Crafting Meaningful Work Experiences: How to Make Work Fulfilling with Jesse Brisendine

When people are unhappy and dissatisfied with their jobs, the outfall to the business and the rest of the organization is massive. If managers don't address the situation, productivity drops and disruptions start to affect the whole operation. Eventually, the people on your team will leave, or even worse, they'll stay snowballing the negative effect on your business. I can tell you though, the solution is buried within making work more meaningful. And that's what we're talking about today on Experience Leadership.

Welcome to Experience Leadership, a podcast that challenges small business owners and entrepreneurs just like you to dare to be the exception. Join our host, customer experience expert Marc Haine as he uncovers relevant and timely content to help you script and direct your business and teams to create jaw-dropping experiences your customers and staff deserve. Here is the host of Experience Leadership, author of Lights! Camera! Action!, customer experience expert Marc Haine.

Welcome to this episode. It is so It's so great to have you here along for the ride. My guest for this episode is Strategic Advisor Jessie Briesendien. We will uncover how to make work more meaningful and the role emotion has in our workplace. So, stay with us. In Gallup's 2023 State of the Global Workplace report, they mentioned that employee engagement in North America has not improved one little bit. What has changed though is employee and worker stress. At historic highs, worker stress is impacting productivity and performance worldwide. But imagine, imagine a workplace where your employees are not only committed but deeply loyal, going above and beyond to contribute to your organization's success. What if I told you that there's a key that can unlock this level of dedication. But that brings us to our Question of the Day. Do you know what would make the work your employees do more meaningful? Are you sure? I'd love for you to be part of this conversation. Why don't you go ahead and put your comments about what you think would make work more meaningful for your workplace and your employees. As I mentioned, my guest today is Strategic Advisor Jesse Briesendien. Jesse is an award-winning speaker, a best-selling author, and is a world-renowned expert. This guy right here who works with individuals and organizations to move beyond their limitations, unlock their greatness, and build what he likes to call build their Camelot. Business leaders, Hollywood celebrities, entrepreneurs, C-suite executives, medical professionals, And educators have used Jesse's services to achieve unprecedented levels of personal mastery and fulfillment. Jesse, welcome to the show! It is so great to have you here with us today.

Marc, it is such a pleasure to be here with you today. I've been looking forward to this all week. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, before we get into today's topic, could you tell us a little bit about how you serve your clients?

In short, Marc, from the heart.

Oh!

That's really the essence of what I do is I think to what you were alluding to in the opening, right, about getting to the crux of making work meaningful, it's really a heart-centered thing. I often think of the celestial perspective, right?

Uh-huh.

Somebody up in outer space is able to look down at us and they see these little specks of dust running around pulling their hair out, stressing out, making their hair turn white because they're so worried about whatever it is. And they're probably going, what the hell are those guys even doing? What is the point of it all? And that's really the big thing is what is the point of it all? And that's something that comes from the heart. And so, so much of the work I do, it really is with every intention of serving from the heart. I find that's where we get the most vulnerable and then often authentic and meaningful connections with the people I work with. It's where real change and transformation happens. It's the place where we let the BS lie and we get really down to what is at the heart of the matter.

Right. Well, to your point, I think if any aliens were to come over and take a look at how we run our day-to-day, they'd go, there is no intelligent life on this planet. Unless maybe elephants.

I don't know.

They seem to have a rather calm demeanor in their spectrum of reality. Why do you think this idea of kind of making work more meaningful, why is this such an important topic today, especially since we are on the outside of our pandemic?

I think that is, you know, that's kind of at the heart of it all, right, Marc, in the sense of it's One of the great things that happened in the last few years with the pandemic was it shook things up to such an extreme that it got us to stop and really look at that clichéd thing that we've all kind of tossed around and giggled at parties and cocktail events, which is, well, things could change like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. And then we keep carrying on so much to the point that at least in, I think, North America, it's been widely held and gladly accepted, and gladly might not be the right word, that in most workplace surveys, 60 to 80% of respondents express strong distaste, all-out hatred for the job they do. Yet we keep chugging along. We keep chugging along because that's what we're supposed to do. And what the pandemic really brought to the forefront is, wait, it really can change like that. And what am I doing this for? What's the point of this all? Why am I beating my head against a concrete wall trying to make progress? Is the watch at the end of 20 years really worth it? Is the worry about me getting replaced by somebody younger, somebody quicker, really worth it? Is the worry about being outdated by automation really worth it? And it's gotten people— it gave people space to really step back, reflect, and ask some honest questions. Is this really all there is, or is there something more? You had people start to explore that. You had people start to conduct business in a new way. I mean, in the United States now, I was just reading the other day in cities like San Francisco, one of the imminent crises that city leaders are having to tackle is The abundance of abandoned and not used commercial real estate, skyscrapers, large buildings that were for many years filled to the brim with tech companies and startups. And now we've learned that we can do— most of the global economy can operate from our pajamas and t-shirt. Truly business on top and casual on the bottom is here to stay, which means possibly more times with family, more time with friends. We can go for walks in the day, we can walk our dog, and suddenly we start to do those things and we realize, hey, wait, I kind of like this. It's kind of enjoyable to watch my kids grow up and not just see little snippets of them in between soccer practice and bedtime. Wait, I kind of enjoy this. I like having coffee at home and being able to enjoy a breakfast as opposed to rushing to work in white-knuckle rush hour traffic. You know, I really didn't realize how much I enjoyed going and throwing a tennis ball with my dog on my work break. Or logging into that, those meetings that we all have to log into, even though we know that we're really not there to contribute. It's more just there to show up as a tally mark of accountability and the in the corporate system, the listen-only ones. And instead, we're out there while we're listening, we're also throwing the ball with our dog. So, I think the pandemic's really disrupted the model that has been installed for us, and probably in large part marks the Industrial Revolution when we switched from a model of service. So, Marc, you are a— you make horse saddles. I give you— I tell you I want to contract you to do a— make a horse saddle. You say, okay, Jesse, I'll make you a horse saddle. And there's no time on it. There's no quantity. There's no metrics. There's just the exchange of, okay, you call me up or you tell me when the saddle's done. I come and give you an exchange. Here's the money for the saddle and that's it. And then the Industrial Revolution kind of shifted it away from that one output to now we're a time economy, right? It's more hours, more stuff. There's never the satisfaction of a day's work because there's always more to be done. And I feel like the pandemic really gave us a chance to kind of reverse examine something, a model that we've been operating on for gosh, more than 150 years now.

