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(bright upbeat music) (bright inspirational music) - Welcome to "Business Forward."

I'm your host, Matt George.

This is part two of a series on employee engagement.

Joining me tonight, Lee Hoffman, who is the director of culture transformation at Ledgestone, and Cole Stalter, who is the employee engagement consultant at Ledgestone.

Welcome again.

- Good to be back.

- I wasn't done.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

So we really, I really love the topic, you know this, of leadership, employee engagement, anything that has to do with business.

But now I want to talk about the impact of employee engagement and leaders.

And leaders, so, 70% of a team's level of engagement is solely determined by their leader, right?

- It's a staggering statistic, actually.

70% of whether or not I enjoy coming to work or not, right?

If I enjoy my job is based on that supervisor directly above me.

- 70?

- 70%.

So it tells you that leaders have power.

And sometimes, Cole and I, when we're working with a group of leaders, I'll remind them, "Hey, that stat."

Like you think you're just coming to work and I'm plugging away just like everyone else.

No, no, you're not just plugging away like everyone else.

You're leading.

And the decisions you make on a day to day basis greatly impact how people feel.

And we covered it last time about not only while they're at work, but our interactions at work impact what happens when we go home, right?

- Yeah.

- When we're completely stressed out at work and overwhelmed and just, we take that home to our families.

So when leaders realize, "Hey, if I treat employees the way they need to be treated, I'm not only helping my business, I'm helping them as a person, them as their family, and our whole community," right?

That's the value of work and the power of work when done right.

- I think people have an issue or a problem with, like, one thing that bothers me in our community, right?

Just all communities, society, is, is that we don't care enough all the time, or at least show it to each other.

That we don't understand what's going on in Lee Hoffman's life or Cole's life.

You don't know if this person has a second job or if their mom has, battling cancer, or if their husband is in the military or spouse is in the military.

You don't know what's going on.

So there has to be that empathy and sympathy piece inside you as a leader.

That's that servant leadership, Cole.

And it's true.

So how can leaders actually change the culture of an organization to drive a more positive employee experience?

Because I think that's what it's about.

- Right.

No, absolutely.

That's what it's all about.

- [Matt] I don't know why I'm getting fired up right now.

- It's 'cause you care, Matt.

- Yeah, that's true.

- Positive employee experience.

Before I answer that, I want to take you back to these kind of two ways of thinking that we have in our brain, right?

So there's a book out there called "Thinking Fast and Slow."

And that whole book, what it does is it presents two ways of thinking.

There's the automated thinking, right?

Things that are quick, usually thinking that's done with our feelings, right?

Then there's the rational thinking, thinking that takes more time.

You're thinking through all the parts, the processes, you're weighing it, right?

That's our thinking, thinking.

We're trying to be rational about it.

But to take that step further, there was a University of Virginia professor, Jonathan Haidt, and he created a metaphor to help us better understand these two ways of thinking.

And it's the rider and the elephant.

- Okay.

- Okay.

Now, the rider represents, imagine a rider sitting on top of an elephant.

The rider represents our rational thinking, right?

It's very detailed and it's very logical, mostly.

It's very thought out.

But the weakness of the rider is that they can overthink and it can cause delay in performance or action.

Now, let's go over to the elephant.

- Or anxiety.

- Or anxiety.

Yeah, absolutely.

Cause us to spin, all the time.

- Right, right.

- You're never certain that this is what I should do.

And so that's a problem and that's part of us.

We all have a little part of that rider in us.

Now we also have, all have a little bit part of the elephant in us, which represents that automatic thinking, that very strong emotional thinking.

All right, the elephant, a very big animal.

It's a powerhouse, right?

If you can engage the elephant of an individual, then you are likely going to make them move.

But the problem is, is that you have the rider.

Sometimes the rider knows where to go, but the elephant does not want to go there, okay?

A lot of times people know that they should go to the gym, they know that they should be eating healthier, but the elephant does not always want to do that.

So the rider can pull and pull and pull.

- Uh huh.

- But it will never overpower the elephant, right?

