Transforming Your Business for the New World w/Tonille Miller
Episode Overview
In this compelling episode, Matt Gjertsen engages with the insightful Tonille Miller, author of "The Flourishing Effect" and Ext founder. They delve into diagnosing and tackling organizational challenges, beyond surface-level symptoms. Tonille unveils her intricate process of interviews and data analysis to unearth underlying issues for true change. They explore concepts like the new employee-employer social contract, the necessity of transparent dialogue, and the innovative ways of engaging today's workforce. Tune in for a deep dive into cultivating a workplace where both organizations and individuals can truly flourish.
Make sure to checkout these great suggestions from the episode:
The Flourishing Effect: https://amzn.to/48CisWM
Man’s Search for Meaning: https://amzn.to/3Hf0ltV
About Tonille Miller
Tonille is a management consultant, I/O psychologist, and executive coach, advising and partnering with leaders to drive the optimal performance of their people and organizations. She’s also the author of The Flourishing Effect.
You can connect with Tonille through:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonillemiller/
X: https://twitter.com/tonillemmiller
Website: www.tonillemiller.com, www.experienceandtransformation.com
Full Transcript
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Tonille Miller [00:00:00]:
The organization operates as an ecosystem, right? So culture, how leaders behave, all the processes and friction and technology, and what's rewarded, what level of transparency you have, is it cohesive? Do we connect the dots for people? All kinds of factors, all these different levers within an organization work together. So even if one or two of those things is really good, the other things can derail it. Easy.
Matt Gjertsen [00:00:23]:
Hello and welcome to the Making Better podcast, where we talk about how to make ourselves, our teams, and our organizations better. Whether you are a business leader, a talent development professional, or an individual contributor, this show will give you actionable insights to help improve your own performance and the performance of those around you. Our guest today is Tanil Miller. Tanil is the author of the book the Flourishing Effect and the founder of Ext, which stands for experience and transformation. In today's episode, you will learn how the way we work is struggling to keep up with the changes in the world, why so many of these problems are so hard to solve, and a basic framework to help you identify the actual cause of problems like high employee turnover or burnout. Before we get to the discussion, I need to remind you that if this is your first time listening to the show, make sure to hit subscribe so you never miss a future episode. And if you are already subscribed, then I ask that you share this show with at least one other person. Because that, after all, is how we grow.
Matt Gjertsen [00:01:27]:
I can't tell you how much it means to me. And with that, let's get into the discussion. So have you read the psychology of money?
Tonille Miller [00:01:36]:
Yeah, I have, actually.
Matt Gjertsen [00:01:38]:
Really awesome, because I read it last year, really enjoyed it. And honestly, especially as I was reading the introduction to your book, it really made me think of the psychology of money, because the thing that stood out to me the most in the psychology of money was just this idea. They talk for a bit in the book about how the 401K is only 40 years old and Social Security obviously isn't that old. And this idea that you go back two or three generations and just the expectation was you're just going to work until you die because there's nothing else. And how dramatically things have changed since then. And so now it feels like if you can't retire when you're 60, you've somehow failed in life. And that's just completely different than it was not that long ago. And the beginning of your book, I think, does a really good job tracing similar changes in just kind of like the way we engage with work.
Matt Gjertsen [00:02:38]:
Maybe that's a good place for us to start of talking through this, what's changed in the past 75 years about how people engage with work?
Tonille Miller [00:02:49]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I love the parallel that you make. I think there's a lot of things. I think in the beginning of the book, I kind of started with the indentured servant model and the landowner model, and that's kind of where we started. The way we work today is still a lot kind of based on that, which is so far from where we are as a people, as you know. So I've got this whole chapter in the book that I call the New Deal, and it really talks about how that old school social contract between the employer and the employee is no longer valid and that today's workforce, for example, is they're just not willing to stake their futures on an organization that fails to offer them that security, the fair treatment, the adequate wages and bonuses of previous generations, and the pensions and things like that. Like today, there's no pensions. Wages are very underwhelming.
