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💥 Ignite your company culture with the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast!
We bring together incredible leaders, trailblazing entrepreneurs, and expert visionaries to share the secrets to their success, explore real-world challenges, and reveal what it truly takes to lead with energy, passion, and purpose as a 🌟VIBRANT🌟 Leader.
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[00:00:02] Announcer: This is the Build A Vibrant Culture Podcast, your source for the strategies, systems, and smarts you need to turn possibility into purpose. Every week we dive into dynamic conversations as our host, Nicole Greer, interviews leadership and business experts. They're here to shed light on practical solutions to the challenges of personal and professional development. Now, here's your host, a professional speaker, coach, and consultant, Nicole Greer.
[00:00:33] Nicole Greer: Welcome everybody to the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and they call me The Vibrant Coach, and I am here with another amazing author. Look what I got in the mail, everybody. Steve sent me a prize in the mail. All right, so let's talk about who Steve is. Steve Cadigan is the California-based future-of-work strategist and author of the groundbreaking book _Workquake_, which I just showed to you, and he's best known as LinkedIn's first Chief Human Resource Officer. He helped scale the company from 400 to 4,000 employees while shaping one of Silicon Valley's most admired cultures. Today, he serves on multiple boards and partners with forward thinking organizations to design adaptive talent strategies that help humans and technology thrive together.
[00:01:20] He's widely recognized as one of the world's foremost future-of-work experts, and Steve is the go-to authority on talent management in the evolving world of work. So Steve, I'm so glad you're here.
[00:01:33] Steve Cadigan: Thanks for having me, Nicole. It's great to be here and I'm looking forward to the conversation.
[00:01:37] Nicole Greer: Oh, good, good. Well, I gotta tell you, we are a sister or brother from another mother because, you know, I am all about finding good talent and we, isn't it true? So many people have untapped potential. If we can just figure a way to get it out of them, that's the whole clue I think.
[00:01:52] Steve Cadigan: And I think that is and should be the ultimate objective of the value we can extract from artificial intelligence. Can you help us see, predict, identify skills, abilities, and people that we might not normally have been able to do, you know?
[00:02:09] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah. We gotta use all the tools. That's what I know. Okay. So look what Steve did. He sat down and birthed the baby right here called _Workquake_. And the tagline is "Embracing the aftershocks of COVID 19 to create a better model of working." All right, so we're still talking about COVID-19. It's still out there, huh? It's still affecting things.
[00:02:29] Steve Cadigan: Yeah, I think the long tail of it is still very much present. You know, that taste of, well, you know, let, let's step back for a second. Many biologists will tell you that when you put a biological being in a different environment for an extended period of time, that creature will inevitably perform and behave differently. Okay? And that's where we were as a global community. We're all -- some of us in small measure and some of us in very large-- lived our lives differently in different ways and communicated and experienced life in different ways. And, so to expect everyone to return exactly to the way we were, I think is unreasonable. so we've got still, you know, this whole work from home pajama revolution still happening.
[00:03:18] Nicole Greer: Oh yeah. And it's a big kerfuffle out there.
[00:03:21] Steve Cadigan: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:03:22] Nicole Greer: It's a mess. Yeah.
[00:03:25] Steve Cadigan: And it's not easy. You know, listen, so many leaders, if you take the perspective of, oh, why do people want everyone back in the office? Well, most leaders were not trained on how to lead a highly dispersed organization. Most of us were trained to lead in person. Most of all of our team building is all usually with the expectation that we're all together. This is traditionally. And most of our understandings of how to, you know, communicate and organize and you know, build value was all kind of an in an in-person reality.
[00:03:54] And so we haven't really had a long period of time to build good muscle that raises our confidence that we know how to do this really well. And when you think about just culture and what does that mean? What does that look like in a more remote world? We are still making a sausage right now, you know?
[00:04:12] So meanwhile, we've got a lot of people who were working at home saying, man, I'm so much more productive here. Not just professionally, but personally. And, you know, I can be more present for my family, I can be more present for my community. I can be more present for my company, but it's just different. As someone who spent most of my working life in an in-person capacity, but also I was in a field role in Asia for two years. You know, it's different when you're remote and then when you're in person, just different. And it's those informal moments when you bump into someone and, and let's say you and I had a difference of opinion in a meeting that we were both attending, right? If I pass you and hallway and say, Hey, listen, I sense some friction there, you know, can we just air that out right now? Does that happen as easily in a remote world? Probably not. But at the same time, one of the beautiful things we learned in Zoomlandia is that that loud, dominate-the-meeting persona gets shut out when you're all online. 'Cause everyone talking at the same time just gets drowned out. No one hears anything. So we have to invite more participation. All those people that were on that conference call with 20 people in the room and they're the only person out, were never feeling involved. And now when everyone is remote, there's definitely more equity in their participation. Right? So there's definitely been some upside learnings, but it's still very present. Right. And something we're trying to figure out right now, and I, I don't have a, you know, a direction that when my clients say, Steve, what should we be in person, remote or hybrid? My answer's usually yes.
[00:05:46] Nicole Greer: I don't have an answer. I need to talk to you.
[00:05:49] Steve Cadigan: Yeah.
[00:05:50] Nicole Greer: We need to ask some powerful questions to get to the bottom of it,
[00:05:53] Steve Cadigan: When they ask which one of those three, I say yes.
[00:05:56] Nicole Greer: Right?
[00:05:56] Steve Cadigan: We want to know which one. I said yes. And they go, oh, all of 'em. I go, mm-hmm. Yeah. It's
[00:06:01] Nicole Greer: Yep.
[00:06:01] Steve Cadigan: to be a blended. The one size fits all is really going to limit your options for hiring great talent or figuring out how you can build value in a different way. So it is really hard, you know, and I was doing a leadership seminar recently, and I know you, you do a lot of these too. It's really hard being a leader today, you know? Oh my gosh. It's tough.
[00:06:20] Nicole Greer: Yeah.
