ATE in the Behavioral Science of Performance Amidst Disruption

David Rice: [00:00:00] Welcome everyone back, uh, to another of our latest, the latest, I should say, in our community event series. Uh, again, I was still seeing these grow quite a bit and I'm liking the engagement that we're getting off of them and the feedback that we've been getting. So we're happy that you're able to join us today and take part for those of you who don't know.

My name is David Rice. I'm the senior editor of people managing people. Thank you. And today's session is going to be sort of an ask the expert session. We've had these for a little while now, and I really enjoy these ones. It's a nice way to dig into somebody's expertise. Um, this one is on the behavioral science of performance manage or performance amidst disruption, and we'll be speaking with a top voice and thought leader in this space.

Uh, Vijay. Pen decor, uh, you might know him from the podcast. He came on recently to talk about his book. [00:01:00] That's going to be coming out soon. It's the alchemy of talent, leading teams to peak performance. Uh, Vijay has held senior roles at Zynga, So we're talking about some, some pretty big companies in this space.

He's also served as the Dean of Students at Cornell University. I want to take a minute and, uh, introduce him. Uh, so welcome Vijay.

Vijay Pendakur: Thank you, David. It's a pleasure to be here. I just noticed that we've already got action in chat, which I love. Um, I have a colleague in the audience, Jessica's here. So that's already, we've got friendly faces or friendly, friendly chat activity happening.

Um, so excited to spend time, um, in this kind of intimate format and being able to have a really candid discussion on high performing teams and. My commitment to the group is to, um, try and answer with humility and name what I think and what I know and also name all the things I don't know along the way.

David Rice: Um, obviously folks, you know, this is an ask the expert [00:02:00] session. You came here to ask Vijay questions. So if we don't feel free from minute one to start dropping them in the chat, if you've already got things in mind, um, but you know, I wanted to ask you, cause based on your background, you will also appear to be a musician.

So I wanted to like kind of start with like a little get to know you piece. Are you, uh, are you, have you been learning lately?

Vijay Pendakur: So, um, I generally am working on two songs all the time. Um, and there's a reason for the mayhem. Uh, I, my real passion is. Um, like early American music, so pre war, pre pre World War II blues music, um, finger style Delta blues is very complicated and very difficult.

And so I, I have like these long learning arcs where I'll spend three months learning one song because I'm literally learning it measure by measure. And it's, it's, it's. a certain kind of pain and torture that I enjoy. But because I'm the kid that always ate the marshmallow immediately, if you know the marshmallow test, I need something that's a [00:03:00] quicker win.

So I'm often learning. like something that, um, I can play with for my kids. And so like right now my kids are camping. Actually, I have an empty house. So if there's any parents on the call, um, you're probably very jealous of me that I have an empty house, but, um, I'm learning the Casey Musgraves song rainbow, uh, so that when my daughters come home, I can.

impress them with dad skills of playing and singing a song that they love hearing on the radio.

David Rice: Awesome. Uh, no, I, I love that. And like, I'm the same way. So like when I used to play, I always had like four songs at a time that I was working on just so like, well, I'm making progress on this one. You need

Vijay Pendakur: something.

You need the wins. You need the wins.

David Rice: Oh, all right. So we'll get started here. Just a sec. I do want to hear where everybody's joining us from today. So please take a second, say hi, let us know where you're joining from in the chat. I always liked that part. We always get some surprising locations in there, which I think is great.

Um, so just [00:04:00] to let everybody know a couple of housekeeping items here, uh, this is being recorded and will be made available shortly afterwards to everybody who attended and anybody who actually signed up, you can, uh, download it and watch it later. Uh, we might use clips from it on our website and social media channels, your cameras and microphones.

So have been turned off by default. So you will not appear in the recording. So don't worry about that. And then, you know, again, like I said, given this is an X ask the expert session. Don't forget to ask questions. This time is really for you. Uh, so please enter them in the chat and I'll lob as many as I can towards Vijay in the time that we have, um, uh, But while you all are starting to think up some questions, I'll kick things off and we'll start it with this.

I kind of want to start here. What kind of disruption are we talking about? And how is it different from any other moment in time right now when we think about performance?

Vijay Pendakur: Great. Great. I'll zero in. I've been paying attention to the chat and looking at the participants list, just owning my, my frenetic energy.

So [00:05:00] I'm actually going to close those windows so I can get in the zone with David and do a good job for you all. Um, So, you know, for me, um, it's super important when trying to create a model for high performing teams to first understand that, um, models should be purpose built. for the context that they operated.

And this is why there's been so many historical, um, big fails with lift and shift, right? You know, um, I used to be in university life for a long time and people would say, Oh my gosh, did you see what Harvard's doing? And I'd be like, well, sure. But we're at a regional university in Southern California that serves low income, first gen students from that, you know, commute to school and take classes and then work full time.

Not sure how relevant what Harvard's doing here. Right. So like this notion of best practice models is important and we have to put those models in dynamic tension with [00:06:00] context and contextually the context that I think cuts across all of the team effectiveness conversations I've had through. the past four or five years is this notion of disruptive change.

And it's two words, right? So change is, is always, and people are used to change. I think adult professionals understand that like life is change. We experienced change in our lives and at work. The, the twist on this is this notion of disruptive change and the reality that, um, the, the, uh, frequency and the severity of change.

macro disruption seems to have escalated in the last five years from global pandemic, work from home, um, supply chain shocks, uh, geopolitics, war, inflation, um, you name it, right? Um, generative AI, um, multiple rounds of layoffs. And then in the same sector now, organizations moving [00:07:00] into growth after three rounds of layoffs, right?

Like, it's like, it's a level of, um, sort of exogenous shocks that feel very hard to grapple with as individual humans. And so when we, when, when I say, look, we've got to have a model for high performing teams, that's purpose built for disruption, it's really because disruption is the context. So then the question is, what high performing teams approach are we going to use that seems really well calibrated to the fact that we're working in a slow motion earthquake?

