73: Are you a Community Builder? Discover the power of Community Building with Shane Feldman.

Welcome to the Mutually Amazing Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Domitrz, with the Center for Respect. The episode you're about to listen to was recorded when this show used to be called the Respect Podcast. So, you might hear that mentioned during this episode. Well, let's get to the show. And this week, we have Shane Feldman. He is founder and CEO of Count Me In. He is a community builder. He is known for community building. He's been featured by Larry King, Dr. Oz, Forbes, People Magazine, and was the subject of a documentary TV series on A&E, and has even been recognized by the White House and the United Nations for his achievements in community leadership. Shane, thank you so much for joining us.

My absolute pleasure, Mike. It is so great to be here with you.

Well, we're thrilled to have you. Let's dive right in. How does, how's community building key to both? We're going to look at 2 aspects here, work today and personal. So how's it key to the workplace atmosphere?

Well, yeah, let's start with work because, you know, work influences our life. We spend the majority of our time at work, and when you don't feel a sense of community at work, you're part of the 51% of American employees right now who are seeking work elsewhere, which is a staggering stat that just came up from Gallup. And, you know, more than half of employees right now are actually looking to leave the company that they're with. That to me is a major issue. That comes to me— I think that runs parallel to another issue we're facing, which is loneliness. Not only in this country, but in many westernized countries around the world, a lot more people are feeling lonelier than ever before. So when we focus on community building and community leadership, when we're connecting with others in more meaningful ways inside the office, outside the office, it helps us not only have a greater sense of belonging, but it gives us a greater sense of purpose and meaning, not only at work, but in our everyday lives.

Excellent. So how do you do it?

Yeah, it sounds kind of this big airy-fairy concept. It's actually really simple, and there's lots of strategies that you can put into play to actually build stronger connections with people that you may see every single day that you're not actually connecting with. One easy thing is to look up from our devices just a little bit more often. Of course, technology is great, digital is great, but we also need to focus on things like eye contact. communicating more intentionally with the people that we surround ourselves with. I was just speaking at a conference just last week and someone came up afterwards, someone in the audience, and said that he has been part of Skype meetings in his office where they'll literally come together, 10, 20 people on a Skype meeting. They're all physically in the same building, but instead of meeting in the same room, they're all Skyping from their cubicles. He realized right away that that is such an easy switch when they— to them it's just going to be more Right. You can stay at your desk and join this meeting for an hour without actually moving. But the extra minute or 2 it takes to actually go to that conference room or to actually be in the same space together dramatically changes the engagement of that meeting and that conversation. And he was able to see, you know, when they reverted back to in-person meetings, how dramatically it shifted. And what they thought was actually increasing efficiency was actually doing the opposite because it takes longer to get into the groove in a meeting when it's all digital. And often it's hard to build any meaningful connections with others that you're working So the work itself is just not going to be at its peak. The performance will not be at its peak, nor will the collaboration. So looking up from our devices a little more often, really, really key, easy key thing to do. Another thing is moving around more. Movement is awesome. Movement increases our focus, our creativity, and a sense of community. So whether you are actually inviting your colleagues, the people you work with, to a Zumba class, a yoga class, exercising at the gym before work, or simply going on walking These things can have dramatic impacts on our communication at work and our productivity and performance. Walking around actually stimulates our prefrontal cortex. That's the part of our brains responsible for things like concentration and planning and organization. You can't help but be more focused when you're actually moving around. Similarly, it also creates new neural pathways in our brains, which are what are responsible for problem solving. So who doesn't want to be a more creative problem solver out there? Easy solution. Get up on your feet, walk around with your colleagues, turn those stationary meetings, those digital meetings into walking meetings whenever you can, and it helps you stay energized and build those connections with the people that you spend the majority of your time with.

Awesome. All right. So let's say we get that now at work. How do we build community outside of work?

