Future Ready Leadership With Jacob Morgan

During this COVID-19 pandemic, we hear a lot of stories about all the good things that companies are doing for their people. But why does it take a pandemic for companies to start being more human? We should be human all the time and shouldn't wait for a tragedy to start doing the right thing. During these hard times, we're seeing more conversations around the importance of being more human; connections, relationships, and how to stay together. To beat this pandemic, people have to help each other. Humanity is, and will always be, the most important skill that leaders and organizations need to have in order to succeed.

Gary Hamel is the author of five books including bestsellers What Matters Now and The Future of Management. His upcoming book is called Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them, which comes out in August. Gary has been on the faculty of the London Business School for more than 30 years and he is the director of the Management Lab. He has been named "The World's leading expert on business strategy" by Fortune magazine, "the management innovator without peer" by the Financial Times, and he has been ranked by The Wall Street Journal as the world's most influential business thinker. He is also a fellow of The Strategic Management Society and the World Economic Forum. This episode is brought to you by Cisco. Nearly overnight, the entire world has found itself adapting to a new way of working. The future of work requires a modern approach to collaboration – helping people securely connect wherever they work, while staying safe and being productive. Cisco is shaping this path forward. Check out their new page devoted to the future of work to learn more and check out their resources including articles, videos, and a workplace maturity assessment. There are some companies that seem to dominate at strategy and innovation--like Google, Airbnb, and YouTube. These companies found a way to create rule breaking strategies that have pushed them into the forefront in their industries. But why is it that some companies can figure out how to do that, while others (the majority) have such a difficult time innovating? That is what Gary has been trying to figure out over his career and what he found was that most organizations are alike--they are all using the same bureaucratic model that stifles creativity, innovation, and adaptability. As organizations we need to move away from this old way of leading, but how? Why we haven't moved away from bureaucracy One of the major reasons why organizations have not been able to move away from this outdated model is because leaders do not trust their people. But because of that lack of trust, it ends up being a self fulfilling prophecy. If leaders feel that they have to treat their people like children because they can't be trusted, the people will feel that and they will stop making decisions on their own. If leaders try to control every aspect of the work, then what motivation does the employee have to do something new and innovative? Gary says, "I make the point in the book that there's a great irony in the fact that most of us, you know, at some point in our life, we're going to buy a car or two or three as we go through life, many of us will ultimately buy a dwelling of some sort. And yet those same human beings go to work and can't requisition a $300 office chair without somebody's permission. And we know from a kind of academic research that when you shrink somebody's autonomy, you also shrink their creativity, you shrink their courage and people just kind of give up. And so, where they may be very engaged in other parts of their life, they're not very engaged at work." The reason why Gary wrote his book was because he became frustrated looking around at a majority of companies that aren't focusing on innovation. They are only changing when they face a crisis and have to change. And while 87% of CEOs think innovation is the top three priority, 94% will tell you their organizations are not very good at it. So Gary wanted to help organizations to see that you cannot become more capable of innovation if you don't change the structures and principles that have kept organizations in a stand still up until now. He also saw that organizations are not utilizing their people to the fullest. Not only that, they are actually holding the people back. We have been using the wrong definition of leadership There are many definitions of leadership, if you ask a room full of 20 people to define the word you will probably get 20 different answers. But Gary says we have been defining it all wrong. Over the last few decades the words leader and manager have been used interchangeably. And usually when we think of leaders we think of the top 20 people inside a company who make all the decisions. How does Gary think we should define leadership? He says "Ask yourself, if you had no budget at work, if you had no title after your name, what can you get done? And so people who need the stick of bureaucratic authority to get something done, I don't think most of those people are leaders, maybe very good administrators, they're not leaders. Leaders are people who know how to mobilize the people around them, know how to get folks to move forward together, and can be catalysts in making that happen. But they're not necessarily defined by a particular place in the organization. So probably, since Drucker was writing, we