Jason Lauritsen has always felt like something was wrong with work. As a kid, he watched his father suddenly quit his job instead of compromising his values. It profoundly impacted Jason and what would later become his life’s work.
Jason is a best-selling author, speaker, and thought leader in the world of work and employee engagement. He says if you want to make work better, it has to be human-centric. In other words, work must be designed and operated to serve people in the workplace.
You may be a business leader who’s been struggling with this idea lately. In this episode, Jason will lead you through the process of fixing a broken workplace. It starts by seeing work as a relationship, not a contract to be enforced. He also explains why a cultivation mindset is key, laying out a farming analogy that crystalizes its value.
Jason says this is not about being overly sensitive and creating a kumbaya workplace. It’s about unleashing human potential and power in a way that benefits people and profits.
Resources from the episode:
- Meet Jason and get to know more about his work here.
- Read more about Jason’s core philosophy, a cultivation mindset, here.
- Check-In To Thrive helps companies manage their people better, providing perspective and tools to make an immediate and lasting impact. Learn more about it here.
- Connect with Jason on LinkedIn.
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Transcript
The following transcript is not certified. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. The information contained within this document is for general information purposes only.
[00:00:00] Mark Wright: Jason Lauritsen. It’s great to have you on the BEATS WORKING podcast. Welcome.
[00:00:03] Jason Lauritsen: I am delighted to be here, Mark.
[00:00:06] Mark Wright: Jason. One of the reasons that I was so excited to have you on the show is that I don’t think there’s anyone that we’ve interviewed so far who is so closely aligned with the mission that we are on to redeem work. I mean, right on your website, you say. Work is broken and we agree and how to fix it is going to be such an interesting conversation for the next 45 minutes to an hour.
[00:00:31] Mark Wright: So thank you so much for being here. ,
[00:00:33] Jason Lauritsen: I’m excited to get into it. This is what I do, right? Live and live and breathe it.
[00:00:37] Mark Wright: When we talked a few weeks ago, Jason, you said the whole notion of work never really made sense to you. Or at least what you were exposed to earlier in life. I’d love to go back in time. And you said your dad kind of had a weird relationship with work. I think a lot of us have had kind of a strange relationship at work with, you know, during certain times in our lives.
[00:00:58] Mark Wright: Take, take me back and paint me [00:01:00] that picture. If you would.
[00:01:05] Jason Lauritsen: know, how the older we get, the more we realize that, you know, most of where we ended up started in our childhood, right? This is, uh, this is one of those stories. Like I’ve, I’ve had what I would describe as kind of a conflicted relationship with work for, I think, As long as I can remember.
[00:01:23] Jason Lauritsen: And, , it wasn’t until actually somewhat recently that I started putting kind of all these pieces together, the origin story. And one of them was, there’s a particular story that I remember. And I, and I remember just generally being aware of my, you know, like my dad having some friction with his boss or, you know, like his boss’s name being attached to some other colorful four letter words, right.
[00:01:47] Jason Lauritsen: And, and my mom was a school teacher and I remember her always talking about just. Sort of not feeling supported or not feeling, you know, like just all kinds of things. And it’s like this whole work thing doesn’t sound very [00:02:00] appealing, but there was one story that I remember distinctly. And I think it was, I think it was about, I was either 13 or 14 and, I, it’s like vividly clear in my mind this, this experience, probably more what it felt like than the actual details.
[00:02:16] Jason Lauritsen: I think I’ve had to color those in, but I, I was at school that day and it was a, I remember that day. It was a, , kind of a ice storm, snow storm, ice storm. I grew up, I grew up in Northwest Iowa. So that’s where we lived. And my dad was a cattle buyer. And , the same manager who he, um, he worked for this manager who I had heard him colorfully described many times.
[00:02:40] Jason Lauritsen: And I remember this particular day, , apparently what happened, I’ll tell you my experience of it after, but what happened to that day was that my dad, we, you know, we lived on a farm. My dad was dealing with farmers and it was. Very literally a handshake business. And so, you know, he had known these people had done this work for 20 [00:03:00] years.
[00:03:00] Jason Lauritsen: , and he would go out and, you know, buy these, make deals on these cattle. And he’d go out in the morning or he’d call in, in the morning, find out what his price was, and he’d go out and talk to his customers. And if he had somebody that was selling, he’d make the deal on a handshake, then he’d call it in and then they’d, you know, write up the paperwork.
[00:03:17] Jason Lauritsen: And so he had had a, a farmer that he had seen that morning. , they had made a deal based on the price he was given. He shook on it. And so he went to call it into his boss that he had bought this load of cattle. And his boss said, yeah, that price changed, you know, things changed. And so the price went down.
[00:03:34] Jason Lauritsen: And so he told him he needed to go back and tell this guy that the price wasn’t going to be the same. And my dad said, that’s not how this works. He’s like, you gave me the price. I made the deal. We shook on it. The deal is done. And this guy said, no. It’s not, I’m not going to honor that price. You need to go back to him.
[00:03:50] Jason Lauritsen: And so my dad in that moment, which is if you know, my dad, like his, there’s one thing that is not for sale. It is his integrity and his [00:04:00] relationship with these people. And so he decided in that moment, it was over done. So in the midst of, of this ice storm, he calls my mom and says, I’m, uh, I need you to jump in the car.
[00:04:13] Jason Lauritsen: We’re going to drive. We’re going to drive to Sioux City because I’m going to find this guy and tell him where to stick his car. I’m done with this job. And so they literally got in the car. My mom followed him down in this ice storm. Actually, I think the first part of the trip might’ve been okay. They got there.
[00:04:31] Jason Lauritsen: Thankfully, his boss wasn’t there. He might’ve been had an assault charge or something, but he quit his job, turned it in his car, and then he and my mom drove back and my mom, I’ve asked her about it recently. She said it was atrocious. She’s like driving back was like one of those white knuckle kind of situation.
[00:04:46] Jason Lauritsen: She said, we went through one town where the entire city was dark because all the power lines were down because of ice. Like that’s the kind of day. It drove, you know, a hundred and. Like 50 miles on that kind of conditions because my dad, [00:05:00] I turned his car in and, you know, like I think about that, that then turned our life upside down for a while.
[00:05:05] Jason Lauritsen: And, you know, my dad today says I probably could have handled that in a lot more intelligent way than I did, but. I’m like, well, that’s burned into my memory. Like, and it’s burned into my memory is like, how, how can it be this way? Like, how could it be, this is what work is like. This doesn’t make any sense.
[00:05:23] Jason Lauritsen: And so I think that’s where the journey began. That’s what set me off on this path. So I entered work probably with an attitude problem and a chip on my shoulder from the beginning. And then the evidence was everywhere that like, this wasn’t an isolated experience.
[00:05:36]
[00:05:36] Mark Wright: So, Jason, in hindsight, what would your dad have done differently if he had to do the or did you guys ever talk about that?
[00:05:43] Jason Lauritsen: Yeah. I mean, I think mainly he was so, I think just, he was quick to temper. This had been building, you know, I think in, as he thought about it, he probably He realized that he probably should have been looking for a different job before [00:06:00] then, or certainly when that hit him, he probably should have found a different way to handle it that didn’t put the financial, , stability of the family at risk at the time. But for me, it’s hard to look back and second guess or judge it because that moment is sort of a seminal moment for me, both in terms of understanding of. Of work and our relationship with work, but also the importance of integrity. And you know, there was a lot of lessons that came out of that for me as a young man that, or, uh, I mean, still boy at that time, but have stayed with me my entire life.
