- ERIC
Hi and welcome to this episode of Be Good, brought to you by BVNH Consulting, a global consultancy specializing in the application of behavioral science for successful behavior change. Every month, we get to speak with a leader in the field of behavioral science, psychology, and neuroscience in order to get to know more about them, their work, and its application to emerging issues. My name is Eric Singler. Managing Director of the BVA Family, Founder and CEO of BVA Nudge Consulting. And with me is my talented colleague, Suzanne Kirkendall, CEO of BVA Nudge Consulting, North America. Hi, Suzanne.
- Suzanne
Hi, Eric. Thanks very much. I'm very excited to be introducing today's guest, Professor Stephan Meyer. Stephan is the James P. Gorman Professor of Business Strategy and the Chair of the Management Division at Columbia Business School. Previously, he worked as a senior economist at the Center for Behavioral Economics and Decision Making at the Federal Reserve Bank. He's also taught courses on strategic interactions and economic policy at Harvard University and the University of Zurich. Professor Meyer focuses on issues at the intersection of behavioral economics, business strategy, and the future of work. He's recently published his first book, The Employee Advantage, How Putting Workers First Helps Business Thrive, which will be at the end of this month. the focus of our conversation today. His work has been published in the leading academic journals, including the American Economic Review and Management Science, and he's been profiled by the press such as The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. Stefan, welcome to the Be Good podcast.
- Stephan
Thank you so much for having me, Suzanne and Eric. It's a pleasure.
- ERIC
Thank you, Suzanne. And Stรฉphane, thank you so much again for being with us today for this episode of Be Good. Before talking about your amazing book, The Employee Advantage, we would like to know a little more about you and your career. I think you earned an MA in History, Economics and Political Science from the University of Zurich in Switzerland. and then completed a doctorate in economics at the same institution. Could you tell us about how you came to be interested in behavioral science and later, I think, in the human side of strategy?
- Stephan
Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much, Eric. Yeah, I actually have a master's in history. But while I had the master in history, you know, my first minor was economics, and I did more and more economics. I still finished the master in history, but did my master thesis already in economics. It was about whether economists are selfish or not, and whether the economics training selects selfish people or whether it indoctrinates them. So the more you learn that humans should be selfish and rational, do you become like that? Or does it attract already people that are a little bit more selfish? It turns out it's not much selection, not much indoctrination. It's much more selection. And then I started to do a PhD in economics. And Weilow is really hoping and those models, economic models. really helped me to make sense of the world because they have very clear predictions how humans behave. But just by introspection, I knew that it's almost, I mean, either I'm the exception or others are making mistakes left and right as I do and not only care about their own monetary payoffs. And so that's how I started to be more interested in behavioral economics at that time. Behavioral economics was like a new growing field. Zurich actually had a couple of very influential economists working on those topics. And so that's how I became much more interested in it than my PhD on behavioral. So my thesis, PhD thesis was the economics of non-selfish behavior. So what actually motivates people beyond money to help, to collaborate. when it is not necessarily in their monetary best interest to do so. After that, I then started to work at the Fed because I wanted to have also a policy impact. And the Federal Reserve back at that time was starting the Center of Behavioral Economics. I was the first economist who was hired there. And it was a really exciting time to... Think about how can we imply psychology and economics or behavioral economics in a more policy field. The Federal Reserve Bank has a lot of impact and is populated by brilliant economists who are trained in very traditional classical economics. And instilling this behavioral aspect was very exciting. For me, I'm not a monetary economist. I also figured out the impact I can have on monetary policy is limited because I know basically nothing about it. And so then while I was at the Fed in Boston, I also taught a class at the Kennedy School. And then I really got interested in professional schools. And so that's how I ended up in a business school. where I thought I can really combine kind of the research aspect to having impact on my students and also learning from leaders. You know, they're all, my MBA students are professionals. They all worked a couple of years and my exec ed participants, you know, they're leaders in their field. And so I can learn from them as well. When I started at the business school, I started teaching strategy, business strategy, classic business strategy, you know, like Should Walmart go upscale? Should PepsiCo get rid of their snacks division and focus only on beverages? Does it make sense that Disney has a streaming platform or should they stick to, you know, just having their movies in hotels? And in that, there is a lot of economics, obviously, like competition, you know, how do you differentiate? And what is interesting, so I then... Went into the classroom and taught about this classic strategy. Went to my office and did research on like, what motivates people beyond money? Like, how can we incentivize them to do? Why do they make mistakes? And then go into the classroom and teach like, people are rational, firms are optimizing. And only much later in my career, I kind of made the connections between the two much more. In fact, it needed a pandemic. for me to realize, and I should have realized that much earlier, but I only did then, that it put like a spotlight on what doesn't work well at work, and that it's all about humans. And I know a lot about humans, and I know a lot about organizations when I teach business strategies. Then I combined it to this human side of strategy and thought, you know, there are humans in organizations, those who make strategy, you know, the executive team. The customers are humans. So how to actually figure out how competition works when people who buy the product make some systematic mistakes or have certain biases. And then obviously the employees are humans as well. And if we don't understand kind of what makes them tick or work at work, I think it's really difficult to like define a good strategy that is aligned with those motives. So that. Maybe too long of an answer, but that's kind of my arch from like being a historian or starting history to like getting into behavioral science and behavioral economics and then combine it with what I do now in the business school about like, you know, what businesses should do in competing against others and creating like amazing products and services.