So we're talking about the same principles here. A lot of times when we're at home with our family, we're distracted by devices. Devices rule. And I think, again, technology is great. We live in this amazing era where you feel like anything is possible, but without the foundation of our relationships with each other offline, it's easy to lose the meaning. Imagine if we lived in a world where even with technology and devices, if you came home at the end of the day as a mother or father or husband or wife, you got home and said, hey, family, I'm home and I'm turning off my phone. I'm home. I'm here to be present with you. That just does not happen. I get that sometimes we have certain jobs that every second matters and you can't necessarily unplug entirely when you get home. I understand that. I empathize with that. Still, find the hour that you can totally unplug and be with your family. No devices at the dinner table. Anything that we can do to be more present is so key. The other thing is Talking about being more present, a lot of us listen to respond. It's natural. We want to listen and we're automatically thinking of what is the next smart thing we're going to say, whether it's to our spouse, our partner, our boss, our colleague. We always want to make sure we're staying ahead of the conversation. The problem becomes when you're always thinking of that next great thing you're going to say, you're not actually listening. It's easy to tell when you're not really being heard. So, I would, I would challenge, you know, people listening to us right now to be more intentional about their listening at home and at work so that they're listening to listen instead of listening to respond.

No, that makes total sense. So, how do you describe to most people what you do for a living? Because when I say community builder, especially politically nowadays and, you know, the past 12 years, it doesn't always have the best— what do you want to say? stereotype attached to it. How do you explain what you do for people?

Sure, I do. I think it can be misunderstood. Again, it sounds like this kind of vague topic. What do you actually do? What is community building? Well, I'm the CEO of Count Me In, which is now the largest millennial-led movement in the world. It's just over 10 million people in 104 countries that make up our community. I spend most of my time speaking at other companies and conferences around the world discussing community, helping companies build a greater sense of community. community from the inside out. When I say community building, it's almost like a cloak term that is synonymous with engagement. How do we actually engage human beings that we work with or live with? How do we empower those around us to be their best, and how do we reach our peak performance, again, at home or at work? It's really kind of turning community on its head and focusing on those human connections, because whether we're talking about business, family life or everything in between, everything is about people. No matter how much innovation or change we are facing in our world, it feels like every day we wake up and something's different. No matter how much change we're facing, people are still the same. Human beings are hardwired for connection. We're social animals. A lot of people in Western society, I feel, have lost this understanding that we need that kind of physical connection, the movement, the laughter, the eye contact. These are all universal needs, things that we crave. This, this emotional connection that many of us aren't getting because we spend so much time looking at screens or connecting with devices instead of connecting with one another. So what I focus on is empowering human connection at companies, across organizations, empowering human connections so we can optimize our performance and optimize the amount of joy that we actually feel at work and at home.

Is it purely a technology thing or are there other factors too? You know, is it just screen time?

It's not just screen time. It's not just any one thing. Screen time is certainly a main factor because if you think about it, most of us in our lives are spending a great deal of time, if not the majority of our time, on devices. So we can't not talk about it. But technology isn't the issue. That's just a tool, right? It's really been this shift I've seen, particularly again in westernized culture and in North America, The UK, where we have focused a lot more on individualized attention, individualized workplace. We're dealing with this whole entrepreneurial world where so many people are physically working on their own. Even if you're in an office, maybe you're like Steve, the gentleman I spoke to who was having those Skype meetings physically from his cubicle, even though he was talking to others that were in the same building he was in. We are dealing with this really interesting time where so many things are individualized. You think about the amount of people that grab a coffee or a muffin on their way to work and just eat while they're walking. Somewhere like rural parts of France, it's just not a thing. I was just researching community building in France and nobody eats while they're walking around. They see eating as a communal activity. It's a chance to sit down and savor with friends, with family, and even with coworkers.

Yeah, and they can be 2, 3-hour meals each time they sit down.

Absolutely. You know what? That may not be realistic. You may not be able to take off 3 hours for a lunch break here in the States, but you look at some amazing companies that are really on the forefront of community building, like I was just speaking at Google not too long ago, and I learned that they've made eating together part of employees' daily lives. While it's not a 3-hour lunch break, Like you may naturally have in France. For them, it's really important. It's a natural part of employees' everyday life to sit down and eat and drink with coworkers, with colleagues, with team members. You see it in the productivity and collaboration, which is so effortless. It's ingrained in the culture of Googlers, people that work at Google. To me, it makes sense because they prioritize that level of connection. It's something so simple that I know a lot of people are overlooking.

So how does it— I can see somebody listening going, all right, if I own a company, how does this help with HR issues? How does this help with bottom line?

