Well, hello ladies and gents. Roberts Sikes Keto savage.com.
Today I've got special guest Catina Sawyer, who holds a PhD
in industrial organizational psychology and we dive deep into
workplace culture, vibe, atmosphere.
I just building a better workplace culture.
So very, very different topic than my normal podcast gets.
But I got to thinking when I was pitched having on the show, it's
like, OK, I've got a team of several people.
Culture and vibe in my workplace is of paramount importance.
There's things that I've learned over the years, things that I
would do differently, things that I would, you know, have
changed going forward. And it's like, well, we all have
that to some extent. We all work somewhere, We all
interact with people. So it seemed a fitting
conversation to have. So I brought on the show we into
all kinds of good things. I've got no doubt that you will
take something from this as it pertains to just improving your
overall, you know, work life culture, vibe and sense of
fulfillment while at your workplace.
So very enjoyable conversation. I love what she's doing.
I love what she's the message she's putting out.
Without further delay, sit back, relax, enjoy the podcast with
Cortana. We are live, Cortina, how are
you? I'm doing great.
How are you? I'm good.
I'm excited to be chatting with you today, so.
Yeah, I'm excited too. Yeah, we, we've, I've had a
broad array of guests on the podcast, oftentimes in the
nutrition, health, performance space in some form or fashion.
I haven't really had any workspace Wellness professionals
on those, so this would be interesting, but it's totally
applicable. Like you think about health,
fitness, nutrition, we all spend the majority of our time in our
career path. So having a healthy place of
environment to work there is paramount.
Yes. I mean, we spend so much of our
lives, if you don't like what you do, a depressing amount of
your life, if you like what you do, maybe that's not so sad.
But we spend a huge part of our lives at work.
And so it's a huge predictor of our overall health outcomes, the
extent to which we feel healthy and well in the workplace.
Yeah, 100%. What what gets you interested in
that as I mean that that's what you built your business, your
identity, your career around. So what?
What compelled you to dive deeper into the functionings,
the inner workings of a workplace environment to begin
with? Yeah.
So I'm an industrial organizational psychologist and
so is my business partner, Patricia Gabaric.
And we both met in Graduate School in our PhD program in
industrial Organizational Psychology.
And industrial organizational psychology is sort of a little
bit what it sounds like, although it's a bit of a
mouthful. The industrial side is really
understanding from a systems perspective how to properly
structure the workplace so that you're selecting people who have
the right talents and skills for the job and that you're
appraising their performance in a way that's going to motivate
them to grow and get better, and that they're able to acquire new
skills and learn in the best way possible.
And the organizational side is really about more of what people
might consider the fluffy stuff, but it's actually super
important. Leadership, emotion management
at work, stress management at work, all of those sorts of
things that happen more on the interpersonal level, workplace
culture, team culture. And so both of us kind of came
to that area by way of psychology.
We both did our undergraduate degrees in psychology, and we
were both looking for an angle on psychology that could help us
make an impact on the lives of the average person who's trying
to get by and provide for their family and have a nice life, but
who also wants to make an impact, a meaningful impact on
the world through the work that they do.
We found that the most compelling area of psychology.
So that's what we decided to dive in and study.
And we met there in Graduate School and decided to start our
company worker being after that, really with the goal of getting
the science of workplace Wellness that we learned in
Graduate School out into the world in a less boring format
than the way we learned it in school.
Yeah, 'cause normally when people hear this, it's like they
think of like when you hire on a new facility, they've got like
this onboarding video series that is as bad as entertaining
as watching paint dry. So like the fact that you can
take that and make it interesting is, is a feat in and
of itself because it's super important.
Obviously you'll start a business because there is a
demand or a need for that. When you look at it now, are you
optimistic or pessimistic about just the the societal culture in
the workplace in general? Like is it on a a good trend or
is it going down the wrong path? Yeah, that's a great question.
You know, interestingly, industrial organizational
psychology for anyone out there listening who might be
interested in the field is a consistently growing and
continues to have one of the brightest outlooks of any career
path out of all the possible career paths that you could
take, which that wasn't the case when we got into it.
We were just interested, but now more and more this is becoming a
more popular path. And the reason is because people
are realizing the value of health and Wellness.
And I'm very encouraged by that, that workplaces are starting to
recognize that if their employees are burnt out and
exhausted, their work is. However, I think that there's
still a big need to understand, well, what do we do to address
that issue? So I'm very encouraged by the
fact that people recognize that this is an issue.
But one of the things that was sort of frustrating us and why
we wanted to put our thought leadership out there was because
people don't always know how, right?
And organizations are earmarking large budgets for workplace
Wellness. It's a huge industry.
Wellness is in the trillions. Workplace Wellness is in the
billions, right? Many, many billions.
And so there's a lot of money being spent on this stuff, but
it's not always being spent on things that are going to have an
impact. And so I'm encouraged by the
focus, but a little discouraged or frustrated by the lack of,
of, you know, kind of knowledge of how to deploy these resources
to get the most bang for your buck.
And that's sort of where we come in to say, okay, take a pause.
You've got this money, you've got stuff you want to do, but
let's do it in a strategic way. So it's going to have the
biggest impact possible. Gotcha, Gotcha.
