Well, hello ladies and gents. Roberts Sikes Keto savage.com. Today I've got special guest Catina Sawyer, who holds a PhD in industrial organizational psychology and we dive deep into workplace culture, vibe, atmosphere. I just building a better workplace culture. So very, very different topic than my normal podcast gets. But I got to thinking when I was pitched having on the show, it's like, OK, I've got a team of several people.
Culture and vibe in my workplace is of paramount importance. There's things that I've learned over the years, things that I would do differently, things that I would, you know, have changed going forward. And it's like, well, we all have that to some extent. We all work somewhere, We all interact with people. So it seemed a fitting conversation to have. So I brought on the show we into
all kinds of good things. I've got no doubt that you will take something from this as it pertains to just improving your overall, you know, work life culture, vibe and sense of fulfillment while at your workplace. So very enjoyable conversation. I love what she's doing. I love what she's the message she's putting out. Without further delay, sit back, relax, enjoy the podcast with Cortana. We are live, Cortina, how are you? I'm doing great. How are you? I'm good.
I'm excited to be chatting with you today, so. Yeah, I'm excited too. Yeah, we, we've, I've had a broad array of guests on the podcast, oftentimes in the nutrition, health, performance space in some form or fashion. I haven't really had any workspace Wellness professionals on those, so this would be interesting, but it's totally applicable. Like you think about health, fitness, nutrition, we all spend the majority of our time in our
career path. So having a healthy place of environment to work there is paramount. Yes. I mean, we spend so much of our lives, if you don't like what you do, a depressing amount of your life, if you like what you do, maybe that's not so sad. But we spend a huge part of our lives at work. And so it's a huge predictor of our overall health outcomes, the extent to which we feel healthy and well in the workplace.
Yeah, 100%. What what gets you interested in that as I mean that that's what you built your business, your identity, your career around. So what? What compelled you to dive deeper into the functionings, the inner workings of a workplace environment to begin with? Yeah. So I'm an industrial organizational psychologist and so is my business partner, Patricia Gabaric. And we both met in Graduate School in our PhD program in industrial Organizational Psychology.
And industrial organizational psychology is sort of a little bit what it sounds like, although it's a bit of a
mouthful. The industrial side is really understanding from a systems perspective how to properly structure the workplace so that you're selecting people who have the right talents and skills for the job and that you're appraising their performance in a way that's going to motivate them to grow and get better, and that they're able to acquire new skills and learn in the best way possible.
And the organizational side is really about more of what people might consider the fluffy stuff, but it's actually super important. Leadership, emotion management at work, stress management at work, all of those sorts of things that happen more on the interpersonal level, workplace culture, team culture. And so both of us kind of came to that area by way of psychology.
We both did our undergraduate degrees in psychology, and we were both looking for an angle on psychology that could help us make an impact on the lives of the average person who's trying to get by and provide for their family and have a nice life, but who also wants to make an impact, a meaningful impact on the world through the work that they do. We found that the most compelling area of psychology. So that's what we decided to dive in and study.
And we met there in Graduate School and decided to start our company worker being after that, really with the goal of getting the science of workplace Wellness that we learned in Graduate School out into the world in a less boring format than the way we learned it in school. Yeah, 'cause normally when people hear this, it's like they think of like when you hire on a new facility, they've got like this onboarding video series that is as bad as entertaining
as watching paint dry. So like the fact that you can take that and make it interesting is, is a feat in and of itself because it's super important. Obviously you'll start a business because there is a demand or a need for that. When you look at it now, are you optimistic or pessimistic about just the the societal culture in the workplace in general? Like is it on a a good trend or is it going down the wrong path? Yeah, that's a great question.
You know, interestingly, industrial organizational psychology for anyone out there listening who might be interested in the field is a consistently growing and continues to have one of the brightest outlooks of any career path out of all the possible career paths that you could take, which that wasn't the case when we got into it. We were just interested, but now more and more this is becoming a
more popular path. And the reason is because people are realizing the value of health and Wellness. And I'm very encouraged by that, that workplaces are starting to recognize that if their employees are burnt out and exhausted, their work is. However, I think that there's still a big need to understand, well, what do we do to address that issue? So I'm very encouraged by the fact that people recognize that this is an issue.
But one of the things that was sort of frustrating us and why we wanted to put our thought leadership out there was because people don't always know how, right? And organizations are earmarking large budgets for workplace Wellness. It's a huge industry. Wellness is in the trillions. Workplace Wellness is in the billions, right? Many, many billions. And so there's a lot of money being spent on this stuff, but it's not always being spent on things that are going to have an
impact. And so I'm encouraged by the focus, but a little discouraged or frustrated by the lack of, of, you know, kind of knowledge of how to deploy these resources to get the most bang for your buck. And that's sort of where we come in to say, okay, take a pause. You've got this money, you've got stuff you want to do, but let's do it in a strategic way. So it's going to have the biggest impact possible. Gotcha, Gotcha.