really know how to train managers, I don't think then or now we really know how to train leaders. But we kind of gave everybody a battlefield promotion when we started referring to managers and leaders. My argument is there are not a lot of managers who are leaders, anybody can be a leader. It has nothing to do with credentials. It has nothing to do with hierarchy, whether you have the courage, the compassion, the sense of community to step up and make something happen, even when you lack that positional authority." So should we get rid of the concept of management altogether? Gary says, we may need to change our language when it comes to management, as it does not refer to a layer of the company or a certain elite group of people. Management is really anything that helps us combine our efforts, do something consistently with purpose effectively multiplying our individual work. Gary believes most people and most teams today are capable of managing themselves. So we need systems and processes of managing together, but we don't need multiple ranks of managers who see their primary role as control and oversight. How Adidas got rid of bureaucracy Gary worked with Adidas and they brought him in to help them get rid of bureaucracy and to build a more innovative culture. They were lagging behind Nike and Under Armour in North America and they wanted to fix that. Gary says that in this instance he was able to train a couple thousand employees on how to think like business innovators. These employees were frontline, retail people who were now trained in innovating and then the company opened up the conversation to get ideas from these employees. Thousands of ideas were created in these open meetings and it got the employees excited and inspired for the first time in their careers. This was so successful they had a second round, but this time they focused on their manager model. They opened up the conversation about the business and the manager model to thousands of employees, which took a lot of courage on the part of the CEO. But that courage paid off big time. A lot of times it is the CEO standing in front of the organization giving their perspective on problems and issues. They are the ones giving the roadmap for how to move forward. But what if any individual inside the company could give an opinion, could have their voice heard, could help solve problems. Gary says, " If you look back at all the people who changed our world, that's what they do, they're not waiting to be asked. They do not assume they're helpless because they don't have a title after their name. They see a problem. They build a community. They go, they build. They try something and they go from there. So these are the hackers. These are the activists who've changed things. And it's kind of amazing to me that, you know, I hear all these CEOs that say, "Gary, our organization needs to change faster". So I ask them a question, "have you trained every employee to think like an activist? Do they know how to build a prototype? They know how to build a community around them to go try something." "No,we've never done that." So how can you complain that your organization can't change fast enough? Well, you haven't taught every single person how to be an agent of change in your organization." The 7 Principles of Humanocracy In his book, Gary shares seven principles of humanocracy that define the DNA of a Human-Centric organization. They are: The Power of Ownership--Companies have a wealth of talented employees, but they aren't given ownership of their work. Which means their ideas never see the light of day. Employees want to be passionate, engaged, and inspired. So give them the power to do so. The Power of Markets--While markets can't function in the absence of appropriate regulatory structures, they are unmatched in their capacity to harness human wisdom and initiative. The Power of Meritocracy--If you want a human-centric organization you can't have rigid hierarchies that make executives king-like and employees like underlings. Hierarchies should be natural and dynamic, based on an individual's performance, not title or tenure. The Power of Community--As human beings we are programmed for community. We need to feel like we belong and that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. Leaders need to strengthen the bonds of community within the organization. The Power of Openness--It is important for everyone in the organization to feel that they can voice their opinions. And people should be encouraged to voice different opinions and not feel they have to agree with the boss. Diversity of thought, background, culture, etc…is extremely important to the success of an organization. The Power of Experimentation--The pace at which any organization evolves is determined in large part by how many experiments it runs. You shouldn't let your organization sit still and wait for a crisis to change. In good times and in bad, you must go try something new. The Power of Paradox--Conundrums are what make life interesting. You have to help your organization become a master of paradox. When you can master it, work will become more interesting and the organization will be more capable If we want to see change inside our organizations, we can't keep defaulting to the old way of work. As Gary shares in his book, "We need to embed new human-centric principles in every structure, system, process, and practice. If we're serious about creating organizations that are fit for human beings and fit for the future, nothing less will do"