David Rice: Yeah, that feels, uh, hyper relevant right now, especially with, I mean, here on the East coast, what's been going on with these storms lately, it's been pretty crazy to keep up with it. All right. Now you've got this book coming out. It's called the alchemy of talent. Uh, so what is the recipe that you described in the book that builds high performing teams?

Vijay Pendakur: Great, great. So I will talk about the recipe in the book, but here's my cue to the audience, right? This is going to be the, the last [00:08:00] question that I answer from David, because you all are going to do your job as audience members while I'm explaining what the alchemy of talent is all about. And I would love to hear your questions or your observations, right?

Sometimes it doesn't even, if you're like, I don't know if I have a question. Well, let me pose a question to you, right? So, um, what are you seeing in terms of team effectiveness? In the places and spaces where you work that you think is noteworthy and maybe a symptom of this disruptive change that we're kind of stuck in a doom loop on.

Um, so you could either share your observations about team effectiveness in your space, or you could ask questions about high performing teams. But. Let's, let's set the goal that David doesn't ask me any more questions. Okay. All right. So, um, alchemy of talent, new book. It's in soft launch right now. You might've noticed in the chat that my homie Kate says that she's halfway through the book.

That's because she was in the audience at, um, uh, really fantastic gathering in South Carolina recently where actually some of the weather disruptions. [00:09:00] It definitely affected us, but, um, she was an audience member that got the book as part of a conference promotion. Um, the book comes out on, on Amazon and all of the other major outlets on December 3rd.

And for me, it's my answer to the question that we started with. So if we are in this somewhat unprecedented, um, volatility, right, we're working in a slow motion, earthquake appears to be our new normal. What, what is, um, how do we actually tap into the behavioral science? and the huge body of evidence that people can actually do amazing work in these conditions if leaders have the practical skills to turn up the volume on some factors that really outpunch their way class in navigating disruption.

And the factors that I zero in on the book are trust, belonging, and connection as these talent catalysts that in my multi decade read back on the academic evidence and business level evidence of like where the [00:10:00] ROI is. This is where the ROI is in disruption teams that have a high level of trust belonging and connection outperformed consistently, even in the endless buffet of disruption that we seem to be eating.

Um, and so, um, for what I did in the book is I, when I, Uh, when I was looking at the sort of the lit review to be academic about it and seeing the evidence that this is what teams need. Then the question is how do we, how do I package this up in a way that's very practical and fun and approachable because people, if people are in a working in a slow motion earthquake, the last thing they need is another 300 page tome on.

Here's what you should do. I just don't think people have a lot of reservoir capacity for that anymore. So the book is lean and mean and fun and, um, and very practical. So like, what is the concept? How do we understand trust? Why is it valuable for teams navigating disruptive change? And how do you turn up the volume on it as a leader?

And that's the kind of. [00:11:00] Cycle the book goes through for the three major talent catalysts, trust, belonging and connection. Um, and, um, you know, for me, it's, it's allowed me to connect with audience members already, even, even in soft launch in different ways that extend a conversation, um, around high performing teams that really puts the spotlight on, on, What I see as questions of human dignity and human flourishing at work when leaders lead teams for trust, belonging, connection, the palpable feeling for the team member is a dignified form of work.

And that makes me feel like this is worth doing, um, not only for the ROI of the winning team and the winning company, but also because I think we deserve to work in environments where. We, um, we are not sort of drained and demoralized and overwhelmed every

David Rice: day. That would definitely be the idea, right?

All right, I want to do something different. So you want, you, we're trying to get everybody a little bit more involved. Let's try this. Uh, I want to invite everybody to turn on your cameras. I know [00:12:00] we don't normally do that, um, but feel free if you want to appear on camera and you want to have this be more of a conversation.

Uh, I'm absolutely happy to have that happen. And uh, if, you know, we will of course edit things if you don't want to appear in the video or anything like that. We won't, we won't be putting your face all over our social media. Who wants permission? Okay. ,

Vijay Pendakur: we've got an invitation to be on camera and so far no one's on camera.

So this means people were not in camera ready mode. Yeah. When they accepted this invitation, ,

David Rice: which, you know, always might be the case, but I wanted to offer an opportunity to personalize it. But, um. Feel free folks, please do put stuff into the chat. Like we said, uh, we were looking, we are looking for this to be very audience driven.

Uh, I mean, I've got

Vijay Pendakur: friends in the chat here that I might just like call in from a place of love, right? Jessica Jarvis, Kate, come on. What are you seeing? What are you observing with teams? What questions do you have in [00:13:00] your organizations around manager effectiveness around high performing teams? Spice it up in the chat.

Kate's on cam.

Kate Basile: How are you? Thanks for having me. Um, BJ, nice to see you again.

Vijay Pendakur: It's good to see you too.

Kate Basile: Um, so one of the questions that I had, and I think this might have come up at the conference, but it reared its head again recently in my org. So, um, working with teams that so when you talk about trust, blogging, connectedness, and how those are like the best ingredients for team effectiveness.

What happens when you work in a. Let's say a function that does not really honor the time that it takes to foster those ingredients. So in something like a technical org or in an engineering org, sometimes it's like, we need to move fast. We need, we don't have time to do that. So if you had to pick one, which one do you focus on first?

And if you really need all three to [00:14:00] work, how do you present those in a way to help leadership to, to demonstrate like, Hey, we need to, you know, this needs to This needs to match the urgency with which we, we, you know, attack our work.

Vijay Pendakur: I love this question. This is, this is an awesome question. So thank you, Kate.

