Empowering Human Centered Talent Amidst Disruption

In this episode of Human Centered, host Nick Brunker and co-host, Karen Boswell -- VML's Chief Experience Officer in EMEA -- are joined by Ed Beard, Marci Le Gaufey, and Andy Wardlaw. They dive deep into the concept of human investment and organizational psychology, discussing how to build teams and organizations with a human-centered approach.

The group shares their experiences and insights on fostering cultures of innovation and collaboration amidst disruption and change. They explore the importance of employee engagement, motivation, and well-being in building successful companies and brands. Listen in as they discuss tangible steps leaders can take to enhance these elements and the consequences of not addressing these issues in today's dynamic work environment.

• Host: Group Director, Experience Strategy, VML - Nick Brunker
• Co-Host: CXO EMEA, VML - Karen Boswell
• Guest: Director, Digital and Creative Operations adam&eveDDB - Marci Le Gaufey
• Guest: Certified Business Psychologist, Liminal Store - Ed Beard
• Guest: Global Managing Director, Tech & Innovation at The Talent Business - Andy Wardlaw

We'd love to hear your feedback! Email the show: [e-mail]. To learn more about the CX practice at VML, visit vml.com

Creators & Guests

Host

Nick Brunker

Nick is a Forrester CX-Certified professional with a versatile portfolio including more than a decade of discipline in human-centered experience strategy, insight-based digital transformation, eCommerce & omnichannel planning. As part of VMLY&R’s CX practice, Nick is responsible for cultivating a deep understanding of customer motivations and business needs to deliver best-in-class experiences for our clients – and, as importantly, the people they serve. He collaborates with senior leaders to drive strategic alignment, push thinking into action, and helps architect CX measurement frameworks to achieve customer and business objectives. Additionally, he is actively expanding the agency’s industry footprint through thought leadership and IP development. During his career, Nick has partnered with various Fortune 500 clients across numerous categories, including Ford Motor Company, Google, General Mills, Fifth Third Bank, and Southwest Airlines, among others. He and his wife, Abbey, reside in Cincinnati, Ohio, with their children Nolan, Emma & Ainsley, and their ten-year-old pup, Bailey.

AW

Guest

Andy Wardlaw

EB

Guest

Ed Beard

Guest

Karen Boswell

MG

Guest

Marci Le Gaufey

What is Human Centered?

At VML, it is our unique ability to integrate our BX, CX and Commerce practices - creating connected brands to drive growth - ultimately combining real customer benefits with a deep brand bond, consistently pushing to exceed customer expectations and deliver unique and generous experiences.

On Human Centered, we explore how brands – both large and small – are creating meaningful customer experiences, and discuss how professionals like you can tap into industry best practices to create value and gain traction in transforming your business.

Nick Brunker: 00:02

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Human Centered. I'm Nick Brunker, a group director of experience strategy at DML and your host for the show. Thanks for tuning us in. On our latest episode, I was joined by VML's CXO and EMEA, Karen Boswell, who shared 24 ponderings for 2024. If you missed a great episode, you definitely have to go check it out on the podcast page.

Nick Brunker: 00:20

One of those ponderings was around the idea of human investment and organizational psychology, in essence, being human centered when building teams and organizations. On this episode, I am thrilled to have Karen back with me today as my co host for the show as we welcome in a trio of incredible guests to join us to go a bit deeper into this subject first. Welcome back, Karen. Thanks for joining me as the cohost this time.

Karen Boswell: 00:43

Thank you. This is super exciting. I've got 3 of my favorite peoples with us today. So, thank you, Nick, for organizing this and allowing us to be here.

Nick Brunker: 00:52

Absolutely. And, of course, without further ado, wanna introduce our guest and get into the conversation. Ed Beard is with us. Marcy Lugoffee and Andy Wardlaw are all gonna join us and talk about the subject. I'll let Karen kind of go through and and start teeing up some of the questions.

Nick Brunker: 01:07

But first, I wanna obviously give you guys the floor to introduce yourself and your background and what you guys are up to. Ed, why don't you go first and give us a bit about you and your background?

Ed Beard: 01:16

Okay. Thank you very much, Nick. Ed Beard, I spent about 15, 20 years of my life as a planner, as a strategist in agencies of various different sorts, experience, digital, CRM, advertising. So quite familiar with that well. But then at the start of lockdown, I I managed to realize a long held dream, really, which was to study a master's in organizational psychology.

Ed Beard: 01:37

And and ever since then, I've now been, working as a as a business psychologist. So it's great to be here in a on a different side of the fence, but, you know, much of the language, is familiar. I won't lie. A lot of the language in 4 years has changed there as well. So so slightly different, but I, you know, I've got enough little knowledge to be dangerous, I suppose, in this context.

