In the most recent episode of Hustle and Flowchart, we welcomed Robert Glazer to talk about his new book, "Rethinking Two Weeks' Notice," and related themes surrounding business, leadership, and personal core values. Our conversation ranged from the logistics of employment transitions to the importance of understanding oneself to be a better leader. We also touched on hot topics like remote work, AI technology, and setting the right foundation for team communication. Let's dive into the key points covered in this insightful episode.

Transitioning Away from the 2-Week Notice Concept

Robert explains that the traditional 2-week notice is outdated and not practical for employers or employees. The idea is rooted in respecting and responsibly communicating an employee's departure, but it often falls short in practice. Instead, Robert proposes an "Open Transition Program," where employees can be transparent about their intentions to leave early on, allowing both parties to make smoother transitions. This program encourages honest conversations, giving employers time to find replacements and providing employees an opportunity to leave without burning bridges.

Robert addresses common objections, such as the fear that employees who announce their departure might become disengaged or untrustworthy. He argues that these concerns are mitigated by having real conversations early. If employees are transparent about their feelings and plans, it can actually foster a more trusting and supportive environment. This proactive approach can help companies avoid the sudden upheaval that often comes with the last-minute two-week notice.

Key Points and Takeaways:

• The traditional 2-week notice is not effective in today’s employment landscape.
• Open Transition Programs encourage transparency and smoother transitions.
• Early, honest conversations can prevent problems and foster trust.

Personal Core Values and Their Impact on Leadership

Robert spoke about his upcoming book focused on personal core values, which he describes as the ultimate decision-making tool. He emphasizes that leaders need to understand their own core values to align their actions and decisions with them, thus becoming more authentic and efficient leaders. This can significantly impact how they run their businesses, interact with their teams, and make decisions under pressure.

Personal core values stem from deep-rooted experiences and feelings, often linked to one's childhood. Robert shared that understanding these values can provide clarity about past career choices and life decisions. It also helps in making future decisions that are more aligned with one's true self, leading to greater job satisfaction and effectiveness as a leader.

Key Points and Takeaways:

• Personal core values guide decision-making and leadership style.
• Understanding one's values can lead to better career and life decisions.
• Leaders need to be authentic and aligned with their core values.

The Importance of Open Communication in Teams

Robert and I discussed methods to foster open communication within teams. Open and honest dialogue can build a trusting environment. For instance, teams can incorporate exercises like sharing highs and lows or providing direct yet kind feedback. Such practices encourage vulnerability and the sharing of personal experiences, which can strengthen team cohesion and collaboration.

One effective method Robert shared was initiating meetings with open-ended questions like "How's it going?" rather than direct questions about work. This can help uncover underlying issues affecting performance, whether they are personal or professional. Leaders should model this behavior to set the tone for the rest of the team.

Key Points and Takeaways:

• Open communication builds trust within teams.
• Team exercises can encourage vulnerability and honesty.
• Leaders should model open communication to set the tone.

Embracing Technology and AI in the Workplace

Robert emphasized the importance of adopting technology and AI to stay relevant and efficient. He pointed out that while it's essential to understand and utilize tools like ChatGPT for productivity, it’s equally important to not over-rely on them. Maintaining a balance is crucial to avoid getting swept up in technological hype while still leveraging AI's benefits to improve work efficiency.

He also touched on how AI can assist in various tasks, like editing and creating study guides. It’s important to experiment and find ways these tools can complement and enhance one’s work, but human oversight and critical thinking remain indispensable.

Key Points and Takeaways:

• Understand and utilize AI tools, but maintain a balance.
• AI can improve productivity, but should not replace human oversight.
• Experiment with technology to find effective solutions.

Preparation for Real-Life Challenges

Robert shared his views on preparing for real-life challenges, including how to instill resilience in younger generations. The modern approach often involves removing obstacles for children, but Robert advocates for teaching them to navigate challenges themselves. He believes struggles and difficulties are essential for growth and preparing kids to handle real-world situations.

This principle applies to business as well. Leaders should not aim to shield their teams from all difficulties but rather equip them with the skills and mindset to overcome challenges. This prepares them to be more resilient and adaptive in the face of unforeseen problems.

Key Points and Takeaways:

• Teach the next generation to navigate challenges rather than removing obstacles.
• Struggles and difficulties are essential for growth.
• Equip teams with skills to handle real-world situations.

External Resources Mentioned:

• Robert Glazer's website: robertglazer.com
• Substack: Friday Forward
• Grab a copy of "Rethinking Two Weeks' Notice"

In summary, this episode with Robert Glazer provided invaluable insights into modern employment practices, the importance of understanding personal core values, fostering open communication in teams, and wisely embracing AI and technology. By implementing these strategies, business leaders and employees alike can create more dynamic, resilient, and supportive work environments. Robert's wisdom and experience offer a roadmap to better leadership and personal fulfillment.

The traditional two week notice is killing companies.

But it's not for the reason you think.

So today I have Robert Glazer on the podcast.

He's the founder of a global marketing empire and a wall

street journal bestselling author.

He's revealing today that this respectful practice of giving two

weeks to leave a company like an employee or anyone on your team.

That it's actually destroying workplace relationships and

companies are losing a ton of money because of lost productivity.

And it's actually something Europeans, think we're pretty nuts

for keeping this, this ritual.

So, uh, the, the whole thing is that there's a counter-intuitive

approach that Robert's been teaching and implementing in his company

and others around the world.

And you gotta hear what it is in the way that he goes about it.