[00:06:37] Jason Lauritsen: So I know he would handle it different, but I’m kind of glad he didn’t because it was important, an important inflection point for me.
[00:06:42] Mark Wright: a really interesting story. Jason, I think what, two things came to my mind as you were telling that story. Number one is that it’s kind of an American pastime to complain about work. If you think about it, it’s like, you know, probably 70 percent of conversation. How was your day? [00:07:00] Oh, my day was terrible.
[00:07:01] Mark Wright: You wouldn’t believe what happened to me at work today. But I think the other thing that that story illuminates is, , the impression that it left you with. And that is that, , I think a lot of us as kids grow up with this adversarial view of work because our parents had bad experiences. So as you got older and you started.
[00:07:22] Mark Wright: Entering the workforce. What was that like for you? And what were some of those early work experiences? Because when we talked earlier, you said you had some pretty, you know, terrible experiences or at least not pleasant experiences.
[00:07:35] Jason Lauritsen: Yeah, I think when I entered, Because I had observed all of this, I suppose I probably, , and I’m a Gen Xer, so I had a healthy dose of cynicism, I think, in my, in my DNA heading into work in general. And I found my first, you know, I took a, my first job I was, Sort of curious and ambitious and exploring.
[00:07:57] Jason Lauritsen: I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when I left [00:08:00] school. And so, um, I, I got into sales jobs and if you want to go find some places you can be treated really poorly, go, go take a sales job. , and that, that was sort of the beginning and in through those sales jobs. I had sort of a progression of two or three in each case.
[00:08:18] Jason Lauritsen: It was like, really? I mean, I, I think I moved, see my first, job was seven months long. And then I’m like, okay, this isn’t right. And then my next one was a four month stint. And then the one after that, I think lasted for a few years. And then I got into my entre, entrepreneurial journey. I mean, yet to this day, and I’ve had, I’ve worked for other people, but one of the ironies that people, especially my friends find hilarious is that I, I help , I’m on this quest to.
[00:08:48] Jason Lauritsen: Fix work, redeem work, whatever language we want to use. And yet I, I am not suited to be an employee in any way, shape, or form. I did not enjoy the experience. I’m not [00:09:00] cut out for it. And so there’s an irony in that, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want it to be better for everyone else. And I think I can help.
[00:09:05] Jason Lauritsen: And so, , my journey was very much one colored by feeling like. I just never felt like I was treated right or that the scenario what I was being asked to do didn’t make sense to me. And I’m really curious. And I’m like, if something doesn’t make sense to me, I’m one of those, like, I’m going to push back.
[00:09:25] Jason Lauritsen: I’m going to be a little, like, I’m going to find different ways I’m going to resist. And that caused all kinds of, of tension and friction for me in my early career as well. And so, It was none, nothing of it was good until I did finally find one place that that is where it sort of broke through for me, that it could work.
[00:09:44] Jason Lauritsen: I saw that what was actually possible, it wasn’t just theoretical and then that changed everything.
[00:09:51] Mark Wright: Yeah. You got into recruiting, you got into HR, you started really becoming a student of, of people in the workplace. Why do people want to [00:10:00] leave their jobs? Why, why do you want to people take jobs? You know, this job, , how do we keep good people and, uh, some of that stuff. So when you became a student of work, you had access to massive amounts of data.
[00:10:13] Mark Wright: Tell me about that turning point in your career when you really started to understand from a data level, why work was broken and what could be done about it.
[00:10:23] Jason Lauritsen: So I’m going to give you a little ramp up to that because I think where it. Really started is when I went, when I made the transition from executive recruiter, which is really a sales job into corporate HR, which I kind of describe as my Jane Goodall kind of period of my career, where I went into the habitat to understand sort of what happens there to really get up close and feel it, understand it.
[00:10:45] Jason Lauritsen: And, and, Things started to make more sense to me about number one, why it was broken, but also I started to understand and see some of the things that were working. And I started that’s that during that period is when I started re [00:11:00] writing and speaking a little bit about what I was seeing and learning and that kind of thing and trying to make sense of it.
[00:11:07] Jason Lauritsen: You know, the role of leadership and the role of communication and trust. And these things started to come together for me or starting , to see them and experience them. And then fast forward. So I spent about a decade in corporate HR and then corporate, or, you know, the corporate world spit me back out, which.
[00:11:25] Jason Lauritsen: It should have. And then it was back to the other side of the game, trying to figure out how to make work better at scale. And I found my way to this tech company where I was running a best places to work team. And that’s
[00:11:36] Mark Wright: Was that quantum, quantum workplace?
[00:11:39] Jason Lauritsen: workplace. We, uh, spent several years there and it was a transformative and incredible opportunity for me.
[00:11:45] Jason Lauritsen: Great group of people and a great opportunity to sort of take my curiosity and my learning and wanting to know and pair it up You know, this, this vehicle that they had. So they are a technology company. [00:12:00] They. Historically, we’re an employee survey company. They’ve expanded beyond that, but the survey we used for this part of the business to be the data collection instrument underneath 50 best places to work programs across the U S.
[00:12:13] Jason Lauritsen: So we’re collecting like very literally hundreds of. Thousands of employee survey responses on a regular basis throughout the year. Just, it’s like a, a data mill of employee perceptions and experiences and what’s going on inside an organization. So I was like a kid in a candy shop, like I, you know, running this business, but also having access to all this data and research and discovery.
[00:12:35] Jason Lauritsen: And. What happened during that period was there was a moment where we, one of the things we had to do, we had all this data is that we would produce a report every year kind of saying, Hey, here’s the things this year that are driving employee engagement, driving retention, driving, whatever, employee satisfaction, making a best place to work.
[00:12:57] Jason Lauritsen: And we, so our data scientists would do all this analysis. We’d [00:13:00] produce like a top 10 list. We’d write some things up, produce this report. And we did this several years while I was there. And. What, jumped out at me was a realization that there, you know, when you looked at these top 10 drivers, statistical drivers of engagement satisfaction, there were always a few key things that were on that list every year, year, every year we’re on the list.
[00:13:21] Jason Lauritsen: And I saw that in this three year period. And then I went back to the historical reports, they were on the historical reports and I’m like, well, that’s interesting. Cause there were some things that went on and off, but there were some things that were always there. So then I started looking at. Other research organizations that were collecting similar data, doing similar analysis and the same things were there.
[00:13:41] Jason Lauritsen: And it, and they were things like this employees, drivers of employee engagement, feeling valued, being appreciated at work, , trust, feeling trusted and trusting the people you work with, feeling cared for. And as I looked at that and stepped back for a [00:14:00] second and considered those things, it was sort of like, a big matrix guy.
[00:14:05] Jason Lauritsen: If you could see there’s a red pill, blue pill thing right next to me on the wall. It was like the matrix became visible to me and it occurred to me, like, Oh, people experience work as a relationship. Like those things are all relational. Caring, trust, appreciation. You know, those are feeling valued that that’s what happens inside of a relationship that either makes it strong or not.
[00:14:32] Jason Lauritsen: And once that light bulb went on, like all of a sudden it was like, everything started to make sense. And so that became the foundation for my work and really fueled. It just helped me. It helped give me a way to finally help people understand what was happening and why work wasn’t working.