When, where and how did it become evidence that there
needed to be funds allocated for developing research around this
genre and putting, you know, practices in the plate to
actually improve things? Like, was there a line in the
sand that was drawn that was like, OK, we have a problem here
and we need to find a solution? Like, was there a point in time
in which that became a priority? Yeah, honestly, I think there's
been an increasing recognition just in popular as people and
employees got the mic more so to say through social media and
platforms like Glassdoor for example, there's been an
increasing recognition that your employees feelings throughout
the course of their work day and how they feel in the workplace
about their leaders and the culture, etcetera matter for
attracting and retaining really great talent.
So I think that sentiment was already on the upswing that
people were starting to recognize.
Yeah, you know, our employees are saying that it sucks to work
here and other people are seeing that and that's probably not a
good thing, so we should fix that.
However, I do think that the pandemic really accelerated a
lot of those concerns because as people were working from home,
trying to figure out how to make things work in their households
when they've got multiple kids schooling at the same time that
they're working and, you know, everybody's dealing with
unprecedented circumstances. People started to be not OK in a
way that they were not necessarily comfortable sharing
at work before or hadn't experienced at work before.
And a lot of the cracks started to show.
People became more vulnerable and more authentic with what
they were going through. Even senior, most leaders
started doing that. And I think as people started
noticing the humanity and other people that, yes, we are
working, but we have all these things going on in the
background of our lives that we're also thinking about that
are also important to us. And we're having, this is taking
a toll, right? And we need to do something
about it instead of ignoring it. I think that was a real turning
point for people recognizing this isn't just something nice
to do. This is something we really need
to do if we want our employees to sustainably be able to
perform at high levels. Yeah, I mean, for me, like I've
got a team of, I guess there's eight of us on site and then
I've got several agencies and whatnot scattered about the the
world. But it's, it's interesting
because like as a business owner, as an entrepreneur and
you know, having a great team is like the make or break factor.
Like I've had periods where we've had very poor employee
performance and just vibe and culture in general.
So like this, this is a topic that a lot of people may ruffle
their feathers in and think is all fru fru.
But like boots on the ground level, having a functioning team
is of paramount importance as a as a member of the team, as the
leader of that team, just if you're involved in any form or
fashion. So it's super, super important
stuff when it comes to where companies have just totally gone
off the deep end and been LED astray or just gone about the
wrong way entirely. What are you typically seeing as
like a common denominator there? Yeah, great.
And great point too about the entrepreneurship piece.
I come from a family of entrepreneurs and particularly
when you're at the helm of something that you've started
and you have so much invested and you want it to be
successful, but also you're pulled in so many different
directions. It can be really challenging to
take dedicated time to think about the culture or the example
that you're setting. And it it also, you know, takes
a lot to find the right people because you're often operating
with a smaller team and each person has a bigger ripple
effect right then they might in a larger company.
So I totally resonate with that and the challenges that come
along with that. I think when we see companies
getting this wrong, they're investing their time in things
that don't change the day-to-day experiences that the employees
have on the team and the way that work gets done and the
culture. And of course, if a company has
lots of resources and they can spend money on Wellness
programming things like, you know, offering yoga at lunch or
a mindfulness meditation session or a work life balance panel,
those are all interesting things to offer and they do have some
positive results. Like, don't get me wrong, I
would never say don't offer those things.
They have positive results. However, if your day-to-day work
culture is bad and you're dreading getting on calls with
your boss because the person that you're going to have a
conversation with does not treat you well or just treat you in a
neutral manner, you don't feel like you really matter.
Your team's not functioning in an appropriate way, or you don't
have good interpersonal relationships.
Basically, you're creating a recipe where what you've put
into the cake is really bad and now you're trying to slap some
icing on it to make it better, right?
And sometimes you just need to re bake the cake like the
middle, the center of what we're doing is not working.
And instead of spending money on these add on things to try to
combat the culture that we're creating and reinforcing day in
and day out, you need to switch things from the inside out.
So when companies are getting this wrong or the companies we
see having the largest problems with this are companies that
have a bad culture, people are feeling overworked and burnout.
They don't want to be there and they're spending all this money
on that icing, right? Like, well, it looks pretty on
the outside, but when you get inside, it's a hot mess, right?
So I think that's the that's the place we see companies making
the biggest mistake. They're in well intended
potentially, and they're offering things that look like
they're trying to do a good job, but they're not actually getting
to the heart of the problem. Yeah, no, I totally agree.
It's interesting because you know, when you're looking at
different companies structure, you look at the size of the
company, you know their budget they have allocated for
something like this. And it's like they how a person,
you know, how a four person team operates is going to be vastly
different than a big massive corporation.
But often times a solution would be the same thing.
Like it all kind of stems back to just good communication
skills and being able to be completely transparent.
That's what I've, I've found because I've worked, you know,
in corporate life where I was, you know, a number amongst to
see if other numbers versus, you know, running my team now and
it's like regardless of the size, like it's all coming from
being able to communicate effectively.
That's 100% true. And I also think we get asked
that question a lot, you know. Oh, and all your research on
this topic, well, does this only work in a big organization?
Does it only work in a small organization?
Well, when you're talking about leadership and you're talking
about culture, you're talking about setting a tone.
It really works across the board.
You may have to have, you may face more challenges in a large
organization, getting consistency in the tone across
all of the leaders that you have, right?
