Empathic leaders build the emotional reserve to solve the humanitarian crisis
I had the opportunity to speak to Dave Ulrich, the world’s leading authority when it comes to talent acquisition and human resources. He is ranked as the #1 management guru by Business Week, profiled by Fast Company as one of the world’s leading business thinkers and author of over 30 books and 200 articles.
Our conversation encompasses a small part of his expertise and yet it is so useful when it comes to understanding the future of work and talent.
This article comprises the second part of our conversation on the future of work. You can read the first part of the interview here.
Part 2
Are companies willing to pay the price for innovation/experimentation in a post-pandemic time?
D.U. — I was asked recently “What’s one message out of 2020–2021 crisis?” and the one word that comes to my mind that I think companies are recognizing is personalization.
Personalization is an interesting word, it has two parts.
The first part is personal. I think the humanitarian crisis is so real, everyone I know — me included, and I don’t know you very well — we have faced an emotional challenge.
My wife and I have been together for 45 years. And even after 45 years, being together seven days a week, 24 hours a day, for 15 months, there’s an emotional tension. And we’ve all faced that. I think everyone I know has faced some emotional challenges.
D.U. — What does that mean in a company?
We have to pay attention to the individual. We have to show empathy, we have to show emotional well-being. We have to pay attention to the experience.
So when an employee comes to a physical work setting — not back to work; they’ve been at work — we don’t start with “What are your goals? What are your objectives?”. We start with “How are you? How are you feeling? What have you learned? What’s been your experience?”
And I think getting leaders to be empathetic they then build the emotional reserve to solve what you call the humanitarian crisis. That’s the personal piece — energy, emotion, empathy. And I think that empathy is part of the personal.
D.U. — The other part of personalization is customizing. Everybody’s affected differently today. For some people working at home is terrific. I just got an email as I was logging on from a woman who said “I’m an extrovert, this personal crisis in my office has been very painful for me”.
I, on the other hand, tend to be an introvert and it’s been wonderful to work in my office — welcome to my office. And our children, we have three children, have responded very differently to this crisis. One of our daughters quit her job and she’s homeschooling her children. That’s a very different experience.
I hope companies: 1 — personal — care for the empathy and the energy, the emotion, the humanity — and 2 — customize — tailor the job to you.
D.U. — Do you want to be full time in a job? Do you want to be part time at home part time at work? What kind of job setting and future of work do you want? I think they will be very customized, hybrid.
Which industries are open to co-create tailored jobs for their employees?
D.U. — There are some industries where you physically have to be at work: you’re a manufacturing plant building a product or a processing plant, making food, you physically have to be there. Or a chip plant.
But in the knowledge industry, you don’t have to physically be there to be involved. What I think becomes important as some of the companies say “Oh, this is soft, we’re letting you work at home. We’re not monitoring your performance”.
I think there is a new boundary of work. Traditionally, the boundary of work was physical. I get up in the morning, I go to work, I’m at work and I go home from work, and the boundary is the place.
I think there’s a new boundary of work that is just as demanding and the boundary is what did I do today that helps my customer have a better experience?
D.U. — And so the question a business leader could ask an employee is “Can you tell me what you did today to help a customer have a better experience?” and if the employee doesn’t have an answer, that employee probably is not going to stay at the company.
Because the employee has to say something. There is a boundary. If you’re not creating value for a customer by what you do, you’re not a good employee in my company today. There is accountability for that.
Take for example fashion. I don’t care where you come up with your great fashion design. You could come up with that in a car, you could come up with it in a gym, at a yoga studio. You could come up with it when exercising, you could come up with that at 2:00 in the morning, but you’ve got to come up with some ideas that help make fashion happen.
Otherwise you’re not a good fashion designer. I think that boundary is what companies have failed to recognize that you still have to do something to create value.
And that is a real boundary that companies can expect.
How should HR and management functions shift in order to lead hybrid talent management in the future?
D.U. — One of the things that I think HR and marketing, and technology and finance do is we often get enamored by what we’ve done, the activities: I hire people, I train people, I pay people, I do communication.
I think we have to get very focused on the outcomes of the activities.
D.U. — So that when an HR person meets with a business leader, the first question is not “Look at the training program I offer. Look at the hiring program, the career program, the payroll program.” The first question is “What are the goals our company is trying to accomplish? What are we trying to do to be successful in the marketplace? We’re trying to have more innovation, we’re trying to have a shorter cycle time, we’re trying to have a lower price.”
Then to the business leader, the HR person says “Would you be interested in my doing human resource activities that help us reach those goals?”. That HR is an enabler to accomplish and accelerate business goals.
D.U. — I think sometimes HR people get very focused on their activities, not the outcomes. And if there was one meta message, it’s “What are we trying to accomplish as HR professionals?”.
I just had a talk with a big group, 1200 HR people in one big company, so it’s a large company. And I said “What is it HR should give an employee in this company?”
And here is my multiple choice question.
What should we give an employee?
- A sense of belief? A meaning and purpose?
- An ability to become better? Training, development?
- A sense of belonging, relationship?
- All of the above?
- None of the above?
D.U. — I’ve asked that question a lot. What is it HR gives an employee? Believe, become, belong, all the above? 80% say “all the above”, and they’re wrong. It’s e) None of the above.
The best thing we can give an employee, the best thing we in HR can give an employee, is an organization that succeeds in the marketplace.
D.U. — Because unless and until we succeed in the marketplace, there is no work place. The marketplace determines our success and our job in HR is to make sure that HR — staffing, training, compensation — is all designed to help us build an organization that is successful in the marketplace.
That’s the agenda where I hope we can get HR to move.
How do you define talent?
D.U. — I have three things and you’ve probably seen it.
One is competence, which is what you’d call vocation. It’s your knowledge, skills and ability. Do I have the ability to do the work? Kind of the mental brains, the skills.
Commitment is the willingness to do the work, the behavior, the showing up. Am I willing to work? So I can have high competence, I have the skills both today and tomorrow. Am I committed? Am I willing to work hard? Do I show up?
And the third piece for me is contribution or experience, which is kind of your service. What’s the contribution I’ve given? And I have put a multiplier between those. You can have high competence — people are very smart, they’re very talented. They’re not very committed. They’re not working very hard. Or they can have high commitment, they work reading hard, but they’re not very competent, they don’t have the skills that you need.
So Competence x Commitment x Contribution are the three things.
D.U. — And the contribution one for me is the one that’s getting the most attention. It’s where there’s the most variance and where there’s variance there’s opportunity. “What makes me feel like I’m making a contribution?” and that’s where the believe, become and belong show up.
The competence is the knowledge, the skills, the training; commitment is an employee value proposition — if you work hard you’ll get something back –; contribution is the experience I have because it shapes believe, become and belong. It shapes my meaning and purpose, it shapes my learning and growth (become) and it shapes my relationship.
So I think the experience is around those three dimensions or the contribution is around those three.
*Thank you, @DaveUlrich! It has been an honour to chat with you and gain from your knowledge and expertise.
*The interview has been divided in two parts for clarity and space reasons. Part one can be found here.
*This interview was video recorded.