[00:14:51] Mark Wright: That is such a great story because I think that there is an emotional and intellectual disconnect for a lot [00:15:00] of companies who believe that if we just do X, Y, and Z, or we pretend that we are, you know, it’s, I’ll go back to a point in my career, it was really obvious that one of my assistant news directors.
[00:15:13] Mark Wright: In the newsroom had been told you need to do a better job of listening to the staff. And so when we would get into these meetings, that person would just kind of stare with this blank expression into my face and like clearly telling themselves, don’t say anything because you are supposed to be listening right now.
[00:15:31] Mark Wright: It was clear that they were trying so hard to be a good listener, but instead of like being a good listener, I could tell that they were just trying to look like they were being a good listener. And it seems like. There’s so much stuff that happens at work that if companies just stopped trying to act like they were doing that stuff and really did it, , they would be so much more successful.
[00:15:53] Mark Wright: But that, that light bulb, Jason is so amazingly powerful because when we think of our friendships [00:16:00] and our marriages and every other, , relationship on our life, that stuff is the glue. And if it’s not there, those relationships don’t work. Wow.
[00:16:09] Jason Lauritsen: right. That’s right. Think about going to coffee with a friend who is doing what your boss was doing, right? You’d be like, , yeah, nope. Done. I don’t know what is going on with you, but we’re not doing this. Nope.
[00:16:23] Mark Wright: What is wrong with you?
[00:16:25] Jason Lauritsen: pretty clear in our personal life. It’s just some reason at work.
[00:16:28] Jason Lauritsen: We keep showing up for that. It’s like, I’m not here
[00:16:30] Mark Wright: Yeah. So you decide to write a book in 2012 social gravity about the power of relationships. Why, why did you decide it was time to write a book? It was, was that idea fairly, , unexplored in, in the book circles at that time?
[00:16:45] Jason Lauritsen: in 2012. So this predates like this predate. And this is what made the epiphany about work being a relationship that happened many years later. Such a like, yeah. Duh moment because I had written a book about [00:17:00] relationships. It was sort of ridiculous that I didn’t see it sooner, but you know, sometimes you see it when you’re ready to see it.
[00:17:06] Jason Lauritsen: , in 2012, actually when we wrote that book, that was a, book that, I mean, the honest answer of why did we write a book was because my colleague and I, my colleague Joe Gerstant and I at the time were a speaking team. We called ourselves talent anarchy and we were getting blocked out of getting keynote gigs because we didn’t have a book.
[00:17:25] Jason Lauritsen: So we’re like, Okay. We’ll write a book. So that was the motivator, right? Very selfish. But the reason we wrote that book was because the two of us had been running around. I mean, we had worked together, but more importantly, we became friends kind of not only through working together, but we had this sort of desire to make.
[00:17:41] Jason Lauritsen: on our community. And so we’d been doing things. We’d started a couple of nonprofits. We’re doing social advocacy work. We were out in the community, just making a ruckus, trying to make a difference and people, after we did that for a few years, as you know, I was much, we were both much younger at the time.
[00:17:59] Jason Lauritsen: It [00:18:00] was our young professional era. , they started asking us like, They’d say things like, how do you guys know everybody? And we’ve thought at first, you know, you thought that was kind of ridiculous. We were like, well, we don’t, but we did have this kind of cool network. We had built this huge network of, of colleagues and people.
[00:18:19] Jason Lauritsen: And we’d been able, we use, we’re able. Through that network to do a lot of really cool stuff. And so we got really curious about how that had happened because people seem to be really curious about it and wanted to replicate it in some way. And so we unpacked what we had done and then we went and read everything we could get our hands on about how networks and relationships form.
[00:18:38] Jason Lauritsen: And then through that, basically. Some, a pattern emerged that we, there were sort of these six things that stood out. We call them the six laws of social gravity. And that became the foundation for, uh, we were speaking about it first and then we took that and turned it into, , our book. So that’s how that happened was to sort of just share what we thought we had learned with [00:19:00] other people.
[00:19:00] Jason Lauritsen: Okay.
[00:19:01] Mark Wright: And you sort of became an expert at that point, or at least dedicated to the idea of helping people understand how to build an organization that is really human centric, that really understands how humans work and how they’re motivated in the workplace. So I’d love to dig a little bit deeper, Jason, on the idea of building that ecosystem within the workplace, because, you know, we’re trying to move leaders through this podcast and, you know, I’d love for you to just kind of lay out steps one, two, and three on, if you want to transform your business, here’s where you start.
[00:19:37] Jason Lauritsen: How much time do we have
[00:19:38] Mark Wright: Yeah, that’s a big
[00:19:39] Mark Wright: question.
[00:19:40] Jason Lauritsen: this. I’ll do, I’ll do this as fast as I can. So number one, I think one of the biggest things is we have to, we have to understand and rethink what work is and how work works. And so we’ve already talked about one of the fundamental things that I talk about with.
[00:19:59] Jason Lauritsen: With [00:20:00] my clients. And when I speak is work is a relationship, not a contract to be enforced. And so, so much of what we have in place today for management and HR policy is about contract enforcement, right? We pay you to deliver work product to us. And then we enforce that, which is. Which has worked fine.
[00:20:19] Jason Lauritsen: It’s fine for contractual relationships. It’s a terrible relationship building strategy. And so, you know, and so when you think about that, I always make the joke when I’m speaking, like imagine being in a marriage like that, where your, your spouse sort of never Shows you affection, tells you they love you or cares about you, does anything like that, but frequently reminds you about your spousal obligations to them and how well you likely are not fulfilling those, right? That is not a recipe for a successful and happy marriage. That’s a recipe for divorce. And yet, and yet this is the reality most employees live in every single day.
[00:20:59] Mark Wright: or [00:21:00] imagine in a marriage you’re young and you’re broke and you get married, and then one of the parties pulls out a prenup and says, alright, I just wanna lay this out. Whatever I make in my lifetime is mine. Whatever you make is yours. But anyway, here, please sign this.
[00:21:14] Mark Wright: It’s
[00:21:15] Jason Lauritsen: right. As long as you, , deliver on these behaviors and expectations, I’ll be happy to share with you, um, what I am, what I’m earning. So like it’s all kind of broken, right? Not great relationship building strategies. So number one is embracing, understanding work as a relationship. And in order for the workplace to work, we have to treat it like a relationship.
[00:21:36] Jason Lauritsen: We have to think about it like a relationship. And, and so we’ve. Foster relationship through treating people in the way that they would want to feeling valued and cared for, trusted, open communication, being accepted, you know, cultivating, earning commitment, right? All kinds of those things. So that’s number one. Number two is sort of an unlearning, and this is something that [00:22:00] most, I would say, one of the things that we don’t understand. Often is that we inherited one of the things that gets in the way, um, and is the most, I think, most problematic in the workplace is that we’ve inherited a legacy of management that is very flawed and it’s, and it’s long overdue for an upgrade.
[00:22:22] Jason Lauritsen: And so. Just the short version of this is that the birth of management, I like to tell the story of the birth of management. I actually wrote about a couple of chapters about this in my, in my newest book, , unlocking high performance. There’s a couple of chapters about this. Cause I was really curious to understand the story, but you have to go back to 18, late 1800s during the period of the industrial revolution, when, you know, You know, we had people migrating from smaller communities, you know, like literally agricultural work or, you know, artisan work coming to the cities for these new [00:23:00] factory jobs that were being born, right?
