How Leaders Can Empower Teams to Flourish and Create Big Change at Work with Gretchen Spreitzer

Why wait till somebody retires? Or why wait for the eulogy? Right? We don't know where anybody happens to be in terms of any given day. They might feel really down. Like one small act like that where you lift somebody up and say, here's how you're making a contribution that could be life changing to them and to the people they interact with.

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What if the key to transforming your workplace isn't in massive culture transformation programs, but in the smallest of daily moves people leaders can make? Welcome back to the Happiness Squad Podcast. Today I'm joined by Dr. Gretchen Spreitzer, a trailblazer in positive organization, scholarship, movement and a professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. For decades, Gretchen has studied what makes people come alive at work, how ordinary employees, not just CEOs, can spark extraordinary change. In this conversation, we explore her groundbreaking research on positive deviance, why small everyday acts of kindness and courage ripple into thriving organizations. We dive into the reflective best self exercise, a tool that helps people see their unique strengths through the eyes of others, and her pioneering work on empowerment, how meaning, competence, autonomy and impact can transform the middle of organizations from disengaged to flourishing. If you've ever wondered how to build a workplace where people don't just survive but truly thrive, this episode has the moves that you can make. Small moves, when magnified over time, transform organizations and help them win. Gretchen, I am so excited to have you with us on the Happiness Squad podcast. Thank you for joining us.

I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for the invitation.

So you know Gretchen, you've spent decades studying what makes people come alive at work and flourish. And I'm curious. I know as a McKinsey partner, when I started on this journey, I wasn't looking actually for happiness. I was looking for a way out of my fear and anxiety and why was I struggling? I'm curious, when you think back, what was that moment or a set of things that made you curious about how people flourish at work versus just survive at work? Like, what was the origin story behind the beautiful body of work that you and so many others have actually brought.

Into the world yeah, thank you for that question. It was fun to reflect on that a little bit. So my father was a sociologist, and so I always think I had an interest in organizations. He didn't study work organizations. He studied sports and medicine. But it got me thinking a lot about the role of people in work organizations. And in fact, in sociology, there's a construct called positive deviance. Like a lot of sociologists study the other side of deviance, you know, the negative side of deviance, what's wrong with society and what's not working, and, you know, users and, you know, deviants of various types. But there's another, smaller side of sociology that's about positive deviance. People that defy expectations, people in organizations that defy the odds, that do things beyond what people expect. And so I've always been kind of interested in that idea. Like the underdogs who overperform make a big difference through small moves, like when you're watching a movie, the really inspirational people that conquer the world, even though they're a small person. So all of those stories, I think, go into my background. And then I ended up at the University of Michigan in a PhD program. And one of the first people that I met when I was here was Bob Quinn. Bob Quinn studies deep change and transformational leadership. And I started working with Bob, who's very inspiring. And one of the things that he was studying around deep change was how people make important changes in their life when something of significance happens to them. Maybe it's a divorce, maybe it's a. A death in the family, maybe it's an illness, maybe it's a, you know, getting fired from a job. But a lot of his work was on how these life events change people. And I thought that was really inspiring, but incomplete. Here I was, like, a person in my early mid-20s, and I hadn't had, like, major life events that were transformational for me. And it made me want to think about the question of how people without a traumatic life event could also change their lives for the positive. And so empowerment was a topic I began studying, and then a little bit later on, thriving at work. That wasn't where people bounced better from difficult life circumstances, but people who proactively made changes in their life. And so that really brought me to the center for Positive Organizations, the opportunity to work with the amazing set of faculty and doctoral students here at Michigan. And they've all made me help lift me up with my research and my practice. And I'll say, Ashish, one of the really cool things about being an Academic is, you know, first I'm a teacher and I'm a researcher, and now I'm a leader. So being part of the leadership team here at the Ross School of Business and looking for opportunities to apply these things, I've been studying, but also even more so, understanding the complexity of them and, and how they really work in the world and ways to improve and, you know, elevate the kind of work that we're doing. So full circle from growing up with the sociologist to now being in a leadership role myself.