So you're not in this situation and you save a bunch of money and time

and help people out in the process.

So let's get into it.

Chat with Mr.

Robert Glazer.

All right, Robert, we're doing this.

I'm happy.

We made the time.

We got to think, uh, you know, good old friend, Charles Bird

for making this happen, super connector, got to shout him out,

you know, uh, how you doing today?

I know you're out in

I'm, I'm good.

We're, uh, we're, we're, we're getting close to, you know, the

holiday break, which is always my favorite time of year, because

it's the one time where when I break, the world is also breaking

and I don't get any emails.

So

Do you normally break at that time of year?

that's

There's plenty of times where you can take a week off and

you come back to 400 emails.

I, my email goes out to almost nothing over

Christmas week, so I love it.

Love it.

Well, you probably have the system you've dialed that in.

I'm sure, you know, over the years, well, we got connected, uh, you

know, from Charles saying, you know, Charles has been on the podcast

before, and the guy always selects great people that I should know,

and then I should share with others.

And.

He, he introduced us because of this book that, that just got released

recently called rethinking the two week re Rethinking Two Weeks Notice.

And you know, it's done really well.

And it was immediately a concept.

I was like, wait, yeah, the two week notice concept, like we've

all experienced it in some way,

we've all been on one side of it.

In fact, the book starts with, imagine you, there's an, I won't get

this correct, but you know, you're, you're sitting in your office

working, your employee comes in, they close the door and they say,

Hey Jody, have a, have a minute.

And like, you're like, you're hard to say.

And everyone's been through that conversation.

Like, you know what it's like?

And it never feels good either way, either side of the table, you

know, So why, I mean, yeah, two weeks.

It's so, cause ever since I started to job, you had a job at Burger

King back in the day, two week notice, you know, I knew that when

I was moving on up, got to give that two weeks, but it's like,

The why is interesting.

I've studied this pretty extensively.

Like most people, even Europeans, they don't understand.

Like it's not a real thing.

Like you are an employment at will in the U S you

can leave at any time.

You can leave on one minute's notice somewhere along the

way it became known as sort of the respectful, responsible

thing to give two weeks notice.

There are plenty and managers and leaders out there, you know, if

they have a, Number two, and they've worked with them for five years.

Like that doesn't feel respectful or helpful or anything.

So there's, and then there's people in Europe who are

like, I don't understand.

We have to give three months notice and it's statutory.

It's an on both sides.

So it's been around for a while.

The problem is, I'm always fascinated by cognitive dissonance.

You know, our ability to hold two different things in

our head at the same time.

We know that we're not in a market of lifetime employment

on the side of our brain.

We know there's no pensions.

People aren't going to work for our company for 10 or 15 years.

If you go through a list of the best companies in America, maybe

the average 10 years, two to three years, given that the bulk

of their employees are probably in their twenties and thirties.

So, so we intuitively know that when people go to leave, we

act more like it's a marriage.

Breakup than it is like the end of a sports contract, which is

really more what it should be like.

And so you have this hiding and lying and doctor appointments

because people don't know any other way to do it.

Uh, that's just sort of what they were told by their

forefathers and mothers.

Yeah, that's a good point.

And it's like you relate this to a, it should be

more like a sports contract.

It's usually two to three year deals ish.

And by the way, they should be evaluated, right?

Like we'd all be better if you signed a two year deal

and it's coming to the end.

I'm like, Joe, do I want to resign this?

Are you getting a raise?

Are you getting a pay cut?

What, you know, do, do, is it time to just.

Like we got a rookie and we want to try them, you know, instead.

So, but we're acting more like it's a marriage.

Uh, and so, you know, it is, which is not the right analogy.

So, so it's, it, it'd be the equivalent of if I said someone

just walked in your relationship, let me not a marriage.

You're dating someone.

They're like, look, I'm moving in two weeks.

I'm moving in with someone new and I'm going to a different city.

Like that's not going to feel so good.

No.

Yeah.

Like, what did I miss?

Why did we not

In that context, people are like, yeah, that's ridiculous.

I'm like, it's not that different than like, I've been working

for you and smiling every day and I've been securing a new

job for six months, right?

It's not that the only difference is the expectation, right?

That, that, so

Well, so how, how do you change that?

Like, you know, there, there's the two week concept.

So we got that and it's on both sides.

So I guess as someone being the employer or the higher,

or, you know, the one with the business, um, yeah.

what's what's the

So it's on, the onus is on the, there's a lot of

disclaimers with this book.

The first disclaimer is you don't read this book and go into your,

you know, company that fires people every time they say they're unhappy

and say, look, I want to talk.

I'm a little unhappy.

Like, so this is, this is really the, the employer needs

to say, we're changing the stigma around how people leave.

And I advocate for this concept called open

transition programs where.

Like when you want to leave, you can go through a period of

transition again, back to the sports analogy, someone's finishing

their free agent contract and you know, they're not signing with you.

They still play the game and they show up.

They haven't signed the new contract yet, but like they're

an adult, like they, you know, they're not tanking at the end.

They, you know, there's repercussions to that.

So this notion of, Hey, you can start a discussion.

It is totally safe.

And we said that to our employees when we started the program.

If you want to talk about.

I'm not feeling great about this.

I want to do something different.

Can I explore a different role?

I'm not saying, you know, we'll go on forever.

Like, but, but, but we are not going to walk you to the door tomorrow.

And actually with that information, we have a lot better chance

of creating a better outcome.

We might figure out it's not solvable.