Um, I think that for me, so there was a couple of questions there and one of them was, where do you start? I think that I, I, I face technical organizations a lot in my work and I work a lot in Silicon Valley. I work with product teams, especially like that are very sort of like data centric engineers, a lot of engineers, a lot of software developers.

And so I'm used to this kind of thing. Like, well, the words trust, belonging and connection feel very touchy feeling. And so I oftentimes. First say like, we have to evangelize these in very specific ways. Right. And so when, so start with trust first, and the reason is, is because, um, it's super easy to show the math on how trust unlocks high performing [00:15:00] team behaviors.

So one of the things I'll say to a group of, let's say technical managers in the scenario you presented, Kate, right. Is. Let's look at some of the behaviors of high performing teams that I think we all widely recognize right now. High performing teams consistently commit to culture of feedback. Most managers understand this, right?

If people are not giving each other feedback, the team is missing one of the flywheels for continuous improvement. High performing teams commit to a culture of conflict, like actually respectfully disagreeing over ideas, iron sharpening iron, particularly in engineering circles. This is, this is well respected, um, in innovation centering teams.

And then, um, high performing teams commit to a culture of rapid decision making, being able to move from disagree. Hey, I feel this way. Kate, you feel this way, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. The leader's making a decision. We need to go right. And the disagree and commit kind of approach is necessary when navigating disruption.

And you can take any one of those and go, let's look at how this all falls apart without trust. [00:16:00] And, and it's, it's pretty easy to unpack that trust is the jet fuel in the mechanics of high performing teams. And it sits really at the foundational level, because when you go to move into the science of belonging, which we can talk about our connection.

without trust, there's no floor for it to sit on. And so actually I do think, and the reason that you have the book, right? The reason that it comes first in terms of those three talent catalysts is It is, um, I will see leaders be like, you know what? I went to a workshop on belonging and I'm going to come back and I'm really going to turn up the volume on belonging.

And it's like, if you're missing psychological safety or trust on your team, belonging is a bit of a, um, foregone conclusion. You know, you're. You don't have the foundation to build that. And, and so trust is, I think, pretty easy to evangelize the business ROI of team, like showing how that helps the team win consistently.

I think the second part of your question of we don't have time for [00:17:00] this, um, is so real and so palpable. I think organizations are under a ton of pressure right now. The three P's that I hear from HR leaders, when I'm talking with CHRO communities that I'm engaged with as an advisor, are, Is we are under pressure for, um, performance.

and productivity, right? And so, um, there's these three P's. We feel a ton of pressure around performance and productivity. The workforce needs to be more productive because our company needs to be more feel like the performance outcomes, especially in public companies, like the stock, you know, needs to go up.

And so, When, when, what's so important when, um, like there's a lot of change agents on this call, when I look at like people's profiles, when you're a change agent, you're trying to evangelize a concept like psychological safety or trust your business is people can get bought in on the value proposition of trust.

But when we give them the leader behaviors, what HR has historically done is turn to these very complex [00:18:00] mental models or heuristics or behavioral models. Okay. Here's the 72 things you need to do to increase trust. And if I'm a product leader or a sales leader, I just start tuning you out, right? Because I'm like, I have to hit my goals.

And now you're coming in with this hand wavy, feel good vibes and telling me I need to do a bunch of more things. And it's so, it's demoralizing, right? We already started with this whole, like we're living in the earthquake. So for me, um, when I am delivering this kind of Keynote or workshop in house with an organization.

The next step that comes after like concept and clarity and business ROI is very low friction. Do this, not that behaviors. And I'll show them. And you've seen this, right? When, in, when you saw my keynote, how do we give leaders? Three things that turn up the volume on trust behaviors and three things that turn down the volume of trust to avoid and say, I want you to pick one from the do list and one from the avoid list.

And you have two weeks to make this part of your practice. [00:19:00] And I do this regularly when I, when I'm in workshop with the senior management team of publicly held company, um, and people, senior vice presidents that manage PNLs that generate 500 million in annual revenue go, yep, I can do that. That's not too much for me.

You know, so like, again, less is more in radical simplicity has to be a guiding principle and like a, like a, uh, a backstop in times of disruption, because nobody has, like, people are like at capacity. And so like the concept can be really powerful, but the action has to be radically simple. Kate, does that answer your question?

Kate Basile: It does, and I think one of the things that I like the most that you said was give it two weeks, because I think that sometimes we give ourselves too much of a runway to create big change, and I think that if we say do this one thing in two weeks, that's something I can handle. That's something I can do.

So.

Vijay Pendakur: Yes. Yes. Too much of a runway to make big [00:20:00] change. And I'd rather give you very little runway to make small change. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for getting us started here. I see that we've got some action in chat. David, are you okay if I just go right to it? Okay. Um, so Jessica says, you mentioned the need for teams to respectfully disagree over ideas.

How do you build the muscle on a team when this doesn't come naturally to people? I see a lot of people who are afraid to offer feedback or will only do it when forced. Okay. Yeah. Jessica. That's a great question. Um, the, the antecedents to productive conflict are, are missing from most teams and organizations.

And there's a whole toolbox and playbook on seeding your team so that you can get into the flywheel of productive conflict. Um, one thing is like to, to, to set the floor correctly, people need to feel extraordinarily secure in that. Um, if we challenge each other's ideas, um, [00:21:00] we're not going to take it out on each other, uh, you know, outside of the meeting.

So if David and I are on the team and we're, and we, we want to have a robust disagreement over tactics. I need to feel very secure that David's not going to wait until some key moment in, in the quarter and shank me, you know, um, as a result of, oh, he, you know, he, he, he disagreed with me. So the, the ground setting, the groundwork of the team leader is to, um, first, one of the, one of the things a leader can do is actually.

