Speaker 2: This is the Rebel HR Podcast, the podcast about all things innovation in the people's space.
Speaker 2: I'm Kyle Rode.
Speaker 2: Let's start the show.
Speaker 2: Welcome back HR community.
Speaker 2: Thrilled to have this conversation today With us.
Speaker 2: We have Christy Smith.
Speaker 2: Christy is the founder of the Humanity Studio, a leadership advisory firm, and author of the book that is coming out in the very, very near future Embrace the Power of Human-Powered Leadership with her book Essential how Distributed Teams, generative AI and Global Shifts Are Creating a New Human-Powered Leadership.
Speaker 2: Christy wrote that book with Kelly Monaghan, phd.
Speaker 2: Christy, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Well, extremely excited to have you.
Speaker 2: As we were kind of doing the pre-meeting before I hit record, I was telling you that this book just hits so many of these topics that I think are so incredibly critical for so many of us in the HR community, and I'm really excited for the book to come out.
Speaker 2: I'm curious.
Speaker 2: My first question for you is what motivated you to write a book on these topics?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, many, many years of really having the privilege to serve clients in the C-suite you know, minus two, three in organizations and your colleagues in HR and really seeing the shift, especially now and since the pandemic of what's required of leaders and what the relationship with employees are, employees' relationship with organizations and how those drastically have shifted and the expectations have shifted.
Speaker 1: So I was excited to dig in and look at those shifts and hopefully provide some answers.
Speaker 2: Well, I am waiting these answers as well because I got a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: I bet yeah.
Speaker 2: I got.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's so much here, right, and I think you know there's a lot of conversation around this stuff, but it's a really, really big question and I think COVID accelerated this, right, but but this was always kind of where we were marching towards anyways as a society, you know, as as virtual work became more more relevant, generative AI has, you know, I mean that's been around for a long time.
Speaker 2: Now it's actually to a point where we're seeing it more incorporated in the workplace, you know, and the globalization and distribution of employees, you know, is kind of a natural evolution of our economy.
Speaker 2: So, you know, these are all very logical shifts, but we don't necessarily have the tools to deal with them yet.
Speaker 2: Or, certainly, as we look at, like, our leadership development programs, they're still kind of targeted towards in-person leaders and you know, it's kind of like a lot of this leadership stuff is basically the same stuff that's been around since the 50s, 60s and 70s.
Speaker 2: So I'm curious, as you think about this, this challenge, what are, what are some of these areas where you feel like we need to, we need to broadly focus on adjusting the way that we lead?
Speaker 1: Well, I think I think first is a is a mindset shift, right, I think that you know, as you say, some of the shifts that are occurring may be logical, right, but the fact that they're happening in such a compressed way and it's such volume, right, I think, adds a layer of complexity both for leaders and employees to kind of digest this, right.
Speaker 1: So we're not just talking about the, the direct impacts on an organization's ability to grow or to globalize, or to develop product or to embrace technology.
Speaker 1: We're talking about we're living in a polarized society around the globe.
Speaker 1: We are dealing with wars on multiple fronts.
Speaker 1: We're dealing with people who are trying to take care of their children and their elders right, and there are not in many countries, this included those services that allow us to do this and go work right in an affordable way.
Speaker 1: And so you know, we can't just look at what are the organizational impacts.
Speaker 1: This is really a socioeconomic and political world that we live in that are impacting employees as they cross the threshold of work.
Speaker 1: So I think that leaders are very, very, very in tuned to this, to this, right.
Speaker 1: If you look at what leaders came out of Davos last year talking about, it was the global unrest this year.
Speaker 1: They're talking about a lot about the global unrest and culture and, as you say, how do we motivate, keep a workforce and engage a workforce where trust and engagement scores are the lowest that they've ever been, right?
Speaker 1: So this all demands a different kind of leader, not one that just has a fiduciary responsibility of run a P&L, but one that is A a global citizen now P&L, but one that is A a global citizen now and B needs to care for their employees in a fundamentally different way and engage their employees in a different way, absolutely.
Speaker 2: I think it's fascinating to me the broad impact on engagement scores here over the last few years where you know we actually everybody assumed that they would go on the in the basement right when, you know, the pandemic hit and they actually went up a little bit but then ever since then they've just, they've just it's been a downward spiral like a flywheel of doom, and especially globally, when you step outside of the US they're lower right.
Speaker 2: The engagement index scores continue to kind of sink.
