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Rethink Culture is the podcast that shines the spotlight on the leaders who are rethinking workplace culture. Virtually all of the business leaders who make headlines today do so because of their company performance. Yet, the people and the culture of a company is at least as important as its performance. It's time that we shine the spotlight on the leaders who are rethinking workplace culture and are putting people and culture at the forefront.
00:00:07:13 - 00:00:36:06
Andreas
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. Welcome to another episode of Rethink Culture, the podcast that shines a spotlight on leaders of businesses that people love to work for. My name is Andreas Konstantinou. I'm a micromanager turned servant leader who's developed a personal passion for workplace culture. At Rethink Culture we're on a mission to help 1 million companies create healthier, more fulfilling culture at work.
00:00:36:08 - 00:01:12:04
Andreas
And our latest project, Culture Health Check, is an online service that lets you measure your culture so you can manage it. Today, I have the great pleasure of welcoming Jim Harter. Jim is a chief scientist for Gallup's workplace management and wellbeing practices. He is the author or coauthor of five books. The three most recent ones are the number one bestseller, It's the Manager and then Wellbeing at Work and Culture Shock.
00:01:12:06 - 00:01:41:13
Andreas
Jim is the primary researcher and author of the first large scale study on engagement and productivity and lots of other things in the workplace, which includes a staggering 1.8 million employees in over 200 organizations. So he has lots of data and insights he shares with his audience. And he's authored or coauthored more than a thousand research studies in applied psychology and well-being.
00:01:41:15 - 00:01:59:11
Andreas
And for fun, he jumps, or he used to jump out of airplanes, and he's done that 250 times. And he also lives in an island in Nebraska. With all of that, very welcome to the Rethink Culture podcast, Jim.
00:02:00:02 - 00:02:04:01
Jim
Thanks for having me, Andreas. Great to be with you today and everybody else.
00:02:04:10 - 00:02:20:19
Andreas
So where do we start? What's, what is your work at Gallup in a few words, and what led you, where did you develop the passion for, well, researching wellbeing and culture?
00:02:21:14 - 00:02:49:05
Jim
Well, my job, in a nutshell, is to work with our team, to lead our team in making discoveries that organizations can apply to make their organizations better. I've had a chance to work on a lot of different projects while I've been here at Gallup. Approaching 39 years in November now and what led me to this work was kind of by accident.
00:02:49:07 - 00:03:17:13
Jim
I got feedback when I was younger. One from a teacher who told me I could write really well. I knew that I liked math. I guess it didn't really sink in, but I liked studying people. I had a grandpa who was a sheriff who talked to me about the people that he arrested and stuff, and he said, you know, there's always something in their past that led to this. That kind of got me thinking about you know, there's a story behind everybody.
00:03:17:15 - 00:03:55:21
Jim
And at Gallup I've been able to kind of learn about those stories. But also, my job has been to aggregate information so we can understand what works across the board. And so it's been really interesting just to see how things have evolved in workplaces. And I have a real passion for organizations and what organizations can do to make a difference in the world, through their employees, both through their work and how they help them develop better lives as well.
00:03:56:03 - 00:04:01:11
Andreas
What's been a big 'aha' moment in your research over the years that you fondly recall?
00:04:02:23 - 00:04:34:18
Jim
One of the biggest was, back in the... I guess it would have been back in the 90s, when we were studying organizations. And this finding was actually reported in The Economist, where we found that even in really large, famous organizations, the variability in how people perceive their company and their work, is nearly as great inside of an organization, across teams as it is across all organizations, across teams and all organizations.
00:04:34:20 - 00:04:58:04
Jim
So, in other words, you can go into any famous organization for the first time before they really put in the right interventions and you see variance in how people perceive the culture, how engaged they are, and also that relates to their performance. So you see variance in turnover rates, see variance in productivity, in profitability, in customer service.
00:04:58:06 - 00:05:23:09
Jim
And so that kind of, that discovery led us to develop some interventions. Because if we're going to help organizations create change, we found we've really got to understand where the variance exists and where we can intervene. It isn't always about managers from on high saying, we're going to do this, and everybody just suddenly follows. They've got to appeal to the networks within the organization and find those sweet spots.
00:05:23:09 - 00:05:55:22
Jim
So then you kind of peel that back. And we found that the biggest causal influence on that variance was the variance in how managers lead their teams at a local level. So that's kind of been, that discovery has kind of been the cornerstone of a lot of work that I've had a chance to get involved in, both in terms of building the right cultures in organizations, and then also helping organizations develop, you know, employees with great lives, also, on top of being highly productive. Which I think both are important and both can be done simultaneously, if we get the right systems in place.