It's SO important for you to stay #positive and #optimistic during these crazy times with the #coronavirus. Here are 10 things you can do to stay positive and optimistic during tough times: 1. Understand that you control your actions and emotions 2. Avoid staring at your bank/retirement accounts 3. Don't keep the news on 24/7, set specific times to watch and focus on reputable sources 4. Stay away from negative and pessimistic people 5. Make sure you have a good POSITIVE support network 6. Remember that this is temporary, just like airplane turbulence 7. Take time for yourself and practice self-care 8. Remind yourself each day of what you have to be grateful for. 9. Focus your time and energy on something constructive whether it be work, starting a new business, playing chess, writing a screenplay, etc. 10. Use technology to your benefit to stay connected with friends and family

Martin Lindstrom is a New York Times bestselling author of seven books including Buyology, Small Data, and his upcoming book--The Ministry of Common Sense: How to Eliminate Bureaucratic Red Tape, Bad Excuses, and Corporate BS (Jan 2021). Martin is the founder and Chairman of Lindstrom Company, a global branding and culture transformation firm working with Fortune 100 companies in more than 30 countries. He has advised companies such as Mattel, Pepsi, Burger King and Google. Martin has been ranked on the Thinkers50 list for 3 years in a row and TIME Magazine named him one of the "World's 100 Most Influential people". This episode is brought to you by Cisco. Nearly overnight, the entire world has found itself adapting to a new way of working. The future of work requires a modern approach to collaboration – helping people securely connect wherever they work, while staying safe and being productive. Cisco is shaping this path forward. Visit https://bit.ly/webexfow to learn more. Have you ever had to deal with rules or guidelines at work that don't really make sense? Have you ever had a great idea for your organization that would save time or money only to have the idea killed as it went up the corporate command chain? I'm sure we've all experienced this bureaucratic red tape in our careers and this is exactly what Martin is trying to combat. He is trying to bring common sense back into the workplace. How innovation is killed For the past 20 years, Martin has been working with companies to transform their brand and corporate culture. And what he found was that every company has an immune system that works as a defense mechanism for change. He says, "Companies have it (the immune system) because as soon as they migrate from being a small startup company to become a real serious bureaucracy, what happens is that people are protecting what they already have. And through that, they create processes and compliance and rules and guidelines. And all that becomes almost an invisible straight jacket, which is almost sucking the oxygen out of the room in terms of innovation and transformation." He gave an example of something he experienced while working with McDonald's many years ago. The company had come to Martin to help reinvent the happy meal. Martin and his team came up with a great concept of redesigning the meal to be healthy, but fun. They realized that in order for kids to eat healthy there had to be a narrative that made the food cool, fun and exciting. They came up with a story where the broccoli was the bushes in the forest, and the tomatoes and the cucumbers were tools and weapons in the story along with all of the other food. They tested this on kids and they loved it. Parents loved it. The McDonald's franchisees loved it. So McDonald's gave the green light to pilot the idea across Europe. After two years the company went to launch the new happy meal and guess what it was? The old happy meal food with an apple added. After that experience Martin realized he needed to understand the "immune system" and actually address the lack of common sense that happens with bureaucratic red tape and corporate command chains. Since then they have actually hired psychologists to join the team at the Lindstrom Company. Why companies need to think like entrepreneurs So what can companies do to start removing the red tape and stop killing innovation? Martin says they need to go back to the concept of entrepreneurship. One key trait entrepreneurs have is they see the world through the eyes of a customer or a consumer, they don't see things through the eyes of a business person. Usually the reason an entrepreneur is starting a new business or service is to fill a gap they experienced so they are the consumer. They have felt the pain or frustration on the consumer side, so they know how to make the experience great for others. But what happens over time is the company grows and the entrepreneur starts getting nervous about others stealing their idea or that some of their 3000+ employees will mess up the company brand or philosophy. That's when the safety net comes in, in the form of rules, regulations, policies, etc...And slowly the company starts seeing the world from the inside out instead of the outside in. This is when the common sense starts fading away. As Martin shares, "When you lose a sense of common sense it is quite often because you lose contact with the consumer, the customer. Really the people who are paying your salary, and you