Tonille Miller [00:03:36]:
I mean, the data just lines up how they've just gone downhill so much percentage to the income that's coming into the revenue. And then companies are basically perfectly comfortable laying off people as soon as their profits dip below a certain margin. So I think because of those factors, over the years, basically since the 80s ish, many organizations have really just left people feeling dispensable. Right. Kind of forcing them to search for other ways to secure their financial future. And I think at this point, it's safe to say that that traditional employer employee relationship, we've really outgrown it for all these reasons. And so in those days, it was like the job interview was kind of like the first date, if you will, and then you had this blind promise after that of a lifelong loyalty that neither party really is likely uphold. So you'd have that dynamic, too.
Tonille Miller [00:04:25]:
And so in the book, I really propose a new social contract for the employee employer relationship, but it's based much more on, like, transparency, mutual value creation, again, for both sides, and then that longer term partnership, regardless of whether you're employed or in that relationship together. So in order to orchestrate that, it's really like organizations have to really, I think, get really good at creating mechanisms for both parties to access and add value quickly, as soon as possible to each side. People aren't going to stay around forever, and the company is not going to keep them forever. So instead of wasting everyone's time and money and energy, we need to find ways to quickly access that value. And in the book, I go through some of the ways that you can do that, some of those new sources of value, that type of thing.
Matt Gjertsen [00:05:08]:
Yeah, now you're speaking my language because I feel like since so many talent development professionals listen to this podcast, I think that's 100% right. Where when you see a lot of the lack of need for training or maybe poor training practices or this idea that, well, we're just going to onboard people kind of through osmosis, they're going to be around, they're going to be an apprentice for a long time. It really relied on, people are going to be around for ten years, 20 years, and if people are going to be around for 18 months, 24 months, you just don't have any time. You need them to hit the ground running. In your book, did you see a lot of benefits, like concrete benefits? Because I think there's a lot of companies that still haven't grasped that that's a key component of making this change.
Tonille Miller [00:06:03]:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, some of the things I kind of talked about was, for example, if you think of some of these new benefits or sources of value each side can offer each other that they're not really capitalizing on today when you think about it. So one thing I know that LinkedIn does, and they started this a while ago, quite a while ago, is like, literally, I think it's the onboarding process itself. In that process, people are asked, how do you want to grow, how do you want to develop, and where do you want to kind of have changed basically before when you leave us? Basically. So they're basically reverse engineering from the very beginning because they know people aren't going to stay forever. So they'reverse engineering from the very beginning of, like, where do you want to grow? How can we make that happen for you? And then where can we fit that into the job that we need you to do? So that's kind of that benefit there for both sides. And then with that, I think there's a lot of other things, too. Like, for example, some of these things may not sound that important, but they actually are.
Tonille Miller [00:06:53]:
And one would be organizations do not tap into their employees as influencers on social media and in the gig economy and things like that. And there's a story in the book specifically that I talk about with this gentleman. His name is Tony from, I think it was Sherwin Williams. And basically he had this huge millions of followers on TikTok on YouTube, and he had his own channel, and he just loved his job so much that he would actually record himself mixing paint. And basically it got something that's kind of considered like paint and hardware stores are considered for old people, but he got like a bunch of young people into it because he had such a following. And when they found out that he was doing this, instead of rewarding him for that and basically giving him a bonus for bringing all these new clients and younger customers in, they hired him. So that's a myth. So that's an example of what not to do.
Tonille Miller [00:07:41]:
Capitalizing on people's social media presence and influencership is a big deal, especially because everyone's a client and everyone's an employee nowadays, and it's very transparent. Right. So things like that. And the organization can do a lot of things too, again, besides upskilling and training people and focusing on them, that's huge. Obviously, first of all, to add value. But again, some of the really advanced companies will have really robust offboarding and alumni programs. So that basically, once you leave, they want you to stay in that network because they know that you could refer them business in the future, perhaps. Or maybe you'll be a leader at one of their clients in the future.
Tonille Miller [00:08:14]:
They're really playing the long game and taking that into consideration and keeping it like a nice ecosystem where you can come back. Maybe you'll be a boomerang. Maybe you refer us talent as I manage mentioned, or maybe they even have these alumni mixers every quarter. I know some of the firms I've worked for does that, and it's really nice because then you feel like you're still part of the family, always.
