Loud Loyalty: The Manager’s Role in Building Trust and Engagement, Stacey Messier, GM of CIC New England

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[00:00:31] Hey, this is William Tencup and Ryan Leary. You are listening, hopefully watching the You Should Know podcast. We have Stacey on today. And our topic that we're going to be discussing is creating loud loyalty at work. So why don't we just jump into introductions. Stacey, would you do us a favor and the audience a favor and introduce yourself?

[00:00:52] Stacey, Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me today. It's so nice to be with you guys. So I'm Stacey Messier. I am the general manager of CIC New England. We specialize in the intersection of community and innovation. We sell office space as our primary product, but we really are specialists in collaboration and bringing people together. And my focus is essentially running these incredible co-working campuses and innovation houses that stretch across Providence,

[00:01:22] Boston, Boston, and Cambridge. Loud loyalty. Loud loyalty. I just want to jump in. Like, I love this title. I don't know. I want to understand what is loud loyalty. Let's talk about it. But let's also start in reverse. So I'm sure both of you have heard all of the quiet trends. The quiet quitting. The quiet this. The quiet that. This is all new to me. I like how you went into the voice, too.

[00:01:45] Yeah. For anybody of my age, it's the toaster strudel commercial for what we're doing at work.

[00:01:53] So there's been this advent post-pandemic of people that are trying to find a way to bring control back into their lives, quite frankly. But it's been an interesting journey of how those behaviors are showing up at work.

[00:02:07] And so while we've seen these trends of exactly what we just talked about, quitting, firing, quiet vacationing is a new hot one.

[00:02:15] Okay. Great. We're here. Okay.

[00:02:17] What is quiet vacationing? I want to try this.

[00:02:20] I know. I feel like...

[00:02:21] Just going on vacation.

[00:02:22] We should be loud when we're on vacation, meaning like, I have a loud out of office. Please don't bother me.

[00:02:28] Thank you.

[00:02:29] Anyway, so loud loyalty is the flip of the script. So it's essentially like our argument to saying we can be engaged, positive people at work.

[00:02:42] We can also be people that either want to be together, whether that's physically in a space, whether that's hybrid, whether that's entirely remote.

[00:02:50] It's about recognizing that it's okay to be happy at work. It's all right to also look at the job market, which I'm sure you all have talked about as well, right?

[00:03:00] Like the labor statistics that are coming out, monthly data reports, we're seeing what the Fed is doing, all of the inflation metrics, all of these different interest rates, things are slowing down in a way that it's affecting the job market in a new way.

[00:03:16] And what we've been hearing from our clients and even, you know, from myself and my own network with my own colleagues, the job market is kind of tough right now.

[00:03:25] It's really competitive. And if you're in a place where you need to flip your own script for yourself at work, it's time to bring loud loyalty to the table.

[00:03:36] And so you might get together with your fellow colleagues and just talk about like, what's going well? What are we excited about?

[00:03:43] How do we want to actually create a different kind of engagement at work in a way that matters to each other?

[00:03:50] It may not even have anything to do with your boss or your boss's boss, but you as employees, as staff, as team members want to come together in a meaningful way that has this like purposeful place.

[00:04:01] It's funny because I think this is a reaction to the pandemic because in 2019, I don't think we would have talked about this in the way that we're talking about it.

[00:04:13] One is, is it's become in vogue to just not like work, not positive about work in any form.

[00:04:22] Like I like my work. I like my job. I like my boss. I like going in. I like staying home. I just, it's a part of my life.

[00:04:30] It's not just something I do for money. I actually like what I'm doing.

[00:04:34] I think people that talk like that are less heard or maybe they speak less than they did in 2019.

[00:04:42] Right.

[00:04:42] But I'd like to dissect the, the loud and the loyalty.

[00:04:47] So one's volume, right?

[00:04:49] Then the other is something that is a foreign concept to a lot of folks.

[00:04:55] This generation.

[00:04:56] This way. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:58] I think it.

[00:05:00] It hasn't existed in the workplace.

[00:05:02] I don't know if it's in my opinion.

[00:05:03] I've always, I've always, I've always attributed loyalty to free agency in sports.

[00:05:11] When owners and players stop being loyal to one another.

[00:05:15] We also saw that in society.

[00:05:17] Right.

[00:05:17] It was about the same time that the divorce, uh, divorce, uh, rate spiked.

[00:05:21] And so loyalty was a concept just, your loyalty is, uh, you're, you're, you're, uh, you're

[00:05:29] loyal to your next thing, not necessarily the thing that you have right now.

[00:05:33] Uh, and you're always looking for that next thing, whatever it's a car or house or whatever

[00:05:38] that bit is.

[00:05:39] And so, uh, we can, we can talk about loyalty first.

[00:05:43] We can talk about loud first, but let's, let's buy bifurcator or let's talk about those

[00:05:47] differently.

[00:05:48] And what do you think, which one would you like to tackle first?

[00:05:51] Let's start with loyalty first.

[00:05:52] I think you're right to separate them and decouple them.