But the idea or the sentiment of what you need to create is the
same. Yeah, what what are some of the
common strategies companies implements like the icing, so to
see, so to speak, that's just, you know, not really effective
at all. Like throwing a ping pong table
in the in the lounge and probably is not going to be the
the make a break factor. Exactly.
Yeah, I think that, you know, when we ask employees about the
way that they want their Wellness supported, because I
also think a big issue is that, you know, workplace Wellness,
it's an industry, It's a buzzword.
People say it, right. I want my Wellness supported at
work. It's pretty unclear from a
scientific perspective, and it's also pretty unclear from just a
colloquial, popular perspective, right, what people mean.
And different people can have different definitions of that.
And So what we found in our research was that people, people
sort of want 4 main things and that's physical health support.
And that spans a broad range of things.
That's, you know, I would like to have time in the middle of
the day to go take a walk if I feel like my eyes are tired of
staring at Zoom and I need to get up and take a little break
to, you know, hey, I got diagnosed with cancer and I
really need my team to help figure out how the work's going
to get distributed differently during this time period where
I'm getting treatment because otherwise I'm not going to be
able to, you know, make, make this work.
Mental health, getting support for diagnosable things, you
know, anxiety, depression, being able to be open and transparent
about that, have those that dialogues and conversations and
be able to address those issues in the workplace.
Emotional health, people talking about stress management, wanting
to be able to express emotions within professional bounds
freely. If you're upset about something
or worried about something, being able to have those
dialogues and conversations as well as being able to share, you
know, more positive emotions and connect with people in
meaningful ways. And the last is to have a
semblance of work life balance. And I think a lot of
organizations, this is an area where there's quite a bit of
research in the field on what is work life balance.
And the one thing it's not is an equal amount of work and life.
That's sort of a myth that I think because it's an easy, you
know, it lends itself nicely this idea of a balance that
should be equal amounts. It's really about what makes you
feel in balance. What is that formula for you?
And so when organizations focus on those four areas, I think
that they often think of, and this makes sense, right?
Programs, so step challenges or they think about, you know, oh,
we're going to have somebody come do a session and talk about
stress management or we're going to have somebody come do a
session and talk about a panel on work life balance or whatever
the case may be, right. Again, those things aren't bad,
but what really matters is understanding who the people are
on your team and what helps them to strike that balance.
Because for some people, they were like, yeah, like the mental
health part's not so big for me, but the physical health part is
what really, like, gets me kicked into gear.
That's what I really need time for.
Or the balance piece is huge for me.
I'm not as focused on the emotional health piece.
Like, I'm not a very emotional person, so that doesn't matter
as much to me. So it's really less about these
blanket solutions and offerings that people can in their free
time and more about changing the fabric of how things work.
And that requires knowing your people a little bit to
understand well what do they actually need.
Yeah, no, I agree. I think a lot of it too is just
the type of work that one's doing because I don't feel like
people are, I mean, some people are certainly, you know, the
hesitant to to get their hands dirty in work.
But I mean, like, I look at my team over the years and the
people that are happy work really hard, They work, you
know, they work very dedicated. I mean, they, they put their
nose to grounds and they and they put in, they put in the
hustle. But like they see how how the
work that they do is positively benefiting something bigger than
themselves. And I think when you're working
in an environment in which that those dots are not as easily
connected, they just it, it removes them from the work that
they're actually doing. And that just creates, I mean,
you feel so much more monotonous in your day-to-day if you don't
see the bigger picture. Yeah, absolutely.
There's some classic motivational theory that's been
around. It's funny.
There are certain research studies and projects that just
they got something right about human behavior and they just
persist overtime. It's like, Yep, they came up
with that in the 70s and it's still true today because people
are people across the board. And one of the things that is
super motivating for people on the job is to understand how
they fit into the whole. I remember I had a job a while
back before I went into being a professor.
I was working consulting and I was a data stats numbers
cruncher person, which anybody who knows my personality, that's
not necessarily the best place to put me from a motivate.
I can do it, but that's not really my personality.
But the thing that really like got me about the job was I would
get all this data from a client and I would sit by myself and do
all this data analysis and produce the slides that would
help them to understand the trends that they were seeing and
how we could help them solve for those trends.
And then someone else would present it to the client and I
would like never hear how it went or never know what had
happened. And it was just I was this black
box that like data was floating between and it was really not
fun because I didn't understand the impact that my job was
having or how people were responding to what I was doing.
So to your .1 of these base motivational theories talks
about the importance of seeing that whole picture.
And that's something that has stood the test of time for like,
decades. Yeah.
And for that reason, I think it's, it's almost easier when
you have a small company because that rippled effect that you
mentioned earlier is so easily felt with everything like I've
got, you know, like case in point, I got my, my team right
now we're waiting on ingredients to come in.
So we're kind of in a low production wise.
So I've got them doing all kinds of random jobs around the
warehouse space here. But they see, they see the
benefit to everything they're doing.
Like every little small piece is felt.
And the same is true like in the negative side, like if someone's
got an issue that's that doesn't go unknown, like it's felt
amongst the whole team. But when you get to like a
massive conglomerate like that, I would imagine would become
much harder to hedge with because it's easier to kind of
be pushed into a corner and have this, you know, less or more
abstract position, so to speak. Yeah, Yeah, I think you're
right. And seeing how you're having an
impact is harder when the pie is so big, right?
