Please Stay: How Companies Answer the 'Great Resignation'

BY Michael Stahl | September 12, 2021

In a recent job posting, a Tennessee trucking company offered pairs of qualified drivers a $30,000 signing bonus to join their team. Amazon has offered more than 750,000 U.S. workers the opportunity to pursue a fully paid bachelor’s degree. Microsoft said it would delay its return to the office “indefinitely” because forcing employees back to the workplace prematurely during the pandemic would be “shortsighted,” its CEO said. Meanwhile, according to a new Benefits Trends Survey, 69% of employers say they plan to “differentiate and customize their benefit programs over the next two years.”

This heightened level of care and concern about workers is emerging in the midst of the “Great Resignation,” the recent mass exodus of workers from their jobs, in which 11.5 million U.S. employees quit in just the three months of April, May, and June. It left the country with a record-high number of job openings in July and a huge question looming over Corporate America: What are employers going to do about it?

Coinciding with wide vaccine availability this past spring, the pent-up wave of resignation letters is being received as a referendum on business management, suggesting that many organizations during the Covid-19 crisis failed to meet the changing needs of workers.

Before the pandemic arrived, employers competing in a tight labor market were already actively improving conditions for employees. They’d learned that happy workers are more productive workers, which in turn can improve customer satisfaction. To combat employee burnout, organizations enhanced paid time-off programs and began providing mental health coverage. They also supported important social causes to help build brand reputation and boost employee morale.

However, the conditions wrought by the pandemic compelled new employee demands, and reinforced a growing sense among workers that they deserve better treatment. For working parents in particular, greater flexibility and better benefits became necessities.

“People were at home for a long period of time and they began to see their life differently,” Jason Walker, chief people officer at Thrive HR Consulting, told From Day One. The labor force was being asked to work “tremendous amounts of hours because they were at home,” Walker observed, and companies “intruded on that personal time.” Eventually, he said employees seemed to collectively realize “there’s more to my life than my work,” setting off a wide-scale reprioritization.

As we progress toward a post-pandemic world, organizations that prioritize the employee will be best positioned to hire and retain top talent. Here’s how leaders can respond to this reinvigorated spirit of employee empowerment:

Pay at Least the Market Rate

Not only has the labor market been flooded with dissatisfied workers, thousands of businesses have also reopened since spring, providing candidates a glut of opportunities. For hourly laborers as well as highly trained and experienced specialists, it is now definitively an employees’ market.

Job candidates are already cashing in on their leverage, which means it makes good economic sense for an organization to retain the best workers they already have. In addition to the time and effort spent on the hiring process, there are fees for recruiters and advertisements for open positions. There could be travel costs accrued, too, and expenses for training. Furthermore, there’s a loss of productivity while the search for a replacement plays out, among other detrimental effects from turnover.

To keep good employees around and attract the finest candidates on the market, companies have to be in tune with current pay rates and eagerly meet them. “If you’re under-paying, you’ve got to fix that fast,” said Amy Zimmerman, chief people officer at Relay Payments, a digital compensation platform. “It’s going to be a lot more expensive to get people in to replace the folks that you’re losing.”

In response to the current labor market conditions, Syndio Solutions, a platform that measures pay equity across organizations, is posting the salary ranges for all open positions in the company. CEO Maria Colacurcio said this maneuver gives “​​prospective hires consistency that reflects our values” and “respects the staff already at Syndio.”

If employers are not aware of market rates, Colacurcio said, when new hires engage in work comparable to that of other employees, they risk generating “potentially unlawful disparities, if you slice that by gender, race or ethnicity.”

Colacurcio posed an additional concern: “What happens when someone who’s been at the company realizes someone in their same job who was hired three months ago is making 30% more?” That, she said, could lead to more employees writing letters of resignation.

Adi Ignatius, editor-in-chief of Harvard Business Review, said his organization recently asked managers to identify the most important members of their team and determine whether they’re compensated adequately, compared to their peers inside and outside the organization.

“Instead of waiting for somebody to say, ‘You know, I just got a job offer from Fortune,’” Ignatius said, HBR wants to avoid “scrambling to make a counter offer” and is doing its best to “get ahead” of the head hunters.

Increase Flexibility, Day-to-day and Long-term

While fair compensation remains a focus for many members of the workforce, in pandemic times, pay is not at the top of everybody’s priority list. Instead, job flexibility appears to be of utmost concern.

“Covid really accelerated remote-work adoption,” said Clay Kellogg, CEO of Terminal, an employment-services platform that focuses on remote engineering teams. “It really went from an early-adopter market for remote work–you had some very forward-leaning companies [embracing it]–to now it’s mainstream. We did that within a 12-month period. It’s incredible.”