[00:05:55] I think there's also, there's both a Delta and a connection.

[00:05:59] So there's a Delta in what used to be a very accessible job market.

[00:06:04] And that on the days that you felt kind of crappy about your job or like where your company,

[00:06:10] where you thought your company was going, um, if you're getting nervous and you're like,

[00:06:14] cool, I'm just going to apply to a handful of jobs.

[00:06:16] Let me take some interviews and I'll say no to a bunch and I'll feel better.

[00:06:20] That is not happening at the same rate it was pre pandemic or even like at the height of lockdown,

[00:06:26] right?

[00:06:27] 2020, 2021, that was a very different marketplace for work.

[00:06:31] Right.

[00:06:32] Um, and so when I say the Delta is really that, like, there is so much space in between your desire of

[00:06:41] where you want to be and how you want to feel at work to where you think the grass is actually

[00:06:47] greener.

[00:06:47] And you may not have access to that grass like you did before, but you think about it being

[00:06:52] greener.

[00:06:53] Exactly.

[00:06:54] Exactly.

[00:06:55] And so I believe that it's creating a new kind of loyalty inside of the workplace because

[00:07:02] people are looking around and are like, well, I don't have anywhere else to go.

[00:07:05] And I guess this place is a cafe.

[00:07:09] I'm here.

[00:07:11] I'm here.

[00:07:12] You know, it, it's a, it's a funny pathway.

[00:07:16] I feel like we're finding a path to loyalty as opposed to we are manufacturing it.

[00:07:20] Right.

[00:07:21] Right.

[00:07:22] Right.

[00:07:22] Right.

[00:07:22] Right.

[00:07:22] Right.

[00:07:23] That's funny.

[00:07:24] Is that a bad thing though?

[00:07:26] Is it, is it bad that it's almost being forced upon us to be, if we get there, if we get

[00:07:32] to the promised land and no, because the backwards, if it's forced, if it's forced, Ryan, the very

[00:07:40] moment that the market opens up all the, all that it is, it goes away.

[00:07:45] Right.

[00:07:46] If it's forced, like if they don't really feel it in their heart.

[00:07:50] Well, so Stacey, I'll get you, we should probably ask your take on this, but as, as

[00:07:58] we came out of the pad, so as we came out of the pandemic, we saw the exodus.

[00:08:02] People said to the employer, no, this is my, this is my rider.

[00:08:07] This is my set of regulations and rules.

[00:08:09] You're going to meet that, or I'm just going to go here instead.

[00:08:13] Right.

[00:08:13] Prior to the pandemic, I don't know in my mind, in my opinion, I don't know that it

[00:08:20] was loyalty that made people stay.

[00:08:22] I think it was the generation where the parents, mine included, said, get your job, keep your

[00:08:30] job, put away in your 401k.

[00:08:32] Don't go do these 10 other things.

[00:08:34] Stay here.

[00:08:36] Once the pandemic hit, that was it.

[00:08:40] It changed.

[00:08:41] And now I think people are doing what they've always wanted to do, which was just do anything

[00:08:46] they want to do and control their own destiny.

[00:08:51] Right.

[00:08:52] Now we're seeing that, okay, you can't always do it your way.

[00:08:56] You have to, you have to.

[00:08:58] It may not be possible.

[00:08:59] I mean.

[00:08:59] It may not be possible.

[00:09:00] Yeah.

[00:09:01] Yeah.

[00:09:01] And I think your question about, is it a bad thing?

[00:09:04] If it's forced upon us, I think it being forced is a, is different than having constraints.

[00:09:11] Right.

[00:09:11] So return to office gone bad is B is it being forced, uh, getting people together to do goal

[00:09:19] setting together and bringing people into the office and saying you're required to get

[00:09:24] on a plane or a train or a boat in order to get to the office for us to do this together

[00:09:28] feels different.

[00:09:29] Right.

[00:09:30] So I want to separate those two things and say that when constraints are put upon us,

[00:09:37] everybody, like our culture is amazing at getting creative when we're constrained.

[00:09:41] So what's interesting to me right now is that the constraint of not being able to go anywhere

[00:09:47] or not having as much access to the freedom of creating your own destiny means it's almost

[00:09:53] forcing you as an employee to have conversations with your boss, with your people, business

[00:09:58] partner, with your mentors, whether they're inside of your workplace or outside of them

[00:10:04] in ways that you probably never would have before.

[00:10:06] And what I'm really curious about William to what you were saying is when the floodgates

[00:10:11] reopen, when the job market kind of like comes back to more of that, like flowing like a river,

[00:10:18] whereas right now it feels like we're kind of the Panama Canal and we've got some controls

[00:10:21] and we've got some leverage.

[00:10:24] Um, when it comes back to that more free flowing.

[00:10:29] Hey, it's Bob Pulver host, Hugh podcast, human centric, AI, AI driven transformation, hiring for skills and potential dynamic workforce ecosystems, responsible innovation.

[00:10:41] These are some of the themes my expert guests and I chat about, and we certainly geek out on the details.