[00:06:21] Steve Cadigan: So many unknowns, so many changes, so many new dynamics. The extreme generational differences, I mean, every generation has difference, but it feels like the range of difference right now is as big as it's ever been.
[00:06:32] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Well, I, I think it still is out there. I mean, if we're talking about remote or not remote, just this morning I had a conversation, I did a training this morning on customer service with a whole team. And the one gal --I've had her in training before-- she came up to me, she said, you know they made us come back to the office five days a week. You know that, right? And I was like, yeah, I did know that. I mean, you know, so it's, it is still having its impact. Yeah. Now, you, you talk about in your book in chapter one the first whole part of the book is about employees. And what is so cool on here is the title of chapter is "Time to Be More Human: Embracing Ambiguity." But I just want to put a little note in there real quick before you tell me what this is all about. But I do change management all the time and so I will talk to people about like, what traits do we need to have to manage change? Well, and so one of the traits that I have is this thing of, you know, openness. Open to what could happen, what might happen, not knowing what might happen, or a tolerance for ambiguity. And when I do my little assessment with people. Everybody is terrible on tolerance for ambiguity, but I agree with you. I think it is what is absolutely needed. You need to be okay with what you don't know.
[00:07:46] Steve Cadigan: Yeah.
[00:07:47] Nicole Greer: Yeah. So tell us, tell us about that. Time to be more human. What do you mean by that?
[00:07:52] Steve Cadigan: I mean, and listen, I wrote most of that book before AI was really part of the conversation. One of the things I'm super proud of is that I think my book's even more relevant than when it came out in '21, '22. But what I'm talking about there is, we have the capacity as humans to really understand what AI cannot, which is more context, which is more, you know, empathy, trying to put yourself in someone else's shoes, trying to see the world from their perspective. And that's been my whole career in Human Resources, is really just trying to work through a situation where two people experience the same things but interpreted those experiences completely differently. Right? And so how do we find some common ground, some understanding? And I think that is, you know, when we talk about it, that's a beautiful human reality that we're different. And it's amazing that we can communicate as effectively as we do when we're all from different homes, different family values, different religions, cultures. We were taught in different schools. You know, different words mean different things to us. Like the big one in my domain is like, when you say culture, what does that mean? Like, know, you're going to have so many different definitions.
[00:09:00] Nicole Greer: Yes.
[00:09:01] Steve Cadigan: Like, define Artificial Intelligence to me. If you put 50 people in a room, you're going to have 50, maybe 60 different definitions of what that is. And so I think that there's, you know, we have to reconcile the reality that we are no longer in a slow change. Environment. We are in a accelerated hyper change environment.
[00:09:22] Nicole Greer: Oh yeah.
[00:09:22] Steve Cadigan: And that is not something that I think we've got time to sort of fret over. So like, okay, you're either good with this or you're not. And here's the problem. Most of the architecture of work was not built for rapid change. And let's just take one for example. The amount of turnover in the US workforce today is higher than it's ever been since we've ever been measuring it. More people are leaving companies faster than any time in history, and we've gone in the last 10 years from all the American workforce staying five years to four years, but the 20 to 35 year olds are now staying less than two and a half years.
[00:10:04] Nicole Greer: Oh yeah. You can see it on the resumes that are coming across the Indeed.
[00:10:08] Steve Cadigan: Right. right. And, and when you, when you look at that number, 2.4 years, that's the median, not the average. The median, which means half of that number is less. Right. And so here's where --the people who are really frustrated by this-- this is where I try to sort of get them past the, "What's the problem? What's happening? Who's to blame? I want to find someone and blame them." I say, let's just put that question of why this is happening aside. Okay. Forget why it's happening. Answer this question. Do you think that's going to change in the future? Do you think with, with all you know, and see and understand and can predict? Do you think people in the future will stay in organizations longer? Okay? That this is just a dip and we're going to revert to that. Do you think that? Ninety-nine percent the people I ask that question to say, no, I don't. I say, okay. So if you don't think people are going to stay longer, what have you done to change your culture environment work structure?
[00:11:02] Nicole Greer: That's exactly right. 'cause the real question is how are you going to get people to stay longer?
[00:11:07] Steve Cadigan: Right.
[00:11:07] Nicole Greer: Don't worry about all these people out here. You know, what are we going to do for our company?
[00:11:13] Steve Cadigan: Right.
[00:11:13] Nicole Greer: To get people to stay longer? Yeah. That's how you build a culture.
[00:11:16] Steve Cadigan: That question is a really important one. Is it true that the best companies are the ones that keep the people the longest. Is that true?
[00:11:25] Nicole Greer: Oh, it depends.
[00:11:26] Steve Cadigan: And the answer is not today, not any longer. We have, let's just take a look at the most valuable, highest performing, fastest growth organizations in the world in the last five years. Okay? Apple, Microsoft. Let's go with Nvidia. Okay. Those companies have a tenure less than five years right now. They are exceeding all expectations on revenue and growth and creativity and innovation, and so it makes me ask the question or makes me wonder. Maybe in a world that's changing faster than ever before, having new people with new ideas and new ways of solving problems is way more of an advantage than in a world that wasn't changing this fast, right? Where people staying a long time really mattered because they need to understand how we build value and what our connective tissue is. But if you take a look in the automobile industry and you see that the company that's worth more than the next seven combined, okay, is less than 30 years old, is run by a part-time CEO who's got six other jobs. Or seven, I don't know. I lost count. And they have more people who've never been in the auto industry than any other of their competitors. So why are they winning? Why are they worth so much more than all the others? Because the market believes they can create and innovate and they're not stuck in a hundred years of this is how we solve building cars. Right? And that's powerful. And every time I tell this to a leader, well, yeah, but I was taught that I gotta keep people 'cause that's how we're going to win. Really? Because some of the greatest companies do not have long tenure right now. In fact, I deal with a lot of companies that are struggling 'cause people are staying too long. And they're, hey, we need some new skills.