Study after study reveals that the overwhelming majority of workers want some semblance of remote work in their schedules, whether it’s a hybrid model, with both remote and in-office hour requirements, or the achievement of complete work-from-home status. After social distancing necessitated the shift, people are more familiar with remote work, and apparently appreciate its benefits, of which there are many.

“You really can’t unring that bell,” Kellogg said. “The old model was the result of legacy [thinking] and now we have people who say, ‘Look, that’s what I want. If I’m not going to get that flexibility option from my employer, I’m going to look around.’ And it’s a lot easier to look around when you’re working from home.”

Kellogg points out that if companies are willing to have their employees work remotely, leaders have to come to grips with new costs, covering necessities like laptops, Wi-Fi, and comfortable workspaces in the home.

But employees today want other kinds of job flexibility too. For them, staying with the same company over an extended period of time, while remaining fully engaged in what they do, means changing roles. Jeanne Schad, talent solutions and strategy practice leader at Randstad RiseSmart, a corporate consultancy firm, said many of her company’s customers are now interested in building internal-mobility programs.

Having adjusted to working from home, employees are reluctant to give it up (Photo by Visualspace/iStock by Getty Images)

“We often talk about the ambitious employee who has mastered their role and is ready for something new being a big retention risk,” Schad said. “By making internal roles easier–and safer–for employees to find, you can solve the needs of the ambitious, bored, burned out, and looking-to-downshift career employees.”

According to a Prudential report, 80% of workers who are planning to switch jobs post-Covid are choosing to do so out of concern over career advancement. More than a third of workers polled in a Robert Half survey say they feel “stuck” in their careers since the pandemic began. Providing employees the chance to change jobs within an organization inspires them to learn new skill sets, leading to more motivated, engaged, and productive workers, among other benefits.

“The biggest barrier for most companies to internal mobility is the mindset and orientation of managers,” Schad said. “Managers aren’t incented to share talent and in some cases, they can be penalized for unwanted turnover on their team–even if the employee moves to a new role internally.” Some clients she has worked with have created KPIs for managers who develop and then redeploy workers, “encouraging managers to share talent,” Schad said, “and bonusing them when they do.”

Adapt to the Presence of Different Generations  

Though this figure has been disputed by some, in 2014 the Brookings Institution predicted that 75% of the global workforce will be of the Millennial generation. One way or the other, the Millennial professional presence is growing, and Oxford Economics reported this year that within a decade, roughly one-third of the workforce will be members of the next generation: Gen Z.

These younger employees are already effecting change, says Brittany Hale, CEO of BND Consulting, a firm that focuses on retaining talent and developing company culture. Some Millennials are old enough to have attained senior management positions, while many Gen Zers–people born between 1997 and 2012–are either finishing grad school or making their way up the chain of command themselves.

Their value systems are notably different from those of previous generations, and they’re apt to evangelize about them on social media. There, Hale said, “you can see any number of skits about what a ‘fast-paced environment’ means.” In Millennial and Gen-Z minds, she said, that kind of approach to work means: “Goodbye to your life.”

“It’s not that they don’t have a good work ethic, it’s not that they don’t take pride in their professional integrity, but they’re looking for more of a work-life balance,” Hale said. She added that when corporate leaders don’t realistically consider “the changes and trends of your talent pool, and you’re expecting them to adapt to you,” the result is “mismanaged expectations.”

Given those conditions, in a time of crisis like the current pandemic, Hale said, work is not seen as a place for support, but instead as a stressor. And that leads to turnover.

However, not all members of the older generations have bought their retirement homes just yet. “There are some companies that have five different generations in their workforce right now,” says Suzanne Rohan Jones, a talent-management specialist at Graybar Electric, a Fortune 500 company that specializes in distribution and supply-chain management. Older employees might not understand why Gen Z workers would want a hybrid-work model or robust flexibility in career paths, she said. Leaders need “to be sensitive to the strengths and challenges of each of those different generations,” said Jones, who is also an adjunct professor of psychology at Maryville University.

Be More Transparent Than Ever

With the emergence of younger generations in the labor force and the prospect of radical changes to the workplace, which will include less time spent among peers and managers at the water cooler or snack bar, employees of today expect transparency from their leaders. “In the absence of it they’re making stories up,” said Amy Zimmerman from Relay. “In the absence of information, people assume the worst, unfortunately.”

Zach Jones, managing partner of the Phenom Consulting Group, an executive-search and talent-optimization firm, suggested that managers lead by example and “be living proof” of whatever they’re delegating to their team. “Being involved is critical to someone knowing, Alright, this person is in the trenches with me; I have confidence in them and what our direction is,” Jones said. It’s no longer acceptable, he added, for workers to hear from managers, “Here are your marching orders, report back to me.”