Well, we're living in this very individualized culture, right, where more people are far more focused and sometimes blinded by our own personal productivity and success. When we are focused so much on ourselves, it's easy to overlook our connection, relationships, and communication with others. Here come the HR issues. Right? When you're only focused on yourself, your performance, when we feel like we are in this cutthroat competitive environment, it's naturally not going to lend itself to being in a respectful workplace, feeling like we are respected ourselves, respecting others. When we focus more on how can we collaborate, how can we instead of hiding from conflict discuss the conflicts, have everything out on the surface, and focus more on supporting one another instead of just— competing and winning. When we flip those things around, again, a lot of companies think that the more competitive they make it, the better the bottom line will be because everyone wants to reach those sales targets or do better than the person who sits next to them in the office. What I've seen in companies that focus more on collaboration is that they actually have far superior results. The results are measurable when you have a team that is working together and sees the value in collaboration and in that kind of teamwork. So when we are focusing more on those kinds of collaboration and connections, a lot of the more typical HR issues we're dealing with today actually slip away. They actually just slip away because you're focusing more on a community-based network, a community-based ecosystem within the office. When you have that, respect is natural. When you're listening to listen instead of listening to respond, the respect is natural, right? And we're actually then moving into the space of being more proactive instead of reactive.

So, how do we— when it comes to being proactive, what about the person who's pushing away from this, right? So, you want to do it and let's say 2 people on the team want to do it and there's 5 on the team. One's neutral and one's really pushing back. How do you get people to buy into community building?

Thank you. It's a great question, and it's perfect timing because I just got off the stage at a middle management conference. And what a perfect kind of metaphor for the question you're asking, because here's a group of people that by the end of the keynote were so energized to do this, but they're literally stuck in the middle, right? So while they do have teams that they lead, they can't control the people above them managing them because they're literally stuck in the middle. So this was a question that came up during the Q&A. Right after my keynote, and we got into this great conversation about how a lot of these things are less about putting a mandate in place from a CEO or executive and more about naturally integrating these ideas into your personal everyday life at work, and it's going to end up being contagious. It actually ends up spreading naturally. So when you, for example, when you send an email and instead of sending the email and going right into, Please send me that report that is due in an hour to this email address. Instead of just saying what you need and putting it out there, which is what most of us do, quick, dirty, let's just get her done. When you start by saying, hey, Mike, hope you had an excellent weekend and are looking forward to the holidays. I hope that that report's going well. If you have any questions, let me know. Otherwise, you can just send the PDF straight to me. by 11:00 AM. That takes maybe, maybe an extra 15 seconds to compose the beginning of that email, but it's actually acknowledging the humanity in the person you're speaking to. It sounds simple, but it actually shifts our entire communication and all the dialogue that will follow. To answer your question, if you are then, as a middle manager let's say, if you are starting to send your emails with that first sentence, Focusing on that personal connection, the humanity, you know, hey, I heard it was your kid's birthday. Hope the celebration was great. Or, how was the celebration? Even better, you can ask a question, right? When we start to send emails like that, that person is naturally going to start doing it back to us. So it starts to spread. Does that make sense?

Yeah. So how does— yeah, this totally makes sense. Now I think I know the answer, but at least in my own mind, but I could be wrong. So how does that fit in with Creating a respectful culture.

Well, perfect. When we're recognizing the humanity in others, again, this is foundational respect. Respect means that we're acknowledging one another as fellow human beings on this planet, in this company, that we, whether we like it or not, we have to work with. There's great opportunity. Even those people you think about in the office that you work with that may be more challenging, that you may not be the type of person you want to hang out with after work. Fine. That's okay. You don't have to be best friends with everyone, but when we're focusing on community and connection, you start to see that there are serious benefits to connecting with others in these meaningful ways. Respect kind of becomes foundation to all these kinds of tools and strategies that we're discussing right now. It's just an underlying foundation. When we're actually connecting with others in these meaningful ways offline, when we're starting off our meetings, with, you know, 2 minutes of personal conversation. Let's go around the room and say one awesome thing that happened outside of the office in the last, you know, week to us. These little things, we start to see one another as, as fellow humans on this planet, in this company. And naturally, you know, the science proves that we're going to want to respect these people more. It's going to just happen because the same way That, you know, you can see in universities, university classrooms that have 500 students that all feel like numbers versus those more intimate classrooms with an instructor where you have maybe 20 or 30 people. There are different results that come out of those scenarios when you feel like a person instead of just a number. So why would that change when we go to work, right? We're still human beings. When we feel like we're seen and heard and we, you know, strive to know at least one personal thing about each of the people we work with and they're doing the same, We're going to end up respecting each other more without even, you know, having to put that respect poster up on our wall.

