00:00:07:01 - 00:00:34:01
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 people love to work for. My name is Andreas Konstantinou. I'm your host, and I'm also a micromanager turned servant leader who developed a passion for workplace culture. At Rethink Culture, we're on a mission to help 1 million businesses create a healthier, more fulfilling culture at work.
00:00:34:02 - 00:01:04:13
Andreas
And our latest project is the Culture Health Score. That's an online service that lets you build a high-performance culture. Today, I have the pleasure of welcoming Stephan Meier. Stephan is one of the world's leading experts at the intersection of behavioral economics, corporate strategy, and the future of work. He is currently the James P. Gorman Professor of Business Strategy and the chair of the management division at Columbia Business School.
00:01:04:15 - 00:01:34:00
Andreas
He's also the recent author of The Employee Advantage: How Putting Workers First Helps Business Thrive. He's an award-winning teacher at Columbia Business School, and every year, hundreds of students learn from him about the human side of strategy, which is his favorite topic, as he tells me. He lives in New York, which is currently experiencing subzero Celsius temperatures.
00:01:34:02 - 00:01:47:17
Andreas
And, in his free time, he creates Lego stop-motion movies related to his books and his research. And with that, very welcome to the Rethink Culture podcast. Stephan.
00:01:47:17 - 00:01:52:12
Stephan
Thank you so much for this nice introduction. And having me on the show, Andreas.
00:01:52:15 - 00:02:06:11
Andreas
You're very welcome. So, how did you end up becoming an academic? You were telling me earlier that your parents were not academics. How did you end up following that trajectory in life?
00:02:06:11 - 00:02:36:22
Stephan
Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. My, my, my. I grew up in a small town in Switzerland, just outside of Zurich. And I actually never wanted to go to university. And my, my father is or was, is retired now as a plumber. My mother was at home, taking care of me and my sister, and I actually always wanted to be a carpenter.
00:02:37:00 - 00:03:08:06
Stephan
That kind of was my dream. I had, like, this woodworking workshop in my small room in our rented apartment. And then I decided to get out. I was, I was good, relatively good in school. And then I went to the gymnasium. That's like the first step in Switzerland. And then I definitely didn't want to go to the university, but I decided to go anyway because most of my friends did.
00:03:08:08 - 00:03:33:14
Stephan
I studied history, so that's my first degree. Then I, and I love history, but it just didn't give me enough guidance on, like, you know, how to think about the world and make sense of what's going on. So I then switched to economics, which has a very, very strong view on how humans behave and what they do.
00:03:33:14 - 00:03:56:13
Stephan
You know, the humans in economic models are like perfectly rational. They're very self-interested. And that gives very, very powerful predictions of how the world is working and how public policy works and how we should organize the workplace; for example, how should we think about incentives? Because people don't want to work? And so we have to incentivize them or control them.
00:03:56:15 - 00:04:22:17
Stephan
And so that's kind of how I started in economics. But then soon I figured out, you know, that I, you know, I don't work like that, you know, from introspection; I'm sure not rational all the time. In fact, I've made a lot of mistakes, constantly. And I'm very slow in learning from my mistakes, as well.
00:04:22:17 - 00:04:50:21
Stephan
And so I turned to behavioral economics, which is a subfield of economics that combines psychology and economics. And that's what I basically then studied, you know, during my PhD. And then I afterwards again wanted to leave academia. So after my PhD, I went to the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston as kind of my way out of academia.
00:04:50:23 - 00:05:21:15
Stephan
I wanted to have an impact on the world. And I thought, like, the only option that I have is to be a professor of economics in an economics department. And I love economics, but it felt at that point a little bit like inside baseball. And so I went to the Fed. But while I was at the Fed, I also taught at the Kennedy School, the public policy school at Harvard, and then figured, like, well, a professional school might be interesting.
00:05:21:15 - 00:05:38:15
Stephan
You know, I can learn from the students there, and they're older; they have experiences. And that might actually have an impact on how they think and how business is. And so that's how I ended up here at the business school, in New York City.
00:05:38:15 - 00:05:52:13
Andreas
And you spend, I think, I guess, a couple of decades on behavioral economics. And what was that? What was the eureka moment that led you to your work around people?
