Future Ready Leadership With Jacob Morgan

Garry Ridge is President and CEO of the WD-40 Company headquartered in San Diego, California. WD-40 Company is the maker of the ever-popular WD-40 (found in 8 out of 10 US households), as well as 3-IN-ONE Oil, Solvol and Lava heavy duty hand cleaners and X-14, Carpet Fresh, Spot Shot, 1001 and 2000 Flushes household cleaning products. With just under 500 employees, they boast a 93% employee engagement rate – with an average tenure of 10 years - which helps keep the number of employees low. Garry has been with WD-40 since 1987 in various management positions, including executive vice president and chief operating officer and vice president of international. He has worked directly with WD-40 in 50 countries.A native of Australia, he received his Masters of Science Degree in Executive Leadership from the University of San Diego, CA, in June 2001. Way back Aristotle said, "Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work." However, people are slow learners. A lot of companies struggle with this because leaders are afraid of letting go and giving people the opportunity. Garry's learned to say 'I don't know…' and to make sure that WD-40 "leaders involve their people." What can we do to change the mentality of leaders not letting go? For public companies – take the emphasis off 'short-term-isms'. Looking at 90 days, etc. so they will make short term decisions that are not as productive. "Coffee that is brewed over time, tastes better than instant." Education should be a core value– be a learning and teaching company. Instead of 'mistakes', look at them as opportunities to get better Have a clear plan, a clear purpose and clear values Be open to learning across the company There are 7 characteristics at WD 40 that shape their workplace culture. They are: Learning & Teaching – a dedication to it, a number of programs and a commitment to learning and learning moments. Values – part of their talent development program, everyone sits down with their coach/manager and talks about the values. Employees share how they lived and their values as part of their conversation. The number one value is 'doing the right thing'. Creating positive lasting memories is another. Belonging – based on Maslow's hierarchy of self actualization. The level of belonging in the company is around treating people with respect and dignity. We want to show everyone in everything that is done it is with those in mind. Future focus – they understand where they are today is good but they need to move to a new place in the future. One value is to make it better than today Specialized skills – they have identified certain specialized skills and people that have those skills Warriors – for a purpose, not of destruction. They fight for people, brands and for what is right. The spirit of winning Celebration – reminder that we need to take time to celebrate together. Garry's advice to employees is to start an idea within a small team to introduce the concepts to them. You will probably see a change in the team. His advice to leaders is that change needs to start with them What you will learn in this episode: What it is like to work at WD 40 The ABCs of Trust What The Tribal Culture looks like at WD-40 Why WD-40 Invests in People How WD-40 is Excelling in Employee Engagement Contact: https://thelearningmoment.net https://www.linkedin.com/in/garryridge/

We all have many relationships throughout our lifetime; relationships with friends, family, significant others, etc...Some relationships we have thrive, they make us happy and encourage us to be better. But some relationships are unhealthy. They stress us out, cause depression and wear us out. We have relationships that we would fight for and relationships we would not fight for. Working for an organization is very much like being in a relationship. The question is--is it a relationship you would fight for or not? If it is one you would fight for, that is great. You are lucky and you should fight hard to keep that relationship going strong, just as you would for a relationship in your personal life. If it is not an relationship you would fight for, and so many of us fit in this category, then you should get out of it. So many people are unsatisfied at work, but they don't do anything about it. If this is you, do something! You owe it to yourself to be at an organization you are willing to fight for and you are the only one who can control your career path.

This week's episode is all about creating meaningful employee experiences and a thriving corporate culture. We are taking a look back at some clips from CHROs, Chief People Officers, and CEOs who are helping their organizations excel in these areas. This episode features: Chairman, President and CEO of Rosetta Stone, John Hass on the corporate culture at Rosetta Stone, how he manages, how he deals with complacency and the importance of a clear company mission David Fairhurst, Chief People Officer at McDonald's explaining why a huge, iconic brand like McDonald's is going through a transformation and how culture plays into that VP of Enterprise Social Responsibility at Chick-fil-A, Dee Ann Turner on how to create an amazing corporate culture and how does extraordinary talent impact that Chief People Officer at GSN Games, Peter Walmsley on how to scale employee experience in a large company with offices across the world Kimberly Samon, CHRO at Weight Watchers gives an inside look into what it is like to work at Weight Watchers and some of the perks and benefits they provide.