And so you get to start, go looking for your next job

and winding down this job.

And we kind of do a rec and start hiring.

And if you're in a professional services business, I always like to

double click on this cause we are.

And you have a lot of service for like, what's the thing that annoys

you the most about a service firm?

What's the thing that makes you want to usually fire them the most

when you have, you know, on the

flip

I mean, it's gotta be communication is one of the biggest things.

If there's not good communication,

I'm like,

and what about when the person you love your account manager like

suddenly is gone like two weeks

later

That's even more, that's worse.

Trust,

well, yeah, so the number one thing people hate is when

they're the person they're dealing with like It's constantly

leaving and moving, right?

And this is how it plays out in reality.

If Joe is at my company and gives two weeks notice and the client

loves him, I have to go in there and Joe has to be like, look, I'm

actually leaving in two weeks.

You're going to have a new manager.

I don't know who it is.

Someone you don't know is going to get on the phone with you

or otherwise, like not good.

Joe enters our open transition program because he started

a conversation or we started a conversation saying, Joe,

your performance has been like really bad for a while.

Like Do you want to do the work on this?

Do you want to be doing something?

And Joe says, you know what?

I really just don't want to be doing sales or account management.

Can you, can you, can I, can I sort of start the

process of, uh, of leaving?

Well, what would happen was, you know, we'd, we'd grab Sarah or

hire Sarah and we'd start bringing Sarah to the first four or five

meetings and slowly Sarah would take over all the calls and build the

reporter client and then somewhere in six weeks, Joe's going to say to

the client, you know, I'm actually going to be leaving in a couple

of weeks and you've got to know Sarah and she's going to take over.

That's a totally different.

Experience for the client,

So it's kind of like you're shat.

Yeah.

There's communication happening well in advance and it's, and

it's, it's kind of an expectation of the company is that this

is how we operate, right?

Yeah, and one of the objections, I have a whole chapter on objection

handling in this objection to me, like we'll be like, this

won't work and it won't work.

Like, so one of them is, look, we can't have this person stay and

work like they're already toxic and it's already a mess and otherwise.

And I would say that, yes, that could be the case.

But, but for this person, but what the, the yeah.

Let's say, like, I'm firing Joe.

Let's pick on Joe.

I'm firing Joe today in December.

We're recording this probably around January, like, and we're

all pissed at each other now.

The early signs of the problem with this were probably in March, right?

And Joe's a little disengaged.

His work isn't great.

I could put Joe on a pip, or what I'm advocating for is like

real conversations where the manager sits down like, Joe,

Your work's been like, like definitely below par recently.

You kind of bit like what, what's going on?

And they have the psychological safety to do that.

And they have their relationship.

And I talk about, if you dig, this is called digging

to the root in the book.

And if you dig to the root, there's usually three.

There's three common routes, like things that the employee needs to

change, things that the employer can change if they want to, and

things that are not going to change.

So Joe might say to this conversation, You know what?

I lost my child care and I've been like exhausted

and stressed and I can make.

Okay, well, now I know this like.

Let's try to work around it.

You're gonna have to fix this.

You're gonna have to get child care and do the work.

But we can we can mess with your hours.

And like, I understand that this is sort of an external thing

that's impacting your work, right?

Joe might come in and say, Look, I couple things he could say.

I transferred.

Into sales last year and I really don't love it.

I'd like to go back to marketing or look, I know the last three people

you hired or paid more than me.

And I was promised a raise and this like months ago.

And so I'm just really frustrated.

And the company might be like, Oh yeah, we screwed this up.

Like Joe missed the cycle.

And so we fixed that.

Right.

So now in these first two cases, like we fixed their

different problems though.

We tend to.

The performance improvement plan is like giving a Tylenol that

everyone has a headache when like one person might be dehydrated.

One might be allergic to gluten and one might have a brain tumor, right?

There are different source reasons that they have a headache.

So in this first one, I figured out an external thing.

That's the problem.

We worked on it.

The second one is an internal or Joe might say, look, I'm missing office

and this is a remote only company.

And I might say, Joe, We're not opening offices anytime soon.

So why don't we help you go work at a company that has offices?

So Joe's misperformance was man, it was showing up in the results,

but like why it's happening plays a big part on whether I could, Joe's

gone from green to yellow, like, can I get him back to green either

on his way internally or out the door once he's on like red, red

and cause if I let this go on, then let's say I never found out that it

was your childcare, then I'm like, Yelling at you and get your lazy.

And then you're like, I mean, then like, by then we just

get to a point where the whole thing is unrecoverable.

The whole basis of this program is shifting that timeline

way earlier to the early warning detection systems.

And you'd be surprised how many times a real conversation, someone's

like, look, I just don't want to be in client service anymore.

And you're like, that's okay.

So why don't you start going to looking for a job

elsewhere and we'll start looking for your replacement.

Yeah.

So what, how, how early is too early, you know, to

have these conversations or at least like set the,

I think you should set this as you hire people.

Like I think not like, but you should, as you hire people,

you should, um, you should say, look, this is the way

people leave our organization.

By the way, it makes it like, if they made a mistake, they're going

to feel a lot better that like, there's a good way out of this.

So.

When you want to leave, this is how you leave, you know, just

so you know, and we have this program when you see a change in

performance or performance isn't being met, you should try to dig

in also just in regular check ins.

Like, how's it going?

Are you happy?

You're liking going to do engage.

And look, a lot of people will say one thing, but if you're

good manager and good, you will notice that their facial

expression, or have you ever asked someone about a reference?