00:05:52:13 - 00:06:30:10
Stephan
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. You know, I study how people behave and what motivates them. And, for my whole basically academic life. But when I came to the business school, you know, I also started to teach business strategy. So I teach, like, hundreds of students in our introductory class here at the business school, business strategy formulation and how, you know, why Walmart is successful and what they should do and whether PepsiCo should get rid of their snacks business and so on and so forth.
00:06:30:12 - 00:06:56:18
Stephan
And so I will go into the classroom and teach about, like, the customers and, like, performance and return on invested capital. And then I'll go back to my office and study. You know what motivates people? Like, when do monetary incentives not work? When do they backfire? Then go in the classroom and teach about customers. And I almost kept those two sides of my professional life separate for the longest time.
00:06:56:18 - 00:07:29:22
Stephan
And what really changed was the experience during the pandemic. The pandemic, in my view, put a very bright spotlight on things that are not working in society as well, you know, put a spotlight on inequalities that exist in society. But it also put a stark spotlight on what is not working in the workplace, why people are actually quitting, why they're frustrated, and why engagement levels are so low.
00:07:30:00 - 00:07:57:03
Stephan
And only then did I kind of combine that work on business strategy with my insights from my research about behavioral economics and think about, well, you know, they were like, Their customers are humans. Obviously, they're like the CEOs or decision-makers; they are humans. Their employees are humans, and they are the most important asset, the most important aspect of what makes businesses thrive.
00:07:57:05 - 00:08:18:22
Stephan
But in order to understand, we now need to. And that's why my behavioral aspect, a behavioral science aspect, comes into play. How do they work? Why do they work? What makes them productive? What makes, you know, as you talked in the introduction, you know, what is the culture? What does a culture mean that creates high-performing teams?
00:08:19:00 - 00:08:47:02
Stephan
In order to do that, we need to understand why they show up and what makes people engaged. And so that's kind of how that combination came about. And also my passion for then writing the book, which is really a combination of thinking about how to be successful as a business. So the business strategy is how to differentiate from others, how to think about what we do that motivates people, and how to humanize work in order to be successful.
00:08:47:04 - 00:08:51:13
Stephan
And how to use technology to help achieve that goal.
00:08:51:19 - 00:09:05:02
Andreas
So what? What's the strongest proof that you've come across? Linking how we treat people at work and how that relates to performance.
00:09:06:07 - 00:09:34:19
Stephan
I mean, I think there are a number of, like, empirical studies that just show, you know, if people are very engaged at work and productive, as a shortcoming for, like, they're actually treated well, you know, the organization is much more successful. As a result, you can look at a lot of different aspects of that.
00:09:34:19 - 00:09:58:19
Stephan
You know, you talk about culture a lot. You know, when you see studies that, like, if you have a toxic culture, you know, the organization is not performing, well, the first sign of that is people are leaving, you know, quit rates are higher. But, but, but that's just one of the signs, you know; people are thinking about leaving, or they're mentally leaving.
00:09:58:21 - 00:10:20:15
Stephan
And not really engaged in the can definitely not do their, their best work. You can look at organizations that do that very differently, you know, and we don't have to go to, like, you know, tech firms who, you know, also have the resources and, like, have the margins to spend a lot of money on that.
00:10:20:15 - 00:10:55:06
Stephan
But like firms like Costco, a retailer here in the US, which is very employee-centric, you know, they treat their employees very, very nicely. And in particular, they give them very clear career paths within the organization, you know, help them to see, you know, this is how you can move up the organization. And as a result, you know, 90 percent or more, after a higher level is promoted internally, the quit rates are much lower.
00:10:55:12 - 00:11:19:18
Stephan
You know, the employees are very happy. That leads to happy customers. Happy customers are people who spent more. The happy customer is also in that set in a retail setting and is more likely to buy private labels, which have higher margins. So as a result, they actually are very successful, financially as well, because they put their employees first.
00:11:19:18 - 00:11:35:17
Stephan
And you see that in many, many other shining examples. You see it also on the negative side, you know, those who have, like, very toxic work cultures or treat their employees badly are not performing as well.