Well, I think it's an amazing story. And as you know, that that concept of positive deviance that really comes through right in all of the work is, you know, I actually, even though when I first read it, I didn't know the word positive deviance, but I think Viktor Frankl was speaking of that when he, you know, when he wrote this. In Man's Search for Meaning, I'm sure you'll remember this. I read it for our listeners. There's a passage in there where he says, we who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man. But one thing, the last of the human freedoms. To choose one's attitude in any set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. Right. And it's, I think he was talking about definitely positively deviant men because in those conditions, under that, I think it's definitely somebody who is that, who would, you know, who would do that, give away, give away, support others, comfort others. And yeah, I mean, there is so much that people talk about that dark period in humanity, but I'm not sure too many people have studied those men, even though few in number, and what made them that way and what shaped them and what became of them and all of that, you know, but it's amazing. But thanks to you, you have a whole field of. Around this.

Thank. Yeah, thank you. And I think in that story that you just shared, I think sometimes we think about positive deviances, these heroic things like Mahatma Gandhi did or, you know, other people who are changing the world. And sure, those are examples of positive deviance, but the thing you just wreck, you recognize it's also the small everyday moves we do that really matter to people. So you talked about comforting people in the concentration camp. Well, we also, like with students, the simple acts or, you know, colleague, you know, really asking, how are you doing? And meaning that you want to hear the answer, it's those small things. It was one of my colleagues birthdays last week and it was like, okay, yeah, I can just say happy birthday or I brought her a small bouquet in. And it's just like, wow, you know, so took the time to do that. And like small things can switch people's mindset in any, you know, everyday kind of situation. So small moves matter and they magnify over time. They build on each other.

So I'm gonna go there next because I completely, you know, I think the it is life is in little moments and it's those moments that matter. You know, we were at a conscious capitalism dinner last week and one of the guys is talking about, you know, yeah, at our company we have once, you know, we have gratitude and we celebrate our managers once a week and we tell them we love them. And there was this other person sitting across and he said, well, do you not love them the rest of the weeks in a year?

Right.

Like, you know, like, why can't we actually, every day, every week, Right. Look for the good. It's the small things people do. Right. We notice it when somebody doesn't do something.

Yeah. And Ashish, I think the other thing we can also think about is what are ways that just remind us to keep doing those sorts of things. So it's maybe it's a practice like that that once a week helps us, but what are things that we can remind ourselves of in the moment? So probably a little hard to see, but I have this bracelet, I have several different ones that I wear, but this one says probably can't read it. See the good. See the good.

I love that.

And so I wear this on a day maybe where I need a little bit of extra oomph. And it's a reminder to me. I look down at my wrist and I'm like, okay, yeah, this is a difficult situation. How can I see the good in it? I also have one that says strength on it. And my two daughters who are in their 20s, they also have the same bracelet. And if one of us is having a bad day, we'll go and take a picture of that bracelet and we'll send it, say, hey, I'm sending you some strength right now. So why do I say that? It's like little artifacts can help us have that mindset of remembering. I love that we're creating habits right where it comes naturally. But sometimes we need an extra nudge, something to remind us of keeping that perspective, that mindset.

You built that, right? Is that a bracelet? You didn't buy it. You built it right with one.

Well, this one is one that somebody gave, somebody gave to me.

But you can build one of those. So I think this invitation to say, hey, go get yourself and build something and wear it right. Think about what season you're getting into and what is something you want to remind yourself for yourself or for the others and just have it as a reminder so it's actually there. I think it's a brilliant. I think it's so great. Visual cues, things that remind us. I think we need that because we can get into living below the line, running on fear, scarcity, busyness. That's our default. So it's a pick me up. What are some other things, Gretchen? Small acts, tiny acts that you've seen in your work that have such powerful effects. So we talked about appreciation, of course, gratitude. We talked about seeing the good. What are some other simple things that I think if people keep front and center, they can be heliotropic, they can create positive workplaces.

Yeah. Yep. So one tool that we've developed at our center for Positive organization is called the Reflective Best Self tool.

One of my favorites.