- ERIC
Could you share with us any mentors that had a particularly strong influence on you? researchers or people who have played an influential role in your professional career.
- Stephan
Yeah, I think like one person who really was really important for me in this journey was my supervisor, Bruno S. Frey. So he is a economist at Zurich who I worked with and he was kind of my mentor. And he was very unconventional always, you know. He is an economist by training, but he always wanted to see what the boundaries of economics is, how to think about differently. And he wrote actually early on work on how incentives backfire. And then later he worked a lot on happiness research. And he was very influential for me because he pushed me and all the other PhD students he had. to think out of the box, do very ambitious projects, and not be constrained by what standard economics is telling us we should do or how humans should behave. That was extremely influential for me. I had another, I only met him much later, an economist who is in San Diego, James Andreoni. He works a lot on altruism. pro-social behavior, donations. And I met him much later, but my PhD was like, I cited probably... Every single of his papers, I loved the work he was doing. And later I actually met him and he became a dear friend. And he also had a great influence of kind of how, what type of work I would do.
- Suzanne
Amazing. So as we mentioned at the beginning, we would really like to talk about your fantastic book, The Employee Advantage. Before we get into the nitty gritty details, we'd like to ask some bigger picture questions. So first of all, could you tell us why did you write this book?
- Stephan
Yeah. So as I mentioned, somehow the pandemic changed something for me, how I thought about work and how we have to change work. And, you know, part of what I start also the book is kind of this low engagement. During the pandemic, it became pretty clear, you know, that people were not so happy at work. You know, they were great. great resignations and people quite quitting and people were thinking about like is this really all I want to do in my work and it became clear that we're not doing that great of a job in actually making sure that our employees are engaged and motivated now that was not just a pandemic it was actually if you look at engagement surveys it it was it was low for many many years and So something we're not, we're just not doing well. And then I had this conversation with the executives I teach. I always say, well, you know, my employees are the most important asset. And like, this is the most important thing I had. And I was like, well, if that's true, you're either not doing a good job in making sure that you care about them. And you might not know, or you're just lying. Or you just really don't put. the workers first. So that's then when I combined in order to actually put workers first, you need to understand what motivates them in the first place. And so that's kind of when I became very, very passionate about like solving, I think, an important problem with the knowledge that I have about like what actually motivates human beings and how to then translate this into like actionable strategies for leaders to implement in their organization.
- Suzanne
So, of course, there are a lot of great strategies and insights that we'll get into. But if you were to give the one big headline or the one key takeaway that you want your readers to get from this book, what would that be?
- Stephan
Yeah, that's a hard one. It's like choosing among your favorite children. But I think like one thing that goes almost through all of those strategies are like when we have to involve. and listen to our employees and by doing so also empowering them as well. And I think many now think, well, aren't we doing that already? And like, I don't think we do. So when you go to a marketing executive, you know, and say, is it a good idea if you would ask your customer once a year how they're doing? You know, they would all laugh. their asses off. It's like, of course not. We need constant input and feedback. And that's how we actually get better. In fact, Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who's very customer-centric, once said, the good thing about the customer is they're always dissatisfied. So we always, and it's so good, even if we do the best, they're so dissatisfied. What he meant is like, we can always improve. If they're dissatisfied, we can do better. Now, think about what we do with our employees. We ask them, most firms ask them once a year in some engagement survey how they're doing. They're ignoring those results most of the time. Every employee knows this and so doesn't participate in those surveys in the first place. And if you would tell them what is really good about the employees, they're always dissatisfied. Nobody would agree with that. that's exactly how we can move forward. Listening, getting them involved and empowering them to making some decision. Almost all of the strategies that I talk about with those different motivators have part of involving employees in the process or the workforce in them. So that's kind of the on the high level, involving, listening and empowering is a very important. part of all those strategies to become employee-centric.
