Quick Take | Tips to Help Executives and Leaders Grow
The Quick Take podcast provides concise and actionable tips to help executives and leaders, like you, tackle the thorny and complex challenges that affect us daily. By leveraging their experience and relationship with other global leaders, our hosts provide suggestions that are based on their deep experience as leaders and coaches but also pressure tested in boardrooms everywhere because they asked their friends….(almost). Hosted by James Capps and Susie Tomenchok. Episodes release weekly on Thursdays.
Quick Take | Tips to Help Executives and Leaders Grow
Keeping Your Best People During Market Volatility
How can you keep your best employees happy and engaged when the market is in turmoil? Discover the secrets to fostering a thriving workforce even amidst layoffs and volatility. We promise to equip you with actionable strategies to create a culture of psychological safety and ensure your team feels secure and motivated. We delve into long-term investments in employee engagement, covering vital aspects like consistent communication, anonymous feedback mechanisms, and the importance of regular one-on-one meetings.
In this episode, we discuss the following:
1. Current job market situation, including layoffs and ongoing hiring.
2. Creating a culture of psychological safety.
3. Importance of continuous investment in employees.
CONNECT WITH SUSIE:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/susietomenchok/
CONNECT WITH JAMES:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/capps/
Welcome to the Quick Take Podcast, the show where you get targeted advice and coaching for executives by executives. I'm Suzy Tominchuk.
Speaker 2:And I'm James Capps. Give us 15 minutes and we'll give you three secrets to address the complex topic of issues that are challenging executives like you today.
Speaker 1:Hey Quicksters, welcome to Quick Take. I'm your host, susie, along with James. How are you, James?
Speaker 2:I'm good. I've had a crazy morning.
Speaker 1:I can't get anything to work, right, but we are here nonetheless. I have suffered that along with you, so I'm glad that we got technology to get aligned.
Speaker 2:I know it's embarrassing to say that I can't figure out how to make a USB port function you didn't give up.
Speaker 1:You didn't give up, and that's what we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 1:I was telling you I've never. Well, I shouldn't say that I'm in a season right now where I've had so many executives tell me they're ready to move on. They're frustrated with their employer or what they're doing for a living. They just don't feel satisfied. They're not thriving, they're just surviving. And I thought what an interesting you know, along with the other side of it is people getting laid off as well. But so how do you make sure that you're investing in the right way in your people to make them feel energized and a part of the bigger picture?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's such an interesting topic and I was on a on a panel this morning and we were talking about that a little bit and that, you know, the press tends to highlight the layoffs but fails to mention that the hiring is going on at the same time. And I'd rather the, the, the, the heading or the? Um, the subjects of these uh, these articles say you know, uh, intuit doing layoff will be net 100 employees by the end of the year. Um, because you know they may do a thousand layoffs, but they're they're going to hire 2000. They may do 1,000 layoffs but they're going to hire 2,000.
Speaker 2:And so, while the market seems weird is weird because there are changes and layoffs and they are influenced to the way we think about the market there's still a lot of hiring going on and I think we've got to coin a phrase of it's a little bit of right-sizing, it's a little bit of using a layoff to address over-hiring and exuberant hiring that was going on in COVID. But also these layoffs are being used as a management tool to get people in the right city to eliminate departments and organizations that aren't functioning. And so the reality is that there's still a good market for good workers and good employees and great leaders are still being sought after, and so, as an executive, you cannot take your hand off the till, because you're going to lose your good people and you're going to keep your mediocre players, and without taking action, you will be stuck with a mediocre team.
Speaker 1:That's so true, and executives that are really good and they are thriving they also need to always be considering their options, absolutely. So this is important for leaders to have as a regular best practice to do this proactively, if not. When there's a great opportunity that comes up for somebody that's even really happy, you could lose them as well.
Speaker 2:So this is a really important Well, and I think, the important thing as I look over my notes here none of these are things that you can do on Thursday and solve your problem. These are investments. You know most things that require that are good returns in life require compound interest, and so you can't solve these problems by doing your quarterly check-in. These are systemic, these are cultural and, like we say in a lot of things, you've got to invest the time, the long-term time, to make sure these stick.
Speaker 1:This is a 401k.
Speaker 2:This is the 401k for your employees. This is the employee retention pension plan that ensures that you keep your good folks.