[00:23:02] Jason Lauritsen: These big factories and assembly lines. And. The reality about work at that time is that the work that was being done in those factories was work that was better suited for machines. Those machines, however, did not exist yet. We did not have the technology to build those machines yet. And so we needed human beings to stand in for those machines until we had them.
[00:23:25] Jason Lauritsen: Now, I mean, this isn’t what they’re talking about at the time, right? But that’s what we know now in hindsight. The problem is human beings make for really poor machines. , there were messy, were inconsistent. We get distracted and tired. We talked to our neighbor. Like there’s lots of messiness, inefficiency in the system.
[00:23:43] Jason Lauritsen: And so the owners of these early factories realize like this is really inefficient. We need some way to get our people to behave more like machines. Right. More consistent, less messy. And hence we created an entire body of practice and a new role called [00:24:00] management. So management very literally was created and Gary Hamill, the author, um, the sort of management guru describes it the best.
[00:24:09] Jason Lauritsen: He said, management’s intention upon invention was to get human programmable robots. Now, in all of our modern practice of management was born in this time, all of the things we think about as management, , sort of was born and then evolved based on this model over a period of, you know, 20, 30, 40 years.
[00:24:31] Jason Lauritsen: The problem then was that work started to evolve, right? Eventually we moved out of factories into these little tiny indoor cages called cubicles, and then beyond to other places and work instead of, you Creating value with our muscles and dexterity in our back. We started creating value with our minds and our creativity and our ingenuity and our knowledge, but management never really adapted.
[00:24:56] Jason Lauritsen: It just kept getting passed down generation over generation, over [00:25:00] generation, over generation, even as the work context changes. And so today we arrive at a place where management still operates largely the same. It’s production minded approach to things. Whereas I, we need a replacement. And the replacement that I recommend to this approach is what I call a cultivation mindset or using the approach of cultivation.
[00:25:22] Jason Lauritsen: And so this is the second piece that if you’re going to build a human centered workplace, this is the second shift. Cultivation is how farmers and gardeners approach the. Performance and growth of other living things. I grew up on a farm, Northwest Iowa. I mentioned this before, grew up around farming and what occurred to me as I reflected on this later in life, thinking about growing up, I was like, wait a minute, farmers are in the, they’re in the growth business.
[00:25:51] Jason Lauritsen: They’re in the performance business of other living things. And yet they approach it very, very differently. You think about what a farmer does. A farmer, a farmer goes out. [00:26:00] Puts a seed in the ground and they, they make sure they put the right seeds in the right soil conditions, right? So you don’t, you’re not planting pineapples in Iowa, you’re planting corn and soybeans or whatever.
[00:26:10] Jason Lauritsen: But then after that, that they, they, well, even before that, when they put that seed in the ground, the thing about a farmer, they operate with 100 percent confidence that when they put that seed in the ground, it will grow into the. Maximum best potential version of itself. So long as it has what it needs to grow and it doesn’t face any obstacles to get the, get in the way or limit growth.
[00:26:34] Jason Lauritsen: And so then the farmer just dedicates themselves to making sure that those plants have what they need and that they deal with obstacles, right? They deal with weeds and, and insects and they fertilize and they irrigate and, and they, deal with that’s that work is called cultivation. The farmer does not worry.
[00:26:53] Jason Lauritsen: For one second about motivating their crops to grow faster or to be the best [00:27:00] version of themselves. None of that goes on. This farmer just trusts that that will happen. And when it’s not happening, they don’t go, well, those damn seeds are probably rotten or we probably some, you know, stupid seeds.
[00:27:12] Jason Lauritsen: They don’t blame the seeds. They don’t blame the plant plants. They know something’s going on because otherwise they’d be doing what they do. They’re genetically hardwired. To be the best, to grow into the best version of themselves. And what occurred to me is like, it’s been here the whole time. The model we have been looking for has been here for literally thousands of years, right in front of us, because human beings, I believe, certainly more complicated, but the same principles apply.
[00:27:40] Jason Lauritsen: And so , this is a shift that we have to make is abandoned production minded approaches, where we treat people like machines, adopt a cultivation approach. And Mark, if you’ll humor me, I’m going to bring this point home. In a way that it’ll make people really uncomfortable.
[00:27:55] Mark Wright: Okay.
[00:27:56] Jason Lauritsen: that is the place where if you, , if you’re like, well, what does that look like?
[00:27:59] Jason Lauritsen: I don’t even [00:28:00] understand what he’s talking about. Then look at here. It is. I want you to think about how we approach when we have an underperforming employee, somebody that’s just for whatever reason, can’t make it work. They’re struggling. They’re underperforming. They’re not behaving, whatever it is. Pick your favorite flavor of underperforming employee today. Yet today, right? When managers show up and they want to talk to an HR rep about this underperforming employee, there’s two things that they, two questions. They basically ask, there’s two things they’re thinking about. Those two questions are, how can we fix this broken employee? Right. How do we fix them?
[00:28:38] Jason Lauritsen: And if we can’t fix them, how do we replace them with a better model? Do you know how, do you know what else we talk about like that? Our cell phones, our cars, the machines in our house, that we still, that’s what performance improvement plans and performance appraisals are designed to do. Right. They are, they are built around employees as a piece of machinery [00:29:00] to, to either fix or replace. Cultivation, when you’re facing that, cultivator knows, well, wait a minute. Right. That human being genetically hardwired for growth and performance. We know this we’ve seen, I mean, since like we look, if you look at an infant and how we learn to speak and talk and walk and move around and build, it’s like by just being around other people doing it, it’s amazing our capacity for growth and performance and.
[00:29:26] Jason Lauritsen: I know that in my experience, I’ve never met a human being in my life who I believe given the means and opportunity wouldn’t choose success over failure every single time. So I know that if they’re underperforming, it’s not because they are choosing it. It’s not because there’s anything wrong with them.
[00:29:44] Jason Lauritsen: If we’ve put them in the right situation, it’s because they have an unmet need or there’s an obstacle in their way. Guess what? My job is to fix that because once I fix that. Presto, they’re going to do what they are naturally [00:30:00] put on this planet to do. And so that’s the difference. And that should make people uncomfortable because I guarantee most of their management practices are built on production mindset.
[00:30:09] Jason Lauritsen: So work is a relationship cultivation mindset. That’s where it starts. If you can get those two things clear in terms of how you think about an approach work, Everything else gets easier.
[00:30:20] Mark Wright: As you were laying that out Jason. I was thinking about. It takes time to do that stuff to build relationships actually does take time and effort and a lot of industries evolved, especially way back. But the holdover is still there of using fear as a motivator.
[00:30:37] Mark Wright: And I spent 35 years in broadcasting super intense. Uh, very, very competitive and it was a sort of an unwritten, , sort of rule that, you know, that they, they let you always know, mostly that if you didn’t want to do it their way, look over there, we got 500 people who, who want to do your job.[00:31:00]
[00:31:00] Mark Wright: And I’ll tell you that that dynamic was pervasive. In, in my industry and especially when it came time to renegotiate contracts, which lasted typically anywhere from one to three years. So that certainty was never there. Um, and fear was often used as, as a quote unquote motivator, but the best news directors I ever had.