- Suzanne
Yeah, your employees as customers is a really interesting analogy, I think, for people to start to reframe. What would you say are the main benefits of putting employees first? How does that, you know, relate to organizational performance? What kind of examples could you give us from the literature?
- Stephan
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Because, you know, in the end, my book is actually about like organizations as well. You know, I mean, there are, you might believe that it's a good thing anyway, and the right thing to do to put. employees first, but what I really argue is that it's going to have benefit for the organization. I think the main benefits are like productivity and engagement really goes up. So that's one. And in times where like, you know, we actually want to do more with less, you know, that's kind of how to do a little bit more with less and people are more engaged or not. The second is it needs to innovation. You know, in a time when We have to innovate constantly. I know buzzwords like agile organizations, you know, it's the people who are agile. So we actually need to have an environment to make our employees agile. Third is like quit rates go down. So turnover goes down. It's a very costly thing to lose, especially if you want to lose people that you don't want to lose constantly. And then you need to rehire and train. And last but not least, I think it really affects the experience of the customer as well, especially if the employees have contact with their customers. You know, I don't think you can create an atmosphere where the customers are happy if the employees are miserable. And so one interesting and I think great example in terms of companies is Costco here in the U.S. You know, it's a retailer. competitor to Walmart or the Sam's Club model in Walmart. And they're very employee-centric in multiple ways. But one important one is that they provide like really clear career path. You start entry level and you kind of know this is your way to go up. And about more than 90% of their leadership team is promoted internally. And then you can see what is the benefit of that. You know, like they're not leaving as much. So turnover is much, much lower than at other comparable retailers. The customers are super happy because the employees are very happy. That then allows, because the customers are so happy, they're also more loyal to the brand. You can introduce more private labels. Kirkland is the private label that Costco has. where the margins are much higher, and the people actually spend more money per square feet than others do. So there are clear benefits. You see it in the performance of the organization. They're just doing much better. And there are other companies who are able to do that. There are also studies on that. Now, the studies, as you can imagine, it's often correlational. It's not so easy to... There are many studies to show that happy employees also need better performances, but causality is sometimes hard to establish because it could also be the amazing companies are easier to, it's easier for them to be nice to their employees as well. But I'm not just talking about monitoring. I talk about being really focused on your employees and thinking about... I don't know. We're talking later about those different motivators outside of money that are really important and lead to an engaged workforce and as a result, a thriving business.
- Suzanne
Last question before handing it back to Eric. You started to allude to it, but I want to get this common objection out of the way early so people can stay with us. There is this widespread belief that being employee-centric comes at the expense of profits. So you either are for the employees or you're for the shareholders, but you're not going to be able to benefit both. Why do you think people think that? And can you rebut that for us?
- Stephan
Well, yeah, I think it's a very important mindset shift that needs to happen from what I call in the book kind of this either-or thinking or zero-sum, you know, we either... Either we can be nice to the employees or to the shareholders to like, no, what we actually can do is like win, win, win. Why that's the case, I think part of it has to do with, you know, kind of this economic thinking, why people work or don't work. You know, in those economic models, well, like people don't like work. The economic model is like, I would not do anything because I want to do leisure is what I want to do. Work is a burden, it's painful, and I only do it if I get either controlled to do it or monetary compensated. And that now leads to a real potential either or. You know, if it's like I have to pay me more in order to do more, you know, then it's like a bargain. That I potentially have with somebody on a bazaar to buy a t-shirt. You know, I pay you more and that comes out of my, you know, happiness or rent or whatever. Or I pay you less, that comes out of your margin there. But I think what we have to think about, and again, that's where the customer, the employees, the new customer helps. Think about customers. Now, customer centricity is first of all not lowering the price. Customer centricity is improving the experience of the customer, making the customer happy. And as a result, the businesses are doing better. And so the same is, I argue, and I think is true for employees. Let's improve the experience the employees have. Let's make them happier. And as a result, the businesses are doing better for those reasons we talked about before. You know, turnover goes down and so on. Innovation goes up and so on and so forth. So I think we have to really think about this win-win, how we can actually help our workforce to do their best work. And as a result, the organization actually benefits.
- ERIC
Stรฉphane, now I think we have a clear idea of your perspective. We would like now to dive deeper into the details of your book. And first, you mentioned that... many employees worldwide are not engaged in their work or their organization. Could you tell us more about this disengagement and why do you think it happens?