[00:10:46] Nothing too technical.

[00:10:47] Hope you check it out.

[00:10:49] Job economy.

[00:10:51] Job economy.

[00:10:51] Are people still going to actually stay because they've had those meaningful conversations?

[00:10:55] They've changed their own culture about work for themselves because they were sitting inside of this set of constraints that they had never experienced before.

[00:11:06] Well, one of the things we might be dealing with is the redefinition of loyalty or maybe how people think of loyalty differently.

[00:11:14] I think it's lazy and easy to think of it as generationally.

[00:11:19] Um, and I think pre 19, I would have probably done that.

[00:11:23] I would have probably said, well, you know, everybody thinks about loyalty.

[00:11:26] Boomers think of it this way.

[00:11:27] Gen Z think of it this way.

[00:11:29] During the pandemic, everyone rethought their life, rethought their meaning, rethought their purpose, et cetera.

[00:11:34] So I think they also quietly redefined loyalty for them.

[00:11:38] Um, and I think all the macroeconomic stuff has, you've done an eloquent job of kind of defining all of that.

[00:11:47] But I think each person has come to a different definition of what is work loyalty.

[00:11:54] Uh, and that'll be stressed.

[00:11:56] It will absolutely be stressed with, with once the job market opens up more.

[00:12:02] It's going to be stressed.

[00:12:03] Now it'll be great to see how that plays out.

[00:12:08] And I hope you're right.

[00:12:09] Actually, I hope because they've had better conversations, they feel stronger in their teams and things like that.

[00:12:16] That they're like, yeah, I don't really need to go anywhere else.

[00:12:19] I know I can.

[00:12:19] That's cool, but I don't have to.

[00:12:22] The other things that have changed, which is interesting is, you know, marketplace for work has been really affected by how quickly layoffs can happen.

[00:12:31] Right.

[00:12:31] There's a lot of fear that informed the need to want to create your own destiny because you're like, if I don't control it, then somebody is going to control it for me.

[00:12:42] And then I don't know what's going to happen.

[00:12:44] And depending on your own personal life and how this work and how this job funds the constraints that may be in your own lifestyle, that's very different than what it was before as well.

[00:12:57] And so I'm very curious to see what's this journey in this pathway that we may collectively be on where people are going to not only sort of redefine loyalty for themselves, but like, what does it mean to feel valued at work?

[00:13:11] What does it mean to actually put in the hard work just like a personal relationship?

[00:13:16] I hate to say it, but there are some key parallels to being like, you can make a decision to like want to work on the relationship or you can take the easy, lazy way out.

[00:13:27] I love it.

[00:13:28] Yeah.

[00:13:29] I love it because it gets at the heart of, it is a relationship.

[00:13:34] Like Ryan and I are business partners.

[00:13:36] We joke often about, it's a second marriage.

[00:13:40] He's married.

[00:13:41] I'm married.

[00:13:42] It's kind of the primary, to be honest with you.

[00:13:46] So it's like, don't tell my wife.

[00:13:50] But it is, you have to, we're both 50-50 owners in this business, right?

[00:13:57] So we have to agree.

[00:13:59] So it's like in a marriage, at one point you got to get to a point where you agree.

[00:14:04] And so I think that if leaders look at it that way, managers, leaders, and employees look at it that way, like this is a relationship.

[00:14:12] I've got to work on trust.

[00:14:14] I've got to work on communication.

[00:14:15] I've got to work on faith.

[00:14:16] I've got to work on these things that are kind of fundamental pillars of relationship building.

[00:14:21] They don't just drop off.

[00:14:23] Like, you know, and no one's like great at it intuitively.

[00:14:26] You have to work on it.

[00:14:28] But you got to want to work at it.

[00:14:30] Is this driven by the need for money?

[00:14:33] On the employee side.

[00:14:34] I think it depends.

[00:14:35] They need to pay the bills.

[00:14:36] I think it depends on their lifestyle and what constraints they have.

[00:14:41] Myself, I'm a single income household.

[00:14:43] So I have a lot of pressure on making sure that I bring home enough bacon to sustain all of the things that we either have chosen or have been bestowed upon us.

[00:14:53] Hand-tag terrible house renovation situation.

[00:14:58] No judgment.

[00:14:59] No judgment.

[00:14:59] No judgment.

[00:15:00] That's for another podcast episode.

[00:15:03] Anyway.

[00:15:04] But I think it really depends.

[00:15:06] It depends.

[00:15:06] You know, I think we can easily group people into age demographic sort of groupings.

[00:15:13] For the young people that are not married and are not this and are not that and don't have all these dependencies.

[00:15:19] It's like, right, but the young people that just graduated college have student loans.

[00:15:23] They've got they're trying to just like get an apartment.

[00:15:26] They're trying to figure out what they actually can invest in.

[00:15:29] I think the diversity of lifestyles is much more vast now because people have experimented.

[00:15:38] People have tried out meme stocks.

[00:15:40] They've done well or terribly in crypto.