[00:31:21] Mark Wright: I had one news director who would yell out of his office. Hey, right. Get in here. And I’d be like, all right. So I’d go in, sit down, tell me about what’s going on, man. What’s going on at home? How are you doing? How’s your golf game? And we would talk for 20 minutes and literally 20 minutes in the afternoon as everybody’s getting ready for the show.
[00:31:43] Mark Wright: I’m getting ready for the show. , but I love that guy and I knew that he cared deeply about us because he saw the value in simply saying, how’s it going? What’s going on? And he did that on a regular basis. And it’s [00:32:00] like, that’s someone who gets it, right?
[00:32:03] Jason Lauritsen: it sure is. And I, you know, I have a management, program that I teach, , that it’s literally called the check in method for that very reason. And it’s, it goes back, it connects back to cultivation, because if you think about, if you’ve ever known a farmer, like really known a farmer, you know, that like they are obsessed.
[00:32:27] Jason Lauritsen: With relentlessly checking in on their crops, right? What’s going on? How are they doing? What’s the soil acidity? How’s the moisture? Like they’re checking in constantly because they understand like, I’ve got to be on top of what’s happening in order to really make sure I’m doing my best job to foster an environment where they can do, they can be their best.
[00:32:46] Jason Lauritsen: They can grow and perform at their best because. My livelihood depends on it. And I think same is true for humans. And that’s why, like, if we want to cultivate human performance and all the things that go along with it, right, this isn’t touchy feely. That’s a thing [00:33:00] to anybody that’s listening. This is not touchy feely stuff.
[00:33:02] Jason Lauritsen: This is 1000 percent about maximizing performance. The impact that an individual will have on your business reorganization is that when they feel that these needs are met and some of the needs are very human needs, like, you know, and relational needs, like Feeling valued and checking in on sometimes though, they’re much more pragmatic.
[00:33:24] Jason Lauritsen: Like, am I? I need to be crystal clear about what’s expected of me. And I need to be crystal clear on how I’m doing and where I stand. And I need to be crystal clear about the best ways to do what I do. And so there’s, there are needs that are lots of kinds of needs. I want to make sure that this doesn’t come off as like, this is kumbaya and let’s just give people hugs because that’s not what this is about.
[00:33:46] Mark Wright: Yeah, that manager thinking, Oh, geez, how do I do this? You’ve broken it down into a four step process of here’s how you check in with your people. And I’d love it if you break down that it’s just, it’s just really [00:34:00] good practical, advice. So if you break down the four steps to checking in with your people,
[00:34:05] Jason Lauritsen: the key is first understanding that a check in conversation, the purpose of a check in conversation is to have a conversation that matters. With the employee. So, this is about getting to the conversations that matter. And if you do it the way I’m about to describe the other beauty of it is it’s, it doesn’t have to be a long drawn out thing.
[00:34:28] Jason Lauritsen: This is about what I’m going to share with you is an efficient way. To accelerate into a conversation that actually matters with your employees. So it starts with four steps to any check in. So this can be a general check in. It can be any check in, but, first step is ask a great question. And this is where most of us go wrong because when we check in with people. What’s uh, Mark, what’s the most common question that you hear when someone wants to check in with you?
[00:34:59] Mark Wright: [00:35:00] Hey, how’s it going?
[00:35:01] Jason Lauritsen: How’s it going? How are you? Right? That’s what we say and then the common response is
[00:35:07] Mark Wright: Fine. Everything’s good.
[00:35:09] Jason Lauritsen: right good Busy. I don’t have time for this. You don’t care. I don’t care. Let’s just move along. Right. That’s what happens.
[00:35:16] Jason Lauritsen: And so it becomes like, it’s become like a transactional exchange that how are you is not a good question because the purpose of this whole interaction is get into a meaningful conversation. And so you have to ask a great question. Now, a great question. The definition of a great question is a question that invites an answer.
[00:35:38] Jason Lauritsen: That requires a follow up question. So it’s, you ask a question and then it would be weird to walk away from it, right? It would just feel weird. So let me give you an example. This is how we do it. The most simple example, this is this question. People take it and use it. It will change, change your relationship with people is.
[00:35:59] Jason Lauritsen: You take the [00:36:00] how are you question, which we agreed, bad question, and we turn it to a great question by changing it this way. How are you, Mark? How are you today on a scale from 1 to 10? 10 being couldn’t be better, 1 being couldn’t be worse.
[00:36:13] Mark Wright: Yeah. What if I say, ah, seven?
[00:36:16] Jason Lauritsen: All right, well good, great, great to hear. And, uh, you know, moving on. Right, that feels weird, right? You can’t Do that and I’ll come back to the actual number in a second, but you don’t want to walk away from that because the whole point of it is you just opened the door. You gave me something meaningful when you say fine.
[00:36:31] Jason Lauritsen: I don’t know what that means. That means nothing. You say seven. That’s a data point that now I can explore. That gives me an opening. And so first question first ask a great question. The second question. Step is then obviously ask the follow up question because otherwise, what are we doing here? So you ask the follow up question.
[00:36:51] Jason Lauritsen: Now, if I ask this question, how are you scale from 1 to 10, you can get a lot of different answers. So I’ll come to yours in a second. But one of them, the [00:37:00] easiest right is somebody says I’m a nine. Like, that’s amazing. So this is an opportunity or an invitation to connect, to learn about them, to sort of explore what’s important to them.
[00:37:11] Jason Lauritsen: So it’s my question following up might be that’s awesome. Like what sounds like some things are going really well. Tell me about that. What’s been going well, what are your wins lately? And then they’ll tell you, they might talk about their kids, you know, little league game, or they might talk about a work project.
[00:37:27] Jason Lauritsen: They might talk about whatever, but. They’re telling you like, what’s going on that you can celebrate, connect to learn about. Right. So that’s, that’s high end middle. Like where you said, seven, six, five, whatever that is. That’s an interesting one as a conversationalist. I love that because it’s so interesting.
[00:37:44] Jason Lauritsen: You’re like, well, okay, seven. Sounds, sounds like some things are going well. Like what’s, what’s been going well. And then you’d tell me some things. And then my next question is going to be, okay, well, what’s, what’s the, the gap between seven and 10? Like what would move you closer to 10? [00:38:00] And you’re like, well, my dog has been sick, fighting some kind of kidney thing that’s going to cost me an arm and a leg and blah, blah, blah.
[00:38:06] Jason Lauritsen: And you’re like, well, that sucks. You know, and you’re into that conversation, but either way. If somebody says one to three,
[00:38:14] Mark Wright: Yeah.
[00:38:14] Jason Lauritsen: a cry for help, right? They’re really struggling and they just gave you an invitation to step into that conversation with them. So the first thing is like, man, that doesn’t sound good.
[00:38:23] Jason Lauritsen: Is it, is it something you are comfortable sharing with me? What’s going on? Like what’s, what’s happening. And then usually, right, you’re into it. And so that brings me to step three. Which is really important, which is shut up and listen, really listen, doesn’t mean just listen to hear what they’re saying, but it’s listened like full active listening, right?
[00:38:47] Jason Lauritsen: I always say, like, say you hear with your ears, you are, you, uh, you hear with your ears, you listen with your eyes, right? You, you need to pay attention, not just to what they’re saying, how they’re saying it. What’s happening when they say it, like, what are you noticing, body [00:39:00] language, facial expressions, all of that.