need to reconnect with the real world. And most companies today believe that they're doing that through data, they believe that the spreadsheets and all these statistics and research studies are telling them the truth. But the reality is, there's one little thing missing. And that thing is empathy. The ability to put yourself in the shoes of another person and feel what that person is feeling. And as soon as that happens, it's almost like you're resetting the whole mindset. And that's where common sense is coming back." The six roadblocks to common sense In Martin's new book he lays out six of the most common roadblocks to common sense. They are: Bad customer experience--The company is not feeling the pain the customer feels so no one inside the company acts on behalf of customers to fix problems. The way to fix this is through empathy--finding ways to put yourself in your customer's shoes. Politics--There are two issues in this roadblock. First not knowing what other people in other departments or divisions are feeling and not caring. And the second issue is the KPIs that are not aligned. Technology--Technology is a wonderful thing, but there are always multiple issues with it throughout the day that can be a time waster and it can build frustration. We spend around 15% of our day fixing tech issues. It can be a tool or a weapon Meetings and PowerPoints--Not only do we have too many meetings, but almost everyone is multitasking in them and the culture most companies have created around meetings is toxic. They run over, everyone has their own agenda, people are trying to show off instead of be productive. We cannot be productive if we spend all our time responding to emails and sitting in meetings. Rules, regulations, and policies--There are a lot of rules, regulations and policies inside of organizations that just don't make sense. We have to be able to question rules and eliminate them if they are not reasonable. Compliance and Legal--A lot of times people in this function of the company say no just for the sake of saying no. When this function has too much power, it can destroy your company and how it evolves. You have to have the right balance between keeping the company safe and secure, but also they have to be service minded and remember that any rules put in place should be sensible and be for the best of everyone involved. How do we get back to common sense? We have all probably experienced at least one of the six roadblocks, if not all six. So how do we start moving our organizations back to common sense? Martin's advice is, "First of all, acknowledge there is an issue. Number two, map down what the issues are. And the best way you can do that is to look around in your office everyday, take photos and map this down. Then the third thing is then to categorize it. The fourth thing is to create a whole new business model around it. So you actually are both earning money while you're fixing the problem at the same time. And the fifth issue I would suggest, is really to celebrate this whole thing internally." Why should we celebrate internally? A lot of times we want to change, but we don't dare to. He gives an example of a group of chickens he had that were kept in individual cages for 6 months and then the cage doors were opened for them one day. They all went out the door of their cage for 30 seconds and then went straight back to the cages. So in order to get them to come out he had to put corn in front of their individual cages and each time he would put the corn further and further outside the cage. Martin says, "That little piece of corn just outside the chicken case, I call a 90 day intervention. These are short lived, very quick changes you make in the organization. And what you do is whenever you succeed, you're celebrating that throughout the organization. And the celebration is really important, because if you celebrate when picking up the first corn, all the other chickens are looking around, and they feel Wow, I want to feel that too. And it kind of justifies or verifies, or at least it somehow tells the world this is the right thing. And it changes the culture as a consequence of that. And if you continue having these small wins, time after time, certainly it's solidified the fact that we are on the right path. And that's where you have a transformation of a culture happening. So really what I'm saying here is it's super important for you not to just have these long term goals and talk about what's happening five years from now is the goal still fine. But you have to break it down to small bite sized things and celebrate it every time. And I think the key problem in organizations today is that companies are setting those small goals sometimes, but they're not celebrating the success of them, the victories, and that's just as important as fulfilling them."

Money is no longer the number one tool organizations have to retain and attract top talent. Just because you created a sustainable company doesn't mean that every employee wants to work with you and customers want to transact with you. Employees and customers around the world want to be part of an organization that positively impacts the environment, society, and communities around the world. What you need to be asking yourself is what can you do to create an environment where your employees actually want to show up to work? What can you do to create an environment where customers genuinely want to transact with you?