We are obsessed with Employee Engagement in our companies today, but we give employees surveys to fill out with 50-100 questions on them. There has got to be an easier and more direct way to find out if our employees are engaged at work. Have you ever had to fill out an employee engagement survey that was 50 to 100 questions long? I think most people these days have. Organizations are obsessed with measuring employee engagement and they feel that in order to get a true picture of how they are doing they have to ask hundreds of questions once or twice a year. But does this really give an accurate picture of engagement? In a marriage you and your spouse have a good idea of whether or not the relationship is healthy. You could ask your spouse directly, "are you happy with our relationship", and they would be able to answer you immediately. You wouldn't have to give them a form with 50 questions to get that answer. In the same way, employees know if they are engaged at work and enjoy their job and if you ask them they can give you a yes or no answer on the spot. We need to come up with a way to simplify the process. Our challenge is we have to find the one question that we should be asking employees to find out if they are happy, engaged, passionate and feel like they belong. What do you think that one question should be?

Tim Munden is the Chief Learning Officer at Unilever. Tim has worked there since 2000, holding roles such as Senior European HR Manager, VP HR – Unilever Food Solutions Americas and VP HR for their Global Business Services. Unilever is found in over 100 countries with more than 160,000 employees. Seven out of every ten households around the world contain at least one Unilever product. They produce more than 400 items - including household-name brands such as Lipton, Knorr, Dove, Axe, Hellmann's and Suave. Tim's career started to have focus when someone asked him two questions: What do you really love? - he answered human beings What do you want to learn about? - for Tim it was how companies and communities can allow people to be their very best What are your big challenges at Unilever? Unlocking the characteristics of learning Unlocking agility. Encouraging people to be constantly curious and courageous. Getting rid of the stigma around mental health. The goal is that people would feel free to share this illness with their line managers. The top initiative at Unilever is to ensure that every employee is one click/chat away from the well-being help they need – via phone or internet. For example, legal advice, or mental and physical health support. Tim's advice for managers is to know how to answer-- what is the purpose of our business? Keep asking why, why, why. Go on the journey with the senior leadership team. Also, ask yourself what is the business case of the potential of all of your people. All the passion and energy. What is the price of not doing this? Tim's advice for employees is to make sure you challenge your own humanity, don't check it at the door. Don't be shy to bring yourself to work. What you will learn in the episode: What is 'reverse mentoring'? What Unilever is doing to help their people find their purpose Why do companies need to focus on purpose? What learning looks like at Unilever and how it has evolved over the last 25 years How to create a culture of curiosity and hunger to learn at work Contact: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timmunden/

Corporate culture is really hard to define, but I think it can be defined as the side effects of working for your organization. Take the example of some well-known prescription drugs that are out on the market today. You see advertisements for them on TV and they list off a huge list of potential side effects that could happen to you as a result of taking the medicine. Some side effects include hair loss, weight gain, bleeding from the eyes or even death. You may sit there and watch those commercials and think, who would take these medicines when they have all of these potential side effects. But the fact is, many of us experience these same side effects from the organization we work for. Due to work stress, burnout, bad leaders etc… we experience hair loss, weight gain, arguments with our spouses and sometimes even death. The question I pose to executives is, if I were to bottle up what it's like to work at your organization into a pill form, would you swallow it? If the answer is no, how can you expect your employees to swallow that pill if you aren't willing to? If you are not willing to swallow that pill, you have to ask yourself why not and what can we do to fix it. How can you create an organization where you yourself would swallow that pill?

Welcome to another episode of The Future of Work Podcast. With this week being a holiday week in the States, the format for this episode is a little bit different. Instead of the usual format where I interview one guest every episode, for this week's episode we are going to hear clips from multiple past guests on the topic of Big Data and Analytics. You will hear from the Chief Learning Officer at SAP, the CTO of Dell EMC's Services in their Big Data Practice, the Global Head of People Analytics at PayPal, the President and CEO of Humanyze and others today. I get a lot of questions about this topic, so I hope that this episode is helpful, interesting and motivating and I hope it will inspire you to think about how you can leverage these concepts and ideas inside of your organization. What You Will Learn In This Episode: How to define Big Data How to start using People Analytics in your organization How companies like Humanyze use sensors to gather data in real time and how companies leverage that data Important tips, tricks and advice on how to use the data you gather How to use data and analytics to track retention and attrition