Um, have a meeting with the team and have them participate in a co design process for rules of engagement. How are we going to handle, um, a culture of disagreement on this team? Because for me, as a team leader, I know that we can't do the best work of our lives and consistently innovate without productive conflict.

and disagreement. So in order to get there, first, we need a set of ground rules. Um, and you can call them rules for engagement or ground rules or community standards or whatever you, you know, the [00:22:00] language changes per sector and per team culture. What you're doing at root is allowing your team to come together and say, how do I want to be treated?

And how do you want to be treated? And what are we going to commit to as a group? And for you as a leader to facilitate that dialogue, but really have it come bottom up is extraordinarily empowering for the group. And you don't want 20 community standards. Again, less is more. What are five things? What are five things that, that, and you could come up with 20 ideas, but you bucketize them into five rules of engagement.

And the key is you don't let that become, uh, a bronze plaque that goes into the desk drawer that nobody ever sees again. The rules for engagement are out. If you're doing a team offsite where you're, you're actually rethinking your go to market strategy because of major disruption in your sector, you put those rules of engagement on the wall and you remind people of them before you start.

And, you know, you also remind people of the incentive based premise, which is for us to do amazing work. [00:23:00] your best thinking. And I need the power of disagreement for us to sharpen each other's thinking by rubbing up against each other productively. And obviously some of the rules for engagement, Jessica would be, you know, um, disagree with the person's ideas, not the person, you know, those kinds of like, we've all been through hopefully some sort of DEI training at this point in time where you get into some of those.

safer space guidelines right around, um, you know, uh, we can actually be very candid without being very intense. So how do we decrease intensity? Um, so David and I can have a very, very, um, candid disagreement, but I don't, it doesn't have to get heated. And so decreasing intensity also helps people stay more psychologically safe.

Um, and then building the, and I love the phrase you use building the muscle. on the team, um, behaviors are muscles and they have to be practiced. And so for a team leader to come up with smaller, lower risk ways for the team to practice disagreement, [00:24:00] productive disagreement is great. So for example, um, even something like, Hey, let's talk about, we have an offsite coming up.

Um, this is the budget we've got, um, to do something novel and interesting that builds connection on this team. What ideas do we have for how we can get out of the conference room and do something interesting? And one person might be like, Oh, I really want to go hang gliding, you know, or whatever it is, or go on a hike.

And another person, you know, I'd be like, Oh, that sounds terrible to me. I hate hiking. I want to go to a paint and sip. But even that the, the, um, low stakes disagreement builds the culture and the muscle of disagreement. Um, and then as it moves to high stakes disagreement, you actually have the rules of engagement and the muscle built so that people can engage in that unbelievably productive task of, of high stakes disagreement, um, and help the team win, um, without feeling like they're being dropped into the deep end.

David, are you okay if I jump into this founder mode [00:25:00] question? Yes, please.

David Rice: I was just about to read it. So go ahead.

Vijay Pendakur: Okay. Um, so, um, Fay, and I think I'm pronouncing your name correctly, but let me know if I'm not. Um, I'm hearing a lot of talk about founder mode. Me too. I'm also hearing a lot of talk about founder mode.

Um, and it makes, well, it makes sense. It sounds like a recipe for eroding trust and connection within managers. A hundred percent. I wonder about people in lower roles down in the organization, their ability to feel that same level of psychological safety with a founder. What are your thoughts on this idea of founder mode and its broader impact on the culture of the organization?

Well, I will give you my, like I promised, you know, in the beginning to operate with candor and humility. Um, so the candor pieces, I'm going to be honest with you and the humility pieces, Faye and everybody on the call, you should take this all with a grain of salt. I've never been a founder other than of my solopreneur venture, but nobody works for me.

So, you know, the whole thing about founder mode is limited in my, in me being a founder but I've never been a founder. Um, and [00:26:00] I, from a place of empathy, I can imagine they're under tremendous pressure. I just, you know, it is, it sounds really, really difficult and exhausting and horrible. And, and it's difficult to know who you should trust.

And, and so like, uh, you know, with humility, I want to say I've never done the thing and I think it's probably insanely hard. Um, I have worked in two founder led organizations. Um, Salesforce, Mark Benioff Dropbox. Uh, Drew is still CEO. Um, and none of what I say right now is a comment on those two human beings, but what I think the tension that I see here in some of the founder mode memo, um, which to be reductive if people don't know what we're talking about here, there was a viral memo, um, a couple of maybe a month ago or six weeks ago on this idea that.

Maybe hire great people and get out of their way is not the right way to run a company. No matter how big you are, you need to stay close to the detail [00:27:00] and, um, hire great people and get out of their way might lead you astray because no one knows your company like you and nobody knows your business vision like you if you're a founder.

And I found this to be kind of challenging at scale. I just heard Brian Chesky talk about this. Um, on a podcast. Uh, who did he just give an interview to? David, did you hear this one? Brian Chesky is the founder and CEO at Airbnb. He just did a new podcast interview where he was asked about founder mode.

And he said, yeah, he's turning founder mode on. He's, he's realizing that hire great people and get out of their way. took him off course eventually, because he was trusting that everybody knew exactly what to do, and he got away from the detail. And what he's been working on, this is his words for the last while, is getting back close to the detail in all of the key kind of business decisions and processes.

Um, I have questions about this. I think on, on face, it makes sense. I don't know how this scales. you know, uh, [00:28:00] how would Mark Benioff get, get into founder mode at Salesforce? 80, 80, 000 employees. Um, I think on some, at some point you have to hire great people and get out of their way. I think, I don't know how it scales also because a founder is not an expert in all of the things.

They're not an expert in all of the, um, disciplines that represent a company. Um, oftentimes a founder, you know, To be reductive comes up either from the product side or the sales side, and that's their strength. And when they're operating in all of the other spaces, they have a perspective, but they don't necessarily have disciplinary subject matter expertise.

