Ep 081: Lies About Work, Marcus Buckingham & Kim Simios

TOPICS IN THIS PODCAST

Culture Leading Organizations Performance Management Strategy

As a leader, you’ve likely received training about the importance of company culture, strategic planning and feedback. Training on the implementation of these leadership tools has become essential for every leader. But researcher, Marcus Buckingham says, “Wait.” Based on his observations about the real world of work and multiple research studies, he began to question some of the most venerated truisms of business, daring to suggest the key to organizational success actually happens on the team level. In this fascinating conversation with business leader, Kim Simios, Marcus unpacks three of his “nine lies about work” and explains how you can become more human in the ways you manage people while at the same time increase productivity and engagement.

On This Podcast

Marcus Buckingham

The Marcus Buckingham Company

Marcus Buckingham is a global researcher, thought leader and leading expert on talent, focused on unlocking people's strengths, increasing their performance and pioneering the future of how people work. A former senior researcher at Gallup Organization, he now guides the vision of ADP Research Institute as Head of People + Performance. He is the author of nine books, including First Break All the Rules, and Now Discover Your Strengths, two of the best-selling business books of all time. His latest release—Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World —takes an in-depth look at the lies that pervade our workplaces and the core truths that will help us change it for the better.

Kim Simios

Ernst & Young

Kim is a 30+ year veteran at Ernst & Young. Over the course of her career she has held various leadership roles, including 5 years as the Managing Partner for Ernst & Young’s Chicago office and as a global coordinating partner serving a broad spectrum of priority clients. Kim is Vice-chair of the Global Leadership Network board and serves as a board member trustee of the Shedd Aquarium and a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council for the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. She also previously served on the boards of World Business Chicago and United Way of Metropolitan Chicago. Her diversity of experience gives her a broad network and unique perspective into matters that can impact organizations, including navigating changes in structure and culture, the regulatory landscape, and talent management.

Paula Faris

CARRY Media™

Paula Faris is an Emmy-Award winning journalist, speaker, best-selling author of Called Out: Why I Traded Two Dream Jobs For A Life Of True Calling, and host of the Paula Faris Faith & Calling podcast, where she talks to inspirational people about what they're called to do and who they're called to be. Faris spent the last nine years at ABC news, during which she was co-anchor of Good Morning America weekend edition and co-host of The View. While at the network she reported on everything from politics, news and entertainment to sports and faith. In 2022, Faris launched CARRY Media™ with the desire to champion, advocate and celebrate working mothers across America.

Show Notes

SUMMARY:

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

We’ve been trying for the last 100 years to get more productivity out of people. However, per person productivity growth around the globe has been anemic, experiencing less than 1% growth since 1972.
The productivity outcomes data suggests that we have made some wrong assumptions.
The fundamental problem with many of our management processes is that they are aimed to make people less individual, less idiosyncratic and less unique.
Lie: People Care Which Company They Work For / Truth: People Care About Which Team They Are On

The data shows that “culture” is a made–up thing.
People’s experience within a given company varies significantly.
People’s experience on a team is much more predictive of their behavior.
The best leaders build great teams.
As a team leader, your most important job is not to satisfy the client. Your most important job is to build a high- performing team. And if you do that, you will satisfy the client.

The best team leaders check–in with their people every single week and ask two questions: 1) “What are your priorities?” and 2) “How can I help?”
Lie: The Best Plan Wins/ Truth: The Best Intelligence Wins
The more time you spend planning, the less your plans work. The world changes while you are putting together the plan.
General Stan McCrystal saw it as his primary job–not to plan–but to ensure his frontline people had the intelligence they needed to act.
Lie: People Want Feedback/ Truth: People Want Attention

Feedback sends the brain into a fight-or-flight pattern and the learning brain vanishes.
Instead of feedback, team leaders should 1) substitute their reaction for feedback and 2) react most powerfully to what is working.
Team leaders should use “good job” as the beginning of a performance conversation.
As a team leader, your reaction to what works is the most important catalyst for future high performance.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS:

In this podcast, MarcusBuckingham challenged three commonly held beliefs about work. Before listening to this podcast, which of these did you believe?

- People Care Which Company They Work For
- The Best Plan Wins
- People Want Feedback

Why do you think these have become common beliefs for so many leaders?

In what ways has this conversation changed your thoughts about these common beliefs?

Throughout the conversation, Marcus suggested that the most important productivity and engagement levers exist on the team level,specifically the weekly check-in with every employee. What is one thing you could do this week to improve or implement your weekly check-in plan?