00:05:56:05 - 00:06:27:17
Andreas
So I'm hearing that even the biggest brands, the organizations that people love to talk about, they have managers. And the managers can be either great or not so great. And it depends on how conscious, I guess, the manager is about their leadership style and among other things, I'm oversimplifying, perhaps. What are the qualities of a brilliant manager that people like to work for?
00:06:29:01 - 00:06:47:09
Jim
Well, there's kind of two sides to it and they're both equally important. One are their natural traits. So we know that people are gifted with certain traits. Anybody who's had multiple kids or have nieces and nephews or have seen kids grow up, they know that they come out different and they just have different personalities and different approaches.
00:06:47:11 - 00:07:10:06
Jim
And so, the first thing is we need to understand what the traits are of the manager so that we can, on one side, select the right people to be managers. And we found that there are some common traits in great managers. And the other side of it is we've got to develop their strengths and help them become better managers based on the principles we've seen in our research that led to highly engaged, productive teams.
00:07:10:06 - 00:07:30:20
Jim
So half of it is who the person is from a fundamental standpoint, what their traits are. And then the other half is the change that can happen once they get some insights into how, and have those talents directed at the right performance management elements. We can dig into this a little bit more.
00:07:30:20 - 00:08:00:22
Jim
But the trait part of it, what great managers have, really boils down to, you know, five different areas. It's really, how they motivate the people. The best ones are really good motivators. They're really good at influencing people to make... sometimes they have to make tough decisions, but they're good at influencing people by helping to convince them why they are excellent, exceptional at relating to others.
00:08:00:22 - 00:08:16:18
Jim
Some of them are naturally just really good at. By the way, we can give shortcuts for people that don't have these traits to be more successful, but some of them just naturally have these. They have a thought process component to them, or...
00:08:16:18 - 00:08:23:12
Andreas
traits like nurture or nature or is it teachable? Are traits teachable?
00:08:23:12 - 00:08:42:16
Jim
The way that I'm referring to them are more, more nature than nurture. The other half of it I was talking about is nurture. And that's how you take what the individual has, and you help build on top of their strengths and direct them in the right way so that they can achieve greatness in their role.
00:08:42:16 - 00:09:07:04
Jim
So even people who are maybe mediocre on some of these traits I just listed off, they can get better, if we give them some insights on what their strengths are, and also help them understand what science has said leads to high levels of engagement, leads to really good goal setting, the right kinds of ongoing conversations with employees and accountability.
00:09:07:06 - 00:09:28:12
Jim
And so we can... we found through our research, and we've tested this and done meta-analysis of it that there is a curriculum we can put inside organizations. It helps managers become better and better managers because we can simplify their job into, not just an administrative job, but a coaching type job, where they get better at coaching the people around them.
00:09:28:14 - 00:09:52:00
Jim
Some people will never fit into the role of manager. They might think they need to be in that role because it's what everybody else is aspired to do or because there seems to be more status or, in many cases, there's pay associated with being a manager. There's some, you know, command and control elements that appeal to people sometimes.
00:09:52:02 - 00:10:12:02
Jim
But a lot of times people get into the role, and they find out that it's, you know, people are different, they're messy, and it's just an uphill climb. Other people get into the role, and they get inspired by all the differences that they see on their teams. So, you know, part of it is finding the people that have a real passion for managing others.
00:10:12:02 - 00:10:26:19
Jim
And the other part of it is giving them the right curriculum and the right, ongoing teaching so that they can keep getting better and better. And both of those are solvable.
00:10:26:19 - 00:10:33:20
Andreas
what are the skills you teach or what are the skills that you find have a correlation or causation with engagement?
00:10:34:10 - 00:10:56:11
Jim
Yeah. The skills really are about kind of pulling together. So, just to back up a little bit, most organizations have programs inside their organizations that seem disparate, like you've got a performance management program over here, you've got employee engagement survey over here. You might have a wellness program in another bucket.
00:10:56:13 - 00:11:19:01
Jim
The best teaching, we think, that happens is when you pull those things together into a more simplified model that includes, one, helping employees continually set goals that inspire them, and, in many cases that involves involving them and setting those goals. When people feel some ownership for the goals, they're more likely to really go after them with some passion.
00:11:19:03 - 00:11:35:15
Jim
And most employees will set higher goals than what the manager would have even set for them. The second is having the right kinds of ongoing conversations with employees. And, if I was going to put that in a nutshell, I'd say at least one meaningful conversation every week. And I could kind of break down what goes into that.
00:11:35:15 - 00:11:59:08
Jim
We've asked employees what inspires them in terms of the kinds of conversations that the right managers have with them. But one meaningful conversation a week, at least. And then, they have to have some level of accountability. If you think about all the work, how work has changed lately, all the hybrid work, remote work, we can give people all the autonomy in the world, but there has to be accountability.
