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The $600 Million Resignation Letter: Why 63% of CEOs Are Missing the Real Employee Risk
Episode 713rd September 2026 • Make Work Not Suck • Meteorite Media
00:00:00 00:33:45

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An employee allegedly torches a $600 million warehouse over wages and somehow that's not even the most alarming stat in this episode. Ryan and Daniel dig into why 63% of CEOs still aren't worried about employee disgruntlement, and ask the question nobody wants on the board agenda: can you actually measure dignity, or does putting it on a dashboard just make things worse?

In this episode:

  • Break down the $600 million warehouse arson and what it really says about employee disgruntlement
  • Debate whether disgruntlement belongs on a dashboard next to cybersecurity risk, or whether that instinct is the problem
  • Trade real stories: a healthcare company that lost serious revenue to one disengaged employee, a CEO/COO standoff quietly draining a growing company, and what Apple learned the hard way about squeezing people too hard
  • Walk through three fixes any leader can run this week, starting with a lunch that costs nothing but might tell you more than your last three engagement surveys combined
  • Land on the real question: are you Team Dashboard, or Team Dignity?

Key stats from this episode:

  • 37% of CEOs say employee disgruntlement is something they're actively worried about, meaning 63% aren't.
  • Global employee engagement sits at 20%, and low engagement is costing the global economy $10 trillion in lost productivity, up from $2 trillion five years ago as engagement fell from roughly 34%. (Gallup)
  • The warehouse fire caused an estimated $600 million in damage.

The Monday Morning Fix:

  1. Put a no-agenda skip-level lunch on the calendar with someone two levels below you. Ask one question: "What's the thing frustrating you right now that you don't think I know about?" Then listen, don't solve.
  2. Translate compensation, don't just communicate it. Give people the market context and the trade-offs behind their number, not just the number itself.
  3. Audit your engagement survey. If satisfaction scores are climbing while turnover and Glassdoor reviews are heading the other way, your instrument is broken.

Takeaways:

  • The staggering statistic reveals that low employee engagement is costing the global economy a colossal $10 trillion annually, emphasizing the critical need for addressing workplace dissatisfaction.
  • In a shocking incident, an employee set fire to a warehouse worth $600 million, illustrating the extreme actions that can emerge from deep-seated workplace discontent.
  • The podcast underscores the notion that employees do not merely snap due to inadequate pay; rather, it is the profound sense of disrespect that often catalyzes such extreme behavior.
  • Leadership must evolve to recognize employee disgruntlement as a significant operational risk, necessitating proactive measures rather than reactive responses to avoid catastrophic losses.
  • The discussion highlights that merely measuring employee engagement without actionable insights can exacerbate the very issues leaders aim to alleviate, thereby fostering a culture of disengagement.
  • Ultimately, fostering a culture of open communication and understanding, rather than punitive metrics, is pivotal in transforming workplace dynamics and enhancing overall employee satisfaction.

Transcripts

Speaker A:

If you're not going to pay us enough to live, at least pay us enough to not do this.

Speaker A:

Employee gets in his car, drives to the warehouse, sets the warehouse on fire, films himself doing it, and posts it all online to social media.

Speaker A:

That's a pretty expensive resignation letter.

Speaker B:

So low engagement is costing the global economy $10 trillion in lost productivity.

Speaker B:

Is he the first of many to follow, or was he just the extreme example?

Speaker A:

I don't think people snap because they're underpaid.

Speaker A:

They snap because they feel disrespected.

Speaker A:

You can tell a team member has just quit, but they've not left.

Speaker A:

I don't think you can.

Speaker A:

Dashboard dignity.

Speaker B:

What's the thing leadership doesn't want to hear?

Speaker C:

Welcome to the Make Work Not Suck podcast.

Speaker B:

All right, Daniel, I got one for you today.

Speaker B:

Core question here.

Speaker B:

When one employee can allegedly burn down a $600 million warehouse over wages, and 63% of CEOs still don't, employee dis.

Speaker B:

Disgruntlement as a top concern.

Speaker B:

Are the leaders solving the wrong problems, or are they just not seeing the right ones?

Speaker A:

Ooh, good question.

Speaker A:

This will be fun.

Speaker A:

All right, so I think I heard about this story, too.

Speaker A:

Employee gets in his car, drives to the warehouse, sets the warehouse on fire, films himself doing it, and posts it all online to social media.