Speaker 2: What do you attribute that to in your research?
Speaker 1: Well, I think that there are a couple of things, but let's talk about that in context that low employee engagement scores and productivity scores are costing us $8.8 trillion a year.
Speaker 1: Now, that's equivalent to Microsoft, amazon and Apple together.
Speaker 1: Think about that.
Speaker 1: The strain on our economy as a result of those low engagement scores and lost productivity is really significant.
Speaker 1: I attribute it to your question to a couple of things.
Speaker 1: One is we're asking employees to learn technologies and to change processes and structures without any help right.
Speaker 1: Our learning and development, investment and learning development has gone down.
Speaker 1: Secondly, we are not our insides aren't matching our outsides.
Speaker 1: When we were writing the book, we were looking at not only the realities of technology and AI and you know the change and shift in leadership.
Speaker 1: We wanted to answer the question of you know what do employees require of their leaders, and they were very clear on four things Purpose, make sure your insides match your outsides.
Speaker 1: Live up to your values, live up to the purpose statements that you are talking about.
Speaker 1: The second is agency, and this is to the point that we were talking before we went online.
Speaker 1: Is you know this notion of distributed work, working when, where and how I want, and you know making sure that my work fits into my life right Agency and defining myself in the way that I want to define myself, not being defined by a category created by the organization.
Speaker 1: Wellness is the third area that the expectation of employees have of their employees.
Speaker 1: Employers are to make sure that their employers provide them with wellness, not only in mental health or health preventative health but also financial health benefits, those kinds of things.
Speaker 1: And then, lastly, connection create areas and opportunities for employees to connect.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so.
Speaker 2: I want to dig into kind of each one of these, but before I do I'm curious.
Speaker 2: You know, I've heard this a lot, especially over the last few years, and a lot of times it's from employees who are maybe more tenured or used to doing things a certain way.
Speaker 2: It's like it's like this, this the speed of change continues to to accelerate, and I think there's a, there's a lot of at least in my organization.
Speaker 2: We see a lot of organizational stress because of that.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh my gosh, when are we going to catch up?
Speaker 2: You know, when are we going to catch up to this change?
Speaker 2: When are we going to get to catch our breath?
Speaker 2: But broadly, I hear that, you know, I kind of hear that in society too, right, it's like, if you like, there's just there's so much, and so would you attribute that feeling to really a lack of adhering to these four things and supporting employees along the way, as because the rate of change is accelerating, right, I mean, it's just naturally going to with some of these societal and technological changes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, without a doubt.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that there are a couple of things.
Speaker 1: Yes, I would say that these four areas that we examine in the book are completely related to the ability for employees and leaders themselves to be resilient right through the process of change.
Speaker 1: So that's one.
Speaker 1: Two is change is constant.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm just that old that I remember, you know, early in my career as a consultant, where we were doing change management programs for organizations and, frankly, consultancies are still doing that today.
Speaker 1: What we have not done is build the muscle for change within the design of work.
Speaker 1: Work should be dynamic.
Speaker 1: You know we have talked about things like agility, but we haven't prepared employees for what should be dynamic.
Speaker 1: You know we have talked about things like agility, but we haven't prepared employees for what should be constant.
Speaker 1: Change right and plan for that, not only in processes but also in terms of time.
Speaker 1: When you are going through a change, it requires your leader and your team to spend more time together.
Speaker 1: What we see in organizations today is we're going to go through this transformation and saddle up and just do it Rather than building the vision for it, what they can expect of it, how their work will change, how they're going to be developed with regards to their own skills and capabilities and how.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 1: What does the outcome look like for you, your team and everyone else, and that, I think, is what is lacking.
Speaker 1: It's not that change is, you know, hard, it's just we don't know how to talk about it and plan for it in organizations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree and I think you know I like the phrase that change is the only constant right Because it's, you know, that's just the world we live in and so often, once you get through a, a change, a lot of times the people that were really resistant look back and go oh, that wasn't so bad.
Speaker 2: You know, it's almost like the fear of change was was worse than the actual execution of said change event.
Speaker 2: Right, um and but.
Speaker 2: But I do find that the differentiator so many times of a good experience versus a bad experience comes down to a great leader.
Speaker 1: Without a doubt.
Speaker 2: So it you know that's, and so I do think, like, in kind of the point of of this book here is, you know it's, it's giving a roadmap for for leaders to understand how to, how to lead people through this.