Nick Brunker: 01:57

That's great. Welcome, and thank you for being with us. Marcy, how about you?

Marci: 02:01

Hi. I am Marcy. I come from I am a director of digital and creative operations at DDB UK working in, Adam and Eve across 2 agencies, Adam and Eve and Kayn Enable. So both creative and production. I have worked with Cairn for a few years.

Marci: 02:19

This is where we met, and I have experienced a personal change following lockdown as well, that I'm currently working through and that led me to the down the path of discoveries and, thinking around the world of employment instead of just doing it and delivering. So I'm very excited to be talking about it with brilliant brains.

Nick Brunker: 02:43

Awesome. Thank you for spending time with us. And last, certainly not least, Andy Wardlaw. Andy, tell us a bit about you.

Andy Wardlaw: 02:49

Great to be here. I, am the global MD for tech and innovation at the Talend Business. We're an executive search, business, which we we work very, very, specifically with businesses fuelled by innovation and creativity globally, businesses of all different kinds. But that is the the rallying point. I get to work with and advise, some of the most talented, creative businesses and individuals globally.

Andy Wardlaw: 03:18

It's something that I've I've always enjoyed, and I've I've in the past, I've run my own consultancy. I've worked in some of those businesses, as, talent leadership as well, and it's a great pleasure to be here with you all.

Nick Brunker: 03:31

Amazing. We We're so excited to get into things. So let's dive in. And and, Karen, I know we have a lot to discuss. I'll tee it up to you, and we can we can get things rolling.

Karen Boswell: 03:39

Perfect. Thank you so much, Nick. And, Ed, Marcy, Andy, thank you for giving us a window of your time today. Ed, I'm gonna come to you first, actually, because I think, we've we've had some great discussions about the amount of research that outlines purpose driven companies, outperforming other companies, perhaps ones that don't have a clear purpose or have lost sight of it. And there's lots of leadership books available, as well.

Karen Boswell: 04:05

Can you build upon your expertise, especially sort of since your shift in focus? Help us understand the tension between those companies that are driven with purpose and those that perhaps lack such a direction.

Ed Beard: 04:17

Well, actually and within that, there's an interesting tension as well, which I think people aren't always always aware of in that sense. So, you know, as you say, purpose driven companies tend to massively outperform those without one, you know, by quite notable amounts of the Kantar. At one point, saying that if you've got a high level of purpose, you're you outperform the market by a 175%. If you've got a kind of a medium one, it's like 70%. So that's a huge difference.

Ed Beard: 04:41

And there are kind of two sides to that, really. One of them is yes, we increase. You know, consumers are quite often drawn to buy products from companies which have got a purpose, so that's part of it. The other part of it is is people like to work for a company that's got purpose as well. So, you know, employees, you say that their job has got a special meaning, a kind of 4 times more likely than most people to work a little bit more.

Ed Beard: 05:02

They're 11 times more committed to staying at those companies. So there's here. That's, that's a great place to work serving on that long ago. So there are huge benefits of being purpose left. But there is there is a caveat here as well because, of course, we live in a world where people want to work for companies which have got very high levels of purpose.

Ed Beard: 05:20

But at the same time, everyone wants very high levels of involvement and engagements, and they want their voice to count within that company as well. And it's not that the 2 things are possible, but there is a tension there. If you're very, very mission and purpose, like, that tends to come from the top down, that tends to not let everyone else have their voice as well. And I think that's particularly true at times of change when you've got leadership teams who really, to all intents and purposes, need to get on with it and work out where the company needs to go. And at that, there's a real risk then that you can sort of lose some of the involvement as it were, of everyone else within the company.

Ed Beard: 05:57

Of course, in an ideal world, you wanna have high mission. You wanna have high involvement from absolutely everyone. But you do get points of inflection where that becomes very tricky. And it's a real leadership thing to watch out now, mainly because people want their voice to be heard, and they do want to be able to input.

Karen Boswell: 06:11

A really, really interesting, sort of, the the levels of inclusion, across the business. And, you know, this idea almost of principles of a vision versus the rules of a vision, and, how that can impact change. And so, Marcy, I'm gonna come to you next, actually, because you you have an interesting experience of of when such forces can actually really put constraints around how a workplace needs to adapt, but it also means tough transition for leadership. And I know you've you've been in some of those situations. What do you think is required for leaders to successfully adapt and overcome such disruptive forces?

Marci: 06:57

Well, it's it's funny because I I have been working with leadership, but I have been looking at this situation from the employees lens, mainly. So the tension is very interesting, Ed, what what you just mentioned because it seems so obvious for me for me as an employee that, yes, indeed, leadership can access the voices of the employee base. You know, the this dynamic is so organic for me, because I've experienced it as a leader. It's so holistic and organic. It comes naturally.

