London 2019
Expert Panel - Workplace Engagement & Countering Employee Burnout
Workplace engagement and countering employee burnout is an important issue that technology leaders face. We are honored that we've assembled experts to explore this problem, spanning academia and commercial practice.
This panel will explore the convergence of several academic research areas, specifically workplace burnout and engagement, creation of dynamic, learning organizations, integration with existing performance management programs, and how it can create high-performing technology organizations.
Panel includes:
Dr. Nicole Forsgren, CEO and Chief Scientist, DevOps Research and Assessment LLC
Dr. Christina Maslach, Professor of Psychology, Emerita, University of California, Berkeley
Dr. Steve Spear, Principal, HVE LLC
Gene Kim, Author, Researcher, and Founder of IT Revolution
DN
Dr. Nicole Forsgren
CEO and Chief Scientist, DevOps Research and Assessment LLC
DC
Dr. Christina Maslach
Professor of Psychology, Emerita, University of California, Berkeley
DS
Dr. Steve Spear
Principal, HVE LLC
GK
Gene Kim
Founder and Author, IT Revolution
Transcript
So the topic is workplace engagement and burnout. And I think we have a, an amazing world-class panel to talk about, uh, both aspects. So I think the first thing we should do is prove that and, uh, uh, I think we do that by having each person just introduce themselves and say, um, your interest in the area, um, your experience in the field. Um, so when we start with that, Dr. Nicole Forsgren.
Okay. Hi, I'm Nicole Forsgren. I am doing research and strategy leading the Dora team at Google. Right now. I have been leading, I think, what are the largest DevOps studies to date? I've been doing the state of DevOps reports, and I wrote the book accelerate. Um, and I think some of my interest in the area started really kind of originally when I was an engineer at IBM. Right. And for the longest time we were doing what we kind of started calling seven day forced marches. I'm not sure if I'm seeing some nods in the audience for so long, we had to kind of push through and power through this unbelievably difficult, um, push through hardware and software and firmware updates and ended up taking two or three years. And it ended up taking this huge toll and it was much more than just exhaustion and overwork, right.
And ended up taking this personal toll on so much of the people there and then bleeding over into their personal lives and their family lives. And then as I went to get my PhD and then studying what we now call dev ops, right? There was this, this promise of it. If we change the way we build technology and we change our art technology and our practice and our process and our culture that it can also, you know, not only make our organizations better, right. It's, it's not only a capitalistic thing. It can also make our lives better. Um, I wanted to do the, the researchy thing and also study it and see if, if the numbers also back up the story and the intuition. And that's kind of how I ended up including that aspect of it in my research, spoiler alert. It's true.
It showed up in the 2015,
I think 20 15, 20 16, 20. Uh, I think most of the research until, uh, up into including this year, uh, and in 2019 we included a couple additional measures as well.
Awesome. So the first of the three PhDs on the panel, thank you, Dr. Dr. Mass Lac.
Uh, okay. Well, I am a professor of psychology at Berkeley for my entire career. Uh, and I was, I stumbled upon burnout as, um, as an issue in a topic when I was interviewing people, um, out in the field in, uh, on other questions relating to their job and they would, uh, answer my questions and then they would say, uh, this is confidential anonymous. And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, uh, and they say, can we talk about something else? And then they would start describing other experience they had at work. And after a while I noticed a kind of a pattern and a rhythm. I was getting the same kind of story that people were talking about. Um, and they didn't have a name for it. And then I'd ask them things that related to psychological or sociological concepts or something. And finally, one day, just again, by chance, um, someone said, okay, what are you hearing in the research?
Tell me a bit, a bit about it. So I described it and I said, people keep telling me this kind of thing. And she said, oh, well, I don't know what anybody else calls it, but we call it burnout in this was legal services, poverty law. So I taught at home. Okay. So then I would end the interviews, the next ones saying, is it, you know, detached concern? Is it something like, you know, dehumanization and self-defense? No, no, no, no. Is it burnout? Yes, that's it that's it. So it really captured something. And that's why we decided to kind of go with it. And I decided to go with not my original questions, but this thing that people were anxious to talk about in a safe place, it would not get back to anybody and they would cry. They would get angry. I mean, it was clearly emotional.
It was important. Then it was like, I think this is something I need to spend some time on. So I've been doing research for many years and in the nineties, um, my colleagues and I were interested in, uh, we're, we're facing different sort of challenges. Like people didn't want you to come in and do work and gather data about burnout and other things in their organization because they thought they might get sued. And, you know, there was a litigious society we've got going and other kinds of things, it was the rise of positive psychology. Let's look at good stuff as well as negative stuff. So we sort of did a pivot and said, well, you know, we're getting on, uh, the burnout measures. We've got sort of people on the more extreme, like I sort of was showing the burnout profile, uh, yesterday, but there's also these other things. And if you look at the other and of what we're measuring, where people are not, uh, exhausted, they've got a lot of energy and enthusiasm. Uh, they're not trying to distance themselves and be cynical. They want to get more deeply involved. Uh, they're feeling really good about what they're doing in terms of efficacy and we're sort of saw, Hmm. Maybe if we sort of look and say, how do we get to a better place and let's call this place engagement with work. Uh, and so that's really how we got involved in doing it.
Fantastic. Thank you, Dr. , uh, Dr. Springbot, who is the closing keynote today, and someone who's influenced my thinking so much over the last that decade. I mean, I think that's kind of the realm that you've been living in, right. In terms of like dynamic learning organizations that engage people. Uh, so tell us about that.