Chris McCann is the CEO of 1-800-Flowers, a floral and gourmet food gift retailer and distribution company with over 3000 employees. The company was started back in 1976 when Chris' older brother opened his first flower shop. In the 1980s Chris joined his brother in the business and they have been working together ever since. Chris was named to the National Retail Federation's "The List of People Shaping Retail's Future 2018." And under his leadership, 1-800-Flowers was named one of 2017's most innovative e-retailers on the Internet Retailer 'Hot 100' list. This episode is brought to you by Cisco. Nearly overnight, the entire world has found itself adapting to a new way of working. The future of work requires a modern approach to collaboration – helping people securely connect wherever they work, while staying safe and being productive. Cisco is shaping this path forward. Visit https://futureofwork.webex.com/ to learn more. Chris actually studied political science in college with the hopes of being a lawyer. When he was back home for holidays and weekends he helped out with the family businesses which included his father's painting business and his brother's floral business. When the time came for him to decide whether or not to continue on to law school, his brother convinced him that there was great opportunity in the floral business, but no other company was filling that role at the moment. No one had taken the opportunity to become what Jim described as the McDonald's or the Holiday Inn of the florist world. When Chris realized there could be a great future in his brother's business, he decided to jump in and try it. The brothers agreed to a six month contract and they have been renewing that contract 6 months at a time to this day. Chris is currently on his 72nd six month contract right now. Learning to lead Chris had worked other roles inside his brother's business throughout the years, including delivering flowers to customers, but once he decided to go full time with his brother he soon took on a leadership role. He talks about the process and how he really learned along the way. Later on he did take some leadership courses at Cornell University, but in the early part of his career he had no formal training. Mostly he learned from other leaders he came to know, including the CEO of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon and the former CEO of AXA Financial, Ed Miller. Chris gave an example of a time when he had turned to Ed for advice when having to let a person go. "As we were growing our company, we had people that were with us for a long time. And sometimes you run into a situation where the job outgrows the person, but yet the person was very loyal to you and very important in growing the business early on. And letting that person go would be very, very difficult to do. And I remember having conversations with Ed about this. He said, "You're not being loyal to that person". I said, "Well, I sure am, I'm keeping them in a job". He said "no loyalty is making sure that every person on your team is in a position to succeed, whether inside your company or outside your company. So if the job has outgrown someone and you don't have a position in your company. It's your responsibility to do everything you can to get them the right job outside of your company". And that really transformed the way I thought about people." Chris also learned a lot from his brother, who not only started the floral company, but he also worked full time as a social worker who helped troubled boys. Jim brought a mantra into 1-800-Flowers that he learned from his time as a social worker. When working with kids in difficult situations, Jim said, in order to connect with them and be able to help them he realized he first needed to build a relationship with them. So he brought that mantra into the business, you build a relationship first, you do business second. And that really shaped Chris as a leader. How to lead in turbulent times Chris has had to lead his team through some very challenging times. He led the company during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, during the recession, and he is leading them now through the pandemic. When leading in times like this Chris says the most important things for leaders to focus on are communication and visibility. He says that as leaders we need to communicate a lot more than usual during tough times to let people in the company know that you are on top of things and that you are looking out for their best interest. As leaders you also need to make sure you are visible to people during these times too. Even in normal times you shouldn't be sitting in your office all day, but especially in times of turbulence people need to see you and they need to feel like you are accessible. People today are fearful and they have had their lives disrupted, they need to know that the mission of the company hasn't changed, that they are still impacting the lives of their customers, and that the leaders of the company acknowledge times are hard. As Chris shares, "There are some things that will not change, and that's our commitment to our vision, any company's commitment to their vision and their values is very important to be communicated to people. I think that at the same time, you have to be flexible, because you have to as a company respond to the changes being thrown at you. You don't have to change as a company, but you have to change the challenges being thrown out. And then also, I think, the most