Yay. We're doing it. We're executing it in two weeks with 300 people in one organization. But at its basis, what it does is help people see what their unique strengths and contributions are across work and non work situations. So people who you know in your life, well, work colleagues, but also friends and family, maybe old coaches, old teachers, people can decide who they want to get these stories from. But people get these stories of a time when they made a distinct contribution, when they made a difference to others. And we help them compile these stories and then synthesize to find a set of strengths of who they are when they're at their very best. So it's not their everyday self, it's when they're operating at their very best. And why am I telling you about that? Because I think those stories are so powerful, they're life changing. When somebody tells me about something I did 20 years ago, that still resonates with them. You know, I might see them every week, but that thing I did 20 years ago, that really stands out to me. So what can we do as leaders, as colleagues, as friends to give each other that kind of feedback? Not waiting for an example like, oh, we have this tool. We want you to do this exercise with us. What can we do every day to share with those that we interact with something about how we're seeing them when they're at their best? And the more that we can do that. Like, you know, sometimes we just do, like, hey, nice job presentation. Thumbs up. That's terrific. That's okay. But what's even better is to say something that really stood out to you, something that was meaningful to you about what they did, and to take a minute to either say it or write it down. Send an email. I love something handwritten. If you could see what's behind my monitor, there's some of those handwritten notes that people will say, I really appreciate what you did last week, or what you did in that presentation really stood out to me. And I'm guessing that many people keep those kind of acknowledgments because they're too rare. Right. We don't get them that often, but how much of an uplift they can be. And when I know that something I'm doing that's small, that doesn't take a lot of effort or time, but I know it makes a difference to other people, that helps me know I can do more with less. It's like a way to make a bigger difference without having to, like, add a whole new repertoire to what I'm doing. So the small act in that case is giving people authentic feedback about how they make a difference to us.

Yeah, I love that. You know, we ran the Reflected Best self. Amy Young and I ran that for Denone, for a team at Denone, and. Oh, my God. Right? It was so transformative for. I mean, these are people who are under a lot of stress and. But being able to see, and many times in that moment, questioning their own worth, questioning their own, you know, like, maybe there's something wrong with me. Maybe I'm not. Like, I'm in the gap and from seeing how others are seeing you was so, so, so powerful. You know, I have another story for you. We did something shorthand version of that. Not anywhere close to the Reflected Best Self. We had a session. I was with the executive leadership team at Crocs, and we closed the session with having each person, highly uncomfortable as they were, come into the center of the room and their colleagues inviting two, three people to share. The light I see in you is.

Ooh, ooh, I like that light in you. Yeah.

To just show them, like, you know, here's what you bring. Here's who you are. Here's how we see you. Here's why you're special. And some people, of course, had brought tears to their eyes. Others, you know, embarrassment. But whatever it was. But I think the effect people carry it because, you know, in all the research I was doing at McKinsey, one of the things every person craves for is to be valued and seen. And I think being able to reflect it best self is one of those. This was one of those. And we create an opportunity for people to stop and see themselves reflected. I think it can be transformative.

Yeah. Well. And you know, we just had a retirement event on Wednesday night here a couple days ago. And those are the times when we tend to talk about people like, oh, you know, Fred, you made such a difference to me and you made this organization different. We say all these wonderful things and that person is like, wow, I never knew any of that. Right. I mean, why wait till somebody retires? Or why wait for the eulogy? Right. Instead.

Absolutely.

For ways to do that where we can lift people up. We don't know where anybody happens to be in terms of any given day, they might feel really down. Like, I don't know if I can keep doing this or I don't know if this is the right organization for me. And like, one small act like that where you lift somebody up and say, here's how you make making a contribution that could be life changing to them and to the people they interact with. Because if I'm that dark cloud, that black hole, and I take that home with me at the end of the day, I just saw your dog a few minutes ago, you know, kicking the dog, you know, everything's wrong. If I go home lifted up, then I'm lifting up the people, you know, in the rest of my life too. So the way that those things magnify or create momentum, not just for the person that's receiving the feedback, but for the others that interact with that person.

Yeah. You know, I get so curious about this, Gretchen. Right. I mean, if you look at the data around workplace thriving, and I want to go there next. Right. Only 20% of people are thriving at work. Right. 20% find meaning, especially in the frontline. Actually, it's 15% on our research when we did at McKinsey, 85% of leaders, but 15% of frontline.