Elena Donio has been Chief Executive Officer of Axiom Global, Inc. since November 2016. Prior to this role, Donio served as President of Concur Technologies, Inc., from 2014 to 2016. She has also served as a Senior Manager at Deloitte & Touche and as a Senior Consultant at Andersen Consulting (Accenture). She holds BA in Economics from University of California, San Diego. Axiom is the global leading alternative legal services provider. With over 2,000 employees across three continents, they provide talent and technology to help legal departments adapt to a demanding new era. More than half of the Fortune 100 use Axiom to deliver legal work. What is the role of a CEO? Donio's time is mostly allocated around communication. They have a distributed workforce, 1400 attorneys around the world. They have 15 offices; in addition, many work in home offices, or at client sites. She makes it a practice to think about how to make sure at a leadership level that people understand the organization's priorities. Donio and other leaders at the company make sure they have listening posts up everywhere, so can hear the vibe. Axiom has some unique workplace practices including company-wide meetings – called a huddle. They have huddles 5 or 6 times a year. They live stream them across the company, feature interesting things going on in different departments, do fireside chats, and find that the leadership learns from the questions. The company also hosts trivia nights, happy hours, and pride month. Their offices have open floor plans, lots of orange, great art and books everywhere. But they are not big on huge employee perks. Donio says, "I really believe that the highest performers are people that have really rich and full lives. And so the idea isn't to reward people to be in and sitting at a desk all day long". What is it like being a female CEO? Donio says she feels that she hit the jackpot at Concur. She was surrounded by people that believed in her. She also had family that encouraged her along the way and it gave her enough courage to take on the challenge. She also found that at times throughout her career, the people at the top were people she did not want to emulate. They did not have a family or outside life. But there were a few moments in her career that she saw it was possible. Advice for those lower level employees to broach a work/life balance? Donio's advice for lower level employees who want to change their work/life balance is to understand that the managers around you may not have the life experience to create the right kind of environment, so you need to initiate those conversations. Be open and honest with your leaders. The solution may not be as crazy to achieve as you think. As a manager, sit down and understand what people are trying to solve for. Ask, where do you need to see change in your life? Are you looking for more time for child? More time for self? Do you feel guilty for working so much? You will find that it is usually more than one thing. Then get tactical. What would be sustainable? Would work from home on Fridays be enough? Saying no to a new project? Get specific. It can be simple pivots and shifts, it doesn't have to be momentous. Then work with managers to be creative. Things you will learn: Aspects of being a female and CEO How to deal with tough situations The function of AI in law practice Why huge perks aren't a focus for Axiom The story behind the red folder that helped Elena make the decision to move from Concur to Axiom Contact: LinkedIn Axiomlaw.com

Why is it that we are so shocked when companies shut down or are slow to adapt to change? We shouldn't be surprised, because we create organization that do what they are supposed to do. We as humans are good at building things that do what they are supposed to do. We have clear intentions when we build or create something like a car engine, a computer or an office building and we make sure they are built to fulfill their intended purposes. We also build organizations. But a lot of times we seem shocked and surprised when an organization fails or is too slow to adapt or faces major challenges. We look at companies like Kodak or Tower Records, for example, and see how they disappeared or we look at United and see the major issues they are facing. These things shouldn't surprise us because we create organizations that do what they are supposed to do. Organizations are built to not anticipate the future or to not withstand change. If you want hierarchies to be flattened or managers that act more like coaches and mentors, you have to build your organization with those things in mind. The thing that you build is the outcome that you should expect to get. We need to think about the structure differently; structure comes first, outcomes come second.

Jeffrey Puritt serves as the President and CEO of TELUS International, Inc. Puritt has international experience in communications and technology sectors including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, strategic planning, corporate reorganizations and asset and contract management. He joined TELUS Communications Inc. in 2001 and served various positions including Vice President of Mergers & Acquisitions at TELUS. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from York University in 1984 and a Bachelor of Laws degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1987. TELUS International is a subsidiary of TELUS, a national telecommunications company in Canada. TELUS International provides multilingual customer service outsourcing and digital IT services to global clients. Clients include corporations in travel and hospitality, financial services and fintech, consumer electronics and gaming, telecommunications, and healthcare industries. TELUS International is found in 10 countries with over 30,000 employees. When it comes to trends in the future of leadership in the next 5-10 years Puritt says competition for talent is more fierce than the competition for customers and so leaders need to figure out how to be an employer of choice, a destination of choice for talent. Puritt isn't overly concerned about AI. He says, "I don't see it as a concern. Perhaps 30% of our business interactions are basic exchanges between customers and business. These types of interactions can be done better by bots or some other automation. For example, reset passwords. The other 70% are not ripe for automation. They are more complex and will need human support." He believes that the growing complexity of our world will require increasing support that can interact with technology and yet also interact with humans What skills will leaders need in the future? You will not attract talent if your style is command and control. Training needs to reflect the desires of Millennials in order to retain them. Leaders will need to be more aware and mindful of people's feelings and background and their perspectives They will also need to recognize on all the new trends around technology. These will transform our world. What you will learn in this episode: Why perks are critical to acquiring talent What it's like to work at TELUS International How Jeffrey makes tough choices Perspectives on building culture in sites around the world Jeffrey's views on the future of leadership Creative recruiting practices at universities Contact: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypuritt