GA 483 | Human Leadership with Dr. Jennifer Nash

How do we engage people? How do we motivate them? How do we create conditions where employees want to come to work and we're able to retain them and reward them in a way that works best for them. And then as a result, the profit and productivity comes.

Today, I'm excited to welcome Dr. Jennifer Nash to the show. Now, Dr. Nash has written a book called Be Human, Lead Human. And, well, if the name grabs your attention because you're a lean thinker like it did mine, you're not alone. Because obviously within the continuous improvement community, we're all about those sort of those two pillars, continuous improvement and then respect for people, or maybe better translated, respect for humanity or the humanness of people. And so I was super intrigued to interview Dr. Nash and to really explore her thoughts on what does it mean to. To be human and to lead human. And so we had a wide ranging of conversation, starting with, like, even things like during the pandemic and how leadership sort of changed. And we had a pretty interesting conversation on, like, work from home and, you know, and how that might look for depending on the type of work you do. And then really we just spent the rest of it as like, what is a leader? How can a leader be better at leading humans and not just trying to, you know, drive profit for the sake of profit without thinking about the human being, which obviously is not what we're doing within lean at all. So really, really good stuff. I think you're going to enjoy this one. Well, show notes can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 483. Again, gembapodcast.com, look for episode 483. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Jennifer, welcome to the show. How are you?

I'm great, Ron. Thank you so much for having me today.

Yeah. Where are you calling in from?

I am calling in from Austin, Texas.

Oh, okay. Well, I'm up here in Keller, Texas, so not so far away. We're close to Fort Worth, so.

Yeah, not too far away then. Just. Just neighbors here in Texas.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, got it. All right, well, hey, Jennifer, I'm excited to have you on. We were sort of talking before we hit record. I think this, this topic is going to resonate with our continuous improvement community. We do, like, right out of the gate to have our guests share a quot. Do you have one?

I do. My quote is from Dr. Maya Angelou, and she said, do the best you can until you know better. And then when you know better, do better.

Oh, I love that. What's that one mean to you?

You know, I think it's, it's a, it's an invitation for us to continuously learn and it's an invitation for us to continually reflect and think about what are we doing and why are we doing it. And if there's an opportunity to do it better or to improve our reasoning or background for why we're doing something so that it makes more sense to us and it's more in alignment with our values and our goals and our purpose and our mission, then move forward towards that and align yourself.

Got it, Got it. All right, well, so Jennifer, you've written a book called Be Human, Lead Human. And I was mentioning before we hit record that within our Lean Movement there's sort of these various houses, you know, everybody's got a house, you know, and one of the pillars of, of, of the house is, well, one is continuous improvement, which is pretty self explanatory. But the other one is often translated as respect for people. But really the, the more correct definition or explanation of what that the wording actually means is respect for humanity or really the humanness of people. So this title really caught my attention. I haven't, full disclosure, I haven't read the book yet. I do intend to read it, but let me be honest that I haven't read it yet. So I'm going into the sort of, you know, I've read a little bit some of the intro and that what I can see online. But I want to just open up with like, what do you mean by like human leadership?

Yes, that's a great question. And you know, I get that question a lot, Ron. So, so people often will ask me, well, leaders lead people, you're leading human beings. Why is this even a thing? Why do we even need to talk about human leadership? And I often respond to that question by asking them to think about when is the last time that they saw a leader either leading them or leading someone else and actually leading people? What were they leading? I will bet you that they were leading profit, they were leading performance, they were leading profitability, they were leading productivity, they were leading almost anything but human beings. And so when you step back and take a look at what Covid, you know, how Covid impacted our country and our world, it pulled back the curtain to reveal, you know, the fact that leaders didn't really have a lot of leadership tools in their toolbox for people. They have great tools for, you know, I'm sure in your community of listeners, you know, leading processes, right and creating opportunities to improve performance and maximize efficiency and maximize output. All these things that Taylor, you know, was very, very interested in back in the early 1900s. And since that time when Taylor worked to, you know, make humans produce like machines and improve their output and improve their efficiency ratios, that really hasn't changed in about 100 years. And so Covid said, hey, you know, we're going to. It was a forcing function to have leaders step up and realize that, oh, maybe I need some additional tools in my toolkit so I can lead these human beings that are in front of me who are struggling with homeschooling, with adjustments to daycare, if, you know that that all went away. You know, dealing with elderly children, figuring out how to work from home, all of the stresses that went on during the Pand and in some ways have continued today because leaders still now are insisting that people go back to the office. So we had this great work experiment over two years which proved that employees could work from home. They had the autonomy, they had the agency, they had the voice to say where and when and how work was going to be done. And now leaders are saying, no, we're going to pull that back. We're going to close Pandora's box, and we're going to bring you back to the office, because this is where work gets done. And I think there is really a contradiction in terms of what leaders are requesting from people today and what employees are really wanting.