- Stephan
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the number, if you look at like Gallup surveys about engagement levels, it looks that in the US, I think like about 60 something percent. of employees are disengaged at work or not fully engaged. Worldwide, it's even a little higher about that. You see that also in people who want to quit, want to change jobs. I think there was a study just came out about more than 50% or 60% of employees actually want to change their job in 2025. So that shows you that something is not going well. Now, the question is like, what is not going well? And I do think what is not going well is we're not putting enough emphasis on, you know, what the experience of the employees are. Because as with customer centricity, you know, just saying that you care about the customer, which of course everybody does, is not the same than really being obsessed about the customer. And the same is true for employees. Just saying that we care, everybody does that. I've never met an employee, an executive that's like, well, my employee, my workforce, I don't care about them. Of course they do. But it's one thing to care and one to actually put the priorities on that and really do the hard work to make sure that the employee experience is better. And again, as we talked before, you know, it starts with listening, you know, actually listening to the employees who are frustrated. Right. And understanding why are they frustrated and then change some of the practices, some of the leadership style. You know, what is also hard, it reflects a little bit on people as the famous saying goes, people are not leaving jobs, they're leaving bosses. And so when you listen, you will figure out as a leader, you know, you're not doing everything right. That's hard to take, especially if you made it so far, you know, there's big egos as well there. So you now have to reflect. And so, you know, something I'm not doing right, I try to, in the book, tell a little bit what you can do right. You know, what did you miss? And where should you put more emphasis on? But if you don't prioritize it, you know, it's not just going to happen. It's going to be hard work, but I think it's going to pay off.
- ERIC
Stรฉphane, we have started to talk about motivation and money. But you argue that motivation is neither solely about money nor about having Ping-pong tables in the office. Regarding, first, money as a primary motivator, what do studies tell us about its effectiveness?
- Stephan
Yeah, I think it's a very important part and also kind of a mindset shift to think about, like, you know, people are not just working for money. Now, money is important. You know, like, I mean, I don't volunteer. I also work and get a paycheck. I care about money. Money is an important part. Especially on the lower end of the income distribution, money is critically important. If you can't make ends meet, if you have to worry every day that you don't have enough money if my kid has a dental emergency, you're not doing your best work. That's for sure. You have to increase wages to actually make sure everybody is financially secure. But there is a level of income then where it just doesn't matter as much anymore. Where, you know, we still care about money, but like it's like many other things that really motivate people to go forward. Now, one of the, I think, mistakes, and that's kind of what I call about ping pong table solutions, and it's not just ping pong tables. You know, it's like free snacks, yoga classes, massage thing, whatever. wellness programs, I mean, I have nothing against them, but they are not really solving the problem because nobody or very few people would choose to a company that has a ping-pong table or would leave the company because they don't have a ping-pong table. And what I talk about, it's also if you think strategy, if ping-pong tables are the kicker, You know, if you have a ping pong table and you would do everything will be amazing, you know, everybody would have a ping pong table, but or free snacks bar or like the wellness class or whatever. But that's not really what motivates people. It might be, it might look great on like recruitment material. But on a day to day basis, you know, it's many other things, very different things that actually make people engaged and jazz and they really want to do their best work.
- ERIC
And it is what I would like to ask you now. So we understand the limitation of motivation through money or kind of superficial initiative like ping pong or I don't know, well-being, isolated well-being program. But you suggest that there are four key elements that enable an organization to become human-centric and benefit at the end of the day from the employee advantage. First is about the need to create a motivating and specific purpose that you call shoot for the moon. So could you tell us more about why it is so important for employees that their organization has a... clear-cut pose.
- Stephan
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, I mean, those four motivators are coming out of like year-long of research in psychology, in the economics. I mean, part of like what psychologists would call self-determination theory has those motivators.
- ERIC
as part of them. Now, the purpose or meaning or shoot for the moon is critically important because people want to create, you know, be part of something that is more than themselves or like achieves a bigger goal than just making profits or just going to work and like fulfilling a contract that they have with their employees. You want to be part of something bigger. I call it Shoot for the Moon because I tell the story in the book about, you know, NASA and like President Kennedy said, like, you know, when we know kind of the story a little bit, you know, he said, like, you know, we should bring a man to the moon. He reduced the mission to that goal. And then everybody in the organization, including that famous janitor who said, you know, I'm not mopping the floor. I bring a man to the moon. And somehow those being part of something bigger. is extremely motivating. You know, we're spending so much time at work. You know, it's part of our identity. You know, I want to go back in the evenings. I spent time for something that is bigger than just this paycheck. I actually solved the problem. We did some research in one particular in Sweden. A research study I did in Sweden where we looked, you know, what creates meaning, and that's kind of the purpose. And actually, it turns out a lot of, you know, we can get meaning. People are very different what meaning is. You know, it could be solving a really hard problem that really solves something, a significant problem for society. A lot of meaning and purpose also gets created by when it's social. When it's in... in effect in a positive way other people. So, you know, helpful, it's helpful to others or useful for society and society as a collective of human beings. And I think it's a very important, very few people get out of bed in the morning and say like, today I'm going to make a little bit more money for my organization. But like they get up like today, I'm solving, I'm working on a really hard problem that can help others. That's very motivating.