When, where and how did it become evidence that there needed to be funds allocated for developing research around this genre and putting, you know, practices in the plate to actually improve things? Like, was there a line in the sand that was drawn that was like, OK, we have a problem here and we need to find a solution? Like, was there a point in time
in which that became a priority? Yeah, honestly, I think there's been an increasing recognition just in popular as people and employees got the mic more so to say through social media and platforms like Glassdoor for example, there's been an increasing recognition that your employees feelings throughout the course of their work day and how they feel in the workplace about their leaders and the culture, etcetera matter for attracting and retaining really great talent.
So I think that sentiment was already on the upswing that people were starting to recognize. Yeah, you know, our employees are saying that it sucks to work here and other people are seeing that and that's probably not a good thing, so we should fix that.
However, I do think that the pandemic really accelerated a lot of those concerns because as people were working from home, trying to figure out how to make things work in their households when they've got multiple kids schooling at the same time that they're working and, you know, everybody's dealing with unprecedented circumstances. People started to be not OK in a way that they were not necessarily comfortable sharing at work before or hadn't experienced at work before.
And a lot of the cracks started to show. People became more vulnerable and more authentic with what they were going through. Even senior, most leaders started doing that. And I think as people started noticing the humanity and other people that, yes, we are working, but we have all these things going on in the background of our lives that we're also thinking about that are also important to us. And we're having, this is taking
a toll, right? And we need to do something about it instead of ignoring it. I think that was a real turning point for people recognizing this isn't just something nice to do. This is something we really need to do if we want our employees to sustainably be able to perform at high levels. Yeah, I mean, for me, like I've got a team of, I guess there's eight of us on site and then I've got several agencies and whatnot scattered about the the
world. But it's, it's interesting because like as a business owner, as an entrepreneur and you know, having a great team is like the make or break factor. Like I've had periods where we've had very poor employee performance and just vibe and culture in general. So like this, this is a topic that a lot of people may ruffle their feathers in and think is all fru fru.
But like boots on the ground level, having a functioning team is of paramount importance as a as a member of the team, as the leader of that team, just if you're involved in any form or fashion. So it's super, super important stuff when it comes to where companies have just totally gone off the deep end and been LED astray or just gone about the wrong way entirely. What are you typically seeing as like a common denominator there? Yeah, great.
And great point too about the entrepreneurship piece. I come from a family of entrepreneurs and particularly when you're at the helm of something that you've started and you have so much invested and you want it to be successful, but also you're pulled in so many different directions. It can be really challenging to take dedicated time to think about the culture or the example
that you're setting. And it it also, you know, takes a lot to find the right people because you're often operating with a smaller team and each person has a bigger ripple effect right then they might in a larger company. So I totally resonate with that and the challenges that come
along with that. I think when we see companies getting this wrong, they're investing their time in things that don't change the day-to-day experiences that the employees have on the team and the way that work gets done and the
culture. And of course, if a company has lots of resources and they can spend money on Wellness programming things like, you know, offering yoga at lunch or a mindfulness meditation session or a work life balance panel, those are all interesting things to offer and they do have some positive results. Like, don't get me wrong, I would never say don't offer those things.
They have positive results. However, if your day-to-day work culture is bad and you're dreading getting on calls with your boss because the person that you're going to have a conversation with does not treat you well or just treat you in a neutral manner, you don't feel like you really matter. Your team's not functioning in an appropriate way, or you don't have good interpersonal relationships.
Basically, you're creating a recipe where what you've put into the cake is really bad and now you're trying to slap some icing on it to make it better, right? And sometimes you just need to re bake the cake like the middle, the center of what we're doing is not working. And instead of spending money on these add on things to try to combat the culture that we're creating and reinforcing day in and day out, you need to switch things from the inside out.
So when companies are getting this wrong or the companies we see having the largest problems with this are companies that have a bad culture, people are feeling overworked and burnout. They don't want to be there and they're spending all this money on that icing, right? Like, well, it looks pretty on the outside, but when you get inside, it's a hot mess, right? So I think that's the that's the place we see companies making
the biggest mistake. They're in well intended potentially, and they're offering things that look like they're trying to do a good job, but they're not actually getting to the heart of the problem. Yeah, no, I totally agree. It's interesting because you know, when you're looking at different companies structure, you look at the size of the company, you know their budget they have allocated for
something like this. And it's like they how a person, you know, how a four person team operates is going to be vastly different than a big massive corporation. But often times a solution would be the same thing. Like it all kind of stems back to just good communication skills and being able to be completely transparent.
That's what I've, I've found because I've worked, you know, in corporate life where I was, you know, a number amongst to see if other numbers versus, you know, running my team now and it's like regardless of the size, like it's all coming from being able to communicate effectively. That's 100% true. And I also think we get asked that question a lot, you know. Oh, and all your research on this topic, well, does this only work in a big organization?