And so I think there's a tension there that I see. I think that, um, the, the, the tension to founder mode and Silicon Valley loves to celebrate founders and anything that propels founders. The, the tension to founder mode is founder syndrome. Which is eventually your organization grows in its maturity to the point where the founder is not the [00:29:00] right CEO.

And that there's a ton of cases use case or, you know, case studies all of founders sticking it out in the CEO role past their utility, past their effectiveness. And so for me, I would say as a, as sort of a thinker, um, let's set up founder mode and founder syndrome as, as two polarities and establish a tension there.

I think a founder should stay very close to the detail. And eventually a founder might not be the right person to be the CEO of the organization because founders also tend to micromanage and stay too close to the detail, get involved in. decisions at the 5000 foot and 10, 000 foot level when they need to be at the 50, 000 foot level, um, particularly after going public.

I think founders have a hard time altitude leveling and can actually show up as micromanagers and meddlers in ways that undermine trust and connection to go back to phase point. So. That's my hot spicy take. I encourage everyone to take it with a grain of salt though. Um, [00:30:00] and I've never done the thing, so I have a limited perspective on it that is credible.

David Rice: I think that that's really interesting, though. Like it was one of the things I was thinking about recently is sort of like the nature of innovation, right? You by nature, you create new specialties. And so like, yes, you've innovated the thing you've founded this company that created this thing. But like, is Mark Zuckerberg the best person to do content design at Facebook or meta now, whatever, you know what I mean?

Like this is an area of specialty that probably was not his. Area when it began, but it's also his company that has essentially created this sort of sub field of content. And so I think I was like, I think that's a great way to put it to the syndrome piece, like you get to a point where maybe you're not the person that needs to be involved all the time.

So that's, it's really interesting. Um, Well, I do want to invite folks to keep asking questions. These have been good. Uh, I'm enjoying this and I'm actually enjoying being in the back seat. Just, you know, letting the J [00:31:00] drive. So sorry, I'm,

Vijay Pendakur: I don't want to steer. I don't want to steer. No, no, you're good. You're good.

I

David Rice: like

Vijay Pendakur: it. I like it.

David Rice: Um, while we wait here for a sec, I did have something that kind of came up in my mind when you were talking about, uh, in the communications and sort of being, having candor and communicating, but reducing the intensity. One thing that came to my mind was it feels as at times though, as if everything around us, social media, the way people talk about things like politics or whatever, the intensity is always going higher and higher and higher, right?

Like there's, there's a, like, Oh, Just a natural sort of intensity that happens around it. Now, how can we sort of like help people disconnect from that as they walk into the workplace? Is that just a natural byproduct of, you know, feeling safe and feeling like, uh, this is a place of how we do this here. Is that a cultural thing?

What's sort of the key to that?

Vijay Pendakur: Yeah. Yeah. That's a very timely question. You know, if there's a lot of, if there's a lot of HR [00:32:00] people on the call, I, uh, there's a, growing, um, set of panels and conversations and webinars, um, in advance of the election on workplace civility. And David, I think there's sort of a tie tie in here around.

We are in a zeitgeist right now in terms of the media culture where, um, we've incentivized people to be meaner, uh, uh, more hyperbolic. uh, outraged, more outraged, more extreme because algorithmically, and I think we're preaching to the choir. I think people know this, right? That the, that algorithms are elevating discontent algorithms are elevating polarization.

Um, and so, um, when, if that's our discourse environment, then you would have to be superhuman to not be affected by that. Um, and so, uh, I think we're all in, in a place where we're, we're constantly having norms in, in our face that are actually quite abnormal, um, in the, in the [00:33:00] arc of human communication history.

Um, and so when we think about workplace, uh, engagements, the opposite of what Jessica is talking about, where people, um, are afraid to offer feedback and only do it when forced is also, um, when I hear from Sherm and other sort of HR organizations, that the opposite side of this is in the digital communications at work, whether it be Slack or teams, DMS, Or email that people move from zero to 100 and just light each other up, you know, particularly in slack, you know, around some of the ERGs and some of like the, the channels that aren't about the work is where people just kind of go haywire right around.

Like if we were, if David, if you and I were sitting in a conference room and we're having a disagreement about some part of the work, I probably wouldn't go to maximum intensity with you because. Or if I was, I was, I would be junior talent and I would get some mentorship and some coaching and some [00:34:00] accountability, but you don't make it to a certain level in your career.

If you can't just find a way to disagree with civility, but that same person might be on Slack and go outside the boundaries of workplace communication when it comes to communicating about issues of identity or inclusion or politics or policing or, um, environmentalism or climate change or whatever it is, right?

You know what I mean? And so, um, because there's so many more digital communications media now that have expanded the scope of what people are talking about it that isn't face to face. I think we have a unique challenge now that the scope of communication is expanded and a lot of it is not face to face.

And that sets up the perfect storm for, um, communication that historically probably wouldn't happen. It just wouldn't have happened at work, or it would have happened in like small niche groups where you all agreed with each other and you were just kind of like venting, you know? Um, and, [00:35:00] and I, uh, there's a lot of discussions in HR communities right now about how to like solve for this.

I don't think you can solve for this. I think if any of you are at that senior level in HR, in your companies. It is important to do a pre mortem in advance of A major escalation moment. So a premortem is the people do postmortems or retros that after things have gone haywire. That's fine. That's a way to learn.

You can also premortem and get your head of comms, one of your lawyers. You know, some your C. H. R. O. And a couple of key people in the room and in advance of if you're in the U. S. The November election, say, what do you think may go wrong in the way that we've set up our slack channels? We're, what are we missing in terms of guidance to our workplace where we could send out proactive messaging around?

Um, the fact that we all have to live together as workers with, with the differences that we have. And so like, [00:36:00] within your company context and ethos, communicating what you want, the, communication norms to be in advance can help people calibrate to those norms. Oftentimes when you ask workers who have gotten into ER cases, um, because of something they said on Slack, they literally didn't realize they were operating outside of bounds.