So one of the main jobs of the leader is to get the rider and the elephant in sync, right?

So that they want to go in the same direction.

Now, there's another part to that, right?

The leader not only has to bring that, those two thought processes together, but they also have to work to then show them the path, which, when we talk about the path, we're talking about accountability.

You have to show them the way to go.

- So the goal there though is to make or have the employee feel more security, alignment- - Right.

- [Matt] With the mission or business, whatever it may be.

- Absolutely, so just, touch back on our framework, we say that employees need to feel things from their leaders.

Whether these feelings create certain thought patterns, but the six main feelings they need to feel, they need to feel secure, connected, aligned, right?

They need to feel purposeful, they need feel valued, and they need to feel accomplished.

- Well, I've heard you talk about before you need to address the head, the heart, and I think the way.

- Mm-hmm.

- What does that mean?

The way?

- So the way is, like I mentioned, the path.

Like you have the rider and the elephant.

- It's the direction.

- The rider is the head of the person, the thinking, the elephant's, the heart of the person, the thoughts and the emotions.

And then you need to move them and make it easy for them to create movement in your organization.

- So the head is the strategy or the process to implement.

- Right.

- Okay.

- It's the knowhow.

- It's the knowhow.

- It's the, "Do I actually know what I'm doing?"

Versus the elephant is, "Do I actually want to do this?"

- Hmm, I've never heard that before.

That's a pretty good one.

- Yeah.

- So what skills do leaders need to address these areas?

- Yeah, well, Gallup, we refer to Gallop a lot 'cause Gallup has a ton of data, right?

For decades they've been asking employees questions.

So they have a lot of great just kind of benchmarks.

You can go and say like, "What's working, what's not working?"

And they did a decades long study, hundreds of thousands of different employees that they asked them, "What makes a good leader?"

And through this whole thing, they found out that shockingly, 82% of the time, organizations advance the wrong leader.

82% of the time.

- Oh.

I could have a whole show on this, by the way.

But go ahead.

- And all because, and a lot of times it's not, I mean, sometimes there is like, "Hey, you know, my brother's friend is also working," right?

There's some of that favoritism that goes on.

But I think often it's just, it's misguided on what's important, right?

It's technical expertise, tenure in the company, right?

It's institutional knowledge.

And we say, "Hey, you're good at this role, I'm gonna now put you over people."

And they found that often that's wrong because they've determined after assessing all these decades long research study that there are five main things that great leaders do, great managers do.

Here they are, you ready for 'em?

- Yes.

- Connection.

They're able to develop a connection with their employees.

So they're able to just get on that personal level, that trust level we've talked about.

Motivate, they're able to motivate people, get people excited around ideas, around a vision, around a mission, right?

- Very hard.

- Yep, "We're going this way."

So great leaders, they connect and they motivate.

They also are decisive.

They know, "Hey, here's the facts I have.

Here's the knowledge I have and here's the decision we're making," right?

So they're decisive on being able to make a decision based on good knowledge, good facts, good understanding.

The fourth one, assertiveness, right?

As leaders, we all face times when either pressures, fiscally, pressures with morale in the organization, resistance, great leaders are able to push through that resistance and be assertive with what they've decided.

And the fifth one, Cole's already mentioned it, they're able to create a clear culture of accountability.

So if you look at there, they connect and they motivate, they decide, they assert on those decisions, and they provide accountability.

- All right.

But what if you're only good at two of 'em?

(Lee laughs) - Well, here's what they found.

You ready for this?

Only one out of 10 people in organizations can do all five of those really well.

So that's discouraging.

But they found two to three more can be trained to do those five pretty well if they have the right training.

What that leaves is that half of them probably can't do all five very well, but we believe that everybody can grow in some way, right?

So Gallup's research would say, "Hey, there's three to four employees that can do those five really well."

Now what's interesting, if you simplify that down, right?

You have two kind of relational things.

You connect with people and you motivate them.

And then you have two strategy things, right?

You have, I'm decisive and I'm assertive.