00:11:36:01 - 00:11:50:16
Andreas
In your book, you talk about the parallel between how we treat customers and how we treat employees and the tools we have to improve the customer experience and what we can learn from those tools to improve the employee experience.
00:11:51:01 - 00:12:27:17
Stephan
Yeah. Yeah. I think a big part of the book is kind of thinking about employees as the new customers. You know, customers gained power in the last two, one, two decades. And so customer centricity is really, really important. And those who really dedicate themselves to customer centricity are going to be successful. And I argue in the book that the same trends that led to customer centricity are also leading to employee centricity.
00:12:27:19 - 00:12:51:20
Stephan
So let's think, you know, because there is more competition, and innovation is moving so fast. You know, those organizations who really try to figure out what's the forefront that customers want, you know, or agile, or like those buzzwords going around, they're going to be more successful. But guess who is doing that? It's like the employees are actually agile.
00:12:51:22 - 00:13:20:04
Stephan
The employees are the ones who are innovative. So we have to think about how to provide the right environment to empower the employees to be successful in doing so. Or there is more data about customers that allows us, you know, to personalize either the movie watching in Netflix or the music listening in Spotify or the purchasing in e-commerce platforms like Amazon.
00:13:20:04 - 00:13:50:10
Stephan
But there's also more data now about employees that we're doing so. What I think is important, what is the fundamental, for me at least, is insight about customers and employees is like, there is a win-win, you know, like treating customers nice actually leads to the business doing well. There is not either or. And I think the same is true for employees, but we often think about it as either/or.
00:13:50:12 - 00:14:16:01
Stephan
We think about, like, oh, you know, we can either maximize shareholder value or treat our employees nicely. Well, no, we can actually do both. You know, as we did with customers, treating customers nicely also leads to being successful as a business. You have to spend money on those resources and pay attention to doing so. But that's actually how you differentiate from competition.
00:14:16:01 - 00:14:46:22
Stephan
And I think the same is true for employees. But also then that means, you know, when you think about customer centricity, it's not about lowering the price. Although customers like low prices, you know, customer centricity is improving the employee experience and the customer experience. And the same is now true, which, when you think about employee centricity, is not only or necessarily about increasing the wage, but is actually to improve the employee experience.
00:14:46:23 - 00:15:04:06
Stephan
That's like, you know, aspects like culture or whatever, or like social interactions, are part of that experience that actually now creates a very engaging, productive, innovative workforce that can actually make the business be successful.
00:15:04:09 - 00:15:13:16
Andreas
Do you have any examples of companies that have done it really well, taking the employee experience to the level of the customer experience?
00:15:13:19 - 00:15:48:07
Stephan
Yeah. There are a couple of companies that do that exceptionally well in some aspects or the other. So there is, for example, Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical company; in the US, they were struggling for a long time with diversity in the top management, so there were not enough women or people of color in the top management ranks.
00:15:48:09 - 00:16:17:10
Stephan
And they did all, you know, they did everything. You know, they were not—they didn't have policies in place that were discriminating against those groups. So they were like, What can we do? And then they thought about, well, what do we do with our customers, with our patients? And what they do with patients is like figuring out doing customer journeys, you know, like figuring out what I would like, the moments that matter for our customers that, like, really make a difference.
00:16:17:12 - 00:16:47:02
Stephan
So they literally took the marketing team that was doing customer journeys and doing employee journeys. So they started with like the first segment, which was women who were in their career path and thought about, you know, what is the experience of a female working at Eli Lilly? What are the moments that matter? What are certain aspects of the experience that we didn't capture in any of the processes that we had in place?
00:16:47:02 - 00:17:11:09
Stephan
And by doing so, they learned that there are a bunch of those moments that matter that needed to change quite dramatically how they help their women to ask for mentorship. You know, what's the experience that women have in asking for help or not? And by then, using those insights, they were able to increase the share of females in the top management team.
00:17:11:11 - 00:17:48:17
Stephan
By a significant amount. And now it was so successful that they're now on their 6th or 7th of those journeys. You know, they went with females, then they were the people of color, Hispanics, and so on. And so on and so forth. So that's just one example of literally taking the tools of what you do for your customers, hearing about getting insights from your customers, applying it to your employees, and then changing the way you operate your organization in order to improve the customer and the employee experience in order to, you know, improve kind of the business outcomes.