Speaker 2: So I want for leaders to understand how to how to lead people, uh, through this.
Speaker 2: So I want, I want to circle around.
Speaker 2: I love the uh, the term that you used, uh, when you were talking about purpose, and that is the insides match the outsides.
Speaker 2: Can you unpack that phrase for us?
Speaker 2: Um?
Speaker 2: just cause I, I love that that uh kind of visual.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that let me give an example of you know how I've seen this play out in many organizations.
Speaker 1: Many organizations, as you well know, will have great diversity, equity and inclusion statements, right, and that they value this more than anything else.
Speaker 1: Statements, and that they value this more than anything else.
Speaker 1: Yet when you look at the amount of individuals who are sitting in the C-suite minus two or three they are very homogeneous and the constant argument is that, well, it's a pipeline issue.
Speaker 1: You know, I absolutely categorically think that's a BS statement, and so I think that that's an easy example, right?
Speaker 1: You know, you say that you value this, you say that you want this, and yet for 40 years, we've not seen much progress in terms of marginalized communities reaching the C-suite.
Speaker 1: That's one example.
Speaker 1: Another example is you know, we want to live our ESG values and yet our carbon footprint and nothing that we do related to that our packaging, our relationship to how we get things to our clients, those kinds of things are not lived up to.
Speaker 1: We have, you know, great statements from CEOs about this.
Speaker 1: Is, you know, a caring family.
Speaker 1: We think of our employees as family.
Speaker 1: That's perhaps the most damaging phrase I think can come out of a senior leader's mouth Now.
Speaker 1: I's perhaps the most um damaging phrase I I uh think can come out of a senior leader's mouth Now.
Speaker 1: I think that the intentions are really good, but there is absolutely that is not felt um throughout an organization.
Speaker 1: Um, and we treat each other pretty poorly, um, things like oh, you know the bad guys, managers who are verbally abusive or abusive in any way, if they're top performers, they say in their role.
Speaker 1: Yet companies say, yeah, we don't tolerate that behavior.
Speaker 1: So it's these little things, both on a macro and micro level, that organizations really have to have the courage to live to their values.
Speaker 1: Now our younger generations are exposing this right, left and center in their organizations.
Speaker 1: You just go on Fishbowl or any other kind of platform and you can see how culture is eroded or that the insides don't match the outsides.
Speaker 2: Totally, yeah, I think, yes, I love ESG from the standpoint that it's elevated, the conversation right, and now we have a terminology for it.
Speaker 2: But I think there's so much BS in ESG, right, and I would say same comment in DEI or any of these acronyms and I think, yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker 2: So much of this is about being authentic with know, being authentic with with saying you know, doing what you say you're going to do, standing up for these values.
Speaker 2: And I totally side note, I didn't, I didn't understand the like, how toxic the statement that we are like a family was until I, you know, I I had I don't know a little bit of a, you know, an eye opening moment where, you know, somebody was like, do you know how dysfunctional my family was?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, that's exactly how this is.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, you're right, it's like and this, you know, this was a long time ago and I was like, oh, yeah, maybe we shouldn't call it a family because we actually that's not necessarily a positive connotation and it's not actually accurate, right, we're pursuing a common goal.
Speaker 2: You know, we're pursuing common interests, we want to help and support each other, but we are not a family unit.
Speaker 2: Right, we can fire people.
Speaker 2: You know, this is different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again, I think that you know this there's there is very little malice when leaders want to talk about these kinds of things and that they, they truly believe it, but they're in very privileged positions, right, right.
Speaker 1: And so I think that we just have to acknowledge that if we, as a company, are really going to set forth purpose, then that means purpose stays alive, because you're talking about the connections of purpose to work and customers and patients and all of that all of the time, right?
Speaker 1: But leaders are pressured around short term outcomes rather than that ethos of a long-term purpose and values.
Speaker 1: Now, they're not at odds with one another, of course, but because of those short-term metrics and goals that a leader has to create in order to show value to the street, you know it is, it is purposes lost, yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, it's only, it's only as important.
Speaker 2: It's only as important as how important you make the measurements Correct, right?
Speaker 2: Or how important that is to the stakeholders?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the people that, really.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the reality of a for-profit enterprise, correct?
Speaker 2: You know what are the dollars and cents associated.
Speaker 2: If it's small, while we might care, it's not going to rise to the level of importance of profitability.
Speaker 1: Period end of story right, Unless you're losing the right people.