Matt Gjertsen [00:08:35]:
To play a little bit of devil's advocate. Is there the chance that this is kind of just like creating a world of work that is just even more tailored? I mean, kind of to the people like us, the people who are like go getters and they're hard charging and they want to do different things and they're okay with uncertainty, whereas I know lots of people who, they just want a job. They don't want to become a people manager. They want to do great work. Like, don't get me wrong, they want to be good at their job and they want to continuously improve, but they don't want to be on social media talking about their work. They don't want to be constantly thinking about their next thing. How do we prevent this from going too far?
Tonille Miller [00:09:18]:
Yeah, this is a really interesting point, and I love that you brought up the devil's advocate because I kind of thought about that when I was writing the book because there's a lot, as you can tell, like in this book and what we're talking about is very much employee centric. Right. So it's ways for the organization to win while the employee wins. But in my mind, there's a lot of work that went into this thinking about from the employee lens because that's not the case today usually. And so I've wrestled with that, too, on the chapters about meeting people's human needs because, yeah, that's amazing that you can be a differentiated organization and attract and unlock your talent because you're meeting their human needs. But to your point, maybe some people don't want their job to be their life. Maybe they get their meaning and their connection in their community and with their family, and they don't want to spend any more time at this job, not a calling or a career in their eyes, but at this job than they have to. And so what I would say is I think that there's absolutely room for all of that.
Tonille Miller [00:10:07]:
And I think that that's kind of part of that dynamic between the employee and employer. It's like being very candid and transparent in the beginning. Hey, for example, if you have a family and a side hustle that you want to focus your time and energy outside of work on, but as long as you meet your metrics in the workplace or in the setting that you're in, awesome. But I think the key is being transparent and having those discussions with candor. And then maybe you'll change at some point. Because again, as we talked about, people don't just sit and say, oh, I just want to kind of climb the ladder linearly or laterally. Linearly. Can't even speak this morning my whole career, but now it's much more like hustle and flow.
Tonille Miller [00:10:43]:
Like maybe I want to take a sabbatical here, and then I want to come back, and then I'm going to have a kid, and then I'm going to do this, and then I want to ramp up here and ramp down there. So I think to answer your question, there's absolutely ways to do it. But I think it just comes down to knowing yourself, what season it is in your own life personally, and being transparent about that with your company and your leaders so that you can work out that deal together, if that makes sense.
Matt Gjertsen [00:11:03]:
That totally makes sense. I mean, I think the transparency is a big one. And I think there's also an element of, I wonder if you would agree with this, that not everybody needs to be able to work everywhere and different companies can set themselves up differently. When I left the military, I'll admit it took me along a lot of wrestling internally with myself because I left the military. We had just had our first kid, and I dove into this industry that was predominantly filled with, it was kind of this tech startup industry where everybody is 70 hours at work, everything is just like, we're spending as much time as we can in the office almost. I was probably at 32. I was above the median age probably. And I was frustrated by it because I was just like, but hey, I want to be here.
Matt Gjertsen [00:11:51]:
I want to do this stuff. And now upon reflection, it's like, well, I don't need to be able to work there. They don't have to change their ways. To me, if they want to be set up that way, they want to craft themselves towards a particular kind of talent, then maybe I want to work there, but that doesn't mean I have a right to work there. And as long as I think, again, back to that transparency point, as long as a company is open and honest and during the interview process, they're saying, look, this is the commitment that it takes and then leaving it up to them. The bad thing is when companies, and I've seen this for sure, do the whole, we're a family, we have work life balance, and then you show up and it's not that at all. So I think the transparency piece totally makes sense.
Tonille Miller [00:12:35]:
Well, I think you're right. And that's what I see a lot of, too, is where, because I'm on the HR side a lot, hearing the HR leader conversations, and it's always, we got to get bodies in the door, we need more people. And it's always like, more and more and more people. And there's often, unfortunately, this undertone of just kind of say whatever you have to say to get them to sign the agreement or sign the document. And so I got to be honest, I know I definitely am one of these people, but even there's plenty of all of us that are kind of hating on Elon Musk at times because of his management practices, if you will. But that's the one thing I think he did right. Like when he said, hey, we're going to be hardcore here. We're doing all this.
Tonille Miller [00:13:10]:
I don't personally think that's going to get the best out of his people, but I understand that some people really flourish in that environment. And as long as he's transparent about it and says, this is what we're doing, we're sleeping in the office, we're doing whatever. And if you want to do that, you come on board. But it's like the companies that don't say that and then expect that later, and then you don't get promoted because you don't do it or you get fired because you didn't do it. That's where the problem comes in.