Yes. Yeah. You know, it's interesting because the one thing I found with the pandemic, a couple, I think there were a couple of really good positives. Number one, it showed business leaders that their employees are human beings because all of a sudden during the pandemic, people had to broadcast from their kitchen table, from their bedrooms. They had kids, they had dogs. And it's like, hello, these people have lives outside of the 9 to 5 or 8:30 to 6:30 timeframe that I would typically see them in. And so, I think that was a really good positive that all of a sudden, we had to realize that the people that we are working with are human beings, that they have their own lives outside of what we're doing. The other part of it is I'm glad that we shook up kind of the work-life balance to be more this idea of work-life integration. I think that really helps. But to your point, there are still tons and tons of businesses that have decided post-pandemic, you know what, we're just going to go back to the way we had it. And I think that's causing a lot of dissatisfaction as well.

I agree, Marc. I think the model has long been the expectation of we're supposed to build our lives around our careers. And many of us are looking at reversing it now. We really want to build our careers around our lives. We're prioritizing living and realizing that this finite amount of time— I mean, you, I, and everybody watching and listening right now can all attest to the validity of this, and that is All of us are older today than we thought we would be, and we've gotten here much quicker than we thought we would. You know, the pandemic really gives you that pause to consider, wow, time is going fast, and is this really all there is for me? If I'm going to willfully donate the majority of my waking hours of my life to this thing, I need to start getting an ROI out of it that's beyond just benefits and financial compensation. It needs to be something of substance. I want to matter. Mm-hmm. You know, we, we all want to matter. And that's the funny thing about this. The irony of it all is we all know deep down that what matters most to all of us is to be seen, to be heard, to be understood, to feel like we matter, to feel like we belong, and to know that we're loved. Yeah. This isn't a great mystery, yet it's something that we kind of have conveniently swept under the rug when it comes to occupation over the last century or so. And I think we're seeing people now starting to question that more. And not only that, but also in some cases seeing people starting to prioritize that in how they run their organizations.

Yeah. Do you think that the generational gap— because I mean, I was brought up As a baby boomer, I'm the last of the baby boomers, but I saw my people who are slightly older, 10, 15, 20 years older than I am. It was all about the nose to the grindstone. It was like, work as hard as you possibly can because at the end of it, you're going to be able to retire. You're going to be able to kick back and actually enjoy life. Whereas now you're saying that our mindset has changed to the point where we want to enjoy life while we're doing the work.

I think too, and to the point of the generational gap, Marc, I think that's a really valid piece of it. For a long part here in the United States, the hard work thing was work hard, sacrifice so that way the generation that comes after you can have life better than you did, right? It was almost like our badge of honor. We would do, we would willfully sacrifice to make life better. That's kind of been the rallying cry for so many civilizations throughout history. We are supposed to give and give and give so life is better for children and grandchildren, for these people who we never meet, our great-great-grandchildren. And we've arrived at a time right now in history, especially for first world developed countries where Much of human history has largely been a history of pursuit of survival needs. I remember in Psych 1, the professor standing up on the stage and talking about the 4 Fs of survival: feeding, fighting, fleeing, and you can fill in the blank of what the other F is. And now we've gotten right to a time in history where for humanity, especially in first world civilizations, most of those needs are met in abundance. Not only are they met in abundance, but we literally have apps for it where we can pull up our phone and swipe left or right, and we can have those 4 Fs show up on our doorstep in 15 minutes or less. Not only that, but we can track them, which means that if this generation no longer is having to pursue survival needs the way all preceding generations have for the last tens of thousands of years of human history, what is there? I believe that's where you start to get into the space of elevating consciousness. You start to see these things like purpose. I want to have purpose. I want to be connected. I want to know that I'm making an impact. I want to know that I'm touching people, that the work I'm doing, the time that I'm willfully donating to this cause, this organization, it means something more than just I do this and I get a paycheck at the end of the day. I want to know that it's helping provide in some way, shape, or form. It's going to provide clean water wells to disadvantaged youth in Africa, or it's going to help solve some greater problem across the country.