And you feel like you're just like 1 little blueberry and a
giant pie, right. But I would say that one of the
things that we found in our research that is helpful, just
taking it down to 1 of this more micro level, right?
OK, well how can we make? How can we break a large
organization down into small parts that have their own
subcultures that each have consistency in supporting
Wellness? A huge thing in this area is
gratitude, showing gratitude for your team, remembering to say
thank you, remembering to say why you're grateful for what
they did. It's not just like, oh, thanks,
but you know that the impact that you had, I'm so grateful
for the fact that you did this because the outcome associated
with that was this, right? This helped us to better do
that. So really tying that gratitude
to those outcomes. We have a tip in the book which
we got from and this guy I love and learned so much from.
But he would put, and this is, you know, you can do this with a
lot of different sorts of things.
You don't have to have pants with pockets.
But the way he did it was he put 3/4 in one side of his pants
pocket in the morning. And his idea was that every time
he thanked someone, he would move one of the quarters to the
other pocket. And by the end of the day, all
the quarters had to be on the other side of his pants in order
for him to have had a day where he shared enough gratitude.
And you can do that with post it notes on a laptop or whatever
you want to use. But the idea was that, you know,
if he wasn't telling someone how grateful he was for what they
did and why three times a day, that wasn't enough.
Over time, he didn't need the quarters anymore.
He just started doing it. You know, he was just doing it.
And then other people started doing it too, which was really
cool. So gratitude is very contagious.
When you show gratitude to someone, the research shows that
you're much more likely to pay that gratitude forward and thank
the next person for what they've done.
So you can actually create these team environments where people
start to see their value because they're hearing it from you.
You know, they're hearing that they're valued, and that goes a
long way. Yeah, no, 100% when it comes to
leadership, we kind of, you know, alluded to that a little
bit, but the communication and and showing the gratitude.
But what are some other make or break factors that are that
you're seeing on a regular basis when it comes to the upper level
management, the leadership and just the, the, the, the guy
running the helm, so to speak? Yeah.
So we identified 4 key factors that the leaders who we heard
about South in our research, we really wanted to delve deeply
into the bright spots of organizations where leaders were
doing this really well. So we found a group of about 50
people who self nominated to say I had a leader who was so
awesome and supporting my Wellness.
I want to talk to you about that person for 60 to 90 minutes and
tell you all the stuff that they did that was so great.
Great. And then we took that framework
and we tested it out in a sample of several hundred people to
make sure that it replicated and that our results held weight
across a broader number of industries and company sizes
etcetera. And so we found four key areas
that leaders excelled in who were very good at this.
And the first we call not being a superhero.
These leaders were very good about recognizing and
understanding their own shortcomings and communicating
those shortcomings. They didn't feel like they had
to have the answers all the time.
And they in fact saw their team as great extensions that would
help them to achieve their goals.
As opposed to seeing themselves as like this all knowing person
who had all the answers and was just there with their team to
sort of delegate right. And like you're executing on my
vision. I know what everybody needs to
be doing. And so here's what you need to
do XYZ. And sort of their, their voice
is not heard. So they showed a lot of
authenticity and vulnerability. They were willing to share
things that they struggle with. So you know, this is not my
strength, but I know it's your strength on the team.
And even though I'm the leader and you're somebody who works
here, that's why you work here, because we complement each
other's strengths. If I was able to do all these
things, I wouldn't need anybody else on my team, right?
So they're really willing to share things that they might
have as weaknesses and help the team members to see how they're
complementary to those that they could work together to solve
problems. And they're also willing to
share when they're struggling with things outside of work and
show that they're real people when other people on the team
see that a leader is willing to say, you know, I'm actually
going through a hard time right now, you know, maybe someone
passed away or they're having a health issue.
Whatever the case may be, it lets people see that being a
leader doesn't mean being a perfect person with no flaws.
And they're much more likely to see achieving leadership and
taking on leadership as something realistic for them.
Otherwise they look at the leader and say, well, you know,
I don't know that I can be that because it doesn't seem like
this person. It seems like this person's a
robot and not a human being. And I'm a human being and I just
don't know how I'm ever going to get there.
So these laws and vulnerability and authenticity sharing really
help the leader to be seen as a real person who then they're
they're what they're doing is more achievable and realistic
for the people working with them.
Yeah, no, that makes total sense.
What about the the pitfalls? What are the common
denominators? People that are just not doing
it right that cause the the wreak havoc within an
organization? Yeah.
So when people are not doing these, this particular set of
behaviors, this first set of behaviors the right way, we we
call the leaders who are doing a great job at this generators and
people who tend to do the opposite extinguishers in the
book. So we use those two terms.
So the extinguisher leaders are very much faking it that they
have all the answers. They're not interested in
hearing from other people. They view their own way as the
only way to do things, and they're very disinclined to
share that they have any weaknesses.
They're also tend to be not very humble, so unwilling to, you
know, say that they might have something to learn or that they
could grow their own skills from someone in their team.
Much more hierarchical, you know, a very traditional view of
leadership. I'm the leader.
I have the answers. You're the worker.
You take direction from me much more top down kind of command
and control as opposed to this more collaborative environment
where hey, I'm doing the best I can and I'm going to put my best
foot forward. I'm not perfect.