important thing that we've done in this situation, which is different than the financial crisis, it's certainly different than the 9/11 attacks. The fact that people needed to know that every decision we made would be made with the safety and health of our associates, our customers, our vendors, first and foremost." Dealing with tough decisions When it comes to making tough choices Chris has learned that the first thing leaders must do is make the decision very diligently, you can't just react. It is important to take a step back, look at whatever data you have, and analyze all the impacts of your decision. In almost every decision there are positive impacts and there are negative impacts. Know what the positive impacts are and figure out how to manage the negative impacts appropriately. "For example, if you close a facility, it may be the right decision for the business, it may be the right decision for the profitability of a company, but there's negative impacts on the people that are in that facility. What do you do for them? How do you help manage that process? It goes back to our earlier conversation about loyalty. So I think, as we look at this, you need to really understand the information, assess the possible outcomes. And then most importantly, I think, take responsibility. Once you make that decision, you can't pass that responsibility on to someone else. It's your responsibility to make sure it's successful." You may have to involve other people in your decision, but regardless as the leader, the responsibility always falls back on you. So it is important to think decisions through carefully. Dealing with imposter syndrome It is very common for leaders to struggle with self doubt or a lack of confidence, especially when they don't get formal training. Chris admits he feels imposter syndrome from time to time. When asked how he deals with it, Chris says it takes time and experience. Each time you face a tough decision or a problem within the company it will take you to the next level. And the more experience you have the more comfortable you will be to the point where you can feel like you know what you are doing and it doesn't matter what others are doing because you are measuring your success based on the inputs and successes of the people around you. Chris shares a few theories he and his brother used in their business. He says, "I remember as we were growing our business early on, we said there are two management theories that we will follow. One we call the Nike theory. And it was just do it because there's nobody else here to do it. So figure it out and get it done. And then the other was the Reebok management theory. And Reebok at the time was all about cross training. And we made sure we did that, made sure we'd rotate people throughout the company. And as you do that, and you get experience in each of these different areas, you really build your own self confidence."

A few years ago, I was asked to give a talk to a few thousand people. A week or so after the talk, the client sent me feedback from the attendees and it was...terrible! I scored below a 3 out of 5 and was shocked! I was confused and asked the client to send me the actual responses so I could see why I scored so low. As I read through the feedback it all made sense--context! For starters, from the thousands of people in attendance, only 60 filled out the form. As I read the comments I saw people complaining that there was no restroom break, they didn't like the food, it was too dark, it was too loud, etc. In other words, 95% of the feedback had absolutely nothing to do with me at all! Context matters a great deal in business and in life.

Frances Frei is a Professor of Technology and Operations Management at Harvard Business School. She is also the bestselling co-author of two books, Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business and Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You. In 2017 she joined Uber's team as the first SVP of Leadership and Strategy to help the company navigate its public crisis in leadership and culture. She has a popular TED Talk titled How to Build (and Rebuild) Trust which has over 4 million views. Frances has always been interested in operations--how things work and how to make things work better. But being interested in operations has led her work to focus on leadership. As she shares, "I pretty quickly came to the conclusion that if it weren't for the pesky humans, operations would work beautifully. And then I got super intrigued by the humans, and then realized that the humans were led. So then that took me to leadership aspects, but the technology and the operations have stayed strong. So most of the companies I've worked with have some, they're either being disrupted by technology or they're digitally native. But everything I do is around how to make people and organizations better." Leadership is about making other people better In her book, Unleashed, Frances talks about one of the big assumptions that people have about leadership that is actually incorrect. For the last few decades the focus has been on building leaders up and getting them to inspect themselves. When actually leaders should be focused outside of themselves--it should be about making other people better first. Leadership isn't about you, it is about other people. Leaders should walk into a room and not want everyone to be thinking about them as a leader, but the leader should be the one thinking of everyone else and how to set those people up