Yeah, no, that's interesting. You know, like, I. I try to. I try to be super fact, like, again, by academy. Like, we. We were. We were lucky, I suppose, like, before COVID I don't know, say there's maybe 20% of us that sort of come into the office on a regular basis, and everybody else. Some people work from home 100% because they're not here in Texas and then. But there's a large majority of folks here in the area that they come in maybe two days a week, and they. And they work from home the other three days. So we have. We've been operating like that. And they come in on their. They choose to come in. They just. They want to see each other and go to lunch and, you know, that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. So when. When Covid hit, we weren't working from home. Wasn't a big deal. It was for me. It sort of wrecked me because I didn't even have an office at home. So I was like, I made a makeshift office in my son's bedroom. I remember because I was like, you.

Know, working from offices and closets and kitchen tables and. Right, yes.

Yeah. So, so I guess I set that up with, you know, but I've seen, and I haven't studied it greatly because for us it's not really a big deal. It's not applicable to us to really agonize over. But I've seen some of the headlines out there where people, they're saying, well, you know, people are, you know, more productive in the office. And I don't know if it's actually true or how they collected their data because as with any statistic, you can make it say what you want it to say. But like, what do you, what have you looked into? Just all biases taken out. Like, like are, you know, if you were running a for profit company and you have shareholders who are, you know, saying, hey, do well, you have a fiduciary responsibility, right. As the CEO of, of a billion dollar company kind of thing. And, and if the CEO says, well, I know that we're going to be more productive if the people are here, but I choose to let them work from home because they want to. But you know, from a fiduciary perspective, we could get in trouble. Right? It's like, what have you, what have you looked into on that? Because I truly don't know the answer. I just, you know, it just depends on what news article you read. And you can, you know, their bias right away, depending on where it's coming from.

Sure, sure. You know, I, there's, there's some research that I had included in the book around how, you know, during the pandemic, you know, Mercer had done a study on surveying employers to see how productivity rates were looking During COVID and 94 or 96, I can't remember right now, the number of employees said that their employees were producing at either the same or a higher level of productivity while working from home. So you take that statistic and then you look at the number of CEOs who are asking employees to come back to the office and framing that request under the guise of you'll be more productive if you come back to the office. The only place that you can collaborate and build relationships is in the office. And so I would offer that perhaps this isn't necessarily a culture building or collaboration initiative or productivity question. It's really a power and control issue wrapped in a box devoid of people, leadership tools.

That's interesting. Now what about like, and obviously certain jobs, like the person at McDonald's, you know, serving food or whatnot, they don't have an Option from working from home. Right. So. So I guess is it fair to say that some jobs, you really do need to be, you know, in person sort of thing, or a worker on a factory assembling a vehic or something like that? That's hard to do from home, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I think some jobs are suited for remote work and some jobs that require interacting with the public and having customers walk in and order food. Obviously, that's a very.

Health care workers, right?

Yeah. Healthcare workers, everyone on the front lines, you know, emergency responders, all of those individuals, you know, they may not have the option to work from home because their job requires them to be out and about and moving around and interacting with people and. Yeah, protecting. Protecting and serving.

So, so in those cases, like, from your, like the humanness, the. The human side of leadership, is there. What. What do you propose for that leader who does have, you know, frontline nurses or doctors or whoever it might be? Is there a. Is your. Do you have maybe suggestions on how to, how to deal with that situation differently maybe than we have in the past?

You know, so I would, I would invite these leaders who are working with, you know, first responders and frontline people, invite them to think about, you know, what are they actually leading. You know, I've had some conversations recently with, you know, people in the healthcare area who have mentioned to me that, yes, I work in healthcare. Yes, my primary goal is to make sure that our patients are taken care of and are safe and health and becoming more healthy and all of that. But what I see, instead of people focusing on that patient in front of us, I see them focusing on process and procedure. I see them getting bogged down in the details of the medical billing requirements and all of the things that take time away from serving the patient in the best, in the way that works best for the patient. So thinking about the percentage of time that is spent on that, how can you reduce some of that administrative burden? And how can you spend more of that time focusing on that human element that is, that is right in front of you, needing that support and reducing the administrative burden?