00:11:59:08 - 00:12:25:05
Jim
Managers need to have a way to hold people accountable, so that it's not just for the organization. It's also for the individuals. They know when they shine, they get feedback and know when they're doing the best work, their best work. And if you have accountability that's focused on the individual's contribution, how they collaborate with their team effectively and the value they bring to customers.
00:12:25:07 - 00:12:51:18
Jim
Those three, and I'd say you can simplify it to those three. Almost any outcome that you measure for an individual, you could put it into one of those three categories: individual performance, team collaboration, customer value. And a lot of times, when organizations are trying to change and adapt to this new world, they think first about, let's decide whether people should be working remote or not.
00:12:51:20 - 00:13:22:03
Jim
Well, you got to kind of put that through a funnel of, first, you know, what works for the individual. That's of course, important, but also what works for the organization. And that can depend a lot on the person's age. It can depend on some of the person's natural tendencies, in terms of how they work. But we found that making those kinds of decisions, only 14% of the time, people will make those decisions by talking it over with their team, in terms of what works best.
00:13:22:05 - 00:13:45:21
Jim
Most of those decisions about where people are working now happen because leadership said, we're going to do this, supervisor said, we're going to do this, or the individual just decides on their own and it's kind of a free-for-all. Those systems don't work as well as if you work through the team. So that when people do show up, they're there together and all the natural kind of conversations that need to happen, happen.
00:13:45:23 - 00:14:02:03
Jim
So, I'm kind of going on a little bit of a tangent here, but I think there's been changes in how managers need to manage. And I think we have to simplify their jobs so that it's less administrative and more coaching, because a lot of it's happening from a distance now. And when people are physically distant, they'll tend to be more mentally distant.
00:14:02:03 - 00:14:11:08
Jim
And that aligns with some patterns we're seeing in the data, where people are starting to feel less connected to their organizations and looking for other jobs.
00:14:11:08 - 00:14:17:03
Andreas
Was there something you were hoping that managers will learn from COVID, and they didn't?
00:14:19:02 - 00:14:41:19
Jim
Well, I think the big learning was that people have some work they can do independently, have some autonomy that they didn't realize they could have before. They could do some work, where they avoid the commute. The number one reason people didn't want to come back to the office was the commute. But the big learning on top of that...
00:14:41:19 - 00:15:05:01
Jim
So that's sort of some of the obvious stuff that everybody kind of realized on their own if they did have the chance to have a remote job. But, on top of that, what we can't forget about, and what not all managers and leaders, some of them are starting to pick up on, is that in-person time does matter when you can make it happen.
00:15:05:03 - 00:15:23:19
Jim
It's not necessarily the total amount of time as it is. It needs to happen. There needs to be a plan around how it happens so that when I show up, I know who else is going to be showing up. There are things that happen in an office setting or at a workplace, at any workplace that you can't predict.
00:15:23:21 - 00:15:52:18
Jim
You might be able to solve a problem in ten minutes, when you may have never even brought up the problem, and you might have had to schedule a meeting for it. And maybe nobody schedules the meeting, and things just kind of keep going on and on. You have creative conversations that can happen, part of human nature, that we can't, you know, in this new world of work with these boxes that we're in on our laptops, it doesn't totally replicate what happens in person.
00:15:52:20 - 00:16:26:01
Jim
And so, we've got to be very planful about and purposeful about when people are together and also give people the autonomy. I actually think we could build the best workplaces ever as a result of what we learned from COVID, if we make sure that we balance that need for autonomy with what the organization needs to get done, and never forget about the fact that what leaders really care about our customers because they bring in the money.
00:16:26:01 - 00:16:50:20
Jim
If it's a for profit business or even a private business, whoever that customer is, whether it's a member or a customer, whoever it is that they serve, you can never forget about that. And when people start becoming mentally distant from their organization, they're less likely to do the extra discretionary things that really impact customers. They're more likely to say, somebody else will do that, or it's not my job.
00:16:50:20 - 00:17:19:17
Jim
I'm going to do the minimum required. We heard this back in, I guess is around '21 or '22 with this term called 'quiet quitting'. They kind of caught on, internationally, went kind of viral. That's very similar to a concept that we call 'not engaged at work', where people just show up, do the minimum required, and Andreas, I would say that there aren't too many jobs anymore, where you can just do the minimum required tasks.
00:17:19:17 - 00:17:35:15
Jim
Most leaders expect people to serve coworkers when they need their help, to serve customers when they randomly make a request. We can't predict everything that we need to do in an organization to be successful ahead of time.