And then what we believe is that fifth one, that accountability, is actually the pinnacle of all leadership.

That's what leadership is, is getting people to do what needs to be done for the organization to reach its goals, right?

That's the goals, accountability, and you need both those things, that connection, right?

And then that ability to drive and get results.

So everything a leader should be doing is, am I building relationship with people and am I driving them forward?

And I'm creating this accountability, what Cole just mentioned, the way, right?

That's what it is, right?

So I'm showing them the head, I'm connecting with them, right?

Or the heart.

I'm explaining the head to them.

And now I've created a way through, how are we reaching our goals, what accountability process are we, am I able to have a direct conversation with you when you fail?

Like, can I have that hard conversation?

That's all part of accountability.

- Yeah, I've never had a problem with that piece.

And I'm not being silly, like when you were talking about these, I was actually ranking them in my head of what I'm best at.

- Yeah.

- So I probably would say, me as a leader, decisive is number one, I'd probably say connection is two.

And then out of motivation being, assertive, and accountability, I don't know.

But I was thinking of a story, I was kind of zoning out as you're talking 'cause what happens is when you're asking these questions and you're explaining something, I go right into CEO mode.

- Yeah.

- And Cole, I'm gonna tell you just a quick story of where I failed as a leader, okay?

And this is a true story.

And there's not, I didn't mean to do this, right?

And I felt so bad, but I failed an employee and here's how.

My intentions were great.

This person needed a boost.

This person was really busting their butt.

They cared about the place, they cared about the mission, and they were doing a darn good job.

So I promoted 'em and they failed.

And I've never felt so bad for someone, and they left.

And I'll never forget, I went home at the end of this.

It bothered me for months.

And that's how long it took because these things aren't quick.

You know, they drag out.

- Right.

- It's a slow death, so to speak.

But I learned a lesson and that was probably about eight, nine years ago, and I learned a lesson and the lesson was that that empathy and sympathy piece sometimes can get clouded for feeling bad for somebody or wanting them to win.

And I think as a leader, and you guys see this with so many of the companies that you work with, including the Fortune 500 companies you work with, that true, good leaders want to see everyone win no matter what position it is.

But what's hard is when you overstep your power and I overstepped my power.

Do you see that with some companies?

- Oh yeah, absolutely.

And it ties back very much so into what Gallup says, that only a very few amount of people are actually set up that have these core leadership traits to actually be a leader.

And your story, what it reminds me of is just a very common mistake that a lot of people do, right?

There's this halo effect bias that occurs.

- Hmm.

Yep.

- And you start to think, like you look at an employee, right?

And they're performing really well in their role, right?

And they have all this bright light shining on them 'cause they're doing so well and there's a lot of optimism with 'em because they're performing really well in this area and it's making good things happen.

And so what leaders often do is they'll look at that individual, "Oh, they're top of their class," essentially, right?

I need a leader.

Who am I gonna go to?

Well, I'm gonna go to the highest performer, but the highest performer is not always who would make the best leader.

So it's a very common mistake and sometimes it works out and your hunch was spot on or your move was right.

But other times it doesn't.

And I'm gonna go back to what you said.

You said, you know, as a leader, a lot of times you want everyone to win, but people win in different ways, right?

Winning doesn't always mean- - It doesn't mean how I think winning is.

- Right, exactly.

Exactly.

- But.

That's hard.

- It's tough.

- Because I really don't know you well enough to know what a win equals to you.

- Right, and that's where that connection piece comes in.

You know, knowing your- - Bingo.

- Knowing your employees, knowing what they aspire to be, where they want to be, it is very important.

So that way you can strategically and appropriately utilize them in the way that is best.

- And I gotta jump in here, and it's not just what they want.

That's part of it.

'Cause sometimes we can go too far that way.

We're like, "Hey, this employee here, man, they really want this."

And as a leader, we give something to them that they're not ready for, which is what you did, and they end up failing.

So when we talk about equity, 'cause that's one of the pieces that we talk about, you gotta treat people fairly, it's what the employee needs so that they can best help the organization succeed, right?

