Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. All right, so we want to
Speaker 1: talk um about joy in the workplace. It's actually something
Speaker 1: you and I talk about so much that, um, you
Speaker 1: kind of need that when you're doing your job to
Speaker 1: really I think, make it as good as as it
Speaker 1: can be. So creating creating joy and positivity in the workplace.
Speaker 1: It sounds basic and yes, and yet it is really important.
Speaker 1: Alex lewis Chairman imagining partner at Carney UH and he's
Speaker 1: here to talk about a specific movement, joy at work.
Speaker 1: That's the movement. And he's in our Bloomberg Interactor Broker
Speaker 1: studio here in New York. Nice to have you here
Speaker 1: with us. Thanks, Alex. I mean it, like Jason, I
Speaker 1: talked about it all the time. It's like really sad
Speaker 1: if you're surrounded by people who don't enjoy what they're doing,
Speaker 1: and it really kind of takes you down. Um, And
Speaker 1: so we think about that a lot. Tell me about
Speaker 1: this movement and and and a little bit more about
Speaker 1: the thinking behind this. Sure, No, I mean I think
Speaker 1: about there's such untapped energy in the workplace and positivity
Speaker 1: as you mentioned um. To me, the term joy at
Speaker 1: work means a true and authentic and deep alignment with
Speaker 1: the whole Hawaiihuai and who of the workplace. When you
Speaker 1: think about being on a championship athletic team, right they're
Speaker 1: pursuing a championship, or you think about the first workplace,
Speaker 1: which is a seven year old of the playground. They
Speaker 1: don't care about who you are, what color, what gender.
Speaker 1: They want to climb the jungle gym. Why if we
Speaker 1: had that same level of purpose, alignment, passion in the
Speaker 1: workplace we um, don't we already? Well? I mean think
Speaker 1: about it. We've got all these sort of silos and
Speaker 1: matrices and layers and kpi s and things that prevent
Speaker 1: you from being yourself and understanding true connectivity with with
Speaker 1: your colleagues. Now, when we we did some research on this,
Speaker 1: because it's not just some millennial movement here. We want
Speaker 1: workplace justice, we want purpose. I mean that's something we
Speaker 1: all want. We looked at companies all all age groups,
Speaker 1: baby boomers, millennials, generation next. There's a joy gap. There's
Speaker 1: a gap between what they expect from work. I mean,
Speaker 1: you spend half your time, a lot of your energy
Speaker 1: and anxiety there but only actually get it. So it's
Speaker 1: like a fift gap across all cohorts. So it's an
Speaker 1: issue that that that is more more human than it
Speaker 1: is demographic. I mean, it's a it's a huge opportunity
Speaker 1: to change. And was it always this way or did
Speaker 1: we lose it along the way? Well, I mean, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I think UM companies have complicated things. I mean,
Speaker 1: you think about what you want from work over the
Speaker 1: playground or an athletic team. You want harmony, you want acknowledgement,
Speaker 1: you want impact, so you want on the harmony side,
Speaker 1: you want roll clarity. Look at these big companies that
Speaker 1: have huge complicated matrices, be us that or you know,
Speaker 1: competing with each other versus the customer acknowledgement. This whole
Speaker 1: diversity and inclusion. People want to feel like they can
Speaker 1: be yourself. Being yourself is good enough. Bringing your best
Speaker 1: self is even better. You know, we had a conversation
Speaker 1: last week about something like open environments at workplaces good
Speaker 1: or bad? Do you think in terms of creating joy
Speaker 1: and positivity? You just got about forty seconds and then
Speaker 1: we'll take a break and come back and talk more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the physical helps the mental, but
Speaker 1: more importantly, it's the hidden, it's the hidden collaboration that's
Speaker 1: that's uh the problem. I mean, if you look at
Speaker 1: any workplace, it's not just how they move interact physically.
