Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week inside from the reporters and editors who bring you
Speaker 1: America's most trusted business magazine, plus global business, finance and
Speaker 1: tech news as it happens. Bloomberg Business Week with Carol
Speaker 1: Messer and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: It is Bloomberg Business Week. That's Carol Master. I'm Tim
Speaker 2: Stenevec Labor. It's been front and center. Two weeks after
Speaker 2: Boeming tried and failed end to strike with the brash
Speaker 2: move of a direct offer to workers, the Planemaker and
Speaker 2: its largest union are taking another stab to end the stalemate.
Speaker 3: Yes they are.
Speaker 4: This comes after Thursday's news that US DOC workers agreed
Speaker 4: to end a three day strike that had paralyzed trade
Speaker 4: on the US East and Gulf Coast and threatened to
Speaker 4: become a factor in the presidential election.
Speaker 2: Lot going on, Yes, So couple this in with the
Speaker 2: return to office push that's coming hello Amazon last month.
Speaker 2: No question, companies are thinking a lot about employees. But
Speaker 2: the question is are we having the right coma We've
Speaker 2: got with us Doctor Stephan Meyer, he follows all this closely.
Speaker 2: He's the James P. Gorman, Professor of Business at Columbia
Speaker 2: Business School.
Speaker 5: He's the author of.
Speaker 2: A forthcoming book, The Employee Advantage, How Putting Workers First
Speaker 2: Helps Businesses Thrive, Help business Thrive, which come out comes
Speaker 2: out on October fifteenth. He joins us here in the
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio.
Speaker 5: Full disclosure.
Speaker 2: Professor Meyer was my professor back in the fall of
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: Tim a good student. That's all we wanted.
Speaker 2: We have grade no disclosure at the Business School.
Speaker 5: However I did.
Speaker 3: I did like blake your eyes. You know what good It.
Speaker 5: Is the perfect course for journalists.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds like it.
Speaker 2: It's all case studies kind of stuff we love. I
Speaker 2: didn't have to do a lot of excel in that class,
Speaker 2: which was not my strong suit coming econometrics it was.
Speaker 5: It was. It was actually an awesome class. Professor. Good
Speaker 5: to see you got your things from the book.
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me here.
Speaker 5: See you again.
Speaker 6: It was a was a great student. Disclosing without disclosing degrades.
Speaker 5: He was amazing. Thank you. I appreciate that. You're good
Speaker 5: to know.
Speaker 2: So Carol and I were talking about this ahead of
Speaker 2: ahead of the interview, and we got a good bit
Speaker 2: of time with you, so we're happy about that. She
Speaker 2: reminded me about this letter back in twenty nineteen from
Speaker 2: the Business Roundtable, which talked about the idea of investors
Speaker 2: having to think differently about so called stakeholders, right companies
Speaker 2: moving away from shareholder primacy and committing to all stakeholders,
Speaker 2: including employees. Yet here we are five years later, has
Speaker 2: anything actually shifted?
Speaker 6: Well, I actually don't think so.
Speaker 3: That feels like a no, Yes, I actually.
Speaker 6: Don't think so. Now, to be perfect lens, I've never
Speaker 6: met an executive who doesn't think or says that employees
Speaker 6: are the most important asset. But when you actually look
Speaker 6: at the data, you know, if you look at how
Speaker 6: often do they talk about them compared to customers, like
Speaker 6: ten times less than customers. How engaged are people at work?
Speaker 6: Not that much? You know, Like according to Gallup there
Speaker 6: is like sixty seven percent of workers are disengaged at work.
Speaker 6: So I don't think they're doing a good job.
Speaker 4: Is there always like that amount of people are just
Speaker 4: like it's a job.
Speaker 6: I don't think so. I mean, I think that's part
Speaker 6: of the problem. Kind of the mindset is like, you know,
Speaker 6: they don't want to work anyway, so I have to
Speaker 6: either incentivize them hard or control them even harder. But
Speaker 6: that's just not true. I mean people actually like work.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, there's a limit to it. It's
Speaker 6: still yeah, but people actually come to work, you know,
Speaker 6: because they you know, it's part of their identity. If
Speaker 6: it's done well, if they're really engaged, you know, it's
Speaker 6: a it's a fulfilling thing. I mean, I mean, I'm
Speaker 6: sure the two of you like.
Speaker 3: You we do actually your job? Do we really do?
Speaker 6: We really do like to come to the job. You know,
Speaker 6: there's something about it. I mean, I also love my job.
Speaker 6: There is something I do and what I do. I'm
Speaker 6: there are many, many people across the income distribution. It's
Speaker 6: also not just people who earn a lot. There is
Speaker 6: others who don't wound up much, but who are happy
Speaker 6: at work.
Speaker 3: I like the other.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: God, well, I was gonna say what we don't hear though,
Speaker 2: And we're about to go into earning season. What moves
Speaker 2: a company's stock is top line bottom line for the
Speaker 2: current quarter, what things looked like last quarter that outlook.