Yeah. So, um, just by quick self-introduction I spent some of my time teaching at MIT. I spend the bulk of my time working with organizations across different verticals.com.mil.gov.org. So, um, as far as engagement and burnout thing, people matter, uh, I first got into the work I do when, uh, people were trying to understand why a very small number of Japanese companies were having disproportionate impact on their sectors. And, uh, some of the initial, um, explanation, well, actually the initial explanations were all racist. Um, then, uh, nationalist. And then after that, um, there was the technical explanation, oh, they must have better robots or scheduling algorithms. And it turned out when you took a close look, it was how, um, those, uh, very few companies manage people to tap deeply into their innate potential to create value and figure out how to tap deeply into that innate Pinette potential and channel it in the form of value delivered into the marketplace. It's all about people.
And, uh, see what Steve just called a little bit more. And then what was the effect of the people? I, it was it, uh,
Yeah,
So we just worked longer hours.
Um, so, uh, you started thinking about, you know, sort of on a spectrum of extreme. So you take a Frederick Winslow, Taylor who had some really profoundly good ideas about design of process and tapping deeply into coming up with better ways and coming up with standards and that kind of thing. So you have a tailor, which a, I I'd say he was about 50% of genius and 50% and outright pig. If you read his stuff in the original, um, you have this guy talking about all this very rationalist approach towards studying the things we do and, uh, delving deeply to find insights to do it better. And then he has this bifurcation between the people who are smart enough and well motivated enough to do the thinking. And, uh, given when he wrote they were all white Anglo-Saxon Protestants and other people who applied muscle to those ideas.
So it was a separation of the minds and the hands. And given when he wrote, they were all a German non-English speaking immigrants. And so, um, Kayla was right about the importance of studying something to understand, uh, the problems you have diagnosed the cause and come up with corrective action. Like I said, he was a kind of grotesque in his view of the other. Now, um, what you found when you started looking at these companies that had, uh, started just like I said, having disproportionate impact on their sectors and on their markets, they accepted the rational side of Taylor in terms of the need for a continuous, ongoing, deep, broad study of a problem space, but they rejected entirely his sort of non-democratic ethos that there's the thinkers and the doers and said, well, if you've got an organization where, you know, dozens scores, hundreds of people show up every day, engage the minds and the hands on the hearts you'll get the better outcome.
Awesome. And so I understand that you had a 30 minute interview with, uh, outside, in fact, how did that, uh, I I've heard all of you say it was an interesting half. I may have. Could you, uh, if you select in no particular order, like any impressions or reflections on that, uh, whoever wants to go first.
Oh my gosh. Recreate that excitement that we jumped in on all sorts of things. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think one of the things that, uh, we were getting sort of, you know, really interested in talking about was, um, to be thinking about this again, not just as individuals and there are people who are engaged and there are others who aren't, or can't be, or, you know, all of that kind of thing that we really need to again think about it in terms of the context of the environment that people are in. Um, and how is it that we, um, actually work together, manage people, uh, inspire people, help people, uh, you know, so it's a very much social environment where the engagement is not just something you have all by yourself and you're sitting alone in like a, you know, monastic cell it's other people who get you sort of turned on, or, oh my gosh, now I see something and, and, and the engagement is as much a social phenomenon.
And, uh, do we do, do we in general do enough to sort of figure out how to make that happen even more and in a, in a more, um, less focused on a few and really something that you really have to think of everybody. I mean, how do you, how do you get a lot of people to just really reach full potential, to thrive to, you know, you don't even know where they might be able to go with it, but part of everybody's job is to look for those people to make the circumstances right. To, to learn how to get the best.
And so less about the Canary, more about the coal mines.
Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, but it's, it's, it's a lot about that, I think. And you were, you were talking about, again, the, the management issue of not being taught how to manage, to do these things.
Right. So it's funny. So there's this talk about a burnout as an actual phenomenon and how to deal with people who are suffering burnout. Um, it seems to me it'd be more productive to deal with the conditions that created in the first place. Cause trying to repair after the fact, um, already that's so good, right? Cause, uh,
Hard
W w one of the things you come to appreciate, um, um, materials are, uh, don't have elastic, deformation. They have th have plastic deformation and, uh, they have history and the same thing is true with people, right. Which is a person has a bad experience. It's not like you have your, um, restorative actions and, uh, the effect of that bad experiences, uh, removed and erased.
Uh, there's a multiple choice exam being administered right now. Uh, they pen and paper, if should you want it
Right. Okay. Um, wow. I spend to take home.
Sorry. You were saying it's all about information,
Right? Right. So if you think about, um, all right,
We talk about physical health fairly, fairly comfortably, right. And if someone has a busted knee, there's not a stigma to having a busted knee, you have a repair on the knee. However, at least in the United States, we have, uh, rules and laws, which are meant to avoid, um, the breaking of a knee on the work site or burning or whatever else. Right. And we, the reason for that is because if someone, um, avoids having a broken knee or a burn or an amputation on the work site, they're, they're way better off than the person who suffered that. And then it has to have some restorative treatment. Now, I think this is a societal prominence to work, not just a workplace problem. We don't give consideration to emotional mental problems in the same kind of non stigma kind of way. So, um, you know, oh, we don't talk about, uh, Lucy's depression. We don't talk about this anxiety that, or we don't talk about burnout in quite the same way, but it's the same thing as a health problem, and it's a wellbeing problem. And so if we can agree as a society that we don't want to, um, create conditions in which someone gets hurt and then has to get repaired physically, why would we tolerate conditions in which someone gets damaged mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and then we have to restore them one. We can't restore them, but why put them through that travel in the first place?