Speaker 1: It does reinforce us a feeling of connection. But if
Speaker 1: you're stigmatized, if you don't feel like you belong, if
Speaker 1: you feel isolated, there's an epidemic of of mental health
Speaker 1: and isolation and disillusionment. And you don't get that just
Speaker 1: by meeting people in the workplace. You have to deal
Speaker 1: deal with a sense of belonging. Carol Master along with
Speaker 1: Jason Kelly here on Bloomberg Business Week. Alex Alex lou
Speaker 1: is our guest. He's chairman and managing partner at Carney
Speaker 1: and he joins us in our New York studio, and
Speaker 1: we're talking about joy at work, the movement, and I
Speaker 1: do wonder if there's differences in terms of workers who
Speaker 1: are urban workers working in major cities, and whether or
Speaker 1: not there's more joy less joy versus maybe out in
Speaker 1: the suburbs or out in the Midwest where space is
Speaker 1: more open and it's not maybe in a major city. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think what we're talking about is trying
Speaker 1: to overcome a sense of isolation and alienation. And I
Speaker 1: think you pointed out earlier Jason, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: in an ironically, in a world of such connectivity, hyper
Speaker 1: connectivity five G in the rural networks, there is an
Speaker 1: epidemic of mental illness and health and isolation and suicides
Speaker 1: and like so. And if there's no connection in the
Speaker 1: city where you're already connected, you know, you you need
Speaker 1: to you need to be able to have more than
Speaker 1: just a technology and your location to define your sense
Speaker 1: of belonging. Um. A lot of the workplaces now are
Speaker 1: actually remote, you know, so you don't need to have
Speaker 1: your your colleagues next to you, side by side with you.
Speaker 1: And does that help or her, well, I think there's
Speaker 1: probably some reinforcement. I mean, our research shows that people
Speaker 1: are more connected in the common purpose, whether you're side
Speaker 1: by side them or not. It's not just sort of
Speaker 1: joint workspaces that we work. I mean you have to
Speaker 1: have a real sense of a teamwork that is beyond borders.
Speaker 1: I mean, our company is a global company. We have
Speaker 1: connectivity twenty four hours a day in various countries. Were
Speaker 1: not together, but we worked together with a common purpose,
Speaker 1: whether it's a project or a situation. UM the sense
Speaker 1: of being having roll clarity, knowing what your role is
Speaker 1: in the team, UH, knowing how to contribute, and being
Speaker 1: acknowledged for your impact. I mean that those are the
Speaker 1: key factors that determine whether or not you feel satisfaction, belonging, inclusion,
Speaker 1: and ultimately ultimately joy at work. We're here with Alex Lude,
Speaker 1: chairman managing partner of Carney. We're talking about joy at
Speaker 1: work and I want to, you know, over the next
Speaker 1: few minutes Alex sort of go down to level and
Speaker 1: understand what can we do. What's the practical advice? Because
Speaker 1: you know, Carol and I, as she said at the top,
Speaker 1: like we talked about it all the time. We talked
Speaker 1: about it among our team. We talked about what you know,
Speaker 1: we can do candidly like with each other and and
Speaker 1: to to really inspire this. What's some practical advice here?
Speaker 1: I mean, ultimately, it's about your commitment to the people agenda.
Speaker 1: And I think the employees, the staff, your colleagues are
Speaker 1: all looking for leadership to show the passion around these
Speaker 1: topics that we have great programs around. It's diversity and inclusion,
Speaker 1: it's training, it's job rotation, it's apprenticeship, UM. But you
Speaker 1: need to hear from the top and there needs to
Speaker 1: be some clear commitment to that. I mean in my
Speaker 1: own company, one of the first things I did when
Speaker 1: I took over this role was the dial initiative Diversity, Inclusion,
Speaker 1: Apprenticeship and Leadership dial it Up. We put this into
Speaker 1: everyday conversation, we resource programs UM. We supported that by
Speaker 1: focus on values. You've got to have reasons why people
Speaker 1: connect with each other. So for us, it's very simple.