Does it only work in a small organization? Well, when you're talking about leadership and you're talking about culture, you're talking about setting a tone. It really works across the board. You may have to have, you may face more challenges in a large organization, getting consistency in the tone across all of the leaders that you have, right? But the idea or the sentiment of what you need to create is the
same. Yeah, what what are some of the common strategies companies implements like the icing, so to see, so to speak, that's just, you know, not really effective at all. Like throwing a ping pong table in the in the lounge and probably is not going to be the the make a break factor. Exactly.
Yeah, I think that, you know, when we ask employees about the way that they want their Wellness supported, because I also think a big issue is that, you know, workplace Wellness, it's an industry, It's a buzzword. People say it, right. I want my Wellness supported at work. It's pretty unclear from a scientific perspective, and it's also pretty unclear from just a colloquial, popular perspective, right, what people mean. And different people can have different definitions of that.
And So what we found in our research was that people, people sort of want 4 main things and that's physical health support. And that spans a broad range of things.
That's, you know, I would like to have time in the middle of the day to go take a walk if I feel like my eyes are tired of staring at Zoom and I need to get up and take a little break to, you know, hey, I got diagnosed with cancer and I really need my team to help figure out how the work's going to get distributed differently during this time period where I'm getting treatment because otherwise I'm not going to be able to, you know, make, make this work.
Mental health, getting support for diagnosable things, you know, anxiety, depression, being able to be open and transparent about that, have those that dialogues and conversations and be able to address those issues in the workplace. Emotional health, people talking about stress management, wanting to be able to express emotions within professional bounds
freely. If you're upset about something or worried about something, being able to have those dialogues and conversations as well as being able to share, you know, more positive emotions and connect with people in meaningful ways. And the last is to have a semblance of work life balance. And I think a lot of organizations, this is an area where there's quite a bit of research in the field on what is work life balance. And the one thing it's not is an equal amount of work and life.
That's sort of a myth that I think because it's an easy, you know, it lends itself nicely this idea of a balance that should be equal amounts. It's really about what makes you feel in balance. What is that formula for you? And so when organizations focus on those four areas, I think that they often think of, and this makes sense, right?
Programs, so step challenges or they think about, you know, oh, we're going to have somebody come do a session and talk about stress management or we're going to have somebody come do a session and talk about a panel on work life balance or whatever the case may be, right. Again, those things aren't bad, but what really matters is understanding who the people are on your team and what helps them to strike that balance.
Because for some people, they were like, yeah, like the mental health part's not so big for me, but the physical health part is what really, like, gets me kicked into gear. That's what I really need time for. Or the balance piece is huge for me. I'm not as focused on the emotional health piece.
Like, I'm not a very emotional person, so that doesn't matter as much to me. So it's really less about these blanket solutions and offerings that people can in their free time and more about changing the fabric of how things work. And that requires knowing your people a little bit to understand well what do they actually need.
Yeah, no, I agree. I think a lot of it too is just the type of work that one's doing because I don't feel like people are, I mean, some people are certainly, you know, the hesitant to to get their hands dirty in work. But I mean, like, I look at my team over the years and the people that are happy work really hard, They work, you know, they work very dedicated. I mean, they, they put their nose to grounds and they and they put in, they put in the
hustle. But like they see how how the work that they do is positively benefiting something bigger than themselves. And I think when you're working in an environment in which that those dots are not as easily connected, they just it, it removes them from the work that they're actually doing. And that just creates, I mean, you feel so much more monotonous in your day-to-day if you don't see the bigger picture. Yeah, absolutely. There's some classic motivational theory that's been
around. It's funny. There are certain research studies and projects that just they got something right about human behavior and they just persist overtime. It's like, Yep, they came up with that in the 70s and it's still true today because people are people across the board. And one of the things that is super motivating for people on the job is to understand how they fit into the whole. I remember I had a job a while back before I went into being a professor.
I was working consulting and I was a data stats numbers cruncher person, which anybody who knows my personality, that's not necessarily the best place to put me from a motivate. I can do it, but that's not really my personality.
But the thing that really like got me about the job was I would get all this data from a client and I would sit by myself and do all this data analysis and produce the slides that would help them to understand the trends that they were seeing and how we could help them solve for those trends. And then someone else would present it to the client and I would like never hear how it went or never know what had
happened. And it was just I was this black box that like data was floating between and it was really not fun because I didn't understand the impact that my job was having or how people were responding to what I was doing. So to your .1 of these base motivational theories talks about the importance of seeing that whole picture. And that's something that has stood the test of time for like,
decades. Yeah. And for that reason, I think it's, it's almost easier when you have a small company because that rippled effect that you mentioned earlier is so easily felt with everything like I've got, you know, like case in point, I got my, my team right now we're waiting on ingredients to come in. So we're kind of in a low production wise. So I've got them doing all kinds of random jobs around the warehouse space here. But they see, they see the benefit to everything they're doing.