for success. The problem with Uber and how they fixed it While teaching at Harvard Business School (HBS), one of Frances' students approached her to convince Frances to have a conversation with Uber's then CEO, Travis Kalanick. Due to several scandals and bad decisions the company was going through a very public crisis at the time in leadership and culture. After Frances and Travis talked for three days, Travis asked for her help and she officially joined the team in June of 2017. She was prepared to stay until the job was done, and as she shares, they were able to turn things around much quicker than she had expected. At the core of what they did was a massive amount of executive education. Frances shares the major underlying problem, "Of all the problems that were surfaced, well over 90% had to do with a person and their manager. There were 3000 managers at Uber. So there were either 3000 bad people, or Uber was doing something systematically to not set managers up for success. We very quickly found out that it was the latter. And here's what was going on, I get hired as an individual contributor, and then the company was growing so fast that like, five minutes later, you got promoted to a manager. You didn't have any training. And then five minutes after that, by the way, you became a manager of managers. Turns out that management is a skill, a skill that can be taught, but no one was teaching folks. So we had to teach people how to manage, like, how to give effective feedback, how to set goals, all of the basics, including then how to be inclusive. How to set people up for success. So that was one part, is that it was clear that managers were at the tip of the spear where the problems were, but it wasn't their fault and education would solve it." From there Frances was able to get Uber and HBS to partner to create a training platform that was accessible to all 3000 managers across the world. Through this platform they gathered top experts in teams, globalization, leadership, etc...who then taught classes on things like how to build trust, how to set a team of people up for success, and how to design and shepherd a culture. This training continues on inside the company even to this day. And it has had a huge impact on how the company operates. What to do when company values are weaponized Frances works with other companies, as she did with Uber, to help fix broken cultures. When asked if there has been anything she has tried that failed, she brought up the topic of weaponized company values. What is a weaponized value, you may ask. Frances explains it as taking an internal value, which may sound like a wonderful thing, and using it in a negative way for your own personal benefit. She gives the example of a value inside of Uber when she first arrived, which was Default to Trust. Now that sounds like a beautiful cultural value, basically saying let's give each other the benefit of the doubt. But what was happening was senior leaders were taking that value and throwing it in the face of junior people who started questioning them. They used Default to Trust as, stop questioning and just do what you are told for their own selfish reasons. The part that failed was that she thought the answer was to re-educate people and change the thought process behind the value that was twisted. But in those kinds of situations, Frances says, the only thing to do is get rid of the value altogether. Once a value has been weaponized there is no amount of re-education that can bring it back to the original intent. Let it go and come up with a new value. The three elements needed for successful change In light of all of the challenging times we are facing around the world--including the global pandemic and the protests in America, Frances shared her advice to leaders on what to do in difficult times like these. There are a lot of CEOs and leaders around the world who are stepping forward and taking action for the better, but in order to make those changes sustainable there are three elements, Frances says, that have to be present. The three elements needed for successful change are: Honor the past--Talking about the past in a sincere and detailed way is important in any change whether inside of an organization or a society. You need to say, some of you will remember we did this before, here's what happened. Here are some good things that came from that, and here are some lessons we learned. Don't assign blame to individuals, share the good and the bad and the lessons learned. Then explain the changes being made and why they will make things better. A clear and compelling change mandate--This is the answer to the question "why now"? This is normally the hardest thing for a company to come up with, because if things are going well, it's hard to get people to want to change. You have to be able, in a short and concise way show a super compelling reason why change is needed. You have to get people's pulse up to get their entire heart and soul into the change. Have an optimistic way forward--The way forward has to give hope, but it also has to be extremely thorough and detailed. What specific steps need to be taken to get us to a better future?

How is it that in an organization there are leaders who everyone hates, are scared of, and don't want to work with, and in that same organization there are leaders who everyone admires, respects, and wants to work with? In this mini-podcast episode, I talk about the two types of leaders and why we have these in our organizations.