Speaker 1: What you know that there's often you know, multiple layers
Speaker 1: sometimes in terms of management that still exists. So what
Speaker 1: if you know the guy or girl at the top,
Speaker 1: you know there isn't a lot of joy that's coming
Speaker 1: from that individual, you know, how do you counter that,
Speaker 1: especially when in a lot of places you've got business
Speaker 1: to aeams or like in our place, we have showed
Speaker 1: units like how do you then can you can you
Speaker 1: create joy if it isn't coming from the top by
Speaker 1: just kind of the lower level managers? Yeah, Carol, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think layers in complexity always get in the way
Speaker 1: of human interaction, and I think one of the responsibilities
Speaker 1: of any leader is to create followership. I mean that's
Speaker 1: sort of the definition of leadership, right, And if you
Speaker 1: don't have open, transparent communications, if you don't actually lay
Speaker 1: out this is what I care about, or this is
Speaker 1: what we care about. Uh, we care about more than financials,
Speaker 1: you know, we care about a broader purpose. You know,
Speaker 1: A lot of the discussion around stakeholder capitalism kind of
Speaker 1: supports that, but it's always been there under the surface.
Speaker 1: Do you care about us as people? Do you care
Speaker 1: about us having lifelong employment, not just employability, not just
Speaker 1: lifetong employment at this particular company. Um. So that shines
Speaker 1: through in the way you communicate, how regularly you communicate
Speaker 1: um and and the ways you communicate with your with
Speaker 1: with your with your audience is internally you know, we
Speaker 1: have you know, I have a seven you know, scalex
Speaker 1: anything yam er site. Now that's not that's just for me.
Speaker 1: Where a professional services firm, we can't you know, we're
Speaker 1: not a manufacturing site with all kinds of different walls
Speaker 1: and boundaries. You know, we can do that in a
Speaker 1: people business, and you can do that in the media business.
Speaker 1: And so how do you find that this synthesizes with
Speaker 1: people's desire to have a life outside of work to
Speaker 1: you know, sort of create a much more holistic in
Speaker 1: the in the true sense of the word, sort of
Speaker 1: life where work is a part of it, but it's
Speaker 1: not all of it. I think that's two two parts
Speaker 1: of that, Jason. First, I think you're right in pointing
Speaker 1: out that work life integration is key. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are so many ways of working now. You can work
Speaker 1: from home, and every company in the world is adapted
Speaker 1: to that. But feeling a part of a larger group
Speaker 1: is the important thing. The other piece of the equation
Speaker 1: is joy and work should not be, you know, be
Speaker 1: counter opposites to each other. I mean, you say, I
Speaker 1: gotta work, I gotta get you know, put up with
Speaker 1: these eight hours, and I'm gonna have a bad day
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna come home and kick the dog. That
Speaker 1: is a exactly not what you want. I mean, you
Speaker 1: want to have joy and work together. And this is
Speaker 1: all about the sort of having the sense of acknowledgement
Speaker 1: that you can bring yourself and actually be yourself, your
Speaker 1: best self and accomplish a broader purpose, whether it's getting
Speaker 1: that client victory, whether it's you know, winning some sort
Speaker 1: of championship equivalent or analogy in a company setting, it's
Speaker 1: not just graduate. Well, I just I wanted to follow
Speaker 1: up on that for a second, because you talked to
Speaker 1: a lot of CEOs. I mean, these are your your clients.
Speaker 1: You talk to I'm guessing a lot of hard charging CEOs,
Speaker 1: and they read or hear about what you're doing, and
Speaker 1: they're basically like, seriously, I want you to make me
Speaker 1: more profitable. I want you to get my sales up.
Speaker 1: I want you to make my organization more productive. That's
Speaker 1: why I hired you. I don't want to hear about this.
Speaker 1: I think it's another narrative. I think the best CEOs
Speaker 1: out there that I've seen, UH see that in order
Speaker 1: to reach the full potential of what their business objective is,
Speaker 1: what their mission statement is, you've got to reach. You've
Speaker 1: got to have all the people pulling the capabilities of
Speaker 1: the company have to rise and in hand. You can't
Speaker 1: be hiring and firing people all the time. That's not
Speaker 1: that kind of world. You want people who are committed
Speaker 1: to the job, to the tasks, to training the next
Speaker 1: generation of employees. So I don't I don't see them
Speaker 1: as saying no, this is counter to the business mission.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's quite supportive. Um, you know, retention economics.