Like every little small piece is felt. And the same is true like in the negative side, like if someone's got an issue that's that doesn't go unknown, like it's felt amongst the whole team. But when you get to like a massive conglomerate like that, I would imagine would become much harder to hedge with because it's easier to kind of be pushed into a corner and have this, you know, less or more abstract position, so to speak. Yeah, Yeah, I think you're
right. And seeing how you're having an impact is harder when the pie is so big, right? And you feel like you're just like 1 little blueberry and a giant pie, right. But I would say that one of the things that we found in our research that is helpful, just taking it down to 1 of this more micro level, right? OK, well how can we make? How can we break a large organization down into small parts that have their own subcultures that each have consistency in supporting
Wellness? A huge thing in this area is gratitude, showing gratitude for your team, remembering to say thank you, remembering to say why you're grateful for what they did. It's not just like, oh, thanks, but you know that the impact that you had, I'm so grateful for the fact that you did this because the outcome associated with that was this, right? This helped us to better do that. So really tying that gratitude
to those outcomes. We have a tip in the book which we got from and this guy I love and learned so much from. But he would put, and this is, you know, you can do this with a lot of different sorts of things. You don't have to have pants with pockets. But the way he did it was he put 3/4 in one side of his pants pocket in the morning. And his idea was that every time he thanked someone, he would move one of the quarters to the
other pocket. And by the end of the day, all the quarters had to be on the other side of his pants in order for him to have had a day where he shared enough gratitude. And you can do that with post it notes on a laptop or whatever you want to use. But the idea was that, you know, if he wasn't telling someone how grateful he was for what they did and why three times a day, that wasn't enough. Over time, he didn't need the quarters anymore.
He just started doing it. You know, he was just doing it. And then other people started doing it too, which was really cool. So gratitude is very contagious. When you show gratitude to someone, the research shows that you're much more likely to pay that gratitude forward and thank the next person for what they've done. So you can actually create these team environments where people start to see their value because they're hearing it from you.
You know, they're hearing that they're valued, and that goes a long way. Yeah, no, 100% when it comes to leadership, we kind of, you know, alluded to that a little bit, but the communication and and showing the gratitude. But what are some other make or break factors that are that you're seeing on a regular basis when it comes to the upper level management, the leadership and just the, the, the, the guy running the helm, so to speak? Yeah.
So we identified 4 key factors that the leaders who we heard about South in our research, we really wanted to delve deeply into the bright spots of organizations where leaders were doing this really well. So we found a group of about 50 people who self nominated to say I had a leader who was so awesome and supporting my Wellness. I want to talk to you about that person for 60 to 90 minutes and tell you all the stuff that they did that was so great.
Great. And then we took that framework and we tested it out in a sample of several hundred people to make sure that it replicated and that our results held weight across a broader number of industries and company sizes etcetera. And so we found four key areas that leaders excelled in who were very good at this. And the first we call not being a superhero. These leaders were very good about recognizing and understanding their own shortcomings and communicating
those shortcomings. They didn't feel like they had to have the answers all the time. And they in fact saw their team as great extensions that would help them to achieve their goals. As opposed to seeing themselves as like this all knowing person who had all the answers and was just there with their team to sort of delegate right. And like you're executing on my vision. I know what everybody needs to be doing. And so here's what you need to do XYZ. And sort of their, their voice
is not heard. So they showed a lot of authenticity and vulnerability. They were willing to share things that they struggle with. So you know, this is not my strength, but I know it's your strength on the team. And even though I'm the leader and you're somebody who works here, that's why you work here, because we complement each other's strengths. If I was able to do all these things, I wouldn't need anybody else on my team, right?
So they're really willing to share things that they might have as weaknesses and help the team members to see how they're complementary to those that they could work together to solve
problems. And they're also willing to share when they're struggling with things outside of work and show that they're real people when other people on the team see that a leader is willing to say, you know, I'm actually going through a hard time right now, you know, maybe someone passed away or they're having a health issue. Whatever the case may be, it lets people see that being a leader doesn't mean being a perfect person with no flaws.
And they're much more likely to see achieving leadership and taking on leadership as something realistic for them. Otherwise they look at the leader and say, well, you know, I don't know that I can be that because it doesn't seem like this person. It seems like this person's a robot and not a human being. And I'm a human being and I just don't know how I'm ever going to get there.
So these laws and vulnerability and authenticity sharing really help the leader to be seen as a real person who then they're they're what they're doing is more achievable and realistic for the people working with them. Yeah, no, that makes total sense. What about the the pitfalls? What are the common denominators? People that are just not doing it right that cause the the wreak havoc within an
organization? Yeah. So when people are not doing these, this particular set of behaviors, this first set of behaviors the right way, we we call the leaders who are doing a great job at this generators and people who tend to do the opposite extinguishers in the book. So we use those two terms. So the extinguisher leaders are very much faking it that they have all the answers. They're not interested in
hearing from other people. They view their own way as the only way to do things, and they're very disinclined to share that they have any weaknesses. They're also tend to be not very humble, so unwilling to, you know, say that they might have something to learn or that they could grow their own skills from someone in their team. Much more hierarchical, you know, a very traditional view of leadership. I'm the leader. I have the answers. You're the worker.