[00:15:43] They've tried a bunch of things or they have goals for themselves that even I didn't have when I was in my 20s.

[00:15:49] So how do we how do we get to a spot then Stacy where the employee wants to be loyal and I say that as if the employee doesn't want to be loyal.

[00:16:04] I don't believe that they do at the moment.

[00:16:06] The majority of employees.

[00:16:08] I feel if they're loyal, it's because they have a need a need to pay the bills.

[00:16:16] And not because of their leadership or what they do or what they get out of work?

[00:16:22] No, I think that was our parents and our parents' parents.

[00:16:25] Really?

[00:16:25] It was join the company and build your way through.

[00:16:32] Right.

[00:16:32] Start at the bottom, work to the top and don't leave.

[00:16:35] Put your percentage away in your 401k, retire at 65 or whatever that age was.

[00:16:40] Right.

[00:16:41] Now I think it's it's driven why they need to pay the bill.

[00:16:45] I think the only thing I would disagree with and it wasn't 401ks back then.

[00:16:49] It was pensions.

[00:16:50] Pensions.

[00:16:51] Yeah.

[00:16:52] The the the difference is I do believe some people actually love what they do.

[00:16:58] I do believe that I'm not an optimist in that sense that they do.

[00:17:01] What they do?

[00:17:02] Yes, but you can do that across 10 other employers.

[00:17:05] No, I think they love what they do at that place.

[00:17:08] OK.

[00:17:08] I know because I was that way.

[00:17:11] I mean, I was that way at Walmart when I was 16 years old.

[00:17:15] I loved what I did.

[00:17:17] Yeah.

[00:17:17] That was a long time ago.

[00:17:19] That's that's.

[00:17:20] No, but I.

[00:17:20] Yeah.

[00:17:21] But but but I mean, I loved it so much that at one point my boss told me, hey, you can't

[00:17:27] you can only clock in for 40 hours.

[00:17:29] And I and I would like purposely clock in for 40 hours and work 110 because I loved it so

[00:17:37] much.

[00:17:38] That's still.

[00:17:39] So that's still that's still exist.

[00:17:42] I agree.

[00:17:42] It might not be as loud.

[00:17:45] Exactly.

[00:17:45] Which gets to the other part of this is because I don't think it's in vogue.

[00:17:51] I think it's passe, actually, for people to talk positively.

[00:17:54] It's so easy to be negative on social media.

[00:17:58] It's so easy to be negative just in life.

[00:18:01] And so we're bombarded with negative everything around us.

[00:18:05] So someone talking positively about work is almost like the hell's wrong with that?

[00:18:10] That's taboo.

[00:18:11] That's taboo.

[00:18:11] Right.

[00:18:12] Because neurologically, negative things are three times as sticky.

[00:18:16] Yeah.

[00:18:17] Right.

[00:18:17] Like we are.

[00:18:18] Our DNA is you touch the fire, you get burned, you run away from the fire.

[00:18:23] Like we are still caveman.

[00:18:25] It's still in us.

[00:18:27] I keep touching the fire.

[00:18:28] I expect things.

[00:18:29] Every time I touch it, I'm like, surely it won't burn me this time.

[00:18:33] Exactly.

[00:18:34] But I agree.

[00:18:36] I think it's I think it's both.

[00:18:37] Like, Ryan, I think you're right that there are some people that are going to be solely driven by the money.

[00:18:45] And, William, you are also right because I have seen it in both working at CIC.

[00:18:49] I've seen it when I was working in online education.

[00:18:52] When you work at mission driven companies, you find more and more people that inherently, no matter what level of hot mess may be happening at an organizational level,

[00:19:03] they're willing to stay the course because they believe in what the purpose of the company is or what their team, what they're trying to do.

[00:19:11] But to your question, Ryan, of like, how do we get people there?

[00:19:15] There's a couple of different avenues that honestly haven't changed.

[00:19:19] But I think it's putting a hell of a lot more effort on the managers.

[00:19:22] So one is like nobody ever stays at a company for a bad manager.

[00:19:27] That hasn't changed.

[00:19:28] People are still not going to stick around unless it's out of control.

[00:19:31] Well, that's a bad relationship.

[00:19:33] Why would we ever want someone to stay in a bad relationship?

[00:19:36] Right.

[00:19:36] Right.

[00:19:37] A hundred percent.

[00:19:38] So it's a big piece of making sure that your managers are building the skills.

[00:19:43] They're spending the time with their people, but also they're spending the time with the right people.

[00:19:47] We can't put everybody at the same prioritization stake.

[00:19:51] There are going to be people that are here and invested.

[00:19:54] And then there are going to be people that are like, I got one foot out the door, but I can't find another door.

[00:20:00] So I'm going to stay three quarters of the way in.

[00:20:03] Yeah.

[00:20:03] So maybe instead of quiet, it's like mediocre.

[00:20:08] Mediocre volume.

[00:20:10] Hi there.

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[00:21:04] So I'll go out on a limb.