Yeah. And it's so interesting because I think corporations now are— they're starting to get it, but I wonder how much of it is authentic caring. versus band-aiding a response. I referred to Gallup's newest report. What was shocking about that was they estimated that low engagement costs the global economy about $8.8 trillion and accounts for about 9% of the global GDP. Why aren't leaders doing more to correct this new need, this new mindset, this new way of doing business?

I laughed, Marc, when you mentioned that because we've all walked into those office buildings before where we see core values and mission statement written on the wall, and then we see nobody practicing them. And they look— they sure do look pretty on there, but—

Because they're always with such a nice graphic. It's such a nice graphic.

Excellent stenciling. They clearly spared no expense of putting something up there, but putting it into implementation is a whole other thing. And I think there's a few reasons. I wish it was something as cut and dry. So the skeptical reason is, is I think what we see play out in politics, and I don't want to turn this into a political discussion, but it's kind of kicking the can down the road, right? We can sweep some stuff under the rug. We can position things and kind of prop it up and make it look like everything's okay and fine. And then we'll kick it down the road. And at some point, someone's going to have to pay or adjust or deal with it. But at least for right now, I can go and confidently stand on the pulpit and say, we're doing good. Things are all right. I think there's the other thing is it's that hardwiring. You have generations of leaders that are in charge, and that's all they've ever known. And you have generations of leaders who are coming up who are modeling the behavior of what they were taught from their mentors and them as mentees, just as we all do, we will model the behavior that we're— the people that we look up to or we surround ourselves with the most. And it's not to say that the behavior is good, bad, right, or wrong. It's just to say that's what's familiar. And what's familiar, while it may have worked, it may not be what's ideal or optimal going forward. And it especially may not be what's going to be the most beneficial way for your clients, your organization, and the customers that you serve.

Right, right. To your point, I think these multigenerational leaders who are coming up kind of exposed to the way things used to happen. I mean, they're the ones who are stepping back and go, well, I know why productivity is low or why I keep losing staff. It's because the new generation has different expectations. It's the new generation's fault, right? But it's something that I think overall that we've contributed to that. And so, how do you respond to that when that's the attitude?

Yeah, I think the great convenience that many of us are still affording ourselves is saying that this generation is what their hopes and dreams are is about going to the offices and having beanbag chairs and kombucha available in all corners. And that's kind of how we stereotype them in a way to dispel this whole productivity thing. I think though, at the crux of it is this, it's that change is always scary for many of the people. Robin Sharma has always been one of my favorite authors. He says change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and glorious at the end. And what is missing from that is it's scary for many of us, especially when we're so entrenched in certain ways of doing it. It's hard for us to be vulnerable and acknowledge that maybe the way we're doing it might not be the best way. And it's hard for us to go into these dynamics because we're dealing with different kinds of problems before. We are, at the same time, we're also having to, I think for many people, acknowledging how maybe deep down we've sacrificed that and we've always wanted that too, but it's never been a priority. And so, how do we do business then if— how do we do business if business is not the number one focus anymore? And I would suggest that shifting it to making work more meaningful Focusing on these kinds of employee enhancements, if you will, actually does make business even more of a focus because what you're doing is you're looking at how do I really optimize the purveyors of the business so that they can produce in a different way, in a different level than they ever have before. It's kind of like a sports team that we've all seen it before where you have a collection of incredible athletes. An example would be the 19— gosh, was it the 1996 Or the 2000 Dream Team basketball team. So, after the 1992 NBA basketball team, which was attributed as the greatest team ever assembled, going into international competition, the assumption is who's ever going to beat the Americans? There's no reason they should never not win. And it was either the '96 or the 2000 team. I'm blanking on which one it is right now. All the talented people in the world, the greatest athletes in the world, and they lose. They lose. How is it that they lose? They're the best and they're driven to be the best. How is that even possible? How is it— and more importantly, the better question to ask is how is it that group of people who are less talented, less athletic are able to beat them? And I think you go and you have to start to dig into the dynamics of it. You start to see these fundamentals, teamwork, connection, passion, connection to the cause, who's playing for the country. It's kind of like Miracle on Ice in the 1980s. Even if we haven't seen the movie or we didn't watch the game, we've all heard that call of, do you believe in miracles? Where the USA comes back from, I think, an 0-4 or 4-1 deficit and beats the Soviet Union, who at the time, they were literally the Terminator of hockey. Well, what is it? There's this passion. There's this something compelling people to act beyond. So, we've had these little breadcrumbs of clues spread out through history about what's going to really drive people to that next level. It's just we're often blinded to see them because we're so focused on what the bottom line is. And as such, that's what we're trained to do. So, no fault of anyone's own. It's just to suggest that maybe, just maybe, there's something there that we've overlooked for quite a long time.

Yeah.