Speaker 2: One number we don't hear about is employee turnover at
Speaker 2: the company in the beginning of your book, you talk
Speaker 2: about Amazon's focus relentle jeftbezis is relentless focus on the consumer,
Speaker 2: on the customer. But then you talk about that twenty
Speaker 2: fifteen New York Times expos that talked about what a
Speaker 2: terrible place many people thought Amazon was to work. It
Speaker 2: didn't seem to affect the way shareholders felt about the company.
Speaker 6: No, And I think it's a problem. I think we
Speaker 6: have to think about how the employees think now. In fairness,
Speaker 6: I think Amazon for the longest time also got some
Speaker 6: heat because they were customer centric. Was like, wow, you're
Speaker 6: spending so much money on customers, where's the profits, like whatever?
Speaker 6: And back then they said like, look, you just wait.
Speaker 6: I mean it's actually, if we improve the experience for
Speaker 6: our customers, eventually we can make money. We can actually
Speaker 6: increase the price. And I think the same should be
Speaker 6: true with employees. If we improve the experience for our employees,
Speaker 6: you know, productivity, cost per unit goes down. Because productivity
Speaker 6: goes up, turnover goes down, innovation goes up, and you know,
Speaker 6: in the customer experience, if they actually have contact to
Speaker 6: customers goes up as well. You know, I heard before
Speaker 6: you talked about Costco quick. You know, people at Costco
Speaker 6: are happy, Yeah, the customers and the employees, and you
Speaker 6: feel it when you go in there.
Speaker 4: And that's a company that was always like front and
Speaker 4: center in terms of healthcare and benefits. Why is it
Speaker 4: as long as they're a publicly held company or many
Speaker 4: companies are publicly held, is it going to be hard
Speaker 4: for an executive to kind of not think about cutting
Speaker 4: costs when it comes to employees and not worrying so
Speaker 4: much about that Because I feel like part of our
Speaker 4: political problems or economical problems or the economy is people
Speaker 4: feeling left behind and companies that are making tons of money.
Speaker 4: We talked about this with the dog worker strike, and
Speaker 4: yet they're not feeling like they're a part of it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the hard part
Speaker 6: is if you want to cut costs in the short term,
Speaker 6: short term, the easiest is like to cud labor. Yeah,
Speaker 6: in the short term, that's an easy thing to do.
Speaker 6: I mean a little bit. If you want to, you know,
Speaker 6: slash your marketing budget, that's also easy to do in
Speaker 6: the short term. But in the long term it's just
Speaker 6: not a good idea. And I think even publicly traded company,
Speaker 6: if they can communicate to their investors that you know,
Speaker 6: it's in the best interest. I think it's a good
Speaker 6: strategy going forward. When you know when best Buy was
Speaker 6: about to be turned I mean when best Buy was
Speaker 6: when you know all their competitor were out of business,
Speaker 6: everybody like best Buy. I mean that's like who And
Speaker 6: so Hubert Jolly comes in and he does a very
Speaker 6: human centric turnover and he got exactly that advice. He's
Speaker 6: like cod labor, you know, cut, cut, cut, and he
Speaker 6: says like, no, I don't do that. What I actually
Speaker 6: want to do is understand what really happens in the store.
Speaker 6: Our blue shirts need to be happy. I need to
Speaker 6: understand what the problem is. And he did and turned
Speaker 6: around the company in a very successful way, I think
Speaker 6: where the shareholders were actually happy in the end.
Speaker 2: So best Buy and Hubert Shorely is one example. What's
Speaker 2: another example of a of a company that has been
Speaker 2: rewarded by Wall Street for treating its workers right?
Speaker 6: I mean, I think Costco is one that does it
Speaker 6: really well. Does there tweats their employee nicely and and
Speaker 6: turns it around. I think Etsy was one that did
Speaker 6: like a turnaround in a. They were probably a little
Speaker 6: too employee centric at the beginning, and meaning, you know,
Speaker 6: employee centric is not like giving perks. I think, like
Speaker 6: you know, free yoga classes are okay, but I mean
Speaker 6: that's not cutting it or like ping pong tables or
Speaker 6: free snacks or whatever. And I think they figured that
Speaker 6: out did turnaround which cut some of those perks, but
Speaker 6: it's still very very employees centric organization.
Speaker 4: What are you know, what is it that employees want?
Speaker 4: Is it salary? Is it benefits? Is it a pretty office?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I mean I think it's actually less about monetary
Speaker 6: or those perks. That's not what really keeps people motivated.
Speaker 6: I mean, there's very few people who get up in
Speaker 6: the morning is like, you know, today I'm going to
Speaker 6: increase the return and invest in capital by like half
Speaker 6: a percentage point, Like I'm so jast very few do that.
Speaker 6: I mean, obviously there's if you don't make enough money,
Speaker 6: you know, it's also a problem. I mean it's like
Speaker 6: money is really really important if you have to worry
Speaker 6: about making ends meet, But once you reach a certain level,
Speaker 6: it's not money. I mean I talk in the book
Speaker 6: about well then.
Speaker 3: Is that the employees.
