Chief executives, let's think about connections at work.

This month I took part in a debate on Quiet quitting at the World Economic Forum's annual conference in Davos. It is a time of rapid change for the workforce, and it strikes me that executives have been asking a lot of the appropriate questions. There are pros and cons to remote work. the risks and possibilities presented by AI in addition to the need to build an inclusive and sustainable organization.

But, there is a problem worthy of more consideration: if our workforce is evolving, the technology is also changing, as well because post-pandemic behaviors and expectations are changing...don't our leaders as well need to adjust?

It is a generation that is digitally native navigating the workplace. They were raised creating and sharing video content, and not calling or texting since they regard TikTok or YouTube as their main source of information. For their private lives they're highly connected and incredibly engaged.

But in the workplace however, the story is different. There's drastic reductions in employee engagement and satisfaction for employees who work remotely , Gen Z and younger generations. Four out of 10 workers who work remotely within hybrid workplaces are clear about what expectations they must meet when they are at work. More than half of Gen Z employees are ambivalent or not engaged at work. If we look at employee engagement as the primary measure of productivity in the workplace, it has an immense impact on the business of every company as well as every business's profits.

What's causing this disconnection? At work, and in our lives, we all want to be part of an organization bigger than ourselves. There is a deep desire to belong to some bigger picture, and feel a sense of identity that is transparent without filtering, authentic, and real. The more of our workforce is digitally dispersed and connected to AI and ad-hoc, the more difficult it is to connect with real people every single day. Particularly when we've failed to evolve how we communicate with our future workers. Our employees are still required to dig through mountains of paperwork or to write long emails or participate in ineffective gatherings. We learn about layoffs and company priorities through comms made from scripts and automated so that they can be created via ChatGPT. The only information we as managers can get from this is survey of engagement, which is cookie-cutter and live events that contain low levels of tune-in as well as significant drop-offs, as well as occasionally snarky chat or Q&A.

The old model of management is not effective. It's time to change how leaders appear and engage with employees. As we focus on improving the skills of our staff members in relation the changing demographics, population and technology changes, we need develop our capabilities as leaders in order to build trust and connections on a vast.

I've done a great deal of these over the last couple of years . Below are some of the things I've been learning and applying and believe will help us present differently and be more effective in leading:

     1. Be authentic, you are who you are.

In the midst of the outbreak, I participated in a global town hall from my home in Flint, Michigan -- tired and slumbering in my velour pajamas, alongside my son, who is now a toddler as well as my grandmother shuffled through the background.

It might have been my most successful communication in my entire life.

Why? because it was not scripted, unpredictable, fragile, and unorganized. It's easy to get drawn into "us against us versus them" encounters when working at a company, particularly when we are under stress or having to deal with. It's it's easy to see "leadership" as an unnamed machines that have no face. Visually-oriented and video-driven your communications can be a potent dissuader. The result is that you have to get rid of the protection and mask of edited and written communications. One of the best methods to make it clear is to present yourself the way you truly yourself.

At the end of the day, there are a number of occasions where leaders were at risk and backfiring...but I would say that in the majority of cases there was a problem with the leader was performing too much. It is important to allow the vulnerable part of you to fall short while in the presence of your coworkers. All of us have faults, and we are humans. Everyone wants our leaders to be courageous. It inspires us to be more like them.

     2. Start by asking "why . "

Similar to many of the other managers I've had to make difficult choices during the year. from executive cuts and layoffs to the reorganization and closure of initiatives to increase efficiency. My job is to take hard-hitting decisions, which are not well-liked and to implement them quickly across our organization.

There is a rise in instances, employees want to know the reasoning for their decision-making process that go beyond the "what" rather it is also the "why". It is essential to comprehend the larger competition or market context and the manner in which trade-offs are that can be weighed and balanced and the procedure that was used as well as when.

The conventional comms strategy will suggest that when faced with an important communications issue that requires a short amount of time, you should start by asking the "what" prior to getting straight to the essential steps. But, I've been much more successful in getting people to take a hard decision by presenting my staff as key players who should be able to comprehend the issues.

Thus, starting with "why" is a first guideline for communications at all levels . There are certainly limitations that must be met to ensure transparency (legal, PR, management, risk to the customer) but I've noticed that, in the majority of cases the barriers that are perceived to hinder transparency could be defined as. Perceived. Some people might not agree with your decision-making, but one could argue that if people disagree with it the chances are you're not performing the work you're expected to be doing. However, they will accept and respect your decisions in the beginning when you are aware of the rationale behind it.

     3. Pay for in-person appointments as well as individual.

Yes, I imagine the irony that the CEO of a company declaring that. One of my biggest regrets during the past couple of months was that we waited too long and weren't intentional enough when joining the teams we've got on the ground.

In the month of January, just a few days following layoffs, the company held an event to kick off our business in NYC. It was attended by workers from around 12 countries. Our employees were based in Ukraine that used trains, along with vehicles and planes to reach the event. We ditched the typical event occasion confetti, and went with the informal look, and low-cost budget. This was among the most stimulating and necessary investment decisions I've ever done.

This is made much more efficient when the leaders fly to bring your team to at their place of work. We have an entirely distributed executive team spread across eight different locations that span from Seattle to Seattle from Seattle to Switzerland. Most were hired in the past year. They were relatively fresh and only beginning to get to know each other as a group. To speed up this process of gelling, we started hosting offsites in the residences of the leaders' cities. We hung out with our CFO's mom around her fireplace in Vermont. Our Head of Sales was wearing his apron, and we cooked frittatas for us to eat breakfast. We held working sessions at the dining room table of our Head of Product's table.

The pandemic provided us with an unintentional glimpse into our homes and lives . If we can take advantage of this and integrate it into our everyday working lives, we get the opportunity to form stronger better connected, higher-performing teams.

     4. There is a possibility of switching from "lean back" to "lean forward" situations.

A vital communication skill is the ability to design "lean forward" experience instead of "lean back" broadcasts. Human focus spans are shrinking (now below 8 seconds, which is under the length the length of a goldfish!). However, we communicate by one-to-many communications, either through an email you read or through a well-produced town hall you sit back and enjoy.

It is evident that this strain on engagement surfacing in our own statistics and the amount of time to drop off from watching videos has decreased over the last couple of years. If we do not change the way we approach it, tuning out will seriously hinder our capacity to ensure that our teams are in sync and efficient.

It's crucial to change our mindset and willingness to accept new things. There's a new generation working in the workforce that's more advanced than us in their capability to design as well as capture authentic, rich data. They're ahead because they're not impacted by the restrictions which our generation was subject to throughout the years with traditional communication techniques at work.

The truth is that employees don't quit their job. They leave managers. They are, in fact the most successful managers and in an study of over 113,000 executive the top key to a successful management was the trust and confidence of their workers. Managers need to train their employees on how to lead using more authentic, engaging and genuine ways. I'm betting that those who are open to this new world are far more adept at controlling the next generation of employees. They'll be better informed and motivate teams that are distributed and align employees to increase productivity, and create solid relationships that result in outstanding results. They will stop communicating more but instead make connections better.

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