CEOs, let's reimagine connection in the workplace.
In the last month, I took part in a discussion on Quiet Quitting during the World Economic Forum's annual conference in Davos. The workforce is changing rapidly and I am struck that we, as leaders engage in a lot relevant questions, including what are the advantages and disadvantages of remote work as well as the opportunities and risks that are presented through AI as well as the need to build more inclusive and sustainable organizations.
But one question is worthy of more attention: if our workforce is changing technologically, and post-pandemic behaviors and expectations are changing...don't our leaders have to evolve too?
There's an entire new generation of natives who are digital entering the work force. They were raised creating and sharing videos , not making calls or texts or texting, and they consider TikTok or YouTube their best source for information. Personally, they are hyper-connected as well as extremely active.
However, in their professional lives, it's a different story. We're witnessing substantial decreases in engagement and employee satisfaction in remote Gen Z and younger millennials. A mere four percent of younger employees who are remote or hybrid understand what's expected of them when they work, and more than half Gen Z employees are ambivalent or not engaged at work. When we consider the level of engagement among employees as the leading indicator of productivity in the workforce and productivity, it has significant implications for every company and every bottom line.
What is causing this disconnect? In work as in life it is common for us to want to be part of an entity larger than us. We have an innate need to be part of something bigger, and to experience the sense of belonging that is transparent, unfiltered, and real. However, the more our population becomes digitally distributed and AI-enabled and ad-hoc, the harder it becomes to experience true connection every day. Particularly, if we've not changed our methods of working to accommodate our future workforce. It is still common for us to ask employees to digest dense documentation, write lengthy emails, and attend boring gatherings. They learn about layoffs and the company's priorities from communications which are so automated and scripted that they could be created by ChatGPT. The only information we as managers have is via cookie-cutter surveys on engagement, live events with low tune-in and high drop-off rates, and the occasional snarky chat or Q&A.
The traditional managerial model is not working for us. It's time to change how we , as leaders, behave and connect with our employees. Just as we are focused to reskilling our workforce in the face of changing population, demographic and technology trends, we also need to reskill ourselves as leaders, in order to establish trust and build connections at the scale.
I've experimented with much of this over the last several years . Here are the skills I'm learning and embracing, that I believe can enable us to be more present and lead more effectively:
1. Be real, be you.
When the epidemic, I participated in the world's largest town hall at my home in Flint, Michigan -- tired and slumbering in my pajamas made of velour, and both my toddler son and my grandmother shuffled between the background.
It might have been my most effective communication ever.
Why? Because it was unscripted as well as messy, vulnerable and awkward. We tend to gravitate to "us versus us versus them" interactions when we work within a business, particularly when we are under stress or the need to overcome. It's very easy to think of "leadership" as a nameless, faceless machine. Video-first and visually oriented when communicating can be a potent deterrent. It makes you remove the veil and protect yourself from written and edited comms. The most effective way to get past this is to show up as you are.
In the end, there is a lot of instances of leaders becoming vulnerable and backfiring...but I would guess that in the majority instances it was because they were performing to the point of failure. You have to be willing to let that part of yourself to fail when you are in front of your team. We all have flaws that makes us humans. We all wish to see leaders who are brave -- it only makes us want to follow them more.
2. Begin by asking the "why ."
Much like many managers, I've made difficult decisions in the last year. From executive cuts and layoffs to the reorganization and shutdown of projects in the name of efficiency. It is my job to take the tough decisions, which are not popular and implement swiftly across the company.
More often, I observe employees seeking transparency in these decisions-- not just the "what" but also the "why". It is a need to comprehend the larger market or competitive context that is considered and balanced, as well as the procedure of who was involved and at what time.
The conventional comms strategy will say that when you have an important communication issue with limited time, begin with the "what" then get to the point and needed steps. But I have been far more successful getting people to embrace a difficult decision when I treat my team as key participants who need to be aware of the circumstances.
In the end, starting with "why" is a first principle for all comms at . Of course there are always constraints to being fully transparent (legal and PR, as well as management, risk to the customer) However, I've discovered that the majority of the perceived barriers to transparency are just that. Perceived. The public may not always be with your decisions, and it is possible to argue that if they do they are not performing the job you're supposed to do. But they will accept and respect your decisions when you start with the reason behind it.
3. Make the investment to meet in person to get to know each other better.
Yes, I can see the irony of the CEO of a video company telling that. But one of my biggest lessons over the last few months is that we've were too slow and not deliberate enough in connecting our teams together on a daily basis.
In the month of January, one week after announcing layoffs, we hosted a company kickoff in NYC. The event brought in employees from more than 12 nations. We had employees based in Ukraine that took trains or planes to get there. The event was not a typical one with celebration confetti and chose to go with an unpretentious atmosphere and a low-cost budget. It was one of the most energizing and needed choices I've put into.
It is even more powerful for leaders when you take a flight and get your team together where they are. I am a distributed executive team spread across eight cities that range from Seattle from Seattle to Switzerland. Many were hired during the last year and are still new, and we are just starting to get to know each other as a group. In order to speed up the process of forming a cohesive team, we started hosting offsites in each leader's home city. Our CFO's mother gathered us by her fire pit in Vermont. Our Head of Sales wore his apron. He made us frittatas to eat breakfast. We held working sessions around our Chef of Product's table.
The epidemic gave us a literal window into each people's home and lives -- if we lean into that, and integrate it into our lives day-to-day activities it is possible to build stronger, more connected and better-performing teams.
4. Go between "lean back" to "lean forward" encounters.
One of the most important skills in communication will soon be the ability to design "lean forward" events, not "lean back" broadcasts. We humans have attention spans are getting shorter (now just eight seconds which is less than the length of the time it takes to catch a goldfish!). Yet we still communicate primarily through one-to-many messages, whether through an email you read or an extremely produced town hall you sit back and watch.
As we look at this tax on engagement being reflected in our own statistics, where the average time to drop off from watching a video has decreased over the past couple of years. If we don't change our approach, tune-out is going to seriously hamper our capacity to keep our teams in sync and efficient.
It is crucial shifting our thinking and openness to new things. The new generation is working in the workforce that is ahead of us in their ability to create and capture rich and authentic information. They are ahead because they are free of the restrictions that we experienced over the years in conventional communication modes at work.
They say that employees don't leave jobs; they let managers go. In reality, CEOs are the ultimate managers, and according to an research study that included more than 113,000 executives, the number one factor for efficient management is the trust of their employees. We as leaders must show our employees how to present themselves in more authentic, interesting and reliable ways. I'm betting that the CEOs who embrace this brave new world will be more successful in managing the future generation of employees. They'll be better informed and involve teams distributed across the globe as well as align employees to achieve more productive outcomes, and develop long-lasting relationships that produce outstanding work. They will stop communicating more, and instead, communicate more effectively.