[00:21:06] I agree with all the manager bit.

[00:21:08] I think that leaders have to set the tone and create the environment for loyalty.

[00:21:14] So in that regard, they have to create the petri dish that will foster loyalty with managers and with employees.

[00:21:24] And probably that starts with them.

[00:21:26] And what do you think the root of that is?

[00:21:28] Like at the end of the day, when people are actually leading with intention, what's that connective tissue?

[00:21:35] Communications.

[00:21:36] Yeah.

[00:21:37] It's what we saw in the very beginning of the pandemic, where companies were forced to over-communicate.

[00:21:46] And actually it leaned heavily on HR and employee communications professionals to actually communicate what's going on, how this is going, what we're doing, where we're going.

[00:21:59] Right.

[00:21:59] Levels of transparency.

[00:22:01] Communication was happening all the time.

[00:22:02] I think leaders hated it because there was a rigor of communication that they were not comfortable with.

[00:22:09] At a level of transparency that they were not comfortable with.

[00:22:12] And as soon as they could stop doing it, they did.

[00:22:15] And so I think leaders that just take up that mantle and want to create an environment of high communications, high levels of transparency, mission-driven, leadership-driven, clear communications, clear idea, clear intent of where we're going and what we're doing.

[00:22:32] And how you're important to that goal.

[00:22:35] I think those companies and those leaders win.

[00:22:38] And I think they create.

[00:22:40] Again, loyalty can be manufactured, in my opinion.

[00:22:44] You can create loyalty.

[00:22:47] It's a choice as a leader on whether or not you want to create loyalty.

[00:22:51] And it's a series of actions that can – levers that you can then pull to then create an environment for loyalty.

[00:22:59] You can't force someone to be loyal.

[00:23:00] But you can create an environment in which loyalty fosters.

[00:23:04] And Ryan, to your earlier point about the money, I think sometimes what happens is certain leaders think that loyalty is transactionalism.

[00:23:13] Yep.

[00:23:13] Right.

[00:23:14] And that like I think of any special standard high-volume sales roles.

[00:23:20] Loyalty is actually within the bonus structure.

[00:23:23] The loyalty –

[00:23:23] Advertising sales and things like that.

[00:23:25] Exactly.

[00:23:26] Exactly.

[00:23:26] Right.

[00:23:26] There are certain roles that are built to have the incentives and the mechanisms that people get really excited about.

[00:23:34] And granted, like I have no qualms.

[00:23:36] There's nothing negative about that.

[00:23:38] But I think leaders can mistakenly forget that they also still need to invest in the individuals.

[00:23:44] They still need to invest.

[00:23:45] Like I had a conversation recently with one of my managers about how they're excellent at identifying which individual is best for this project, this growth trajectory, that task.

[00:23:57] But they're trying to figure out how do I work with this team as a whole?

[00:24:01] And that's a separate skill set.

[00:24:04] So it's even down to some of the minutia that, you know, just because you're a positive person and you're up there with a leadership hand.

[00:24:12] Doesn't always work.

[00:24:13] Yeah.

[00:24:14] Doesn't always shake out.

[00:24:15] Yeah.

[00:24:16] Yeah, yeah.

[00:24:17] I'm curious to get both of your thoughts on this.

[00:24:20] So, William, you said leadership did not like – we've talked about this before.

[00:24:27] Oh, hell no.

[00:24:28] The transparency during that was required.

[00:24:31] Hell no.

[00:24:34] During the pandemic.

[00:24:36] I do think, however, it drew the employee closer to mid-level managers.

[00:24:44] They're lying managers.

[00:24:45] I think it did drive that relationship closer.

[00:24:49] I did feel that.

[00:24:50] When you and your wife are communicating on a really high level and you're communicating the pace.

[00:24:56] When I'm sleeping.

[00:24:57] Yes.

[00:24:58] Yeah, yeah.

[00:24:59] Like my wife, now we've gotten into this bit.

[00:25:03] It's just a habit.

[00:25:03] We've gotten into this bit about talking about money every day.

[00:25:07] And it's just we get on a quick call.

[00:25:09] We look at a spreadsheet.

[00:25:11] Okay, what do you want to do here?

[00:25:12] What do you want to do there?

[00:25:12] Bam, bam, bam.

[00:25:13] We're on the same page.

[00:25:15] And it's – I mean, I've been married 30 years.

[00:25:19] And we've known each other for 32 years.

[00:25:21] This is literally the first time we've talked about money in this way.

[00:25:25] And it's fun.

[00:25:27] Like I'm enjoying it.

[00:25:28] Like it's not a meeting.

[00:25:30] It's not a meeting.

[00:25:31] It's not a meeting for her.

[00:25:32] It's not a meeting for me.

[00:25:33] Like we look at a spreadsheet and it makes some decisions.

[00:25:36] And that's it.

[00:25:39] Like that level of communication, I feel closer to my wife.

[00:25:45] I feel closer to what we're doing as a family.

[00:25:48] Right.

[00:25:49] And I think – but there's a rigor to that.