Jones believes managers must be open to scheduling more one-on-one facetime with their employees, even if the meetings are held over video-conferencing platforms. Leaders need to discuss not just the performance metrics, but how their workers’ careers are going and the ways in which they want to grow, hopefully within the company.

Another way leaders can earn the trust and confidence of their employees, especially given recent events, is to construct what author Diana Hendel calls a company-wide, rapid-response process. “Companies don’t do a very good job, frankly, of preparing for catastrophe,” said Hendel, a pharmacist and former CEO who worked for years in a hospital setting, where she once experienced an active shooter event. She recently co-wrote Trauma to Triumph: A Roadmap for Leading Through Disruption and Thriving on the Other Side, an undertaking that began prior to the pandemic, and became even more urgent once Covid-19 struck.

A rapid-response process can look different from organization to organization, but Hendel describes it as simply a set of protocols that ensure company leaders will be able to meet with each other when disaster strikes, make informed decisions, and assign responsibilities. When a crisis emerges, she said, a signal such as a “code blue” can be relayed to workers.

“What it does for employees, even people who aren’t involved directly in having to respond to the code, when they hear ‘code blue,’ they know things are being taken care of,” Hendel said. “They can expect information to come when it’s available. They’re not left wondering, Who’s taking charge? They know.” Even if the rapid response process is never engaged, having it in place and understood by employees provides perpetual peace of mind for everyone in the workplace, she said.

Be More Compassionate Than Ever

More than fair pay and perks like unlimited cappuccinos, young workers today want respect. But employees of any age can appreciate that sentiment, considering the collective trauma Covid-19 delivered. “Think about the authenticity of your leaders,” said Mina Morris, a partner in the Human Capital Solutions practice at Aon, the professional-services firm. Leaders should strive to be “more connected” and “more humble,” Morris said, and consider how they can “simplify work” in ways that help people remain “better connected with their tasks.”

At the same time, he added, leaders should try whenever possible to remove the “urgency when we don’t have that ability to be in person, and really sift through priorities,” he said. “So really connecting on an individual level, a human level,” Morris continued, “is a really important part of the journey.”

Evoking that spirit of empathy, leaders at Emtrain, which provides training on workplace ethics and culture, recently shortened the company’s workweek to four days. “It’s giving everyone a beat so that the temperature and the pressure starts to simmer down a little bit,” said CEO Janine Yancey. “People’s internal pressure barometer is just too high [right now] and it just starts to become an emotional reaction where they have to leave.”

Yancey believes the emergence of younger generations of workers has made issues like mental health more prominent. She says the pandemic, as well as the murder of George Floyd and, more recently, the events in Afghanistan, have all spurred a shift in priorities for workers.

“When you see the traumatic consequences of this pandemic and losing people that you love, losing people that you know in the community,” Yancey said, the thinking becomes: “I’m not just going to be a mindless robot with my nose to the grindstone every single day. I’m going to think about what’s important because life is precious.”

Michael Stahl is a New York City-based freelance journalist, writer, and editor. You can read more of his work at MichaelStahlWrites.com, follow him on Twitter @MichaelRStahl, and order his first book, the autobiography of Major League Baseball pitcher Bartolo Colón, at Abrams Books.


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What Business Leaders Can Do to Improve DEI Efforts in the Face of Backlash