I've brought this team together to help all of us work together
in the best way possible. And that means that there are
some things that you're going to do really well that I don't do
really well. And that's actually awesome
because if we were all the same, if if you had nothing that
complimented me, then there would be no point of you working
here, right? So they're much more rigid in
the way that they show leadership and they don't make
it clear that the employees can help them to learn and grow.
Yeah, no, totally. What, what are the, the telltale
signs that it's just simply not a good fit and it's not going to
get better? Like for me, kind of using
myself as an example, like I, I have this extreme ownership
Jocko mentality towards things. And if I've got a team,
especially with, you know, team our size, if if somebody's not
working at it's like a, it's like a cancer, it just festers
and it just is not good. So I take that upon myself.
I accept responsibility for it. So I try and fix the situation.
But my, my fault, so it seems is that I'll try and fix that to a
point where it just it, it's not going to get fixed.
Like there's some like for me there's just certain character
traits in people that make a good team member and those that
don't. And for whatever reason,
sometimes there's just simply a not compatible fit.
So at what point do you know that's the case?
Yeah, that's a great question. And certainly we believe that
there are limits to this idea that you should be, you know,
learning about the employee and trying to adjust and trying to
accommodate, you know, whatever they have going on if they're
not a good fit for the job role. I would say two things.
One, the selection system that you're using is very important.
If you feel that I'm not saying that you do, I'm sure that this
is not the case. But if you feel like you're
frequently coming across an issue where you're finding that
people are not a good fit for the job or not a good fit for
the culture, there may be something about the way that
you're selecting people that needs to change so that you're
less likely to screen in people who are going to be a poor fit
and more likely to screen them out.
So that's always like a first line of defense, like how are
you making job related decisions about selecting people into the
organization. But beyond that, I think there
is one other thing which is sometimes what we think is a
people problem is a context problem or some other problem
that we're not anticipating. And I got that from a book
called Switch by Chip and Dan Heath that I use in my class and
in my MBA leadership class. And the students absolutely love
this book. It's an older book, but it's
great. And one of the things that they
say is before you assume something's a person problem,
you should, you should also look into whether it's a context
problem. So ask the person, be
transparent with the person that their performance is not up to
par. Ask them what's going on.
Like try to get a sense of is there something going on outside
of work? Is there something going on
inside of the workplace that we could help to make you more
motivated or help you to get the skills that you need to perform
well? So is it a competency based
issue? Do you need more resources or
training? Is it a motivation issue?
Is there something about this that's not exciting to you or
engaging to you? Is there a way we might be able
to change that? And then also, is there
something about what's going on outside of the job that might be
impacting your performance? That if I understood that I
could maybe do a better job of addressing what's going on,
right? If you've done those things and
asked those questions and tried to offer resources to up their
skills or tried to create a work environment where you're going
to be able to create a context that's motivating for them or
you better understand what makes them tick and you're trying to,
you know, tailor the situation to match with that.
If you've done all those things and it really is just a bad fit
from a confidence or motivation or culture perspective, then
it's OK to say like this person's just not a good fit
here. Like that's OK.
But I think people often jump from A-Z and we're kind of
asking people to try like, you know, jump to P 1st and then to
T and then maybe to Z, you know what I mean?
Try to see if there's something else to do.
Yeah, no, I totally agree. I feel like now too, I've, I've,
we've got such a good vibe at the moment.
We've had it for a while now that like I also lean on the
other members because like we've gotten to a point to where like
you can tell pretty early on if someone's going to jive well or
not. So I'm kind of taking this, I've
changed my onboarding process, which, you know, again, screens
out the negative much easier, much more efficiently.
But if it's like not a good cultural vibe because I'm
doubling down on coach, like if I would, I would be happy to
sacrifice some degree of productivity and efficiency for
a better culture. And I don't want to hinder what
we've got going out. So we got going is great.
So if it's like we bring them on and they're just not not driving
with the rest of team like it's like a quick to hire, quick to
fire scenario now. Yeah, yeah.
And I think the other team members perspectives can also be
helpful, right? And, and also it can help the
other team members to know that you did do some diligence to try
to dig a little deeper, figure out what was going on.
So that they also know that if at some point they had some
issue or performance problem, that you would do the same for
them, right? So like trying to make sure
you're doing some due diligence to take some steps to understand
the problem that you're facing. And then if the solution is
that, you know, this person's just not a great fit, of course,
we would never suggest that, you know, you continue to keep
somebody on that's not going to contribute positively to the
culture or who is not able to do their job well, right?
So I think there's a couple lines of defense.
But ultimately, yes, like we agree that there are definitely
situations where someone just not a good fit and that's
reality. Yeah, 100%.
When it comes to like incentive, you know, add-ons, bonuses,
perks, things like that, where do you all find in your research
to be like the most proverbial bang for the buck?
Like on on average, is the employee base more obviously
going to some outliers here, but like are they more, you know,
appreciative of, you know, health coverage or an increase
in pay? Or is it more so like the
cultural component, like having days allocated for team building
experiences outside the normal production flow?
Like what? Where do you find the needle
moves the most when it comes to these incentive programs?
Yeah, it's a great question. So there is a lot of research
out there on sort of basic need fulfilment.
