 --> 00:31:16.799
If they wanted to feel that, they just go start
560
00:31:16.839 --> 00:31:19.599
their own business, right, That's what entrepreneurs feel. So we
561
00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:22.519
don't put boundaries. And that's the difference between entrepreneurs and
562
00:31:22.519 --> 00:31:31.359
employees basically, So in final words, how do you what's
563
00:31:31.400 --> 00:31:34.400
the most important thing we do when it comes to
564
00:31:35.279 --> 00:31:37.359
this freedom with boundaries?
565
00:31:39.000 --> 00:31:41.359
It's a good question. I mean we have different thought
566
00:31:41.400 --> 00:31:44.319
process on that. Some leaders, really good ones, say, you know,
567
00:31:44.359 --> 00:31:47.039
I spent all this money recruiting that person and hiring
568
00:31:47.079 --> 00:31:50.000
that person, attracting them, and you know I hired an
569
00:31:50.160 --> 00:31:53.279
an adult. I expect them to back like an adult, right.
570
00:31:53.319 --> 00:31:56.200
And I think that there is an element of when
571
00:31:56.200 --> 00:32:00.519
you have very clear, reciprocal like social contracts with people,
572
00:32:01.079 --> 00:32:03.839
that's when you see people work to their most optimal
573
00:32:04.319 --> 00:32:07.279
And it is about the agency to say as an
574
00:32:07.279 --> 00:32:10.279
employee and giving your employee that autonomy to say this
575
00:32:10.359 --> 00:32:12.200
is where I want to get to, and then you
576
00:32:12.240 --> 00:32:14.960
hold them accountable to that, and they hold themselves accountable
577
00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:18.000
to that. That's where it's ideal. You know where you
578
00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:20.640
you know where you can have a culture of feedback,
579
00:32:20.839 --> 00:32:24.759
positive and constructive and you're open to that. But you
580
00:32:24.799 --> 00:32:27.440
can only do that if people feel psychologically safe, if
581
00:32:27.480 --> 00:32:29.440
they feel like, Okay, I can make a mistake and
582
00:32:29.480 --> 00:32:32.680
that's okay, or you know, I didn't actually hit that goal,
583
00:32:33.079 --> 00:32:35.200
but I'm getting closer to it, and then we can
584
00:32:35.279 --> 00:32:37.880
revisit it. These are the ways that we should look
585
00:32:37.920 --> 00:32:40.720
at It is not necessarily as top down, but more
586
00:32:40.920 --> 00:32:45.960
as us working in a social contract. For years, work
587
00:32:45.960 --> 00:32:49.480
has been transactional and it still is, but that's changed
588
00:32:49.559 --> 00:32:52.240
because now we're in a social contract. If we're going
589
00:32:52.319 --> 00:32:55.000
to ask employees to be working in all different aspects
590
00:32:55.039 --> 00:32:57.720
of their life, sometimes when there's a big project, you're
591
00:32:57.759 --> 00:33:02.240
working really long hours. If we're asking people to take
592
00:33:02.279 --> 00:33:05.119
time away from their personal lives, we need to make
593
00:33:05.160 --> 00:33:07.759
sure that we meet them where they're at. It's a
594
00:33:07.799 --> 00:33:11.519
two way street, and I think more employees in the
595
00:33:11.559 --> 00:33:14.519
workforce are sort of demanding that, and so we need
596
00:33:14.519 --> 00:33:17.480
to meet the moment as leaders, and that means coming
597
00:33:17.559 --> 00:33:20.920
up with plans together and then success, you know, being
598
00:33:20.960 --> 00:33:24.079
successful together and sharing in that success when we meet it.
599
00:33:24.680 --> 00:33:29.160
I love that. It's a social contract, so, which is
600
00:33:29.279 --> 00:33:32.160
way different than when I started in the workforce. There
601
00:33:32.200 --> 00:33:35.039
was no social contract. It was the contract was I'm
602
00:33:35.079 --> 00:33:37.000
going to pay you, You're going to work long hours.
603
00:33:37.240 --> 00:33:41.440
That is that was the only contract. And it's clearly
604
00:33:41.599 --> 00:33:45.119
we've been through such a rapid evolution in the last
605
00:33:45.160 --> 00:33:48.279
few years, right, I mean, I think more than so.
606
00:33:48.400 --> 00:33:52.160
I've been in my career forty five years, so the
607
00:33:52.240 --> 00:33:56.920
last five years have been way more accelerated and change
608
00:33:57.160 --> 00:34:00.160
in the previous forty years not even close to how
609
00:34:00.240 --> 00:34:02.279
much things have changed in the last five years. So
610
00:34:02.640 --> 00:34:06.160
the book is why are we here creating a work
611
00:34:06.200 --> 00:34:10.480
culture everyone wants? Our guests has been Jennifer of Moss Jennifer,
612
00:34:10.639 --> 00:34:13.079
where this has been delightful? Where can we find more
613
00:34:13.519 --> 00:34:15.559
about your work and what you're doing.
614
00:34:16.159 --> 00:34:20.679
Jennifer dashboss dot com. There's all of my work and
615
00:34:20.719 --> 00:34:23.599
my HBr articles I write for Harvard Business Review, and
616
00:34:23.599 --> 00:34:25.719
there's a ton of you know, lots of stuff that
617
00:34:25.760 --> 00:34:28.280
I write about there on this topic. And then you know,
618
00:34:28.320 --> 00:34:30.440
all my courses and books are all there too.
619
00:34:31.400 --> 00:34:33.679
I love it so thank you so much. I took
620
00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:36.679
you saw me looking down. I'm taking notes, right, That's
621
00:34:36.679 --> 00:34:40.960
a good sign when the when the interviewer is taking notes.
622
00:34:41.320 --> 00:34:45.079
Uh so, it's it's been terrific. I think the message
623
00:34:45.079 --> 00:34:47.639
here is that when we do develop this culture, not
624
00:34:47.719 --> 00:34:52.320
only is our life more fun and more more exciting,
625
00:34:52.719 --> 00:34:55.880
but really we we do make more money. And of
626
00:34:55.920 --> 00:34:58.360
course in my world, we're making more money and we're
627
00:34:58.360 --> 00:35:03.239
paying less tax. That is that is the key to really,
628
00:35:03.679 --> 00:35:08.079
you know, having a strong sense of our of our
629
00:35:08.159 --> 00:35:10.880
company name wealth ability. What's your wealth ability? Part of
630
00:35:10.880 --> 00:35:14.079
it is, you know, I might say what's your cultural
631
00:35:14.519 --> 00:35:17.760
cultural ability in your workforce? And I love that. Thank
632
00:35:17.760 --> 00:35:22.000
you Jennifer and everyone. Please share with your friends and
633
00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:26.320
uh look for more episodes where we can actually help
634
00:35:26.400 --> 00:35:29.239
you deal with an ever changing workforce on the wealth
635
00:35:29.280 --> 00:35:29.800
Ability Show.
636
00:35:30.159 --> 00:35:33.440
This podcast is a presentation of rich Dad Media Network.