[00:25:53] That leaders, again, I believe that they had to do it with a gun to their head at the beginning of COVID.

[00:26:00] But they did not want to do it.

[00:26:02] And you can just see it because it went away.

[00:26:04] If they really wanted to do it, they'd still be doing it.

[00:26:10] So sorry to –

[00:26:11] Yeah.

[00:26:12] No, I agree with that.

[00:26:14] And you had mentioned – Stacey, you had mentioned something.

[00:26:19] I can't remember what it was a while back now, maybe manufacturing or whatever it was.

[00:26:24] Well, I've seen – we were talking about people enjoying their jobs, truly enjoying their jobs.

[00:26:31] What I've experienced is that people frontline.

[00:26:35] So manufacturing people in the warehouse like Amazon, for example.

[00:26:40] Yeah.

[00:26:42] Really, truly fall into their job and love what they do.

[00:26:46] They like the process.

[00:26:48] They like the organization.

[00:26:49] They like getting a product out five seconds faster than it was meant to be.

[00:26:54] Right?

[00:26:55] Those – I feel – this is just me, my opinion.

[00:26:59] I feel like those types of jobs have more loyalty than office jobs.

[00:27:06] Oh, that's interesting.

[00:27:07] I've always felt that way.

[00:27:09] And I've – long – this is long, 20 years ago.

[00:27:13] I worked at Boise Cascade, which at the time had acquired OfficeMax.

[00:27:18] And so we spent time in their Boise, Idaho office in their operations.

[00:27:23] Okay.

[00:27:23] In the centers, fulfillment centers and things like that.

[00:27:26] And even back then, it was a machine.

[00:27:29] Mm-hmm.

[00:27:30] Machines or robots picking out products, dropping it on the conveyor belt and going,

[00:27:34] but the human matching and watching and scanning and doing all this stuff.

[00:27:38] And I was in a sales role, but we had to go through that process to see.

[00:27:43] And they – I mean, the forklift drivers placing something completely straight on the pallets,

[00:27:50] the line workers going up and down conveyor belts, you know,

[00:27:54] scanning quicker than the time allowed them on the clock.

[00:27:58] That was probably some of the most just dedicated workforce I've ever seen.

[00:28:03] I can see them, and I always have seen them, waitresses, waiters, getting food out on time,

[00:28:09] the right people, not writing the orders down.

[00:28:12] That I can get with office workers.

[00:28:14] I feel like there's a lack of loyalty there.

[00:28:17] I wonder what the relationship between what you're talking about is related to pride.

[00:28:21] Mm-hmm.

[00:28:23] Yeah.

[00:28:23] The other connective tissue that I think would be interesting to explore is incentives

[00:28:30] and how you incentivize behavior.

[00:28:32] Right.

[00:28:32] Right.

[00:28:33] Companies incentivize behavior.

[00:28:34] They want a certain behavior to happen.

[00:28:36] They put money behind it.

[00:28:37] They put some type of rewards and recognition and incentives behind it.

[00:28:41] That's a key piece of it.

[00:28:42] That's a key piece of it.

[00:28:43] You want something to happen.

[00:28:44] You put money behind it.

[00:28:46] The opportunity to literally display and talk about how proud you are of your work.

[00:28:53] Right.

[00:28:54] Side note, last week we hosted our first ever Projects and Pivots Fair at CIC for New England.

[00:29:02] These are all of the center teams.

[00:29:04] So we're talking our operations, our sales, our events, our networking programming teams.

[00:29:10] Everybody come together.

[00:29:12] And we had gotten feedback because being in a regional role is brand new.

[00:29:16] It's brand new to me, but it's also brand new to the company.

[00:29:18] And so there's been a lot of both experimentation, but an importance that we're gathering feedback about what is and isn't working.

[00:29:26] So we do OKRs as goal setting, objectives and key results.

[00:29:31] And we had our first quarter review.

[00:29:33] And it was what you would expect.

[00:29:35] I am a person.

[00:29:35] I am standing up by my slides.

[00:29:37] I am talking at you.

[00:29:39] It is a one-way conversation.

[00:29:40] I knew and had a hypothesis that this could be so much better.

[00:29:44] But Stacey, the fun person, may like too much of an interactive experience for the other array of personalities and working styles.

[00:29:54] So we send out a survey after that Q1 review.

[00:29:57] And it comes back and people are like, we want more interaction.

[00:29:59] We didn't have as much socialization as we could have.

[00:30:02] It's so nice to see people from other sites.

[00:30:04] Like, how do we spend more time together?

[00:30:05] I was like, OK, I got you.

[00:30:09] So I launched this idea of why don't we put together a science fair of our work?

[00:30:15] I want you to talk about your goals, what you achieved.

[00:30:18] If you are about to do a project, if you're about to launch something and you want to get feedback, you want to demystify something, I want you to have a booth.

[00:30:27] I don't care if you have a trifold board and you've got a mini volcano that erupts every 10 minutes.