00:17:48:19 - 00:17:50:14
Stephan
As a result.
00:17:50:22 - 00:17:57:22
Andreas
I know you have a strong view about hybrid work, and I'd love to hear more about it.
00:17:57:22 - 00:18:32:08
Stephan
Yeah. Hybrid work is an interesting aspect. Now I'm, I'm a strong just to be upfront. I'm a strong proponent of hybrid work. And I'm very, very skeptical of those organizations, Amazon being the latest one, you know, who call everybody back to the office. Having said that, I can understand the tension. You know, when you look at it, and I if I describe in the book, you know, what motivates people, there are two things.
00:18:32:09 - 00:18:58:11
Stephan
Two of the four that I talk about directly speak to hybrid work. One is autonomy and the need for, you know, having flexibility, like being in charge, being empowered to make the best choices for what I do in work and what happens in my life. And now if you want to optimize this, you should get full flexibility.
00:18:58:13 - 00:19:32:09
Stephan
But another one that is critically important is what I call working together works. It's relatedness, social interactions, and, and, and when you think I want to optimize this one, you want to maybe have everybody together all the time. And so there is this tension between those two, and a lot of mistakes happen because executives think, you know, working in a team is all about like we're together, and so let's optimize this and maximize this by having five days in the office.
00:19:32:11 - 00:20:05:01
Stephan
But that's not true. You actually have to balance, first of all, those two, you know, giving enough autonomy and optimizing kind of what you do when you work together and making sure that the working together really works. And I think culture is one part of it. But then also realizing that if you think, if I think about my week and what I do in my job, what I do is like different tasks, and some of those tasks I actually can do better alone.
00:20:05:01 - 00:20:29:07
Stephan
In fact, I should do them alone. I should be deeply focused, and I should do them when it's best to do them for me, without having to coordinate with anybody else. I personally, I'm a morning person, so I get up really early. And I do my most productive work in the morning. I'm in the late afternoon.
00:20:29:07 - 00:20:58:18
Stephan
I'm not that productive, actually. So I should do the work really early on. Maybe take a break afterwards, which is longer, and then do some administrative work later. Others are different about that. So certain of some tasks I do that should be done alone, wherever I want to do that, and certain tasks I should do with others, discussing, I mean, talking with people, having conversations, where body language might be important.
00:20:58:18 - 00:21:22:04
Stephan
We might actually need to be physically together. And then those, those tasks. Mentoring. You know, I talk to executives about this all the time in my executive education programs here at Columbia and a lot, you know, talk about, you know, mentioning culture, you know, talk about, like, oh, the culture really suffers when we're doing hybrid.
00:21:22:06 - 00:21:44:00
Stephan
I say, well, what aspect of culture? They're all like, you know, one is about this, the, the watercooler moments. Let's say, you know, we bump into each other. It's like. Yeah, I mean, that's probably a good thing to bump into each other. Like, how often do you bump into each other in a week?
00:21:44:02 - 00:22:07:21
Stephan
You know, the, the, like, 40 hours of bumping into each other? No. No, of course not. Okay. So. And how do you and I know that we were hoping that people would bump into each other? You know, we're hoping that they meet at the coffee shop or whatever, but we can be very intentional if we really want random interactions, you know. We can do that one day a week.
00:22:07:23 - 00:22:34:08
Stephan
Or then they talk about, well, trust. You know, if we're not together, we don't create trust as a group. Yeah. I'm, I mean, maybe, it's possible. Like, do you do 40 hours of trust building? No, of course not. Well, if you really care about trust, maybe we can, like, every month, or once a week, you know, we hike through whatever somewhere.
00:22:34:08 - 00:23:06:06
Stephan
We do something that is really trust-building if we really care about that. So we can be very intentional about this. And most tasks that need working together work. We don't need 40 hours. We can do that in three days. We can do that in two days, maybe one day. I don't know; for every business, that's different, I think, but if we are intentional about this, we can actually shift that shift to tasks that I need a long time to do on my remote days, and we can shift.