Speaker A:

Something like $600 million in damage.

Speaker A:

And his explanation is, if you're not going to pay us enough to live, at least pay us enough to not do this.

Speaker A:

That's a pretty expensive resignation letter.

Speaker A:

That's like a $600 million resignation letter,.

Speaker B:

I think what's crazy on that one, it was like, $100 million warehouse and then $500 million in toilet paper.

Speaker A:

Was it toilet paper?

Speaker A:

Was this, like, Kimberly Clark?

Speaker A:

Is that.

Speaker A:

Yes, who he was?

Speaker B:

It was a Kimberly Clark warehouse, and it was.

Speaker B:

It was like, with, you know, the media paper goods.

Speaker B:

So it's like paper towels, toilet paper.

Speaker B:

But he definitely.

Speaker A:

$500 Million of toilet paper is a lot of toilet paper.

Speaker B:

Hey, we had to stock up after Covid to make sure that never happened again, right?

Speaker B:

Yeah.

Speaker A:

Is that.

Speaker A:

Are those Covid prices or is that today's prices?

Speaker B:

Oh, I've Covid prices.

Speaker B:

That'd be a billion dollars worth of toilet paper.

Speaker A:

Right.

Speaker A:

But I think the stats that you're sharing are.

Speaker A:

Are kind of scary, right?

Speaker A:

37% Of CEOs say employee disgruntlement is something they're worried about, which means 63% don't seem to be worried about it.

Speaker B:

Well, I mean, here's another stat for you, this is a Gallup stat employee.

Speaker B:

Global employee engagement is just 20%.

Speaker B:

Oh, so low engagement is costing the global economy $10 trillion in lost productivity.

Speaker B:

You know what's crazy is when we gave that speech in Lisbon a couple years ago, so this has been about five years ago, we talked about how this was a $2 trillion problem.

Speaker B:

In five years, this has grown from 2 trillion to 10 trillion.

Speaker B:

So the problem's only getting worse just by those economics alone, which, you know, interesting because when we were talking back then, we said the employee engagement was about 34%.

Speaker B:

So we are literally dropping in percentage and increasing in cost.

Speaker B:

And I'm deviating a little bit here.

Speaker A:

Okay.

Speaker B:

But this goes to our question.

Speaker B:

The question was, are leaders solving the wrong problem or just not seeing the right one?

Speaker B:

You know what I think their solution to this is?

Speaker B:

AI.

Speaker A:

What?

Speaker A:

Oh, yeah, of course it is.

Speaker B:

I think these leaders think they're just going to AI their way out of this problem.

Speaker A:

Yeah.

Speaker A:

Oh, and that's such an awful answer.

Speaker A:

That's probably going to make it worse rather than making it better.

Speaker B:

So here's, here's the debate question.

Speaker B:

Okay, so should employee disgruntlement now be a board level operational risk?

Speaker B:

Should it be tracked?

Speaker B:

Should there be dashboards and should it be tired, tied to CEO compensation like cybersecurity, or just treating people as a risk to manage prove exactly why we're in this mess?

Speaker A:

Ooh, good question.

Speaker A:

Where do you fall?

Speaker B:

I think if you can measure Churn, you can measure disengagement.

Speaker B:

I mean, we've proven that with, with Oracor.

Speaker B:

Yeah, you can literally see the direct correlation to like the predictive measures of, hey, this person's pissed off.

Speaker B:

They're going to quit.

Speaker A:

Yeah.

Speaker A:

Hey, this person, we saw that like six weeks before they resigned, right?

Speaker B:

Oh, I remember there were several.

Speaker B:

I mean, this is the multiple case studies.

Speaker B:

Hey, this employee is probably going to resign it within six, eight.

Speaker B:

Six to eight weeks.

Speaker B:

No, no, I had a conversation with them.

Speaker B:

They're great.

Speaker B:

Everything's great.

Speaker B:

Everything's great.

Speaker B:

Hey, it's getting elevated.

Speaker B:

They're probably going to resign within two to four weeks.

Speaker B:

No, no, I talked to them.

Speaker B:

Everything's fine.

Speaker B:

Yeah, they had a rough little bit, but no, they're.

Speaker B:

Everything's good.

Speaker B:

Two weeks later.

Speaker B:

Yeah, they put their notice in.