You've seen different countries handle this different ways because you've traveled the world. So is there a country that stands out?

Oh my goodness.

Yeah.

So I've now, I've researched community on the ground in 20 countries and counting. Uh, and, and every single one has taught me something new. I've probably learned the most from Eastern cultures because they just have such a fundamental human-centric way of, of living and working. One, one that definitely The first one that comes to mind is Vietnam. I spent a lot of time in Vietnam and what's so interesting about Vietnamese culture is that they value collectivism as a country. The Vietnamese place great value on the power of groups and the power of community. I recall my very first day landing in Ho Chi Minh City, a big city that's kind of a combination of old and new where you find ancient temples and chaotic colorful markets in the alleys beneath these towering modern skyscrapers. Totally different. than, say, New York or LA or Toronto where I'm from.

Right.

I was standing in this massive square because it was New Year's and there was going to be this big celebration, but I was on my own. I walked to the square. My intention was just to watch the performers and enjoy the fireworks and kind of experience what New Year's was like in this foreign country. Within minutes of being in this massive square of thousands of people, a group of people invited me to join them. We didn't even speak the same language and they invited me to join them. And I remember thinking in that moment, first of all, wow. And second of all, this would never happen in Times Square in New York.

Right. Right?

Never in a million years. You stick to your own group and if someone's on their own, it's weird. They're creepy. We're not gonna talk to them. They might be dangerous. And here in Vietnam, there's a foundational belief that we are all of value. In fact, a group has even more value than an individual, so we have to welcome them to join us. If that group hadn't welcomed me, chances are another group of people would have welcomed me to join their group just as quickly. It's incredible. I experienced the same thing in Israel. Israel, which is predominantly Jewish, Friday night is the big— it's the Sabbath every Friday night, so everyone goes home and has dinner together. I witnessed all these families in Inviting solo tourists and solo travelers and even solo locals to join them in their homes for dinner. It's just, it's a beautiful, such a separate way of thinking than in America or even in Canada or the UK where we're focused more on this individualized nature and everything in our lives is so compartmentalized and so very much focused on me and myself instead of us and we and the power that we have together. As a full unit. So bringing that, that back to my organization was so key because it was able— it was, it was helpful in me leveraging our people in our community and helping all the people that I work with and engage to feel empowered themselves and like an empowered member of a community.

That, yeah, that is powerful in this, in the whole story of it. So how does somebody practice this? What's something people can do every day All right, we've got the put the electronics down, the screen time down, being present. What's it that we can do to start each day to put ourselves in the right mindset?

I push myself every single day, and this will be helpful particularly to introverts like me, because a lot of people listening right now who are extroverts are probably thinking, this is easy, I got this, I just gotta, you know, look up more from my phone, talk to people a little more. They're gonna find it— their footing a little more natural. I'm very introverted. You would never know it if you saw me speak on stage, but I really am. Social situations are great, but they exhaust me, so they don't come naturally. What a friend recently encouraged me to do, particularly because I travel a lot— I'm on about 100 planes a year, and typically I like to put on my headphones and be in my own little bubble for the duration of the flight. My friend encouraged me, before I put in my headphones, before I kind of shut off into my zone, to turn to the person who sits down next to me on the flight. And say, hey, how's it going? It may sound simple to you, but this was a huge challenge to me, something that I really pushed back against but figured, okay, fine. I believe in community. I believe in connection. I have to practice what I preach. The next day I happened to have 2 flights and each of those flights I sat down. Sure enough, someone sat down next to me. I turned to them and said, hey, how's it going? On each of those flights I had a 10, 12-minute conversation. Fantastic conversation with my seatmate. Then conversations kind of drifted and then I ended up taking a nap or relaxing, listening to music. But those first 10 or 12 minutes changed the entire flight. They changed the entire emotional response I had sitting there for the following couple hours because I felt like I had some kind of baseline connection with the person sitting next to me. While we didn't become best friends, I haven't married either of those people, they were actually great connections. connections that I would have otherwise not had. I think something as simple as pushing yourself, especially if you're introverted, to just look up and connect with at least one new person every single day is going to help you make it more of a habit to look up from your phone, to look up from your computer, to add that extra line to that email, and just focus more on cultivating those—

Relationships.