And to your point, I think we as leaders tend to look at our environments And our people with blinders on. And so, this is why I was so happy with COVID the way that we were able to actually witness people in their own home domains, see things. Because all of a sudden, you realize this person who seems to be late all the time on their thing, or they're not performing to your expectations. But you notice behind them, it's like, do you play guitar? And it's like, oh yeah, I love playing guitar. I'm a member of 2 bands and we tour every weekend. And it's like all of a sudden, his passion comes out and it's like, Why don't you have that passion for the work that we're doing? Why do you have the passion for that? And so, that's kind of how I push that point to leaders. It's like, well, if you're thinking that people are lazy, I mean, there are a lot of people out there doing stuff in their free time. And there's nothing lazy about what they do when they're not at work, right? So, I think it's really interesting. And this idea of kind of tapping into making work more meaningful in a way that resonates not only with the people working individually with the team. But the whole team altogether I think is really a dynamic we need to explore. So, I'd like to pull back the curtain on what leaders can do today to make work more meaningful. And we'll get to that right after this. When the spotlight shines on your business, are customers applauding or yawning? In other words, how is your business performing? Make your business a star with a new book, Lights! Camera! Action!, Business Operational Excellence Through the lens of live theater by Marc Haine. Marc uses his business and acting experience to help you see your business like a live show so you can create a performance your customers will never forget. Buy Lights!

Camera! Action!

today at your favorite online retailer or directly at marchaine.com. Welcome back! I am here with Jesse Briesendien. Jesse, the State of the Workplace report is really fascinating. I don't know if you've seen the copy of it all. But it indicates that 59% of the world's employees are quiet quitting. That is, they're filling their seats, watching the clock. They are psychologically disconnected from their employer, from their job. But the interesting thing that I found was a quote was that although they are minimally productive, they are more likely to be stressed out and burnt out than engaged workers because they feel lost and disconnected from their workplace. Would you say that that is a really great definition of when work is not meaningful?

I think it's a— yeah, Marc, I would say it's a very fair definition. You add some sort of emotion behind it. And it's interesting, quiet quitting. We have quiet quitting, loud quitting. I just heard a quote from the CEO of Delta the other day saying people are revenge traveling. All that's to say is that we are passionately doing stuff. There's emotion behind what we're doing now. And it's no longer Really going to— if we want to elevate to the next levels, we can't ignore the emotion behind it.

Right. And because it is tied, because this whole idea of waking up every day, like, I think we've all done it where you wake up in the morning and it's like, I have to get up for another day. And I have a joke about— and I don't— I'm not religious in any way, but I've— you know, there are 2 types of people on the planet. The people who wake up in the morning and go, oh God, morning. And then the other people wake up in the morning and go, good morning, God. I think they're 2 different psyches. But as leaders, we need to be able to tap into both. And so, what do you think leaders can do to drive work to become more meaningful for the individuals as well as for the teams?

Yeah, there's a few things, Marc. I think number one is leaders, first and foremost, leaders' greatest opportunity right out of the gate is to have and be steering a ship that is deeply mission-oriented and then having that mission be well and clearly articulated throughout the organization with the appropriate values to back it up. And having those company's values be so well known and the leader is the chief practitioner of them that it's infectious and it makes other people want to jump on that ship and participate in that expression of the values. Amongst those values, I think arguably some of the most important are having a strong sense of purpose and having The individual employee's purpose tied in some way, shape, or form to the greater organizational purpose. We are all looking for that. Again, going back to that question of intelligent life looking down going, what the heck's the point of this all? All of us are asking ourselves constantly, what the heck does this mean? What is the point of this all? And for a leader in any sort of leadership position to help people answer that question, allow them then to connect that purpose to the greater impact, What is it that the organization does beyond our field of view? That's powerful. And so, an easy example of this might be somebody who, let's say somebody produces, they put tires on a car in an assembly line somewhere in Michigan. The old model of thinking is your job is tire assembly. The new model of thinking or the new model of leadership with meaning would be, That your job is to ensure that the function, the piece of the car that is the most essential to keeping it on the road and protecting families from losing control and flying off a cliff, is so strategically placed and well-fastened that we will see a 5%, 10%, 20% reduction in roadside accidents due to faulty tires. Now think about that, right? There's a huge different thing. Imagine the person who goes to work as a tire assembler. Versus imagine the person who goes in as a chief safety officer of the tires on the car or something like that, making that title up. But the point is, is that person, that second person, they're connecting their work to something deeply meaningful and purposeful. They're seeing the benefit of their effort and they're able to experience it. And then what the leader would also do to help deepen that is give those employees an opportunity to have a direct connection with those customers who are the beneficiaries of it. We talk a lot of times in organizations about front of the house, back of the house, the people who are up front selling the things, they're shaking hands, kissing babies, and those who are in the back who are making stuff. And it's interesting that if you have an organization that you talk with that isn't necessarily implementing what you and I are discussing, usually you see a very big disconnect from front of house experience and back of house experience. Well, why is it? Because one of the ways that we know makes work, makes life meaningful is human interaction, human connection. But what is the front of the house doing a lot? They're connecting, they're talking with the customers, they're interfacing with people, they're finding out how the product is showing up, how it's helping people. What is the back of the house doing? They're putting stuff together, they're locked away, they're not seeing anything. They're often cubicle, you know, in a cubicle, just cranking stuff out, cranking stuff out, putting in code, whatever that is. So in that same thing, now that person is elevated from, you know, assembling tires to this person who's in charge of tire safety that's gonna help reduce fatalities to families by 15% over the coming year.