Matt Gjertsen [00:13:31]:
Exactly. And I think to the ex previously Twitter example, I think the main reason that got so much press is because from what I understand, it was just such a dramatic 180 in their culture. Everybody there was expecting one thing, and then this leadership change happened. And it was different. It was very different. And that's tough. That's definitely tough, for sure. Yeah.
Matt Gjertsen [00:13:57]:
You mentioned earlier this idea of most of your book is very employee centric. And I do think it's interesting when I've looked at this space and companies, whether it be HR, other parts of the business are looking at ways to solve some of these problems, whether it's burnout or retention or whatever it is. It seems like very often the focus is on the employee and providing the employee tools. We're going to bring in a time management expert so that the employees can manage their time better. We're going to bring in a mindfulness expert so that the employees can fix their, do their internal stuff. But it seems to me that though it's great to provide those things, very often they're not solving the problem, they're solving the symptoms, not the disease. Right. And it seems like that's kind of what you've found as well.
Tonille Miller [00:14:50]:
Yeah, I think, unfortunately, again, most of the organizations that I've talked to, and again, they're doing their very best. Again, this is not their skill set or their wheelhouse, but they do approach things in a very band aid. Let's address that symptom perspective. And I think our society does that in general. When you think of healthcare and education, it does the same thing instead of getting at those root causes that are actually going to solve the issues. And then again, I think that's hard because, again, leaders and even HR leaders and other folks, even if they have a high level of emotional intelligence, they're not usually psychologists. They don't understand a lot of the organizational dynamics and the way all of it operates as a system. So basically it's like, hey, HR, just go create a DEI program or make people go to training to solve the problem or whatever.
Tonille Miller [00:15:32]:
And again, that's a huge waste of time, money and energy. And what I always tell them, too, when I come in, I kind of help them understand. I'm like, hey, you need to understand the organization operates as an ecosystem, right? So culture, how leaders behave. All the processes and friction and technology and what's rewarded, what level of transparency you have, is it cohesive? Do we connect the dots for people? All kinds of factors, all these different levers within an organization work together. So even if one or two of those things is really good, the other things can derail it easy. And so I don't know, for example, if a company wants to be innovative, because that's what everyone says, everybody wants to be innovative. Let's get a new technology platform that'll give us innovation. And they don't realize that that's great, that's one part of it.
Tonille Miller [00:16:15]:
But even if they roll out a program with it on top of that, it's like unless they account for that entire system, which would mean things like creating a culture of psychological safety, having leaders role model their own personal vulnerability, rewarding people for taking risks, telling stories about them, taking risks and how they learned all these great things from it, calling out wrong behaviors, lining the incentives. Like all those kinds of things have to happen, not just, here's a new innovation platform. So I see that a lot.
Matt Gjertsen [00:16:44]:
Yeah. And like you mentioned, a lot of these leaders aren't trained in this kind of stuff. They don't have a background to see this stuff. Whereas especially inside talent development, maybe there's quite a few people that are, there's people with backgrounds in organizational psychology. And it can be hard, as someone who is constantly approaching these leaders, to try to teach them about that ecosystem. What techniques do you find work to approach that conversation, to get people open to these ideas and make them realize, hey, a new technology isn't the thing, or a mindfulness retreat isn't the thing. There's a broader ecosystem change that needs to happen. How do you get started in those conversations?
Tonille Miller [00:17:27]:
Yeah, thank you. That's a great question. I don't think anyone's ever asked me that. And it's really an important thing, as we just mentioned. So what I tend to do is, number one, for better or worse, a lot of the times by the time I get brought in, it's because they've experienced pain, which, for better or worse, that's a really good motivator. It's like if they did an implementation of something and they're like, oh, no one adopted it or it didn't work or we didn't get the ROI, then they'll bring me in and say, what happened? That's some of my use cases anyways. And then I can explain to them, well, all these things here is why it didn't happen. These are the things we now need to do.