00:23:06:06 - 00:23:26:06
Stephan
And the activities that need a lot of coffee breaks and a lot of talking together and, you know, feeling the, the, the, the body language and, and being in the same room. We can do that. We don't need 40 hours to do that.
00:23:26:06 - 00:23:31:10
Andreas
I'm hearing. Let's be very intentional about how we use the time together.
00:23:31:10 - 00:23:55:23
Stephan
We have to be. Exactly. We have to be extremely intentional about this. Also moving a little bit away from, like, we're so fixated on the physical space as defining this. We want to do the best work. We can be very intentional about doing the best work without being constrained. And like, there is the office or there is not.
00:23:55:23 - 00:24:03:14
Stephan
There is a lot of intentionality about, like, optimizing when and where we do work.
00:24:03:23 - 00:24:14:09
Andreas
Stephan. If you were to design the perfect research study, the one you would dream of doing, what would it look like? What would you like to research?
00:24:14:11 - 00:24:47:15
Stephan
Oh, that's—now you're tapping into my research stuff. There are many, many research aspects that I would like to study, but I think one that I'm very passionate about is. And this is related. I think what you're talking about is about culture. You know how to create positive interactions, social interactions, and how to make sure that we are very intentional about our social interactions with others.
00:24:47:17 - 00:25:12:22
Stephan
There is an interesting study. I describe in the book that I didn't do that; as one of my colleagues coauthors said, they did it in Turkey, where there were a bunch of firms that had problems with toxic work cultures. So they created workshops for middle managers and managers to actually have more positive interactions in their teams.
00:25:13:00 - 00:25:37:13
Stephan
And a lot of those have to do with language, you know, how do you communicate to you? How do I take how open I am to feedback and to criticism? There was a lot of role-playing involved, and it had a huge impact on the toxicity and the workplace culture. You know, there was psychological safety that went up.
00:25:37:13 - 00:26:09:17
Stephan
Like, people are happier or feel supported by their bosses and work whatever. One research study I would love to do is whether those workshops, which are effective but costly. whether some of them can actually be done with generative AI? You know, a lot of conflicts are about language. You know, a lot of culture has to do with norms, how we communicate, and how we do things.
00:26:09:19 - 00:26:41:23
Stephan
Is there a possibility to use generative AI to practice this, you know, to actually have a very scalable way of giving people feedback on how they communicate, helping them be better leaders as a result? It's one of my students. She works, a former student who works at Morgan Stanley in the AI department, told me that she uses one of those personal AIs to practice for difficult conversations.
00:26:42:01 - 00:27:04:12
Stephan
You know, as leaders, we all have to do, you know, give feedback and practice difficult conversations. And so she uses it as a sounding board before actually practicing this. Would it be better to have a human coach? Maybe. Can everybody have a human coach? I don't think so. Would that be a scalable way to do that?
00:27:04:12 - 00:27:16:12
Stephan
So I would love to study. How can generative AI actually improve social interactions in organizations as a result of the culture or the team spirit?
00:27:16:12 - 00:27:22:10
Andreas
And I know you also have thought deeply about AI and the future of work. Where do you stand on that?
00:27:23:18 - 00:27:53:17
Stephan
Yeah. AI is technology in general and AI in particular, you know, and generative AI. Now, it is interesting. But, but, but I think I personally believe we have to really keep the humans in the center, you know, after the very human-centric implementation of AI and technology in general for a couple of reasons.
00:27:53:17 - 00:28:29:10
Stephan
One is people are anxious obviously about what the generative AI does to their job, or what AI does to their job. And we need to be, as leaders, very careful in implementing it, keeping that anxiety in mind because there are two aspects of this, you know, one is kind of the will of implementing it. You know, are the employees willing to accept that change, and if they're anxious about that, that's a problem.
00:28:29:12 - 00:28:55:00
Stephan
And the other is the skill aspects. So will and skill, are they able to do that? Up and reskilling is an important aspect. So that's kind of how we implement AI. But the other is like AI is a double-edged sword. You know, on one hand, it can really be used to control and surveil people at a level that hasn't happened before.