Yeah.

We've created a way for them to have the same sort of interaction that those in the front of the house do. How can we connect them with those people? And that might be something that we invite some of those customers who have benefited from the product or service in for a show and tell. It might be something where we utilize social media and we have— I did this with one of my, one of my clients, Mark. They had a large back of the house group in their facility, probably 85% of the workforce was there. So to help them connect with it, we got a series of TVs that we put around the production floor. And this was a company that had a large social media presence and people would go on there and chat often about all the great benefits of the product. And what we would do is we'd broadcast throughout the day just as a recurring theme around customer appreciation, customer testimonials, whether it was a picture that was sent in, a video. Oh my gosh, that little thing, that little change, it was incredible. You could literally watch people stand about it grow about an inch and a half that day because instead of kind of carrying themselves, doing remedial work, which oftentimes we see the back of the house as. It's not one of those things that we, we all grew up wanting to do. Now they're walking with a sense of purpose, and you can tell people who walk with a sense of purpose. Their head is high, they're looking to the sky, there's a smile on their face because they know, they are keenly aware that when they wake up in the morning, they're no longer saying, oh man, I gotta get up. That's the person who has to get up because they, they don't get that what they're gonna do is of service to someone somewhere. Instead, those people are walking in knowing that they're making some sort of difference, knowing that they're impacting someone else.

Yes. As you were saying that with the tire people, I remembered I was working at a hotel with a huge catering department. And we had tons and tons of weddings every year. And whenever we had weddings coming on, you could tell that the chefs and the cooks and everybody was so focused on making everything perfect because in a wedding, there is no do-over, right? And they put such meticulous attention to everything. But yet when the restaurant was open and they're serving and we're just serving customers who are sitting in the restaurant and stuff, it really seemed like the cooks were just grinding it all out.

Yeah.

And it wasn't until I stopped them and I actually brought all the cooks to the door to look at all the people in the dining room and said, you know, we do such a wonderful job on special events and on weddings and stuff. But the one thing you have to remember is each one of these people in this room are here for a dining event. of their own. They could be celebrating anniversaries, birthdays, the first time they're getting together. And our job is to give them that experience so that they can walk out of here going, wow, that was a great evening of reconnecting.

And we're part of that.

And after that, it really seemed like people had a new focus on how they produced the food that they put on plates.

That's incredible you did that.

Yeah, well, it's not— it's incredible that they did it. Because at the end of the day, it was just a focus, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

So, in this idea of being able to make work meaningful, so we have purpose and we have the purpose aspect to it, which I believe purpose leads to passion. How important is autonomy and empowerment in the formula of being able to make work meaningful?

It's important. And I would say that if I were to gauge something of if we're going on scale of importance with purpose being near the top, I would say after that, before I would give— put autonomy on there, I would say meaningful relationships, connection. You call it a best friend at work.

Mm-hmm.

It would be something— there was this organization, and I think it was in the Bay Area in California, San Francisco area. And I'm blanking on the name. I want to say it's Delancey Street, but fascinating organization. And what they do is, and I'm paraphrasing this, essentially they will bring in people who are serving out prison sentences. And who— people who present, who have had fairly decent behavior in prison, they're not presenting an immediate, you know, danger to society, and they'll bring them in and they'll have them go through their program. And if they successfully move through it, they'll be able to have a reduction in their prison sentence and be able to go out into society. And how this works, you know, what's really fascinating about this is a lot of the folks who go through this, you could have all homogeneity of people. So you could— it's not uncommon to have people from rival gangs in Southern California, we have the Bloods and the Crips, and I think they're actually more prevalent, but those are names that most of us would know. 2 rival gangs. And, and what will happen is once you get released from prison, the first thing that you do, right, is your first day is you get paired up with somebody, a buddy. And oftentimes they will pair you up with somebody who in your previous life outside of prison you might have had conflict with. A Blood might get paired up with a Crip. And what that person's job is, is to start to show you the ropes, to teach you.

So immediately There is—

they are taking ownership of your success and your performance is tied to their performance. But more importantly, they're told and instructed and cued about how do we demonstrate caring, right? How do I demonstrate that I genuinely care about this person's success? And one book I read about it, they were talking about this moment where it was 2 people from a rival gang. One person was— and then so what they'll do is they all— they own this restaurant.

Mm-hmm.

That's part of their program. And so everybody who's coming out, they're gonna be given a job in there. They might be a cook, they might be a busser, they might be a server, they might be a dishwasher. One of the people who had just gotten out, I think they were rival gang members. Their buddy is on one gang, they were on a different gang. They are serving their first table. They're walking over and something happens. They spill some of the dishes and they break. And these are the public that they're serving, right?

Mm-hmm.