[00:13:05] Nicole Greer: Well, there are some people that need to be coached out. That is for sure. Yeah. And I think it's all, all about like, not a statistic, but more about the relationships, right? Like leaders need to know who's on my team, who am I responsible for? How do I develop them? Are they the right person? I mean, back to the bus. We talk about the dang bus all the time. But I love what you're saying about time to be more human. That leader needs to know the humans. I mean there are statistics and everything you're saying, but like it's really like, do I think that Steve can do this? Is he the right guy and can I develop him if he's not? Right? Or help him be amazing? It's that relationship thing, I think.
[00:13:44] Steve Cadigan: Yeah. And it's that connection that we all want, especially in a world where we are more technically connected, but we are more disconnected. You know?
[00:13:52] Nicole Greer: Right. And I love what you say on page 33, you say, "creating value makes you more valuable." I mean, I looked at that. I'm like, I say that all the time! You know, and, and that's really what I think the kids that are hopping around all the different places. They're so smart now. Like, I mean, I think about, I don't know how old you are, Steve, but I'm 59 years old. When I was coming up, I was like in a major bubble. I thought, oh, this is how it is at work. 'Cause we didn't really have anything to compare to, and now everybody can get on some chat or Reddit or whatever. They could talk about culture and you should come over here and this is what we're working on. And they develop you and like we didn't have any of that. We were kind of in the dark or I was.
[00:14:31] Steve Cadigan: Well think about it. We, I found my, I mean, I'm in your neighborhood. Let's just put it that way, but I'm north of you. Okay? I am north of you.
[00:14:37] Nicole Greer: Okay. Well.
[00:14:37] Steve Cadigan: But here's the thing. I found my first job on a classified ad. My kids don't even
[00:14:43] Nicole Greer: Right!
[00:14:43] Steve Cadigan: Know what a classified ad is.
[00:14:44] Nicole Greer: In a newspaper!
[00:14:46] Steve Cadigan: Right, right, right. And this is the conversation that I think helps some of the leaders get around, and you bring up some really great points, which is, listen. If you executive who, who's been in the same industry for 40 years, if you were starting your career and you could see that you could work in 40 different industries versus one. That seeing all these new, we have more new industries getting born today in, in the last 10 years than any 10 year period in history.
[00:15:14] Nicole Greer: Isn't it cool?
[00:15:15] Steve Cadigan: You know, like you can see that and you could see not only opportunity at a scale you could never see before, but you can see what their culture's like, what their pay style is like, what their comp philosophy's like. What the turnover is, right? Yeah. You can see what the people who are working there say what the people who left say, you can see who they hired. You can see what executives are selling shares in the company, which executives are like, you have more information to confuse you and distract you, and that's why, here's a really interesting statistic that crossed my radar a couple years ago. Since COVID, we have more students changing majors than any time in history. More students double and triple majoring than any time in history. And that just gets to what, what they just can't make a decision? No, that's not the point. I think the point is. Gosh, what do I study to prepare me best for a world that's constantly changing? Right? And that is tricky, you know, and I'm trying to tell my kids they don't listen to me, but I say liberal arts, that's the skill you need. Communicate, lead, have empathy, understand, you know.
[00:16:16] Nicole Greer: Great.
[00:16:16] Steve Cadigan: Those are the power skills that no matter what technical skills, and by the way, those power skills are harder to learn than the technical skills.
[00:16:22] Nicole Greer: Oh, a hundred percent.
[00:16:22] Steve Cadigan: If you have those, everyone's going to want you. You know?
[00:16:25] Nicole Greer: Right.
[00:16:26] Steve Cadigan: But it is hard. You can see so much more. And if you ask any salesperson, is it easier to sell someone when they have three choices or 500? It's easier to sell when you have three. So how can you blame someone? Because everyone has FOMO now. Oh, I'm missing out 'cause that company's got this great benefit, or they're doing these cool pro, like, I should go over there. You know? And we didn't have that opportunity. Right?
[00:16:46] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Well, you know, another thing I've heard for a while now, I don't know how long, but you know, it's like we used to be a world of generalists, you know, it's just like, look at HR what you and I did for forever. Right? Right. So like we were, I was the HR gal. You know what I mean? There was no director, manager, generalist. I was the HR gal, you know, and that's what we were, right? And so, now, I mean, you can be such a specialist in the HR world that it is crazy, right? You can get some very finely tuned thing and you're talking about kids going to school. My son got a business degree, but he has like three things after it with, you know, supply chain, something, something, something, he's got this big long title. But I think it's fantastic that these kids are taking three majors and doing these things. And, you know, I think our higher education is, is getting slowly but surely tuned into the fact that these kids do want a varied background. And I do think it benefits them, you know, so I love what's happening.
[00:17:46] Steve Cadigan: I think there's a lesson there for organizations too. Let me, let me ask you a question, Nicole, and we can debate this.
[00:17:51] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it.
[00:17:52] Steve Cadigan: Do you agree that organizations, the world needs more new skills faster than any time in history? Do you agree?
[00:18:02] Nicole Greer: Need more new skills.
[00:18:05] Steve Cadigan: more new skills, need their people to have more new skills faster than any time in history.
[00:18:10] Nicole Greer: Oh, I totally agree.
[00:18:11] Steve Cadigan: Okay. So who's responsible for delivering that?
[00:18:15] Nicole Greer: It's a partnership.
[00:18:15] Steve Cadigan: The schools, government? Right.
[00:18:17] Nicole Greer: No, it, no, it's a partnership. Yeah. And there's a lot of partners in the program.
[00:18:22] Steve Cadigan: Okay. So let me ask you another rhetorical question. When most organizations go through a staff reduction. Who's the first team that usually gets cut?
[00:18:33] Nicole Greer: Sometimes it's marketing...
[00:18:35] Steve Cadigan: Training and development. Training and
[00:18:38] Nicole Greer: Yeah, we get the boot. Well, we get the boot all the time. But you know what I hear? I hear that like. Well, maybe in really big organizations, the ones you were rattling off earlier, they've got big teams, but if you're in a small, medium, quote, unquote, large, but not ginormous like an Apple or something, we're not even really up to speed yet in terms of how many people we really need. To your first question, you know, how do we get these people trained? You know, so my business is good. I got a lot of people who need training, and I'm doing all the soft stuff that you were talking about, right? Much less the AI. Like that's the thing everybody's screaming for, is how do we learn to use this Claude and the Chat and the Perplexity and all the things, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's a partnership.