Speaker B:

So I, I am on the fence.

Speaker B:

If you can measure Churn, you can manage.

Speaker B:

Manage disgruntlement.

Speaker B:

And I think you got to put it on a dashboard.

Speaker B:

I think you got to give the, the head of HR and the head of Cybersecurity equal.

Speaker B:

Equal time.

Speaker B:

Make it real or it stays invisible.

Speaker A:

All right, so I agree and I disagree.

Speaker A:

I don't think you can dashboard dignity.

Speaker A:

I think the.

Speaker A:

The risk is, and we saw this even with.

Speaker A:

With some of the ORACOR implementations, is, is that just because you have the metric doesn't mean you do the right things with it.

Speaker A:

And we would see people who would use those metrics as weapons and, you know, try to hunt down disgruntled employees and, you know, threaten them to, you know, get.

Speaker A:

Get a better attitude.

Speaker A:

That is not the answer.

Speaker A:

So even if you put it on a dashboard, which I think I'm okay with, if you're the right kind of leader, the more important thing is what do you do with that information?

Speaker A:

Because if.

Speaker A:

If you just measure it and do nothing with it, that's awful.

Speaker A:

It would be better to not measure it than to measure it and ignore it.

Speaker A:

The other thing that would be awful would be to measure that and then to try to juice the scores, to not actually deal with the real problems.

Speaker A:

And I've seen leaders try to do that.

Speaker A:

They just.

Speaker A:

They change the metric so that it looks better, but they haven't actually fixed the underlying problems.

Speaker B:

Oh, yeah, they want to pretend it's all rosy and sunshine.

Speaker B:

I definitely agree with what you're saying in that sense, because, I mean, you can definitely take a measure the wrong way, right?

Speaker B:

Like, that's.

Speaker B:

I have an idea and I expect a result.

Speaker B:

And what I cannot stand.

Speaker B:

And I, and I, and I see this, and we see this in our politics as well.

Speaker B:

You take a metric and you don't like it, and then you're like, well, but if we show people reality, then, you know, like, it'll be worse.

Speaker B:

And, and so let's.

Speaker B:

Let's kind of dodge and deflect over here.

Speaker B:

Or let's.

Speaker B:

Let's kind of like change it so it's a little better.

Speaker B:

And then.

Speaker B:

And then we'll tell a pretty story and then everybody will be okay.

Speaker B:

And it's kind of like the little, you know, the picture, the meme on the Internet with, like, the girl with the bug and, or, sorry, the dog within the fire.

Speaker B:

It's on fire.

Speaker B:

And he's like, it's okay.

Speaker A:

Yeah, this is okay.

Speaker B:

Meanwhile, it's the girl with the house on fire behind it that set fire.

Speaker A:

Yes.

Speaker B:

She's like, yeah.

Speaker B:

But I think what's interesting is, is I'm looking at the notes here, and this one says, right here says, engagement survey.

Speaker B:

Take engagement surveys two weeks earlier.

Speaker B:

Said everything Was fine.

Speaker B:

Oh, I think here's the problem is we use engagement surveys.

Speaker B:

And you know, my stance on surveys.

Speaker B:

Surveys answer questions that don't really provide much value.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker B:

And so it does not surprise me, anytime we went toe to toe with an.

Speaker B:

With an engagement survey versus our assessments, we always had better data and were able to predict what reality was.

Speaker B:

I think the big one is, to your point, it is hard.

Speaker B:

It is very hard.

Speaker B:

It's very intentful.

Speaker B:

And if the top just wants a number to check the box, you're glazing over it.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker B:

Yeah.

Speaker B:

Whereas if you really believe about employee engagement and you really want to understand the real problems, you gotta be prepared to open the kimono, you gotta be able to put the number out on the dashboard, then you gotta start having real conversations.

Speaker B:

Otherwise, to your point, it's just opium.

Speaker A:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Yeah.

Speaker A:

If you're not prepared to have the awkward conversations about why your culture is the way it is, don't ask the question.

Speaker A:

Because asking and then not doing anything about it is, I think, the worst approach.

Speaker B:

Absolutely.

Speaker A:

All right, so what's interesting to me, as I'm hearing this is five, 10 years ago, I was talking to a lot of people about organizational health and the value of it.

Speaker A:

And we were talking about it from the standpoint of the upside.