00:17:35:17 - 00:17:56:13
Jim
So there has to be some response to the spontaneous things that happen as well. And that takes employees who are highly engaged, involved, enthusiastic, and really feel like they're a part of the organization. We can do that from a distance from, in this hybrid world now, and we can do it if it's fully onsite as well.
00:17:56:15 - 00:18:05:21
Jim
Some of the same principles apply, but we can't forget about the role of human nature in the workplace, if we're going to get this right going forward.
00:18:05:21 - 00:18:25:19
Andreas
a fully remote company can have a great culture, as can a fully onsite company, is what I'm hearing. But it really depends on making sure that both the company and the employee can be accountable to each other and not just autonomous.
00:18:25:23 - 00:18:46:03
Jim
I think they can. I think, at this point in time, there's an uphill battle for people who can work remote but are required to be onsite five days a week. That's a group that's having some problems right now. And there's also an uphill battle, when people are fully remote because of that in-person element.
00:18:46:03 - 00:19:12:04
Jim
But, if you have great managers, you can, to your point, you can accommodate that and you can make it work. But, you know, there's challenges on both sides in a hybrid world where you're working on site some and at home some. There's a coordination component. So there are challenges no matter what category someone is in terms of where they're working from.
00:19:12:06 - 00:19:34:03
Jim
But if you have great managers who are in touch with people and have at least one meaningful conversation a week, that's much more important than where they're working, like four times more important than where, whether they're on site or not. So I think that being planful about whether people are on site is important, but leaders have to start with what kind of culture do we want to build and why?
00:19:34:03 - 00:19:55:07
Jim
And employees need to know why. If you say, we're going to be onsite three days a week, here's the three days. They want to know why. And you have to articulate, you know, what value that brings to the company, whether that's the value to the customers, whether that's a value in terms of a culture that you want to intentionally build, where people get to know one another.
00:19:55:09 - 00:20:18:04
Jim
A big one is younger people. If younger people start fully remote, they're going to have an uphill climb in terms of developing. Not that it can't happen from a distance, but it's going to be... and young people need development, they need mentors. And so, they'll keep flipping jobs if they don't see that development, they don't see their future in the organization.
00:20:18:06 - 00:20:29:06
Jim
And so, making sure that young people get some of those in-person interactions, I think is really important. Again, it can happen from a distance, but it's a much more of an uphill climb.
00:20:29:16 - 00:20:36:23
Andreas
We talked earlier about the us versus them mentality for managers. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?
00:20:37:09 - 00:20:56:04
Jim
Yeah. So, you know, we sometimes see these patterns in the data, where you've got teams that are highly engaged, but they don't feel real connected to the rest of the organization. They may not feel connected to the mission or purpose of the organization, or they may say, I'm not fully satisfied with the organization, but I'm engaged in my work.
00:20:56:06 - 00:21:17:01
Jim
That's an example of a manager who may be getting the local needs met for the employee, but they're making excuses because they don't want to look bad and so they'll point to somebody else. That's more of a siloed kind of mentality. And we're seeing a pattern in the data now.
00:21:17:01 - 00:21:37:04
Jim
So that's at the manager level. But from an employee's perspective, when you're at a distance from the employer, when you're mentally at a distance from the employer, you're more likely to think of it as a me versus them or us versus them mentality. And the best run organizations, have people who are in it together.
00:21:37:06 - 00:21:54:03
Jim
And it starts with getting basic needs met. A lot of people don't know this, but things as simple as knowing what's expected of you at work, having what you need to do your work, having an opportunity to do what you do best and use your strengths. And when you do good work, do you get recognized for it?
00:21:54:05 - 00:22:14:21
Jim
Do you have somebody that you feel really cares about you and is developing you for the future? Those are foundations that if you get those wrong, it can quickly become an us-versus-them mentality. If people feel confused about their role and we've seen those elements actually drop, as time has gone on. And employee engagement reached a peak, right before COVID hit.
00:22:14:23 - 00:22:42:16
Jim
And then it started dropping, the latter half of 2021. And that was associated with the so-called great resignation. And what causes us versus them usually boils down to those fundamentals that I listed off there about role clarity. Do I feel like I'm rewarded when I do good work? Does my manager even know what my, you know, what work I'm working on, so that he or she can give me feedback on it?
00:22:42:18 - 00:23:06:18
Jim
So those meaningful conversations once a week are really important. The simplest recommendation I could give anybody was to make sure you have a habit of touching base with every person, no matter where they're at, at least once a week. And if you have too many people and you can't do that, you might have an issue where span of control is a problem, but it doesn't have to take too long.