You take direction from me much more top down kind of command and control as opposed to this more collaborative environment where hey, I'm doing the best I can and I'm going to put my best foot forward. I'm not perfect. I've brought this team together to help all of us work together in the best way possible. And that means that there are some things that you're going to do really well that I don't do
really well. And that's actually awesome because if we were all the same, if if you had nothing that complimented me, then there would be no point of you working here, right? So they're much more rigid in the way that they show leadership and they don't make it clear that the employees can help them to learn and grow. Yeah, no, totally. What, what are the, the telltale signs that it's just simply not a good fit and it's not going to
get better? Like for me, kind of using myself as an example, like I, I have this extreme ownership Jocko mentality towards things. And if I've got a team, especially with, you know, team our size, if if somebody's not working at it's like a, it's like a cancer, it just festers and it just is not good. So I take that upon myself. I accept responsibility for it. So I try and fix the situation.
But my, my fault, so it seems is that I'll try and fix that to a point where it just it, it's not going to get fixed. Like there's some like for me there's just certain character traits in people that make a good team member and those that don't. And for whatever reason, sometimes there's just simply a not compatible fit. So at what point do you know that's the case?
Yeah, that's a great question. And certainly we believe that there are limits to this idea that you should be, you know, learning about the employee and trying to adjust and trying to accommodate, you know, whatever they have going on if they're not a good fit for the job role. I would say two things. One, the selection system that you're using is very important. If you feel that I'm not saying that you do, I'm sure that this
is not the case. But if you feel like you're frequently coming across an issue where you're finding that people are not a good fit for the job or not a good fit for the culture, there may be something about the way that you're selecting people that needs to change so that you're less likely to screen in people who are going to be a poor fit and more likely to screen them out.
So that's always like a first line of defense, like how are you making job related decisions about selecting people into the organization. But beyond that, I think there is one other thing which is sometimes what we think is a people problem is a context problem or some other problem that we're not anticipating. And I got that from a book called Switch by Chip and Dan Heath that I use in my class and in my MBA leadership class. And the students absolutely love
this book. It's an older book, but it's great. And one of the things that they say is before you assume something's a person problem, you should, you should also look into whether it's a context problem. So ask the person, be transparent with the person that their performance is not up to par. Ask them what's going on. Like try to get a sense of is there something going on outside
of work? Is there something going on inside of the workplace that we could help to make you more motivated or help you to get the skills that you need to perform well? So is it a competency based issue? Do you need more resources or training? Is it a motivation issue? Is there something about this that's not exciting to you or engaging to you? Is there a way we might be able to change that? And then also, is there something about what's going on outside of the job that might be
impacting your performance? That if I understood that I could maybe do a better job of addressing what's going on, right? If you've done those things and asked those questions and tried to offer resources to up their skills or tried to create a work environment where you're going to be able to create a context that's motivating for them or you better understand what makes them tick and you're trying to, you know, tailor the situation to match with that.
If you've done all those things and it really is just a bad fit from a confidence or motivation or culture perspective, then it's OK to say like this person's just not a good fit here. Like that's OK. But I think people often jump from A-Z and we're kind of asking people to try like, you know, jump to P 1st and then to T and then maybe to Z, you know what I mean? Try to see if there's something else to do.
Yeah, no, I totally agree. I feel like now too, I've, I've, we've got such a good vibe at the moment. We've had it for a while now that like I also lean on the other members because like we've gotten to a point to where like you can tell pretty early on if someone's going to jive well or not. So I'm kind of taking this, I've changed my onboarding process, which, you know, again, screens out the negative much easier, much more efficiently.
But if it's like not a good cultural vibe because I'm doubling down on coach, like if I would, I would be happy to sacrifice some degree of productivity and efficiency for a better culture. And I don't want to hinder what we've got going out. So we got going is great. So if it's like we bring them on and they're just not not driving with the rest of team like it's like a quick to hire, quick to fire scenario now. Yeah, yeah. And I think the other team members perspectives can also be
helpful, right? And, and also it can help the other team members to know that you did do some diligence to try to dig a little deeper, figure out what was going on. So that they also know that if at some point they had some issue or performance problem, that you would do the same for them, right? So like trying to make sure you're doing some due diligence to take some steps to understand
the problem that you're facing. And then if the solution is that, you know, this person's just not a great fit, of course, we would never suggest that, you know, you continue to keep somebody on that's not going to contribute positively to the culture or who is not able to do their job well, right? So I think there's a couple lines of defense. But ultimately, yes, like we agree that there are definitely situations where someone just not a good fit and that's reality. Yeah, 100%.
When it comes to like incentive, you know, add-ons, bonuses, perks, things like that, where do you all find in your research to be like the most proverbial bang for the buck? Like on on average, is the employee base more obviously going to some outliers here, but like are they more, you know, appreciative of, you know, health coverage or an increase
in pay? Or is it more so like the cultural component, like having days allocated for team building experiences outside the normal production flow? Like what? Where do you find the needle moves the most when it comes to these incentive programs? Yeah, it's a great question. So there is a lot of research out there on sort of basic need fulfilment. So there are certain things that every job should have in order to help employees to have their basic needs covered.