I think that's a really nice segue into world health organization. Right,
Right.
And how they just, you know, formally recognized burnout
And they recognize burnout on the basis of lots of evidence. Obviously they've been redoing this over many, many years. Um, but they got it right by saying, it's not a disease. It's not a medical condition, but it's an occupational. They said phenomenon I've experienced or
Hazard
Or hazard
That
Can happen, that will have health implications. And that people will be going to health providers among others to try and get some, uh, relief for this. So, uh, they identified it as, you know, a response to chronic stressors and it has the three components, you know, of the,
And I think they Excel for let's at least say chronic workplace stress.
They said chronic workplace stressors that not been managed successfully. And some people were kind of, oh my God, that's so vague. You know, about management, dah, dah, dah. And I'm saying
For those of us in it, like since one is chronic workplace stress bank, like I, I know what that feels like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the chronic way. But anyway, what I'm saying is when they say not managed successfully, they left it open for how people, how organizations, how teams, how anybody groups or whatever might think about how do we manage this? How do we change? You know, so we don't have this as the chronic everyday kind of experience, how do we fix, you know, repair or whatever. So I think with world health, rather than narrowing it, they actually kind of opened it for a lot more for me, ways of thinking about this kind of thing. And, um, which I think is good. Uh, I don't know where when world health we'll get to engagement as it,
You know, that's going to be my next question. I mean, it's, let's put in front of center. I mean, I think one of the, uh, uh, the Genesis of this came from, uh, my co-conspirator John Willis, if I could turn my head, maybe I could see him wherever it is I had this feeling, but, uh, you know, that, uh, really, uh, or this supposition, that engagement and burnout are diametric opposite places on the pole. Um, and is that true? Um, I mean, is it fair to say that, uh, on one extreme you have extreme conditions of all the things associated with burnout and the other side you have, uh, an engaged workplace, um, and maybe just, uh, to make it more concrete. One of the things that I got up yesterday that I just, uh, uh, uh, was it just, uh, probably one of my biggest takeaways from yesterday was, uh, to say very concretely, the, uh, it has been well known for, you know, hundreds of years for a great organizations that succeed economically. It's about workplace engagements. Um, it is about customer satisfaction and cashflow, right? And if, if you master those three things, the rest will come naturally. So wouldn't it be great, right. If, um, you know, we could associate all the bad things about the workplace with burnout and then, you know, uh, associate all the positive things that we want, uh, you know, with employment of the things that we call employee engagement. Yeah. So I would love your expert thoughts.
Well, I think part of the challenge, because, you know, there hasn't been as much work for as many years, uh, on engagement. Uh, but the challenge and, and we saw this with burnout as well, is that people use the same word to mean different things. And so part of the things we're like, okay, what does it mean exactly? I mean, if you talk to Gallop, you're going to get a different definition than if you talk to a Wilmer Schalfly and his group who tracked, who developed an engagement scale, they don't have the same signifiers. They don't measure it in the same way. They make different assumptions. And I'm just picking on two. And I don't mean to pick,
Um, can you raise your hand if you have some sort of employee engagement instrument on some sort of regular basis
Yeah. And who here finds that meaningful? Okay. Yeah.
Some do,
Actually, let me even ask more pointed question, how, uh, um, for those of you raised your hand, how many actually pay attention to those scores and use that to actually inform a decision that you make. All right. So that's, that's your audience. So these people yeah. Uh, put some import on that, uh, on that number or set of numbers.
Yeah. So, um, so anyway, I'll just, I'll just read you a couple of differences. Um, so the one out of Europe, they talk about vigor, dedication, absorption, you know, like flow, you know, kind of experience, um, others talk about happiness, reaching your full potential. Um, Gallup is talking more about, um, enthusiasm and emotional commitment. And, um, you know, we were talking about sort of the reverse of burnout. We were talking again about having some energy and enthusiasm, deep involvement and, and a sense of real efficacy and competence. And that was what we were looking at. Well, they're all positive, but they're not always the same thing, you know? And so, and that's, that's part of the, um, issue. One of the things that I, I would point out, uh, when I talk a lot with, um, managers and management about engagement, one of the things they really like about the Gallup definition is this concept of discretionary effort and engaged employees who score high.
They say put in discretionary effort, which means they will do more work than they're supposed to. And I don't have to pay them anymore. This is getting more for less, and people are really enthusiastic about it. This is not what Schalfly and others would go with, you know, because at that person who is doing more than they need to, and somehow you get them motivated to do 150%, rather than a hundred percent of their job is looking good for some people, but for the employees themselves, it may not be, they may not be the, the happy, passionate, oh my gosh. I found my, my thing. Um, so those are some of the kind of differences that come out. I'm not saying one is worse or bad, or, you know, better or something like that, but you're not always speaking the same language. Uh, when you talk about engagement and what does it mean, and why are you finding out if you have engaged employees?
The other point I would just make is that, um, it's interesting how general, every year, when you look at different groups saying we're measuring engagement, it tends to hover around 30% of the workforce, maybe a little bit more, maybe a little bit less. Uh, and so my question always is, and I find that, I mean, if, you know, if we do an entire sample and I sort of divide it up in those five profiles, like I was showing that profile, that's engaged is about 29, 30%. It pretty, it's like a third okay. Of what you're getting. So of course it begs the question of what, about the other 70% and what's happening there. Uh, and again, different, uh, definitions, different ways of looking at it. We'll come up with different ways of sort of categorizing what that is, uh, just to pick on Gallup again, because they, they do this a lot as a business, you've got engaged and you've got, what'd you get is three types of employees, the engaged ones, the not engaged ones and the actively disengaged ones.