Speaker A:

So, like, you've got 20% of your employees who are disengaged, and that's costing you X.

Speaker A:

And if those people were engaged, you know, there's this much more efficiency, there's this much more revenue, this much more profit available to you.

Speaker A:

So we were talking about the importance of employee engagement for the upside.

Speaker A:

This is now kind of flipped it, and it's talking about hedging against the downside of if you don't fix this, not only are you leaving money on the table, but you've potentially got catastrophic risks coming your way because of dis.

Speaker A:

Not disengaged, but disgruntled employees.

Speaker A:

That's crazy that in five to 10 years we went from, hey, you're not as optimal as you could be to your employees are pissed and they're going to burn the building down if you don't fix it.

Speaker B:

Well, and that.

Speaker B:

And, you know, I.

Speaker B:

We all know the media takes the.

Speaker B:

The anomalies and escalates it.

Speaker B:

Right?

Speaker A:

Sure.

Speaker A:

The extremes.

Speaker B:

Yeah.

Speaker B:

I mean, the reality is, is we're seeing all kinds of crazy stuff going on with, you know, with protest against ice, with, you know, protest against the war, and just like, people are doing more extreme things.

Speaker A:

Yeah.

Speaker B:

So, like this, the real question Is, is like this guy that burned down this building, is he the first of many to follow or was he just the extreme example?

Speaker B:

And the next question is, if you take that back a step, okay, maybe not burning the building down, but what kind of sabotage is going on?

Speaker B:

That may not be as dramatic, but it's starting to happen.

Speaker A:

Yeah, I think that's probably the better question and the better conversation.

Speaker A:

I'm sure there will be some crazy people who try to play this game of social media one upsmanship and they're like, well, if you burn down a building, guess what I'm going to do.

Speaker A:

But I think those are the extremes and probably not the representative of the real problem.

Speaker A:

I think the real problem is people that are sabotaging deals, people that are sabotaging projects, people that are just slow walking because, you know, whatever they're responsible for because they don't care anymore.

Speaker A:

And that's a lot harder to measure because they're indirect costs, but they're very, very real.

Speaker A:

And I've seen teams, I've worked on teams where, you know, you can tell a team member has just quit, but they've not left.

Speaker A:

And you can, you can feel the difference.

Speaker A:

You know that they're not giving everything they could be giving.

Speaker A:

And eventually it just becomes a cancer.

Speaker A:

And they've either got to fix that or they've got to go because it's going to infect the rest of the team.

Speaker A:

I'm curious as to how common that is in the workforce today, given what's going on with AI, what's going on with the macroeconomics.

Speaker A:

I think, you know, costs have been rising, but wages have not been rising with them.

Speaker A:

So people are getting squeezed.

Speaker A:

And if you are already on the fence, I bet you have in the last five years, maybe six years since COVID I'm pretty sure you've fallen from on the fence to full on disgruntled.

Speaker B:

I'm seeing this even, I mean, even just stuff that I'm seeing going on in companies I'm working with.

Speaker A:

Okay.

Speaker B:

I'm seeing like again, the top is pushing for results, results, results.

Speaker B:

Every month the numbers are kind of stagnant.

Speaker B:

You know, they kind of spike with an initiative and then when the executive moves on to the next initia, numbers come back down.

Speaker B:

So you're seeing the wave of basically stagnation.

Speaker B:

But it really, what's causing a lot of the disgruntledness is you've got like objectives being pushed out and you've got, you know, metrics wanting to be done and they're conflicting with each other, and it's not hard stuff to solve.

Speaker B:

But I don't understand why are we not trying to solve this?

Speaker B:

Everybody wants to solve it, but we want to solve it by doing the easy fix, quick fix.

Speaker A:

You know, I don't know if I agree that.

Speaker A:

That everybody wants to solve that.

Speaker B:

At least in the few examples I'm thinking of right now, the dis is high, but there's still the desire to solve it.

Speaker B:

But what I'm also seeing is there is a very much like the other side needs to go first.

Speaker B:

And so the hot potato is left in the middle of the room.

Speaker A:

Right.

Speaker B:

And I think that mentality is very dangerous.

Speaker B:

And sometimes it's right, but I think most of the time it's wrong because it takes, you know, all parties coming together, but I think they.

Speaker B:

They.

Speaker B:

They give a damn.