So paying a market rate for salary is 1, making sure that, you know, people do have access to benefits that allow them to allay their health anxieties like insurance. So those, you know, having a certain amount of vacation days to be able to take time away from work, those are sort of like standard offerings, right, that help meet employees basic
needs and expectations. Above and beyond that, what we found, which we thought was super interesting, is that what came up time and again when people were talking about what supports their Wellness, it was a good relationship with their leader that just kept coming up and kept coming up. You know, the leader is central to predicting whether or not I'm
going to have a good experience. So going back to your question, the culture and the feeling, knowing that you're connected to your team and that your leader sees you as a whole person, all of that is seemingly at the center of what companies are trying to get at when they're trying to promote Wellness. So we're really trying to get companies to stop thinking about Wellness as like a set of promotions or incentives and really thinking about, let's get back to basics.
We need to train our leaders to create environments where people can feel happy, feel healthy, and then it sort of all emanates from the center, right? As opposed to having to, you know, try to solve a problem that you're creating by having a workplace that's not offering that kind of environment to begin with. So of course, jobs are going to be stressful and different jobs are going to be stressful in
different ways. So we were just talking the other day to someone who runs a branch of a hospital surgeons very high stress jobs. Is a brain surgeon ever going to have the same amount of work life balance and stress as somebody in an entry level position at a corporate job? No, like the career path that they've picked is more stressful and has less work life balance. It's just not going to be the case. But compared to other brain
surgery centers, right? Could yours be one that has better well-being and better leadership than another one? Yes. So we're really interested in trying to help companies understand how to get back to those basics of creating the best work environment that they possibly can from the center out, regardless of, you know, kind of what the employees are tackling from the basics of the job. Yeah, no, I totally agree.
I think every company should have a gym on site and have one day or 11 moment where the the top level management, the leaders train with the the the team. I mean, I feel like that obviously isn't practical in certain settings, but that's one thing that we've incorporated here. And it, it checks all those boxes because it, it makes you human. You're struggling, you're going through difficulties.
It's obviously incentivizing health and well-being, but people see you in a very, you know, primitive state, struggling with weight, needing help or something of that nature. I feel like that would check so
many boxes. Yeah. And I also feel like part of what happens through those activities, whether it's, you know, something like you're describing or just going for a walk with a person or, you know, having some sort of team building activity, it also helps you to have conversations that are not work related, right? And one of the things that we find is really important is getting to know something about your employees outside of work.
For so long, I think that people were so staunch about, you know, well, that's your personal life. I shouldn't know about that. And of course, we're not asking leaders to ask prying questions or, you know, dig up inappropriate information about people, right? But if you don't know, you know, I've worked in working work environments where I've worked alongside people for years and couldn't tell you the name of their kids. You know what I mean?
Just, it was a work environment where we didn't even have that kind of basic level of knowledge about each other. And then I've worked in other work environments where, you know, we know a lot about each other's hobbies and lives
outside of work. And, you know, what's been stressing us out or something that's going on that's, you know, really exciting or a trip that you took or all of those conversations are more likely to come out when you take yourself out of that normal work environment or out of that normal cadence of, you know, this strict business meeting in a conference room and just do something different. Different kinds of conversations come up when you do different.
Yeah, no. 100% agree. One thing that we do we, we, we have like these product launches and after every big launch we try and do some form of team day. So normal working day, paid on the hours, but like totally removed from the normal settings. Like tomorrow we're actually doing a team day. We're all going to an escape room, which I've never done before. So we'll see. How we? Fare with that, but it'll be interesting. Escape rooms are awesome. I've been to actually several escape rooms.
We have some very, very close friends who are very into escape rooms and so whenever and we travel a lot with them. So whenever we go to a new place, they find an escape room when we go. I have to say it depends on the level you pick, but like they're pretty tough. Some of them are pretty hard. We haven't lost yet. I need to bring you along for this trip then I guess we need to have you get us out of this room, I guess.
But I think I think that's the key like people, people get so caught up on, you know, the, the stats, the analytics, the performance metrics. But like, if you just do that without any deviation, without any break, without any default, then you you lead the burnout. Whereas like, whereas you just have that planned moment to, you know, do something outside the norm. Like people get recharged and
get reinvigorated. They see the bigger picture, they connect more closely with one another, and then the overall productivity all increases. 100% And that's a huge part of the message that we want to share is that people often see and I think leaders, I mean, it's, it's understandable, right? Oftentimes organizations set these really big targets and they're like, you have to hit these performance targets and it's all about the numbers, it's
all about the metrics. And so they sort of drown out anything that's not in their minds directly related to that metric, right? It's like production, production, production. But what we're trying to show is that if you just took a step back from that and thought, well, what predicts production, right? Not just breathing down people's necks and continuing to say, you know, these are your targets and you need to hit the targets and scaring people until they hit the targets.
Like all of those things are actually not what the research shows leads to hitting the target. What leads to hitting the target is creating an environment that supports people wanting to do their best. And feeling like they can do their best. And there's so many things going on in people's lives that can cloud them from doing their best.