00:23:06:18 - 00:23:29:21
Jim
Could be 15 to 30 minutes. But, when we ask people when they have a meaningful conversation, what happens? They tell us, well, my manager gave me recognition for something I did. Maybe they heard it from a coworker, and they conveyed that to the person. They help me set goals and priorities because things change in organizations all the time.
00:23:29:23 - 00:23:57:03
Jim
They help me think about who I collaborate best with and how collaboration can work best inside the organization. They focus on my strengths. They get to know my strengths and give me feedback on my strengths. Tell me to think about how I could, you know, use my strengths more effectively in my current role. So, you know, those are the kinds of things that happen in meaningful conversations that oftentimes get overlooked.
00:23:57:03 - 00:24:24:04
Jim
And we just kind of let people go, assume that they're going to do their work. But another insight, Andreas, we learned along the way that really surprised me, this is one of my big surprises, was, we asked people what their preference was, whether they wanted their work and life to be blended, or whether they wanted their work and in life to be more separated.
00:24:24:06 - 00:24:42:07
Jim
And I was surprised that, when you look across the population, you had an even 50:50 split of whether people wanted their work and life to be separated versus blended. You think in this new, you know, hybrid world, people just expect that it's going to be blended. But there are people who want it to be more separated.
00:24:42:07 - 00:25:06:03
Jim
And the other thing, this was the surprising part, the most surprising part. Both groups were equally as likely to be engaged in their work. So the key is managers have to know what the person's style is, and you can't know that without asking them. It's kind of like only 10% of people tell us that someone asked them how they like to be recognized.
00:25:06:05 - 00:25:33:19
Jim
There's a lot of low hanging fruit for managers and leaders in in this space, in this culture space. And one of them is, you know, the people that are in the best position to help you build a solid culture, are the people closest to the action, and those are your managers. But if your managers don't know, and if their fellow teammates don't know if someone's a, we call them a blender or a splitter in terms of how they think about their work life.
00:25:33:21 - 00:26:01:14
Jim
If they don't know if they're a blender or a splitter, they could easily disrespect the person. And I think coworkers need to know that as well. So, there might be somebody who's working, you know, at night and can't figure out why somebody else won't respond to them when they're working on an urgent project. And there's somebody else who might be working during regular hours during the day, and they can't figure out where somebody else is and why other people aren't there.
00:26:01:14 - 00:26:26:20
Jim
But if they know, then they can accommodate for that. And it's not always going to work perfectly. But yeah, I thought it was really interesting that, and you look across even generations and there's some tendencies that lean one way or the other, but there's a huge variance even across age groups in terms of whether people prefer work and life to be separated or blended.
00:26:26:22 - 00:26:30:05
Jim
And some of that has to do with life situation as well.
00:26:30:11 - 00:27:03:19
Andreas
So, which reminds me, in many companies, we avoid sending emails late in the day because we assume everyone's working 9 to 5, and we don't want to disrespect those that are in their family time. But then you're saying that, give or take, 50% of the population actually, enjoys or appreciates working off their daily schedule or odd hours.
00:27:03:21 - 00:27:07:04
Andreas
And they don't see this as a violation of their personal time.
00:27:07:09 - 00:27:31:10
Jim
Right. Yeah. And the key is that people know that about one another. So I've got a coworker that works different hours than me, and when she came into my work life, I think I improved my productivity maybe ten times. When I was interviewing her for the job, and because I used to crank out my own data and run my own analyses and she said, I said, what do you want to do?
00:27:31:15 - 00:27:54:22
Jim
And she said, I want to be between you and the data. I said, okay, I got to think about that. And I found out she was so proficient at working with data files and running analyses, but we have different work schedules, so we've been working together long enough that we know that. I know that she works late hours.
00:27:55:00 - 00:28:21:02
Jim
I'm more of a blender, too, but I don't work... I get up really early in the morning. And so what she does is she'd be working on something, I show up in the morning and I've got a Christmas present waiting for me. I've got a, you know, a present. But I consider a present, which is new data, new analyses, and so knowing that about each other, it makes our work very fluid.
00:28:21:04 - 00:28:25:12
Jim
And it's just knowing what to expect of the other person.
00:28:25:22 - 00:28:39:20
Andreas
And this can only be done 1 to 1, not as a blanket policy, is what I'm hearing. What is a leadership mistake you see managers making again and again that most managers have a blind spot on?
00:28:40:18 - 00:29:10:21
Jim
I think we've, and we've got a long ways to go on this still, but it's that everybody develops in the same way. That we can give people a developmental, cookie-cutter approach and that they'll all be able to follow that and develop at the same pace. A big insight that we've learned along the way is that everybody's different based on their strengths and that we need to be able to, if we have curriculum, it needs to be...