Speaker B:

Or the desire to see through all of that has died away, which just inflates disgruntled us even further.

Speaker A:

Yeah, I think there's a.

Speaker A:

There's a very common misunderstanding of leadership.

Speaker A:

I think it is very easy for people to think that leadership is all about telling other people what to do.

Speaker A:

And they're like, yeah, I'd be great at that.

Speaker A:

I disagree.

Speaker A:

I don't think that's what leadership's about.

Speaker A:

I think leadership is more about being the one who's willing to risk first.

Speaker A:

You know, who have you.

Speaker A:

Who have you bossed around today?

Speaker A:

And.

Speaker A:

And because of that, we've got this standoff where neither side wants to go first because they just want to tell the other person what to do.

Speaker A:

All right, so where have you seen this kind of disgruntled disengagement in the companies that you're working for?

Speaker A:

Oh, I've got one.

Speaker A:

I had a former client call me recently this week, and they're struggling with an employee who was a strong performer in the past, but has just kind of gradually started pulling away.

Speaker A:

They were like, well, I don't really need to go to the office anymore.

Speaker A:

I can work from home.

Speaker A:

And then the working from home became less and less available.

Speaker A:

And what recently happened was that there was a major shift, and this person, it is their job, but they were not engaged enough to realize it.

Speaker A:

And it wasn't until months later that the business owner found that they've lost thousands of dollars because this one person failed to file something with the authorities.

Speaker A:

And now they're screwed.

Speaker A:

And it's just because they.

Speaker A:

I think they didn't care if they knew it was their job.

Speaker A:

They didn't care.

Speaker A:

They weren't putting enough effort into it to think about the fact that that's probably their job.

Speaker A:

It's a, it was a, it's a healthcare company and they moved locations and forgot to tell the insurance company that they'd moved locations.

Speaker A:

And so suddenly all of the patients aren't being reimbursed and they're not going to get.

Speaker A:

The insurance company's not going to pay them because they think they're being paid.

Speaker A:

They're paying the wrong company.

Speaker A:

Fairly simple.

Speaker A:

Just tell the insurance company that you're.

Speaker A:

You moved the office to a new building but didn't tell him.

Speaker A:

And now there's, I mean, I have no idea how much lost revenue, but a lot of lost revenue because this employee who's probably not disgruntled but definitely is disengaged, just didn't do her job.

Speaker B:

And I'm seeing this at leadership levels.

Speaker B:

I mean, there was.

Speaker B:

Here's a perfect example.

Speaker B:

You got a founder CEO that is part of a company that's actually been growing, you know, pretty successful year over year, year over year growth.

Speaker B:

And a couple years ago, a new COO was brought in and the COO has been, was actually a CEO of a larger group.

Speaker B:

So has been there, done that, knows how to run the organization, but came in as COO because of the opportunity and the private equity and, and the growth.

Speaker B:

And you've got the CEO still very much in the weeds and it drives the COO crazy because he's wanting to try to run a bigger organization.

Speaker B:

And so now you're getting to the point.

Speaker B:

You're exactly right.

Speaker B:

You've got this COO that's starting to check out and a little bit, I mean, disgruntled is probably the right word, but the gauge of disgruntledness, like still care, still bought in, still doing the thing, but kind of getting to the point.

Speaker B:

I'm like, I'm just going to do what CEO wants to do and I'm really going to fight for it, but I'm going to hit my numbers that I got to hit.

Speaker B:

And it's like the opportunity for growth in this organization is tenfold.

Speaker B:

If those two could just work that out.

Speaker A:

Yep.

Speaker B:

But both sides are very much, you know, nope.

Speaker B:

Not going to give up, control my company.

Speaker B:

And I've got to, I'm going to until I can see it and prove it.

Speaker B:

The other one's like, why bother fighting it?

Speaker A:

Yeah.

Speaker B:

And I know that result is cascading down.

Speaker A:

Absolutely they are.

Speaker A:

Because if, if that senior leader doesn't care.

Speaker A:

Their team is very quickly going to realize that it doesn't matter if they care.

Speaker A:

And so now an entire department slowly but eventually will start to disengage and they will do, most of them will do just enough to not get fired, but they're not really going to give you their best.

Speaker A:

And somebody right there's always going to be that 1%.

Speaker A:

That's crazy.

