Creating a Positive Work Environment — Q & A on Breakthrough Leadership

Lou Quinto:

Hi, welcome to Q & A on Breakthrough Leadership. I'm Lou Quinto.

Craig P. Anderson:

And I'm Craig Anderson.

Lou Quinto:

In our episode today, we're going to talk about creating a positive work environment. Craig, as you know, over the last several months, our work environment's become very high pressure. We're learning new things, we're trying to do the same job that we used to do, we're adapting to changes. Decisions are being made and thrown at employees constantly, and that positive attitude and that positive culture really does play a part these days. I know that when it comes to not having a positive culture, but having a high stress type of environment, that creates a lot of hidden costs within an organization.

Craig P. Anderson:

Yeah. Lou, as a matter of fact, healthcare expenditures at high pressure companies are nearly 50% greater than other organizations. There's research that shows $500 billion is siphoned from the economy every year because of workplace stress. 80% of doctor visits are due to stress and over 550 million work days are lost each year due to stress on the job. It's a real and meaningful and quantifiable issue.

Lou Quinto:

Well, and then also don't forget the hidden cost of employee disengagement. When you've got employees that are disengaged because the pressure is so great to them, you end up having a higher absentee rate, you have more accidents on the job, particularly in a manufacturing setting, you've got more errors and defects because people are just, "I got to get it done. I got to do this." Unfortunately, that lowers productivity and it lowers profitability and it lowers job growth as well.

Craig P. Anderson:

Well, in addition to job growth being lowered, it also increases turnover. You actually see at a lot of these companies, increases of almost 50% in voluntary turnove,r and that is not without cost. One study pegged that at 20% of the employee salary, I know in my company it was even higher because of the way we went through our hiring process. So it is really a big issue in these high stress environments on the economic impact of running a company.

Lou Quinto:

And we're talking about something here that is not just the typical high stress environment, but now with all of the COVID restrictions and everything new that we're doing on the job, if it was high stress to begin with, it's really high stress right now. What we want to do is we want to talk about three areas that as a leader, you can create a more positive culture amongst all of your employees. And the first thing we're going to talk about is, as a leader, you need to foster social connections a lot more. And there are a lot of different things, and we'll talk about them, that you can do to foster those social connections. And Craig, don't mean here going out and having a cup of coffee or beer with everybody. Because while that is a social connection, we do need to draw the line somewhere as a leader on how social you do get with individuals with whom you work.

Lou Quinto:

The second thing, and we've heard this a lot, is if you want to create a positive atmosphere, you've got to, as a leader, show empathy. And then the third area we're going to talk about is, as a leader, you need to go out of your way to help those people on your team to be able to get their job done, meet their goals, or just helping them through problems that they're having that they feel they can't solve on their own.

Lou Quinto:

So Craig, why don't you kick us off and talk to us a little bit about fostering social connections? I know in your last job, you did a good job with your culture to be able to really encourage those social connections that are important to reducing the high stress in an organization.

Craig P. Anderson:

Exactly. When you think about how much time of your life you spend at work, obviously a lot of your social connections are going to be there. But a lot of times that happens where the call center guys are socially interacting with their colleagues, and the marketing guys are over here, and the IT guys are over here. So what we did is we created not an open space where you just walked in and plopped down on whatever desk happened to be open that day, but what we did do is create spaces where there were a lot of intentional collisions, so that people started to interact with other departments and started building those up. And it really helped us to have more of that kind of stickiness to the employees. As a result, one of the things we had was much lower turnover than average, which helped us out a lot in consistency and cost savings.

Craig P. Anderson:

We also had a lot of fortunate people who love to cook and bake. So we had lots of opportunities to have those social events that fit around food. It was funny. We actually saw the other day where we, during the eclipse a few years ago, where we bought the glasses for everybody and gave everybody a 15 minute break to go out and watch the eclipse. And those are the ways you start building that connection in the organization where people start to feel better about what's going on in the organization, and even in rough patches, I think that helps to reduce the overall stress level for your employees.

Lou Quinto:

I believe one of the things that you mentioned there was particularly to build that social interaction between people from different teams or different groups, in marketing, call centers, sales, then to bring people together in different ways. And I've had the opportunity over my career to work with some very large companies that have what they refer to as affinity groups, where these affinity groups are set up based upon particular likes and interests that members of the company have. And they join these affinity groups, and that really exposes it not just from people that are from different areas, but also from people who are in different positions within the company. So within the hierarchy where they may be associating with somebody who is an executive vice-president and they're just a marketing person or sales person. Those affinity groups really are important when it comes to creating that positive environment as well.

Lou Quinto:

And the other area, second area that we'll talk about is empathy. And I know I probably can't count on two hands how many times we have talked about leaders needing to show empathy during this time especially, and that is taking a personal interest in people. So you've got a situation where if you've got someone who's not performing up to their normal standards, you could call them into the office and say, look, we're at the third quarter here. This is the third quarter in a row now that you haven't hit your quotas, you haven't hit your numbers. And we need to sit down and talk about that, because I'm getting very upset.

Lou Quinto:

Or there's another way you can approach that same situation using empathy. And that is by bringing someone in and saying, look, this is the third quarter that we've been going through this and you haven't been hitting your numbers. What's wrong? Is there something I can help you with? And that's showing empathy. That one situation can be dealt with in two different ways. And the one way, by showing empathy, by asking what's wrong, is there something I can help you with, will get somebody to open up, increase the trust level that that person has with you, and to create an interaction, a more personal interaction than just leader and employee. Empathy has got to be number one when it comes to creating a positive environment.

Craig P. Anderson:

And I agree with you on that, Lou. I think where I would disagree with what you just said there, three quarters of poor performance in a row? Kind of a different problem.