- Suzanne
But there is a key challenge, which is to ensure that this purpose, even if it is clear, is integrated into everyone's daily work. So the question for you, how can an organization design a purpose that becomes a kind of tangible reality in employees' day-to-day tasks?
- ERIC
Yeah. I mean, one is... Eric, this is a great question because just having that lofty goal or going back to the NASA example, just knowing that we're bringing a man to the moon, how does the guy who mobs the floor internalize that goal? And I think there are a couple of things that are important. Often what I tell executives and also in the book, think about can your employees in their own world? Word. Explain what the goal, the purpose of the organization is. And not just tell the mission that is like painted on the wall, but actually tell what am I doing in order to help that goal. And if they can't, then I didn't do a good job in actually communicating that as well. The other is like it has to be linked to. everything we do in the organization. If it's just a phrase that is painted on the wall, you know, employees are not stupid. They actually see whether it's lift or not. And if it's not, that's very not only not motivating, it's actually demotivating in doing so. So you have to create the way that the employees really feel that there is an advantage, that we're having a purpose. It's interesting, I had a conversation. a couple of years ago, and I talk about it in the book, about an emergency room who wanted their doctors being motivated more. So it turns out, you know, if you think about an emergency room, there's a lot of purpose, you know, saving lives. But after a while, that job becomes a little mechanical. You know, like, here comes in another guy, I have to fix the knee. And it becomes a little bit like, you know, actually that guy who managed a lot of emergency room said, like, you know, they're a little jaded. And so he was thinking about, like, how can we actually motivate them more? I mean, he had a. I think he had a bad idea. He thought like, can we, for every patient, we can donate some money to a good cause and create meaning that way? And I said, no, you need to make the connection between that knee and what that knee is not just fixing a knee. That fixing a knee is a dad who then, you know, plays football with his son or daughter. That's a knee. you know, who helps their partner if they're older, you know, to get the groceries and kind of making that connection that fixing the knee is actually a much bigger part than just like mechanically fixing that knee. And somehow it depends obviously by organization, but like making clear what's the purpose and what is actually the big problem that we're solving. And then helping the employees on a daily basis, you know, formulate it in their own words what it actually is. And then making that connection as often as possible that they can actually feel that we're having and part of that greater good. Even though I might only be a little part in that whole, you know, I'm just mopping the floor. But like they will see that mopping the floor is a critical piece. of making that operation to bring a man to the moon a reality.
- Suzanne
Okay, so first criteria, first objective is a clear purpose. Maybe, Suzanne, time to speak about the second criteria.
- Stephan
Yes, so the second key factor you talk about is trust. So why is mutual trust between leaders and employees so critical?
- ERIC
I think trust is... The flip side of autonomy, you know, being empowered and having discretion and figuring out the right way of doing it is extremely motivating. You know, we see it in people who become entrepreneurs, even though we know kind of on average it's not as lucrative to be an entrepreneur because 90% of the businesses fail. And so there are only few who become the Googles or the Amazon of this world. But people still like it because they're then their own boss. You can make your own decision. Now, you can mimic something like that in organization where you give people more autonomy and empower them. But that only works if trust is involved. If I trust you to actually do the right thing and that trust combined with that I can actually now do something on my own is extremely motivating. And thatโฆ Creates not just motivation, creates those innovations that we care a lot in organizations nowadays. And this is a critical piece of having a motivated workforce. If you don't trust your employees, I mean, it's very, very hard. If you're like the macroman, and we all know that picture. We all worked for that boss or have some tendency in us. about being a micromanager. The micromanager is the most hated persona in organizations because of the distrust that comes with the micromanaging piece.
- Stephan
And trust also encourages employees to speak up. And our listeners might remember our conversation with Amy Edmondson, who refers to this as psychological safety. So why is that so important? And how can we build that trust in organizations?