Of course they're embarrassed. Of course they're shamed, right? Which is a funny thing to think of these guys who are gangbangers, tattooed up, all those types of things, being embarrassed, right? No, no, they're humans too. They're embarrassed. And the first person to come over and help them, no judgment, nothing else, was the person from the rival gang. But what does that say to that person? Immediately, all their, you know, it demystifies all the propaganda that was fueled in them to hate this person first and foremost. But what it does is it gives them that reinforcement of almost safety and security that somebody's here and they genuinely care about my success. And now we're showing up not just to perform for ourselves, which is very egoic. Now we're showing up to perform for this person who cares about me. Which is much more from a place of service. So organizationally having and creating an environment that fosters these relationships, you know, it's such a silly thing, Marc, where we've often said separate work from home. You know, you gotta, when you walk in, you gotta leave home at home. Well, we all know how silly that is. Whoever walks in the door, when you walk into the door, whether it's at my house or my business, I'm not just getting Marc, the guest or the employee. I'm getting Marc plus whatever went on that morning, plus whatever went on that night. And for me to try to ignore it is, I think in many ways it's dimming the, the dimming the fullness of Marc's expression. So the benefit of having this person, having a buddy, having somebody there, a relationship, it now starts to endear you to the organization even more. We've all heard those stories and many of us experienced these during the pandemic where we, we, you referenced quiet quitting earlier. As we shut down, as the world shut down, as everybody went, holy crap, what's going to happen? People would remain with an organization because they were deeply loyal to the other people. Because they didn't want to quit and give up on their friends. And that's the simple truth of it. I mean, we care about people. It's what's made our species survive for so long. It's— we were never the strongest or the fastest. But we're the ones that are the most collaborative. There's a superpower in that. So, the more we can help foster those relationships along with giving people a deep sense of purpose, the more meaningful work will become for them.

Do you have any advice to business managers out there, business leaders to help them help their team members create those levels of collaboration?

Yeah. First, from somebody— so, the new hire experience, they have a buddy. And their job is not just to orient them to the work. Their job is to connect with them, right? So, show them the ropes, get to know them, have lunch with them, take them out to happy hour. They're the person who introduces them to people, those kinds of things. Team-building events are great. And team-building events should be that. They should be building. They shouldn't be disguised as work functions where we're going to go in there and we're going to learn more work. So team building kind of things are great. You know, sometimes we think that rewarding performance means that we need to offer Starbucks gift cards and, and other kinds of things. I quite frankly think the Starbucks gift cards are so clichéd. And as somebody who can't stand coffee, it's such a lost thing because it, it, when I get it, it's literally like, how, how little do you really know me? Oh yeah, here's the reminder of it, right?

Yeah.

So personalized recognition like that, but having the, the buddy or the buddies at work is really critical. And then creating a culture where There's opportunities to connect and bond outside of work. Google does this. And prior to some of the things that we've heard about Google in the last couple of years with the layoffs, Google had long been regarded and celebrated as one of the top places in the world to work. And one of the things Google did is they had a bulletin board at some central part in the building on the Google campus. And it was basically like a hobby bulletin board. And it was, you know, who likes to play guitar? Who likes to drum? Who likes to hike? Who likes to go swimming? Who likes to play football? And people were encouraged to sign up and they would help facilitate these meetups for people and the employees to go and do these kinds of things outside of work. What happens now? Now we're going, we're hanging out, we're bonding over this stuff like we're passionate about. Like you were saying, the guitar player earlier, and it's not to say people aren't necessarily passionate about the work, but we will all have something that we care about. And if you facilitate the experience of shared experience of that with other people, guess what? You are now going to create an association of that to the place you work. So, even if you're not 100% bought into the organization, it's you like it enough but you're not fully passionate about it. Guess what? You'll be passionate about the people. You'll be passionate about the stuff that you do with the people. That passion will spill over.

Yes, it's so interesting. Again, I worked with the municipality and we brought Toastmasters into their organization so that at lunchtime, so that people who wanted to improve their public speaking skill could sign up and take Toastmasters. And it was really interesting because it was not forced. It was just like, hey, we're doing this. If you want to come and do this and check it out and test yourself and get a little uncomfortable, but at the same token, develop your skills and make new connections, this will be great for you. And it was amazing to see all these different people from all the different departments who sat around the table on the first day, just kind of not making eye contact. Oh, there's Jerry from accounting and there's some so-and-so from human resources and so on. But really, because they had no connection, they had no nothing in common, how after multiple weeks of doing this, all of a sudden, the HR manager is coming out and going, oh my God! I didn't know Jerry was so damn funny. This guy's a hoot, right? And all of a sudden, people started to learn who each one of them were as individuals. And because of that, it made it much easier when conflicts arose to find that common ground. Is this something that when you're talking about this, because I do know that sometimes I've been in organizations where they're forced to give you a buddy. And but then, there's no accountability on how the buddy and the newbie kind of work together. And there can be personality clashes and so on. What like, I mean, this is— I don't think you can do this without some sort of strategy. Am I right?

Yeah, absolutely. I would make it. I would prioritize it just as we prioritize our most important SOPs.

Hmm, there you go.

Absolutely.

Say that again because that is so important. We need to put a yellow marker through that statement.

I would prioritize it just as much as we prioritize our most important SOPs.

Yes.

If we're going to do it, let's make an SOP behind it so it's replicatable. And with something like this, because you're absolutely right. Otherwise, we're rolling the dice. And yeah, it may work or we all crap out. And let's not leave something, things this important a chance.

And so, by doing that as well, you create the standard operating procedure. Then, you can create training and mentorship behind that.

Right.