So there are certain things that every job should have in order
to help employees to have their basic needs covered.
So paying a market rate for salary is 1, making sure that,
you know, people do have access to benefits that allow them to
allay their health anxieties like insurance.
So those, you know, having a certain amount of vacation days
to be able to take time away from work, those are sort of
like standard offerings, right, that help meet employees basic
needs and expectations. Above and beyond that, what we
found, which we thought was super interesting, is that what
came up time and again when people were talking about what
supports their Wellness, it was a good relationship with their
leader that just kept coming up and kept coming up.
You know, the leader is central to predicting whether or not I'm
going to have a good experience. So going back to your question,
the culture and the feeling, knowing that you're connected to
your team and that your leader sees you as a whole person, all
of that is seemingly at the center of what companies are
trying to get at when they're trying to promote Wellness.
So we're really trying to get companies to stop thinking about
Wellness as like a set of promotions or incentives and
really thinking about, let's get back to basics.
We need to train our leaders to create environments where people
can feel happy, feel healthy, and then it sort of all emanates
from the center, right? As opposed to having to, you
know, try to solve a problem that you're creating by having a
workplace that's not offering that kind of environment to
begin with. So of course, jobs are going to
be stressful and different jobs are going to be stressful in
different ways. So we were just talking the
other day to someone who runs a branch of a hospital surgeons
very high stress jobs. Is a brain surgeon ever going to
have the same amount of work life balance and stress as
somebody in an entry level position at a corporate job?
No, like the career path that they've picked is more stressful
and has less work life balance. It's just not going to be the
case. But compared to other brain
surgery centers, right? Could yours be one that has
better well-being and better leadership than another one?
Yes. So we're really interested in
trying to help companies understand how to get back to
those basics of creating the best work environment that they
possibly can from the center out, regardless of, you know,
kind of what the employees are tackling from the basics of the
job. Yeah, no, I totally agree.
I think every company should have a gym on site and have one
day or 11 moment where the the top level management, the
leaders train with the the the team.
I mean, I feel like that obviously isn't practical in
certain settings, but that's one thing that we've incorporated
here. And it, it checks all those
boxes because it, it makes you human.
You're struggling, you're going through difficulties.
It's obviously incentivizing health and well-being, but
people see you in a very, you know, primitive state,
struggling with weight, needing help or something of that
nature. I feel like that would check so
many boxes. Yeah.
And I also feel like part of what happens through those
activities, whether it's, you know, something like you're
describing or just going for a walk with a person or, you know,
having some sort of team building activity, it also helps
you to have conversations that are not work related, right?
And one of the things that we find is really important is
getting to know something about your employees outside of work.
For so long, I think that people were so staunch about, you know,
well, that's your personal life. I shouldn't know about that.
And of course, we're not asking leaders to ask prying questions
or, you know, dig up inappropriate information about
people, right? But if you don't know, you know,
I've worked in working work environments where I've worked
alongside people for years and couldn't tell you the name of
their kids. You know what I mean?
Just, it was a work environment where we didn't even have that
kind of basic level of knowledge about each other.
And then I've worked in other work environments where, you
know, we know a lot about each other's hobbies and lives
outside of work. And, you know, what's been
stressing us out or something that's going on that's, you
know, really exciting or a trip that you took or all of those
conversations are more likely to come out when you take yourself
out of that normal work environment or out of that
normal cadence of, you know, this strict business meeting in
a conference room and just do something different.
Different kinds of conversations come up when you do different.
Yeah, no. 100% agree. One thing that we do we, we, we
have like these product launches and after every big launch we
try and do some form of team day.
So normal working day, paid on the hours, but like totally
removed from the normal settings.
Like tomorrow we're actually doing a team day.
We're all going to an escape room, which I've never done
before. So we'll see.
How we? Fare with that, but it'll be
interesting. Escape rooms are awesome.
I've been to actually several escape rooms.
We have some very, very close friends who are very into escape
rooms and so whenever and we travel a lot with them.
So whenever we go to a new place, they find an escape room
when we go. I have to say it depends on the
level you pick, but like they're pretty tough.
Some of them are pretty hard. We haven't lost yet.
I need to bring you along for this trip then I guess we need
to have you get us out of this room, I guess.
But I think I think that's the key like people, people get so
caught up on, you know, the, the stats, the analytics, the
performance metrics. But like, if you just do that
without any deviation, without any break, without any default,
then you you lead the burnout. Whereas like, whereas you just
have that planned moment to, you know, do something outside the
norm. Like people get recharged and
get reinvigorated. They see the bigger picture,
they connect more closely with one another, and then the
overall productivity all increases. 100% And that's a
huge part of the message that we want to share is that people
often see and I think leaders, I mean, it's, it's understandable,
right? Oftentimes organizations set
these really big targets and they're like, you have to hit
these performance targets and it's all about the numbers, it's
all about the metrics. And so they sort of drown out
anything that's not in their minds directly related to that
metric, right? It's like production,
production, production. But what we're trying to show is
that if you just took a step back from that and thought,
well, what predicts production, right?
Not just breathing down people's necks and continuing to say, you
know, these are your targets and you need to hit the targets and
scaring people until they hit the targets.
Like all of those things are actually not what the research
shows leads to hitting the target.
What leads to hitting the target is creating an environment that
supports people wanting to do their best.