Can corporate America restore its momentum on diversity, equity, and inclusion? DEI initiatives became a must-have for business organizations in 2020, after the killing of George Floyd in May of that year sparked a new wave of civil-rights protest and discourse. That cultural conversation focused partly on workplace discrimination against Blacks and other marginalized people, and it led to countless leaders—some from the biggest groups in corporate America—stepping up with DEI plans to help close disparities in opportunities. For a time, it seemed like those executives were delivering. According to Glassdoor data, DEI job openings grew 55% within a few weeks after the Floyd tragedy. Spending in the category surged, too. A November 2021 report from a top market research company said DEI funding was projected to reach $15.4 billion, more than double the amount it was in May 2020, by the year 2026.While many leaders maintained the DEI programs they enacted within the past few years, a backlash against DEI quickly arrived. A survey of more than 800 HR professionals in various industries, conducted around six months after George Floyd’s death, found that about 80% of companies are “going through the motions” with DEI programming and not holding themselves accountable. Glassdoor research later revealed DEI programming growth stalled in 2022, and CNBC reported last January that, to some in underserved groups, many efforts geared toward tangible change have felt inauthentic. One source for the piece said the DEI programs they’ve interacted with feel more like “branding strategies.” The turning tide against DEI picked up speed in June when the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in higher education, a decision that many speculate will have an adverse effect on DEI efforts across industry. The New York Times reported that experts believe “the ruling will discourage corporations from putting in place ambitious diversity policies in hiring and promotion—or prompt them to rein in existing policies—by encouraging lawsuits under the existing legal standard.”The same issues in place before 2020 persist for Black workers at the office. Gallup polling indicates that employees of color still report discrimination—and those who do also have a burnout rate that’s twice as high as workers who are not discriminated against. DEI strategist Amri B. Johnson (author photo)However, the high court decision and the failings of some organizations does not have to inspire total pessimism for those who are committed to furthering DEI’s progress. DEI strategist Amri B. Johnson, author of Reconstructing Inclusion: Making DEI Accessible, Actionable, and Sustainable, says this is an opportunity for the true advocates in the space to stand up. “We focus a lot on symptoms and we don’t focus enough on systems,” Johnson told From Day One. “Now we need to start building the systems” that will lead to improved, tangible DEI outcomes. He adds that the Supreme Court decision and the pressures that it may put on companies to forego DEI investments could very well be used as an “excuse” to do just that. Eventually, though, “if a company uses that as an excuse not to be mindful, to cast [their] net wide and find people from different backgrounds to bring that insight, and create attention to [their] organization because people see things differently [due to] their embodied experiences, then they should stop” their DEI programs. “If they want to miss out on talent, let them do it,” he says. For those truly well-intentioned corporate leaders and people managers who want to carry on their DEI initiatives—not only because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it gives their businesses a well-chronicled leg up on the competition—here are some tips on how to ensure such programming can thrive, even in the face of DEI fatigue, and not come off like PR campaigns.Add a “B” to “DEI,” for “Belonging”Throwing money at the situation and writing declarative press releases is not going to solve problems like the ones that DEI programs are designed to address. Real people are affected by the culture that historically exclusionary business institutions have wrought, so it’s going to take person-to-person care and attention to disrupt the presence of outdated workplace management approaches.Johnson says leaders must do “the little things” around the office—real or virtual—to ensure that workers feel a sense of belonging. “Thoughtful gestures can show someone that they are seen and welcomed in the group,” says Johnson. “Instead of sharing a funny story with just your closest coworker, invite the person within earshot into the conversation. When religious or cultural holidays roll around, don’t hesitate to say, ‘Ramadan Mubarak,’ ‘Happy Easter’ or ‘Happy Hanukkah’ to those who observe. The only kind of inclusion system that truly perpetuates belonging is one that centers on humanity, creating conditions for all people to thrive across their differences and similarities.”Creating such a culture where behaviors like that are the norm may take a change in approach and mindset on the part of the leaders tasked with cultivating one. Julie Fink, VP of HR at the University of Phoenix, suggests that organizations think of “DEI” as “DEIB,” where the “B” represents “Belonging.”