By setting expectations and accountability behind that so that we can coach people into the direction that we need them to be performing when they get— because to me, I think that is a crucial, crucial position when you're going to pair another human being up with a human being coming in on their first day, excited, nervous, you know, am I going to fail? Am I good? Are people nice? What kind of things am I going to be running into? And you're pairing them up with somebody who's going to be that That lighthouse, if you will, to this new business.

Yeah, absolutely, Marc. It's something that you're articulating that human experience, right? And that's kind of the irony that we're having this conversation in the sense of, again, we all know this is what's going on. We all know this is the psychology of somebody who's coming in. They're worried, oh my God, what if I screw up? We all know that that person is coming in and they have already attached their success here to the correlation of their success in life. If I can't do this, I can't pay my mortgage, I can't pay my rent, I won't be able to put my kids through college, et cetera. I won't be able to provide food for my family, shelter for my wife, my husband. We know that. And yet, even though we know it, even though we've probably experienced it at some point, we have been horrible at providing a structure to be able to appease that as much as possible. And in fact, the opposite, harness it into something really powerful. And harnessing into something powerful is not fear. It's not performance reviews. It's not write-ups. It's, Marc, you are an employee right now. And I, as your mentor, am going to take you under my wing. And my first and foremost job is to get— help you really harness all that emotion, pour it in, and let you know that I am wildly excited and deeply passionate about you not only being here, but helping you be successful and thrive in this organization. And oh, by the way, Marc, here's all the things that we're not only going to do, but how we— what we'd like you to be involved in.

So good! You mentioned a magical word right then— emotion. Let's talk a little bit very quickly about the quality because a lot of personal interactions in our businesses, in interdepartmental relationships all boil down to this one word— emotions. What role should leaders and managers be cautious or conscious of when it comes down to emotions and emotional well-being and so on?

10 years ago, I met someone and they were of that traditional business model where you got to take emotion out of business. It's just business. It's just work. Don't put any emotion in it. No feelings, blah, blah, blah. And at the time, the business was doing very well. A couple of years later, they ran into some unforeseen challenges where it was one of those series of cataclysmic events. Economic conditions had changed. One of their producers finished, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And it put them in a place where they were very vulnerable. to outside competition acquiring them and swallowing them up. They had to make some drastic maneuvers to try to preserve the company. And much of that meant laying off certain people or reducing salaries and all sorts of things. What was remarkable during that time, and this wasn't just a few weeks this went on, this was a series of months. At the end of it, you had not one of the core group of people that had been there for a number of years, not one of them left. Not one of them went and looked for other work. Not one of them reached out to other organizations. And these were all amply qualified people who could make massive contributions to any organization they work at. They all stayed despite the stress of uncertainty, despite the unknown. Talking to that person a few years later after all that, I remember them saying that, you know, I used to think that our most important product was our product, but after going through this experience, I realized the most important product we have is our people. And what I should have been doing all along was instead of thinking I need to pull the emotion out of it, I should have been dumping more emotion into it. You know, everything we do at some level, if you go deep enough, if you're willing to drill down, you will always find that there is an emotion behind the reason. It may not be the first thing, it may not be the second thing, but there's always an emotion. I want to own the car because— and somewhere in that story will be because when I have it, I will feel— And fill in the blank. When we recognize that and when we really make this as a practice, it is amazing what we can bring. We know that people are compelled to do extraordinary things under extraordinary circumstances. We've all heard the stories when the mom is able to lift the car out of the— off the kid, where emotion is a stimulus, right? Fear of the child's life. We've all heard the stories of just incredible. We've all watched the movies, the TV shows. We all watch the Olympics. The World Cup is getting ready to start at the time of this recording for the women. And we feel it, right? That's what makes life worth living is the feeling. It's the substance of it. Recognizing that and making that focus, helping people have those emotional experiences and having them intrinsically associated to the work they do. What you will get is you will no longer have an employee, but you will have somebody who's a member of a family and is deeply and fiercely loyal. That they will show up and they will perform and they will give in ways they would've never have otherwise. That they will go out of the doors and they will be wildly passionate and be huge advocates and will sing from the rooftops the praises of the organization and the leadership that operates it. And you will find that it will reduce your turnover. You'll reduce your missed days of absences. It will improve your productivity. It'll improve your profitability. It'll improve your efficiency. Every single area that I would argue that you would want to improve will likely improve Every single area that you would like to see reductions in will likely reduce simply because instead of creating structure where maybe somebody comes in and they're at— they, they give us 5 out of 10 or 6 out of 10, which isn't uncommon, right? I think they— there was a study done not that long ago that said the average person who works at a desk job and does an 8-hour shift, really, you get about 4.5 hours of productivity out of them.

I'm actually surprised it was that high.

Yeah, and so if that is true, if that is true, imagine we got 5.5 because they cared a little bit more.

Yeah.

That's a 25% improvement almost.

You know, the magical part of that is that people react that way when you get that magic happening. People are doing it not because they've been mandated to do so, not because it's policy, but because they want to. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, I imagine that some people are tuning in and thinking, I want to get something started. I want to do something that's going to create this meaningful workplace culture where we're all working towards something. But I want to talk a little bit about some cautionaries about if you're going to be implementing some programs along this way, some things that we should maybe be aware of. And I'd like to get to that right after this.