To promote someone who's not ready is actually a disservice to them.

Now, if you're not giving them the training they need.

- Why you gotta keep rubbing it in?

(Lee laughs) - If you're not giving them the training they need and you're giving it to other people, well that's a problem, right?

You're not treating people equitably.

But just to say, "Hey, we're gonna give everyone the same opportunity," is just creating policy instead of leadership.

And leadership always trumps policy.

- That is a great thing you just said, because I can again relate to that.

These are like, I have a thousand stories.

So I wrote something down.

You said something that I want some, I want you to clear it up or explain it again.

Clear environment of accountability is the pinnacle of leadership.

- Yeah.

- What does that mean exactly?

- Well, organizations are meant to fulfill a purpose, right?

If you're not fulfilling a purpose, then you probably shouldn't exist.

So we assume almost every organization is fulfilling a purpose.

Now, take a children's home or a school that I came from, it's easy to spot their purpose, right?

Now- - Mission's easy there.

- Mission's easy there.

When we're working with those companies, that's like, "Hey, your purpose is screaming at us."

Now, go to a fast food restaurant.

Like, oh, that purpose isn't quite as clear.

- Very true.

- Right?

I'm just dipping fries.

- An accounting firm.

- Yeah, an accounting firm, exactly.

- Whatever.

- But a goal of a leader is to figure out what is that purpose and how can we motivate employees behind how we're making the world better?

And then accountability is just making sure we're living out that purpose as an organization.

So that's why we say accountability is the key.

And often, accountability is seen as this negative word, like, oh, accountability.

Like it's this harsh word.

But once again, I'm gonna reference Gallup.

Gallup came out and said that employees, when they say, "My direct supervisor holds me accountable," are 2.5 times more likely to be engaged.

- [Matt] Wait a minute, say that again.

- When an employee says, "My supervisor holds me accountable," - Okay.

- They are 2.5 times more likely to be engaged.

- And that's not what people think, though.

- No.

- They think you're gonna get in trouble.

- They think trouble.

- You're going to HR.

- Yep.

(Matt laughs) So what we try to help people say is accountability is actually a very positive thing.

It's not a negative thing.

Now the problem that we've had with experiences is that people have done it incorrectly, right?

Where it has been this punitive, like, we create all these rules and if you do it, you're gonna get fired.

Well that becomes like a prison.

When we're running our organizations like prisons, then the employees are gonna act like inmates, right?

They're just gonna try to get by with things.

When we treat them like humans and say, "Okay, we're all trying to achieve something here.

And you're part of that."

Like Cole said last time, we're not just trying to extract that from you.

We want you to give us your best and we're gonna give you our best.

When that happens, we're trying to say, "Okay, accountability needs to happen."

Now that does mean there needs to be tough conversations though, right?

I mean, that's the reality.

I know when I was leading schools for years, there's times you're like, "I don't want to have this conversation.

This is going to be awkward, this is going to be awkward."

But when you have that conversation, nine out 10 times, they, one, always go better than you think they're gonna go.

- Mm-hmm.

- Two, the person actually is like, "Somebody noticed and believes in me and is encouraging me."

And three, you're getting a better result on the back end.

So we encourage leaders all the time.

You have to have those touch points with leaders.

Great example, Joe Maddon, we know him, right?

I don't know if you're a Cubs fan, right?

When he was a manager all those years, he loved wine, right?

And he had this procedure, when you got in trouble, broke a rule, he needed to have a conversation, he had a little dish that had little slips of paper with expensive wines on them, and he'd make you draw one.

You had to go out and buy the wine and then the player and Joe would sit over at- - I did not know that.

- Sit over that glass of wine and talk about what rule was broken, what thing was wrong, what needs to change.

But you see what he did there?

- Yes.

- He said, "We're gonna have this tough, awkward conversation."

He made it kind of fun with the wine, but he's saying, "Hey, failure is action and opportunity to motivate, to reconnect, to drive us forward."

So that's what we mean by accountability.