- ERIC
Yeah. Exactly. I completely agree. Like part of the trust is like, you know, I mentioned before, one of the overarching thing is to listen. Now, if you listen, and everybody is afraid to actually tell the truth, you know, then you don't need to listen. I mean, then don't bother asking them. But if you really want to know what's not going well, how we should change and getting really input, you need to create what Amy calls, yeah, psychological safety or that environment where it's okay to criticize. It's okay to point out that I'm doing something wrong. Or I think like the overarching strategy of the organization is going in the wrong direction. And if you don't create that environment, you know, you're not getting the real feedback that actually allows you to do really tangible and important work to improve going forward. So yeah, trust is... Important for empowerment, but also important to actually get the right inputs from the employees. And as a result, if I feel like my opinion is valued. That not only provides like I'm actually able to share what I really want to say, but that's also a very motivating thing in general. We all have opinions and we all want to share those opinions. It's a part of our identity. And if we are able to share because the leader is trusting us in creating that psychological safety or that culture where it's okay to share also stuff that is not as nice to hear. At the moment, I mean, I think that creates like an engaged and motivated workforce.
- Stephan
Right. So having leaders and managers shifting from perhaps micromanagement or that hierarchical approach more to being an engaged coaching role of sorts. And I think Eric's got questions about some ways to do that.
- Suzanne
Yeah, there is this key role of manager. As Suzanne mentioned, you... highlight how it is important for a leader to be an engaged coaching. Could you explain this specific role of leader as coach?
- ERIC
Yeah, absolutely. And it has to do with kind of the contrast to micromanager because what a micromanager does is constantly involved in order to control. And I think... What the flaw is sometimes when people want to create, empower or create autonomy, they scale back on the control, which is a good thing. But they also scale back on the engagement or how frequently they're engaged. You know, they're kind of, Eric, you're in charge now. You know, I think the goal is you should move that division, you know, or move that goal forward. See you when you're done. And the problem is like, you know, there's always stuff, there's always hiccups, there's always stuff that doesn't work. And so all the interactions we are having then are negative. You know, like after a month, something doesn't work. And then you come to me and say like, Eric, of course, of course, it's not that direction. You should have gone in that direction. And so what we actually should do in order to set people up for success when they're empowered, if giving constant feedback. being very engaged, involved, in order to set up the autonomy for success and not for failure. And that's sometimes hard to do because I just empowered you to do it. I don't want to be involved right now. But you should actually be involved more, you know, constant involvement, constant feedback, constant check-ins, not to control, but actually to make sure you set up the... the autonomy for success. So that's what I mean with engaged. You know, you're very engaged, but as a coach and not as a control freak. So you're engaged in order to support. So that's the coach part. And not you're engaged to actually, you know, always control you. And I think it's a very important but hard thing to do because especially if you have the tendency and I'm personally a little bit of a control freak myself, you know, and then being, you know, Providing autonomy is sometimes hard. Then you have to be involved, but not controlling, but involved to support. And that needs a little bit of change of how we manage. But I think it's a very important part in order to make autonomy or empowerment work.
- Suzanne
Okay, so a clear purpose, trust and autonomy and being if you are a leader or an emerging. a manager, an engaged coach. A third factor, a third key factor, is related to employee tasks, what you call providing just right tasks at work. Could you define what constitutes just right tasks to be motivating?
- ERIC
Yeah, yeah. I mean, in the book, I tell the story about my son starting to read. Uh... But you can think about it like any time. You know, let's say you like Sudoku. Now, I can give you a very easy level one Sudoku, and you're already on the level four type of Sudoku. It's boring. You know, it's easy. It's baby stuff. And I give you one, and it's like, oh, that's boring. Or should I do more of those? Or I can give you a level 10 Sudoku, which there's no way you can solve it, and after a while you give up. It's just too hard. What motivates people is when they have this just right task, just right according to their skills, ambition. And, and, and knowledge that they have. And just right means that, you know, you're, you can solve it. So you feel good about yourself that you can actually master this, but it pushes you a little bit, you know, it's not too easy. But it's not too hard. The problem is a lot of people are actually either under or, you know, under or over, under over skilled for certain tasks. Tasks are too easy, too mundane. too repetitive, or the tasks are too hard, or they're not trained well to feel good about themselves. Now, so that's kind of the just right task. Now, if you think about Sudoku, or reading or everything, once you mastered level four, you know, now level five is right. And now once you have no level five, it is level six. And so you constantly need to evolve. And that's what's the hard part as well as leaders, because you need to provide your employees. And I think it's more important than ever nowadays where the half-life of skills is going down, where everybody's aware that we need new skills. Stuff is moving so fast that people don't want to get stuck. I mean, most people actually leave organizations because they're bored out of their minds. They're like stuck in what they're doing. You know? The question is like how to actually provide as leaders opportunities where you match the skills and ambition of their employees to the just right task and constantly evolve. And that's hard to do. You know, I sometimes tell my exec participants now, just for your whole team, you know, you just figure out what's the just right tasks of every team member, match them to the just right tasks and constantly evolve. And there's like, well, it's impossible, you know, I have like 10 members. I mean, even for 10 team members, it's very, very difficult. And so now I talk a lot about also technology, how that can help. Because if you think about it, that sounds a little bit like an AI task. You know, when Netflix, you know, like what Netflix does is figures out like, what is Eric watching? What is your favorite genre, Eric?