Attention meeting and event planners! Is your company or association planning a live or virtual conference, seminar, or staff retreat? Are you looking for a fresh, energetic perspective on what it takes to put on a jaw-dropping experience for your customers or staff? Book customer experience expert Marc Haine for your next group event. Past participants have said, Marc kept us in stitches while teaching us how important and powerful actually designing our customer experience can be. Read more testimonials and find out how Marc can serve you and your group at marchaine.com. That's M-A-R-C-H-A-I-N-E.com.

Welcome back! I am having a fabulous conversation with award-winning speaker and bestselling author, Jessie Brisendine. As you can tell, Jesse and I are absolutely passionate about serving business owners and managers just like you. If today's topic is resonating with you and you think, good golly, my team needs help. Or if you're planning a leadership training or a retreat, why don't you go ahead and connect with us? We'd be tickled to serve you and your team. Our connection information is in the show notes. So, don't be afraid. Book some time with us. We're more than happy to set up a discovery call. And explore how maybe we can work with you. Jesse, cautionaries. You know, my biggest fear when I do shows like this is that the topic that we're bringing forward becomes kind of like, you're right, I have to do something. And it becomes kind of the policy of the month or the strategy of the month that we have to implement. What are some of the things that we should be cautious about if we want to start exploring how we can make our environments more mindful? But Also make the work more meaningful as well.

Yep.

Start small. Always start small. Do not move on to step 2 until you complete step 1. That's the kind of— when we get overly excited about something, we try to do step 1 through 8 all at once. And many of us have brought that desk home from Target before. We say, oh, I don't need to read the instructions. We start with step 1, we skip to step 8, and then all of a sudden the damn thing won't stand up. So make sure you do step 1.

You've been talking to my wife.

Do step 1 and do it to completion. Move on to step 2. Start small and always check for feedback. That's a big thing. Oftentimes in modern business, we're more concerned by those 5-star Yelp reviews than we are genuine feedback. Instead of being pursuant of the 5-star reviews, I, I go where I go to take my car in to get service, Marc. They always say at the end of the service, can you, uh, we'll get a call in a few days for a survey. And, you know, anything less than 5 stars is not good for us. And to me, there's no growth in that, right? That's just, you're just, again, you're appeasing, you're checking something off. And I can imagine the corporate hierarchy saying, if you don't do this, then this is the consequence. So instead of looking for the 5-star review, seek, always continue to seek feedback. If you do that, you're gonna be able to gauge true north. You're gonna be able to stay focused on it, and you'll be nimble enough to be able to make those micro adjustments that will always be needed whenever we implement something new. Document it as you do it, right? Which is really crucial, even though we're talking about stuff that we might kind of go More feely there. And when we're talking about meaning, you want to document the process because guess what? When we mentioned SOPs before, if you document it now, you'll have a stellar SOP at the end, which will make implementation all the much more successful.

And you kind of hinted to something as well that we've talked about before. And we could do a whole other episode just on that. And that is overcome the fear of failure.

Yes.

Fail forward. Fail forward and do magical things. This has been such a fantastic conversation, Jesse. Do you have any last thoughts about what we've been talking about today?

It'd be a thank you, Marc. And the thank you is to those of you who have watched and listened. I know some of what Marc and I talked about today, it's maybe a new paradigm in approaching work and how you might lead your teams. And I am appreciative and grateful for you and being willing to entertain that paradigm and consider some of what we shared. And your employees, the people that you lead, the people you collaborate with, I promise you as you implement it, Again, change can be difficult at first, might be a little messy in the middle, but it's going to be glorious at the end. If you're willing to travel that journey with you, in time you will experience just a workplace that is not only more meaningful, but it's more profitable and more enjoyable for all involved. So thank you for being a part of that movement to implement it.

Love that. Jesse, I want to thank you for sharing your passion and expertise with us today. Could you let everybody know how they can get a hold of you if they think, you know what, they need Yeah, absolutely, Marc.

It's just, you'll find me online everywhere. Just jessebrisbin.com is the website. Social media is all in the same name. I think Twitter might be a little different, but I'm not on Twitter as much as I used to. I go on there more as the— I usually go on Twitter with my popcorn and just kind of watch what happens. But Facebook, Instagram, I'm getting more on LinkedIn. All the main social channels, I'm on there.

Terrific. Jesse, thank you again. This has been brilliant.

Absolutely.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you, Marc.

Why don't you let me know if this was of value to you? As always, my offer stands. If you would like 30 minutes of my time to brainstorm your business with you and your team, feel free to book a time that works for you on my online calendar. The link is in the show notes. It's the one marked meetwith.marchaine.com. It would be my absolute honor to be of service to you. And if you enjoyed today's episode, why don't you go ahead and subscribe to this channel. And please leave a review. Leave a comment. Let me know how you felt about this. I'd really love to get your feedback. And it doesn't have to be 5 stars. Was this of value to you? It has been so great being here with you today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception. Thanks for joining me today.

Thank you for joining us this week on Experience Leadership. Make sure you visit marchaine.com for a full directory of available episodes. While you're at it, if you found today's content valuable, please share it and tell your friends about the show. As Marc says, knowledge is power, but only if you share it. Be sure to Tune in each week for the newest episode. Please stay safe, stay healthy, and dare to be the exception.