Speaker 1: If you're happy employees, you have happy customers, I mean,
Speaker 1: the whole drill. And if you've got bureaucracy, no one
Speaker 1: likes bureaucracy. I mean that's beneficial of the bottom line,
Speaker 1: the time to serve, the cost to serve, the number
Speaker 1: of people involved in approving decisions. I mean, come on, so,
Speaker 1: so what do you do with employees that don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of joy in them in terms of their job?
Speaker 1: Like what do you do in the instance of maybe
Speaker 1: somebody who actually is a great performer but they're not
Speaker 1: so much fun to be around or something like that, Like,
Speaker 1: how do you then deal with that? Well, again, listen,
Speaker 1: the purpose of all you know, direct supervisors and leaders
Speaker 1: have to be to find the best ways to make
Speaker 1: the team work better. Now, if this person is in
Speaker 1: the wrong job, they don't have the right capabilities, which
Speaker 1: happens a lot. I feel like rotation training, there's much
Speaker 1: more of a commitment to different types of training, online training,
Speaker 1: job rotations. Within a division um skill development, we do
Speaker 1: a lot of online degree training basically where you get
Speaker 1: authenticated and certified on all kinds of skills, whether it's
Speaker 1: a I of whether it's a digital analytics type of tools.
Speaker 1: So having the ability for the employer to re certify
Speaker 1: and upscale your existing workers so they have another challenge,
Speaker 1: they'll get more adventure when you learn. I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's actually a neuroscience. The fact that you know your
Speaker 1: parts of your brain when it discovers something new and
Speaker 1: it's trying to learn new things actually gives you a
Speaker 1: shot of dopamine in writing the right and that's kind
Speaker 1: of a hit. And so there's ways of actually getting
Speaker 1: the employees to perk up by actually showing you care
Speaker 1: about their development al Right, So to that point, you
Speaker 1: went exactly where I wanted to go for sort of
Speaker 1: the last couple of minutes, which is can you measure this?
Speaker 1: Like how do you measure success? Because again I'm going
Speaker 1: back to like the potentially like grumpy CEO, who you
Speaker 1: come in and you're you know, giving this great feel
Speaker 1: uh and with like diversity, like you know that they've
Speaker 1: made the business case that having diverse boards or diverse
Speaker 1: employee base that companies actually find, you know, perform better financially.
Speaker 1: So can you measure joy? Yeah? Yeah, I mean, the
Speaker 1: best way that measure it is to actually ask your
Speaker 1: employees how they feel. I mean, employee satisfaction I think
Speaker 1: is an imperfect measure. It's kind of static, and it's
Speaker 1: actually not aspirational enough or inspirational enough. What we do
Speaker 1: is actually, twice a year we ask all employees, right
Speaker 1: from the most junior to the most senior, eighteen simple
Speaker 1: questions about belonging, a sense of inclusion, purpose, And there's
Speaker 1: this algorithm the back that basically says, boy, your global engagement,
Speaker 1: your sense of justice, your sense of happiness and joy.
Speaker 1: I mean, they do all kinds of alignment, and you know,
Speaker 1: cross tabbing and things. So there is a way to
Speaker 1: measure it by asking very simple questions. You don't need
Speaker 1: to go into the giant cross tab exercise interesting market research.
Speaker 1: It needs to be regular and it needs to be
Speaker 1: shown that the leaders are looking at this. The first
Speaker 1: time we did this, you know everyone did it. Okay, fine,
Speaker 1: you can write in one thousand verbatims. The next time
Speaker 1: there were three thousand verbatims because they knew that we
Speaker 1: would listen and actually take action of the things that
Speaker 1: would make the workplace better. Or haven't you thought of that?
Speaker 1: It's just showing listening helps you. It is amazing. That's
Speaker 1: actually huge with everything. That's great, all right, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Alex Loud, Chairman managing partner over at Carney.
Speaker 1: He is a leader at the Joy at Work movement
Speaker 1: Derrick Carney, advising CEOs all around the world about it.
Speaker 1: I love it.