And like, Joe, what do you think about Steve?

And they're like, Uh, and I'm like, you don't have

to answer the question.

I, I, I, I'm good.

I got it.

Like, whatever's coming out is not a raving endorsement.

Right.

So you say someone like, how's work?

Are you liking it?

Are you engaged in like, well, you know, and so like, that's

worth digging in because that's probably the early signs of a,

uh, of a, of a bigger problem.

Yeah.

Well, I was just creeping on your elevate podcast.

I saw you had Robert Cialdini on there.

I had him on my show years ago now.

Awesome.

But

my, like 15 books on my desk over here that has sort of

been my like mainstay books.

sent me one of them and signed it.

I was like, ah, this is cool.

Uh, but I'm thinking of just the psychological part right there.

It's like, there's different things that you want to pick up

on in conversation, in words, in tonality, in body language, you

know, it's like, and a lot of us are remote, so I'm sure it gets a

little tough, you know, with this kind of remote work culture that

I believe you built your companies

we're we're remote.

And look, this goes to my one and one.

So I the way I open a lot of things is like, hey, like, how's it going?

And that's a very open question.

That's not how's work or, you know, and a lot of times like I get

an answer like, You know, sucks.

I'm fighting with my ex wife again, and someone who's going

through, and that's what they want to talk about for 10 minutes.

And so like, we do that.

So these open ended questions give you, and then I might have thought

that this person was disengaged and not paying attention this week

or elsewhere, but really like, they just have a personal thing

going on that's like, In their way.

And maybe I could help them with that.

And then so then maybe like they're a little more

engaged it at work, right?

And obviously, like, if that's going on every day, that's a different

Yes,

I, I mentioned before, I'm a big student and fan of, I don't know,

fan of, but like, I'm always looking, I just think cognitive

dissonance is, is so interesting, causes so many problems.

And one of the core, I haven't, it's a spinoff of cognitive dissonance.

I haven't named this principle yet, but I'd like some psychologist

to do it for me is that.

Like this is the problem managers have.

So Joe's not, we'll keep picking on Joe.

Cause it's easy.

Joe's on my team and Joe's like a really good guy and he's on my sales

team, but he's at 50 percent of quota for four quarters in a row.

Right.

And so I'm like, I got to do a bad thing to Joe.

Like Joe's like, Joe's got to go, but I like Joe.

And so this brain does not know what to do with this.

So it has to solve the dissonance.

So the easiest path to solve it is like.

I'm going to make Joe out to be a bad person so that when I do a

bad thing, I'm the good person.

So I start being like, Oh, Joe's lazy.

He's not trying.

I've given him chances.

He's whatever.

So when I finally fired Joe, I'm like Joe deserved it.

And I'm now I'm disrespectful.

And now Joe's pissed and now he sues me.

And that's why we end up that the.

You could flip it and do it the other way.

You don't have to leaning into the relationships and having high

standards aren't mutually exclusive.

I can be like, Joe, love you.

Like, but the sales thing objectively isn't working.

We can see the numbers.

You're the lowest rep on here.

Like, what do you want to do?

Do you want to go to the sales training and do the work?

And like, I can give you a quarter or two to like,

Get up to everyone else.

But after that, my hands are tied.

Or like, do you want to do something else?

And should we look for internal or external?

Right?

Like that's the opportunity.

And if you've never tried one of these conversations,

they're actually like, people don't want to do a bad job.

They know when they're doing a bad job.

Like they're actually really refreshing

versus the normal process.

Yeah, it's like a check in, right?

Like, if you do these constant check ins, I do it with my team, you know.

Pure.

check in.

Right.

It's not a perfunctory one.

Yeah.

Well, and I think that's the thing is, is inherently we

have this work relationship.

So we feel like we have to, Oh, how's it going?

Well, I got to talk about work.

You know, it's like, I'm not going to bring up everything

about my family or kids or, you know, haven't been sleeping.

Cause I got a one year old at home.

So,

Right.

I mean, that may be the, that may be the source of your poor performance.

Right.

That right now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's, it's interesting.

And the cognitive dissonance is a real thing.

Especially like if there is a problem that happens, we can choose

to, you know, go down the path of how did, how did this happen?

Yeah.

Like

You're trying to close the gap.

What your brain is always doing is it can't hold these two

incongruent things at the same time.

So it has to close the gap.

So it's either like, I'm going to do a bad thing.

So you're a bad person.

I'm actually saying, let's lean it the other way.

Like I'm a good person.

So, but, but I, I also, because I'm a good person, I

can't let Joe continue to fail and let down the whole team.

So I'm going to try to like lean into the relationship and

see if we can get a better.

Cause Joe's a, Joe's a good guy and he's trying, but it's

also not fair to let him suck.

Like, you

Yeah, And there's got to be a different shift or

something to find the root.

Of course, it sounds like dig to the root, which I think is a

super cool thing, because either on the employee, the employer,

or you just can't change it.

But you might as well talk about it, right?

exactly.

Yeah.

and you mentioned safety, because with this whole thing, and I know a

root human need for all of us is a sense of safety wherever we're at.

Right.

With this discussion, to me, it seems like that breeds safety

or at least this feeling of trust within an organization.

Yeah.

If you start having these conversations and people find out

that like, Oh, like, There's no negative consequence to it, right?

I mean, psychological safety is just is it's used a lot these days.

But like the definition for me is it's trusted scale.

So if you and I have trust and a one on one thing, I walk into a team

and I just sense that there's trust.

I can speak truth to power.