[00:30:31] I don't care if you have a giant rolling TV and you need all of the fancy digital things.

[00:30:36] Whatever it is, I want you to bring it together so that everyone can come and experience things together.

[00:30:43] I did not know what to expect.

[00:30:45] Hey, everybody.

[00:30:46] I'm Lori Rudiman.

[00:30:47] What are you doing?

[00:30:48] Working?

[00:30:48] Nah.

[00:30:49] You're listening to a podcast about work and that barely counts.

[00:30:53] So while you're at it, check out my show, Punk Rock HR, now on the Work Defined Network.

[00:30:58] We chat with smart people about work, power, politics, and money.

[00:31:02] Are we succeeding?

[00:31:03] Are we fixing work?

[00:31:05] Probably not.

[00:31:05] Work still sucks.

[00:31:06] But tune in for some fun, a little nonsense, and a fresh take on how to fix work once and for all.

[00:31:13] I was like, we're going to have probably half of the people are going to show up with actual mini volcanoes.

[00:31:18] And the other half are going to be like, I printed out my slides.

[00:31:21] Apparently.

[00:31:22] Every single time.

[00:31:23] And I mean, even the ones that were invited last minute, and those were our HQ, like our

[00:31:29] headquarter teams, because they're in the same building.

[00:31:31] I was like, if you all have something that you want to provide transparency around or help

[00:31:36] people to further understand, please have a table, sign up.

[00:31:40] We're happy to have you.

[00:31:41] Every single team pulled out all the damn stops.

[00:31:44] The number one piece of feedback I got was, one, we need to do it again.

[00:31:48] Two, I remember what each team did, what their work was, and why they were proud of it, more

[00:31:55] than if you read your slides to me.

[00:31:57] That was a killer data point that like, okay, this is how we start to create our voices and

[00:32:05] our places.

[00:32:07] It's creating three things that I can think of.

[00:32:09] One is you're creating a memory.

[00:32:12] And then second is you're creating an experience that people can then think positively.

[00:32:18] Exactly.

[00:32:19] About, and I think you're also fostering pride.

[00:32:22] Exactly.

[00:32:22] It's something like that.

[00:32:23] It's where somebody can talk about their work and talk about the things that they're

[00:32:26] doing.

[00:32:26] Doesn't matter what it is.

[00:32:29] Janitorial services can come in and go, okay, here's what we're doing.

[00:32:31] And this is why it matters that you do the X, Y, and Z.

[00:32:36] This is what we do with it.

[00:32:37] This is how it makes us feel, et cetera.

[00:32:40] Again, who doesn't want to do that?

[00:32:42] Right.

[00:32:43] Who doesn't want to talk about their job in that way?

[00:32:44] Well, it's also interesting for others to see the behind the scenes of other disciplines

[00:32:50] and areas that they never would.

[00:32:52] I mean, stuff like that fascinates me.

[00:32:54] I like this.

[00:32:55] I want to see the inner workings of, we saw a couple of shows last week.

[00:33:02] I maybe watched 50% of the actual show, the plays.

[00:33:06] I'm looking at the stage moving.

[00:33:08] I'm looking at, what can I see in the background?

[00:33:11] Then how are they getting the clips off the back?

[00:33:13] That was more interesting to me than the actual show.

[00:33:16] I would be, I would be interested in that.

[00:33:18] I would partake in that in a company that would, that would get my interest.

[00:33:24] That's why all those shows on, on TV of how this is made or even on, on TikTok or, uh,

[00:33:32] uh, Instagram reels.

[00:33:34] That's why they're so popular.

[00:33:35] Like I literally watched a guy build a house into a cave yesterday.

[00:33:40] Like for 20 minutes of my life, he literally just, it was all high speed, right?

[00:33:45] It was over two years.

[00:33:46] He built a house inside of an, into a cave, into a rock.

[00:33:50] And I'm like, I got, I got to see this.

[00:33:53] I got to see this play out.

[00:33:54] It was just, it was fascinating.

[00:33:55] So I think, I think what you've done in that instance is created that moment where people

[00:34:01] can be proud and, and create that level of understanding of what they do.

[00:34:06] And again, I think that does create loyalty and it creates at least the opportunity of loyalty.

[00:34:14] Yeah.

[00:34:14] Yeah, exactly.

[00:34:15] I agree.

[00:34:16] And the thing that I've always been most passionate about is I want you to be loyal to each other.

[00:34:21] I want you to be, to have each other's back as a single team.

[00:34:25] And if we can create the pebble in the pond effect, then we're only going to be that much

[00:34:30] stronger together.

[00:34:30] We're only going to hit our goals, our targets.

[00:34:32] We're only going to achieve more innovative things, quite frankly, together, because now

[00:34:37] we've got trust because we talk about what we're proud of because we share in each other's

[00:34:41] successes.

[00:34:42] And yes, there's always time to have, you know, the kibitzing to like sit in the corner

[00:34:47] and talk about what's not going well.

[00:34:48] But like, we have to be intentional as leaders to yank people out of the negative downward

[00:34:54] spiral and get them into a place of, yeah, I want you to shout it from the rooftops.