Those are the three types. Uh, and usually it'll be around 30% engaged. It might be half that for the actively disengaged. And of course, I'm thinking, are you talking about the burnout wants, or, you know, maybe something else, but that leaves maybe at least half of your employees in the not engaged and the way Gallup talks about them is that they are satisfied, but you know, not fully engaged. Um, and they even have some what I consider sort of derogatory terms. Like they're sort of sleepwalking, they're just going through the job, they're working for the next break. They're what, they're fine. They're okay. They're whatever, you know, sort of thing, but that's, that's the boat, that's the majority. And somehow I worry that if you have a particular kind of engagement hammer, everything, you know, every nail is, you know, that you're looking at is in these terms. And those do scroll some thoughts down. Yeah.
Uh, to, um, purposefulness and confidence. What I mean by that is, um, when you're managing other people, do you give them, uh, a sense of purposefulness that their actions have a value and a, an appreciation by someone else? I'll give you an example. We can all do a quick sort of a wind check when we go outside. So go out, you know, take a break and we'll be getting snacks and food and that kind of thing. And there'll be some people working here in the conference center who, um, when, uh, they're serving coffee, they think their job is to serve coffee and, uh, their, their sense of self is that, what did I do today? I brewed coffee and serve coffee and probably measured in the cup. Served. There will be some people who, uh, either by how they're managed or just sort of an intrinsic internal, um, they're not serving coffee.
What they're doing is they're giving you a restoration, necessitation, restoration resuscitation at a break, and it happens that coffee and tea and whatever else happens to be that implement they're using to accomplish that goal, which, um, you'll appreciate. And, uh, it's sort of a good check. When you go back to your own organizations, uh, spot-check people, are they defining their work by the physicality of the activity they're doing, or are they defining, um, their, their work by the, um, the appreciated outcome of the work they're doing? So that's the purposefulness piece. Now, I don't know how to do sort of a spot check, just sort of wandering through the break area, but, uh, the sense of confidence that even if I have a purposeful engagement, do I have confidence that, um, when I go to do whatever I'm supposed to do, that I'll actually succeed in fulfilling that purpose.
And one can imagine sort of the flip side to, um, uh, confidence then is frustration. So, uh, there's purposefulness and purpose less ness. And, uh, so if you couple purposefulness and confidence, that sounds like a good emotional state to be in. And if you, um, couple on purpose, less ness with a frustration that seems to be a poor emotional state to be in. And again, um, who gets to control that as the people who make decisions for others in terms of how their, their minds and their hands will be or not, or won't be engaged Nicole.
So to kind of combine those thoughts, we've, we've seen ways to help enact this and empower people in organizations, right? So to kind of go back to some of the Gallup work, right? Some we were having conversations previously about this. And I think sh if I can speak for you or summarize what you were saying, a shared concern about this as many times, what we see the recommended course of action be is to only worry about and, and attend to the actively disengaged portion of the workforce, and like, be happy about the engaged portion, because you're getting extra work for free, and basically ignore that middle because like, they're fine. And then so keep that in mind. Right. And then to what Steve just said was, you know, you've, if you, if we want to speak to and encourage this more purposeful work in this confidence, if there's a way to speak to and encourage purposefulness and confidence and pay attention to everyone in terms of engagement, some of the best things that we've seen through the data and through the research, and just in general, is from a leadership point of view, we can set goals and set priorities and then empower everyone else to determine how to best achieve those goals.
And in that way, you aren't only paying attention. You know, you're not only using the hammer on certain people. It gives them a purpose, it empowers them to achieve it. It gives them confidence when they are able to achieve it. It also grows skills and abilities so that they can then like ascend through the ranks for lack of a better term. And, and, and it addresses everyone. You're not only paying attention to the people at the, at the tail end. It, it really kind of helps everyone along the way. It grows everyone through the entire organization instead of like, kind of ignoring the middle of this fine taking advantage of the people who were like killing it. And, and it really helps everyone. Now, the challenge is that that takes work because you have to be setting clear goals and objectives. It takes faith, it takes work to actually let go of the reigns. It's a challenge and it's difficult.
Um, in fact, I'm just a test here. Uh, and when I hear faith, I'm, I'm sort of silently substituting the word trust. Uh, so, uh, and trust and watch, right? That trust that I can verbalize an intent and that, uh, can mobilize a team around me to actually
Trust that they know how to execute design solutions and execute on them, trust that if they design a solution, my team is different than I may have designed it, that I will let them execute and try and see what happens
In my mind that the, the word that comes to mind is psychological safety. And in terms of a one-to-one, uh, replacement, but, uh, something that came out in your talk, uh, Dr. MASAC was, um, w was esteem, was psychological safety. I think you brought up in a very specific context, uh, over many conversations, uh, that has to be, you've brought up psychological safety, both in terms of the worker and the, the leader manager or presser. Um, and that's certainly come up, uh, many, many times in terms of, uh, you know, through the state of devil's report and the Google research. Um, so can we talk a little bit about the relevance or importance that you think, uh, psychological safety has anybody?
Um, yeah, there's been a lot of work being done recently on that, I think before it was really much more about physical safety, physical hazards, you know, you're exposed to certain chemicals or jobs where you might get injured or, you know, attacked by people or something like that. I mean, you get it, but, you know, on the police or something, um, and it, it took a while, I think before people sort of recognize that there might be a parallel in terms of feeling, um, now that you're at risk for that kind of physical injury or disease or something, but that you, you are being, you're under attack, you know, verbally from somebody else you're getting bullied. You're, you're being teased. You are being deliberately not told what you need to know is the new person, um, you know, it's sort of, uh, you know, going through hazing, you know, that kind of thing.