I can say, Joe, like, I think that's a terrible idea.

We're gonna lose our money and like no one's gonna know.

Be like, Oh my God, you can't say that in front of him.

Like, yeah, I, I, I, I always hate to say this.

I wish I had a better line, but, but having, it's a little like

the line on pornography where someone says, I can't define

it, but I know it when I see it.

Like I've been in company, you just see it in companies that have

psychological safety, you, you, you can see it, you can feel it.

But it's very hard to, like, put your finger on it.

Is it like a culture thing?

Or is it more than that?

yeah, it's part of the culture.

I think it's the core tenet of good cultures.

Um, but I think the two biggest components are, like,

vulnerability and feedback are pretty normalized, right?

I was, I was, I was Asked to give a keynote speak to peach to a company

for their leadership offsite.

And they invited me to join the meeting in the morning

before I was speaking.

And so they all went around and they did highs and lows, uh, you know,

and there was like a lot of tears and people sharing like some pretty

deep personal lows that they had.

And that was sort of my first tip off.

And then the second time they did a, Hey, what are the elephants

in the room starting our offsite?

And people said stuff and the CEO was right there and they

were pretty, you know, honest.

I was like, God, this team's going to have no problem.

Um, With their planning.

And then what they were doing later on was trying to do five and

10 year organizational planning.

And so to do that, you had to know, and they were like, look,

we're not sure that we're all going to be in these seats.

You know, we're going to plan out the seats.

And they went around and asked people like, Joe, how long do you

see yourself wanting to do this?

And you're like, I see myself here another, like Five years.

Someone's like 10 years.

So they were even being honest at like how long they wanted

to be at the company, but they needed that for the planning.

And it was not a surprise to me after watching that opening in

the morning that when you got into the other stuff that they had no

problem having these conversations,

That's cool.

Yeah.

That's just those open, like you said, vulnerable conversations

that welcomes feedback and open questions, you know, and it's not

like it's one, one sided either.

Those are the two ways.

The Joe Hari window is this concept.

Those are the two ways you can.

Create more vulnerability, right?

Is is to be accepting of feedback and showing that like, give me the

feedback and it'd be sharing and more vulnerable because it's sort

of like it opens up the windows of what other people know about you and

what you sort of know about them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is there, um, is there a process or protocol you'd

recommend people to follow?

Like that sounds like, you know, in that team's meeting,

it was like maybe part of their weekly meeting, for instance.

I mean, yes.

And I talked about that.

You can add simple questions into check ins like again, high and low.

What was, what was the big thing from the weekend?

And the, but the key thing is that the leader always goes first and

whatever the leader says, we'll set the tone for the whole meeting.

I was with a facilitator years ago who showed us this.

He took six people in our group and he went, I'm going to watch

my, I'm going to do an exercise.

And he said, all right, we're all going to do something.

We don't know about each other.

And he's like, I was a fiddle player growing up and everyone went around.

And the second time he was like, My ex, my stepdad was a raging

alcoholic and I spent most of my childhood at night trying to

figure out who he was going to hit and who I had to distract.

And you know, otherwise, and then everyone, he didn't, then

everyone went around again, like totally different level of stories.

Right.

So, you know, we've, we've done that even in a quarterly meeting,

we were like, what's something that like, You would like a mulligan

on which is a golf term for do over, you know, from last quarter.

And if a leader steps in there, it's like, man, I just blew the

call with this partner because I was unprepared and I rushed into

it and retrospect like that is like so empowering for than other

people to Share similar stories.

So it's just these little, look, you can do offsite

stuff and trust building.

Maybe you can introduce these little personal segments into

your regular calls and meetings.

That's, that's, that's one way to do that.

I'm just thinking of like how that that changes everything, just all

communication, even not just within, you know, the leaders there, but

within the community are the team

Yeah.

I mean, you know, that that just fosters just a sense of

trust with everyone, you know,

I, I don't, I don't love using examples of myself, but I was

doing this core value discovery.

and look, I, I'm the founder of the company.

I'm not as involved anymore, but I do a lot of our leadership training.

So these are a lot of our new up and coming employees.

They haven't met me before in like.

I understand, like I think I'm a kind of a normal, approachable

person, but it's intimidating.

It's like the founder of the company and whatever.

And when, when I do this session and I'm talking about, look, when we're

doing this core value stuff, you've gotta think about your childhood and

things that were formative for you.

They, because in 99% of cases, like it, it, it's

why this is a value for you.

And I'm like, here's my deal.

Like I was a.

Huge underachiever.

It was super embarrassing for me.

So I solved that by being an overachiever.

It created these other sets of problems.

And this is kind of why, you know, this is important

to me in these values.

And I think, like, I mean, I've told that so many times,

like, I don't even I don't even tell you to people.

I don't know.

At this point, I think it's pretty surprising for people.

And then the stuff that they shared was was I actually could

really help like two people shared stories about pretty formative

childhood experience that were definitive to their values and

showed up in their leadership.

Like you just can't have that kind of experience.

And I, I was able to show them how it helped.

It how it influenced their leadership style and, and why

it wasn't a good or a bad, but like they had to understand that

because it was really gonna, and, and that was helpful for them.

But had I not set the table for that, they probably

wouldn't have shared that and I couldn't have helped them.

And so that's sort of how it, how it works.

I wasn't looking to use it against them.

I was looking to.

To help them, you know, with it.

Uh huh.