Speaker A:

And they're the ones you got to worry about.

Speaker A:

Might burn down the building.

Speaker A:

Maybe it's 0.01%, but there's, there is a small percentage of the population that's crazy enough to do something like that.

Speaker B:

I could only imagine, you know, Kimberly Clark, large organization.

Speaker A:

Sure.

Speaker B:

I can only imagine, you know, $100 million revenue turnover business.

Speaker B:

I could only imagine if somebody did something like that for them, I mean, yeah, they have insurance but like it would just be detrimental, I'm sure.

Speaker A:

Absolutely.

Speaker B:

Almost run the company out of business.

Speaker B:

Level of detriment.

Speaker A:

So yeah, Kimberly Clark has:

Speaker A:

So yeah, out of 38, 000 employees, there's a couple of crazies.

Speaker A:

Just law of large numbers.

Speaker B:

Well, and the crazy one too is I don't even think that was a Kimberly Clark car employee.

Speaker B:

I think it was a warehouse management company.

Speaker A:

Oh, okay, so like a distributor, like logistics partner or something?

Speaker B:

Yeah, I think they own the warehouse.

Speaker B:

I don't quote me on this, but if I remember right, I think it was their logistics partner that was, that manages the facility.

Speaker B:

It was their product and their warehouse.

Speaker B:

But I think, I think the employee actually worked for a temp or for a supply chain company that yeah, it's contracted.

Speaker B:

Which almost makes it even worse because did Kimberly Clark lose all that product because the way they're managing a vendor or does the vendor try to squeeze margins and the vendor's totally at fault because now who's at fault for this, you know, $600 million loss.

Speaker A:

Yeah, that's, that's maybe another episode of what's, what's a healthy long term strategy for dealing with your vendors and how does that make work not suck.

Speaker A:

We'll have to add that to the backlog of episodes we'll talk about soon.

Speaker B:

Well, and I think just taking that for an episode down the road, but just taking that into this context, I think sometimes especially you're the top of the food chain in this run.

Speaker B:

If you're squeezing your vendors and they're squeezing their vendors and downstream, I mean you are literally just cascading failures Right.

Speaker B:

And I think, I mean this is an interesting, on a global scale.

Speaker B:

h my gosh, this was like post:

Speaker B:

Somewhere in there like Apple had to pay or Apple decided to pay the factory workers in, you know, what China or Asian country they were in because the workers, the conditions were so bad, they're so overworked, they were jumping off the buildings, committing suicide and they ended up putting nets around the buildings to catch the people from, to stop from killing themselves.

Speaker A:

Yeah.

Speaker B:

And part of the fix was they got like $2 per day.

Speaker B:

I don't think it was $2 per hour.

Speaker B:

I think it was like $2 per day more.

Speaker B:

It was like some nominal fee that Apple stepped in and said, okay, we can't have this happening.

Speaker A:

Right.

Speaker B:

And again, I don't know if that was like Apple just did the bare minimum to solve the problem or.

Speaker A:

I heard those nets were really expensive.

Speaker B:

Yeah, yeah, but maybe the nets cost more than the increased.

Speaker B:

But I mean, I think that's the other side of it, right?

Speaker B:

Like, yeah, you might have a crazy guy burning down warehouses here.

Speaker B:

You had people jumping off buildings there and you know, Apple had to fix it, you know, at the top and all the way back down.

Speaker B:

And I think, I think that's also part of the problem.

Speaker A:

I think if you're only about the results and your entire company exists to maximize profits, shareholder value and results, you can do that for a while, but you're going to burn a lot of bridges along the way and eventually society is going to realize that you're not actually a positive contributing member of the ecosystem and, and society's going to turn on you.

Speaker A:

Like it's, it's just from a self preservation standpoint, I think it is a better strategy to try to optimize more than just finances.

Speaker A:

I think you have to have a positive impact on the world.

Speaker A:

And yeah, you got to make money, we got to make profits.

Speaker A:

And I have no problem with people making even tons of money.

Speaker A:

But if you do that at the expense of a lot of other people, that's just, that's a short term strategy.

Speaker A:

And it could work for years, maybe decades, but it's not going to work forever.

Speaker A:

And when the reckoning comes, it will be painful.

Speaker B:

Absolutely.

Speaker A:

All right, so what do we actually do about this?

Speaker A:

How do we fix it?