“Belonging is how employees feel about their company, their boss, their leadership, their peers, whether their organization cares for them as individuals,” says Fink. “If employees feel they belong, they feel safe and more connected to the work and the organization.”To help inspire this sense of security and connection, Fink says leaders should talk and listen to employees with a focus on “not only what they say, but what they don’t say in this area.” Ask: “Do they feel comfortable and safe to speak up in areas that can be improved, or bring forth suggestions or recommendations?”When employees feel a sense of belonging at a job, as Harvard Business Review reported in 2019, they perform better, at a rate of 56%. 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Instead, it’s fulfilling mindless work, boosting employee productivity and allowing talent teams to focus on the most impactful parts of their job,” says Hahn. “Our report found that in the past year alone, two in three talent teams have implemented video or virtual interviews to boost hiring productivity. When asked what benefits talent teams saw from these changes in interviewing, respondents reported time savings, greater flexibility and a bigger pool of diverse talent.”Don’t Base DEI Success Strictly on NumbersThe true impact of DEI can’t ever be completely quantified on a spreadsheet or in a PowerPoint. Sure, there’s the aforementioned impact a greater sense of belonging can have on the bottom line and other data on DEI return on investment, but measuring a culture—an atmosphere about the workplace—and levels of individual contentment is impossible. DEI should ultimately be done because it’s good for people and their copmanies. “There are several areas where employers can make mistakes when beefing up their DEI programming,” says Fink. “The first is to think that DEI is just about the numbers and the typical race/ethnicity categories. Second is to tie bonuses or incentives to DEI metrics. This can drive compliance rather than commitment and possibly not the best decision for the business. We need to make the expected behavior clear, then reward or showcase that behavior. Set the example and shout it from the rooftops.”Johnson says that limiting DEI focus to “single identities” is actually counterproductive to its mission. “Yes, it is very important to make the workplace welcoming for groups that historically have been pushed to the fringes—people of color, LGBTQIA+, the disabled, older employees, women,” said Johnson. “But true inclusion includes everyone, even those with longstanding power and privilege.”Which is why people leaders should…Avoid Playing the Blame GameWhile changes to workplace culture and people management to enhance DEI of underserved people are needed, don’s create new discrimination in the process. Furthermore, excluding members of an employee base that may have benefitted from now-outdated systems does not align with the values associated with DEI initiatives in the first place.“Be sure you are not making your DEI efforts feel divisive or punitive,” said Johnson. “Everyone in the organization needs to feel welcome to join in the discussion, but no one should feel singled out. Pointing fingers only perpetuates division. We need collective accountability without attempts to determine who is right.”Accept Realities and Normalize Social TensionsPracticing mindfulness and acknowledging grounded truths about the state of things might be the most crucial step of all if people leaders want their DEI programs to achieve desired outcomes while fostering a real sense of belonging for all members of an employee base. Thinking any initiative will be rolled out perfectly and solve all a company’s ills is a sure route to failure, DEI experts assert.Johnson says DEI work will not remove social tensions—nor should it. Conversations that are open and honest will need to continue, and if they do, people will be bound to disagree or not reside on the same page with their colleagues. He adds that “tension is necessary” and not a bad thing in and of itself. “The danger comes when you don’t know how to navigate the tensions and complexities that come from those differences,” he said. One way organizations can ameliorate tension around the subject of DEI is to actually calm expectations around the adoption of what Johnson calls “complicated jargon” that is inaccessible for many. 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You can read more of his work at MichaelStahlWrites.com, follow him on Twitter @MichaelRStahl, and order his first book, the autobiography of Major League Baseball pitcher Bartolo Colón, at Abrams Books.(Feature photo-illustration by Vadym Pastukh/iStock by Getty Images)