[00:19:23] Steve Cadigan: It is a partnership. And someone was asking me recently, so how do you see this playing out? And I said, I think we're going to see more permeable boundaries, which means I feel like organizations and schools, companies and schools are going to start meshing more and they have to. You know, and that also gets to, I think most organizations are going to experience a shrinking of owning everything and like just focusing on this is what we're really good at, and then we'll go there for this and we'll go to these people. We'll have more ecosystems creating value, because I can't keep owning every single person that builds my value here. I've got to leverage resources and people and, and, and other places, right? But I think we're going to see schools say, Hey, you know, Nicole, can you give us some of your leaders to teach some classes to our students and get exposure to our high potentials? And then, you know, we'll, we'll you know, be able to send some of our best and brightest into your organization to help you mentor, coach develop skills. Right.
[00:20:18] And also I was working at a university in Dublin last summer called TU Dublin, Technological University, Dublin. They build their entire curriculum with business leaders. Like, and this is technical, like business skills. So for their AI certification, they said we're all about the certification, so we want to make sure if we're going to teach something, all the companies here want it. Right? That's the first thing we want, which is just such an obviously brilliant, simply great idea. So they took all the companies hiring people with AI and all the companies with skilled deficits of AI and said, what do you want? Okay, let's come together and agree on a curriculum. We'll have it be a year or two. But you gotta promise us when we deliver this, you're going to hire these people because we're delivering what you said they should know. Right? And so they said all in. That's perfect. Right? That's a great model. The problem is, if in two years what you thought you needed now is different, you know, like, oops. And that's you know, how fast things are changing right now. And I wrote a whole white paper on this, my experience. So like, this is the model for the future, I believe, you know?
[00:21:22] Nicole Greer: Yeah, well, today I was just working with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and I was teaching over there and they have certificate programs for days that fill in the gaps with what L&D leaders cannot handle, but you know, a lot of the L&D leaders are in the classroom, which is my experience. Yeah.
[00:21:39] And so we all have to be a learner and that's what your chapter two is about. Right? " Toward a Learning Mindset." Right. So don't be a Homer Simpson, which I think is great. Talk a little bit about a learning mindset. Is this close to what Carol Dweck talks about in terms of like have a growth mindset?
[00:21:54] Steve Cadigan: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I mean, she is brilliant and I'm a big fanboy of hers. Yeah.
[00:22:00] Nicole Greer: Yeah, me too. Fan girl.
[00:22:02] Steve Cadigan: Yeah, and I, and I think, listen, what, what I really talk about here, and this is for employees, but it's also for companies too, which is let's not have jobs, you know, force people to just do the same thing. We should have new experiences and new challenges presented to our people. And if you're in a job where they're only asking you to do the same thing. Ad nauseum, you need to go out and seek some new stuff to do, like add on your free time or on your break
[00:22:28] Nicole Greer: A hundred percent.
[00:22:28] Steve Cadigan: Know, ask your boss, Hey, can I go help out that team over there? Because you're going to be more valuable to yourself and to the organization the more that you can take on. And that, you know, I'll talk a lot about loyalty today 'cause I hear a lot of executives, I'm so frustrated. These people are just not loyal today. I, and I say disagree, I think they're way more loyal than ever, just not to your company. They're loyal to learning. That's what they're loyal to. And if you can
[00:22:50] Nicole Greer: And experience.
[00:22:52] Steve Cadigan: Correct. And if you can design work so that there's learning in the job, they're going to be worth more to you and they're going to probably stick around because that's what they're going to measure. Can I learn more here or over there?
[00:23:04] And if over there's got more, you know, you're going to have to offset that with, oh, you're paying more, or you got a easier commute for them or something. But that's, you know what I'm talking about, like really when I'm coaching people on, hey, that first job or making moves, like, are you going to be in an environment where you're going to learn new stuff. That's really, really important, you know? And if you
[00:23:22] Nicole Greer: Right, and that's why they're jumping ship. Yeah.
[00:23:25] Steve Cadigan: Correct, correct. I really believe that. And it's not because you're not a nice place or you're mean, or you're underpaying, it's if they believe I can learn more over there, they're going to pursue it. And that to me, that is greater than job security. That's career security. If you're helping people grow all the time. And not promising oh, we'll never fire you --'cause no one's going to believe you, even if you promise that. But if you do promise this will be the greatest learning experience of your entire journey. And we hope you're going to stay here a long time. But if you leave, I want you to know that no other place is going to invest in you like we are, coach you, mentor you, give you new experiences. And I think that's what we have to do. And the problem is for many leaders is like, no, no, no. I need you to be fully focused on this. I need you to be a hundred percent dedicated, you know, to just pushing out those widgets. They haven't thought around, I need to lead with, you know, operational excellence and delivery, but also growth. You know? And that's, that's the trick. That's the tricky balance. And that's, that's what my, my book, my second book that I'm working on is really trying to help address is like, how do we get to that real learning environment so that the employee's learning enough so they want to stay, but the company's getting value enough so they're earning, you know, income to support themselves and, and to grow the business. Right? Because I can't pay you to just learn all the time and not deliver any value to me, that just doesn't work.
[00:24:39] Nicole Greer: We will go out of business. That's right. That's right.
[00:24:41] Steve Cadigan: So there's gotta be balance.
[00:24:43] Nicole Greer: Yeah. I love what you're saying and I just want to throw this in here. So, you know, a lot of times it's like, is the company doing enough? And really, right now, you said earlier it's really tough to be a leader 'cause they're kind of a little bit under attack, right? Employee engagement is low and are you doing this and are you doing that, right? And so there's this long list of things to do to make employees happy, but you know, the employer gives a hundred percent of what they can give, but then the employee has to give a hundred percent too. That's I think, what our leaders are frustrated with. Right? Is this demand for the leaders to do, do, do.