00:29:10:23 - 00:29:33:20
Jim
And if we help managers think about development the right way, they have to start with who the person is first and what their natural tendencies are first, and then make that fit into the expectations of the role. So you could have two people that achieve the same outcomes in somewhat different ways, and they might even work together and complement each other in different ways, if they know each other's strengths.
00:29:33:22 - 00:30:14:19
Jim
So one person might be highly focused. Another person may not be quite as... actually, you know, this is an example of somebody that I work with. One of my best friends at work. I've got high focus. He doesn't. We live in different cities. But he has incredible ideation, incredible analytics. And so what I bring into it more is, you know, with the research mind, is I bring kind of focus to the work that we need to get done and what's going to benefit organizations the most and he'll go deep and you can ask him almost any question.
00:30:14:19 - 00:30:35:00
Jim
He knows something about it. It's like he's got all this stuff in his brain. And my brain's more kind of... I build up a lot of knowledge around very specific areas. But knowing those differences, you know, we can complement one another and work together, and get a lot done.
00:30:35:05 - 00:30:38:17
Andreas
Do you believe people's strengths change over time?
00:30:39:13 - 00:30:55:08
Jim
I think it would be naive to say that they don't, but they tend to be as we get older, they tend to be more stable than change. And, you know, we do test-retest reliability studies on our... we have a tool called CliftonStrengths. I know you're very fond of
00:30:55:08 - 00:30:57:04
Andreas
Yeah. It's my favourite personality too.
00:30:57:04 - 00:31:03:01
Jim
It has a test-retest reliability of 0.7, and that holds it pretty well over a year.
00:31:03:01 - 00:31:25:02
Jim
So what it means is your rank... It measures 34 strengths. And your rank ordering of those strengths will stay pretty much the same. I've seen some people who, well, have told me that they took it multiple times and their strengths did change. And it was kind of in response to the strengths that they needed to rely on for a very different type of job that they're in.
00:31:25:04 - 00:31:44:09
Jim
So there's exceptions. And I think we always have to know that, you know, the strengths that we leverage might change over time, but the ones that are toward the top once we become adults, tend to stay toward the top. And the ones that are at the bottom tend to stay toward the bottom. And, but, you know, there's always exceptions to that.
00:31:44:09 - 00:32:05:13
Jim
People could have, you know, very massive changing life experiences, where they tap into something very different than they ever had before. So I think it's a continuous learning process for everybody in terms of how they develop and what they leverage. But, when we talk about strengths, we're talking about kind of... You kind of think about it a different way.
00:32:05:13 - 00:32:32:12
Jim
We always want to build strengths, but we start with the traits that are more stable, and we use those traits to impact the things that are more changeable. So we understand what's less changeable and use that to impact what's most changeable. And what's most changeable is the kind of culture that we want to build, like engagement and helping people build competencies over time.
00:32:32:12 - 00:32:48:19
Jim
And those are all changeable kinds of things, competencies, skills. But we have to start first. So that's part of the mistake is to not start with what's less changeable and figure out how to apply that in a way that makes the culture changeable.
00:32:48:19 - 00:32:49:23
Andreas
What's an example?
00:32:49:23 - 00:33:08:12
Jim
Well, we see it with employee engagement all the time where, when people know their basic strengths, they can be much more efficient at clarifying expectations, at recognizing people in the right way, at having good progress discussions with them, developing them.
00:33:08:17 - 00:33:27:18
Jim
I've talked a little bit about development, but I can develop you, Andreas, find all your strengths. I can develop you in a different way that I might develop somebody else. Because I'm leveraging what you're naturally good at and building, competencies around that, that are aligned with what the organization is trying to get done.
00:33:27:20 - 00:33:57:15
Andreas
Right. Yeah, I get it. You mentioned earlier about Gallup's study of engagement. And if I remember correctly, it's at a lower point than it was 2 or 3 years ago before the pandemic. But it's also stayed at that low point. Have you thought about what is unfolding over the next ten years? What's a wild guess about how the world of wellness at the workplace is unfolding?
00:33:57:23 - 00:34:23:02
Jim
Well, there's a big concern right now for the right reasons around mental health. And so that's starting to enter into the workplace a little bit more. Not that we expect any manager to become a mental health expert. But what we found is that if you get the culture right, in what organizations can improve on, that improves overall well-being, is the culture that they put in place.
00:34:23:02 - 00:34:45:08
Jim
And that starts with those foundational engagement elements. When people the first thing they want when they come to work is they want a job where they can be successful, and they want to know what their role is. And too often people go on to, we're going to try to fix this mental health problem that we see out there in society without starting with the foundation, which is the career component.
00:34:45:10 - 00:35:01:19
Jim
And that's what we spend most of our time doing outside of sleeping. If we're living the right kind of life and we get enough sleep, outside of sleeping, work is the thing that we do the most in our working lives, and that's most of our lives. So we've got to get that foundational career component right first.