00:28:55:00 - 00:29:21:07
Stephan
You know, those surveillance programs on the remote workers that kind of track how my mouse works, how often I type, you know, and take random screenshots of what I'm doing are a perfect example of what we can do but also a very good example of what we should not do. Because it really destroys autonomy and feeling trusted in that.
00:29:21:09 - 00:29:53:13
Stephan
On the other hand, you know, AI has opportunities to make the workplace so much better. So think about another one of the other four motivators that I talk about in the book; I call those just right tasks. You know, people are very motivated by having tasks that optimally match their skills. You know, if the task is boring, you know, they're like, You're on the—well, I'm like, baby, it's boring stuff.
00:29:53:14 - 00:30:23:08
Stephan
If it's too hard, it's overwhelming. And it's frustrating as well. So it needs to be perfectly matched to the skills. Now, the problem with that is once you master something, you know, it becomes boring. So you need to constantly update. So what I say sometimes to leaders, I teach. Well, now that you know this, you just have to, for every one of your team members, figure out what's their
00:30:23:08 - 00:30:42:03
Stephan
Just right tasks, match it to the right task, and constantly update. And then they look at me as if I have, like, three hats. And then I think like, well, that's really hard. I mean, how can I do that? I have a team of, like, even if you have five, that's really hard. If you obviously have 50, it's impossible.
00:30:42:05 - 00:31:08:08
Stephan
Now, if you think about it, that sounds a little bit like an AI task to figure out where people are with their skills, match it to the right skills, and constantly update. That's what we do; that's what Netflix does, you know, figures out like Andreas really loves Westerns. And so, Netflix shows you more Westerns.
00:31:08:08 - 00:31:35:00
Stephan
And after a while you're like, I'm kind of done with Westerns. I want to watch nature documentaries. So, like. And then it learns. So, oops, you know, the app. And so we can actually now use AI in the work setting as well. And some organizations do that already very successfully. So, one is like Mastercard, which uses AI or AI-powered tools to create internal marketplaces.
00:31:35:02 - 00:31:56:18
Stephan
Those are tools where employees can now be on those platforms and say, like, you know, I want to learn something new, and the AI tool then, you know, figures out, okay, there are projects as well that we should match to what Stephan does or wants to do. And then I work on those projects for a couple of weeks or a month.
00:31:57:07 - 00:32:27:17
Stephan
The platform then learns now. Oh, Stephan just was on a platform and on a project in the Middle East doing, like, some social media work. There, it updates the platform, learns more about this, and now can actually give me even better matches going forward. So those internal marketplaces and many organizations are now starting to use those that can actually create those just-right tasks by using AI.
00:32:27:19 - 00:32:46:18
Stephan
And the strength of AI to really help us do the work better. So that's just one of the examples where, like, you take those motivators, use AI to actually solve exactly for that motivator, and use the strength to actually enhance the motivators instead of destroying them.
00:32:47:23 - 00:33:03:23
Andreas
I know you also are passionate about this concept of segments of one, which is using data to enhance the employee experience, which you reference now; you can do it with AI. So what's a segment of one? And how can we use that?
00:33:03:23 - 00:33:33:17
Stephan
yeah. If you think, you know, again, it's about the customer. You know, customer centricity is all about kind of personalizing, you know, figuring out what actually makes you most happy. What do you want to see? What do you want to do, and what it requires to do that is knowing a lot, or having a lot of data, or knowing, you know, my purchasing patterns, my activities on certain platforms, how I answer questions and surveys, and whatnot.
00:33:33:19 - 00:33:59:17
Stephan
And now we have a lot of data about our employees as well. And we all know people are very different. You know, while on average, we know kind of how humans work, people are very motivated very differently by, you know, autonomy is more important to some than others. Purpose or impact: This meaningful work is more important for some than for the others.
00:33:59:23 - 00:34:28:00
Stephan
And we now have that data and can actually personalize and move away from this one-size-fits-all aspect. And so that's what I talk about in the book as well. Like, what are ways to think about the data we have and use it to actually personalize the experience that our employees have? But at the same time, I think we have to be also careful about that.