Wow. Yeah.

22% of people are burnt out. 60% experience stress daily. You know, 20, 25% are actively disengaged. You know, we have another bunch that are kind of in the middle at an activity that consumes the majority of our waking hours, at least in a big chunk of our adult life. I am curious. Nobody's researched that the current mental health crisis that we are in the midst of, not just at work, but in the world Kids doing much worse, high number of divorces, high degree of polarization. I am curious how much of that actually is originating from miserable people create miserable conditions for others. And we are just bringing all of this back. We are carrying all of this. And hence the world we are creating is actually one with pain and suffering, because at Mass, 80% of us are suffering.

Yeah. So this reminds me probably about 20 years ago here at the University of Michigan, we're very interdisciplinary, and we encourage, like, different parts of the university to interact with each other. And we had this physician come and reach out to us at our center for Positive Organizations. And he said, I help people with chronic pain. And he said, I've done everything I can within my control to have the right treatments, the right drugs to be able to help people overcome chronic pain. He said, I've been only somewhat successful. I have people who still are really suffering and struggling. He said, I think it's the world of work that is the biggest barrier for me to be able to get people really healed or really overcome that chronic pain. And so we actually had a conference with him where we talked about that link between chronic pain and how people experience work. And so I think you're. You're onto something, unfortunately. Right. That work could be such a. Have such a powerful effect on people's mindset, but also on their body.

On their bodies. Yeah.

We're carrying that, what they're taking in. And, you know, we talk about work sometimes being the grind. Well, you know, it's like grinding down people day after day after day. And so, you know, often when I'm teaching our MBA students or teaching executives, they're like, I think I just have to find a new organization because I feel like such a victim. And one of the things that we try to do is help people. This is some of my earlier research. Help people to feel empowered, to start making. You know, we can't change the whole organizational culture, but in the unit that we're in, we can start making small adjustments, small changes, build a coalition with other people who feel like us, create some change agency in our own team and our own group to start making some positive momentum. And sometimes we refer to those, like, bright spots in any organization, this is where positive deviance comes in. There are some bright spots of people who don't always have power, they don't always have the title, but they're seeing where there's possibilities to improve how the organization functions, how they treat people, how they interact with each other. And even if you're in an organization, that is not optimal for thriving. You can begin to change things in your part of the organization to make a difference.

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Yeah, and you know, I have, I so, so agree with you. I'm like so of like mind and I think it's a, it's sometimes a hard message, but I think it's an important message. Right. Our focus in terms of what are the work that we are doing. I'm actually trying to focus on the middle, not on the leaders, but on the middle. Because it's the center of gravity of organizations is in the middle. Right? If you want to change an organization, if you change leaders, yes, the effects trickle down to others. But if you change the middle, if you empower the little, if you help them build these core skills that they need to be positive energizers to be these massive, you know, sources by changing what they can, you know, so the research is so clear. Like we. So this is the recent two years ago, the McKinsey Health Institute. And I'm so grateful for them because they looked at drivers of holistic health and burnout. And you know, this is what was so exciting for me. This is also what was so depressing for me. But also what was exciting. What was exciting was two things. Number one, it highlighted that when it came to health and burnout, majority of the drivers. So in the case of health, you know, approximately only 28% were what individuals can do. Individuals like if I'm a worker, 28% of my health I have control over 72% of my health is actually outside at the job team and organization level demands and enablers. But the organizational layer was only 10% which means as any manager, I could do job crafting, I can do communicate like all of Julian's work around positive communications. I can build high quality connections. I can choose to operate from resilience rather than learning versus anti learning. I can redesign how we meet and how we create flexibility and autonomy. I don't need others permission. And that's what was exciting for me. If that is true, then we don't have to wait for the top of the house to do the change. That'll be amazing if they get on board. But even if they don't, as a leader, even if you lead a team of one, you have a more effect on that person you're leading than the therapist and you can make a difference.