Um, and, uh, also feeling unsafe when you need advice or help and not knowing where to go. Um, safety also begins to branch out into other things having to do with fairness. So again, uh, the extent it's, it's not a safe place, if in a sense, people like me never seem to get the new opportunity, never get the promotion. Um, you know, what's going on here. This doesn't feel like a comfortable, safe environment to be in. If I feel like, um, I may not really be accepted or I'm here as a token, or, you know, I mean, those, those kinds of things. So,
And by the way, you all shared later today, uh, I mean, you spent a good chunk of your earlier parts of your career, about to spear on, uh, workplace safety, right. In terms of, uh, so it seems like to me that there's a, I wouldn't say an equivalent, but, uh, what, uh, physical safety is to manufacturing is psychological safety is to knowledge work. I mean, question mark, by the way, that's very clever. I think it's very smart. And, uh, that didn't come from me. It actually came from Raj foller. I thought that you said it to me, I'm like, wow, this is amazing. Um, uh, you know, that, isn't, it, is it potentially true that, you know, as a sense of physical safety is as important than manufacturing is psychological safety is to knowledge work. Yes. Question mark.
Well, I'm going to throw a Frederick Winslow Taylor flag on that one, because it implies that in the physical work environment, people aren't concerned about psychological safety and in the quote, unquote knowledge workplace, people aren't concerned about physical safety. Uh, the reality is that the, uh, the safest employers in the United States, at least this is mining, refining, that kind of thing. They're actually a safer place to work than your typical hospital, our office. So anyway, don't separate the hands and minds they go together. And that's someone who, uh, has to be, um, has to have the expectation of physical safety. Also wants the expectation of emotional safety. I, and actually, let me just pick up on that for a moment. So, uh, you're in a very complex, high risk, high hazard, uh, physical environment, if something goes wrong, how is that approached? Is it, um, gene, you did that wrong.
You created that defect, you created that hazard, or, um, a defect occurred. You happen to be part of the circumstances, but there was a lot else going on when that occurred. So, um, were you the cause, or why were you swept up in a set of conditions, which collectively we can come to an understanding and in fact, because you were the person swept up in those circumstances, we don't need to blame you. We need to tap into the experience you had because you have a subtlety and a nuanced understanding of what occurred, which the rest of us lack,
Nicole,
I'm just going to, to ask.
And by the way, since, uh, I got, uh, the flag thrown in the Frederick Winslow, Taylor, I'm going to put it on my stopwatch and yeah, exactly. Yeah. I've been actually recording word counts.
Um,
You you're a little bit behind Florida.
Well, one thing I want to say is that again, you know, I just want to pick up on something that Steve said about not dividing it into, you know, physical work, knowledge work. Um, you know, so one of the hazards for women in a lot of workplaces is sexual assault. Um, and this can happen, you know, if you're, you know, in the fire men's crew or in the mining or the, you know, thing, or if you're a knowledge worker and, and having to deal with, you know, those kinds of things that, uh, you know, it doesn't make it safe for you to work there. Cause you really don't know when you're going to get hit on it in a way that's, that's not, not good. And so I, you know, again, I think we need to be thinking about psychological safety more broadly for all kinds of people in all kinds of,
Yeah, that's right. Uh, so yeah, knowledge work, uh, physical, uh, w w what's what's the false duality. I, you got to accuse me of having,
Uh, a human being shows up at your workplace to say that, uh, in some places they check their mind to the door and show up with their body and other places, they check their, uh, body at the door and show up their mind that that doesn't see it. I mean,
Right, exactly. Um, so, um, how about specifically, I mean, it's, uh, what, what are things that you think, uh, we can do, you know, so this is a group of technology leaders. What are the specific recommendations you would have for, um, you know, to make the workplace a better place?
You all spend your day looking for bugs, right? I mean, you do you have these very, very complex, uh, technical systems and you spend all day looking for bugs, that'll compromise the performance of those systems. And all we're saying is do the same thing, you know, step up one or two layers from the devices you're designing, building, managing, and look at the, uh, the social overlay on top of those. And there will be bugs there. Uh, and they're evident in many of the ways that we've described here, uh, lack of engagement, frustration, wear and tear, um, on and on. And, uh, just like the, the technical bugs, um, deserve attention and are fixable. The social bugs also, uh, deserve attention and are fixable. And th that's actually a sort of a very, um, positive view of all this, because the alternative view is, um, the people with whom I work suck, you know, and they're just a bunch of whiners and crybabies and namby pamby is, or whatever else it is. And those bugs are just inherent. It's just sort of a force of nature that those social bugs exist. Yeah. I don't accept that premise, you know, the alternative premises, that's just right now and under design, under management of a very complex dynamic system. And if we can recognize those bugs, then that's a trigger, you know, see, I guess, I guess I should say, if we see those problems, then we can diagnose the swarm and solve those problems. And if we solve them, we can raise the level of the system. Overall.
It reminds me of that quote from generalists general Stanley McChrystal sport, great team of teams, uh, the team is the, usually the boundary of where everyone else sucks. Right?
Yeah. So that boundary is you and all your colleagues. That's a very bad downtown Workday
Talking about or Nicole.