[00:39:01] Jason Lauritsen: What are they not saying that you would expect them to say, right? All of that, it’s really paying attention because the whole point of this is to understand what’s going on with these people. What do they need? What are they, what are they excited about? Like what’s happening? This conversation gets you right to that.
[00:39:18] Jason Lauritsen: Right away, right to the things that matter. And so you ask the questions, you really listen. And then at the end of your conversation, the fourth step, every check in is to offer support or encouragement, depending on whatever is warranted. So, you know, if it’s, if it’s been an eight to 10 conversation, right.
[00:39:35] Jason Lauritsen: Celebrating things, whatever, we’ll then give them some gratitude, give them some recognition, give them some appreciation, whatever that is. If it was, on the other end. Right. Where they’ve got some things they’re struggling with. It’s like, Hey, well, how can I help? What can I do to support you? Um, or one of my favorites questions I stole from Brene Brown is what does support from me look like for you right now? And sometimes people might not [00:40:00] know. I mean, I tell managers all the time, sometimes they might say, I don’t know. And that’s okay. Because sometimes just listening. You knowing what’s going on can be super helpful that can transform it. I mean, I, you know, I don’t know about you, Mark, but I I’ve learned this through relationships, especially with my wife over the years is, uh, a lot of times I’m not there to solve anything.
[00:40:21] Jason Lauritsen: I’m just there to listen. I’m there to offer support, but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be called upon. So any long term relationship like that’s, you, you learn that. And so those are the four steps of the check in. So ask a great question, ask the follow up, really listen, and then offer support and encouragement.
[00:40:37] Jason Lauritsen: And it seems super, super simple. But I tell you what, it is magic. You, it doesn’t, I mean, minutes in minutes, you can be into the conversation that actually matters with that employee and that can change things.
[00:40:51] Mark Wright: Yeah. It’s until you get into those conversations, I’ve worked with some people who never would tell you, , if some really, really bad stuff was [00:41:00] happening in their lives, they just had the attitude of, I just got to suck it up at work and not, not go there. But they, I, you know, but getting to know them, you know, there were people who were, you know, who found out their spouse had a terminal illness or who lost a grandparent or whatever.
[00:41:13] Mark Wright: And it’s like, Oh my God. Until we engage in this genuine exchange. We’ll never know that stuff and we might just assume, geez, how come Bill so checked out today, you know, and make a judgment on that. , yeah. And the other thing that I think it allows is that offer of support and encouragement. I remember when my dad was struggling with terminal cancer and, uh, you know, my, my news director knew about it and he relayed that to the general manager of the station and the general manager came up to my desk and said, I know this probably doesn’t help, but he said, if you need anything, come see me.
[00:41:52] Mark Wright: That was it. That alone, I was just like, Oh my God, these people actually [00:42:00] care. , it’s not that hard. It’s just, it’s just being human. Right.
[00:42:04] Jason Lauritsen: the reality for those that are, I can actually feel the, The, the thoughts that pop up as we have this conversation is people start to question like, well, I don’t want all that noise and drama. Like, how does this, like, why do I want to invite all of that into my workplace? And the thing that I tell leaders all the time is like, it’s already there.
[00:42:27] Jason Lauritsen: And the reality is when you are struggling with whatever, pick whatever wellbeing challenge or whatever struggle you’re having outside, you found out your spouse is cheating on you. You’ve got a sick child, you’re caring for elder parents. You are, , have a substance abuse issue, whatever it is, it’s there.
[00:42:45] Jason Lauritsen: And the thing about it is that that shows up. It never leaves the individual and never leaves the employee. They go to bed with it. They wake up in the morning with it. And when they wake up in the morning with it, those issues consume a large percentage of energy and [00:43:00] focus and time that isn’t even available at work.
[00:43:03] Jason Lauritsen: And so when they get to work, they’re not even able to probably give you their best effort, but they’re not even giving you the best effort of their a hundred percent, they’re giving you the best effort of some fraction of what they have to offer you. And so as an employer, if you want. An employee’s full contribution.
[00:43:19] Jason Lauritsen: If you want to sort of benefit from their talents, then it is absolutely in your best interest to understand what’s happening and support those folks and giving them whatever kinds of tools and resources, encouragement, flexibility, whatever, to help them manage that. And even knowing that you’re there to support them can bring down the anxiety level, which decreases the amount of energy it takes to Takes for them to deal with that.
[00:43:42] Jason Lauritsen: So when they do come to work, not only do they have more to offer, but now they’re also more committed to doing the best they can while they’re there. It’s like it, that, that is the reality of it. Is it humans? You know, our, our ability to give our best is very fragile and these things can take us [00:44:00] down.
[00:44:00] Jason Lauritsen: And that’s why we’ve got to be in the whole human conversation. That’s why we’re building human workplaces is because if we don’t, there are consequences for the people and for the work and, and. It’s a win win all the way around when we learn how to do this better,
[00:44:14] Mark Wright: And here, here’s the secret sauce. Wait for it. We will work our asses off for people who care about us and we won’t steal from them. And we won’t talk behind their backs and we won’t disparage them. And fill in the blank, fill in the blank. , I watched a cool, you have a, such YouTube videos. I just love, and we’ll put a link to, to your YouTube videos, , Jason on the show notes.
[00:44:38] Mark Wright: You talked about the number one myth. About employee engagement. You had a video on that and that is, and I think a lot of us think this, there is an idea that we have to keep all of our people happy all the time. And you say that’s a myth. And I’d love for you to break that down because I think it would be easy for managers to hear this discussion of human centric [00:45:00] workplace and think, Oh, geez, I got to keep everybody happy all the time.
[00:45:03] Mark Wright: That’s, that’s going to be completely exhausting. So why, why is that a myth?
[00:45:07] Jason Lauritsen: Well, it gets, this was, you know, well meaning right. Well meaning people along the way have talked about this and, and let me be very clear upfront, happy employees. I’m not, not anti happy, happy employees. Happy employees are great. We want happy employees, but happy employees and engaged employees are not the same.
[00:45:28] Jason Lauritsen: And as a manager, when we think that our job is to keep people happy, here’s what happens is we stop doing some of the work that we need to be doing, , to actually facilitate a better work experience. And then we actually undermine the employees. Ability to do work, which then makes it frustrating and disengaging for them.
[00:45:49] Jason Lauritsen: And by the way, when you’re not doing that work because you think it’s going to make them happy, it actually makes them less happy and less engaged. So let me give you an example. The way this mostly shows up [00:46:00] is when I become convinced that my job is to keep my people happy when I have an employee who is not performing. The way that they should write, they’re underperforming. I’m reluctant to give them feedback. I’m reluctant to step into that conversation because guess what? I don’t think there’s ever in the history of, of work been a conversation where, where When the manager shows up to have a conversation with the employee, and it’s about them not performing up to expectation.
[00:46:30] Jason Lauritsen: I don’t think anyone has ever described that as like, wow, that was a really happy, joyful experience, right? That’s not usually what happens. And so, and managers know that right. Feedback sucks. People don’t like getting feedback. People don’t like being told they’re not performing well for whatever reason.
[00:46:45] Jason Lauritsen: So it’s going to be an unpleasant conversation probably, or at least it’s going to be a little awkward. Word, there’s going to be some conflict, whatever. And so what they think is, well, I can’t create that negative emotion, right? Cause that’s anti happiness. [00:47:00] So let’s just pretend it’s not happening. Let’s just avoid it.