Well, especially if, well, for one with your company, if you're not

the one leading the day to day, you want to have other leaders or

at least people that are conveying that sense of, uh, you know,

culture, trust, communication that you're after anyway,

Yeah, exactly.

and.

you mentioned the whole good values.

Like I know you're, you're working on a whole, another book and you

have multiple books out there.

So definitely go,

go

I love, what I lack in quality, I make up in quantity, so that's fine.

It's okay.

You're getting it done.

So like personal goals, core values, uh, not personal goals, but personal

core values make up, like you just said, leadership, potential, or,

or at least qualities and ways that people interact with each other.

Um, I guess help me define that, like the concept around that.

And cause this definitely relates to what we've been

Yeah.

A lot of people are like, look, I have values, but

they can't name them.

Right.

And so if you can't name them, you probably know when they're

broken, you know, when you're in flow, you, you can feel them my,

my, the way I say is like, look, if I took a really nice sports

car and I drove it through a tunnel and the tunnel had walls

and a yellow line, I turn off.

The yellow line is your, is your values.

So you're going to, the car is going to drift past the yellow line.

It's going to hit the wall.

You're going to go, Oh, you know, bad.

We're going to go to the middle.

I'm going to hit the other wall.

I'm probably going to get out the other side, but that car is going

to be like banged up as hell.

Right?

If you turn on the lights and I see where the yellow

lines are, like I stay.

In the right lane.

And so to me, like personal core values are just the fundamental

best decision making tool that you have in your life.

And I talk about the big three of your vocation, your

community and your relationship.

And if you don't make those decisions in a way that's aligned

with your values, they have a very low chance of working out.

So when we're when we're trying to sort of do leadership development,

one of my things like, Look, you got to understand this was

this was the unlock for me.

Um, That you are going to be the best leader if you are authentic

and you got to understand yourself and you got to understand the

strengths and weaknesses that you bring to the table and, and

you're not changing, but there's a lot of baggage there and I'm,

and I can't give you the number of examples like of someone like

there are leaders for whom trust is paramount and like their core value

is relationships based on trust.

If I look at those people and I say, let me ask you, and I,

when I, once we do the work and we figure out that their value

or their why is trust, does that Your focus on trust come from

a violation of trust somewhere in your life in your childhood

and they don't have to answer.

I don't say I won't ask you what it is.

And normally the tear that's rolling out of the eye or the, you know,

facial like tells me that there is some deep pain and they're

not going to change that, right?

Because over years they've had a small group of friends.

It's hard to get in the circle or otherwise.

So that it can work for you as a leader.

If you say, Hey, trust is really important to me on my team.

Um, you know, if you miss meetings, if you show up late,

if I can't find you, these are all things that lose trust.

The promise for that leader, when that trust happens or those

things that it's triggering like that nuclear, like trust is kind

of a life and death thing because the last thing that happened is.

My dad left or whatever, whatever it was that sort of did that.

So it can be a pro, it can be a con.

It all depends on if you know it.

What, what, what's fascinating is these trust leaders that

we've had a few of them over time, they were basically like

half their team was in jail.

The key was thrown out.

Like they had no idea, like, but when you really act, they're

like, yeah, like, and you can hear it from the HR department.

They were like, this person's always just so hot or cold on people.

And they're like, Irredeemable or they love them too much and

like that's the problem like it can really work for them But to

work for them they have to know it and they have to articulate it So

their team's like look if I can't find you if you're late for things

or whatever Like that is kind of irrecoverable for me as a leader So

I'm just telling you that up front so that we know how to work together

Ooh, that's huge, man.

I can't even, I doubt most people are approaching things that way with

No, no, this is this is Look, this is seriously deep work.

It is the most impactful thing I've ever did.

I love doing it with people and leaders because I think when they

get it, they tend to have this like Just like explosion of, they start

looking back at their whole life and suddenly everything makes sense.

Why I hated that job, why that relationship didn't work out.

Like, like again, they were, they were that car

that was hitting the wall.

You know, the feeling of driving in the lane, but when you have

these four things in front of you that says like, You know,

respect and authenticity are incredibly important to me.

Long term orientation, like making things better.

Like you're able to look and be like, you know what?

They're asking me to do a job where it's a short term job.

I'm not going to be able to make anything better.

It's transactional, not relational.

Like this is going to suck for me.

Like, like this is not,

this is not going to work for me.

In fact, when I have people do that backwards looking lens

afterwards and like, what's the worst job, worst boss, they're able

to almost look and be like, look, this was, This was everything I

hate at my, you know, at my core.

Yeah.

Wow.

And yeah, looking back, I mean, I, I'm just assuming

that's probably the

Yeah.

You start having all these like firework thing goes off.

Cause it's like, you get the stencil and then you start

taking the stencil back to high school and whatever.

And this, and you're like,

They look eerily similar.

Yeah.

Like the pattern is really clear.

Like, you know, like.

Given autonomy, like it was great and, and, and, you know, we did

this work for someone and, and they, they came back to me with their list

and they're like, you know, I just exited like a long term relationship

and looking at, I didn't know why, but in looking at this list, it's

really clear to me now, right?

Maybe that would have happened for them three to six months earlier.

Like whatever it was, that person couldn't give them like

the thing that was basically most important to them.

You can be that my wife and I are not the same person.

We don't, we do things differently.

We have different activities.

You can be, you can be different, but if you think about a

relationship or a special report, you have to be aligned on the

big things like when it comes to our family and our kids

and the important to see, like we're always philosophically.

On the same page.

That doesn't mean like, you know, she likes tennis.

I liked it.