Um, I would say create and support opportunities for people to separate from work, right? Particularly as we think about, uh, reducing burnout, there's a lot of good research that shows that anytime you can like, just get a break from work, like you mentioned yesterday, right? So that can be physical breaks. It can be psychological breaks. So like as leaders, we can set the example for that. You know, sometimes we have different schedules where we leave, we go pick up our kids or we just leave. And occasionally we can send emails at night. My own manager has had a fantastic set of fantastic example of occasionally I will get an email late at night that will explicitly say, by the way, this is not urgent. Please do not feel the need to respond to this now, and then we'll have the email right. Or will not send them at all. So like definitely sending that example. Um, and I've tried to do the same with my team and then, you know, making sure that you, for yourself also create time nights, weekends vacations, because the better we are at creating that separation, the better we do at recharging. So, you know, Steve, like you said, we, we do this thing at work where we try to make sure that we do this physical, like avoid physical breaks at work. Just like when we physically work out, right. We need to physically rest. We also need to mentally arrest.
Um, another thing, uh, that I guess I would say is that, um, part of being engaged with your work, uh, is that other people recognize you for being engaged and having ideas and having some possibilities to contribute. Um, so employees really in a lot of places will really begin to, you know, pick up and, and get more excited about it when they have opportunities to actually talk with the managers and the CEO and that old concept of walk around management is alive and well, I see it all the time. I'll see things in organizations where people are complaining that they're not getting money to deal with these different kinds of problems and they're, you know, arguing and finger-pointing, and it's their fault and it's your fault. And what's the, you know, and then someone comes down and actually walks the floor for the day and sees what the problem was that they were screaming about and was like, oh yeah, sure.
We can do that. And it was like, you could have just asked, you know, several weeks ago and people would be able to say, you know, we've got a problem here. How could we, you know, could we get the funds for it? Is it okay if we just change, you know, certain kinds of processes. But the, what I hear often is people saying, I've, I've worked hard, I'm doing good work people, you know, I'm getting paid and all this kind of thing. And yet all of a sudden, some big change will come. That really affects what we're doing. And nobody ever came and asked any of us who are the core engineers working in this unit, whether this was good or not, or had unintended consequences or, you know, are we in onboard? And so it's like just having sort of some basic respect, which thing people, if you've hired them and you think they're good and you want them to even get better and more engaged, spend time listening, actually get some ways in which they feel they are participating. They are contributing. Doesn't mean everything they come up with is what you're going to do. It may be lousy ideas. I mean, you know, sometimes, and sometimes they're good, but just having a way in which people feel, you know, I can, I can contribute, I can have a voice. Um, and it, you know, and if you're going to then recognize somebody for some kinds of things, you have to have gotten to know who they are and what they're doing enough, that they know that you really understand what,
I guess, what I'm finding myself like a little agitated about it is that I think there are known, uh, characteristics of what creates greatness right now. And we've spent six years studying specific attributes that predict performance. Now, whether it's, uh, such level safety, are you using the Western model? You know, uh, what have you, you studied, uh, for decades, um, you know, empowering the frontline worker and freeing the support systems. I mean, I, I think we can get to a far more precise, uh, set of guidelines, rules or something, right. That's, uh, we can be very specific about things we believe or have proven, enable, uh, engagement, performance, uh, help get away from burnout. I mean, can you speak to that to bring your experience to bear? I mean, I think you have some ideas on that right
On
No, no. Sorry that Steven Nicole, Coldwell first, so summarize for us to accelerate book and what you've learned about performance.
Everybody get comfortable.
Yeah.
Which part, I mean there,
Well, let's start from, um, we'll start with the top five characteristics, uh, and top predictors of what creates great performance,
Great performance, um, smart technical practices, um, like good foundations in terms of practicing process, like do the smart things that come out of lane canyon, lean cannon, make sure you invest in a good culture that is Grounded in psychological safety from there. If you want to improve, do things that Focus on getting better and a continuous improvement paradigm. And from that, I mean, Identify what your constraint is, Get better at that constraint And rinse and repeat right with
Feedback in the system with
Lots of feedback in the system involve the whole team, but really that psychological safety is going to be key because that's the only way you're going to get feedback. Um, I think one of the keys also is going to be involving, involving the team involving the engineers and also kind of, uh, a touch back to what Christine said earlier is Involve and understand that your Team members that are from underrepresented groups, You like, you may have to do kind of an, an extra reach out to them because their voices will be different or their voices may not be heard the same way. If you do like one focus group in a really, really large conference room, they may not speak out or the voice, their voices will be quieter and they will see things very differently. Right. I remember when I was an engineer, I would see things that other people would completely mess.
And so these are the things that are grounded in six years of research, 3000 respondents. Right. And then we have a certain sense of assurance that do you think lead to better performance? How about you, Dr. Spear?
Yeah. So, um, we started as a, as technologists. Uh, I'm not, I mean, you all are, uh, that there's an answer. Um, well, if we have a system of linear equations, there's an answer to that. If we do a, um, risk adjusted net present value, there's an answer. And so we start building assumptions that, uh, there's an answer, which means that we can be right, uh, for a lot of the things that we do, we're guaranteed to be wrong. I'll give you an example. I'm giving a talk today at five 30. I hope it's a good one. I mean more than you. I really hope it's a good talk. Um,
Uh, something will go wrong with that talk though. I guarantee it. And the reason I get that's the one certainty I have, and the reason is I worked very hard on that talk. I've been working on these ideas for a long time. I spent a lot of time on the PowerPoint, et cetera, but, uh, I compose that talk and finish composing and a few hours ago, I'm going to give it in a few hours from now. And I can't predict perfectly at five 30, what the conditions will be. I don't know who will be in the room. I don't know what the room will be like. I don't know about how the it system will work. I don't know the dynamic we'll have at five 30, how it will differ from the one we're having right now. Um, so that talk will not go as expected now.