Yeah, 100%. So, like, one of the big things in our lean movement is there's a, a little, a concept called 5s, which is essentially sort of tidying up and, you know, putting things in place where you can find them. So like a nurse, as an example, you know, before they organize their area, they might have to walk, you know, miles and miles getting supplies and whatnot, whereas after some proper, you know, process work, I would argue, you Know, they're able to really elevate their main job, which is to care for that patient, not have to walk across the hospital to get the supply that they need.

Right.

So maybe that's a, an area where process does support, you know, the person. Because we're, we're fixing what bugs you, if you will, you know, like asking the nurse, hey, what bugs you about your job? Right? And they say, oh boy, yeah, this is that. And then, oh, let's fix that. And now you can, you can care for your patients better, right?

Exactly. Yeah. You know, I'm going through the same thing in my own business, right. I have all of these processes and procedures that I need to attend to. And knowing that that is going to take a little bit of time to get into place will actually save me time in the long run because I'll have more time to focus on, you know, my clients and the work that I'm doing and how I best serve. So sometimes there, there does need to be a little bit of extra time put into place at the, the beginning to make sure that that process is smooth and efficient and has the correct path, you know, so that we don't take extra steps than we need to. And then going forward, we have that time to be able to spend on, you know, the focus that we really want to be focusing on.

And I think this is why companies like Toyota, you know, they have two pillars, people and process. Right. You can't have one without the other because you could respect people all day long. And if you have horrible processes, well, first of all, you're not respecting your people because you have horrible process processes. Right? But you know, but if, to your point, if you just fixate only on the process and those, the revenue and all the rest of it, and I don't care if everybody's miserable, doesn't matter. Right? Do your job. Right. So yeah, no wonder. In fact, I just noticed that the, the subtitle of your book is how to Connect People and Performance. So it sounds like, you know, it's written right in that, on the title of your book, right? Like your, your, your passion for really making both of these things, hum, they're, they're in harmony, if you will. Right. Is that, is that fair?

Yes. I don't see it as an either or. I definitely see it as an and, and it's, it's, it's an art. So, you know, human leadership is, is. You practice leadership, right? Just like you practice being a doctor, just like you practice law. Leadership is also a practice to Me and I think the way that we think about and practice leadership, especially post Covid, has a great amount of opportunity for leaders to elevate their leadership practice.

Yeah, yeah. Now, at the beginning of a podcast, I typically ask the guest tell us about your background and all that. And I did, I didn't do that with you. I kind of did it intentionally because I want you. This next question I want to sort of lead into with maybe you opening up with just. Or sharing a little bit about your background because it's quite impressive as far as, you know, companies that you've worked with and worked for and then consulted with and so forth. So. So I want you to maybe share that and then maybe you could just flow right into. I'd be curious to hear on how some of these big Fortune 50 style companies, how are they doing at human leadership? You don't have to call out names like, hey, this company is great. This one's terrible.

I think I'll reserve comments on that. We don't want those legal eagles coming after us here. But I will. I grew up in the automotive industry, so I spent about 16 years in automotive with these extensive, complex supply chains, seeing how, you know, process and productivity worked in those spaces. And often there was so much time spent on process and productivity in those spaces that the human element wasn't even in the equation. And once I, once I shifted careers and I went into professional services, you know, I spent another 10 years helping organizations optimize their human capital and so helping them learn, you know, how do we engage people, how do we motivate them, how do we create conditions where employees want to come to work and we're able to retain them and reward them in a way that works best for them and then as a result, the profit and productivity comes.

Yeah.

So it's a question of, I think, where in the process do you put the human element and where do you focus on that to be able to achieve that maximum return, which is maybe a little bit different than what Taylor had suggested, you know, about a hundred years ago.

Yeah, turn, turn the wrench, you know, again and again and again.

And do it this many times and do it in this way. And then this is when you're going to take a break and this is when you're going to then walk and. And so, yeah, I think, you know, Taylor, I think his heart was in the right place.

Yeah, yeah, he gets a bad rap in the lean community especially. But without Taylor and Taylorism, you know, I don't think we would be have what we have today. Right. So it was an important part. And I'm not saying I could have done better. Right. Given the circumstances.

Right. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think he had good intentions. I think that some of the consequences of his actions were unintended.

Yeah, yeah. So that said, I mean, just again, I don't want you to name any names or anything like that, but just generally speaking, when you think about some of the big, big, big, big ones out there, the big companies out there, how do you think they are doing, you know, from this perspective of people first and, and everything else follows?