Marci: 07:28

But I have experienced the opposite in, companies and industries that heavily rely, on experience and track records and, you know, and knowledge, coming from historical industries. For example, you know, we know how it gets done, you know, the famous sentence. So I think that, what I've seen as a a viable health, healthy organization or organizational health, system rather is a leadership team slash management team because it's not just about the vision. It's also about how the implementation of it, on a daily day at a daily scale. And it's a mix of vision, of course, but a lot of curiosity, a lot of courage, and, an okay attitude to what you don't know.

Marci: 08:17

So it's it I think the leadership has transitioned from track record, knowledge, and years of experience to a very special type of human with extremely strong, a very strong robust value scale or value grid as, whatever you wanna call it. That is expected nowadays by, the employees. They demanded you know, they scream for it. They're quite quitting, the waves of resignations, all of that stuff. It goes with this, I say old, but this, I would could say, traditional way of leading and con and conceiving business, as an environment and as a world.

Marci: 09:00

And the the weird thing for me is that, change is the game of business. If you don't change, you won't survive. But for, people dealing with what we could call old values, change is dangerous. Change erases whatever track record and what they have been have, you know, accomplished. And it is the opposite of what I see, change for employees is it only opens up a shared future, the willingness to be heard.

Marci: 09:28

And so we need leaders who are within this very fluid dynamic, of listening, but still being the decision makers. So it's a different type of human, and I don't think that at the moment, I don't think that the leader, profile is seen as a job in itself. I think it's a nice to have, when really it should be a must have, because employees are, you know, grown ups. They are healed willingly, to do the work that you've tasked them with. And, if if they were, heard and respected and, you know, we we see that, we see we see that, command has been replaced by the art of federation.

Marci: 10:13

We see that, power has been replaced by leadership in healthy organization and and businesses that thrive. So for me, it really is a a change of or an evolution because people can change and grow. It's a change of mindset. It's not about just knowledge and experience. It's about, mindset and and values.

Nick Brunker: 10:34

And one of the other things before we I wanna get Andy's thoughts in here too is that especially when it comes to the the leadership aspect, those changes and that tension, I find very interesting in companies that are, like ours, where at VML, we're we're service based and serving clients where a lot of times leadership in a lot of cases is also doing something else for their, quote, day job. So they're leading, but they're also serving in other roles. And so I think as much as you talk about evolution, and anybody can answer this, Karen, feel free to jump in on it too. It's it's the the juxtaposition of knowing how important of a role it is, how quickly things are adapting, while also realizing that for a lot of these leaders in in different industry verticals, especially ours, you're not necessarily just leading a team. You're also doing something else as well.

Nick Brunker: 11:20

Talk a little bit about that. Anybody can jump in, to kinda build off that point.

Ed Beard: 11:23

Yeah. And there's if I get a sort of chip in here as well, there's a there's a leadership framework where, you know, it looks at different levels of leadership. And, actually, I think your your point, Nick, about people doing the job plus, you know, to follow-up, to to pick on what Marcy's talking about is what do we mean by leading. You know, a kind of a a level 3. There is a there is a numerical level.

Ed Beard: 11:44

It's the Schroeder High Performance Management Framework. Level 3 is role modeling a behavior. And so that is doing it really very well. Like, you know, if you wanna go work out how to be a CXO, look at Karen. She's doing it really well.

Ed Beard: 11:57

That would be role modeling a behavior. That's level 3, though. Level 4 is coaching and mentoring other people to do it. So entirely to your point, Marty, about the pace of change, if you're working in a world where everyone's gotta do stuff faster, they've gotta react more response to the outside market, etcetera, etcetera. No one person is capable of doing that.

Ed Beard: 12:16

So what what you've got to be doing is getting loads of other people to be able to do that. So then level 4 is a kind of a coaching and mentoring bit. And then level 5, which, you honestly rarely see, like, no one no one really has the psychological resource to be a level 5 across loads of different areas. But level 5 is culture creation. That is that is creating an environment where everyone can go and do this.

Ed Beard: 12:39

So you're no longer guiding people to do it. You're no longer role modeling it. You've created an environment where everyone can go and do that themselves. And it's a really interesting and powerful way to think about that. I actually think a lot of people get stuck, and they don't get guided to move beyond that role model level of behavior.

Ed Beard: 12:54

You know, you're the best x there can be. But I mean, x in experience, y. You're the best y there can be. But but, you know, people don't necessarily always have the guidance to to move beyond that, actually.

Karen Boswell: 13:06

Andy, did he want to respond at all?