And feeling like they can do their best.
And there's so many things going on in people's lives that can
cloud them from doing their best.
We talk a little bit about this in the book as well, that, you
know, if someone was physically extremely ill in the workplace
and sitting next to you and just like hacking, coughing and
sniffling and they have a fever, most workplaces would be like,
you know, you need to go home, right?
But when we have things going on mentally, things that are going
on emotionally, things that are going on outside of work that
we're missing, right? Like you're distracted because
you were supposed to leave at 4:30 to see your kids t-ball
game and but instead you're filing a report or something.
All of those things are actually contributing to your stress and
lack of well-being. But you can't see them, right?
So people are more likely to ignore those or you're missing
your, you know, daily run because you got pulled into a
meeting and now you're going to feel less energized, etcetera,
right? All of those things are harder
to see, harder to detect. So what we're really asking
people to do is take a step back and say, yes, numbers important
metrics important. Like all of this we agree, but
you have to say, well, what's? Leading those, what are the
things that actually are going to predict and focus your
attention on what leads to that, which is creating the
environment that makes that most likely.
And that's where a lot of your time and energy should be going
as opposed to just like reminding people over and over
again of the numbers. They know the numbers, now you
got to motivate them to get there.
Yeah. And it doesn't necessarily
happen overnight. Like a lot of this stuff can be
felt pretty acutely in a relatively short period of time,
but a lot of this stuff takes time.
But I mean like when you look at the compounding effect of a well
functioning team, like the performance metrics will speak
for themselves over enough time because I mean everything is
going to improve. Absolutely, yeah.
We always suggest that when leaders start putting these
practices in place, or, you know, if you have already been,
try to capture the value of that through your metrics if
possible. Because then you can set a, you
can be a role model and set an example for other people, even
the most curmudgeonly person. If you've got better numbers and
you're saying this is how I'm doing it, well then maybe other
people can learn from you and the employees more broadly will
benefit because they'll all be in a better work environment.
100% I know this is all much deeper than you know, the
surveys and the, you know, Glassdoor reviews and any type
of software application to manage this, but I'm a software
junkie and I'm always trying to streamline my operation.
So and working with companies over the years and doing what
you've done, are there any particular tools or, you know,
softwares that you use to kind of streamline this and justice
gather information and check analytics and justice overall
employee, you know, response to everything.
Yeah, that's a great question. So we, I think down the line
would love to build a software that helps keep track of these
behaviors that we've learned and helps encourage leaders to, you
know, engage in these behaviors and helps people to get feedback
or give feedback on whether their leaders are doing those
behaviors or other people on the team are so TBD on that.
But I do have a tool that I really like that a friend of
ours, Alexander Schwal, started a company called Rabbit.
It's like our habit and what that does is it's like pulse
survey reminders throughout the day, not only to provide
feedback to your team. So like, hey, you know, you
haven't necessarily checked in with your team about how they're
doing. Do you want to say thank you to
anyone for anything? Is there anything that you know
you want to provide some positive feedback on?
Is there anything that you think your team could have done better
today? Do you want to send some notes
of encouragement or constructive feedback for those?
So like helping people to get more in real time, encouragement
and also constructive feedback because that's also a motivator.
Getting kind feedback, people like that.
Feedback doesn't have to be scary if it's helping you, if
it's coming from a good place and it's helping you grow,
people actually like it. And then also helping team
members to ping each other and show gratitude, give feedback.
It also helps facilitate post surveys.
So instead of like waiting for the once a year annual survey to
be like, how do you like it here?
And the other 364 days, people are like, oh, well, we were
miserable and now you know, and you could have fixed it earlier.
It also allows you to post check people's feelings about how
they're doing really quick, like happy face, sad face, you know,
very fast types of ways of getting feedback so that you as
a leader also have a check in on like how's the culture going
today? Did something happen?
What's the impact? So those sort of more in the
moment ways of gathering data help you get clued into problems
quicker, get clued into bright spots quicker and allow you to
address them or capitalize on them faster.
So I really like that tool particularly.
Yeah, I got it pulled up right now.
Is there like a specific workplace size where that would
be relevant or irrelevant? Like is it because if you get
too, if you're too small of a team, like having a whole bunch
of inundated software like people tend to to shun, but is
this pretty effective for even smaller teams?
Yeah, we usually say more than three people just because if you
have less than three, it then becomes like more identifiable,
right? And people feel uncomfortable
providing honest responses when it's like, well, I know it was
you, right, that said that you're unhappy with my
leadership today or whatever. In a very transparent culture,
that could go over fine, but in other cultures it might not.
So. So yeah, we always say a larger
than three team size, but over that, you know, people are
pretty honest about what they want to share.
Awesome, awesome. I will definitely check that
out. Well, tell me about the book.
So the book was released when? The book actually comes out
March 25th, but it's available for pre-order now on all of your
major booksellers. And the book is called Leading
for Wellness, How to create a team culture where everyone can
thrive. And our publishers, Wiley and we
are working with them and other folks to try to spread the word
about the importance of really, like I've been saying, getting
back to the basics around how do we train leaders to do this
well? How do we get people to be more
like the generators that we heard about?
And those are the leaders people want to work for.