[00:47:03] Jason Lauritsen: And so we just let that, we let that underperforming or that what’s worse is the, the employee who’s behaving in a way that is. Detrimental, right. That is maybe a little toxic or creating drama. And so we’re avoiding that because we don’t want, you know, we want them to be happy. And so yay team. And, and instead, if you want what you actually should care about as a manager is you want to think about what do people need back to cultivation?
[00:47:29] Jason Lauritsen: What do we need to cultivate growth and performance and engagement? And that is things like they need to be clear about expectation. They need clear feedback about how they’re doing. Sometimes. And the thing is people When people are unclear. So let’s say I don’t know exactly what’s expected of me, or maybe I’m working my tail off.
[00:47:49] Jason Lauritsen: I think I’m doing a great job, but I’m not. And nobody’s telling me that. And I have no way to know that. I just know that it’s weird and I’m getting weird signals, right? [00:48:00] That’s another example. Or maybe I’m in a wrong job. And I’m coming in and I’m hustling every day, but no matter what I do, I’m never gonna, I’m never going to get it right because I’m just not capable.
[00:48:11] Jason Lauritsen: Guess what? All of those things suck as an employee, misery. I’ve been through all of them. And then some, and here’s the thing. When the manager thinks when they’re over indexing towards happiness, they avoid doing the work that needs to be done to actually do the human thing. The relational thing, which is, listen, I don’t want you to be miserable.
[00:48:32] Jason Lauritsen: So let’s have this conversation that might be a little awkward and hard to have or difficult to have, but let’s do it so that we can get to a place where your job doesn’t feel like garbage every day so that you can come in and know what’s expected and you can start to get some satisfaction and I don’t know, call that.
[00:48:48] Jason Lauritsen: Maybe that makes them happy. Maybe it just makes them content or satisfied. I’m good with that. If they show up every day and they’re satisfied and content and producing, , you know, good quality work and they don’t, they feel [00:49:00] like I’m a decent manager for them and they go back home and their life is better because they’re not complaining about work and being in misery at work every day.
[00:49:06] Jason Lauritsen: That’s a win in my book. And so that’s what that’s about is don’t, it’s not about happy. Happy as a by product, which would be great to have, but do the work. Yeah. When you understand the needs and you cultivate performance, you get engaged employees and engaged employees are better than happy employees on the balance.
[00:49:24] Jason Lauritsen: And then often engaged employees turn into happy employees over time.
[00:49:29] Mark Wright: And if you think about it, you know, life, the people who get most disappointed in life are those people who think that every day should be happy and free from conflict and just, you know, rainbows and unicorns. And if you have that expectation, you’re going to be disappointed every day because those days don’t happen every day.
[00:49:49] Mark Wright: And I think, you know, the heart, some of the hardest days in my life, you know, as a, as a parent or as a husband, those hard [00:50:00] days. Were magnitudes of scale better than just the average day in that life mattered. And what I did that day mattered. And it was, I did my job, you know, in life. And it’s, you’re right.
[00:50:15] Mark Wright: It’s happy isn’t the goal. I mean, living life in all its colors, is, is the goal. And some days they’re gonna, some days they’re gonna suck.
[00:50:28] Jason Lauritsen: And this is where it’s really helpful to understand work as a relationship, right? Because when we think about relationships, we don’t think about You know, Mike, Mark, do you have a happy relationship with your boss? And you’re like, that question doesn’t even make any sense to me. Like, why would that be the, like, I want to, do you have a healthy relationship with your boss?
[00:50:50] Jason Lauritsen: That’s a meaningful question. Do you have a trusting relationship with your boss? That’s a meaningful conversation to have or something to think about. [00:51:00] And so I think when we start to understand work as a relationship, we start to recognize that like relationships ebb and flow. They’re not always perfect.
[00:51:08] Jason Lauritsen: They’re not always without their conflict or whatever, but it’s, it’s in, oftentimes great relationships are built and forged in the times that are challenging. So you should, you have to welcome those and step into those and lean into those conversations and by the way. You’re going to mess it up sometimes.
[00:51:27] Jason Lauritsen: That’s part of being in relationships with other humans. And there’s this really magical thing that we can do. It’s like this magic trick. We can say, I’m sorry, I should have handled that better. Can we try that again? Or how could we have handled that better? I didn’t get that right. Let’s talk about that, right?
[00:51:44] Jason Lauritsen: I’m sorry. It’s magic in human relationships. People need to use that more. And then when people do make those Mistakes this other sort of magic power called forgiveness is out there available to everybody too. That’s like, when we get it wrong, it’s like, , let’s say our, say, we’re sorry, [00:52:00] figure it out and then move on.
[00:52:01] Jason Lauritsen: Like, forgive the person move on. And so, so much of this, like I said, it’s. When you start to think about it and understand it as a relationship, it also comes with understanding that relationships are complicated and they, ebb and flow. And not all relationships are forever. Some are short term, some are long term, some are really deep and meaningful.
[00:52:20] Jason Lauritsen: Others are more transactional and guess what? All that’s okay. As long as we understand and we’re intentional and thoughtful about it. So. That’s where I think that’s the replacement. If you want to replace happy, just remember relationship, relationship, let’s build better relationships and that’ll get you to the right place.
[00:52:36] Jason Lauritsen: Most of the time
[00:52:38] Mark Wright: okay. We’re just about at time. I have two questions that I would like fairly short answers to what’s your best advice on when it’s time to move on from a job
[00:52:47] Jason Lauritsen: Wow. That is a great, great question. Any difficult, I would say when you. When that job doesn’t align to your values, when it [00:53:00] feels like you’re not aligned with like in your core, when you feel like you’re not aligned with the organization or the work you’re doing in a way that feels meaningful to you anymore. I think that’s a pretty good signal that it’s time to start thinking about something else.
[00:53:14] Mark Wright: that takes us back to the story that we started with, with your dad.
[00:53:17] Jason Lauritsen: Sure did.
[00:53:18] Mark Wright: Wow. All right. Next short answer. I hope you’re not offended by my, my direction. What’s your best advice? And I’ve, I’ve experienced this. What’s your best advice to managers who are kind of hamstrung when it comes to the budget from their higher ups?
[00:53:35] Mark Wright: I’ve worked in a number of news organizations where there was really a lot of pressure from corporate to hold the budget to X But there was zero transparency from my manager about what was really going on So what actually happened was they would make us feel like you’re not we can’t pay you that that’s ridiculous Nobody in the market gets that money or it’s not worth it for what you’re doing You and I feel like [00:54:00] in, in today’s, especially in corporations, a lot of that stuff is being run by the accountants now.
[00:54:06] Mark Wright: And a lot of, freedom is, has been given away, uh, you know, by those managers who have to enforce those things. So what’s your best advice when managers have to execute something from above that maybe isn’t super palatable?
[00:54:21] Jason Lauritsen: Well, short answer. Okay. So if it’s not immoral, unethical against the law. It’s your job. If you have leaders that are telling you to do something that you don’t agree with, the decision’s already been made. Your job’s to execute. Your job is to deliver. And so, the way you do that, you have agency over. So you can make it, you can take that decision even though it sucks and you disagree with it, but then your job is to make it work.
[00:54:50] Jason Lauritsen: Figure out how to make it work. If that happens over and over, find a new job. Find a new job. Why are you working for people like that? Cause you don’t trust them or you [00:55:00] don’t trust their judgment. So find a new job. If you, if that continues to happen.