Andy Wardlaw: 13:08

I think there's some sort of a common language between teams. And you and you make the point that people quite often operate very differently in leading clients or leading concepts, leading, business direction than they do in leading people. And I think what often happens is there's a breakdown in people using the same words, but understanding very, very different meanings and outcomes to those words. You can have to work together day by day, week by week, with with sort of an eye on the same horizon, but who end up diverging very, very quickly, particularly in times of transformation, when the business may be trying to be seen differently or trying to package services differently. And so I think having leaders which are being developed into the right kind of leaders for that transformation.

Andy Wardlaw: 13:50

And as as you some some of the businesses that I've seen over a long period be very deliberate about that is identifying the difference between a manager and coach versus an individual contributor of expertise in one particular direction. When that isn't delineated, and I'm sure we've all seen examples, it can go very wrong very quickly, or people can get very disenfranchised from from what the collective direction needs to be very quickly.

Karen Boswell: 14:15

Which is an interesting point. And you talk about times of transformation. I mean, we definitely admit that right now, like, there's a lot of disruptive forces out there. And you've worked with hundreds of leaders, myself included. I've been lucky enough to build some of my best teams with you.

Karen Boswell: 14:28

How do you encourage leaders to foster cultures of innovation and collaboration amidst disruption and change when that's probably the last thing on the CFO's mind?

Andy Wardlaw: 14:39

Yeah. I mean, we we've actually the the others have touched on some of those themes. Be being really, really clear with the vision that people are trying to or or are moving towards. And sometimes that can be about adopting technology or it can be about trying to figure out a different calibration of the business using all the same skills, the same people, but actually putting those together and packaging them very, very differently. I used the word just now.

Andy Wardlaw: 15:01

I think you have to be deliberate about it. There's a there's an assumptive after the, you know, the the the sort of the high of resetting vision and having everybody on the face of it fall behind that vision and want to move forward, that the slightest twinkling that people have that that is not aligned at the front of the business or that there are slightly divergent forces perhaps in in terms of margin or cost or creativity, actually, if you're if you're a individual contributor in terms of design or concept or or code or strategy. It can it can without that sort of constant if I'm gonna use an analogy, I think rather than it be an exam, have we transformed, it needs to be much more akin to coursework and actually a continuous revisit of where everybody's going, why they're doing it, how it relates to them being able to demonstrate success. The minute those things are left, even if there's a a sort of an assumption that people get it, I think it can go very wrong very quickly. And every everybody's whether it's a a transformation as a result of an investment or an acquisition or a move in a different different way, everybody starts to to to sort of disengage, and move backwards.

Andy Wardlaw: 16:04

One one other one other, example I wanna give is where you sometimes have departments that are overlooked in times of transformation. I think people focus very much on the concept. They focus very much on the delivery, on the client facing aspects, particularly when there's a service being provided or a product. I think some of the functions in the business can be left to to maintain their work, their success, their targets in the way that they always have done. Those parts of the business can drag things back very, very quickly as well if they're not brought into the the sort of the the focal point, the horizon going forward.

Karen Boswell: 16:36

That's interesting. Nancy talks about organic dynamics, and you talk about divergent forces. So I'm gonna I'm gonna bring it back to Ed. So taken at face value, organizational cultures that aim to empower people, to thrive seems a bit like a non a no brainer, to use your words. But we often hear stories where it's just not happening.

Karen Boswell: 16:57

What do you think is going on?

Ed Beard: 16:58

Well, I I think I think there's a couple of things going on there. I think one of them is that don't actually touch that leadership bit is I think, you know, too many people still think to be doing a really good job in a leadership position, they need to be, for the sake of role modeling behavior and other people need to be copying. I I just don't I think too many people get stuck in that mentality. So that's that's part of the problem. But I think the other the other part of the problem is it, you know, it takes a lot of work.

Ed Beard: 17:27

It takes a lot of effort to create an environment where people are gonna behave in a particular way. And with that, you've got to you've got to accept risks as well. Right? So if you want to guide and govern a particular type of behavior for the taker, more risk taking, more more innovative suggestions, happy to lose them quite early on, all of those sorts of things. You've really gotta stick to that.

Ed Beard: 17:49

You've gotta repeat those behaviors time and time again. And some people just think it's easier to tell people what to do in those situations. So there's a you move from being the one who comes up with stuff to being the one who accepts that others are coming up with stuff, and you're gonna nourish them even though you know that it's not always gonna work. And that's a leap that, you know, when we're talking about empowering people, that's what we're actually talking about because we're talking about getting people to come up with something which you aren't gonna do yourself. And, you know, I think there's a transition.

Ed Beard: 18:17

I think some industries are better at those transitions than others. But, you know, it always I I I started out in in an advertising agency at the end of the nineties. And looking back, it was kind of nuts Because the way that that world works, it may still do, I really don't know, is that people would be in competition with every other creative team within their department.