And honestly, the the workers are the leaders that people say
they want to be like. I really firmly believe that
most people, maybe maybe a small percentage, most people wake up
in the morning and say, like, I want to do well on the job
today. I want to be a good leader.
They just have a lot of blind spots that are getting in their
way of seeing what the reality is, right.
So how do you become the leader you want to be?
The leader you'd want to work for the people that you know you
do want to work for that and that companies want to hire in
value, right? How do you get to be that person
and stay away from the behaviors of the leaders?
We heard the opposite about these extinguishers, which suck
the energy out of teams, discourage people from doing
their best, don't really value whether people feel happy and
well, have a very like tunnel vision around numbers and
results without seeing the bigger picture.
So the book really gives a road map for how to become a
generator and avoid being an extinguisher, which we hope will
be helpful because actionability is huge.
I hate reading a book when I get to the end of it.
And I'm like, yeah, like, great concept.
What do I do, though? So we really wanted to solve
that problem by helping give people very clear behaviors that
they can do like tomorrow, that will help them get closer to
being a generator. I love it.
Is it written for the organizational leadership, or is
it written for anybody that's simply wanting to improve the
workplace at all? Yeah, that's a great question.
So we view leadership very broadly.
Anyone who has influence over a team culture is leading.
So you as a person who has a span of leadership.
So like for you, for example, as an entrepreneur, it would be
particularly relevant, right, because you're in a formal
leadership role. But really all of us have
influence over the team culture and can help either positively
contribute or detract or obviously be neutral, no impact.
That's rarer. And so we view leaders really
broadly because everyone has their part to play in shaping
the team culture they want. Yeah, no, I think that's, that's
key. I feel like everybody should
view themselves as a leader, whether you are, you know, on
the, you know, corporate hierarchy, so to speak, or not.
I feel like, you know, I look at my team and it's like our
freaking janitor is a rock star. Like he's got an awesome vibe
and we love having him around and like he's he's part of the
team just as much as anybody. And I think when you approach
the day with that mentality, knowing that every action or
inaction you make, every word you speak, every smile or frown
you put out is felt, then I mean, it it it all it, it has
that ripple effect that just goes so much wider and deeper
than any of us realize it can put our finger on.
But if you view yourself as a leader, that that in itself is
empowering because you actually feel like you've got, you know,
some dictation as to how the day plans out.
Yeah. And I love how you said that
because a lot of people overlook the importance of that and the
importance of really having people be viewed as people like
and not as expendable. You know that, oh, this person,
you know, there are many leaders who look at people in positions
lower than them and think like, well, that person, they don't
pay attention. They don't know their name or
they don't say hi. You know, I was doing some work
with a company where one of the things that came up over and
over again was, you know, senior leaders come in the room and
they see a couple people who they're favorites and they say
hi and they don't say hi to anybody else.
They they might not even know my name.
And if you think about that from just a motivational standpoint,
like you're just being overlooked or not seen or not
valued, that adds up over time where you're like, you know, I
could find somewhere else to go. Maybe I'm going to leave or I'm
not going to talk very positively about this place or,
you know, why should I go the extra mile when I don't even
think this person knows who I am, right?
So, so all of that adds up and seeing people as team
contributors across the board as opposed to looking at in this
very hierarchical, really more archaic way of thinking about
business, right is so important. But people don't have that
message yet across the board. Well.
That's what we got, people like you spreading the message.
I hope so. Well, apart from the the book
launch in March, what else has got you excited for the year?
Yeah. So we're going to be doing a
couple of really exciting events throughout the course of the
year. We're going to have our book is
going to be in the window of the 5th Ave.
Barnes and Noble for a couple of weeks over the summer.
So we're going to go to New York City and do a book signing
there. We're also having a book launch
party in April in Denver and various other events that we're
going to be having around the book.
So the book is really our big focus for the year and what
we're going to be trying to get out as much as possible.
We spend a lot of time on it. We're really proud of it.
We think it'll make a big impact.
But if, you know, folks follow us on social and keep track of
that, we're going to have some like fun pop up events across
the country in different places where people can meet with us
and hear from us and speaking and also maybe get a copy of the
book. And while I don't think you can
sell my signature for any value on eBay, if people want it
signed we can do that too. I love it.
What are the what are the social
profiles and the website links so I can send people your way?
Yeah. So we're at worker being
WORKRBEEING. So like a little B is our logo.
That's our handle for all of our social and then you can follow
me on LinkedIn, Catina Sawyer, or my business partner Patricia
Gerbaric on LinkedIn to get all of the updates.
Speaking of LinkedIn, I need to totally jump on LinkedIn.
I've got a LinkedIn account, but I've not been focused on that at
all. But I'm about to totally revamp
on my organic social, so I need to jump on because Linkedin's
like the place to be right now, right?
It's growing wildly. We like it.
If you join, I'll follow you right away so you'll have you
know you know, you'll have one very fast follow.
Awesome, Awesome. Well, Cortana, I really
appreciate the time. I appreciate the message.
Like I said, I don't typically have this genre on the podcast,
but it's super important and it applies to everyone that's doing
anything in the world, so it makes sense to have you.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate your open
mindedness and kind of spreading out into this domain and this
has been an awesome conversation, so thank you so
much. You bet.
We'll definitely keep in touch. If there's anything I can do to
help move the message forward, you just let me know.
Thank you so much. Take care.