CEOs, consider connections for work.

In the month of March I took part in a panel discussion about "Quiet The Quiet at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos. This is an ever-changing environment that affects workers. It's evident that as the leaders engage with a variety of pertinent questions about the pros and cons of working remotely , as well as the dangers as well as the potential of AI as well as the need to create more efficient and sustainable companies.

However, one issue is worthy of greater attention: If our workforce is changing and technology is changing, and post-pandemic behaviors and expectations are changing...don't us as leaders need to adapt too?

There's an entire generations of people who are digital that have entered the workforce. They have grown up making as well as sharing video clips , but not texting or calling, and consider TikTok or YouTube their primary source for data. Personally, they are hyper-connected and equally hyper-engaged.

In their workplaces, there's a completely different picture. We're witnessing significant declines in the level of engagement and satisfaction for employees working remote Gen Z as well as younger generations of millennials. Only four percent of workers who work remotely, or work in hybrid or hybrid settings understand the expectations expected to be expected of them at work in addition to greater than 50% of Gen Z employees are ambivalent or unengaged at work. If we look at the degree of engagement among employees as the most important indicator of work-related productivity, this can have a significant impact on all businesses as well as every financial success.

What's causing this disconnection? As in work and in the world, we want to be part of a bigger picture than we are. We all have a strong desire to belong and feel part of community that is open as well as honest and authentic. The more that our population becomes digitally distributed and AI-enabled , the more difficult it becomes to connect with real people each and every day. Particularly if we've not redesigned the way we work for the coming generations. There is still a tendency for us to require employees to read a lot of papers and long emails and attending inefficient meeting. Employees learn about layoffs as well as company priorities through comms which are so automated and scripted that they can be created through ChatGPT. The only data we executive managers have is via survey of engagement which are cookie-cutter or live events with very low turn-in percentages along with sometimes snarky chats or Q&A.

The old model of management is not working for us. We must change the way our leaders portray themselves and communicate with employees. Similar to how we're focusing on improving the skills of our workforce with regard to changes in population size, demographics as well as the latest technological developments and trends as well, we must also improve the leadership skills of our employees to build confidence and establish connections on a scale.

I've been playing around with lots of this over these past few years . These are the things I'm discovering and accepting, which I think will help to present differently and become more efficient in our leadership

     1. Be real, be you.

In the midst of the outbreak, I participated in the global town hall meeting from my parents' home in Flint, Michigan -- exhausted and sleeping wearing my velvet pajamas while my son who was a toddler, and my grandmother who shuffled around in her various backgrounds.

Maybe it was the most efficient communication to date.

Why? It was because it was not scripted as well as unintentional, awkward, and messy. People tend to be drawn to "us against us and them" conversations when working in an organization, specifically when we are under stress and difficulties. It's easy to think of "leadership" as an unnamed, faceless machine. Making sure you're first in your communication with video can be a potent deterrent. This forces you to take off the cover and safeguard yourself from writing and editing comms. The most effective way to make it clear is to show up just as you really yourself.

By the way, there is a lot of occasions of leaders who were vulnerable and it backfiring...but I would guess that in the majority of instances it was because it performed too well. It is important to allow to allow that part of yourself to fail before your colleagues. Everyone has flaws, which makes us humans. And we all want to see our leaders to demonstrate courage. We desire to emulate them.

     2. Starting with the "why . "

As with many managers, I've had to take tough decisions over the past year. In the past, I've made executive decisions as well as layoffs, from restructuring to closing down projects to improve efficiency. It's my job to make difficult decision, not-popular ones and to implement them quickly across the entire company.

In increasing situations, employees desire more transparency in their decisions - not just what they are doing, but also the "what" however there is also more importantly, the "why". In order to fully comprehend the larger competition or market context as well as the method by which tradeoffs are evaluated and balanced in addition to the specifics about who was in the loop and what was the time.

The classic communications strategy would say that when there is an important communication issue that requires your attention to a minimum, start by asking the "what" before moving on to the most important steps. But I have been far more successful in convincing my staff to accept the difficult task when I approach my staff as major stakeholders who need to know the context.

Therefore, starting with "why" is a first rule for any communication . There are, of course, constraints to be fully transparent (legal and public relations, as well as management, risk to the customer) However, I've noticed that the majority of times that the obstacles are explained as. Perceived. Some people may not agree with your decisions, however it's possible to say that if they do, they are not performing your duties. However, they'll be able to accept and appreciate your choices from the beginning, if you explain the reason behind it.

     3. Spend money on in-person meetings for a chance to meet each other more.

It's true that I see the irony of the head of a company that produces videos saying that. But one of my biggest lessons over the last few months was that we had the wrong mindset and were not conscious enough about connecting our teams together on an everyday basis.

In January, one week after the announcement of layoffs we hosted a kickoff for our corporate ceremony in NYC. We flew in employees from more than 12 countries. There were employees from Ukraine who traveled by trains or airplanes to reach us. The event was not the standard parties with confetti. We went with an unpretentious atmosphere and a low-cost budget. This was among the most energizing and needed investment decisions I've made.

It is even more powerful for leaders when you take the plane and arrive with your team members where they are. Our team is completely distributed. executive team spread across eight distinct locations starting from Seattle all the way to Switzerland. The majority of them were hired in the last year, so we they are relatively new and are just beginning to establish themselves as an integrated team. In order to speed up the process of forming our team, we started by hosting offsites in houses of the cities of each leader's. The CFO's mom gathered us at her fireplace in Vermont. Our Head of Sales wore his apron. He also made us frittatas to eat breakfast. The meetings were held in the dining room of the Head of Product's table.

The pandemic gave us the chance to see inside their lives and homes. If we make the most of that and incorporate the information into our daily lives, it is possible to build stronger, more cohesive and higher-performing teams.

     4. It is possible to go from "lean back" in order to "lean forward" experiences.

One of the key capabilities in the field of communication is the capability to develop "lean forward" experience instead of "lean back" broadcasts. Attention spans for humans are becoming shorter (now less than eight seconds that's shorter than the goldfish!). However, we still communicate by one-to-many communications, either through email messages, which can be read by the recipient, or through an extremely produced town hall where you relax and observe.

At we see this tax on engagement showing up in our own records in which the amount of time required to put down a screen is decreasing over the last several years. If we don't change the way we approach the process, it is going to seriously hamper our capability to keep our teams in sync and productive.

It is about changing our mindset and the determination to explore new ideas. Generation X is entering the workforce and are ahead of the rest of us due to their capability to create and record genuine and rich information. They're ahead of the curve because they're not subject to the limitations we experienced as a generation throughout the decades in traditional working environments.

The truth is that employees don't quit job. They quit bosses. In reality, executives are the most effective managers, and in an research study that included more than 113,000 top executives most important factor that determines their effectiveness is trust. Leaders must demonstrate to our employees how to behave in more authentic, interesting and reliable manners. I'm betting that leaders who embrace the new and exciting environment will have more success managing the future generation of employees. They will better inform and motivate teams that are dispersed and will align them with greater results and build strong relationships that result in extraordinary results. They'll not communicate, and instead be more effective in communicating.

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