Nick Brunker: 18:38

Yep.

Ed Beard: 18:39

And then suddenly, if they're really good, then I'm in charge of all of the teams. There's there's not even a parachute to get to that position. So you actually think of the transition that needs to go from being better than everyone else to empowering and enabling everyone else. And that's quite a big you know, it's not just a bigger version of the job you're doing now. It's but I think that's part of the problem.

Ed Beard: 18:58

I don't know if there's enough kind of focus on that. So, you know, historically, there hasn't been enough focus on that.

Andy Wardlaw: 19:02

Yeah. Just if I could just make one one quick comment on that. I totally agree. And I and I think some of the biggest use using the same context in in concept and creative. I think some of the most incendiary and sort of unevenly successful leaders of creative disciplines don't always make the best choreographers of other creative or of other other other talent.

Andy Wardlaw: 19:26

And it's often it's often overlooked. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they do. But it it isn't always the case, and it isn't either party's fault. It's just a a a trick of operational memory.

Nick Brunker: 19:37

Well, and it leads leads to the same idea of of a a theme from a book, the 5 dysfunctions of a team where that first big band at the bottom, the so the base of the pyramid, it's trust or or the dysfunction is lack of trust. And I think, to your point, some people, you know, myself included, I think we're all in that as we've grown and, you know, do different things in our careers. Like, when when you make that jump, as Ed was talking about, from an individual contributor to a leader to a coach, sometimes it's hard to feel like you can trust the people around you. And not because you're, like, in a negative sense or being malicious about the lack of trust, but your mental model has always been, this is mine. I got I gotta have my hands on this.

Nick Brunker: 20:14

Whereas as you move around or up the pyramid, so to speak, you're giving yourself a chance to kinda let's take the hands off the wheel. Let's let somebody else, do the work, and I can coach to to get, to to where I wanna be. And, of course, that goes back to your other point, Ed, of you gotta set that vision. You gotta be clear about it, which I think is funny when you you think about, you know, leaders who continue to build big teams further and further away from hands in in the pie, so to speak. So it's very a very interesting time, and I think that's another another great resource that, you know, I found, intriguing as we talk about this subject.

Ed Beard: 20:47

As as Kurt just said, I think I think it has changed a lot like in the in the couple of decades I've been working. But I think that there's just been this historical assumption that great people will naturally become great leaders, and it's kind of you know, it's it's it's like any other form of training, development, muscle memory, you know. And and as you say in it, if you if you're highly trained in one thing, which is character to it, it's not a problem. It's it's just something something people need help with. You know?

Nick Brunker: 21:14

Right.

Karen Boswell: 21:15

It's interesting. The, when you look at the pyramid of of the dysfunctions of a team, it always makes me think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Nick Brunker: 21:24

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's kind

Karen Boswell: 21:26

of like there's some real parallels there when you think about, you know, absence of trust through a conflict, lack of commitment. And, actually, there is an incredible amount of pressure on top talent. And so I wanna explore this theme a little bit further, and I'm gonna come to you, Andy, because I know that you have, a lot of passion around, trying to prevent the destabilization, of development and retention of top talent, especially when, you know, we are we are in a very, destabilized environment. So what do you think are the factors that should be considered to allow for transformational development amidst all the organizations that are gonna start to survive and then thrive, in line with this conversation today?

Andy Wardlaw: 22:12

Yeah. I think I think some of the factors we've we've touched on are important. I think they apply to this as well. I think that you can't expect to build sounds really simple, but you can't expect to build and have repeatable outcomes that are innovative if you're using the same structures and inputs to do that. And you have to be very, very deliberate and clear in creating the environment and creating and if necessary, resetting the risk of the the the sort of risk bar to allow people to experiment and to be innovative.

Andy Wardlaw: 22:42

I I we've seen over the years, we've seen multiple iterations of labs popping up in in businesses as a sort of a almost like a a a spread bet to make sure that they're not missing something. Inevitably, what happens is that parts of the the sort of the the the tried and tested or the the larger scale infrastructure thinking and methodology or or management of risk starts to filter into those labs, they can't invest. They can't innovate. If if something happens the right way, that one time, it's very, very difficult to replicate. One of the things that, we we we've talked about, 1 or 2 of us before is that is it possible to build a business that's able to dissipate and reform around very, very different questions, but with an the ability to bring an optimum outcome without coming back to the same answer again and again and again.

Andy Wardlaw: 23:33

And I think you have to look at different structures and evolve structures of working. One one of the one of the things I think we've seen after disruptive, impact of working practices post COVID. I mean, every I don't think there's any I don't think I know anybody that hasn't had to see or adapt or start working and collaborating in very, very different ways in businesses that have thrived in serendipitous co working and collaboration and and being physically with each with each other. I think some of those still haven't been haven't been ratified. I think some of the steps forward, of which there are there are there are some really, really good ones.