00:34:28:00 - 00:34:55:20
Stephan
You know, if I would look, now we know everything about you, worker at the rails, and now I can use that data to like give you certain perks and not others or like personalize the experience. People are obviously very suspicious about this. So I also talk a lot about, like, what do you actually need to do in order to make sure that, you know, you're always very transparent.
00:34:55:20 - 00:35:30:03
Stephan
You involve the workers. You know, in my ideal work, it helps people, you know, it's not to surveil again, to control. It's to support. And so there is no reason to keep it a secret. Why shouldn't I be very transparent about, like, how I use the data, involve workers, and employ the workforce in making sure that they're okay with the privacy concerns that obviously come with using the data in a productive way?
00:35:30:16 - 00:35:50:17
Andreas
How are you responding to leaders who are unintentional about how they treat employees? How. How are you guiding them? How would you whisper to their ear about being more intentional about how they treat
00:35:50:17 - 00:36:21:15
Stephan
Yeah. It's, that's a very good question and a really hard one as well, because it needs, you know, it needs some self-reflection. It needs people to be aware that they can, that they can do better. It needs them. You know, you started your intro talking about you being a micromanager or used to, and it needs leaders to be open to getting that feedback on that.
00:36:21:17 - 00:36:48:11
Stephan
I do think that nowadays, because we see some of the problems with engagement and quit rates, they're more open to that. When I ask executives about what is the most important, asking what is the most important thing they have to do about the future of work, motivating talent is always on top of the list.
00:36:48:11 - 00:37:11:16
Stephan
So that's how I try to convince them. It's like, you know, if you want to motivate your employees and really care about high-performing teams or being, or creating an engaging workplace, you have to be intentional about this. Does that make the work of the leaders harder? Yes, it's going to be harder than phoning it in.
00:37:11:17 - 00:37:42:08
Stephan
But it is very important to be, let's say, moving from that micromanager to being what I call an engaged coach. You know, you, you, you, you, you become a coach, but still very engaged. You're not disengaged because the, the, the, the difficulty is like when you think about moving away from being a micromanager, then it's like, well, now it's you, you know. I give you the autonomy, like, you go and run.
00:37:42:10 - 00:38:16:11
Stephan
But I still want to be very engaged, frequently giving feedback and being in the loop, not to control, but to actually set up empowerment, to be successful. And hopefully more and more leaders will be able to do that. Some will not. My prediction is those are not going to be successful going forward. So that's and that's like the, the incentive that that I guess the leaders I teach is like, if you want to improve, you have to start with yourself.
00:38:16:13 - 00:38:27:13
Stephan
And if you see the flaws that you had or like a leadership style that can be improved, then you can actually start working on, like, being more intentional.
00:38:28:03 - 00:39:00:21
Andreas
There's so much parallel between parenting and leadership in business. And I very much like the analogy of the parent-child relationship. We very much reflect and unconsciously copy that in business by applying this leadership by authority and assuming that the other person, you know, will follow because that's the leadership model we've been taught in our families.
00:39:01:03 - 00:39:26:05
Stephan
Yes. No, that's absolutely true. I mean, I like you know, I know we might come back to my passion for Lego, but like the Lego movie, the first one. I don't know whether you remember that movie, but like the, the, the, the threat there is of this master who is, like, terrible, you know, he's like this control dictator almost.
00:39:26:07 - 00:39:51:09
Stephan
Turns out it's the father of the kid, you know, who wants to glue together the Legos. He wants to actually glue it together. And the kid was like, No, I want, like, to be free and do that, and that's kind of the parallel, you know, like, we can't control. In order to create amazing things, we have to empower our kids as well.
00:39:51:09 - 00:40:16:18
Stephan
And that means they fail sometimes. That's okay. It also means we make mistakes. You know, if you want to grow, you have to admit that, like, you make mistakes. I mean, with kids, I have three, where, like, there are many things that I did wrong. I hope I learned and was open about the mistakes I made.
00:40:16:20 - 00:40:42:05
Stephan
But I definitely didn't want it. I tried, and it's not so easy. I'm also a little bit of a control freak by nature. So I needed to learn. Kind of. I don't think I should glue the Legos together. I should give my parent and my kids the freedom to actually create whatever they think is. It comes out of their amazing, amazing minds.