- Suzanne
I love documentary.
- ERIC
Okay. So Eric loves nature documentaries. Netflix knows that and shows you more nature documentary. Susan watches more dramas?
- Stephan
Yeah, dramas and comedies.
- ERIC
Okay, comedies. She likes comedies. So Netflix shows her more comedies. And I really like history documentaries. So now after a while, you know, I'm bored. With like, is MSL too many of high history? I want to switch. I want to actually watch documentaries. So I'll watch a documentary. Now Netflix, the assistant then knows, oh, Stefan, I mean, he now watches something else. So let's show him something else. So it then constantly personalizes kind of the experience that I have, that Eric, that Susan have on Netflix. Now we can think about that in the workplace as well. And there are like AI power tools. that now do that for organizations that are, I mean, they're called like internal marketplaces, where it's like systems where people go on to those marketplaces and say, you know, I want to learn something new. I will be interested in X, Y, and Z. Then it matches it to projects in the organization. So I just wrote a case about MasterCard, who actually implements this, where then it shows me projects on like social media project in... In Dubai or like, you know, or maybe you ask the social media project in Switzerland. Turns out the HR system doesn't know that I care about Switzerland a lot. Now, I then be part of that project. The system then knows, oh, now Stefan actually knows something about social media. So it updates kind of what my skills is, what my ambitions are. It starts to learn more about what I want to do and what not and provides kind of internal those. just right tasks going forward. So that's just one way how we can think about, you know, leveraging that motivator of what I call just right task or in psychology, they call it competence or the feeling of competence that is very important for people, you know, to feel good about themselves and doing their best work.
- Suzanne
And Suzanne, there is a fourth criteria.
- Stephan
That's right. The final and fourth fact. is also really important, which is collective identity and a sense of belonging. So why is this important and how can leaders foster this, including in a virtual environment, which is a different sort of management task?
- ERIC
Exactly. So I call it working together works, but it's exactly what you said. It's like positive social interactions, belonging, support in like human to human interaction. Now, if you ever played on a on a sports team who works well, you know, you kind of know the power of like, you know, together we can sometimes create more or achieve more than the individual parts. And so working together really works and it's extremely motivating. However, it doesn't just come like that. You know, you actually have to be very intentional and manage that. Well, that's where the leader now play a role. And it's interesting that you mentioned virtual environment or like hybrid, because when you think about those four factors, you know, when you think about remote work, there are two factors that influence kind of the decision. And they go in opposite directions. One is the need for autonomy and flexibility or trust, where like if you want to maximize that, you know, everybody should do whenever they want to work or wherever they want to work. I'll give you a full. full flexibility and trust you that you do the work, which is an important part. The working together works is like something about in-person relationships is also critically important. Now, if you want to maximize that, maybe we need to bring everybody back to the office constantly. And so I think that actually creates some of the tensions, business leaders or organizations now. have been struggling with, like, how much should we bring people back? How much should we give them flexibility or not? But I think, you know, why it's important to be working together works and having those positive relationship. I don't think it's necessary to have that 40 hours a week, you know, or think like one of the... working together, belonging or whatever. One benefit is like those spontaneous interactions, you know, the water cooler, kombucha tap moments or whatever people talk about. Now, we don't do that 40 hours a week anyway. And we can be much more intentional about creating those positive interaction than we did. And in the past, I do think a lot of leaders were phoning it in somehow. They thought, just because we're in the same office creates those positive or belonging or whatever. I mean, a lot of my exec ad participants say like, you know, the downside of remote or hybrid work is culture. We're losing the culture. And I say like, well, you know, when we were all in the office five days a week, I think 50% of workplaces had toxic work cultures. Just because we're together doesn't create belonging at all. And in fact, if we're in person, we can be really nasty to each other if we want it to be. So we have to be very intentional to creating those positive interactions, whether that's virtual or not. You know, we're having now a lovely conversation on Zoom, which would be not possible in the real world because it's like Paris. I mean, it would happen to be both in New York, Susan and I, but, you know, it would be very difficult to do that. is some personal interaction important? I personally do believe so. You know, that meeting people in person has something very special, but it doesn't need to be that often and it needs to be very intentional anyway. We can manage that as leaders to create very positive social interactions.