[00:25:15] But I love what you say on page 51, you say "Capacity to learn trumps where you went to school." That is a great line and I totally agree, 'cause I didn't get my college degree until I was like 42 years old and then I, you know, kept on going and got the master's and did all the stuff, but, I think that that is the kind of loyalty-- and it doesn't have to be formal learning either. Like, I'm willing to learn my JOB right, my position, but I'm also willing to go over here and cross train with him and take on this new project and be messy and figure that out. And a lot of times in a leader's mind that loyalty, sometimes there's an equal sign work ethic.
[00:25:53] Steve Cadigan: Right, right.
[00:25:54] Nicole Greer: You know, like, I'm willing to learn. I'm willing to give a little extra, I'm doing this, plus I'm going to go do this too. That's what I think a lot of times they're looking for as well. But it's, it's a hundred percent, a hundred percent not 50 50, you know?
[00:26:06] Steve Cadigan: And that's tough to try to know what that looks like exactly. Like, what are we talking about here? Like, how do I know when I've got that perfect balance, like you say, you know?
[00:26:16] Nicole Greer: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:26:18] Announcer: Are you ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with their strategies, systems, and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy, and results. Your organization will get lit from within! Email her at nicole@vibrantculture.com and be sure to check out Nicole's TEDx talk at vibrantculture.com.
[00:26:45] Nicole Greer: Okay, so the next thing that you talk about is "Managing Your Career in a Dynamic Way" and that is such a great title of a chapter because it is what you just said. It's like these kids are not just trying to get a job and do a good job. They are trying to have a career. That's why they're hopping around. They're building that resume. They're getting the experience because they don't want to go to another interview and they say, oh, you don't have that experience. Well, we're looking for somebody with that experience. They only need that comment one time in an HR interview situation. They're like, I'm going to go find that experience if it kills me because I want more money. I want to do more things. Yeah.
[00:27:23] Steve Cadigan: Right. I become more valuable with more experiences. Yeah. And that's what I'm trying to explain this to some of the leaders today is like, listen, you do realize if someone changes jobs, they meet more people, they have more a sense of what it takes to work in different cultures. They see how different companies solve problems differently. They're more valuable and they've got a bigger network. You know, so it's not a complete loss. And by the way, your company, whether you want to admit it or not, you're hiring a bunch of those people that you think are job hoppers. 'Cause you're desperate. And that someone's got the skills you need. So you're, you're part of the whole problem too, right?
[00:27:59] Nicole Greer: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, I think it just depends too, what's out there and what kids are doing, you know? But I think that this says looking for a job when you don't have one is too late.
[00:28:09] Steve Cadigan: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:09] Nicole Greer: Right? So, there's volatility too, right? These companies aren't, you know, like the, you know, if we go back to the fifties and sixties, I mean, like companies were around for forever. And like the ones we know, they're gone like Kodak or something. Right. So they do know and they do see that the world is volatile and that they do need to be looking. But you've got that line in there. Tell us a little bit about that.
[00:28:33] Steve Cadigan: Yeah, and this is going to go out to anyone who's listening to this right now feeling like they're in a vulnerable position. Right.
[00:28:40] Nicole Greer: Right.
[00:28:40] Steve Cadigan: That number's probably bigger than we'd all like it to be. And I've got a few family members in that situation. We owe it to ourselves to constantly have a radar up for people we want to work with, organizations we want to join, or teams we want to be a part of, and that's just good professional hygiene. It's not disloyal, it's not, you know, a bad habit. It's really important because companies can get disrupted faster today than any time in history. So even though things look okay, you don't, it could be bought out. Oh, we're going to go through a big downsize. Oh yeah, we lost that main customer. Oh shoot, we're going to have to trim the organization to, you know, survive a longer period of time. And payroll is one of the biggest expenses any company carries. So I think that's really important. And so I'll, I'll tell you how I work this into my life, okay?
[00:29:30] Nicole Greer: Do it!
[00:29:31] Steve Cadigan: It's, it's less possible now because my kids are all college age. But I've raised a bunch of athletes. So when I go to their games, I'm talking to the other parents, what are you doing? What's up? What's happening? What are you working on?
[00:29:42] Nicole Greer: Where's your kid going to school? Yeah.
[00:29:44] Steve Cadigan: You know? There's a whole, like, I'm, I'm not actively looking to network. I'm just generally curious, you know, like, how's it going? What are you thinking about? What's going on? Are you guys hiring? Are you not hiring? Like, what, what are you seeing in the market space? Oh, that's interesting. And because most of my professional life was in Silicon Valley, there's always interesting stuff going on all over the place. So that was a great way to do it.
[00:30:05] Now I, as you mentioned in my introduction, the last job I had, regular job, if you will, before I started my own business, I was the first Chief of HR officer at LinkedIn. I found that opportunity through a kid's birthday party. At a kid's amusement park. Okay.
[00:30:22] Nicole Greer: That's fantastic.
[00:30:23] Steve Cadigan: My son was going to pre-K or it was kindergarten? No, it was pre-K. And one of his, you know, friends had a birthday party. So we go go to this place called Gilroy Gardens. We show up there and I'm going, oh, great. You know, another Saturday around kids screaming, having sugar highs and just going bonkers all. I can't wait, you know? So I go into, I go into this day really reluctant, you know, and like really kind of miserable, honestly. So what am I going to do? So I meet another dad who's feeling the same way I am, Hey, what are you doing? Where do you work? He goes, well, I'm applying for this job at LinkedIn. And I go, oh really? Well I'm in HR. Maybe I can help you with your offer, you know. If you get the offer, let me know and I can try to help you negotiate for better circumstances. Right? So he calls me back and I try to help him, and then after that, a few weeks later, he calls me and says, Hey, by the way and we'd gone out to dinner a few times, you know, and just to hang out and get to know each other. He says, Hey, we're we're looking for our first head of HR and I told him, you would be awesome. I'm like, what? You know, and that came from a kid's birthday party. I
[00:31:22] Nicole Greer: I believe it.