Those emotional moments with people.

You have 3 books you really recommend. One is This Is Day One by Drew Dudley, Braving the Wilderness, Brené Brown, one I know well, Life Is Good: The Book, Burt and John Jacobs. Why these 3 books?

Oh, 3 fantastic books. So what's interesting is they, they each reinforce my beliefs and, and my message of community in vastly different ways. So Drew Dudley is all about the foundational leadership skills that I believe everyone should have that are value-based. To me, this book is like Leadership 101 because it helps you actually identify your values as a human being so that you can wake up every single day and live those values at home and at work. The book is not only beautiful storytelling, but also is very instructive in terms of helping you identify what your values are. It's beautiful, awesome, great read, highly recommend. Brené Brown, of course, talks about it through the lens of vulnerability and how we can be more courageous every single day, which again, being introverted, is very important for me to feel like I'm not always alone, and yet I can connect with others in a way that isn't entirely exhausting. Brené has really empowered me to be my full self and my best self every single day. If Drew Dudley is book number 1, then I'd say Brené is number 2, where, okay, now I've identified my values. How can I really get out there and Brave the wilderness, so to speak, and really live these values and share myself with everyone that I walk past or interact with every single day. Then finally, Life is Good. I think this is an amazing case study of a book. It doesn't read like one. Even if you're not into research, it's a phenomenal book. If you're familiar with the Life is Good brand, it's an amazing, massive brand started by 2 brothers in Massachusetts. This book really is the story of how this apparel brand started as kind of a failure out of their van and a road trip and is now this huge brand that's entirely built on the value of optimism and talking about how they identified their values and how they braved the wilderness. Again, if we're talking about these books chronologically, I almost think they're a perfect box set. The 3 of them. For those reasons, I really, I really, really highly recommend those books to all.

Awesome. And I want to make sure everybody can find you. It's very easy because it's your name, Shane Feldman, just like it sounds, shanefeldman.com. This is— and we have all your social media will be in our show notes. Thank you so much, Shane, for joining us.

Thank you, Mike. So grateful for the opportunity.

Oh, absolutely. And for our listeners, you know what's next. It is question of the week. This week's question is, Mike, how does creating a foundation of respect and increasing sales in a business— how are they going together? I love this question because so many people think, hey, when it comes to building foundation respect, that has nothing to do with profits or sales. That has everything to do with creating an atmosphere of how you treat people. And that's where people forget they all go together. If you create an organization Where people feel valued, not some, not just certain people at certain levels, not just certain people, certain levels of achievement, but everyone feels respected and valued. Everybody feels seen. And that's one of the key concepts to respect. Everybody seems, feels seen for their values, their gifts, for who they are, exactly who they are within the organization. Well, it's common sense that you're going to have people working harder, willing to do what it takes to help that organization grow because they're all being supported and loved for exactly who they are. Thus increasing your profits, your sales, your productivity. All of that goes hand in hand together. Now, how it specifically works with sales is if I treat those I serve with respect, now I'm finding the right fit for them versus just selling at them. Huge difference in how we respect potential clients and customers. Are we finding the right fit for them or just selling at them? When you are founded in an organization of respect, you only work with clients who are the right fit. You're constantly looking for that fit. So, it's a win-win for everyone, thus honoring each other, respecting each other. Look, there are people who will call me and say what they're looking for in a speaker or an author, and we're going to say, doesn't sound like we're the right fit. We don't just want to sell a speech or an event just to sell a speech or an event. We want to best be able to serve you In a way that isn't aligned with what we do and what you're seeking, what you need in that moment. That's the key to creating a culture of respect. It shows up everywhere, especially in sales. We'd love to hear your questions, your thoughts, and your ideas. And the best place to leave those with us is on our Facebook page at facebook.com/MutuallyAmazingPodcast. Of course, you can always contact us on our website, At mutuallyamazingpodcast.com. Remember to subscribe to this show so you automatically get it every week. And if you could take one moment to leave a review, that really helps other people find the show, which we are greatly appreciative of. So thank you so much for joining us. May you make today and every day a life full of mutually amazing relationships.