Andy Wardlaw: 24:09

But I think the the business that I've I've seen fare really, really well and sort of skip less of a beat when it comes to, dealing with retention of their best people. It comes back to what we were saying, Being really, really deliberate about communication, being deliberate about how those teams collaborate together, almost being contrived. And that sounds like a too too much of a a strong word. But the minute if if you let people dissipate and say you get those individual contributors who are very, very used to leading clients, but have to focus that on building a business behind them to deliver the future of what's being promised or what's possible. I I think it it can it can change very quickly.

Andy Wardlaw: 24:45

I think also partly partly playing into that, you can sometimes see a widening disconnection between a rhetorical opportunity from the day to day reality faced by those who are delivering it. Again, it's that presence of leadership being very, very aligned to how people are feeling, being the Rosetta Stone, if you like, between where the business is going and how people are lining up to deliver it.

Karen Boswell: 25:07

You know, you talk about evolved structures of working. We need evolved networks. We need evolved support systems, and all of this costs leaders money. So, Marcy, this kind of brings me to a sweet spot of yours actually and and your experience. So if we consider that the management is developing and, therefore, to Andy's point, retaining talent could maybe be a central part of the P and L.

Karen Boswell: 25:29

I know you've been doing a lot of research in this field. Could you share some of your views and findings about some of the challenges, the success and successes, and maybe the failures of of where this is being, considered?

Marci: 25:40

Sure. It's very real for me. It's very practical. So a few years back, I have been tasked to reshape departments who were, which were, losing revenue and clients and for talent, of course. And we didn't have a lot of financial means, to rebuild ourselves.

Marci: 25:59

So what we did, like, when I was tasked with it, they just said, go on and do your thing. It was so logical for me to start from the employee's base and ask questions, you know, because it wasn't it wasn't a department that was, it wasn't digital. It was live action. It was something I was not familiar with. I knew about it, but I I wasn't an expert in any way.

Marci: 26:21

So I, started to create this questionnaire, and I literally went to everyone in the business. It was a 120 people. I I asked them the same questions over and over again. It was around, what they thought the company was about, where they thought the company was heading, what their professional trajectory had been, within the company, their interest, their passion, the trainings they were willing to have, their favorite clients, the whole thing. And it allowed me to do, a couple of things.

Marci: 26:50

The first up is to meet people who are actually still quite passionate by the work despite the moral breakdown that we're going through. And, it gave me, it created a human database that, I discovered management and leaders didn't have. They they looked like they didn't know who they had hired, and they were pretty, pretty talented people, amazing people. And then I went back to I went to the HR department for some guidance because I had ideas to create bridges between departments and, you know, trainings between different departments, buddy systems. I had a lot of ideas to create synergies to, do more work with existing resources.

Marci: 27:31

And I discovered that, the HR department, and it was a big corporation, didn't have the data I was looking for. They didn't have, anything around, employee values versus loss of money due to mismanagement or lack of evolution. They they had never put their HR knowledge, of the employee, base next to the finance of it. They it would it simply didn't exist. So we started compiling this database, and, the HR people were super excited.

Marci: 28:03

It was really an awesome part of my job. And then I brought whatever findings we had to the c suite, and the reaction was literally that it was just acute, but it wasn't central to company's growth because we were a company who needed to deliver, you know, a service or product. And the and it was very obvious that the management and the leadership team did not see the correlation between happiness and well-being of employees and quality of service delivered to the clients or product. And that blew my mind. So I started doing some research because I needed to have something backed up because my thinking being cute was not enough for me.

Marci: 28:43

And I discovered that it actually what I was doing actually existed as a field called people analytics, Blew my mind again. And then I discovered this amazing book, by, Jonathan Ferrer and David Green called, Excellence in People Analytics. And this book is kinda like a bible of people analytics. They have dozens and dozens of case studies showing in proofs, and we're talking about big, big clients across industries in the world, right, showing how central human value is to so many aspect of work and business growth. There's no there's no they've got the data.

Marci: 29:24

They've got the science of it. They've got research. They've got this amazing story about the Australian bank, how the CEO had a gut feeling that there was a relationship between, quality of service, to the clients and, happiness of, employees. He did not have any data to back it up. Hired this guy, a year and a half of investment.

Marci: 29:48

They tested it, and they realized that, yes, in their little small branches in, at the end of Australia, you know, small villages in Australia where the quality of service was amazing, the the employees have the best managers. And it was just a gut feeling. And then the CEO said, alright, Ben. CEOs and all the investors said, okay. Right.