Robert Glazer is the bestselling author of Elevate: Push Beyond Your Limits and Unlock Success in Yourself and Others. He is also the CEO of Acceleration Partners, a 13 year old company that manages affiliate and partner marketing programs for a lot of well known brands such as Adidas, LinkedIn, Target, Instacart, and Hotwire. Robert has around 260,000 LinkedIn newsletter subscribers, he has a 100% approval rating as a CEO on Glassdoor, he is ranked #2 on Glassdoor's list of Top CEO of Small & Medium Companies in the US, his company has a 4.9 out of 5 star rating as a place to work, and 99% of employees would recommend the company to a friend. He frequently contributes to Forbes, Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine and Thrive Global and he is the host of the popular Elevate Podcast. The team of 170 people at Acceleration Partners is 100% remote, and they have been since day one. So Robert knows the ins and outs of successfully leading a team that he doesn't see in person every day. This is something that a lot of CEOs are having to learn on the fly now, as a large portion of organizations are moving to virtual during the pandemic. How to create a culture for a remote workforce Robert shares that the key to having a successful remote team is by starting with the core values of the organization. Once you know your core values you can intentionally attract and hire the right people. Contrary to what happens in most organizations, Robert and his team understand that not every person will feel like the company is right for them. A lot of organizations try to be the best place to work for everyone. But just as not everyone will like the same food, or the same music--not everyone is going to be a good fit for your company, and that is okay. As organizations we need to learn to embrace that fact. We need to be open and honest with potential hires about what it is really like to work inside the organization. It is not effective to sugar coat what their experience might be. Robert says staying consistent in your core values is very important for building that culture. Inside of Acceleration Partners they reward and punish based on the company values, which are Own It, Embrace Relationships, and Excel & Improve. Those are the values that they consistently talk about and support. There is no question about what the company stands for and what they look for in their employees. For people who feel that it is a good fit, the company has a lot of tools and resources that they utilize to help everyone feel connected. Employees use Slack to communicate, they have frequent video calls, they have regional in person meetups, and they have a company wide in person AP Summit at the end of each year. But ultimately it is the people who create the culture. So having those core values set up from the beginning and using those for attracting and hiring is critical. Four ways to elevate yourself In his book, Robert lays out four elements that go into bettering yourself. They are: Spiritual-- this is not religious, it is about knowing who you are and what you stand for. What do you want the most and what are the standards you live by each day. You need to know where you are going. Intellectual-- This is how you get to where you are going. You need to have long term and short term goals. You have to establish routines and healthy habits. Physical--If you don't take care of yourself physically you will be too tired and unfocused to get things done. Eat healthy, exercise, take care of your body. Emotional-- This is how you react to challenging situations and it affects the quality of your relationships All of the individual elements impact each other. If you don't take care of yourself physically you feel tired and sick. If you feel sick and tired you are more likely to be impatient with people around you, you can't focus on your goals, you don't stick to morning routines, etc...You have to have all of these elements balanced in order to effectively elevate yourself. Robert has used these four elements to build the training for employees inside his company. He says, "We've always believed in investing in people holistically, like what are the things that we can train them on-- about health productivity, time management, leadership-- where they get better at work, but they also get better outside of work? They're better parents, they're better spouses, they're better children, brothers and sisters. Now is sort of the real breakthrough, what we're seeing is 80% of our people, in leadership, have really grown up from within. We were able to get our people to keep growing with us because we were investing and building their capacity. So a lot of our training actually even revolves around this as part of that thing I mentioned before I take a bunch of leaders off and I work with them on their personal core values, I don't think you can be a good leader if you aren't clear what you value and you can communicate that, f you don't know how to set goals, if you don't know all these other things like these affect your performance overall." How leaders can encourage others to build these capacities for themselves Leaders need to support their team holistically. As Robert shared, when employees are happy, healthy, engaged, and thriving outside of work they are going to show up to work ready to go. Encourage employees to start book clubs or workout challenges. Provide access to learning platforms. Offer training on how to set goals or create healthy habits. Be sure to lead by example and work on these four elements in your own life as well.