Accountability is creating this clarity on what's really important and we're going after a purpose.

And when you don't have that, because one, we don't know what we should hold people accountable to, or two, we're scared to have tough conversations.

We're losing out on the real value of what leadership is all about.

- I'm gonna switch gears.

Have you ever had a real good mentor?

- Oh yeah.

- You too, Lee?

- Yeah.

- I was just thinking about what you were just saying.

Isn't it amazing?

Like, I don't need, I need a mentor, I don't need a friend.

- Yeah.

- So I need you to hold me accountable.

I need you to tell me where I'm wrong or how I can get better or how I can improve.

Now I feel like I've got a pretty tough thick skin.

So I would sit down with mentors for the past 30 years and I'd say, "I need you to be as blunt as you can."

Now, not all people are like that.

Most people aren't, I guess.

And I'm not saying it's a tough thing, it's probably, there's some hidden bias somewhere, but I guess my point is, that is an accountability example.

- Absolutely.

- Of, I don't think I'd be where I was or I am today without someone sitting here and pushing me off the cliff time and a time again.

And if you think about it, what you were just saying, Lee, think about how many times, like you could write a book.

I think if someone was honest with themselves, you could write a book on yourself of how many times you failed, it'd be that thick.

Right?

- Absolutely.

- But most leaders have trouble admitting that.

- Yeah.

- Isn't that crazy?

- Yeah.

- High purpose environment.

What is that?

Is that the same thing?

- It is in a lot of ways.

Like Lee said, all organizations exist to serve a purpose.

And if you're not sure what that purpose is, one of the first things you do is figure that out, right?

Because purpose is a very highly motivating concept for employees.

And when we hold employees accountable to that purpose, the accountability becomes strong as well.

You know, there is that stereotype, there is that stigma that accountability is a negative experience.

And it's unfortunate that when someone says, "I'm gonna hold you accountable," it creates this sense of fear, this sense of- - Anxiety.

- Anxiety.

- Ugh.

- When I would hope that in the organizations we work with, the reality could be if a leader ghost employee and says, "Hey, I'm gonna hold you accountable today," the employee should have said, "Thank you.

I hope you do.

I want that."

Like you already mentioned, not everyone has the strength that they're ready for that critical feedback at all times.

That's a blessing to have.

But you have to build that for those employees who don't naturally have that mindset that they're ready for that blunt, accountable conversation.

And so you have to, as a leader, when you're going in these accountability conversations, show that you care, right?

A lot of times leaders, they have accountability conversations and they care, but they just care about the bottom line.

Or they care about, "We're not meeting our numbers this week" or "We're not producing enough."

And that's a problem.

A lot of times, that's the wrong mindset to go into.

You need to have both.

You need to have that strategy side of the Gallup, the decisiveness and assertiveness, and you need to have that connection, motivation side.

You need to go in with the heart and the head and bring them both into that conversation.

Again, here's the word holistically again, addressing the holistic part of that human being.

- I'm gonna get you a shirt that says holistic.

- All right.

You gotta sign it for me.

(Matt laughs) - So this is great because again, I'm just thinking of different times where you've had certain employees in situations where they're just shaking in their boots.

So some of the things that I would do is, early on, I'd sit at my desk, call people into my office, and then they'd sit right there and boy, you're at the CEO's desk.

I decided to get a table, or we'll go sit in another room, or I'd go to your office and sit where it's, you know, and those just come of age, that's just experience and things like that.

But the way you handle that sympathy and empathy is really the key of running the business.

- Right, right, and what you just mentioned there, you were creating a neutral space for the two of you to meet in.

And on top of that, really being empathetic.

What Lee and I do is that we encourage leaders to preview accountability so it's not as scary.

- All right.

- Not only.

- Well I'm gonna stop you 'cause I can't go to a third show.

(group laughs) Lee Hoffman, Cole Stalter with Ledgestone, thank you so much.

This was a great two-part series.

Very enlightening.

I'm Matt George and this is "Business Forward."

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PNC Bank National Association, member FDIC.

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