Speaker 4: You're talking about that those that are already making a
Speaker 4: decent salary, because I do feel like there's a sector
Speaker 4: of our economy that just can't make it. So hang
Speaker 4: on a second, because we've got to do a little
Speaker 4: bit of news, and I feel like we've got a
Speaker 4: lot of good stuff to unpack here. We're going to
Speaker 4: come back with Stefan Meyer. He is the James Gorman
Speaker 4: Professor of Business at Columbia Business School. He's got a
Speaker 4: new book out called The Employee Advantage, How putting workers
Speaker 4: first helps business thrive. It sounds so logical, makes sense, right,
Speaker 4: and yet it as you say, we're getting ready for
Speaker 4: earning season, and it's not one of the things that
Speaker 4: we're going to highlight, right unless there's a lawsuit, then
Speaker 4: we talk about.
Speaker 3: It against a company.
Speaker 2: That's when it makes news and moves the stock price.
Speaker 5: For now, though for.
Speaker 4: Now exactly, we're going to come back right here on
Speaker 4: Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 2: I want to get right back to our interview with
Speaker 2: Professor Stefan Meyer. He is the James Gorman Professor of
Speaker 2: Business at Columbia Business School. He is a former FED official.
Speaker 2: He worked at the Federal Reserve. I should say at
Speaker 2: the Federal Reserve at Boston and also New York as well.
Speaker 2: The new book The Employee Advantage, How Putting workers for
Speaker 2: Helps business Thrive. Professor, I want to talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about where the pandemic fits into all this and
Speaker 2: thinking about it in the context of how employees think
Speaker 2: differently about their work. There seemed to be a shift
Speaker 2: take place. Just look at the pushback that Amazon is
Speaker 2: getting right now to bringing workers back to five days
Speaker 2: a week. That's a distinct example. And you write about
Speaker 2: Amazon in the book. But how do you think about
Speaker 2: the pandemic shifting this?
Speaker 6: Yeah, thank you, Tim. I mean I think the pandemic
Speaker 6: shifted the lat It put like a really bright spotlight
Speaker 6: on what actually didn't work well before. I don't think
Speaker 6: like with the pandemic it suddenly was broken, but we
Speaker 6: figured out something is just not working well. And that
Speaker 6: spotlight really woke up a lot of people. They're like,
Speaker 6: really do I want to do that? Is that the
Speaker 6: right way of doing so? And the remote work is
Speaker 6: just one you know, where we thought like we can
Speaker 6: never do I mean, it's never possible. Turns out yeah,
Speaker 6: but it's kind of fish and now we have to
Speaker 6: figure out like how much. But it's definitely I mean,
Speaker 6: in my view, it's definitely five days a week is
Speaker 6: not why should that be the optimal? Maybe there's sometimes
Speaker 6: but like I don't see why five days should be.
Speaker 6: And people woke up to like, maybe how we did things,
Speaker 6: how bosses behaved, how the workplace was structured, is maybe
Speaker 6: not the way we should do or have to do it.
Speaker 6: Because the pydemic showed us we can actually do it diffinitely,
Speaker 6: And I think it was a really real big wake
Speaker 6: up call that late first to you know, great resignation
Speaker 6: and people rethinking like what are our opportunities? What are
Speaker 6: my priorities in work? And do I really want to
Speaker 6: work for a workplace that doesn't treat me as much
Speaker 6: as as well as I actually think I should should
Speaker 6: be treated. Well?
Speaker 3: Have we changed them?
Speaker 4: Because it does feel like a lot of people are
Speaker 4: being called back to the office and all of these
Speaker 4: kind of new wave of thinking of maybe how we
Speaker 4: work we thought would be with us forever, but are
Speaker 4: we seeing it kind.
Speaker 3: Of roll back? And is that maybe not smart? That
Speaker 3: we're not evolving?
Speaker 6: Yeah and transform, I mean I don't think we're I mean,
Speaker 6: when you look at how many percentage of workdays at home.
Speaker 6: I think we're plateaued some like thirty percent of the days.
Speaker 6: But like obviously the news of like Amazon, you know,
Speaker 6: calling everybody back, and it's kind of ironic obviously, almost
Speaker 6: like I talk in the example, my first example is
Speaker 6: about Amazon and they like that they're not as employee
Speaker 6: centric and whatever and now and I thought, well, well,
Speaker 6: maybe they turn around because Bezos actually said we want
Speaker 6: to be the most the best employer as well. Turns
Speaker 6: out they're the ones who I'll call everybody back. I
Speaker 6: think it's a huge mistake and it kind of shows
Speaker 6: that we haven't evolved as much, Carol, that we you know,
Speaker 6: they didn't listen to their employee as much as they
Speaker 6: would do their customers. They would do focus groups and
Speaker 6: like all customer insight right journeys, and now they're doing
Speaker 6: something or seventy five percent of Amazon employees hate.