- Stephan
And one of the other things that you talk about is each individual having their own unique aspirations. And you've talked about customizing the employee experience. Can you give a little bit more advice about how to do that and create what you call moments at work that matter?
- ERIC
Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you know, people are very different in what motivates. You know, while on average, those four motivators are important. You know, some people are more motivated by autonomy. than others. Some care about the purpose more than others, and so on and so forth. And I think we can do a much better job now to actually personalize, again, in the way that the consumer-centric organizations do really well. And it is, thinking about consumers again, we have to be very careful about the data as well in that I'm sometimes annoyed, frightened to figure out like... Amazon seems to know much more about me than I know about me. I mean, they show me stuff that was like, I just talked to my wife. I mean, I just talked to my wife about this and now they already show me ads for XY. So we have to be very careful. in how we implement this. But if the goal is to actually create a better work environment where it's not a one-size-fits-all and be very transparent, I think then it can be a very personal experience. Those internal marketplaces I explained to you before, that's a very personal. We might have started in the same job position and division, but because we are interested in our... different things. Our ambition level might be different. We're matched to very different job projects potentially. Our experience is going to be very different, but we volunteer. We wanted to do that and it's very transparent what it does. And again, going back to what I started at the very beginning, involving employees, talking to them, being very transparent about it is kind of the goal to create this more personalized experience. where we have those individual moments that matter, that matter to me, that are very different than what matter to you, Susan, or what matters to you, Eric.
- Suzanne
Stรฉphane, we are sadly at the end of our conversation, but I have a final question for you about the future of work, one which is in principle... inspired, suggested by one of our listeners, Jeremy Dufoy, regarding new technological and data possibilities related to employees. What benefits do you envision for implementing and maintaining an employee-centric culture? And what are the risk organizations could be Ausha of?
- ERIC
Yeah, it's a great question. You know, technology moves so fast. There are so many opportunities. There's also a lot of anxiety, obviously, about like, you know, is my job going to be gone? You know, what is automated as well? I mean, I think one important part is it's a choice. We have choices. You know, technology sometimes feels like technology is like hitting us. It's coming our way. And that's true. There's technological advancements, whether we want it or not. But in the end, as leaders. we can implement it in one way or the other. We actually have the choice to do it one way or the other. And I think what is important to keep those motivators that I talked about in mind and think about how can we strengthen them and not destroy them. And there is a real danger about destroying them. Let's talk about trust, for example. You know, like with technology, you can surveil. people in ways that you were never able to do before. You know, I can see how many keystrokes you do, you know, and it's frightening what those surveillance technologies that are taking off, which of course destroy motivation right away. Or I can use technology to be a more engaged coach, to actually provide more information that is very personalized about us, to help me. to be one of those engaged coaches. And kind of through all of those motivators, you can think about how technology can help and enhance the motivators and how it can destroy. And in the book, I try to talk about, like, you know, how to actually use them. Now, it moves so fast, you know, there is not that much about, or I'm not even sure I mentioned Gen AI in the book, but it's the same with a lot of those technologies. You know, how can that help? And if we don't implement it in a human-centric way, there is first of all, your resistance from the workforce, but it's also we're not actually leveraging to the same, to the potential that it could have by actually make work even better than it is right now.
- Suzanne
Last question, Stรฉphane. If you had to give one piece of advice to a leader wanting to get started. and effectively transform their organization into an employee-centric culture? What would it be?
- ERIC
Yeah, so I think I have to go back to what I said at the beginning. I would actually start with listening. You know, have like a real listening. tour or listening to go to your employees on every level and ask them. Now, as we talked before, if you didn't create an environment where it's okay to share, then it's obviously you have to start with that first. But if you start listening, what is not going well, I think you learn a lot. There is, that's what, you know, I tell the story about Hubert Jolly, who took over as CEO of Best Buy. There he did a listening tour. I just finished a book about Oscar Munoz, who was the CEO of United when it was in trouble. He did that. You know, he like went around and listened to these employees. And you learn a lot what is going wrong. And then you have a long list to start working down from there.
- Suzanne
It's a great starting point for advice. So thank you so much again, Stefan, for your time today. This was a fantastic and very important conversation.