Lou Quinto:

Maybe I should have said two quarters instead of three. Okay.

Craig P. Anderson:

I think, absolutely-

Lou Quinto:

Nitpick my example up.

Craig P. Anderson:

That's [crosstalk 00:07:54] as your company burns in flames. No. I think it's absolutely important early on to have those kind of conversations when you have an otherwise strongly performing employee and suddenly see those dips. I don't think you go in and go in with the punishment, like what the heck is wrong with you. It is very good to go in with that empathic response and say, what's changed? What's going on? What's causing you to have these difficulties to hit these numbers? How can I help? That's absolutely the right way to apply it.

Craig P. Anderson:

I think the danger and the risk in this approach is when you let that empathy bump along and bump along and bump along, and suddenly you have a much larger responsibility to the whole team, and you can't focus all those efforts on one. But if you're approaching that, chances are you're not going to have it going along for month after month after month, because you're finding ways to intervene and help them succeed.

Lou Quinto:

Right. Yeah. And I'm reminded of a quote when we were preparing for this, from Oprah Winfrey, She's a billionaire, she runs businesses left and right. And one of the things that she said is that leadership is all about empathy. It's about having the ability to be able to relate to and connect with your people, so that you can inspire them and to empower them to get their job done. And any leader today that does not express empathy, that positive culture is going to be out the window, which brings us to our last area. And that is, get out of your way and help people.

Lou Quinto:

I know as an executive, as a leader, we've got lots of things that are constantly on our plate. Our list of things to do seems like it's just getting longer and longer. But when people are having issues and they're having problems with work, when it comes to doing a project that perhaps they don't know how to do it exactly, and there is someone in the group that can do it as well as you, if not better than you, to be able to get that help to that individual so that this way they don't feel like they're just running in quicksand constantly during a day or several hours, and they're able to get things done, as a leader, to create that positive culture is to find people or see people that are struggling and ask them, how can I help you?

Craig P. Anderson:

Some of the best advice I received when I was starting to run my own business and sitting in that chair was advice that was, get out into the break room at certain times of day, when you have some work that you have to get done, but it's work that can handle interruptions. Maybe it's filling out expense reports or some task like that. To be out there when people are coming in in the morning or out around the lunchtime, it creates the ability for you to be approachable. And maybe they're not going to bring that issue to you when you're sitting out there, but they realize, Oh, I know Craig, I know who he is. And he is somebody I can go in and talk to. And that's a great leadership trait is to be out there and just give the opportunity for people to interact with you on a personal level, so that when they do have these issues, they can bring them to you. And that, it's a huge piece to get out of the way, to get out of your own way and help them. But first, they have to be willing to come to you for help. And you've got to create that layer of approachability.

Lou Quinto:

And I truly believe that there are some situations where some leaders, they may not have done it intentionally, but they've created that culture of fear and negative consequences if things aren't getting done properly, they're not getting done on time. In order to create that positive culture, people have to have that feeling of safety in the workplace, and that will help encourage that innovation, that experimentation, to really be able to address times like we're going through right now with a different mental attitude. And that's having that safe spot within the organization will really increase productivity, and ultimately profits.

Lou Quinto:

So what are your key takeaways, Craig?

Craig P. Anderson:

My key takeaway, Lou, is the shock that there are still cultures out there and still leaders out there who think that idea of pitting teams and pitting people against each other is still an effective management technique. And it's still out there. I worked in an organization-

Lou Quinto:

Competition. Yeah. We've learned from an early age that competition is good. It helps we push each other. But when you get to the workplace, competition is not a good element of leadership.

Craig P. Anderson:

Yeah. And the idea that by pitting teams against each other, I can actually get more out of it, that exists and I never understood it. And I've worked in cultures like that, and it's not healthy. And it has a lot of the negative impacts that we talked about. It's not a place you want to continue to work. That's my big takeaway, is we all need to start making that shift towards realizing that those ways aren't going to work. Especially as we look at what we talk about, the next generation of leaders, we know it's not going to work there. So it's really important to start looking at yourself. I've talked a lot about it in other forums. When I was leading my team, I realized I had to change myself before I could change the culture. And that's a really important takeaway.

Lou Quinto:

My takeaway is empathy. I truly believe that the best leaders are those leaders that demonstrate empathy, empathy to their people. I know it's difficult to bring, because for some people, it's an ego issue of expressing empathy, particularly because you and I are both guys, it tends to be a masculine type of trait where I'm not going to show any empathy. Let's get this done, let's do that. But everybody needs to practice empathy. And we can practice empathy. And Craig, the good thing about that is not just at work, but at home. To practice it with your loved ones, practice it with your spouses, your children. Because when you can start doing it 24 hours a day, it just becomes natural. And practicing that empathy to look at things that people are doing, and to be empathetic about any struggles or any type of consternation that they may have about a particular situation, and to get down to that why, and to understand that why, truly becomes a great trait of a leader.

Lou Quinto:

So take us home, Craig.

Craig P. Anderson:

All right. Well, if you enjoyed today's episode, if you know some really horrible non-empathetic people, silently share this with them. Like, subscribe as well. We do post every week on Thursday mornings. But if you want to be notified, make sure you subscribe on one of our platforms. You can always find our old episodes at qaleadership.com. And if looking at us makes the message that much less interesting to you, you can download us on all your most popular podcasting platforms. And we have a lot of viewers, Lou told me today, all over the world, or listeners all over the world through our podcasting platforms as well. So thank you for your ongoing support. I'm Craig Anderson.

Lou Quinto:

And keep your hands washed. Keep your distance. I'm Lou Quinto.