Speaker 4: Well do you miss because you get into the book,
Speaker 4: like you talk about purpose statements that companies need to
Speaker 4: put out, and I do wonder. We work at a
Speaker 4: company that has a very distinct culture and we talk
Speaker 4: about it a lot, and people who come in you
Speaker 4: feel it right from the get go. And it was
Speaker 4: important for people to be back here. And part of
Speaker 4: it is that we running. You know, when you walk in,
Speaker 4: it's this big open area and everybody from all different
Speaker 4: departments are running into one another, and things do happen
Speaker 4: when you run into somebody, And I do wonder does
Speaker 4: culture get lost working at home? You talk about the
Speaker 4: importance of purpose statements for employees, so I wonder there's
Speaker 4: something to that. Absolutely, I mean you find it only
Speaker 4: at the office rightly.
Speaker 6: There was actually two motivators that I describe that deal
Speaker 6: with are affected when we think about remote work. One
Speaker 6: is the flexibility autonomy and the other one what I
Speaker 6: call working together works. We have to be kind of
Speaker 6: together being in a good team. Now, do we need
Speaker 6: to be together forty hours a week?
Speaker 3: Probably not sure. It does, love you, tim, but.
Speaker 6: Sometimes it feels like we're or more it does culture matter? Yeah,
Speaker 6: But like you know, when we were in the off,
Speaker 6: when everybody was in the in the office five days
Speaker 6: a week, Like I guess like fifty percent of companies
Speaker 6: that like toxic work cultures, just because we're together doesn't
Speaker 6: make it great. If you have a good culture, you know,
Speaker 6: and you're really intentional about it, it's probably a good thing,
Speaker 6: but again, doesn't need forty hours or like you know,
Speaker 6: there are downsides. Mentoring might not work so well. Do
Speaker 6: we do forty hours of mentoring? I don't think so.
Speaker 6: Do we do forty hours of like water moon or
Speaker 6: like kombucha tap moments? I don't think so. So we
Speaker 6: couldn't be actually much.
Speaker 7: We haven't had that yet.
Speaker 5: We haven't had You don't have a kombu.
Speaker 2: We don't have kombuch like a lot of other taps.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about some more sort of examples
Speaker 2: that are happening in real time. We used to talk
Speaker 2: to Brian Nicol, the new CEO of Starbucks all the time.
Speaker 2: We have spoken him since he became CEO of Starbucks.
Speaker 2: We talked him or so here. But I'm curious how
Speaker 2: you're looking at sort of that transition there, because there's
Speaker 2: a labor challenge with union and potential unionization, and then
Speaker 2: there's also the corporate challenge where he's like loves Newport
Speaker 2: Beach and they need him in Seattle, so he's like
Speaker 2: on a private jet quite a bit.
Speaker 6: Yeah, funny enough. I actually wrote an opet giving advice
Speaker 6: to him. The advice is like doing a human centric turnover.
Speaker 6: I mean Starbucks where you employed the baristas are critically important.
Speaker 6: If you feel if you go into the Starbucks and
Speaker 6: you feel welcoming, the whole point was like that you
Speaker 6: have like the baristas and they're really happy.
Speaker 2: I feel like I did a case study on Starbucks
Speaker 2: in your class.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, good, you remember that.
Speaker 6: And and I do think it's like really important to
Speaker 6: not fall into that myth of like, you know cutting,
Speaker 6: we talked before about like should you should he cut
Speaker 6: costs right away in this turnaround, And I don't think so.
Speaker 6: In the long term, it's better to actually listen to
Speaker 6: you know, your workforce, working with the union or not.
Speaker 6: You know, often when you actually treat your employees well,
Speaker 6: they don't unionize because they're happy to begin with.
Speaker 3: And they're good with customers help.
Speaker 6: You can't you can't get happy customers without happy employees.
Speaker 6: I think there is no way you can't walk into
Speaker 6: a Starbuck and everybody is miserable and then be happy
Speaker 6: about paying whatever how much a Lotte is nowadays, but
Speaker 6: about a ridiculous amount of money for a Lotte, which
Speaker 6: part of it is the coffee, and part of it
Speaker 6: is the atmosphere that you're that you're buying, and so
Speaker 6: you need like happy employees in order to create that
Speaker 6: feeling and also to make them productive.
Speaker 4: It is amazing in a service led economy. And we
Speaker 4: all have horror stories of being on hold. I had
Speaker 4: somebody with a particular company, telecom company, who was on
Speaker 4: hold for like four or five and you know, she's like,
Speaker 4: Luckily I could be at home doing stuff and be
Speaker 4: on whold because I had to deal with an issue.
Speaker 3: But most people don't.
Speaker 4: Have that time you're at work, like you know, we
Speaker 4: have to hang up, got to go do our show.
Speaker 4: But I do wonder, like what's happened, because it just
Speaker 4: seems like in a service led economy, service has gone
Speaker 4: to the wayside. I've got into stores and there's nobody
Speaker 4: around to help me, or there's somebody, you know, I'm
Speaker 4: buying something and they're on their cell phone while they're
Speaker 4: checking me out or something, or I check myself out,
Speaker 4: Like so, isn't it kind.