Tonille Miller [00:17:57]:
I know how to do that. Let me work with you to do that. So that's one discussion. The other thing is if maybe they haven't experienced change or I guess pain. The good news is I have enough years under my belt that I can kind of come in the door and say, hey, totally cool. If you want to go and do it your way without change management, without some of these other things I'm talking about, you go ahead and try it. Not a big deal. But then when it doesn't go the right way and give me a call.
Tonille Miller [00:18:21]:
And I have a lot of data, again, for my clients over the years, and I put a lot of this in the book for that exact reason. So, unfortunately, it often takes them having at least one bad implementation or some pain of some sort. Or, for example, sometimes they'll come to me and it's the pain is that, oh, our turnover rate is so high, people are super disengaged. That's also a pain point. And then I can kind of meet them where they are, basically, and say, yes, this is why. Let's get under that. Let's get down to the real strategic cause. And I think that's the other thing, too, is when I can share with them that what I'm doing is not, here's a program, here's a band aid, and I can actually say, no, this is extremely strategic.
Tonille Miller [00:18:56]:
We're actually drilling down into what's going to be solving that root cause problem. A lot of leaders, their ears perk up. They like that because it's kind of like, oh, we realize it's not just a program, which they know doesn't work.
Matt Gjertsen [00:19:07]:
Yeah, I love that you brought up all the pain because it's interesting. Through the journey of starting my own company and working with a lot of businesses and figuring out how to sell the company, one of the things that I often think about is trying to identify those pains. Right. And very early on, early last year, I was talking with a friend of mine who kind of posed the question of, are you painkillers or vitamins? And how you want your business to be painkillers? Because that's what people need. That's what people want. But then, as I kind of got further into that, it's like, okay, so there needs to be an identifiable pain in the business, but there also needs to be a clear owner of that pain. And I think that's one of the things where so many of the challenges that I'm sure you run into, and we run into all the time in talent development, something like you just mentioned, of retention. It's not often one person's pain, and sometimes the Chro is tasked like, you need to go fix this.
Matt Gjertsen [00:20:12]:
But it's certainly not one person who is responsible for all the causes, because there's lots of causes, but very often even the pain itself is just very distributed. And so it can be difficult to figure out even who to talk to, I suppose. Do you ever run into that where it's just like somebody comes at you? How often does somebody present you with a problem and then you kind of have to do a big, kind of walk them through a bunch of stuff to say, like, that's actually not your problem, this is your problem, or you think you're responsible for it, but this person is responsible for it. How do you work through that?
Tonille Miller [00:20:51]:
Yeah, and that happens just about every time, no matter what the problem is. Because usually people, again, it's not their skill set. They just know, well, people are leaving or people aren't using our new platform. We know those things, but that's all they know. They don't know why. And to your point, I have to bring in a lot of these levers that we talked about in the beginning of this conversation and say, and what I do typically when I go in is I will look at things like engagement, survey data and all that other stuff. Yes, let's look at the data and the turnover. That's all important.
Tonille Miller [00:21:14]:
It's not unimportant important. But then besides drilling down into getting really deep on what the exact root cause from that is, then we talk about some other things. Right. So what is your culture like? Do we have stay interviews, exit interviews, all kinds of your glass door profile, social media? Let me do some interviews and focus groups and really get down to the meat of things. And then to your point, also get into with the business leaders and understand, because usually everybody's got a different version of the same thing, but to your point, it's distributed and it's different across different people and groups, and each of these different things is caused. There's like two or three of these things that are causing different pains for different people. So you have to really get in there and kind of, again, I always diagnose it as a full system. It's not just this one department or this one thing over here.
Tonille Miller [00:21:58]:
So I try to get as comprehensive as possible. And now that I've done it enough and seen it, so many different flavors of it, I can get down there pretty simply and pretty easily.
Matt Gjertsen [00:22:06]:
Yeah, I'd love to double click on that because I think that's an area that could bring a lot of value to the listeners of. What is your process for diagnosing stuff you kind of quickly went through? Look at Glassdoor, do some interviews. But who are you talking? Like, how many people are you talking to? What levels of the company are you talking to? Are they one on one or are they group? It'd be great to hear, and I'm sure it's different in different organizations, but from a high level, do you have kind of a basic process that you kind of walk through to start that diagnosis that people would be able to action on if they're facing these same kind of problems and they want to go to their leadership and say, hey, here's the true solution. But they don't have your experience in trying to diagnose that.