Marci: 30:09

We are going to be officially the best quality of service, the best bank in, in customer services in the world, and they made the change. They've got dozens of story. And so it's just, the the way to do this at a a small scale is to start small, is for the leadership to give a real seat and a real voice to the HR people. They're just being put in a corner where, you know, they're just like basic people and legal people to tackle an issue with an employee. Those guys, I've discovered, have a world of knowledge and it's moving very fast.

Marci: 30:42

They know about the workplace, change and the cultural aspect of it. They know a lot about research. And if we could only, put them and give them a real power in the discussion, it would it would just, allow, lea again, a leadership team with a bit of, you know, okay attitude to what they don't know to to understand that it's proven. We've got case studies that show that it does create value and growth to your business.

Nick Brunker: 31:09

So, Ed, tell me a little bit about the the tangible thing. So building on what Marcy's point is here about employee engagement, motivation, and the importance of it in building successful companies and successful brands. What are the tangible things that leaders can do to build up that engagement and motivation to deliver on what Marcy was talking about?

Ed Beard: 31:28

Well, and I was just following exactly on from what Marcy was talking about. One thing which I won't talk about in huge amounts of detail, but there's a growing body of evidence that actually having fun at work is is a really useful work tool as well. Because if you can have fun and laugh with people and all of those good things, you tend to you know, that comes with it levels of trust and psychological safety, which we which we know we need for good work. So there is a huge but it is kinda counter, I think, to so many people's historical view of what a workplace looks like. You know, you turn up in a suit and you do very serious things, and you sit in meetings and you don't sort of, you know, vary the turning points.

Ed Beard: 32:04

And all of those things but, actually, it turns out that's not very good for for all of the reasons Varsi was discussing there. There's another one which touches on this, of course, where we're which is, you know, we're talking about people. People are inherently social, and there's a people to people dynamic in all of these. There's a there's a there's a job motivation theory. There's a motivation theory, which I think is incredibly powerful called self determination theory.

Ed Beard: 32:26

And it talks about 3 things being useful for any to to be motivated, really. And they are autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy, do do you have decisions delegated to the level at which you can make them? You know, have you got some say in what you do? That's crucial.

Ed Beard: 32:42

Competence, like, you know, everyone likes to, but not everyone. Many people like to be slightly out of their comfort zone. No one likes to be completely winging it. You know? Well, some people do.

Ed Beard: 32:51

That might be that's that's a different podcast. But, you know, so there's a degree of confidence there. And then, actually, I think, you know, from from the conversation we've been having here, relatedness. And I think this is a really important one. It's like, do you have the social resources within your network?

Ed Beard: 33:04

And that could be within an organization or across various organizations. Do you have the social network to tap into and to and to build up the trust and work in relationships and have fun? And I don't think in a very, you know, in very matrix organizations, very kind of resource led organizations. You might well have people with high degrees of autonomy and competence for their role, but they don't necessarily have the the the relatedness as it were with all the projects that they get put on to place with them. Actually, I think that's a really important thing because it's not that you can't work with people you don't know, but, you know, you need to make an effort to get that because then the the fun, the well-being, all of those things start to come with it.

Ed Beard: 33:44

And that does typically needs better business outcomes. Working out who, you know, how you're going to get people to come together, who you're working with, who, how you can get a level of, you know, social knowledge going on within those situations to form a better to form better working relationships and better outcomes. I think it's something people don't necessarily pay enough attention to.

Karen Boswell: 34:04

So not just about giving employees a voice then is is what we're hearing from Ed. There's a a lot of things that can tangibly be done. And, Andy, I'm gonna close this back in with you, actually. So when we look at the wider talent place outside of an organization and what talent is asking for, you know, it's choice, it's responsibility, it's fulfillment. Like, we're hearing those themes come up today.

Karen Boswell: 34:26

But, actually, the reality of organizations is hierarchy, autocracy, prescription, you know, that kind of, like, back to that rules versus principles that Ed opened up with at the beginning. What advice would you give to leaders looking to drive forward the future face of the talent within their organization?

Andy Wardlaw: 34:42

I'm actually gonna start with, I think, partly what Ed was talking about there. And I and and, again, I think very, very prominent or perhaps lacking and should be focused on in the last couple of years. Some of the people trying to get their head around is culture. And actually, the the culture that we work together in is incredibly important. You hear you hear the words, you know, life work life balance, and I think everybody thinks a lot more carefully about what energizes them, about what motivates them, how much of of what percentage of what they do, particularly at the senior levels that we deal with actually, actually delivers for them in getting to use the parts of their skill set and expertise and learn capabilities that they really, really want to foster.