Speaker 3: Of surprising that, yeah, if it's service.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more with you, Carol.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think like they in a service economy,
Speaker 6: the employees has to be creately coal important and you
Speaker 6: need to treat them well. And I think Costco again
Speaker 6: is a good example. There is this other for those
Speaker 6: of the listener who are from Texas, there is h EB.
Speaker 6: It's a grocery store in Texas where I tell that
Speaker 6: story where like they opened the store outside of Dallas
Speaker 6: and people would line up through the night to be
Speaker 6: the first person in that grocery store. It's a grocery
Speaker 6: store and it's a very employee centric organization, and it
Speaker 6: creates this atmosphere where people are welcomed and love it
Speaker 6: to be there. And so I think they, as my
Speaker 6: book says, you know, you tweet your employees nice and
Speaker 6: then the business actually thrives as a result.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, you're a behavioral economist. You
Speaker 2: teach students every semester at Columbia Business School. A top
Speaker 2: industry these students want to be in is consulting. Consultants
Speaker 2: often are told to cut costs.
Speaker 5: So there's this.
Speaker 3: Mood production overseas.
Speaker 2: There's this circle that kind of needs to be disrupted,
Speaker 2: I imagine in your view, and I'm wondering how that
Speaker 2: message is being received at the school and in your class.
Speaker 6: I mean, I try so you know, it's a topic
Speaker 6: where like everybody on the one it says like, yeah,
Speaker 6: I'm for it, the question is whether they actually implement it.
Speaker 6: And I think it's the same with obviously customers centricity.
Speaker 6: You know, there is no executive who says, so, I
Speaker 6: don't care about customers, but only if you can really
Speaker 6: pull it off to be really customer centric. And I
Speaker 6: think the same is true with employees that you know,
Speaker 6: if you really care and you really put in the
Speaker 6: work to be employee centric, the benefits will come, but
Speaker 6: it's going to be delayed. You know, we talked about
Speaker 6: this before. It's not a short term thing. If you
Speaker 6: want to, yeah, the easiest way to cut cost right
Speaker 6: now is to cut labor force. That's often the biggest
Speaker 6: factor in the cost structure.
Speaker 4: It feels kind of depressing, like the outlook, because it
Speaker 4: just sounds like you have a couple of examples, but
Speaker 4: most companies.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I see it as actually as a
Speaker 6: very positive story. I think like there is a way
Speaker 6: if we change the mindset of thinking it's not either
Speaker 6: or we're fighting against the employees and otherwise it comes
Speaker 6: out of the bottom line. It's like, no, we can
Speaker 6: actually treat them well and create more profit.
Speaker 5: What's the research that backs that up?
Speaker 6: I mean, there is like study over study that shows,
Speaker 6: like you know, organizations that put well being not wellness
Speaker 6: well being and treat their employees nicely, they're actually more profitable. Now,
Speaker 6: it's a hard thing to study because there's all you know,
Speaker 6: what's causal and what is actually correlational, because maybe the
Speaker 6: better companies can also treat them better. But I think
Speaker 6: I do think, like there are many examples and studies
Speaker 6: who actually show that if you treat them well, the
Speaker 6: benefits will come.
Speaker 4: But go back to like I meuniversity has gotten better,
Speaker 4: and I think boards like we've seen more diversity, and
Speaker 4: we've seen the research that says companies perform better. But
Speaker 4: I do wonder, again, go to earnings if we're not
Speaker 4: highlighting that this company's doing so well with its employees,
Speaker 4: especially for publicly held companies. I just I understood for
Speaker 4: smaller companies maybe why that happens because you're really but
Speaker 4: I just I don't mean to be so negative, but
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 3: I've got about thirty seconds to wrap up.
Speaker 6: I probably have to shift and maybe you guys have
Speaker 6: to shift and talking more about the employees yeah. Where
Speaker 6: you know, nowadays we talk a lot about customers. You know,
Speaker 6: many many years ago, customers were like an afterthought. It
Speaker 6: was like product centric and engineering and finance. And then
Speaker 6: we move towards thinking, no, actually the customer is really important.
Speaker 6: What's retention rate on your customers and so on and
Speaker 6: so forth, And I think we probably have to shift
Speaker 6: to also now think about employees and maybe in the
Speaker 6: future on your show, you have to ask those executives
Speaker 6: that's the least like you say.
Speaker 3: They often say, yeah, of course important.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3: Actions speak louder than words.
Speaker 2: Stefan Meyer. He's the Jane Gorman Professor of Business at
Speaker 2: Columbia Business School. Brand new book out next week, The
Speaker 2: Employee Advantage Help Putting Workers First Helps Business Thrive.
Speaker 5: This is Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Well, The Lord of the Rings Rings of Power on
Speaker 2: Prime Video and it's in its second season, Carol, it's
Speaker 2: expected renewed for a third and from what we've read,
Speaker 2: Amazon has planned for five seasons.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Talk about having some you know, visibility. It's incredible and
Speaker 4: you know listen.