[00:55:04] Mark Wright: Yeah. And I feel like transparency would go a long way, you know, without giving away secrets, you know, I would have appreciated a manager who said, you know, what corporate said, we’re holding our budget to 1 percent this year. Uh, and so we got to do that. I would have respected that
[00:55:20] Jason Lauritsen: Yeah.
[00:55:21] Jason Lauritsen: Without that, without the load, the key there is I think transparency. I was always the same way. Like here’s the, what the decision. Our job is to make it work. The key is not to load your judgment on it. And this is where most managers go, go wrong. Is there like, well, those morons up in corporate are doing it to us again.
[00:55:42] Jason Lauritsen: And then they start complaining and then that actually poisoned your team. And then nobody’s bought in to make it work. And it’s like. At the end of the day, our job is to execute decisions that get made at the corporate level as managers. We may not like it sometimes, but sometimes we’ve got to make it work.
[00:55:57] Jason Lauritsen: And if that doesn’t work for you, then you may need to find a [00:56:00] different place to work. Now, one caveat I will add on to this is that I would also always recommend, if you’re courageous enough, providing the feedback up, ask questions. Ask why the decision was made. If they tell you it’s none of your business, then that’s the kind of people you’re working with, right?
[00:56:16] Jason Lauritsen: Or if you have suggestions, make your suggestions and they tell you thanks, but we’re not interested, then that’s the kind of people you’re working with. They’ll reveal themselves. I mean, I’m not advocating that you shouldn’t ever advocate, you know, you shouldn’t sort of try to change things, but at the end of the day, our job is to execute once a decision is made.
[00:56:33] Jason Lauritsen: So. It’s a sad reality of being a manager sometimes.
[00:56:37] Mark Wright: Yeah. All right. The last thing I’d love to talk about, Jason, is our mission to redeem work and, and your mission to fix. Work that’s that’s broken and I’d love to explore the idea about using work as a means to solve the growing epidemic of disconnectedness and You’ve talked about this and I think it’s really interesting because I mean the u.
[00:56:59] Mark Wright: s. Surgeon [00:57:00] General is on a Campaign he’s rolled out a program to to fight loneliness in America because the the research shows that the impact of Loneliness has on people is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. , the health impacts of loneliness and you believe that work can be used. And we believe that work can be used in a way that honors.
[00:57:28] Mark Wright: Everyone and actually is beneficial for everyone. So let’s talk about work as a means. We’re kind of at this, we’re at a very interesting time in work in American culture. Uh, I talk with business leaders almost every day who are struggling with trying to get employees to come back into the office, even one day a week.
[00:57:47] Mark Wright: They throw a pizza party and people are like, nah, I don’t want to drive in. And it’s. It’s, it’s a disconnectedness at a, at a level we haven’t seen. So I guess as we wrap things up, Jason, I’d love, I’d love your thoughts [00:58:00] on this idea and the, , and, and the idea that maybe we can use work to do this.
[00:58:06] Jason Lauritsen: Yes. Yes. Times a thousand. , I think we can change the world by changing work. That’s a back to your point about our alignment and missions and all of that. And I think this is one of the places that is, if not the most important lever we can pull there is using work to reconnect people, to reconnect the world, because it’s one of the things that everyone.
[00:58:30] Jason Lauritsen: Almost everyone except the independently wealthy, are sort of motivated to do because , we need to earn livings. And so we’re forced to come together. I think what, what can organizations do is, you know, a lot of the reason that people won’t come back into the office for hybrid is because again, Like, I don’t want to come in so you can lay your eyes on the machinery for a day, right?
[00:58:54] Jason Lauritsen: That doesn’t feel good to me. That’s about you. It’s not about me. And so I think part of the challenge is [00:59:00] here. The reason employees won’t come in is often because of the relationship is broken. Right. I don’t, when I call my friend and say, Hey, can we get together for coffee? My friend’s never like, do I have to come to the coffee shop?
[00:59:11] Jason Lauritsen: Can we just do a zoom? Like that would be right. I don’t have to convince them because they value the relationship. They know I’m investing in it. And so I think there’s something really fundamentally broken about how organizations are approaching their employees. And so you want to figure out how to get them back to the office.
[00:59:25] Jason Lauritsen: I don’t know. Maybe ask them. And this is one of those things that’s been overlooked. Like, go talk to your employees about what do they value? What do they miss? What would be of value? Cause I also think a lot of those same employees who don’t want to drive into the office are feeling lonely and disconnected, but they don’t think your stupid pizza party is going to solve it.
[00:59:44] Jason Lauritsen: And so, so they’re like, yeah, no, no thanks. Like come back to me when you have a good idea. And so, so I would say to organizations is number one. Recognize that I think people, at least, I think there’s a fair amount of research that suggests people do want to [01:00:00] come together. But when they come together, they want to come together for a reason.
[01:00:04] Jason Lauritsen: They want to come together with intention. They do want to see their co workers. When there’s a purpose behind it, when there’s a reason behind it, not some kind of, you’re tricking me to come back into the office because it makes you feel better as a leader to see me in the office. And so create real intention, like do it with purpose design around connection.
[01:00:25] Jason Lauritsen: So that’s number one. I think the other thing is, I think one of the biggest opportunities we have at scale is teach. People relationship skills, right? That’s what we just did today. That’s what the check in is all about, right? We talk about it as a management tool, but guess what? That is a relationship tool.
[01:00:42] Jason Lauritsen: Those four steps work just as well with teenagers as they do with your employee at work. They work with your mom. They work with your spouse. They work with your neighbor. They work with your Uber driver. You can use that. Any place at any time with another human being, and it will create a meaningful conversation.
[01:00:59] Jason Lauritsen: And [01:01:00] so we, we have to teach people again, or maybe for the first time, how to build. Relationships, how to be in relationship. I think that’s one of the things that is broken. That’s being under, we’re under focusing on that. And I think that’s, those are the two things I would say, like, focus on bringing people together with purpose and intention for connection and engage them in that process, talk to them about it, and then teach them relationship skills, give, them the tools so that they’re more likely to build relationships when they are together.
[01:01:33] Mark Wright: That’s, that’s profound. When I was in college, a friend of mine said. advice that I’d ever gotten about building relationships with other people. He said, you just need to take a genuine interest in another person and you’ll be shocked at how much they like you and how much they want to be around you and what you’ll get to know about them.
[01:01:55] Mark Wright: And I’ve, taken that with me everywhere I go. And especially as a reporter for three and a half [01:02:00] decades. All I did was just take a genuine interest in that other person. And it led to some amazing conversations and it’s leading to amazing conversations today. Man, Jason, it’s so much fun to spend time with you.
[01:02:14] Mark Wright: I feel like I’ve learned and have been so inspired. , and, and there are so many just practical concrete takeaways that when people ask, I don’t know, how, how do we, how do we redeem work? How do we make work better? You’ve given us a real blueprint today. That’s that I think is so needed in today’s workplace.
[01:02:32] Mark Wright: So thank you so much. Any, anything else you want to add to our conversation? This has been just amazingly rich.
[01:02:38] Jason Lauritsen: No, I. Appreciate the opportunity to be here. I’m honored to be invited and to have the conversation. Really enjoyed it. So thank you.
[01:02:46] Mark Wright: All right. Keep in touch. Thanks. Jason.