Um, that's just the human condition because anytime we, um, designed something plants and to prepare for something, uh, we like to think that we're doing it with this, uh, great precision, like solving a system of linear equations. But in fact, all we're doing is guessing. Um, now it may be a wide boundary, has had narrow boundaries in which we're guessing, but we're guessing. And we have to come to accept that, um, uh, in situations, which is most situations, we're constantly guessing we have to accept that things will go wrong. And if we accept that things will go wrong, then that really behooves us to get the feedback early off and clearly aggressively, uh, as to what's going wrong. What's surprising and correct on that. And, and I think we take up that habit of, um, recognizing that we're always going to be surprised, but that surprises useful. Cause it's feedback to tell us what in our prediction was wrong, then we can correct. And if we reject that and say, oh no, I'm going to predict now for five 30 later, I'll accept no feedback. Um, then for sure, we're going to fail because reality will overcome our predictions.
If I may, I would also like to point out how similar our answers were. So if any of you have ever been in one of my talks, I hate maturity models.
They're dumb. Um, so I, I pointed out something pretty similar in that kind of lay your foundations and then figure out your constraint. So, so point out the next thing that's wrong, the next thing you need to fix and then fix it and get a bunch of feedback and then figure out the next thing you need to fix. Because we work in these highly complex systems with technology that's highly complex, but especially people that are way more complex, right? And I understand the want for these maturity models. We want these linear models. We want these highly predictable systems because it makes us feel safe. It, I really want things to be predictable. I want this path in front of me with these steps, but we really do just need to figure out the next step ahead. We want this, this hypothesis and this gas, and we should move toward the next step, but we can't have five to 10 steps ahead or five years ahead. We just need to take the next best step And then go.
Yeah. And the thing I would add to that is that sometimes it's not really the best thing to say. I have to figure out the next step. Sometimes you want another step in there where you're saying to people, okay, here's the kind of issue we're facing. And I'm hearing some stuff from you. What might be something we could do a little differently and maybe you will come up with some other ideas you hadn't thought about. And some of them might be good in some of them might not, but at least you're trying it out before you say, let's do it. And people may, you know, say, whoa, this is, you know why this is not a good idea, that, that, okay, how about we try, you know, this other kind of thing. And, um, so there's a lot of examples that, you know, I can, I can give.
And, and there's one that will sound kind of, sort of silly, but it worked incredibly well within a medical clinic and it re and it responds to also one of the things you said about different people may have different ways of participating. Um, so what they were doing was they were setting up, um, they wanted to, you know, get people on the medical team to kind of be better prepared for the day's work. And so they started having an initial huddle at the beginning of the day, in the whole clinic where we're seeing, okay, what patients we have, what kind of operations are going on, what kind of thing is happening, et cetera, et cetera, who's doing what, you know, just make sure we're prepared for today. And on the basis of suggestions from some of the people in the team, they added something else, which was, we take a moment to just quickly check with all of you on the team, kind of how are you today?
How are things going? And it gave an opportunity for people to ask a question. It gave people an opportunity to say, actually, I've got a really sick child at home. And, you know, I'm, I'm a little concerned about that. Or I'm got a cold or, you know, whatever. And then the team could adjust and begin to say, oh, well, listen, maybe we should give you the time to hit home early. I'll cover for you this time. We'll do whatever. And so after a while, what they were finding is that people on the team, and we're talking for example about certain, um, cultural groups, ethnic minorities or something in, in, especially in more, you know, kind of Latinos who are much more into a, um, a system and a culture of hierarchy, you never questioned what the leader says. You never re-asked something. Cause it might be interpreted as, you know, impertinent and rude or something like that.
But after a while, people are beginning to see it's okay. And they begin over time. Everybody started participating more and even sometimes sharing, I saw a fabulous film last night, you should all go see whatever. And it was building a greater bond. Um, it was, uh, enabling them to adjust as a group to whatever was sort of happening. The morale was going up. They are highly engaged in all of this, to the point where they're calling it a huddle cuddle. Um, and so there's a huddling thing that comes along, you know, in terms of organizing, but there's the cuddle, which is really, you know, listening to each other, figuring out, oh, how do we have to adjust? Or maybe we could try that. That might be a little bit better. And people feeling more empowered to speak up and contribute, and then you're practicing it every day. And so over time, you're seeing a real change in the social dynamics around that team. And that came from the people themselves. Um, oh, sorry. So the cuddle huddle is, you know, okay. It doesn't sound big, sexy, we're reinventing, you know, healthcare for the 21st century sort of thing. Didn't cost money, but it's changed, you know, then the clinic there, there
I'm just a resonate with that. I mean, I, I find myself actually feeling physically relieved, right. Because I mean, I would say, oh, that sounds like team outcomes, mutual support a sense of, uh, you know, outcome focused, uh, whatever right now, high trust where, uh, uh, and so I think that I I'm trust, right. That, that resonates with your lifetime of research.