Speaker 2: I think that's a Jeff It's like a Jeff Bezos
Speaker 2: passion project. I think so two years ago he's like,
Speaker 2: he was so excited about this.
Speaker 3: And you get it. It's based on the work of J. R. R. Tolkien.
Speaker 3: Our next guest isn't you.
Speaker 5: Looked up how to say that? Everybody says JR.
Speaker 3: Tolkien, Well, it's so interesting.
Speaker 4: There's actually an interview with I think one of the
Speaker 4: actors that was in one of the series or movies,
Speaker 4: and it's it's apparently a thing, and we talked about
Speaker 4: it in the newsroom, so I did do my homework.
Speaker 4: Our next guest is an executive producer director of Rings
Speaker 4: of Power. Great to have with us, Charlotte Branstrom. She
Speaker 4: has been involved with a lot of projects that you'll
Speaker 4: likely know. She's an award winning director directing both TV
Speaker 4: and film, a producer who has worked on Showgun, The Continental,
Speaker 4: The Unlikely Murderer, I'm leaving a lot out, The Outsider,
Speaker 4: The Disappearance. We could go on and on and on.
Speaker 4: We're really excited to have her and she's with us
Speaker 4: from Paris.
Speaker 3: Welcome, Welcome, it is Tolkien, right.
Speaker 7: Yes, absolutely, thank you, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for being with us. There's so much
Speaker 3: we want to talk about.
Speaker 4: I got to say that whenever we see someone who
Speaker 4: is as accomplished as you and has gone the distance
Speaker 4: in this industry, we do kind of wonder about how
Speaker 4: you began.
Speaker 3: What was your first job? How hard was it to
Speaker 3: get going?
Speaker 8: My first job was a job in Death Valley. Actually
Speaker 8: I was cleaning the motor homes for the actress.
Speaker 3: No, oh my god. All right, So, and then what
Speaker 3: did that do? Like just introduce you to people? You
Speaker 3: met people? Is that how it happened?
Speaker 8: No, I think I've worked very hard and then imaginally
Speaker 8: convinced me to work in the editing room. So I
Speaker 8: started off standing the editing and assistant editor and worked
Speaker 8: myself up. That was actually after I went to film school,
Speaker 8: I went to a F, I came to the States.
Speaker 8: I went to the States to go to the a
Speaker 8: FI American Film Institute in Los Angeles.
Speaker 7: So when I graduated from there is when I got
Speaker 7: my first job cleaning moder homes, and then I sort
Speaker 7: of worked myself up from there.
Speaker 8: So I don't I've sort of worked in every incapacity
Speaker 8: I think in films and for I do.
Speaker 3: And it was really easy, right the whole process.
Speaker 7: I'm being I'm being a great crazy I just walked.
Speaker 3: How hard was it?
Speaker 4: And it's something that you know, we we actually talked
Speaker 4: on our planning call about, you know, the number of
Speaker 4: women who are reaching the level that you are and
Speaker 4: directing and producing.
Speaker 3: And it's still not a ton is it.
Speaker 8: No, It's it's hard, I guess also because I mean.
Speaker 7: They we were a bit back then.
Speaker 8: I started directing twenty five years ago, and we were
Speaker 8: a bit typecast. When I would walk into a room,
Speaker 8: they saw me and they said she should do like
Speaker 8: a sentimental drama or romantic comedy.
Speaker 7: And I just wanted to do action films and I
Speaker 7: wanted to do epics, cinema. I wanted to do different
Speaker 7: kind of films.
Speaker 8: And because those are the films that I enjoy watching,
Speaker 8: my my, I mean, I love Lauras of Arabia. I
Speaker 8: loved all the big epics. I mean, I liked the scale.
Speaker 8: So I just pushed for that. So whenever I got
Speaker 8: the actually little drama or comedy, I always put action
Speaker 8: in it.
Speaker 2: So a little bit little, hey, I want to talk
Speaker 2: a little bit. We have a bit of time with you.
Speaker 5: So it's great.
Speaker 2: I want to talk a little bit about being a
Speaker 2: director in a world of incredible things you can do
Speaker 2: with CGI, with AI and computers, because if you go
Speaker 2: and watch some stuff out like Showgun was just I
Speaker 2: just wrapped it up. It was just an amazing, amazing
Speaker 2: visual the whole thing. We loved it filmed in British Columbia.
Speaker 2: But how do you how do you balance your vision
Speaker 2: with what then needs to be done in post production
Speaker 2: to make something work?
Speaker 8: Well, you try to basically work. You work not only
Speaker 8: with CGI visual effects. Obviously you add special effects and
Speaker 8: you you build sets. So everything that you have in
Speaker 8: the foregrounded that's close to camera you try to build
Speaker 8: for real and see GI I'm not I'm not saying mainly,
Speaker 8: but it's used a lot for extension and then banishing everything.
Speaker 8: But then if we talk about Shotgun, if we go
Speaker 8: back to the ships, that's.
Speaker 7: What the biggest That was a very big challenge.