Yeah. And you know, a lot of times people are like, oh, I have to wait for it to start at the top or I have to go find a new organization. And it's like, okay, those are two options, but you're missing another one that's right in front of you. And you can be a role model for others. If others see you job crafting, then that can inspire them to say, oh, I'm going to look for a way to bring my strengths or my passions to work. We had a staff member in our executive education group and you know, she's in a lower level position. She's not a manager herself. And she has a passion for succulents, the plants. And she noticed that when we have some groups of executives in that, it's a custom group, we have these beautiful flower arrangements around, it looks really nice. And then other times we might just have an open enrollment group where the budget is a little bit more limited and there was no natural beauty in the room. And so she has this passion for succulents. So she said, I want to bring that passion to work. And so on those weeks when there aren't, you know, these love that flower arrangements. She brings these succulents in. She comes in the day before, the night before and she brings them in and then they're a wonderful conversation piece. People are like, oh, these are so unique and different. They're not the traditional, you know, arranged flowers. And then it starts a whole conversation about how it's a passion of hers and she doesn't try to take credit for them. She's just wanting to bring warmth and light to people and share something that she cares about. She didn't have to get permission, she didn't have to wait for somebody to say, hey, you know, find a way to add something new, improve how our clients are experiencing. She just said, I'm going to empower myself to bring something I care about that I think is going to make a positive difference in this workplace.

That's such a beautiful story. And that's where I want to turn to next. You know, your research, where you started was on empowerment. And I think empowerment, especially in today's context, is so, so, so important. You know, a lot of. There's a lot of conversation around hybrid work, and leaders feel that if they let people decide where they work, they lose control. Individuals are feeling the other side of it. I'm curious, in our current context of how people are working, what are some things that leaders can do to truly empower their people? It can be around where they work, but also empower them to go above and beyond what is considered the this is your duty. Stay in your lane. Right. Empower them to take actions. Empower them to run experiments. What have you found, Gretchen, as some of the key things that enable that to happen?

Yeah, so the stimulus from my research on empowerment really came out of when a large Fortune 50 organization was working with us, and they wanted to empower the whole middle level of their very hierarchical organization. And these middle managers were saying, why are you trying to empower us? You need to empower our bosses. They're the ones that are disempowering to us. And one of the messages was just telling people they are empowered isn't going to get.

It's not going to get there.

Right. It's like, we want you to be empowered. It's like, oh, boy. So what we did is we went and we started interviewing people and ask them to tell us about times when they felt authentically empowered, whether it was in the current organization or some other aspect of their work life. And what we found is that people were empowered when there were four qualities or four dimensions. The first one is very similar to what we've been talking about already, and that is a sense of meaning, that people were more likely to choose to be empowered, to initiate empowered behavior when they believed that their work had some meaning, that they cared about it, it meant something to them. That's really the engine of the empowerment process. So if you're asking people to be empowered and they're going to choose the color of paint on the wall, or they're empowered to do something that just isn't really mattering, that's not going to create much momentum for empowerment. So the first dimension is a sense of meaning. The second one is a sense of competence or confidence that they have the skills and ability necessary to have voice, to do new things, to take action. So this finding a little bit came out of some of the related research I was doing at the time on how organizations that were going through downsizing were sometimes Saying to the survivors, now you are empowered to do the work of those who used to be here. And people would be like, what? Like, I don't know how to do their job. You might be empowering me, but I don't have the skills and abilities necessary to do that work well and to honor the work that they were doing before. And so what we found is that meaning was the engine of the empowerment process, but that people needed to feel like they had the basic skills and ability, that they were confident that they could be able to take action. The third one is what we often think about with empowerment is that I refer to as self determination or feeling like they have the autonomy to make decisions about how to do their own work. And often when we think about empowerment, we think about giving people autonomy or delegating work to them. And as you can see, it's just one of four dimension. And then the last one is what I call a sense of impact, that the person is making a difference in the larger system that they're part of, whether it's their team or their unit or the larger organization. So earlier when you mentioned mattering or feeling valued, that piece is really getting at that. People are going to be more likely to be empowered, to act in an empowered way when they believe that the work that they're doing is going to matter, make a difference to the, to the larger organization. So any one of those could be a starting point. I like to think about meaning as, you know, the engine the first place. But any one of those is going to start giving you a little bit of leverage to move toward empowerment. And, you know, again, in today's environment, with a lot of uncertainty, in the global environment that we're living in with hybrid work, when we don't necessarily always see each other and have those chance hallway, you know, interactions where you can show people they matter, or you can see and learn from each other and mentor each other. I think empowerment is much more difficult. One of the biggest findings that they've been able to see of one of the downsides of people working remotely, only remotely, not necessarily hybrid, but only remotely, is people can be just as productive. But the mentoring part isn't happening because people are not interacting with other people in the same way. Where they're observing, they're learning vicariously, they're asking questions. It's much harder to do that when you're. You have to say to somebody, hey, can we get on zoom for a few minutes versus running into somebody by the water cooler and starting again.