Speaker B:

So I like this one, but I think there's a lot of caveats to it.

Speaker B:

Number one, skip level listening on the calendar.

Speaker B:

Okay, skip level meeting is.

Speaker B:

That's where in this one is book a no agenda lunch with someone two levels below you.

Speaker B:

So this is for the manager or for the leader?

Speaker B:

No manager in the room.

Speaker B:

No prep.

Speaker B:

No prep deck.

Speaker B:

One question.

Speaker B:

What's the thing frustrating you right now that you don't think I know about?

Speaker A:

It's a good question.

Speaker B:

I think, I think this is where a lot of leaders would go wrong and why I love hate this, this practice is I don't think anybody's going to have a problem having that meeting, asking that question.

Speaker B:

The problem is the leader that jumps to the results, makes the assumptions, doesn't listen.

Speaker B:

This will blow up in your face.

Speaker B:

So here's the caveat here.

Speaker B:

You have to listen wholeheartedly.

Speaker B:

Like pull out seven habits of highly effective people and listen to the chapter Seek first to understand, then be understood.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker B:

Don't solve, just listen.

Speaker B:

If you do this right, it will better the company.

Speaker A:

Yes.

Speaker B:

You take it and all of a sudden you go to the manager five minutes later after having that conversation.

Speaker B:

Did you know your person's pissed off about this?

Speaker B:

Because you're not.

Speaker B:

You're not, you're not.

Speaker B:

You just made your culture 10 times worse.

Speaker B:

You pissed the employee off because if you gave them the opportunity to speak and you're like, no, no safe space.

Speaker B:

I really want to hear it.

Speaker B:

And then you turn around and you go to the manager and you throw them under the bus.

Speaker B:

Or if you start trying to solve it right then and there in the room, you're missing the point because you don't understand the problem.

Speaker B:

Just sit back and listen.

Speaker B:

Ask questions, seek to understand, then try to figure out what the problems are.

Speaker B:

One thing I will tell you is if this turns into a bitch session, do not fuel it, do not feed it, do not lean into it.

Speaker B:

I think as soon as it goes down to a bitching session, maybe you need to hear a little bit.

Speaker B:

Okay, I'm gonna give you five minutes.

Speaker B:

You say whatever you gotta say to get it off your chest.

Speaker B:

But then I want to understand the frustrations and the pain points, you know, into a two hour long fest that's not really productive.

Speaker B:

And actually you're contributing the culture problem.

Speaker B:

But here's what I'd say.

Speaker B:

If you take all that advice right there, I guarantee you if you do that once a month for six months, you will learn more, exponentially more than your last three engagement surveys combined.

Speaker B:

Because people will tell you what's really going on.

Speaker B:

If they feel heard and you actually listen, you will get way more insight and newsflash.

Speaker B:

Usually taking ikey Chan's invisible systems into account.

Speaker B:

Here.

Speaker B:

There is a breakdown in process or structure or something.

Speaker B:

Very rarely is it actually a people problem.

Speaker B:

It is a process problem disguised as a people problem.

Speaker B:

And if you fix that, you will solve the problems.

Speaker A:

Fix number two, translate compensation.

Speaker A:

Don't just communicate it.

Speaker A:

I think that for many people, their frustration around their pain isn't just about the number.

Speaker A:

It's a lack of understanding of that number.

Speaker A:

I don't think people snap because they're underpaid.

Speaker A:

They snap because they feel disrespected.

Speaker A:

And the number needs to come with an explanation.

Speaker A:

It needs to come with a context.

Speaker A:

The, the compensation needs a context.

Speaker A:

Right?

Speaker A:

So helping people understand what's happening in the market, what's, what are the trade offs?

Speaker A:

What are the constraints?

Speaker A:

What's the total comp package?

Speaker A:

I don't think many people understand.

Speaker A:

And if you're not a business owner or in health care, how rapidly health care costs are rising.

Speaker A:

If your company is helping you with that, even if your base comp is staying flat, you could be getting a significantly more valuable comp package.

Speaker A:

But very few companies do a good job of communicating that.

Speaker A:

I think a lot of people overvalue their contributions.

Speaker A:

So having some honest performance conversations around, here's what it looks like to do a good job.

Speaker A:

Here's where you are, and here's why your compensation reflects that.

Speaker A:

Those are hard conversations.