Speaker 8: And those were just pieces of ships that I had,
Speaker 8: just small pieces on the parking lot in the rain,
Speaker 8: so and I put the actress on it and I
Speaker 8: would walk off from my monitor in the tent where
Speaker 8: I was sort of a little bit like avoiding the
Speaker 8: rain and walk up to see these four actress staying
Speaker 8: there being drenched on deck, and they had.
Speaker 7: To imagine the ocean and everything else.
Speaker 8: So you try to basically talk to them and try
Speaker 8: to have them, I mean imagine everything around them.
Speaker 2: I will say there are some scenes where there are
Speaker 2: dives off of ships and you.
Speaker 7: Know it's real. He dived into a tank there.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that was something we need a little see Jai
Speaker 8: that day too, actually, because when it was very cold
Speaker 8: in the air and Cosmo was diving to the water
Speaker 8: that was actually warm. So when he would get out
Speaker 8: of the water, he was like smoking. He looked like
Speaker 8: the devil. So we actually had to use to eye
Speaker 8: on the day you don't even realize, just to get
Speaker 8: rid of the smoke around him.
Speaker 4: Wow, when you're dealing, when you're dealing, like you said,
Speaker 4: you like the scale, you like epic films. When you're
Speaker 4: dealing on that scale, is it I mean, does it
Speaker 4: require typically more takes because it's so complicated and there's
Speaker 4: so much involved. I'm just curious how complicated it is.
Speaker 4: And those poor actors that are on the rain or
Speaker 4: they're in the rain for a long time, because it's
Speaker 4: just difficult to put together.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's tough, actually, But what was really tough on
Speaker 8: Shogun was the scenes in the in the woods, the
Speaker 8: attack with the flaming arrows because it was a night.
Speaker 8: I mean, we had a lot of weather problems on
Speaker 8: that show because of the rain, and we had to base.
Speaker 8: See everybody was carrying around an umbrella, and the poor
Speaker 8: cameraman was trying to light the scene but he couldn't
Speaker 8: se anything before everybody took off the umbrellas, and then
Speaker 8: when the one us were gone, everybody got wet. So
Speaker 8: we had to like really really shoot very quickly eventually,
Speaker 8: but you know, it takes a lot of preparation. It's
Speaker 8: like you have to imagine what it's going to be
Speaker 8: like I actually everybody has their method. I like to
Speaker 8: work with models, so I had the ships were built
Speaker 8: like small models, and I was playing around with that
Speaker 8: and people on deck that way, and was my best
Speaker 8: way to explain the shots to the storyboarder. And then
Speaker 8: we would storyboard the scenes. And I do the same
Speaker 8: for big battles. I sort of placed them everything on
Speaker 8: the battlefield and I decide from which direction that coming
Speaker 8: and where the sun is and I work everything out,
Speaker 8: and for me, it helps me to work it out
Speaker 8: that way before creating everything.
Speaker 3: That is so cool.
Speaker 4: Hey, before we move on to that, one more question
Speaker 4: on Shoka. We were wondering so that we wanted to
Speaker 4: ask you. Our understanding is that the process that there
Speaker 4: were two writers rooms, one where English was spoken, one
Speaker 4: where Japanese. Just tell us a little bit about that dynamic,
Speaker 4: if we've got it correctly.
Speaker 7: Yes, that's absolutely correct, except that I was around.
Speaker 8: I came in when it was already all written, and
Speaker 8: I just received the script where everything that was supposed
Speaker 8: to be in Japanese was in italics, and then I
Speaker 8: realized my word script was in italics. Got how did
Speaker 8: you are you sure we're really doing this? And they said, yes, yes,
Speaker 8: we are shooting three quarters of the show in Japanese.
Speaker 7: Then you are yourself with I mean.
Speaker 8: You have to surround yourself with translators and people who
Speaker 8: know Japanese really well, and you feel like, after a
Speaker 8: few days you get sort of you get used to it.
Speaker 8: You sort of think you almost speak Japanese by listening
Speaker 8: to various intonations and things.
Speaker 4: Well, that's courtesy of our one of our producers Elizabeth
Speaker 4: who has liked the series.
Speaker 5: Oh, we all loved Yeah, we all loved it.
Speaker 8: But incredible people working on it. And I think that
Speaker 8: hero Sonata was one of the most incredible. He was
Speaker 8: when he was not on camera. He was off camera constantly.
Speaker 2: What can you tell us about season two and your
Speaker 2: role on season two?
Speaker 7: On the Rings of Power? Right, not Shogun?
Speaker 2: Well, on Shogun and then we'll talk Shogun.
Speaker 7: I don't know. I can't say anything.
Speaker 4: I knew that would be the answer, but Jim's already planning.
Speaker 4: It's already planning.
Speaker 5: I can't say anything.
Speaker 8: But you're an incredible season I think I.
Speaker 7: Think you are.
Speaker 5: You are working on it confirmed?
Speaker 7: No, not right now?
Speaker 5: Okay, okay, we'll see.
Speaker 7: Well, what's it like.
Speaker 4: To work over whether there's Shogun or Rings of Power?