The challenge is to go from the concepts, you're saying, how do you translate that into everyday practice? What do we actually do? And I think that's where often people get stuck. It's kind of like, okay, yeah, we have all the right words, talking about engagement and passion and, you know, fulfillment and all that kind of thing. And you say, and I want to do more, that will support and do it. What exactly do I do tomorrow? You know, or what should we come up with? And I think that's that sort of, how do you translate it into everyday actions
And just, just my assertion here, man. I think you're surrounded by community people who are pioneering those practices in large organizations. Uh, uh, I think they would, if anyone would like to volunteer to help, um, and, uh, interact with Dr. Math, like I might think you would value those interactions. Right. And how you do that. Well, here I have a, um, question, uh, that actually came through slack mysteriously. Um, that was challenged to me through Jeff gala more. Um, so, um, there's this feeling that so many organizations, uh, so you're looking at a group of leaders who believe that, right? Uh, whether it's because they've read the accelerate book or, uh, you know, they are compassionate enough to know that burnout is not good for them. And, uh, you know, they actually do want to create dynamic learning organizations, but they feel out of control to change the circumstances that lead to these things. So what advice would you give them? Uh, you know, whether it's, uh, communicating up around or down, uh, uh, what advice would you give? I think that, yeah.
Yeah. So, um, in terms of communicating up, I don't want to be, um, completely pessimistic and, uh, reign on this and say, good luck with that.
There is no help coming calorie coming you're on your own,
But my suggestion has started down. You have a span of, uh, control or influence where you can create, you can, um, affect the microenvironment over which you have control and influence as to how it behaves. And we've had this repeatedly with clients where we go in and we're aggressively on ambitious on our starting point. Um, because we want to get a test of concept moving into a proof of concept of a different way of behaving and acting and believing. And when we get that proof of concept, um, scoring much better on every dimension, uh, quality productivity, happiness, whatever else it to be, then you have the ability to effect outward because you have people who are looking over and saying, Hey, what are you doing different than what we're doing? I'd like to try that too. And then when you've got us an incubator in some sort of viral infection in the peripheral areas, doing things differently and getting different outcomes as a result, then you have, um, data with which you can use data and stories that have to be tightly coupled, but you have data and stories which can use to influence upwards, um, to, uh, start in this direction, uh, may be, um, difficult to do.
I love that. So, uh, you guys are creating the pockets of greatness. That can be very contagious. I can go to you for next Nicole, any advice
I would say the same, um, if you can start with your own team to kind of get that momentum I've seen going up work once or twice, but it takes inordinate amounts of energy
Or really unusual up.
Right.
Exactly. I mean like, like you have to have, uh, an, a preexisting almost partnership already there.
Yeah. And if you don't, you need to think about how you begin to create that, you know, in some sense, um, and, and how to make that possible. Yeah,
That was great. Um, uh, how about, I allow each person to have some closing words, uh, whether it's a help you're looking for, or, uh, reflections or observations and whatever, or do you want,
Oh, since, since I speak later, I have a lot of time to ask for help a lot, but I just want to pick up on some of the doctors said earlier about a soliciting and hearing voice. The, the, the advice is, um, don't compress variety on naturally to, uh, unnecessary consensus. The reason you have variety of opinion is because you have a situation which no one well understands. That's why you have a problem in the first place. And that variety of opinion, um, reflects a different perspectives. Different understanding is which, um, if entertained allow you to synthesize an understanding of the situation, um, and the construction of a corrective action, much better, much richer than if you are rushed towards a single point of view, uh, too early
Before Christina.
Yup. Um, I guess I keep coming back to sort of, um, an image in my head, um, of things that thrive in bloom and grow and, uh, what you need, what to do that. I mean, you can get the very best plant that you've ever bought, you know, but if you put it in an environment where the soil is kind of not so good, and there's not much sun, and there's not a lot light, it doesn't matter quite how much you invested in what was there. It's not going to come up and do as well as it could have had it been in the, in a better setting. And so, um, as I say with engagement, it's not just about the single plan, it's actually about the whole garden and, and the way in which a lot of that sort of depends on and interacts with and gets inspiration and encouragement and stuff, not just from people at the top, but people from either side and people below so that, you know, you're, you're building more and more channels in which people can feel that they actually are contributing in little ways, not just big ways, uh, and being a part of that and being committed.
And therefore, when there's a big challenge ahead, they're ready to go, but you have to have done that prep work to make people feel that, yeah, I am a part of this and I have something to contribute. And what are the ways in which many of us in different kinds of positions can help foster that? I would really love to see a lot of thousand flowers blooming. So,
Absolutely.
Um, so that really makes me think about some of the work of one of my colleagues, uh, Jacob's Smith on inclusion. Right. I, I love what you said about flowers and blooming and, and without good soil, then, then no one can really bloom. Right. And so I guess, um, you know, I guess I think I would like to encourage all of us to help amplify the voices of everyone. Um, and in particular, um, underrepresented groups, particularly as we, as we try to think about encouraging, um, engagement throughout those in our organizations and kind of watch out for each other. I think this came up earlier in our inner interview, when we think about burnout and sometimes people who are burned out, we don't necessarily see because we think it's unsafe to speak out. So we all put on a brave face. So think about how we're kind of peers to each other, or friends to each other. So look out for each other and then also kind of amplify those voices for anyone who's underrepresented amongst us in particular, um, people in women of color in our field.
Great. Well, thank you for this great panel. I, by the way, I've been waiting the whole hour to sort of crack this joke. Um, but I couldn't figure out how to get in. So I'll just tell it because, uh, uh, I don't want it to go to waste. Uh, I was thinking about the, uh, here's
Jean's Shafi
Servers, uh, and with fullness and confidence, I think I can really do a good job by resuscitating attendees by like putting in pheta beans, uh, into the drinks. And I feel like that will actually help, uh, you know, uh, the organization achieve its
Goals. It could be your new life calling.
It could be, yeah. It's, I'll see you on a coffee and, um, uh, uh, I'll be evenly waiting to see how effective I was. Thank you so much, Dr. Spear, Dr. and Dr. Forsman