Michael Stahl | November 30, 2023

Fire in the Belly: How to Find Hidden Potential in the Workforce

“Our systems for judging qualifications are flawed,” organizational psychologist Adam Grant declares in his new book, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things. “In schools and workplaces, selection systems are usually designed to detect excellence. That means people who are on their way to excellence rarely make the cut.”The good news: This is changing, and shifts in the way companies recruit and hire indicate corporate America is starting to look for people who are excellence-bound, rather than already credentialed. Until recently, insistence that candidates have a four-year degree has confined the way we think about what people are capable of. But out of necessity in a tight labor market, companies ranging from IBM to Google have reconsidered or dropped that basic requirement. As Grant puts it: “You can’t tell where people will land from where they begin. With the right opportunity and motivation to learn, anyone can build the skills to achieve greater things,” he asserts, citing research on the relationship between initial aptitude and later outcomes.“We’re seeing a lot of employers moving more and more into the skills-based movement, thinking about developing talent with a set of skills that have indications they can be successful on the job,” said Elyse Rosenblum, the managing director and founder of Grads of Life, an organization that works with employers to promote skills-based hiring.Elyse Rosenblum, the founder of Grads of Life, which works with employers to promote skills-based hiring. (Courtesy photo)Skills-based hiring, the practice of prioritizing skills and capabilities over educational background and jobs held, represents a new enthusiasm for worker potential. In that spirit, companies are making new investments in workforce development. “This is a really exciting trend that we’re seeing,” Rosenblum told From Day One, citing the kind of investments made by Delta Air Lines, which launched its apprentice program in 2022, and JPMorgan Chase, which announced this week it will commit $3.5 million to apprenticeship programs in the financial and tech sectors. Apprenticeships are often considered more risky for employers because they don’t guarantee returns right away but are long-term investments in capable professionals. “They’re looking for people with potential,” Rosenblum said.Seeking a New Set of StandardsA growing number of companies have removed degree requirements for many jobs, but as I’ve reported, many employers still haven’t entirely worked out how to recruit without one. Some continue to favor applicants (and employees) who have degrees over those who don’t; some remove the degree requirement but replace it with arbitrary proxies; others limit the upward mobility (and therefore pay) of people without a bachelor’s by relegating them entry-level roles and internships because they assume these workers lack potential.“It’s a mistake to judge people solely by the heights they’ve reached,” Grant writes. “By favoring applicants who have already excelled, selection systems underestimate and overlook candidates who are capable of greater things. When we confuse past performance with future potential, we miss out on people whose achievements have involved overcoming major obstacles.”Predicting potential by past achievements is a terrible mistake, Grant argues. “In a meta-analysis of 44 studies with over 11,000 people across a wide range of jobs, prior work experience had virtually no bearing on performance,” he writes. “Even if a candidate’s past performance is relevant to the current role, this metric is designed to detect polished diamonds, not uncut gems.”Early reports on skills-based hiring policies are promising. According to a report by workforce development organization OneTen, 77% of hiring managers who apply a skills-first approach find it twice as easy to identify qualified candidates as managers who don’t. Hiring managers also reported that skills-first made it easier to grow their talent pools with qualified and motivated talent.How Better to Predict Success?So, how can employers identify those uncut gems–the workers whose potential is greater than their present achievements?Track trajectories, says Grant. The change in performance over time is more indicative of capabilities than is recent or average performance. Rather than evaluating a student’s overall grade-point average, for example, consider their performance for the duration of their schooling. Low grades across the board in freshman year can weigh down a GPA, but when that same student logs all As by graduation, that indicates promise.Similarly, reward workers’ performance over time rather than investing only in those who ace their first performance reviews. As Grant writes, “the most meaningful form of performance is progress.”In an organization of tens of thousands, tracking the trajectories of individual employees is now made possible by HR tech tools that monitor employee progress, skills developed over time, and even match capabilities with jobs.Give people the opportunity to put their skills in context, says Grant, who cites the example of astronaut José Hernandez. He applied to NASA 12 times before he was accepted. At the time, NASA’s selection process was not designed to find potential, it was designed to award achievement. There was no system to learn that Hernandez grew up in a family of migrant workers and would miss months of school as his family traveled, or that Hernadez was not fluent in English until he was 12.Instead, the application asked for education, work experience, special skills, and awards. “The form did not ask for unconventional skills like picking grapes,” Grant writes. “It didn’t signal that a command for the English language would qualify as an honor. The awards section wasn’t a place to mention passing physics while working in the fields. The system wasn’t designed to identify and weigh adversity candidates had overcome.”See How Far They've ComeInstead of achievements, Grant argues that distance traveled is a better measure of potential. There exists a unique brand of motivation and grit required to travel as far as Hernandez did. Mona Mourshed, the founding CEO at nonprofit advocacy group Generation, calls this intrinsics. “As an employer, you’re asking, Does this person have the intrinsics to grow quickly in my company?”What you’re getting at, Mourshed told From Day One, is the energy of that candidate, their hunger to learn, their willingness to take what you give them and run with it. “They’re looking for the fire in the belly of this person,” she said.That fire in the belly is what Mourshed wants to see–or rather, feel–from a candidate. The humorist David Sedaris has noted the same about aspiring writers: “You meet people like that, and it’s like opening the door of an oven.”Looking for Fire in the BellyMourshed’s organization has an exercise designed to look for potential in candidates for its workforce-training programs. When a learner identifies the role they want to aim for, Generation tells them to go find three people who have that job and find out what’s great about it, and what’s not so great, then report back.Learners get a week to do this. In addition to pressing them to learn more about their potential career, “you’re also testing their ability to plan and to check their progress against that plan, in addition to the depth of the questions that they have and the quality of what they write.”How do you read a resume for that potential? “You don’t,” says Mourshed. You have to meet that person. “The only way you know is that when you are engaging in a conversation, it’s really clear when someone’s got that spark. They are asking questions as much as they are answering questions. They are bringing an energy to the conversation about what they want to do and what they want to learn if they’re given this opportunity.”In many cases, those people with fire in their belly won’t have any work experience or education in the career they’re aiming for. But they will have the drive to get there and the character to persevere.“In a world obsessed with innate talent, we assume that people with the most promise are the ones that stand out right away,” Grant writes. “But high achievers vary dramatically in their initial aptitudes. If we judge people only by what they can do on day one, their potential remains hidden.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz at Work, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | November 15, 2023