Speaker 4: You know, something that is you know is going to
Speaker 4: be so watched, so critiqued big time. Do you feel
Speaker 4: that pressure as you're going through it?
Speaker 8: You don't have time to do it's so much, it's
Speaker 8: so challenging the work itself. You have such long days
Speaker 8: and you have so many challenges every day, so you
Speaker 8: really focus on the detail of the day and you
Speaker 8: you sort of it's like building a major puzzle or
Speaker 8: having pieces of a puzzle every day that you put in,
Speaker 8: so you're really focused on that, so you don't think
Speaker 8: about the outcome at that moment, I think, or I
Speaker 8: don't at least, so I'm just trying to do something
Speaker 8: that really works well.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 3: Tell us about it.
Speaker 4: Rings a parrot certainly working well, So tell us about
Speaker 4: kind of working through that.
Speaker 3: My understanding is too.
Speaker 8: You worked.
Speaker 3: Was it both the premiere and finale for season two?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 8: I did the first, the opening, and the I mean
Speaker 8: and the last two episodes, and the last two were
Speaker 8: the most the biggest. I think they were probably bigger
Speaker 8: than Shotgun. They were the biggest I've ever done because
Speaker 8: there were huge sets and a lot of different worlds
Speaker 8: and a lot of challenges, And the biggest challenge for
Speaker 8: me was to work in constant mud in episode seven.
Speaker 3: What's that?
Speaker 8: That was like, Imagine you come in the morning at
Speaker 8: six o'clock in the morning and you're gonna work walk
Speaker 8: in sticky mud up to your knees all day, and
Speaker 8: it takes a lot of time to actually walk around
Speaker 8: in it because you can't walk very fast and you
Speaker 8: usually rushed all the time. Trying to finish the day,
Speaker 8: and you need to speak to everyone. So the walkie
Speaker 8: talkies were very useful. So we've were trying to talk
Speaker 8: to each other from a distance.
Speaker 2: Hey, Charlotte, As I mentioned, Carol and I are headed
Speaker 2: out to Hollywood.
Speaker 5: Were going.
Speaker 2: We're going Wednesday for Bloomberg screen time is on Thursday.
Speaker 5: AI is going to be a huge topic there.
Speaker 2: I got a panel on that on Thursday, And I'm wondering,
Speaker 2: as a director, what's your view on the idea of
Speaker 2: AI or image likeness or displacement in the industry as
Speaker 2: a result of this technology.
Speaker 8: I think we need to be protected. I mean, we
Speaker 8: need to protect a lot of players for I mean,
Speaker 8: to help them. I mean, because AI can't replace everything,
Speaker 8: but we need also to be very smart about it.
Speaker 8: We're not going to stop it, so we need to
Speaker 8: use it as a tool and to help us in
Speaker 8: our work. So I'm just trying. I mean, of course
Speaker 8: everybody is using AI in different ways today, but I
Speaker 8: mean there is a danger that we need to limit,
Speaker 8: and its specifically when it comes to I see for
Speaker 8: our cast for actors, for extra I mean, because people
Speaker 8: want to keep working in this industry. But I as
Speaker 8: a director also, I mean we embrace vffcs. The progress
Speaker 8: is done and there is a lot of I mean,
Speaker 8: we're not going to stop it, so we have to
Speaker 8: be smart and learn how to use it. So I
Speaker 8: think I'm just trying to learn as much as I
Speaker 8: can about it and see how I can use it.
Speaker 4: It brings the power of the biggest thing you feel
Speaker 4: like you said, you know you like the large scale
Speaker 4: and working on these projects. Is this the biggest scale
Speaker 4: that you've worked on.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think so definitely, because it has so many
Speaker 8: different worlds. It's such huge sets, and you work with
Speaker 8: the crews are just at huge. We have a lot
Speaker 8: of people and they are the best there are. So
Speaker 8: it's just it's a gift every day to be able
Speaker 8: to walk to set and see these beautiful sets and
Speaker 8: figure out how to use them. But it's really about
Speaker 8: in the end, you sit in the dark tent with
Speaker 8: your cameraman and you're looking at the screen and you're
Speaker 8: trying to make the scene the work and the performance
Speaker 8: is to be believable. And so it's in a way
Speaker 8: similar to every other show too. At the same time,
Speaker 8: it's just when you leave the tent and you see
Speaker 8: what you have around you.
Speaker 7: That is a bit impressive.
Speaker 3: I bet I bet so rom Com not in your
Speaker 3: near future, right, it can be good.
Speaker 5: Gotta have the word epic.
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna say epic com. No, listen, don't change
Speaker 3: a thing. Don't change a thing.
Speaker 4: Charlotte, thank you so much. We know it's later where
Speaker 4: you are in Powis, so thank you so much for
Speaker 4: carving out time for us. We really enjoy this best
Speaker 4: of luck and we look forward to the.
Speaker 3: Next seasons of whatever you're doing.
Speaker 4: Charlotte Bradstroum. She is executive producer director. As we said,
Speaker 4: Rings of Power on Prime Videos