We talk a little bit about this in the book as well, that, you know, if someone was physically extremely ill in the workplace and sitting next to you and just like hacking, coughing and sniffling and they have a fever, most workplaces would be like, you know, you need to go home, right? But when we have things going on mentally, things that are going on emotionally, things that are going on outside of work that
we're missing, right? Like you're distracted because you were supposed to leave at 4:30 to see your kids t-ball game and but instead you're filing a report or something. All of those things are actually contributing to your stress and lack of well-being. But you can't see them, right? So people are more likely to ignore those or you're missing your, you know, daily run because you got pulled into a meeting and now you're going to feel less energized, etcetera,
right? All of those things are harder to see, harder to detect. So what we're really asking people to do is take a step back and say, yes, numbers important metrics important. Like all of this we agree, but you have to say, well, what's? Leading those, what are the things that actually are going to predict and focus your attention on what leads to that, which is creating the environment that makes that most likely.
And that's where a lot of your time and energy should be going as opposed to just like reminding people over and over again of the numbers. They know the numbers, now you got to motivate them to get there. Yeah. And it doesn't necessarily happen overnight. Like a lot of this stuff can be felt pretty acutely in a relatively short period of time, but a lot of this stuff takes time.
But I mean like when you look at the compounding effect of a well functioning team, like the performance metrics will speak for themselves over enough time because I mean everything is going to improve. Absolutely, yeah. We always suggest that when leaders start putting these practices in place, or, you know, if you have already been, try to capture the value of that through your metrics if
possible. Because then you can set a, you can be a role model and set an example for other people, even the most curmudgeonly person. If you've got better numbers and you're saying this is how I'm doing it, well then maybe other people can learn from you and the employees more broadly will benefit because they'll all be in a better work environment.
100% I know this is all much deeper than you know, the surveys and the, you know, Glassdoor reviews and any type of software application to manage this, but I'm a software junkie and I'm always trying to streamline my operation.
So and working with companies over the years and doing what you've done, are there any particular tools or, you know, softwares that you use to kind of streamline this and justice gather information and check analytics and justice overall employee, you know, response to everything.
Yeah, that's a great question. So we, I think down the line would love to build a software that helps keep track of these behaviors that we've learned and helps encourage leaders to, you know, engage in these behaviors and helps people to get feedback or give feedback on whether their leaders are doing those behaviors or other people on the team are so TBD on that. But I do have a tool that I really like that a friend of ours, Alexander Schwal, started a company called Rabbit.
It's like our habit and what that does is it's like pulse survey reminders throughout the day, not only to provide feedback to your team. So like, hey, you know, you haven't necessarily checked in with your team about how they're doing. Do you want to say thank you to anyone for anything? Is there anything that you know you want to provide some positive feedback on? Is there anything that you think your team could have done better
today? Do you want to send some notes of encouragement or constructive feedback for those? So like helping people to get more in real time, encouragement and also constructive feedback because that's also a motivator. Getting kind feedback, people like that. Feedback doesn't have to be scary if it's helping you, if it's coming from a good place and it's helping you grow, people actually like it. And then also helping team members to ping each other and show gratitude, give feedback.
It also helps facilitate post surveys. So instead of like waiting for the once a year annual survey to be like, how do you like it here? And the other 364 days, people are like, oh, well, we were miserable and now you know, and you could have fixed it earlier.
It also allows you to post check people's feelings about how they're doing really quick, like happy face, sad face, you know, very fast types of ways of getting feedback so that you as a leader also have a check in on like how's the culture going today? Did something happen? What's the impact? So those sort of more in the moment ways of gathering data help you get clued into problems quicker, get clued into bright spots quicker and allow you to address them or capitalize on them faster.
So I really like that tool particularly. Yeah, I got it pulled up right now. Is there like a specific workplace size where that would be relevant or irrelevant? Like is it because if you get too, if you're too small of a team, like having a whole bunch of inundated software like people tend to to shun, but is this pretty effective for even smaller teams? Yeah, we usually say more than three people just because if you have less than three, it then becomes like more identifiable,
right? And people feel uncomfortable providing honest responses when it's like, well, I know it was you, right, that said that you're unhappy with my leadership today or whatever. In a very transparent culture, that could go over fine, but in other cultures it might not. So. So yeah, we always say a larger than three team size, but over that, you know, people are pretty honest about what they want to share. Awesome, awesome. I will definitely check that
out. Well, tell me about the book. So the book was released when? The book actually comes out March 25th, but it's available for pre-order now on all of your major booksellers. And the book is called Leading for Wellness, How to create a team culture where everyone can
thrive. And our publishers, Wiley and we are working with them and other folks to try to spread the word about the importance of really, like I've been saying, getting back to the basics around how do we train leaders to do this well? How do we get people to be more like the generators that we heard about? And those are the leaders people want to work for. And honestly, the the workers are the leaders that people say
they want to be like. I really firmly believe that most people, maybe maybe a small percentage, most people wake up in the morning and say, like, I want to do well on the job today. I want to be a good leader. They just have a lot of blind spots that are getting in their way of seeing what the reality is, right. So how do you become the leader you want to be? The leader you'd want to work for the people that you know you do want to work for that and that companies want to hire in
value, right? How do you get to be that person and stay away from the behaviors of the leaders? We heard the opposite about these extinguishers, which suck the energy out of teams, discourage people from doing their best, don't really value whether people feel happy and well, have a very like tunnel vision around numbers and results without seeing the bigger picture.