00:35:01:21 - 00:35:31:06
Jim
If we're going to build a workplace with high levels of well-being, it doesn't mean that sometimes we have to give people the resources, like employee assistance program resources. Those should always be available. But managers through work can impact well-being tremendously. When I look into the future and I see where engagement can be, I look at organizations that are doing it right, right now, and we recognize those organizations every year.
00:35:31:06 - 00:36:02:03
Jim
But so the global average is 23% engaged right now. In the US it's 32%. The best practice organizations globally are at 70% on average. So they've more than doubled the US average, more than tripled the global average. And that did not happen by accident. And so what I've really been interested in learning about over the years, decades, is to study success.
00:36:02:05 - 00:36:22:05
Jim
And it's always out there to study, right? You could look at the averages all day, but you got to find success and study what successful organizations are doing differently and then teach other organizations how to do that. So I think the reason we saw engagement grow for a decade and now we're meeting some new challenges, as you mentioned.
00:36:22:05 - 00:36:48:08
Jim
But there's a way out of that. But the reason we saw it grow for a decade was because more and more organizations were applying those kinds of principles. They were developing their... What great organizations have done effectively to do that is that number one, they've made engagement not just a survey they do every year, but it's a part of their strategy.
00:36:48:10 - 00:37:16:18
Jim
They help people know why. It's a part of their strategy. We're using this concept of engagement, which comes down to those fundamentals I talked about, role clarity and making sure people are rewarded appropriately, developing them appropriately, helping them see how they're connected to the mission or purpose of the organization. If we get that, they get that part right, then it opens the door for everything else.
00:37:16:18 - 00:37:36:05
Jim
But the best practice organizations, they make sure that engagement is a part of their strategy, which means employees need to know why it exists all year round, not just during the survey part of it. Second, they've got great communication internally so that people know what's happening and why. And that flows through their managers.
00:37:36:05 - 00:38:04:01
Jim
Third, they have a really good intentional process for developing their managers into highly effective managers as coaches. And then, fourth, they've got really strong accountability. So the managers know part of my job, a really important part of my job is engaging my team. And if I lead a team that continuously, over time, is disengaged, I'm ruining their lives.
00:38:04:03 - 00:38:35:05
Jim
And leaders know that when leaders are making it a part of their strategy, they make it clear that part of your job as a manager is to inspire lives, not destroy lives, and to inspire lives you've got to pay attention to all those things we've been talking about. So these best practice organizations do that really well, and in many cases, they do it their own way, but they generally tend to fit into those four categories I listed: strategy, communication, manager development, and accountability.
00:38:35:05 - 00:38:44:21
Andreas
On a personal side, is there something you had to rethink recently to challenge yourself on a belief or
00:38:45:22 - 00:38:48:17
Jim
On a personal side, outside of work?
00:38:48:17 - 00:38:55:22
Andreas
Within, I mean, it could be within work, but is there a finding that you had to overturn, for example?
00:38:59:15 - 00:39:35:17
Jim
I think, you know, the biggest challenge has been this transition through... So I think the workplace has changed more than it ever has in my lifetime because of the pandemic. So we had to rethink the role of manager and how can the role of manager be more efficient. That's a lot of the findings that we include in our latest book, Culture Shock, or that, so is really, we had to dig in deep to our data to really understand, how is this role of manager a little different than it's been before?
00:39:35:19 - 00:39:52:21
Jim
And how do we... Because on one side, you've got leaders who are saying, people after the pandemic in what you learn, just do what you need to do to get your work done. Everybody can do their own thing. There's another side that said, we need people back in the offices. We've got this real estate space.
00:39:52:21 - 00:40:16:15
Jim
We've got to use it. And we really believe, we know that people are working on. We can see them working on site. So the challenge has been understanding what the data are really saying about those things and where you find the right, I guess I call it balance, but it's really the right expectations for an organization which has to start.
00:40:16:17 - 00:40:38:15
Jim
So the challenges you have to start with leaders in what kind of culture they want to build, and they have to be very concrete about here's the culture we want to build and why. And then how do you make that work for each organization in their own unique way. I work with one organization that has everybody in the, you know, in one of their divisions, they have everybody in the office every day.
00:40:38:17 - 00:41:10:06
Jim
Another part of the organization has high hybrid, very high level of hybrid work. And they're, you know, they're doing similar kinds of things, but they've got somewhat different cultures inside the same organization, but they've been able to make it work because their employees are bought into it. You know, I've got a brother-in-law who runs a manufacturing plant that he worked with his team to figure out that, you know, one of the best things he ever did is move to a four-day workweek.