Speaker A:

Those are potentially uncomfortable conversations.

Speaker A:

But without that, in a vacuum, employees are just going to make assumptions about their value and about their pay, and you're probably not going to like the conclusions they come to.

Speaker A:

So having some honest conversations about why the number is the.

Speaker A:

What it is, it might not give them the outcome satisfaction, but it can give them the process satisfaction.

Speaker A:

And oftentimes people get more upset about the process than they do about the outcome.

Speaker B:

Absolutely agree.

Speaker A:

All right, fix number three.

Speaker A:

What you got.

Speaker B:

Audit the survey.

Speaker B:

I like this one.

Speaker B:

Ooh.

Speaker B:

Pull up your engagement survey right now and review the questions.

Speaker B:

And here's the big.

Speaker B:

Here's the thing.

Speaker B:

If your satisfaction scores or your engagement survey has been climbing while turnover, six day sick days and glassdoor reviews basically are going the other direction, your instrument is broken.

Speaker A:

Yes.

Speaker B:

I think very simply, one, reevaluate the questions.

Speaker B:

If you're trying to get compliance for your company as opposed to actually understanding what's going on, you're missing the mark.

Speaker B:

And I think this is probably the number one biggest question.

Speaker B:

I use this all the time in quarterly sessions.

Speaker B:

You know, maybe just even ask this one question and get rid of everything.

Speaker B:

Else, what's the thing leadership doesn't want to hear?

Speaker A:

Oh, that's a gutsy question.

Speaker B:

I guarantee you if you can set up an environment where there's no retaliation.

Speaker B:

Now, people will not answer that if they're fearful they're going to lose their job.

Speaker A:

Yep.

Speaker B:

I guarantee you if you, if you allow them to answer it with no retaliation, there's going to be some BS answers in there.

Speaker B:

But I guarantee you, you're going to learn some hard truths that you don't want to hear.

Speaker B:

But I will tell you, if you can look in the mirror and take those hard truths hard on, you will find the real problems.

Speaker A:

I agree.

Speaker A:

But it does take some courageous leadership to ask that question and to be prepared to hear the answer.

Speaker B:

Absolutely.

Speaker B:

Here's the one thing I want you all to walk away with.

Speaker B:

The arson is the headline, but it's not the story.

Speaker B:

The story is the 63% of CEOs who don't see this coming because they're looking at the wrong dashboard.

Speaker B:

You don't need a $600 million wake up call to do better than that.

Speaker B:

You just need to put the meeting on the calendar.

Speaker A:

My challenge would be think about the quietest person on your team.

Speaker A:

Not the loud one, not the visibly disgruntled one, not the one who's just constantly whining and complaining about everything because they're probably halfway out the door already.

Speaker A:

Find the one who always says fine, but never says anything else and take that person out for coffee and ask them a real question.

Speaker A:

Like a courageous question.

Speaker A:

Like, what's one thing I don't know about that you think I should?

Speaker A:

Because Forbes and others have have pointed this out.

Speaker A:

Sometimes the, the simple question can surface a problem and enable you to fix it before it blows up.

Speaker B:

All right, if this one hit a nerve, send it to the leader in your life that needs to hear it.

Speaker B:

Drop your hot takes in the comments question.

Speaker B:

Are you Team Dashboard or Team Dignity?

Speaker B:

If you haven't hit subscribe yet, definitely hit that, that subscribe button and we will see you next time.

Speaker A:

Well, actually, and I would say this is a great opportunity to talk about Oracor.

Speaker A:

If your employee engagement survey is the wrong instrument, reach out.

Speaker A:

Let us know because we've built an instrument that actually gives you the insight to what's really going on.

Speaker A:

You might not want to hear it, so don't call if you don't want to know.

Speaker A:

But if you really want to know, reach out.

Speaker A:

Because we've been able to help companies get their finger on the disengaged and disgruntled employees and actually fix it.

Speaker C:

Make Work Not Suck.

Speaker C:

Our podcast that talks about exactly that.

Speaker C:

Our process, vision, journey, culture and results.

Speaker C:

We present real world business solutions that make the difference.

Speaker C:

Our goal is to Make Work Not Suck.

Speaker C:

Hosted by Ryan Hodges co host Daniel Steer.

Speaker C:

Join us each episode and Make Work Not Suck.

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