00:40:42:12 - 00:40:49:07
Andreas
So? So, what is the kid within Stephan, the kid within you, doing with Legos these days?
00:40:49:07 - 00:41:12:00
Stephan
Yeah. So I did start, you know; I'm a big Lego fan. I mean, I loved Legos since I'm, since I'm a little kid. And, you know, when, when the kids, when my kids were very young, you know, they would play more with the Legos. But then I actually started while I was writing the book.
00:41:12:02 - 00:41:39:08
Stephan
I started, and I was a little stressed because I was, like, writing the book. I, I'm the chair of my division, and I'm teaching hundreds of students. I do research. And that was really. Yeah, it was. I was really stressed. So I needed something to kind of ground me. And so I found that book in an airport bookstore called How to Make Stop-Motion Lego Movies.
00:41:39:10 - 00:42:00:07
Stephan
I thought, like, well, I have a lot of Legos. And somehow that sounded like a very meditative work to, like, move those little minifigures frame by frame. So I bought the book, and I started to make those short Lego movies about the book, about concepts in the book. And so I have a little office, a Lego office.
00:42:00:09 - 00:42:20:21
Stephan
Yeah, I have a boss; the boss has an office, and so I make those movies connected to some of the concepts in the book. So there is; there are Legos that do yoga, and, which is in the, in the, in the, in the book, there is a chapter about a ping pong table.
00:42:20:21 - 00:42:45:10
Stephan
So those are what I think are perks. You know, I don't think the yoga wellness classes are actually employee-centric. So it's kind of about that, or it's about upskilling, or like bosses giving feedback, and so on and so forth. So I'm having a lot of fun, and it is definitely very meditative. It's very different from the work I'm doing, during the day or in my job.
00:42:45:10 - 00:43:00:04
Stephan
And, and that's kind of an interesting, you know, balance where I go home then; I mean, I don't do that every day, but like, when I have some free time, I like to move some of those Lego figures and come up with like, stories
00:43:00:10 - 00:43:07:09
Andreas
So where? Where can we find out more about you? And where can we watch those stop-motion Lego movies?
00:43:07:09 - 00:43:36:22
Stephan
yeah. So the stuff I have on my web page, stephanmeier.com, is at the bottom of the web page. There is a "tap to like" and brick-by-brick videos, which are the movies that are already released. But I do like a monthly newsletter about the human-centric future of work.
00:43:36:22 - 00:43:56:16
Stephan
And every newsletter comes with a new Lego movie that is somehow related to the topic of the Lego movie. So there is also a tab on my web page about newsletters, and you can see kind of the different newsletters and the Lego movies that come with them.
00:43:56:16 - 00:44:10:10
Andreas
Stephen I definitely need to watch some of those. I also have a passion for Lego, and it's a great way to showcase your work. And thank you for sharing with us your passion for putting people first.
00:44:10:10 - 00:44:34:19
Stephan
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me and also for being, you know, we need more people like you who are doing the hard work to actually help organizations to be employee-owned because just saying it is not enough. One has to be very dedicated and do the hard work. And so thank you so much for making, you know, workplaces better.
00:44:34:19 - 00:45:07:01
Andreas
My pleasure. I'm also motivated by having more people realize the power of business as a force for good for our employees. Not our customers, but our employees are helping us learn how to be better citizens, how to communicate more fluidly, how to collaborate, how to share information, all of that. Because once we learn that at work, then we can bring it home, and we can bring it to our kids, our family, and our community.
00:45:07:01 - 00:45:09:05
Stephan
Right, right. Thank you.
00:45:09:19 - 00:45:41:18
Andreas
and thank you to everyone for listening and for staying with us for this one more episode of the Rethink Culture podcast. If you enjoyed the show as much as I did talking here with Stephan about organizational culture and Lego, please give us a five-star rating and tell your friends about it, because that's how more people find out about the podcast and join in this mission of more people who are building companies people love to work for.
00:45:41:20 - 00:45:52:00
Andreas
And as I love to say, keep on leading, keep on creating happier workplaces, and more fulfilling workplaces for you, and especially those around you.