Like, like the, the, that stuff's not values oriented.

That's sort of hobbies and activities and that sort of stuff.

Yeah.

Well, so, so the values, like some, it's interesting, you

have relationships, you know, a lot of people, if you have

partners in a relation are in your business, that is, it's kind

of, it's a similar kind of thing.

I've had partners over the years on a whole bunch of companies.

Each of your personal values needs to somehow dot with the company's

values in order for it to work.

Bingo.

Yeah, there needs to be an overlap there.

So, yeah, I'm thinking of, uh, like a practice.

So to identify, let's say the person listening, watching is like, okay,

well, I got to get clear of my values first before I start to, you

know, ask other people of theirs.

So I'm not just thinking, oh, I'm going to adopt up some of that.

Um, yeah, for me, I've done the Jordan.

Dr Jordan Peterson has this whole self, um, oh, my gosh, the, the

self authoring program it's called.

So you go.

Back in the past and the new present and then the future, but you know,

you start in the past and that unlocked so much for me where you

go to the root of things and you

yeah, it's probably a lot of what the process that I use.

And look, I actually had to figure this out on myself for years.

And then I built a process with our team.

And then people would always ask me after my book elevate.

How do I do this?

I was like, it's not like a quick thing.

So I ended up I've developed a course, um, like over

2000 people have taken it.

It's kind of an hour.

It will really kind of give it to you, but the behavioral based

questions are designed to, uh, elicit all those historical

examples because they, they, they really do tell the story and then.

You might look at all those examples, figure out the value,

and then if you really go back, like for most of these things

they connect to, I find that most people are going back to

something in childhood and they are doubling down on something that

was very important to them, maybe overdoing it, or they are running

180 degrees away from something they, they hated or despised,

Wow.

That's all.

And yeah, it's getting to the root.

It's typically, yeah.

It's like one or a couple things, at least I've found.

Yeah.

From childhood.

Yeah.

Six years old right around.

it's not a victim.

Look, look, here's a great example.

Let's let the example of, and I use this in my book, let,

let's say that you grew up with a single parent, right?

And let's say the parent died.

The other parent died.

You grew up a single parent, this parent worked three jobs,

you know, and got this kid into college or into Harvard.

And they went on, you know, and, and having an incredible career.

Career and then they decided to develop an afterschool.

The biggest global afterschool program for kids

of single parents, right?

Why?

Because they were really lonely.

As a kid, they're not blaming the right.

This parent like did everything they could.

I think people have to look.

I'm looking for, you know, psychologists.

It's not about blame.

It's about understanding.

And we're all like, so you were lonely as a kid.

That was your lived experience.

You was doing because your parents was working three jobs

to put food on the table and get you in an Ivy League school

and put you into this position.

It doesn't change the truth for you.

And it doesn't change that.

That became, uh, The real motivation to build this program

and do a lot of good, right?

It's not like we're not looking for, like, who can we blame?

But we're looking to just understand why that person double clicks

on loneliness, you know, more than more than someone else,

you know thyself, you know, at least you don't have to

dwell on all that stuff.

Just know it, understand it.

Cool,

Understand, understand.

You probably work better in teams.

You don't want to work alone, right?

Like, like these are all, this is how it all shows up as a

40 year old leading a team of people in the workplace.

Absolutely.

It's never too late.

So yeah, I can't get that work done.

Well, I'm thinking now, uh, Robert with like technology, AI and remote

work, like, are there any trends or maybe other best practices we

should think about with, you know, I mean, with AI and technology,

there's a lot of fear people have sometimes like, am I being replaced?

How do I learn this?

I can't keep up with

yeah,

Talk about that.

Yeah.

What are your thoughts there?

my, my rule on any new thing is to not be a minimalist and

not be a maximalist, right?

So I understand chat GBT.

I use it every day.

I figured out how to make it more productive.

You know, all, all of this stuff.

Uh, I am, I am not.

And then there's a whole other camp, like, you know, everything's

going to be AI or like they set up a thing where this chat bot texts

his girlfriend in the morning and that their chat bot texts you back.

And I'm like, I don't want to live like that.

Like that's not.

Yeah.

So I want, I actually want to, I think that with all the AI, there

will actually be a huge interest in real experiences, or if it's

doing all your work, then like probably you want to invest in

campgrounds and travel things and the things that like where humans

are going to need to connect.

So I think it's important to understand these trends and, and

look, you can't afford to not.

Try chat dbt or understand what it could do.

Or if you're doing any sort of work, like it's my personal

assistant, like that I'm working with all the time.

Like, I don't, I, one of my, one of my weaknesses is

like, I can write very fast.

I'm a very slow editor and I miss spelling mistakes and stuff.

Well, boom, make sure there's no spelling problems in this right now.

You should, I have no reason to ever send an email again that

has a spelling mistake in it.

So if I didn't even play around with that, then I'd be

missing out on the innovation.

I think the everything's going to be this and go all

in with my stock portfolio.

Like, like that's, that's how bubbles get born.

And we know it tends to go to absolute fever pitch, blow up.

And then the, the, the storm more dominant,

permanent use cases come up.

Kind of like we saw with the internet stuff.

Kind of trajectory.

But remember, if it was two years ago, you were being

told if you didn't pivot your business, the blockchain, you

were going to be dead, right?

So like that fervor was almost as bad.

I mean, Long Island blockchain, the ice tea company that

renamed itself blockchain, like

Oh,

when these manias happen, it's very hard to sort out the, the sort of

reality from the, the, the bubble.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, as it pertains to teams communication,

what we're talking about here is to have open communications

about technology and how it plays a role in our day to day.