Um, and so anybody who's ever managed those ER cases, they kind of rub up against sort of bias or conflict norms. People are like, I was just disagreeing. I didn't realize that's not okay. You know, this is how I am on Reddit. And it's like, okay, that's your personal Reddit account. This is your workplace Slack account.

So like, as, as much as it sounds like we're spoon feeding or babysitting, you actually have to let people know how you want them to behave in this day and age. Um,

David Rice: Yeah, you've got to, you got to put guardrails in place and I agree that the nature of it, people will treat Slack. You know, much differently than they would treat in person, those water cooler moments, for example.

And so [00:37:00] I think it's, I, I know like from us here, we are a fully remote team, but there's sort of, I would say like, uh, an expectation that we're not going to devolve into these things, you know? So I think that has to be present. Um, There,

Vijay Pendakur: there's a question in chat. I was actually going to pose a question to the audience.

Cause I'm thinking about how I would love to hear from the audience. Right. So So let me ask a question to the audience and that can get them sharing and chat. And then I'll also answer quickly, obvious question about algos. Um, and then we'll see where this goes, but for audience members, you, you came to this, um, this ask an expert session, either because you're on a team or you are building a team, or you are in charge of the team effectiveness or contribute to the team effectiveness model at your organization.

Um, what is. The leader skill set that has been hardest for your organization to cultivate that, you know, your [00:38:00] leaders need, what's, what's the leader skill that your organization is really tilting at windmills on, um, it's something they need and they just can't get, um, you've tried. You've done the L and D pathways.

You've got the asynchronous and synchronous learning journeys, you know, and, and it's just, you do not see a change in, in, um, employee sentiment data that, uh, for that leader behavior. Is there anything that's. That's been your hill to die on. Okay. While people are thinking and answering that, Avi, you know, there's some really great writing on why algos are pushing conflict and discontent.

Primarily it's about monetization and stickiness. So, um, most platforms that are about people and communications monetized through ad revenue. And so their real goal is to keep you on the platform and keep you active on the platform. That's how they get their Their user, their daily active [00:39:00] user numbers, which allow them to sell ad revenue, um, and that's their real.

Business model, Facebook's real business model is you're the product and they are selling you to ad companies. Um, and that's why Facebook ads and Instagram ads are so brilliant in their targeting. I mean, I have bought stuff. I don't need, um, they're real good at what they do. But, um, what they realized early on is that.

Um, their churn rate goes down so users stay on the platform and do more on the platform when they are provoked, and that either means provoked, um, positively or provoked negatively. So then they experimented with ab sampling. This all sounds so nefarious. Unfortunately, it's true. They experimented with ab sampling.

And they looked at user engagement for posts that were classified as negative content versus posts that were classified as positive content. And what they saw is. astronomically different rates of user engagement for negative posts versus positive posts. [00:40:00] So they set the algos to boost negative posts because it keeps people on the platform and engaged and they can sell that for ad rev.

Um, that is not what we're gathered here about, but I just wanted to make sure I answered the question. So let, let me just read what people have been saying about. Their, their, um, their organizations. So Kim writes that change management skills have been really hard. Accountability. I want to hear more Dimitri.

If you're willing to share a little bit more leaders are struggling. Are you saying team leaders are struggling to hold their team accountable, um, or, or is it something else? Um, Amanda writes in. For many of my teams, the challenge is leaders taking accountability and ownership of the decisions. Okay.

I've just, they will communicate a decision, but second, an employee pushes back, they're quick to blame senior leadership. Okay, great. Let me, um, let me speak to leader change management and, um, also how we can build up leader accountability skill sets, because that might have utility for the audience, uh, given what their, [00:41:00] their organizations are struggling with.

So on change management, one of the, the, um, my side of change management, there's so many parts of change management, right? And change management is like huge, huge skill set where we could honestly create skill taxonomies within change management. My bailiwick and what I can speak to with some credibility today is around.

how to lead humans through change. It's about the, um, the power of a leader to, uh, unlock peak performance for people in dramatic change. There are other change management skillsets that are about project management when it comes to change or, uh, You know, setting OKRs and KPIs according to change. I'm not an expert in that stuff, but in the behavioral science of change, one of the things that, um, I think is really helpful that I've found really helpful in coaching as a team effectiveness coach is helping leaders first understand that disruptive change hits our dashboard, uh, our nervous system dashboard as a [00:42:00] threat.

So humans go into a fight flight freeze cascade. when we go through a big change. So when your organization has a layoff or your organization adopts a new product strategy or your organization completely changes its go to market strategy, or generative AI comes and people are worried about their jobs, any of these things.

Um, can trigger a limbic system hijack or an amygdala hijack. This is when you have a fight flight freeze response that changes your neurochemistry for a time. When the change happens over and over and over again, when we're in that earthquake of change after change after change, which is most organizations these days, people can actually shift into a state of.

Semi permanent disconnection at work that people call languishing and team leaders need the skills to understand What languishing looks like so there's a sense making skill that I train leaders on to identify [00:43:00] which part of their team is flourishing, which part of their team is languishing and which part of their team is still in denial of what's happening.

And then to calibrate their leadership accordingly. So how do you actually, what tools can you use to get people out of languishing and into full engagement? What tools can you use to reward the people who are already fully engaged in our, our, our high performers within the new state of being and that kind of, Sensemaking and mapping skillset pays a lot of dividends for leaders, leading teams through disruptive change.

And it's something that a lot of organizations haven't put the time in on. So I, when I do that with teams, I find it to be really helpful. And team leaders very quickly cycle back to me. Like that was massively useful. I've changed some of the ways I approach team meetings and supervision. messaging to my teams.

And, um, and I've been able to usher more people out of languaging languishing and into that new acceptance and high performance space. Um, the, this thing about accountability and ownership of [00:44:00] decisions, this is such a tough one. And I, and I'll just give a shot. I, I know where, um, there's where we are on time too, but I'll, I'll give a short answer here.

One of the, one of the things that I've seen leaders misunderstand that it's been helpful to clarify with senior leaders. And so I'll contextualize this when I'm working with like director plus. Um, I will notice a level of consensus making that is not that productive where even senior leaders are having a hard time getting the, the group to a point where they say, I'm making a command decision and I'm going to own this decision and I need you all to head in this direction.

They'll, they'll kind of circle the drain of like, okay, not everybody's agreed yet. So we're going to talk about this next week or not. Everybody's agreed yet. We're going to talk about this next week and the challenge with disruptive change. The theme for today's AMA is it's [00:45:00] unlikely that you're going to get consensus because people experience disruptive change in ways that are very different depending on their personal context, their position within the organization, their seniority, uh, how much money they have in the bank.

You know, there's so many different. Contextual factors that change the way people feel and react. Um, on a cross functional team, you're also going to have very different perspectives on the right next step. And so as a leader, waiting for consensus can really, um, damage your efficacy. In making, um, in being a decisive and being able to, um, decrease your time to impact in when you're leading through volatility and disruption.

And so, um, even helping leaders understand that consensus making decreases trust. There's really good evidence that teams were that follow a leader where the leader cannot hold to a decision. Trust goes down. on those teams over time. And we've all been on that team where we [00:46:00] watch the leaders circle the drain of consensus and back off of decisions or per Amanda's comment, point up the management chain and say, well, actually, you know, as the senior management that made this decision, a lot of that leads to the team trusting their own leader less.

And why this is helpful to point out is that the leader needs to understand that the accountability behavior that the organization wants for them to take actually has an ROI to the leader. So when I, when I read Amanda's Um, chat comment, they'll communicate a decision, but the second they get pushed back, they're blaming.

up the management chain. We haven't set the ROI calculation correctly for the leader to understand. There's actually a, uh, what's in it for me to hold fast to this decision and usher the team in this direction. People truly operate, operate most of the time off of self interest. And if we haven't clearly explained to them that if you want your team to win consistently, you have to earn and keep trust.

And you waffling and then pointing up the management chain actually [00:47:00] decreases trust on your team. Then they're missing the wisdom, the what's in it for me to hold the line on account. I'm not saying this is easy. None of this is like a silver bullet. There's no like quick fix here, but I do think having the right heuristics or mental models can help us put the calories in the right place.

When we're re skilling. our leaders and our organization. We've got another question in chat, but I want to tag in David or Michael to, um, check in with the group.

David Rice: Yeah, I just want to give everybody a quick reminder. Uh, we got about 15 minutes left while 12 minutes left now. Sorry, but we still got a bit more time for questions.

Uh, wanted to, you know, I know people start jumping off for calls and everything. I want to say thank you again for joining us today. If you're enjoying this, uh, please do keep an eye out for our future events coming up. We've got, uh, some, uh, schedule of events that goes on every month and we'll be doing some more in the new year.

We might put some things on pause around the holidays because, you know, So it gets the end of the year, people go, okay, [00:48:00] enough, but it's a, so, but keep an eye out for us. We'll be putting things on social, our social accounts, follow people, managing people on LinkedIn. If you don't already subscribe to our newsletter.

And yeah, I'll go back to you for the questions. Cause I want to make sure that we get to these.

Vijay Pendakur: Awesome. Okay, great. Yeah, I love it. People managing people is constantly doing these kinds of value add professional development experiences for people, managers and HR experts and just leaders in general. So it's a, it's a cool community that I'm, I'm going to be participating in so I can skill up myself.

Um, okay. So, um, Amanda, thanks for closing the loop. I'm glad that, um, the perspective added value for you. Um, so we've got two last questions and I'm going to, and I will work hard to get to both of them before we run out of time today. Um, going up from the bottom, Sharon asks, how can I handle a leader?

Part of my team who performs well for the book, but as low on EQ, emotional intelligence. For example, they are too free with their subjects and spend [00:49:00] most of the time walking around and are never at their workstation. Okay. Okay. So, um,

Sharon, the example you've given of walking around most of the time and never at their workstation. Um, tell me more about, uh, cause I'll come back to your question once you've chat typed more in chat. Why is this an example of low emotional intelligence? It sounds like they're, they're spending a lot of their time trying to, um, maybe if I'm reading this correctly, they're spending a lot of their time trying to earn the affection of their team as opposed to earning the respect of their team.

Is that your diagnosis here? Tell me more about about this. Oh, okay. Great. Okay. So, so a framework that might be useful for you here is, um, the difference between the, the difference between vulnerability and competence and helping this leader, if you have a coaching relationship with [00:50:00] them, understand That vulnerability is a superpower and competence is a superpower, and they're not at war with each other.

And the best leaders actually are extraordinarily competent. They can get stuff done. Um, and they're really good at task execution. They're really good at delegation. They're really good at measurement. These are core manager skill sets, but they're also really good. at vulnerability. And what is vulnerability?

Vulnerability is the reciprocal process of giving and receiving trust and taking risk with each other. Um, it sounds like from the very little information I have, so forgive me if I misdiagnose here, it sounds like this person is erring way too far on the side of vulnerability, being a driver of their leadership and far less on the side of competence.

And what ends up happening here is over time, their team will pull back from this leader because what you see is that too many of the calories are going to winning the popularity contest as opposed to getting the work done. Now, there, we all know managers who are [00:51:00] the inverse, who are task execution wizards and are robots, right?

You don't know anything about them. And um, they, they don't check in with people when they've had a sick kid over the weekend. They don't ever share anything about themselves. And what we also see in studies of teams where the leader is very, very competent, but there's no vulnerability to draw that can be paired with emotional intelligence that actually There's no ability to trust that leader when we lead through the chaos of disruption.

And so really the transformational leader that successfully wins consistently in the face of volatility and disruption is blending vulnerability and competence, um, all the time. Um, Jacob Morgan writes about this. Um, so if you can, you can Google, uh, vulnerable leadership and Jacob Morgan, I found his writing on this to be very helpful when I was Writing about the same stuff in my book.

Um, so [00:52:00] let's see here. Uh, and the other, so Faye has a question. Are there some clear data points that are red flags for languish and flourishing that we're not looking closely enough? Are there specific tools that are more helpful in showing this info becomes a problem? Yeah, so, um, I think that. Some of the so like some of the languishing or flourishing data could show up and I'm ideating in the moment phase.

So forgive me if I'm like sort of incoherent as I get to some kind of clarity. So one, one form of data is the data that we most reflexively go to, which is employee sentiment data. This is, you know, um, empirical data that sits in your, uh, annual, biannual, quarterly, or pulse surveying of how people are feeling at work.

You can look at, Things like net promoter score Gallup has 40 years of research on how you can actually interpret the data science of [00:53:00] NPS to understand a bunch of things to net promoter score can really be data scienced in a way that helps you understand how your people are doing. Um, so that could be a data point.

Um, conversely, to pick some low hanging fruit here, intent to leave. So oftentimes, if people aren't doing well, when they're languishing, their intent to leave score goes up. It's very human, right? When you are disconnected, filled with doubt and listlessness, overwhelmed and fatigued, you start job searching, right?

It's sort of like if you're unhappy in a dating relationship, you might, you might Put Tinder back on your phone, you know, so, um, you might low key be scrolling and trolling indeed and LinkedIn. Um, and you can see that Nintendo leave scores to, to be much more nuanced than that at your end to employee sentiment data is also loaded with a bunch of other factors that can be clues here.

So, um, a good employee sentiment survey. is we'll ask about psychological [00:54:00] safety or belonging. Um, I feel like I belong on my team or even better. You actually describe the feeling of belonging, right? So, um, um, I feel interconnected and understood on my team, right? That's a better way of asking about belonging so that you're not repeating the variable in the question.

And if you see the answers to this dropping over time, you may have a person moving from flourishing to languishing. Um, I trust my team leader. I, I would tell my team leader if they were going to make a mistake at work, or I would give my team leader critical feedback on an important project, or I feel comfortable telling my team leader, um, about a failure that I've had.

All of those are questions that assess for psychological safety. If you've got baseline data and it's dropping on key teams, It may be a sign that you're, you're that team or those individuals are moving from flourishing to languishing. So some of these behavioral science [00:55:00] factors can serve as proxies for how people are feeling about their state at work, their role on the team, the health of the organization.

The other way of mapping this is to understand that in the change management curve, I don't know. Okay. So I'm looking at my screen now. So when, when there's a disruptive moment, because I'm trying not to screen share and show slides. So when there's a disruptive moment, um, you can Google for this. I use it all the time in my decks, bridges, transition theory.

William Bridges was a researcher in the 1990s. I love he has this change curve where basically at a point of disruptive change. People and organizations go through this lull where productivity goes down. And then as people are successfully ushered through that, that, um, state of languishing, the productivity goes back up business leaders, love understanding the productivity curve.

But what [00:56:00] a team leader needs to do is to understand. What emotions show up in the bottom of that curve. And so I have a training tool I use where I actually map the emotions associated with the curve as the team or the individual grapples with the change when you see, um, sort of disproportionate levels of frustration when you see listlessness like people, you know, a person that used to have really good ideas in a meeting is sort of sitting there like, You know, eyes up into the right, like checked out, or they're always off camera, right?

Body language, you know, are they here? Are they participating? Are they, are they here? You know, there's, there's a lot of visual cues around the emotional state. The emotion is a great gingerbread crumb for you to follow that trail towards understanding where an individual or a team sits in there on the change management curve.

And part of my hypothesis is that a leader can inject the talent catalyst that I [00:57:00] feature in my book, the alchemy of talent being very self self promotional right now, as we round up the hour, you can actually inject trust belonging and connection to flatten the curve. You don't get rid of it. People, people still go through a lull because we're humans and we're hardwired to go through that, that period of struggle around change, but you can decrease the, the, the depth of that curve.

If you lead. using the behavioral science toolbox connected to peak performance in endless disruption. Okay. How was that David and bringing it full circle and putting a bow on it?

David Rice: Beautiful. We even got the book plug in there. I mean, that was so smooth, man.

I'm going to put a link in the chat right now to a recent conversation with Jay and I had on the people managing people podcast. Uh, do feel free to give that a listen. I'd love to have everybody on. I think I misspoke before. I was kind of making it sound like we were done with events for the year. I didn't mean that.

I don't think that was, uh, we've got one more of these ask the [00:58:00] expert sessions. It's going to be with Claire Lou. She's the CEO of canopy. Um, If you're like me and you read our newsletters, I'm just excited for this one. That's going to be a cool discussion. Um, we've also got a upcoming Lean Coffee Chat with Dr.

Liz Lockhart Lance. Uh, these are always really cool, uh, fun sessions. We can, you can focus on a specific issue that you need to solve for, so that's really great. Um, and aside from that, definitely sign up for Vijay's newsletter as well as ours, and keep up to date with everything. Thank you again for joining us today.

This was a really good session. I'm, I was glad to have, uh, Vijay take over and, and answer all your questions. And until next time, hey, it's fall out here. It doesn't get a whole lot better than fall. Enjoy. Bye everybody. Thank you for participating.

Vijay Pendakur: This was fun.