I love it. And you know, I think it is so critical even today. I think it was important when you were researching this originally. But I think this is so, you know, I think about a world where the only thing that is certain is the pace of change will keep increasing and not increasing linearly, but exponentially. The only way as organizations we can respond fast is if we push empowerment, if we push decision making, if we push that from the center stayed slow structures to the fringes where every person understands, they find meaning, they know where they're going, they feel that, you know, we are investing in skills in them, we are giving them ability to make decisions, especially which ones they can make. And I think, you know, recognizing and we are valuing them and you're showing that what they're doing matters. I think it's a must. It is more important today than I think it has ever been. And it's more important in the same story in the context of like this AI revolution that we are seeing. Right. You can try and roll AI out top down and eliminate jobs, but if you really want to maximize the potential of AI, you have to help people find meaning. You have to upskill them and say, hey, I trust you around how you use this to become more human, to kind of increase your productivity. And by the way, if you have an organizational North Star, the sense of why, then you say, If I have 30% more capacity earlier, I could only reach a thousand customers with my base, but maybe I can reach 1300 now versus saying well, I needed, I should be needing 30% less people now. I think it's two very different ways, but I think most people are going down the first one because they're not empowering people. They're not running the business for meaning, they're running the business for profit in the short term. And they want to hold all the decisions because they don't feel they can trust people with the decisions. Because fundamentally in my head I'm saying to myself, you're just a resource. You don't matter. What you do, don't matter, doesn't matter that you are replaceable. And I think those are the organizations. I feel, Gretchen, that I think there's a reason why 95% of the AI pilots are failing.

Yeah, it's like many kinds of change in organizations where people resist if they don't feel like they're part of the implementation, part of the rollout. One of the analogies we're finding helpful as we're working with students and companies here at the University of Michigan is AI rather than as a replacement, that it's taking over things instead, that it's augmenting, that it's like a member of the team, that it's adding value in a way that, you know, we can't necessarily do ourselves as quickly or as comprehensively, but it can aid our decision making. It can enhance what we're doing. I was just in a workshop earlier today about teaching using AI and people were lamenting, oh, people can go and get all the answers to the cases. And you know, this is terrible. You know, how do we teach with, you know, in this world of AI? And then somebody said, hey, I can help you write very personalized, customized cases in the moment that students are really going to have to think through. And instead of depending on Harvard to be generating these cases that we'll use for 20 or 25 years, instead we can write something super customized and time appropriate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So looking for where the opportunity instead of just seeing the threat, looking for where there's opportunities. And I think you're absolutely right. If we wait for senior leadership to figure out where the threats are and where the opportunities, we're going to be moving really slow. And if we empower people to see those opportunities and share them with each other, that's really powerful. Like here at the University of Michigan, the students are often the ones seeing the opportunities and we're learning from them about how we can build more AI. It's not just the faculty or the dean who's figuring it all out. It's really happening in a very collaborative, spontaneous way. And we have to be open to that.

We have to be open. Talking about learning from teachers. You've written a lot about that. And I think there's a lot of leaders who can actually take a page from educators. Right? From teachers. Yeah. In fact, I love that some of the leading work around this flourishing and others is actually being led out of education departments because the common vernacular in, in people stuff is we train people and no, we don't train people. We can educate them, we can help them in different ways. So I'm curious, Gretchen, what's one lesson from the classroom that you would invite leaders to almost shamelessly steal in helping their people flourish?