[00:31:22] Steve Cadigan: For a job. I wasn't looking to meet him to help me. I was just generally interested in another human being. And that's, you know, that's how it works. Like, take advantage of your opportunities. You never know what fly is going to get stuck in your ointment and it's going to be really beneficial to you. So that's what I'm talking about around, you know, thinking about all the places where you can meet folks. It just raises the opportunities for you so much more.
[00:31:49] Nicole Greer: That's right. And on page 75 you talk about building an indispensable network. So that was kind of like serendipity or something, right? And please don't miss his message, everybody, where he said, I helped somebody and then they helped me. There's a good career move, be a helper.
[00:32:07] Steve Cadigan: That's right.
[00:32:07] Nicole Greer: Help people.
[00:32:08] Steve Cadigan: That's how I like to reframe network. 'Cause when you say "network" to a college student, they have this sort of-- this is so uncomfortable. And you just say, this is networking. Helping people you know, and asking people you know for help. That's networking, you know? It's not meeting a bunch of strangers. But when you're early in career and you don't have a big network, I mean, hey, it starts with professors, it starts with classmates, it
[00:32:30] Nicole Greer: That's right.
[00:32:30] Steve Cadigan: Friends of your family, you know, and then it will grow.
[00:32:33] Nicole Greer: Yeah, that's right. Okay. And you just told us, Steve, that you were at LinkedIn and you were the Chief HR officer and so I just gotta say, everywhere I go, I have people that are in my classroom and I'm like, are you all on LinkedIn? And they'll be like, oh, I need to update that thing, or, I think so. And I'm like, you all need to get on there and get a strategy and get a book and get going. LinkedIn is the number one way that I earn money.
[00:33:02] Steve Cadigan: Mm-hmm.
[00:33:03] Nicole Greer: I have so many good HR friends on LinkedIn and I actually talk to them and network with them and hang out with them. So I just want to put a shout out for the LinkedIn. I think it's fantastic.
[00:33:13] Steve Cadigan: Great to hear. That's great to hear.
[00:33:14] Nicole Greer: Yeah, it's good stuff. All right, so again, we're talking through Steve's book _Workquake_, right? So the first part was about employees, and so it's time to be more human. Be vulnerable, be empathetic. Listen, pay attention to people. Be a learner as an employee. Get those certificates. Go to school, do all the stuff, and then manage your career in a dynamic way. You know, don't think that there's a guidance counselor hanging around the hallways of your business. That's back at college.
[00:33:42] All right, so part two is about employers. Okay? The employers have a role after COVID. So you say "The Case for New Talent Strategies." So what are some new talent strategies that we can think about putting in our business? So now we're talking to folks who's got some power to get some things done.
[00:34:00] Steve Cadigan: Okay. What I would say is if you follow the conversation that we've been having around higher turnover, and most people have an expectation that it's probably not going to slow down. Best case, it just flat lines and, and stays where it is. How about building an alumni network? How about talking to the
[00:34:15] Nicole Greer: Love that.
[00:34:16] Steve Cadigan: about keeping them active? How about, you know, looking to them for advice? So I worked at six major, you know, companies over the course of my career. Only one of them, LinkedIn, regularly reaches out to me and says, Hey, we got a new product. Can you give us some feedback on it? Hey. Would you mind coming in and, and talking at our alumni luncheon next week? Hey, would you like to be interviewed for our regular alumni magazine? Hey, would you be willing to promote a new product for us because we're selling it to your peers, HR people. Would you be willing to make a couple of videos for us and put 'em up on TikTok and Instagram? That makes me feel so valuable, welcome, cared for, and it costs them nothing but a little bit of effort.
[00:34:57] I'll give you a great example. I've done a ton of work in the healthcare industry over the last few years with almost every state in America's Healthcare Association inviting me in to help them navigate, which for them is a really difficult landscape of high nurse turnover.
[00:35:12] Nicole Greer: Oh my gosh. You can't find a radiologist to save your life.
[00:35:15] Steve Cadigan: Right. And so they're like, what are we going to do here? And I said, well, tell me more about your nurse turnover.
[00:35:20] Nicole Greer: Yeah, it's a bad thing.
[00:35:22] Steve Cadigan: They reveal that, well, if you're a travel nurse and you go two towns over, you can double, triple, quadruple your salary.
[00:35:30] Nicole Greer: Hundred percent,
[00:35:30] Steve Cadigan: So we're losing people to that. And when we hire travel nurses here, the person who's making a fraction of what the travel nurse is making has to train them. So that's basically blowing up the culture and creating all kinds of resentment. So I asked them, I said, so listen can I ask you a question? And they said, sure. I said, why don't you get in the travel nurse business? Why don't you loan your nurses out? You're going to pay them more 'cause the hospital that's paying them is paying you. So you become a broker. It's basically running a temp agency. Easier than running a hospital. Why do they have to leave you to make more money when you could get in on that business. And they just looked at me like, no, we don't do that. I'm like, why not? It seems like an easy solve for me. I'd rather I keep my nurses and they're not going to want to be on the road their whole life, maybe a year or two, but how can I begrudge them from wanting to earn more money? That's a beautiful thing, they want to care for themselves and their family. Retire early. Great! So why are you forcing 'em to leave? And then, oh, by the way, you're paying travel nurses to come to you. So you're part of the whole-- like think of a different way.
[00:36:35] Nicole Greer: That's right.
[00:36:36] Steve Cadigan: Maybe get with all the hospitals in your state and say, Listen, we've got an issue here. Let's see if we can solve this so that we don't have to pay triple, quadruple, that we've got like a state nurse pool or something like that, right? There's different ways of solving that problem, but that's thinking more actively around a different strategy. And again, alumni? Super easy. Doesn't cost you anything. A little bit of time, but most people have subscribed to the Tony Soprano School of HR. You quit. You're dead to me. I don't like you. You don't like me...