You know, I think we have to look at some of the data that we're seeing from research studies and different data points in, in the news. You know, we keep seeing high rates of low engagement, we keep seeing high rates of attrition. We keep seeing the fact that the great resignation is still ongoing. We keep seeing that, you know, burnout is costing $222 billion a year for companies. We see that there's over 12 million working days lost to depression and anxiety that cost over $12 trillion to annually. I think when we look at those numbers and we ask ourselves, how are companies really doing? You know, are they putting people first? Are they leading with that human element and prioritizing people? I think when in light of those numbers and the fact that those statistics are still in these massive, you know, massive, massive space, I think that there's no shortage of opportunity for companies to continue to focus on how can they improve focusing on the human element and putting people first and being human leaders and implementing human leadership, which is a set of principles and practices for organizations to follow to put people first. It's very different from old style command and control. You know, it's very easy to just tell someone what to do. You know, the role of leadership, I see it is changing because it's changing from that authoritarian and micromanaging to, you know, someone who is a coach and a facilitator to help guide teams and individuals to achieve their best work and put conditions in place that create an environment of motivation. You know, if you, I don't know. Do you have children?

I do, yeah.

Yeah. So I'm sure you've had that experience where with your children, you've, you know, wanted them to do something and you tried to create that, you know, motivating factor for them to do that. And, you know, maybe that didn't work.

So well and maybe when a teenager is not so well. Right, yeah, exactly.

So if you think about that in the workplace, it's sort of the same thing. You, you can't motivate someone to do anything they don't want to do. And so the question to me is, how do we create this culture of motivation for employees to show up at their best, to give their best, to perform at their best, and be the best human beings they can possibly be? And I think that starts with human leadership and looking at the universal human needs that we all have as people. You know, we want to be seen, we want to be heard, we want to be understood, we want to feel that our lives matter, and we want to feel that the work that we do matters. And so if you think about this from like the Maslow's hierarchy.

Yeah, I just about to say that.

Yeah, you know, we have a few of those levels where we address that in human leadership. You know, there's a belonging need that we have, right. We want to feel connected to each other, we want to feel connected to our work, we want to feel connected to the people that are around us. And so the subtitle of the book is really reflecting that. You know, how do we connect? How do leaders connect to, to people themselves? How do they connect people to the other people that they're working with, their team members? And how do they connect the people with the work that they are doing to deliver the performance? So at the very, you know, the second rung I think of Maslow's hierarchy is around that, that belonging need, that need to be relationally connected to our work, to ourselves, to each other, and to the performance. And then as you go up the, the expanded hierarchy, you see that several of these needs actually fall into these different levels on the hierarchy. So, you know, the fact that we all want to feel like we matter, you know, that's an esteem need on the hierarchy of needs. The fact that we want to feel understood is a cognitive is relating to that cognitive need on the hierarchy. The fact that we want to feel appreciated for what we do and that we're valued for more than just the output that we produce for an organization, that we are appreciated for who we are as humans. That's the aesthetic need on the hierarchy. And then we have a few needs above that that are the self actualization needs and the transcendence needs. And that's where the other pieces of the framework fall on the hierarchy. And so when you take a look at the book, you'll see that there's. What I have created is called a humans framework. And it's basically six dimensions that are connected by relationships which power and give the energy to the framework.

What is your. So speaking of children, I remember my wife bought this book many, many years ago and this was focused on children. But I know there's, there's an adult version clearly, obviously, but it's like these so called love languages. Are you familiar with this? Yeah. And so like, so we're trying to understand as our kids were little, like, oh, what's their love language? You know, and my son Ryan, he's 16, his love language is actually touch. He just loves hug. And he's always, you know, you know, very, always has been very clingy, you know, and walking by his little brother and gotta punch him or whatever. But it's a love punch, Right. Whereas my daughter Aaron, hers is gifts. Take her and buy her a Starbucks in the morning and you just won the day. Right. And not that she's greedy, but she just loves little things. And I'm. Words of affirmation. Okay, so tell me. Oh, great job, Ron. I love that. And my wife is acts of service. Don't. She doesn't care about being told anything. Do the dishes. Yeah, you're speaking her love language. Right. Like when you think about like that we're all sort of, I don't want to say triggered. That's the wrong word, but you know what I mean? Like, we're all influenced differently. Like what is it a responsibility of a leader to try to sort of maybe figure that out about each individual? Because I could say, oh, great job, Jennifer, and your acts of service. You don't care about words of affirmation as much. I'm sure it's fine, but, but you know what I mean. So what about that?