Yeah, my kids, I'm like, look, like you do not use

it to write your papers.

Don't cheat.

Don't get through it.

But, but I've, I've shown them, you can put your paper into

it and say, I'm an 11th grader and this is the assignment.

Tell me what grade you would give me and give me critical feedback.

Oh, that's cool.

That's like, so you get like a free teacher review on it.

Like, to me, that's a great way to use it and then go do the work.

Yep.

I, or ask it questions and, and help her find, you know, ask better

It can develop a study guide based on every I'm taking AP, whatever.

Here are the questions.

Like, give me a study guide, make note card.

Like, like if you're not playing with that, you're really missing

out on some, some opportunities there to save some time.

Like, but also on the flip side, look.

If we remove struggle, if we remove difficulty, like we will

have all kinds of other problems.

Like I, I'm far enough in my career.

I don't want to do some of the crap work now.

Like, but if you never have to do anything hard, that's going to have

a whole bunch of other implications.

It'll just introduce other hard things that will just

show up in your lap if

Right.

Hard things will come.

You just won't know how to deal with them.

I love the quote where we are, we are preparing

kids for the path rather.

No, we are preparing the path for the kids rather than we're

preparing kids for the path.

Like that is the problem with parenting these

That ain't gonna work out.

Yeah.

Well, Robert, like what's cause you've, you've grown.

So, you know, uh, large, uh, partnership company, what

acceleration partners, you, you, you write a newsletter every

single week, you know, it goes out to hundreds of thousands

of people podcast, like what's, um, and you know, we'll link all

that stuff in the show notes.

And, and of course you have another book coming out.

You're a machine, man.

And like, was there a tipping point?

Yeah.

Or something that got you to think like that, like, you

know, at the core values with,

Yeah.

So, so a hundred percent.

So it's actually 2013.

So I, as I've been doing speaking over the last five or 10 years,

it was about three years ago and someone was reading my bio for the

speaking and I had this revelation.

I was like, Every single thing they just listed.

In this book was after 2013 and for 2013 for me was when I

went to this leadership offsite with, with EO and it was this

sort of core value thing.

It was that I thought we were going to learn how to be better

leaders like tools and trick.

And it was like the first two days were a big mirror,

which were like, who are you?

What do you want?

What do you value?

Figure that out first and then we can talk about what kind

of leader you're going to be.

And so it was the six months after that, that I figured out my values.

The practical implication of that was I went and

changed my company's values.

I said, I'm going to double down on these things.

I made a list of things I'm going to quit because it was really clear.

I switched boards, I dumped relationships.

So for me, it was like, that was sort of the pivotal

moment of figuring out.

How to reallocate my time, even as a parent, you know,

one of the things like, look, I, I struggled in school.

I was 80 decade creative.

I would go to these parent nights and like, like, I

just, it's just torture.

Like, it's like, I can't, I'm not paying attention what they said.

I'm daydreaming.

It's like back in school.

I'm like, this doesn't make me a better parent.

Like, I like doing challenging.

I taking my kids to the rope course like that's in service of my core

values, going and sitting and And like mindlessly through this two and

a half hours, I just like stopped going to back to school night.

Like I was like, this isn't my contribution.

I'd rather like take my kid and go do a lesson with them or,

or, or do something like that.

So there were small things and they were big things, but that was

100 percent when I changed this, I said, that was sort of the cooking

with gas moment, I think for me,

Yeah, that's cool, man.

And you're noticing in times in the day to day, you know,

and, and I think with that mirror, it needs to, it's going

to shine on you at some time.

And if you choose to have it shine, you know, I mean, you

probably didn't know it was coming in that leadership training,

but, um, you know, we all have the ability to at least shine

harder than I thought it was going to be.

No kidding.

Well, um, is there, is there a best next step that you would

recommend folks to take after this?

I mean, we talked about the, the two week, um, you know,

uh, the whole gap there, but also the value side of things.

I think there's some

Yeah.

Look, if you go to, if you go to robertglaser.

com, so the Friday forward newsletter on sub stack is on there.

You can see the courses, my books.

If you, if you go to the Friday forward, a sub stack, you can

actually get the first three chapters of the book for free.

So you can read almost half the book and you're like, I'm in on this.

And I think I don't know.

It's like a 3 investment after that or something of the ebook

if it's if it's valuable.

So you can check out the newsletter and the courses on there.

Um, and I just think anyone who does that, who goes through the

12 weeks of the exercises that come on the email and doesn't

have some fundamental clarity that they can make sense on

their life, like call me like

Yeah,

it right.

Like I said, about 2000 people have done that.

It's just, there's no other scalable way than to do that work.

And it's not, it's not rocket science.

It's like other things.

It's going to ask you a bunch of these questions.

It's going to help you synthesize the answers and

pull the trends out of them.

man.

Cool, man.

Yeah.

And I love sub stack too.

So just in

Yeah.

Substack seems to be like tipping.

Like it just seems like every everyone's moving.

I getting a lot of moving signs.

Like I'm moving to substack, you know, from wherever

A lot of movies.

Well, put good thoughts out there, man.

You know, it's like blogs were the thing back in the day.

Now I feel like some stacks are, you know, trending up.

But Robert, I appreciate you, your thoughts.

And I know you've done the work.

You've thought deeply in all this stuff.

So it shows.

And, um, so thank you for your time.

This

Thanks for having me, Joe.