Tonille Miller [00:22:49]:
Yeah, and it does depend. So, for example, a lot of my work is change management and transformation, whether it's technology platform or a new culture, a new merger, like, whatever the case may be. So when it's that, it's a little bit different. So in that case, if it's a change of some sort, because what we're trying to get then is adoption of something different, right? Behavior change something different. So in that case, it's actually, I have a whole list of questions, and like I said, I'll review all the different data. What's the presenting pain point? We'll call it that, right? What do you think the situation is? Or what's the big change from there? I ask them if it's like they already implemented something, understanding. Was there any change management around it? And with that, it's like all these ten different levers of change of like, did you have leaders lead it and communicate it? Are they telling stories? Did we communicate as an organization? Did we build it into the way the organization already operates as far as policies, procedures, the way our technology links and all those? There's all kinds of levers that I'll ask them about, and usually the answer is no. For most of those, or, yeah, most of them, it's usually no.
Tonille Miller [00:23:50]:
So basically that's a good starting point. Like, well, let's build a plan that's going to bring all these things in that it makes sense to bring in, so we can kind of almost reboot it or relaunch it. And that's one way, I call it kind of the optimization of whatever change they're trying to drive. That's one flavor. The other thing is, to your point, I think a lot of HR folks, it's like, or even just managers or team leaders, that the problem is retention and engagement and performance, or silos, like all those kinds of other organizational problems. That's what they come to me with and say, okay, we have all these silos. What do we do? Or we have this. And so in that case, again, it depends on the organization.
Tonille Miller [00:24:24]:
It depends on what kind of data. But basically, I just try to get as much data as I can right away. Like, again, very simply, engagement numbers, retention numbers, any kind of, like, what is the bonus system? All the different things and understanding how, basically painting a picture for me, what's the flavor of the organization? What's the environment? What does that feel like? What is leadership like, how transparent, the culture, all that stuff. And once you do that, then it's a matter of drilling down. And to your point, I tend to do a focus group. We can do surveys sometimes, but I like to do focus groups or interviews with probably about five to 15 people, kind of a cross functional, cross level group of different levels, that sort of thing. And that's after I've spoken with some leaders. So then that's also folks on the ground, including managers, and just getting their perspective.
Tonille Miller [00:25:09]:
Like, hey, we realize this problem is going on. We're trying to get under it. We think we have a couple of ideas over here. What do you think of these? Do you think this could be a cause? If not, if yes, whatever add to it, what else do you think it is? And then if we need to, we even go deeper. We'll even interview a larger group of people, as many people on the ground as we possibly can. But it really kind of depends on what the problem is and how much other data we have.
Matt Gjertsen [00:25:34]:
So it sounds like there's at least three layers to get started of. First, you're looking at, as you said, the presenting problem, where, what's the data around? You think this is a problem and kind of see what data there is there. Then a series of sounds like kind of one on one interviews with different, whether it's the managers or the business leaders, like the key stakeholders, to check some of those assumptions, some of the things that you saw from the data start to develop hypotheses, that kind of thing. And then after that, you go to these larger groups, 15 people, to kind of, it sounds like you're kind of pressure testing the findings in those.
Tonille Miller [00:26:12]:
Yeah.
Matt Gjertsen [00:26:13]:
Okay.
Tonille Miller [00:26:14]:
Because I think it's good to go, because, again, some of these people are totally, like a lot of the times, the people that we're talking to are totally aware of the problem, but no one's asked them. Yes, especially people on the ground. They all know the answer, literally. I had a client recently where leaders came to me, this is like a sea level and below came to me and said, oh, we have horrible turnover. We have all this employee survey data, and for the most part, they're pretty engaged. But there's these other issues, and we don't know why they're leaving. And so then, to your point, then, my process was, okay, so I've talked through these leaders, the different business unit leaders, see what they're saying, see if any of that correlates or not. Sometimes it does, lots of times it does not.