Yes. Well, here is where I'm going to be inspired by my older daughter. She is a first grade school teacher and we often, you know, are talking about challenges and opportunities that we both face in our classroom. So she just started a new year with a new class and one of the things I'm always so impressed by her is how Kind of coming back to my bracelet, how she sees the good in each one of her students. And it's a different good in each student. It's not the same good. That difference. Some students, a real helper, you know, Another student is one who is, you know, brings good energy to the classroom. Another student is one who's very disciplined. You know, she looks for where is that good? And then helps them uplifts, helps them be able to bring more of that to the classroom. And what she notices is that as she's sharing that feedback with the class, that she sees other kids doing it to each other as well. Like, oh, the energy is kind of low right now. Hey, Charlie, we need you right now. And he'll come and do something, you know, silly that, you know, gets everybody in a better. In a better mood. So I think, you know, you said, yeah, leaders are teachers, leaders are coaches. Leaders are people who see that good, see the strengths and how to bring those to life in their students, in their people, and how to get their students, their people to recognize it in. In each other as well.

I love that your story reminded me of one of my clients who we are actually working with right now. It's mufg, It's Mitsubishi Union Financial Group. And my friend, she's kind of the equivalent of a cio. They don't call her a cio, but. But basically she has all of that. And, you know, her team is actually pretty cool. She's done such a great job. I'm, like, so proud of her. But they have 15 people, and they basically know what each one's unique strength is or, like, what are they really good at? And so even though they each belong to different functions, right, One's over data, one's over tech, one's over facilities, one's over procurement. When they are navigating problems, they actually have the human side of the strength, and they'll send somebody from completely another group. Hey, because you're really good at kind of figuring out when the path is not ambiguous, go into this meeting or come with me because you'll help me. And I think that's a little bit of what you're talking about, is if we know what we are good at, we can, as a team, think about. We can think beyond roles and beyond functions and beyond swim lanes to say, how do we actually, as humans, leverage each other's strength in very powerful ways? And I don't think many people actually step back and think about strengths that way and pulling teams that way. So that's beautiful. Yeah.

And then also I think, thinking about how strengths are dynamic. They're not static, and so how people can keep developing those strengths and enhance them or see how they work. Okay. Maybe the strength works really well in challenging times. How could it also work in times of change or in times of calm? How could you bring that. So helping people further develop and deepen those strengths as well so that they're not just powerful. Yeah.

Yeah, I love that. So look, over the last 20 years, you have taught so many leaders, you have researched so many companies. I would love to hear. Can you share one story, Gretchen, of a team or a company that really nailed flourishing. Right. That is really doing so many things that others can look at and say, like, wow, if they can do it, so can we.

Yeah. Well, I'll answer that in two ways, Ashish. One is that I do think there are bright spots in every organization. And one of the cool things about looking for the bright spots in your own organization is that you can really see the possibility that it can occur here. And our job is to spread it rather than always looking out and saying, oh, the grass is greener over there. I want to bring it. And then you're like, oh, but it doesn't work here for X, Y and Z. So one thing I would say is the importance of looking internally at that positive deviance, those bright spots, to see where we're already thriving in our organization. And are there some clues about how we could spread that or magnify it? So that's one answer. Then the second answer is it's always a little bit hard because you see an organization today and it seems like it's doing well, and then something happens in the environment or the leadership changes. And so organizations are not static either. And so there's parts of me that is always like, for example, we used to use Southwest Airlines as an example of a positively.

What's happening now?

And now they're struggling. Right. And so is it because they did those other things that they're, you know, that those positive things over time? No, it's that the environment changed. It's that their leadership, you know, something changed. And it wasn't because what they were doing was weak in some ways.

Yes.

They didn't. They didn't adapt. But I will say one organization that is inspiring to me. It's a local organization here in Ann Arbor. It's called Zingerman's.

Yep.