How to Lead With Positive Thinking, Even in Times Like These

At a time when it can seem like everything’s going wrong at once in the world, it can be challenging or even dysfunctional to search for reasons to be cheerful. Pressuring yourself and others to remain upbeat in the face of what would reasonably upset anyone has even earned its own buzzword: toxic positivity. During the pandemic, studies, articles and books emerged denigrating it. Indeed, suppressing unpleasant feelings of sadness, anger or fear with a cloak of conjured-up happy thoughts can only make things worse.On the other hand, negativity can be exhausting. In the workplace, the show must go on despite disruptions in the business and the world. This is when people leaders need to tap their EQ. Reframing a daunting situation in an authentic, mindful way will not only improve a leader’s personal state of being, it will also help them improve well-being and productivity in the people they manage. How to do it? Turns out there’s abundant science for that. Michael E. Frisina, Ph.D., founder and CEO of the Frisina Group, a coaching consortium specializing in performance enhancement as well as organizational development, asserts that a state of healthy positivity can be achieved by thinking with our “upper brain,” or the prefrontal cortex, which sits behind the forehead. “This is where your innovation is, this is where stress management is,” said Frisina, who co-authored Leading With Your Upper Brain: How to Create the Behaviors That Unlock Performance Excellence.A 2021 study published by the National Library of Medicine, inspired by the impact the pandemic was having on global enterprise, found that positive leadership promotes employee engagement. “The more difficult the situation is, the more leaders need to demonstrate positivity,” the study’s authors wrote. They suggested managers be trained in positive leadership approaches, which “can provide additional return on investment by improving employees’ positive emotional experience.” These training programs, the authors wrote, should guide managers in implementing positive leadership, including “such aspects as creating a positive-emotion-oriented team atmosphere, promoting positive relationships among employees, [and] developing positive communication among employees.”Upstairs, Downstairs in Your Brain In everyone’s brain, said Frisina in an interview with From Day One, “resides the capacity to choose one direction over the other.” Upper-brain thinking is characterized by planning, expression, and moderating social behavior. Lower-brain thinking, characterized by fear, loss and doubt, is experienced in the brain’s limbic system, residing beyond the prefrontal cortex.“This part of the brain–the lower brain–is built for survival,” Frisina writes in his book, which he co-authored with his brother Robert. The lower brain helps human beings manage fear in response to external threats, producing reactions of various kinds, including mental (e.g., confusion), emotional (anger) and physical (fight, flight or freeze). “When your team members spend their productive efforts surviving at work rather than thriving at work, performance suffers.”  While lower brain thinking serves a function that is useful in particular times and places, Frisina says actively engaging in upper-brain thinking on a longer-term basis is better for mental and emotional fitness, which will in turn improve performance. Leaders can do this and set a good example for workers, but they can also intentionally train their employees in upper-brain thinking as well, making it “contagious,” as an article in Harvard Business Review suggested last year.How Managers Can Inspire Productive Thinking on a TeamTo retain upper-brain thinking while acting as a manager, Frisina suggests that leaders start and end every meeting with what’s going well, set clear expectations and reasonable deadlines, and communicate priorities. They can also “reframe a stressful project” by asking workers to identify the pain points. Once that has been established, the leaders should ask: “Is what you are thinking about in your control or out of your control?” The effect of the follow-up question is a shift away from “skeptical, confusing, fear-provoking ‘what if’ thinking,” Frisina said, and into “productive, energized thinking.” Instead of focusing on “the negative outcome they want to avoid,” team members can focus on the “positive outcome they will create.”Frisina also suggests that, when employees ask questions, leaders should lead them to answers by describing the desired outcome and asking questions of their own that facilitate discovery. When people are successful, that needs to be celebrated, too, he says. “Get into a flow of recognizing wins and success stories, in conversations, at every meeting, as a part of every process improvement initiative,” said Frisina. “The more we emphasize what’s going well, the more likely people are to stay in their upper brain–and the more likely success is to be repeated.”A Case Study of Positivity in PracticeAndrew Wade, CEO of OrthoSC, an orthopedic clinic with six locations in South Carolina, says he became a devotee to Frisina’s approach after hiring him as a coach in 2020. “Upper-brain thinking” has spurred transformative change in his organization, he told From Day One.“The environment that we create really does have a physical, a very real physiological effect on people,” Wade said, referring to leaders in general. In a negative environment, “people will literally have higher blood pressure, they will experience more stress-related illness, [and they will have] a harder time in their marriage and their parenting relationships [and] in their community.”Andrew Wade, CEO of an orthopedic clinic with six locations in South CarolinaDuring the first few months of the pandemic, an unprecedentedly stressful time for healthcare workers, Wade began to prioritize positive thinking and bring it to the workplace. He recognized that, in his organization, leadership requires what he calls an “influential, relationship-driven” approach. If he was going to expect good customer service out of his employees, which requires that they be consistently pleasant, he had to set an example.