[00:34:59] Talk about how adding automation to your processes saved you X amount of time and allowed you to

[00:35:06] have more brain space to think creatively at work.

[00:35:09] Yes!

[00:35:09] That!

[00:35:09] Yeah.

[00:35:10] Does technology play a role in this in the coming years or is this always, in your opinion,

[00:35:17] human touch and hands-on?

[00:35:19] It definitely plays a part.

[00:35:21] And this is quite frankly, one of the most challenging aspects of it.

[00:35:25] So this was the first time we ran this event and we had a team member on the planning squad

[00:35:30] that was really passionate about trying to solve for the digital aspect.

[00:35:33] We knew that not everybody was going to be able to attend.

[00:35:37] So how do we actually create some sort of virtual experience that was viable for people?

[00:35:42] We didn't get it right.

[00:35:44] We created essentially like a Canva whiteboard.

[00:35:46] We had had Google Hangouts set up, but only a couple of people tried to sign into the Google

[00:35:50] Hangouts.

[00:35:51] But we had a handful that interacted with the whiteboard.

[00:35:54] So the next time we're talking about, do we have somebody walking around with an iPad that's

[00:35:59] basically like representing each of the tables and can be the sort of like the Twitch feed

[00:36:05] so that people on the call can actually hear the pitch at the table, hear what they're most

[00:36:11] proud of, what goals did they hit here?

[00:36:13] You know what they're trying to solve for in a more meaningful way than just like read

[00:36:18] these slides, have an asynchronous experience while we have a synchronous experience.

[00:36:23] So I think technology has to play a role because right now it's, you know, we are very much

[00:36:29] in a place where I think everyone, every company is still trying to solve for how do we hit hybrid

[00:36:36] right?

[00:36:36] Last question for me.

[00:36:38] And it's how do we, how do we take this conversation and get other people to embrace this?

[00:36:45] Cause it's positive, right?

[00:36:46] It's positive in nature.

[00:36:47] It's like, okay, let's actually care and care and be proud of what we do and be loyal to

[00:36:53] each other and our leaders and the leaders be loyal to us and all that.

[00:36:58] So it's like, okay, now we all agree done.

[00:37:01] Good idea.

[00:37:02] Now, how do we get it done?

[00:37:03] How do we actually proliferate this idea out into the world?

[00:37:07] When you've seen a positive moment of change in the world, what are the channels that typically

[00:37:16] affect the change and make it spread like wildfire?

[00:37:20] We talk at social.

[00:37:21] Yeah.

[00:37:22] It's virality.

[00:37:24] It's also, it's cross channel content.

[00:37:27] It's thought leadership pieces.

[00:37:28] It's all three of us writing a blog post and throwing it up on LinkedIn, commenting on each

[00:37:33] other's stuff and getting that community to engage in that conversation.

[00:37:37] But then also because you have this wonderful show and you have great content, I'm sure y'all

[00:37:42] could split it up, chop it up, create a whole bunch of mini content videos.

[00:37:45] And like, how do we actually invest in one another's storytelling across the channels

[00:37:52] that are already existing?

[00:37:53] Because chances are there's a diversity of sort of like exercising the idea and taking

[00:38:01] that into account for creating a positive network effect.

[00:38:05] Ryan, do you have anything else?

[00:38:06] I am good.

[00:38:08] Stacy, this is, this has been great.

[00:38:12] I love it.

[00:38:12] This has been actually been a very nice conversation.

[00:38:17] Yeah.

[00:38:18] It's, it's one of those ones where I could have gone negative very quickly.

[00:38:22] Yes.

[00:38:22] I heard that in your voice.

[00:38:23] And I did it.

[00:38:24] Well, you didn't hear negative.

[00:38:27] It was, yeah, maybe.

[00:38:30] Okay.

[00:38:30] I heard the potential.

[00:38:31] The potential.

[00:38:32] Yeah.

[00:38:33] Yeah.

[00:38:33] I could have because I have, I, I, yeah, I have a jaded experience in corporate world.

[00:38:40] Really?

[00:38:40] Having, having a serial number, right?

[00:38:43] With an employer.

[00:38:44] And it's, I, I don't, I never saw the loyalty.

[00:38:50] I saw them in smaller organizations I was at.

[00:38:52] Yeah.

[00:38:53] Not the larger organizations of the world.

[00:38:56] And so when, when I hear loyalty to an employer, yeah, I'm kind of like, well, yeah, I had a serial

[00:39:03] number.

[00:39:03] Well, to the check.

[00:39:04] Move on.

[00:39:05] Yeah.

[00:39:05] Yeah.

[00:39:06] How big is the check?

[00:39:07] Right.

[00:39:07] So anyhow, this was great because it made me feel good about what potentially could happen.

[00:39:14] So thank you very much.

[00:39:14] We need our challenge, Statici.

[00:39:16] Thanks.

[00:39:16] Thanks.

[00:39:16] Thanks.