Tonille Miller [00:26:47]:
Always. And then from that, as we're picking up those data points, bring those data points lower and lower in the organization and asking people, does this resonate? Is this why people are leaning? Is this, how do you feel? How's your experience? And then we get down to the real meat of it, because, again, it could be we're disengaged here, or we're unhappy with this, but let's get down to, what is it about this that we're unhappy with, or what is it about that? And you realize, oh, we don't get any learning and development. We don't get work life balance. I had a client where that was the issue. They said they were paid plenty. Fine. The pay was good, culture was good, but the work life balance was horrible, and they weren't getting training, that they needed to be successful in their role. So I always feel like it's like a bucket of ten different things, and it's probably a matter of three or four of those things, but you don't know which ones until you talk to the people, because it's different by organization, department level, et cetera.
Matt Gjertsen [00:27:39]:
Yeah. And you always think you know which one it is. Bleeder always thinks.
Tonille Miller [00:27:44]:
Often say it's money. Like, almost always the knee jerk reaction is, well, we're not paying them enough, especially if it's like a retail organization or something where it's hourly workers. It's always like, well, we're just not paying the same as Amazon or whatever. That's why they're leaving. I'm like, okay, but money is only one aspect. There's a lot of other things. Like, we talked about meeting people's human needs and all the other different frictions that happen. There's a lot of areas for opportunity that you can target even if you can't pay more.
Tonille Miller [00:28:07]:
That makes a big difference.
Matt Gjertsen [00:28:09]:
Yeah, that makes sense. Going back, you mentioned a lot of your time is spent with change management and introducing new systems. And there was one thing that stuck out to me from your book around this idea of the expectations that employees have because of technology out in the world. And so if they come into work and you have these really clunky processes, then they're going to get really frustrated. And I 100% agree with that. However, I have long said, I literally think I've been saying this for about ten years. I blame so many problems on Facebook and social media. Not from the fact that we normally think about a social media, but these are companies that have the best minds in the world are spending billions of dollars making the things that we interact every day absolutely as seamless as possible.
Matt Gjertsen [00:29:01]:
They'll spend hundreds of millions of dollars to figure out a way to make a transaction, take one click less. And that's a level of effort and investment that most companies just can't make. I don't know, is there a middle ground here? Because there's part of me that I 100%. I always talk bad on different learning management systems. The number one reason why I would talk bad on them is because of how many clicks it takes to do something. There's one that I used where enrolling an employee in a course took 16 clicks or something. That's obviously ridiculous. At the same time, I do think the expectation for employees can sometimes be too high or from employees sometimes be too high.
Matt Gjertsen [00:29:44]:
I don't know. In all of your discussions, is there a middle ground there? Or maybe I'm making too much out of this and the expectations aren't really that high, it's just that what we're providing is often so bad.
Tonille Miller [00:29:58]:
I always say like, well, it's not that bad. It's like, well, that's not really the bar we're striving for. Here's what I would say to that. I think you have something really important here because this is what a lot of leaders will say. Like, hey, we didn't have that when I was there. Why do they need so much? And I completely understand why some leaders feel this way, but what I always remind them of is a couple of things. So first of all, because the world is different, right? So the first thing is, I think that expectations of employees are different today. So the one thing I always point out is, like, back in the day, the workday was nine to five.
Tonille Miller [00:30:32]:
No one could ever reach you. Basically, once you left that office, you could totally unplug tune out, decompress. You weren't stressed working all night while you're eating your dinner with your family or not even having dinner. And so today it's different because we expect people to be always on. They're available all the time since the smartphone was invented, basically. And we're also constantly trying to do more with less, especially in the last couple of years of efficiency. And so we're constantly expecting them to give everything and go above and beyond daily as just like the baseline itself. Because of that, they need time to recharge.
Tonille Miller [00:31:08]:
Right. So that's one thing to keep in mind. The other thing I would say is, over the past several decades, more and more of the value created by companies. Instead of coming from things like machines and oil in the ground and material things, it's actually coming now from our most humane aspects of people. And I think the number is something like. I don't know. Ellen Murray did this study, and I think it was kind of like back in the 80s, it was like the majority of the balance sheet, like 85% of the value came from those material things. And now I think it's like 90 or 90, 95% of the value that companies bring or make in the marketplace is from these most humane aspects.