Yeah, you know, I, I think it's a great analogy and I think it's so important for leaders when they are leading people to understand the people that are working for them. Right? To understand the people that are working with them, what is important to them, what matters to them, what drives them. Because it's those internal drivers that will stoke that energy and that power and that fuel to continue performing and want to get up in the morning and go to work and do their best work. And so when leaders take the time to understand what makes their people tick, I think it's extremely important because then they can tailor the way that they want to need to be interacted with to provide them what they need to perform at their best.

Are you a fan of like Myers Briggs and that type of stuff? Or like, are there tools that a leader is like. Yeah, okay, well, I've got 40 people that report to me, you know, and I don't necessarily have time to go sit down with all 40 of them and get to know them personally or something like that. Like what, what about like, are there tools that they could use to get better at this or what do you think?

I absolutely do. You know, I, I think a leader's job is to lead their people. So I would also argue that there should be time for a leader to ask someone a question about how would you best like to be appreciated. What can I do to show you that you matter here? It can be as simple as that with a 30 second question. So I think that the way that we approach leading and oh my gosh, I have to do all of this work and meet with all these people. It can be as simple as a question that's asked in the hallway. It can be as simple as just checking in on Slack and going, hey, you know, I saw what you said in that meeting today and I really appreciated that you stood up and shared your point of view. Right. Whatever. It can be. So providing that feedback real time, asking for what people want and how they prefer to be recognized I think is super important. And there are, you know, there are so many different, you know, MBTI has its place. It's been, it's been widely used, it's been widely recognized. There's a lot of conversation around whether it's as empirically sound and reliable and valid instrument or not. I'm not going to get into that here, but what I will offer is that, you know, to help people on their human leadership journey, I have an index that I created that people can go out and take and it's personalized and they will get a results report in their email. It's complimentary and it gives them a starting point to see how are they doing on the different dimensions of human leadership. Where might they need to spend a little bit more time focusing and where do they already have a strength? Strength. And so that could be something. It's not necessarily the five languages, but it's the six dimensions. Well, the six dimensions plus the relational connection dimension of human leadership that will help inform them if they want to start that journey to becoming a more impactful and stronger and effective leader.

Nice, Nice. So maybe to wrap things up, Jennifer, somebody's listening to us right now and they're sort of like committed that they want to be better. They want to be a better leader of people and just be connected to the humanness of their, of their colleagues. Like is There, like one practical thing they could try today, like to experiment with or two, one or two things, like just a real practical thing that they could go as soon as they get to the office or pick up as soon as they finish this podcast, pick up the phone and on your drive in. Something like that. What do you think?

Yes, absolutely. So there's three things that come to mind. The first thing that they can do is ask someone that they interacted with yesterday, how did I do in that interaction? Did you get what you needed? Was I effective? What could I have done better? Any of those questions will be fine. So asking for feedback. Right. Having that courage and vulnerability, it's hard to ask for feedback because sometimes we don't get answers that we want to hear. Yeah, but it's the first step to growing that awareness. If you really, truly want to get better at being effective as a leader, it's the first step to growing that awareness, to understand how are you being perceived, because often our perceptions of how we are performing differ from the perceptions of those around us.

Okay.

So that would be the first thing. The second thing I would do is to shamelessly promote and say, get a copy of my book. I think you find it really helpful. There's great stories in there and it's not an academic book. And the third thing I would say is you can go out and take the Human Leader Index. It's on my website@drjennifernash.com and it's complimentary. And you'll get an email report with your results. And I would also invite them to share those results with someone who's close to them in their world, in their circle of influence, and ask them if those results align with how they perceive themselves.

Yeah.

And if they didn't align, then what is one thing that they can do to start working towards alignment?

Got it. Dr. Jennifer Nash dot. Com. Right. Is that the website?

Yeah.

Okay. And we're going to link to it here below on the show notes. So to scroll down, you'll. You'll find that there. So as soon as we get off and I record a little intro, I'm going to go to your website and take it myself because I love doing those types of things. Yeah. So good stuff. Well, hey, aside from your website, are there other ways to connect with you, Jennifer, like LinkedIn or anything like that or.

Sure, absolutely. So I have a LinkedIn newsletter that if people are interested, they can subscribe to. It comes out every other week. I have a blog on my website where we've got articles being posted every every other week as well those resources. There are a bunch of like free resources and learning materials on the website that people are welcome to peruse and enjoy and take advantage of. And I'm across all social media, so rjennifernash is generally the handle where people can find me.

Okay, got it. Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Jennifer. This has been a great chat. I really enjoyed it.

Thank you so much, Ron. It was wonderful to be here and I thank you so much for the opportunity.

My pleasure. All right, take care.

Thank you. You too.

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