Speaker 1:All right, I think it's important Tell us what the first tip is.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that you know this is a little esoteric, I think, but you know we have to create a culture of psychological safety. Employees need to identify the fact that their employees want to be there and are comfortable, and you know we have seen multiple efforts. I constantly go back to the Google's Aristotle project, where they did some tremendous research and how their teams were affected of being effective, and the fact is is that teams with high psychological safety had much higher returns on on productivity and that they they had lower retention Company after company. Creating that psychological safety consistently ensures that their teams are focused and engaged, and I think it's important that we create an environment where folks feel that security.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and just to reiterate what that is, it's providing an environment where people feel comfortable sharing, giving feedback and not being fearful at all of any repercussions or negative accountable to that, because even giving them a negative reaction or not moving it forward is not allowing that environment of real psychological safety.
Speaker 2:Right, I can. Only I can't even count the number of executive meetings I've sat in on or or monitored where the the leader or the speaker will say you know, no question is, uh is off the off limits, and off limits question gets asked and then they bite that, that, uh, that that questioner's head off and you just eliminated 10 years of good work. Uh, and creating an environment of safety, um, you've got to have regular communications. You've got to have the ability to provide anonymous feedback. You've got to have regular communications. You've got to have the ability to provide anonymous feedback. You've got to have one-on-ones. You've got to communicate up and down. It's a fabric about how people feel comfortable saying the emperor is naked, and it's one thing to hear it and it's another thing to take action. So you've got to focus on this to ensure that your teams feel like they're in a place that they are safe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so good. Focus on this to ensure that your teams feel like they're in a place that they are safe. Yeah, it's so good and even asking them do you feel comfortable from time to time, like understanding, like being an observer of you from the outside? So that you know you're not doing anything non verbally or counter to what you believe you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, I 100% agree, and I think that's a good segue into my second one, which is really about ensuring that your, your, your managers have that emotional intelligence to deal with the real world. Look, we've all done layoffs. I've done several as of late and or been involved in several as of late, and the next question is always are we done?
Speaker 1:Is it over and?
Speaker 2:there is a way to answer that that still ensures that there is some psychological safety, and as a manager, you need to be able to communicate with honesty but without lying to your employees, and that takes skill and effort of a leadership team to create that emotional intelligence to get your teams to read about how they should be transforming the company, talk about the leadership principles that go along with that. To ensure that your managers are performing in the right way. I just think it's really critical that your managers are working with and communicating with the staff in a way that obviously continues to support that emotional safety.
Speaker 1:And you know the research shows that followers of to get as much stability and regain kind of people's feet on the ground is so essential to keep them moving forward. Because we all know that area of purgatory that happens after a layoff and it just keeps the noise going and people aren't productive and people aren't motivated. Keeps the noise going and people aren't productive and people aren't motivated.
Speaker 2:So the more that you can clean that up as quick as you can, the better off. Your culture is going to be. Sure, and I think that you know employees want to feel supported by their manager, and you can support your employees even through a layoff. And you know studies have shown that employees who feel like they're supported by their manager are 70% more likely to stay, and that's an insane number.
Speaker 2:And I've been through, I've worked with companies who have done repeated layoffs throughout a year, multiple layoffs within one year, and the staff that survived continued to share with me and through feedback, that they felt supported by the leadership team through that, and that was no, that's no small feat, um, because you know, at some point, you know everybody's kind of got their tail between their legs and afraid it's going to get cut off. Um, but you can still have faith in your, in your, in your leadership team, that they are supporting you to the best of their ability, and so it is a very critical effort, or critical. It is very critical that leaders think about the fact that, even through rough times, they need to use that emotional intelligence and support their teams.
Speaker 1:And it might just take more time and more silence.
Speaker 2:Practice silence and really listen.
Speaker 2:You have to listen and you kind of have to put your feelings down and be a little more altruistic about the reality. I mean, you're probably nervous about your role and your organization, your department. Are we safe Right now? They need an adult and they need somebody to say, hey, I've got your back. You need to be the parent, an adult, and they need somebody to say, hey, I've got your back. You need to be the parent. You know sometimes, um, you know, people want servant leaders and then sometimes they want somebody to uh, have the be in charge and, um, you have to know when to pivot, um, and it's hard.
Speaker 1:It's really hard, it's so true. All right, what's the third?
Speaker 2:Well, the third one, I think, is really creating that environment of uh, of comfort and safety through mentorship and career development programs.