Tonille Miller [00:31:46]:
So if you think of, like, brands and creativity and ingenuity and using empathy to create software, like all these things, it's coming from our most human parts. And if we're constantly burnt out, we're constantly on, we can't decompress, and we're not treated like a human. It's like the work has become less and less mechanical, which is great, but we're expecting all those really humane qualities, which means we need to give our people well being, meet their needs. Do those treat them like the most human people? Because they can't show empathy if they're kind of shuddering and hiding and stressed out and in a stress response, they can't do those kinds of things. It's a different kind of thinking in a different part of the brain. So that's the first thing that I would say where I think this comes in. And then the other thing is, as you mentioned, the very beginning of this is that our younger workforce has really grown up in a world that, as you mentioned, is one click, friction free, super personalized, user friendly, with real time feedback. Everything's very clear.
Tonille Miller [00:32:39]:
It's like everything is much more progressive and democratized in a way, as far as transparency, all that stuff. But then they go to work and it's like there's clunky technology. There's bureaucracy, there's this command and control leadership in a lot of companies. There's, like, lack of belonging, lack of transparency. And so they feel like they're stepping back into time to, like, 1985 when they go to work. I just always bring those data points up to leaders because I don't think that they realize that these people didn't grow up in the same world as the leaders.
Matt Gjertsen [00:33:09]:
Just how much things have changed.
Tonille Miller [00:33:11]:
Yeah, they gradually kind of got used to technology moment to moment. The leaders did. But these younger folks, they've grown up with this totally different world. So it's just really weird for them when they go into the office and it's different.
Matt Gjertsen [00:33:23]:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. I think that's great. So we always end with the same three questions. The first one is, what is one book or podcast everyone should read or listen to and why? Now you have your book, the flourishing effect. I'll go ahead and say that everyone should go read that. Do you have another recommendation?
Tonille Miller [00:33:48]:
Yeah, I mean, the book I've been recommending since I ever found it, which was over a decade ago, is man's search for meaning just because it puts everything in life in perspective. Have you read that?
Matt Gjertsen [00:33:57]:
Yeah. Oh, 100%. That's absolutely fantastic book. Yeah. And it fits right in with everything that we're talking about here, which is great. Yeah. What is one skill that has most helped you be successful in your life?
Tonille Miller [00:34:14]:
I think it's just always keeping my focus on other people. So whether that's clients, bosses, colleagues, whatever it might be, and just thinking about, like, okay, what are they trying to accomplish? What can I do to add value and help them accomplish their goals? And then also, I think for me personally, just always learning from every situation, especially the difficult ones.
Matt Gjertsen [00:34:36]:
Yeah, I love it. And then as we've talked about here, you talk with a lot of different organizations. What is one of the most common opportunities you see for organizations to improve their talent development practices?
Tonille Miller [00:34:54]:
I think the data, I came across, this data point the other day, and it said that only 5% of people feel like they're actually meeting their full potential at work. And that just kind of felt like, ooh, kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. So on one hand, we've got all kinds of companies saying that we need our people to be more productive, more efficient, more high performing, yet their people feel like they're not being tapped to use their potential and their strengths. And that's where I think a lot of the burnout comes from, because I don't know if people know this, but a lot of burnout is not overworked. It's actually feeling underutilized, like you're not using your potential. And so I think this is a really big opportunity for companies really, to think of it like there's a lot of easy, low, no cost ways. And I have an entire chapter in the book, as you probably saw, on how to do this. And it's things like job crafting, internal career marketplaces, apprenticeship programs, cross mentoring, reverse mentoring and tons more that it literally costs nothing.
Tonille Miller [00:35:45]:
And so I think those are some things for leaders and organizations to get started on.
Matt Gjertsen [00:35:50]:
Awesome. Well, I think those are some great examples of things that organizations can do. Everybody listening? Like I said, the flourishing effect. You can dive a lot more into the details to figure out how to bring that to your organizations. This has been a great conversation. Tenille, thank you so much for joining me this morning. I think people are going to get a lot out of it.
Tonille Miller [00:36:10]:
I hope so. Thank you, Matt.
Matt Gjertsen [00:36:12]:
Have a great day.
Tonille Miller [00:36:14]:
You too.
Matt Gjertsen [00:36:15]:
Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you liked the discussion, make sure to hit like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. As a reminder, if your team is struggling keeping up with the training development demands of your organization, we want to help. Better everyday Studios is a full service instructional design team that can help you with everything from ideation to actual content creation and delivery. Please reach out to us using the link in the episode notes below. Have a great day.
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