[00:37:05] Nicole Greer: I was going to say that when you got done, I was like, that's how, and that is so old school. You're right. Because it was, there was like a lot of hard feelings. And it goes back to this thing where employers think if you move to higher ground, you're not loyal. Right? You're dead to me. Right. And it's like, no, I was loyal the whole seven years I was there, or the whole two and a half years I was there, you know?
[00:37:28] But I am going to take more opportunity because, you know, if you think about like, you know, I know your kids are in high college, right? Is that what you said? Yeah, mine are out of college. I just got the last one out. It's coming. Hold on, Steve. Hold on. But like when I sit down and talk to them, like they want to buy a house, they want to have a baby, and all of these things as we know, 'cause we've been there, done that. It all takes money and we have to do that. Right. Okay, so you have seven talent models for today and one is interesting to me. It says "Consulting: World Talent Strategy. Join us then please leave." Talk about that.
[00:38:00] Steve Cadigan: Yeah.
[00:38:01] Nicole Greer: That's really good.
[00:38:01] Steve Cadigan: This is actually, I'm taking it right out of the playbook that we had in LinkedIn. So imagine you're building a company in the hottest job market on the planet Earth, Silicon Valley. I can walk across the street and double my pay. So we would begin our interviews by saying, okay, so when you leave, what do you want to be doing? And they would say, what you're doing my exit interview? I haven't even got a job offer yet. I'm like, no, let's be honest. You're going to go because it's Silicon Valley and that's totally okay. There's infinite opportunity here. We want the best for you, but we want to make sure while you're here that we're grooming you for what's next. And if it's here, great. If it's somewhere else, okay. But we want to be honest that we know you're probably going to go, right? And so I put that in there, the, you know, "Please join us 'cause we'll help you leave." I put that in there really as a sort of like click baits or like to cat what? But I really, that's not, you know, explicitly something that I would say, I want you to leave next week or next month.
[00:39:03] Nicole Greer: Of course not.
[00:39:04] Steve Cadigan: But I'm going to make you better. I'm going to make you better. You know, so, that's one of the things that I think is really saying we care about your development. And that takes sort of like-- all the listeners right now, think about that guardian angel that's still in your life that you worked for two or three companies ago. Be that person. Be that person for
[00:39:23] Nicole Greer: Absolutely.
[00:39:23] Steve Cadigan: The people working for you, because those are the people that we remember that shape us, the people that have been with us, and they didn't hold a grudge when we left, especially if you're leaving for a job that your company doesn't have, right? Like when I left, this is in my introduction, you remember this Nicole? When I left Electronic Arts I got all kinds of grief 'cause I'd only been there for a year and a half. Like, what you're leaving? I was like, yeah. Because I'm going to an opportunity to be the first head of HR for a company that could change the world. I didn't know it at the time that we were going to be as successful as we were. No one did. I said, why are you pissed at me? You helped set me up to get this opportunity. You should be celebrating that. And I'm thankful for that opportunity. But that's I think how we really need a big mind shift, you know?
[00:40:07] Nicole Greer: I, I couldn't agree more. And, and, you know, and here's the thing. I go inside, I work with the organizations. I do leadership training. We put in operating systems. We do the whole thing, right? And and Steve, I'll have a group of leaders in the room and they're saying, but you know, people don't leave.
[00:40:20] So the opposite of what we're talking about, like, there's like, no, people love working here. They don't leave. Like there aren't really that many opportunities. And like I will go back a month later, work with that same leadership team and they're like, oh, so and so just got promoted. I'm like, I didn't think there were any opportunities here.
[00:40:36] Oh, well we decided to start this. To your point about starting the travel nurses or whatever, I mean, like, you know, people have a hard time connecting the innovation that we're going to do with the opportunities that come ahead. I did a big change management thing with Duke Energy. We went in, we put SAP in there and and as a result of SAP, they put a whole change management department in Duke Energy.
[00:41:02] And all these people got jobs. But see, that's how business works. So I think people have to get educated on that. That's so important. All right, so the other thing you say in here, which I highlighted was, "We as employers need to build entrepreneurs. And I mean, and that's kind of what we're talking about here, like people who are like, you know what, we could start? So talk about building entrepreneurs. Your example is Adobe.
[00:41:25] Steve Cadigan: Yeah, listen, I think we all are entrepreneurs, maybe not in the Silicon Valley, you know, perceived definition of that, but entrepreneurs are like solving problems on your own, being creative, being independent, and I feel like some of us have trained, you know, to sort of keep people in the same role because it's lowering risk and it's building confidence, and that's a failed strategy.
[00:41:49] You know, what we're trying to do is really think about how can I model this in a way that's going to deliver newness like we talked about earlier, right? And I, I think that's super, super important. That's you when you get something new on your plate. Energy is unlocked. You know, think about all listeners think about, and Nicole, you can answer this.
[00:42:08] When have you had the greatest energy in your career when you've been doing the same thing for 3, 4, 5 years? Or when someone gave you something new, a little bit scary, you didn't really know about it, you weren't sure you could do it right, and then you did it and you're like, oh my gosh, that's awesome. I'm capable of doing so many more things that I wasn't aware of. Right? And that's why how can we talk about leading differently is like, you need to study do I have people who can learn quickly that I can move in different places and see where they create magic, right. And learn about themselves and become more self-aware. And, and some of it's hard, you know, like. I've been put in roles, like I don't know what I'm doing here. Like, but if I had the confidence from the manager like, Hey, it's okay. You're going to figure this out. I know you can, you know, you figured that out. You can figure this out. Then that just builds on it, right? And that's the gift that I hope we all do as parents is help your kids build the joy for learning. Because then
[00:43:03] Nicole Greer: That's exactly right.
[00:43:04] Steve Cadigan: is going to be, you know, something they feel they can tackle.
[00:43:07] Nicole Greer: That's exactly right. Yeah, I love that. Well, we have almost gotten through this whole book. Not thoroughly. You gotta go get the book everybody. So here it is. _Workquake_. By Steve. All right. So last thing I want to talk about is learning velocity. Talk about how a company can move people through learn. I teach this thing called the Learning Curve. Every time I teach I'm like, we're going through a learning curve right now. Things are going to be messy. You're going to gag, but you're going to pop out here and you're going to be working at a whole 'nother level. So talk about learning velocity, going through those curves.