So the book really gives a road map for how to become a generator and avoid being an extinguisher, which we hope will be helpful because actionability is huge. I hate reading a book when I get to the end of it. And I'm like, yeah, like, great concept. What do I do, though? So we really wanted to solve that problem by helping give people very clear behaviors that they can do like tomorrow, that will help them get closer to being a generator. I love it.
Is it written for the organizational leadership, or is it written for anybody that's simply wanting to improve the workplace at all? Yeah, that's a great question. So we view leadership very broadly. Anyone who has influence over a team culture is leading. So you as a person who has a span of leadership. So like for you, for example, as an entrepreneur, it would be particularly relevant, right, because you're in a formal
leadership role. But really all of us have influence over the team culture and can help either positively contribute or detract or obviously be neutral, no impact. That's rarer. And so we view leaders really broadly because everyone has their part to play in shaping the team culture they want. Yeah, no, I think that's, that's key. I feel like everybody should view themselves as a leader, whether you are, you know, on the, you know, corporate hierarchy, so to speak, or not.
I feel like, you know, I look at my team and it's like our freaking janitor is a rock star. Like he's got an awesome vibe and we love having him around and like he's he's part of the
team just as much as anybody. And I think when you approach the day with that mentality, knowing that every action or inaction you make, every word you speak, every smile or frown you put out is felt, then I mean, it it it all it, it has that ripple effect that just goes so much wider and deeper than any of us realize it can put our finger on.
But if you view yourself as a leader, that that in itself is empowering because you actually feel like you've got, you know, some dictation as to how the day plans out. Yeah. And I love how you said that because a lot of people overlook the importance of that and the importance of really having people be viewed as people like
and not as expendable. You know that, oh, this person, you know, there are many leaders who look at people in positions lower than them and think like, well, that person, they don't
pay attention. They don't know their name or they don't say hi. You know, I was doing some work with a company where one of the things that came up over and over again was, you know, senior leaders come in the room and they see a couple people who they're favorites and they say hi and they don't say hi to anybody else. They they might not even know my name.
And if you think about that from just a motivational standpoint, like you're just being overlooked or not seen or not valued, that adds up over time where you're like, you know, I could find somewhere else to go. Maybe I'm going to leave or I'm not going to talk very positively about this place or, you know, why should I go the extra mile when I don't even think this person knows who I am, right?
So, so all of that adds up and seeing people as team contributors across the board as opposed to looking at in this very hierarchical, really more archaic way of thinking about business, right is so important. But people don't have that message yet across the board. Well. That's what we got, people like you spreading the message. I hope so. Well, apart from the the book launch in March, what else has got you excited for the year?
Yeah. So we're going to be doing a couple of really exciting events throughout the course of the year. We're going to have our book is going to be in the window of the 5th Ave. Barnes and Noble for a couple of weeks over the summer. So we're going to go to New York City and do a book signing there. We're also having a book launch party in April in Denver and various other events that we're going to be having around the book.
So the book is really our big focus for the year and what we're going to be trying to get out as much as possible. We spend a lot of time on it. We're really proud of it. We think it'll make a big impact. But if, you know, folks follow us on social and keep track of that, we're going to have some like fun pop up events across the country in different places where people can meet with us and hear from us and speaking and also maybe get a copy of the
book. And while I don't think you can sell my signature for any value on eBay, if people want it signed we can do that too. I love it. I love it. What are the what are the social profiles and the website links so I can send people your way? Yeah. So we're at worker being WORKRBEEING. So like a little B is our logo. That's our handle for all of our social and then you can follow me on LinkedIn, Catina Sawyer, or my business partner Patricia Gerbaric on LinkedIn to get all of the updates.
Speaking of LinkedIn, I need to totally jump on LinkedIn. I've got a LinkedIn account, but I've not been focused on that at all. But I'm about to totally revamp on my organic social, so I need to jump on because Linkedin's like the place to be right now, right? It's growing wildly. We like it. If you join, I'll follow you right away so you'll have you know you know, you'll have one very fast follow. Awesome, Awesome. Well, Cortana, I really appreciate the time. I appreciate the message.
Like I said, I don't typically have this genre on the podcast, but it's super important and it applies to everyone that's doing anything in the world, so it makes sense to have you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your open mindedness and kind of spreading out into this domain and this has been an awesome conversation, so thank you so much. You bet. We'll definitely keep in touch. If there's anything I can do to help move the message forward, you just let me know.
Thank you so much. Take care.