Speaker 2:I think that, uh, if, if you know, I like to say and I sometimes get in trouble for saying it is that, um, I'd like to tell my employees this will not be your last job and I want you to be better at the next job than you are here. And so that's my job is to help you grow, understand where your strengths and weaknesses are. So you're at your next role when you leave my group as the VP of product or of technology and you go and be the CTO of another company that you're better because of the work that we did here. And so I do that through mentorship, I do that through career development, I do that through sponsorship, and I think when employees feel like that we have their best interest in mind, they're going to provide a lot more, be more effective employees. And so I think that creating that formal mentorship, creating that formal career development program and allowing them to take advantage of your network and your skills and experience goes really far to ensure that your top talent is going to stick around.
Speaker 1:You know what I see it. I get hired a lot after those things happen because it's showing that interest in the team, it's regrouping as a team. As a team, when things change, when people are added, when people are subtracted, that collective has to recalibrate together. Oh, absolutely so doing a team session, even investing in the team together, helping them understand what this new normal is going to be.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting, yeah, yeah. So there's lots of ways to do that and I hadn't thought about that doing it as a group.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's kind of doing it as a group. Yeah, so it's. It's kind of like it's it's a change. It's like you know you always say you're, you, everybody's replaceable, and people always show by putting your finger in the water. You know, like you take that out and it's fine. That's not always true and you have to get people to really understand what is the new. What is that? This new feeling around the team needs to feel like a team.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and I think that's a really great point is is there are lots of uh ways to respond to those changes and I think group conversations around career development, group conversations around mentorship, group conversations around emotional safety are great ways to create that, that reestablish that cohesion which may have been atrophied or struggled or damaged during difficult times.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's really interesting. It also shows that the company still will spend money on them, will invest in them, because sometimes, when a layoff happens, it feels like everything has dried up and there's nothing. Now we can't do all these extracurricular things, you know, because this just happened, but that investment is important because it helps people get back on their feet quicker. Yeah.
Speaker 2:No matter how small it is, I mean even gosh. We all know my experience has been and I'd love to hear your experiences that two thirds. I'm making a number, all statistics, you know. They're mostly made up Year after year.
Speaker 2:I usually have left two-thirds of my training budget on the table because, while people want to have a training budget, getting them to take the training is really hard, and whether it's training, mentorship, career development, whatever it is you can, I would be willing to bet that, even after a layoff, you can take advantage of that budget and remind folks that, hey, we still have money for you, we still want you to grow. And even that conversation can go a long way, even if they don't get around to taking it, it is the way of communicating to the group that we're still supporting them.
Speaker 1:What a great way to show your investment in them moving forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right. So what are the?
Speaker 1:three. What are the three?
Speaker 2:First, create and foster an environment of psychological safety. You've got to keep your people feeling like that they have a place that they can grow and evolve. You've got to, secondly, equip your managers with the skills to have emotional intelligence so they know how to have those tough conversations, they are creating that emotional or that psychological safety and that they have the ability to handle and answer the tough questions. And then, third, you've got to ensure that you do mentorship, that you're doing that type of career development, that you're looking out for your people. They want to feel like you are invested in them and that goes a long way to helping them understand that they have a role here and that you want them to be better and grow in that role.
Speaker 1:And this is not a one and done investment. This is something that you should do over time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know a lot of our audience complains about you know they love our three tips, but when the three tips require lots of effort it's kind of orthogonal to the spirit of the quick take. But the truth is is these are things you've got to do. We like to remind you over and over because you should be reminded over and over that you need to be doing them all the time.
Speaker 1:It's a long game, compounded interest. All right, thanks, james.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:James, what's your favorite board game?
Speaker 2:You know, I think the game that I like to play the most and the game I like to play the least is the same game and it's Risk. I think if anybody's any of our listeners have played Risk, know A. That is a game that can go on for days.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:It is a game that can result in you know, as a kid I know that that resulted in many fights, physical fights, many boards kicked across the room as a parent with my boys certainly those two would do irrational battle situations to win and I've seen many fun things. It is very much a great game, but also an emotional investment that I'm not always prepared to undertake. There are times when people, like in the holidays, will get together and say what board game?
Speaker 2:and somebody will say risk and everybody. You can just see everybody thinking are you ready for that?
Speaker 1:how, how many days are we going?
Speaker 2:to be here. How much have I had to drink? I don't know, but I will say that that's one of my favorites.
Speaker 1:Okay, I like it. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Quick Take, where we talk about the questions that are on the mind of executives everywhere. Connect with us and share what's on your mind.
Speaker 2:You can find us on LinkedIn, youtube or whatever nerdy place on the internet. You find your podcasts. Our links to the show are in the show notes. We appreciate you.