Andy Wardlaw: 35:23

I think building culture, which enables people to work with great people. One of the best things one of the most sort of, energizing things that I do is I get to speak to and listen to and, advise some of the people much, much smarter than than myself and things. And and you get a sense for working in those businesses and how much can be brought from fostering, an environment which which which drives culture and and has people bringing their best their best, most trusting and trusted version, into the into a business environment, where they're able to express viewpoints. They're able to experiment. They're also able to it to be noted when their contribution is significant to moving the business forward.

Andy Wardlaw: 36:07

I would say, it's something we've said several times, clear and regular communication, I think in those environments, is incredibly important for people to feel enfranchised. I think when you're when you're taking a business in a new direction or when you're changing something, I think measuring and being deliberate about measuring and vocal about measuring the performance of the business and how people are contributing to that is incredibly important. Where the value definition might have changed, absolutely crucial for people to understand. I think empathetic approaches are very important. And that, again, that's that isn't in everybody's natural forte as as leaders.

Andy Wardlaw: 36:42

I think some some types of business require quite sort of designed and direct decision making. Again, being being honest about that and figuring out workforces and structures which play to people's strengths, help you, I I think, continue to enfranchise and and bring forward your best talent in those in those situations. Cut cut an interesting one I've seen is where there are particular parts of business that need to change or that you're you're you're driving a new type of, capability or perhaps bringing new expertise into an existing team or existing business, is actually coincentivizing parts of that that team with other parts of the business. There's a there's a tendency that every we we all succeed or fail together, but actually the fact being quite quite analytical and quite scientific about if you're bringing in a new type of service that you want to your clients to understand that you're able to deliver or that you're what you're able to do now is new more nuanced than it was before. Bringing those sort of co co incentivizing those 2 different parts of the business to be successful together can change behaviors very, very quickly.

Andy Wardlaw: 37:45

People do respond to stimulus like that.

Karen Boswell: 37:48

So, again, I'm just gonna close actually, and I'm gonna close with something that I'm paraphrasing from what you said earlier, Marcy, which is essentially, old ways won't open new doors. It's quite a profound saying. Like, it's used quite a lot. Not necessarily to end on a sort of negative, but, we are hearing here a sense of changes, needed. What's gonna happen if if workplaces don't address this?

Karen Boswell: 38:11

A short and punchy answer, if you might.

Marci: 38:13

I am out of I'm almost out of, 16 month of sick leave to rebuild myself after, 3rd level burnout, which does exist. And I've discovered, that 2023 and 2023, 62% of employees experienced burnout worldwide. This is insane. We, it's a close second to 2022 where, it was 72% of employees worldwide across all industries, experienced burnout. I did check my my sources.

Marci: 38:44

And the World Health Organization's definition of burnout is a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed, and the successfully managed is is the important part. Because between, you know, the technology acceleration, the inherited always on connected, from the pandemic, the new relationship to work, it's it's and the lack of vision or ability to adapt. Leaders need to answer really quickly now, it's a very tricky place to be in. I don't get me wrong, I do understand it. But it is at least to burnout and burnout has a wrong, image, as it is an emotional fatigue, it is not.

Marci: 39:28

It is a complete collapse of your entire system. And it does affect the lack of human values at the center of your company culture does affect lives. It breaks lives. It breaks, it it impacts lives around the broken employees. It has a 15% impact when a, person in the team leaves for burnout.

Marci: 39:51

The the pro productivity of the said team goes down as well. So the the impact is massive, and it's beyond just your organization. It touches lives. And so I think that bringing back human values, which everybody's demanding nowadays, is the answer.

Karen Boswell: 40:08

I mean, we've covered a huge amount of ground today, and I just want to take a moment to thank you all for such amazing points of view, for being very open, for being very authentic, for being very vulnerable. Some of you appreciate that you've, shared some personal views as well as your professional ones, and that's very representative of everything we've discussed today. And, hopefully, we and everybody that listens to this podcast will take something back into their workplace that will be a positive force for change moving forward. So thank you, Ed. Thank you, Marcy.

Karen Boswell: 40:39

Thank you, Andy. Back over to you, Nick, to close. Thank you.

Nick Brunker: 40:42

Totally agree. Thank you all so much for getting time on your calendars to do this. I think I've already taken a a ton of early things away. And to the point Karen's making, I hope anybody listening, feels the same. So thanks a lot.

Nick Brunker: 40:54

And thanks to Karen as well for, being my co host on this one and helping gather the troops here. So thanks again. And thanks to you all for listening to Human Centered. To learn more about our CX practice and our approach to the work, check us out online at vml.com/cx. We'd also love to hear your feedback on the show.

Nick Brunker: 41:11

You can give us a rating and offer up your thoughts wherever you listen to your podcasts, including Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon, and more. If you have a topic idea for us or wanna drop us a line, you can connect with me on x at Nick Brunker or just shoot us an email. The address is human centered at bml.com. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.