[00:43:40] Steve Cadigan: Yeah, the reason why I believe learning velocity is so important goes back to what we already talked about, which is if you believe jobs are changing faster and the need for new skills is faster than it's ever been, then you need as a leader to discover the learning velocity of any candidate you're looking at. And that's not something we've really thoughtfully gone after in an interview. We've gone through mastery and expertise. I want to know you can do this. But if we know the job's going to change, we know our industry's going to change. We know we're going to need new skills. Just like AI wasn't even on the radar five, 10 years ago. Now it's like everyone needs AI skills. How can we gain confidence that you have the capacity to learn new things quickly. Well, I'm looking for clues in your resume when new technologies come out or new products have come out, do I see you're an early adopter? Do I see that you've been given all the new projects at your company, right? You're not staying on yesterday's projects. You're on the new project. Okay. That's a good sign. Another thing I look for on the personal side, and again, we're on the border of ethical, unethical in terms of understanding this, but sometimes you can sort of, it comes out in an interview. Did you live in different countries as a child? Because if you did, I knew you had to adapt, right? You had to learn a new language like, are you from another country? How many languages do you know? Like that capacity and awareness of adapting in different cultures is, I find, a good indicator of confidence as someone probably can adapt and learn new things reasonably well, right? Those kinds of life experiences. And sometimes I'll ask him like, Hey, what has shaped your capacity to adapt the most in your professional life? You know, and if I were to, you know, try to understand how fast you learn stuff or how you're an early adopter, what can you do to raise my confidence that you are that. Like, put it on the, like you could even be as explicit as that. But let me give you an example of something that we did at LinkedIn, which I think was a really great learning for us and we sort of stumbled onto it. So we needed to hire a whole bunch of Python engineers at some point. Okay. Do we have time? Are we good?
[00:45:34] Nicole Greer: Yeah.
[00:45:35] Steve Cadigan: Okay, so we need to hire a bunch of Python engineers. When it became clear that cloud computing was the future at LinkedIn, okay. At the time there were very few Python engineers. How do we know that? 'Cause we're LinkedIn and we could see there's hardly any Python engineers. So we said we're going to have to go
[00:45:50] Nicole Greer: Just a little bit of an advantage.
[00:45:51] Steve Cadigan: Engineers. Little bit. Oopsie. So we looked in the cupboard and we go, oh my gosh. There's like no one with Python experience here. Then we said, we're going to have to make some Python engineers. So instead of going to, Hey, what university's got Python professors, we said, before we do that, what can we learn about everyone who's using Python today that can give us a clue of who could learn this fast, who would like it, and who would be good at it? Right? So we came up with about a dozen attributes. So all the people that were programming on Python, what languages did they know before? What kind of projects were they working on? What kind of experiences, what kind of universities they went to? And we found 15 people in the company that fit this, that raised our confidence, Hey, they're going to be good at it and they're going to like it.
[00:46:34] So we tapped on the shoulder and said, Hey, we've got a three month bootcamp for you to learn Python, this new language, and it would lead to new projects in this new area. Would you be willing to stop what you're doing? We would backfill you with someone else and you wouldn't have to go in there and you're going to go in this new direction.
[00:46:49] And they were, they were like, what? Yes. Thank you. And also they were like, you looked at my profile and you tried to see if I had clues that I would get it quickly. Like we're like,
[00:47:01] Nicole Greer: Gotta get your LinkedIn profile updated people!
[00:47:05] Steve Cadigan: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. You can't get discovered if there's nothing about you to be discovered. Right. You will not be discovered. Right.
[00:47:12] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And you know, I'll just tell you, HR insider, I mean somebody applies, first thing I do is I go check 'em out on LinkedIn.
[00:47:19] Steve Cadigan: Right.
[00:47:19] Nicole Greer: How dedicated to this job hunt are they? Are they really looking, are they trying to show their best selves? And you know an eagle from a non eagle, you know, somebody who's vibrant and somebody who's a little dull, just by looking at how they're keeping things up, you know? How did you say in the book, you said about taking care of your career, right? That,
[00:47:37] Steve Cadigan: Right.
[00:47:37] Nicole Greer: That is job number one in this life, right?
[00:47:40] Steve Cadigan: That's right. And, and expect the unexpected. You know, just play the long game, like be more valuable and create value as a super and build people that are going to advocate for you too. A hundred percent.
[00:47:50] Nicole Greer: That's right. That's right. Well, we didn't cover all the nuggets that are in this book, everybody, but you can go out to the Amazon and get it in your inbox or your mailbox tomorrow. So Steve, if people wanted to get ahold of you, what do they do?
[00:48:03] Steve Cadigan: You could find me on LinkedIn. I hear it's a pretty good website. You can also find me on my website, stevecadigan.com.
[00:48:10] Nicole Greer: Okay.
[00:48:11] Steve Cadigan: Find _Workquake_ on Amazon or anywhere books are sold. And I also have a TikTok channel in my name Steve Cadigan. If you're interested in some humorous stories, I have a series there called True Stories from Corporate America. Nicole I want you to check it out because there are, I'm sure many of these stories you're going to remember and get a good chuckle out of. And you can find me on if you want to email me, steve@cadiganventures.com, please do if there's something that struck you or if you've got a really interesting story that you'd like to share, I'm always interested in people and organizations doing interesting things around the future of work. So yeah, please reach out.
[00:48:43] Nicole Greer: Okay. Fantastic. All right everybody. It's been another episode of the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast, and I'm here with another genius. So look him up. Get connected. Go to the LinkedIn. He'll accept your connection. It's been so great to be with you, Steve. I'm grateful for your time, your energy, and your wisdom. It's been awesome.
[00:48:59] Steve Cadigan: Thank you so much for having me, Nicole. It's been a blast.
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