And they have what they call community of businesses. So they have a very successful deli that's been in existence for Gosh, decades. And everybody's always asking, hey, we want a Zimmerman's deli in Chicago and oh, we want one in Cleveland and how about one in Boulder, Susan, wouldn't that be great? And their founder said, you know what, we don't want to be on the road trying to, you know, replicate franchises. Instead, we want to make a big difference here in Ann Arbor. We want a way to empower our people to bring new ideas for new businesses in our community of businesses. So over the last 20 years, they now have a big house that bakes the bread. They have a creamery that makes the cheese for their sandwiches. They have a coffee roaster company that makes the coffee. They have a, the roadhouse, which has like comfort food different than the deli. They have a training company that brings the Zingerman's culture. You can sign up and do classes there. So an employee might have an idea for a new community of business and they up pick, pitch it to the, the governing body and it could be the next, next business. So talk about empowerment. Here's where the success, the growth of the company could come in the original businesses, but also can come from the great ideas of employees. And so that stands out to me as a really. They also pay a living wage. You know, you go there, you're not going to get a cheap sandwich for sure, but you go there, you know, the employees are well taken care of and paid well and treated well as well.

You know, I would love to actually do a case study on them. I know you've done it, but I want to tell their story. You know the other one I found, Gretchen, I'm, I'm sure you're familiar with this too. The person who clued me onto that was Rich Menlo Innovations. Oh, yeah, these evergreen companies, right, that are kind of now part of the Tugboat Institute. And I loved that. I read that book last weekend called Another Way, and I found it so inspiring. I actually read it. I literally read it in one day because it literally mirrored back what I'm trying to build happiness squad around. It's got these seven principles that they highlighted. And what's cool about them was many of them a hundred, two hundred years old. So to your point about southwest is only 50 years old, but what are the businesses that have stood 100, 200 years of time? And you know, what they were finding were these seven things that were at the heart of them. And I loved them. You know, they were all purpose driven. The purpose was first. They were all. They put their people first. Right all the way from Barry Wehmiller to so many others. Bob Chapman's book, Everybody Matters. That was the book. Also I read. They all were profitable, right? Profit is not why a business exists. But the business can't exist without profits. It's a not for profit and it'll die. They were all private. They chose to remain private. They chose to at Abed Zingerman's is because they said capital markets, you can't fight gravity if you live on Earth. You can't fight quarterly pressures to drive profits if you trade it on the NASDAQ or the Dow. Right, because it's out of your control. But they chose to remain private. They all chose. The Zingerman story brings it to life for me. They chose paced growth. They said there is a natural pace at which a business can grow and fund from within. And that pace growth is also important because if you grow too fast, you can't grow your culture and make sure it's uniform. And so this notion of paced growth, they also had pragmatic innovation. And there was. The last one was perseverance. Right. It wasn't like cultivating perseverance. The determination, the willingness to kind of move through. I love those stories. And you know, I bet if we go and study those companies, from Wegmans to Enterprise to Radio Flyer to the SAS Institute and, and, and I bet we will find not all pockets to your point that actually are this magic world, but I think more pockets where people are flourishing and are guided by these ethos than less. And I think that's a little bit of the stories that I'm trying to get people to do. But I loved your inspiration when you answered with the first part, which is don't look out there, look here, because you will find more here. Because you might look out there and say, yeah, but I'm not like that. And I don't have that. And I don't. But when you look within, you have people, you have units, you have functions that are doing something different. Go learn from them.

Yeah, well, and the other thing we talked about, the reflective best self, where people share stories. By the time an individual was at their best, I think we could also do reflective best organization too.

I love that.

Customers to go to, vendors to go to employees.

Oh my God, that is such a great idea.

When did you see your organization at its best? When it was really thriving and flourishing, when they were achieving more than what was expected. And I think that is such a powerful exercise for identifying those bright spots or those bright times. Right. In an organization's existence.

I love that. Gretchen. Thank you, my friend. This has been such an amazing conversation. I have taken so much away from you, from empowerment, from this reflected best self or individuals as well as organizations, this notion of looking for greatness within, finding strengths amongst our people and kind of actively creating opportunities to develop them. Oh my God. This has been so. This is. I've learned so much. Thank you for. Thank you for literally birthing a field and kind of growing it and now leading it. You all convene over a thousand researchers.

And thank you for spreading it with us, for being a partner with us. We really appreciate that. We're definitely kindred spirits.

Yeah, it's my honor. It's a real privilege. Thank you.

I'll end with Go Blue.

Go Blue.

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Sam.