00:41:10:08 - 00:41:28:20
Jim
Because it worked for the team, it worked for the customer. So he had to channel that through, not only the team, but also the impact on the customers. So if you got buy in from the team and the customers and they could save on overhead, then that worked. I know that that concept of four-day work week has been out, and I've had a lot of questions about over the years.
00:41:28:20 - 00:41:54:22
Jim
I don't think it works for everybody. I don't think it's realistic for everybody, but for some it is, particularly on-site workers. It could be. So the other challenge is how do you make this work for people who have to be on site versus those who don't have to be on site? And I think my learning in that was that you've got to build some element of flexibility and autonomy, whatever that means, to the people in those situations.
00:41:55:00 - 00:41:57:08
Jim
And still have accountability with it.
00:41:57:15 - 00:42:07:01
Andreas
If you could whisper to the ear of a leader who's not intentional about the culture they're building. what would you say to them?
00:42:09:04 - 00:42:42:20
Jim
I would start with, in the simplest way possible, what is the purpose of your organization. Can you describe that in one sentence? And then what cultural attributes do you think, based on your experience, will lead to you achieving that purpose? If you lead with on-site versus not on site as your starting point, then I don't think it's going to work because you've got to lead with your purpose, who you're serving.
00:42:42:22 - 00:43:10:03
Jim
And it's got to be simple enough that every employee can remember it. There's a lot of great mission statements on corporate walls that nobody ever remembers. But I would say start with, think with your executive team and interview your employees about what the organization is really about, who you're serving. And then use that as your North Star in terms of how you develop your culture so that you meet those needs.
00:43:10:05 - 00:43:22:16
Jim
And it can happen in a variety of different ways, but people have to be bought into it, and they need to know why. And you can never really get the why part right if it's not connected to the purpose of your organization and who you're serving.
00:43:23:01 - 00:43:32:02
Andreas
And any parting words for the audience or any book or anything else you'd like to leave us with?
00:43:33:12 - 00:44:02:02
Jim
Well, I'm very optimistic, and I'm kind of inspired about where we can be in the future. I think we've learned a lot in the past several years about autonomy. I think we've also learned a lot in the past several years around how people can develop in this new environment and can have inspiring jobs and what the role of manager and leader is and all that.
00:44:02:04 - 00:44:23:02
Jim
So I'm optimistic about where we can be. I think if we do things right, and we combine autonomy with great managing, great leadership, that we could have the best workplaces ever. And we've got examples of that right now in organizations that are doing it right. So, it's all achievable. We've seen a lot of organizations grow significantly over time.
00:44:23:04 - 00:44:47:13
Jim
If they put the right practices in place, I think it could happen in a, it doesn't have to be an overly complex solution. It can be... but we've got to... we can't have all these disparate programs that confuse people. We've got to pull it together. So the performance management and engagement are in the same, kind of going down the same path.
00:44:47:15 - 00:44:54:04
Jim
But we made some discoveries around that. And I'm inspired by what organizations can be in the future.
00:44:54:04 - 00:44:56:15
Andreas
And where can people find out more about you, Jim?
00:44:57:09 - 00:45:20:13
Jim
Well, you can find our... we publish all the time on gallup.com. All of our latest discoveries are on gallup.com. I'm also on LinkedIn. If you want to connect with me there. I post some of our biggest studies on LinkedIn as well, but gallup.com has an ongoing stream of management and leadership studies, in addition to all the other societal studies that we conduct.
00:45:20:22 - 00:45:42:12
Andreas
Jim, thank you for your humility and your passion for helping managers lead brighter, happier workplaces and for all your contributions all those years in researching the topic. But I can really see the passion behind the numbers, if you like, which makes a difference.
00:45:42:12 - 00:45:45:14
Jim
Thank you for saying that, Andreas. It's been great talking with you.
00:45:46:00 - 00:46:04:16
Andreas
And to our listeners, thank you for listening to another episode of Rethink Culture. If you enjoyed the show as much as I enjoyed creating it for you, you can leave a five-star rating wherever you listen to your podcasts. And while you're here, why not subscribe to the channel so you never miss a future episode.
00:46:04:18 - 00:46:35:05
Andreas
It helps me, helps the show, and helps everyone who wants to learn from culture visionaries like Jim. And the podcast appears every couple of weeks. So you can subscribe and keep in touch with future episodes. And we also have a YouTube channel if you want to watch us and not just listen. And finally, if you want to find out more about how you can measure your culture so you can manage it, you can go to rethinkculture.co.
00:46:35:07 - 00:46:45:06
Andreas
And like I like saying at the end of every podcast, keep on creating a happier, healthier workplace for you and especially for those around you. Take care.