“I do not have the authoritative leadership, if you will, to just be that CEO who issues a memo from on high and expects everything to just happen the way I set it,” said Wade. “Sometimes that lends itself to it being harder to get things done because you’re building consensus [and] you’re motivating [employees] to move–you’re not kicking them or shoving them forward.”Reshaping the company culture into one with more positivity had to begin with his own outlook and disposition. “If something sucks, it starts with the mirror,” he said. “If I’m not showing up at my best, then I’m not going to be able to help my team show up at their best and we’re not going to be able to  collectively function in unison to deliver our best for the people who are entrusting their care to us.”The Role of Empathy and ListeningIf leaders can stay in upper-brain mode, which Frisina further describes as “a state of positivity, openness, engagement and creativity,” he said, they’re less likely to frighten, stress out or even shut down employees. Whether you’re a worker or a manager, you might feel yourself dipping into lower-brain thinking, but there are ways to pull yourself out of it. When engaging with a coworker or client and things just aren’t clicking, Frisina suggests taking a walk in the other person’s shoes. Think: What is driving their behavior? What pressures do they face? What do they need to get from this partnership? How might they be perceiving you? It’s often OK to verbalize those types of questions.“Being inquisitive is powerful,” said Frisina. “Too often we go into situations thinking we already know the answer. But this kind of self-righteousness makes us rigid, which sets us up for conflict and failure. We should really approach conversations with a what-can-I-learn-from-you attitude. But also, asking questions opens minds, hearts, and doors. It shows people you care about them. They are far more likely to settle down, open up, and be more willing to cooperate and collaborate.”All of this starts with mindfulness, which Frisina writes in his book helps a person “regulate your own thoughts, function as the guardian of your team’s collective thinking, and increase your leadership effectiveness.” Foundationally, mindfulness is a strict focus on the present moment, or in the case of work, what you are thinking right now. “It is a technique of calming your mind, reducing stress, increasing focus, reducing distraction, avoiding multitasking, eliminating disruptive behaviors, and being mentally and physically present with people,” Frisina writes. Bringing oneself into a state of mindfulness can be accomplished by periodically taking brief pauses throughout the day “to slow your thinking,” Frisina suggests in his book. Mindful breathing exercises can help too. All of this, he writes, “will bring your thoughts under your direct and conscious control.”Making People Feel ValuedMindfulness, in fact, is what powers the positive-thinking approaches to people management that leadership coach April Sabral teaches in her book The Positive Effect: A Retail Leader’s Guide to Changing the World.  “You have to become very self-aware as a leader,” said Sabral, who has worked for such brands as Starbucks, Apple, and the Gap. “You have the lever to ignite those positive emotions in people.”Sabral says a key to being positive with people is through the radical acceptance of who they are, which helps bring a better understanding of how to manage them and insight into the entire kaleidoscope of their capabilities. “People will work with you, but they won’t work for you,” she said. “When I managed people, those who felt supported did the best job, they got the best results. It’s really about how you make people feel valued.”Achieving radical acceptance of others requires more listening than talking, which could be out of a manager’s comfort zone. “It sounds really basic, but do you know how many people don’t know how to listen?” Sabral said. “A top skill that leaders need to learn is how to ask questions.”These skills will be valuable when a leader or a worker enters into what Sabral calls “a negative spiral” of thinking, which will affect everyone around them. But there are ways out of it. She observes that it’s not possible to “stay positive, you have to be positive.” So one way to climb back into a positive state is to have a list of things that make you feel good, Sabral suggests. “It could be anything, something big or small. It could be walking around the block or listening to your favorite song,” Sabral said. “When you’re in a negative spiral and you’re recognizing that, do something that makes you feel good so you can get back to neutral and then recognize your negative thinking and start working on it.”Sabral has trained leaders in positive thinking at L’Oréal, Victoria’s Secret, Jimmy Choo, and other companies. Those she has coached have reported back to her saying their personal adoption of positive thinking has had a lasting impact, she said.“The No. 1 thing that happens to all those team leaders is they recognize that they take ownership of igniting positive emotions in their team,” Sabral said. “They’ve become way more aware of walking into situations with that assumption that people aren’t always going to be honest with them, so their job is to remove the friction, remove the title, and start to build that positive relationship with their team.”The Benefits for WorkersSouth Carolina entrepreneur Wade says Michael Frisina’s counseling of upper-brain thinking and the power of positivity has helped him get his workers–and himself–to perform like they’re “in their prime.” They’re in a better place mentally and emotionally, he says, which precisely aligns with the business’s mission of providing health care.“If we’re going be an organization that takes care of people, that means not just the customer, but the people who are working here in the organization that are just as important,” he said. “If I’m constantly sucking the life out of people by creating an environment that’s harsh and nasty and unkind, and people are constantly worried and scared and afraid to pick their heads up, they’re not going to be able to do their best work.”There’s nothing toxic about that, and after learning about positive thinking and seeing its benefits play out across the six locations of his company, Wade adds, reflectively: “It’s just one of those foundational things that seems like it should be so obvious, but it’s not.”Michael Stahl is a New York City-based freelance journalist, writer, and editor. You can read more of his work at MichaelStahlWrites.com, follow him on Twitter @MichaelRStahl, and order his first book, the autobiography of Major League Baseball pitcher Bartolo Colón, at Abrams Books.

Michael Stahl | October 19, 2023