Speaker 1: Unless you're losing the right people.
Speaker 2: Right, right, okay, I love that, so, okay.
Speaker 2: So I want to maybe jump into a little bit of a tangent, because I feel like I can't go podcast without talking about this.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of BS, how much of the noise around generative AI is real, like, like, like, what?
Speaker 2: What should we be preparing ourselves and our leaders for as it relates to this AI?
Speaker 2: Because I feel like there's so many headlines but when you really unpack it it's not as transformative as everybody thinks it's going to be, as it relates to kind of the humanity within the workplace.
Speaker 2: So what's your perspective on AI and how that kind of interplays with all of these leadership?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the advances in technology and AI would certainly fall into this.
Speaker 1: So, whether you're talking about AI or automation, you know, and data that we get from it all goodness right, I think that they can be very powerful tools for good right, powerful tools for good right, but there is such a lack of understanding of how, when, where to use these in the context of not only a company, but in the context of someone's job, their relationship to another area of the company, or their relationship to the end user, customer or ecosystem partners.
Speaker 1: Right, and what what we've done.
Speaker 1: You know we love heroes, whether those are hero CEOs that we put on a pedestal or hero technologies that we put on a pedestal Right.
Speaker 1: We love that Right that we put on a pedestal.
Speaker 1: Right, we love that right.
Speaker 1: However, what we don't do is be curious enough to say how is this really going to work?
Speaker 1: Not only for me as a boomer who really has a hard time integrating new technology, right?
Speaker 1: Or as me relating to a Gen Z who's in my organization, who's using this all the time and, frankly, getting fabulous ideas, but there's so many're going to use AI.
Speaker 1: Here's the context and outcomes we're looking for for AI.
Speaker 1: Here's how it's going to impact your job.
Speaker 1: Here's how we're going to train you around this.
Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, what we need from you is not only using the tool in the right way, but also being smart enough and analytical enough to say what answer I get.
Speaker 1: Question that Is that you know those analytical skills and critical thinking around the tool and to understand the outcome in the context of the impact to you know, whatever product we're developing or whatever customer interaction we're having, those are the things that we have not done.
Speaker 1: Therefore, I think that you're talking about the noise of generative AI and all that it's talking about.
Speaker 1: Well, people are talking about it because nobody can define what does it actually mean, not only to the company, but for the team and for me as an employee?
Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, train me.
Speaker 2: Right, right, which we've already touched on.
Speaker 2: That I love.
Speaker 2: I love the uh, I love tying it down back to like the hero, like like thinking of AI as this hero, almost on this like hero's journey, right, but the reality is like like it is.
Speaker 2: It's it's really really undefined.
Speaker 2: It's a really really broad topic.
Speaker 2: I think my favorite prompt in chat, gpt, is what was your source for this information?
Speaker 2: And it's like yeah, you know, cat, fancycom, right.
Speaker 1: You know, like like you gotta you gotta like.
Speaker 2: It's no different than like Googling something and then hoping that you get a you know, a decent, you know valid response, but you still like.
Speaker 2: The ability to like, question the data and the outcome and use your own kind of you know analytical capabilities is even more critical now than it ever has.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that if you look at the impact of this technology and most technologies that you know are entering into the workforce today, they're not working because people are not being given the time.
Speaker 1: In fact, you know there was a study in the New York Times talked about this that actually AI is more.
Speaker 1: People are rejecting it within their organizations because the fact is that they can't.
Speaker 1: You know, they don't have time to use it.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 1: They don't understand how to use it within the context of their job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's really, you know, it's, it's fascinating because, you know, I, I hear that and that makes sense to me and, and you know, just in my own anecdotal experience, you know there's, you know everybody's in such a rush and it's, you know, yeah, well, let's say, I've got this AI tool and I'm supposed to test this out, but you know, I got, I got this, this and this I got to get done.
Speaker 2: I'm just not going to have time, Forget it, I'll just do it myself.
Speaker 1: Or I'll go ask the guy that I always ask.
Speaker 2: Right, right, because it's easier or I just know how to do it, but the reality is this could be an enabler, right, as we talk about the rate of change and some of these challenges, I will tell you as a global HR professional AI has an extremely exciting use case for translation, language and communication.
Speaker 2: Um, you know, I use it to recap almost every single meeting that I do now, and it's pretty darn good at it, right, but?
Speaker 2: But I don't use it.
Speaker 2: I don't use it to make really thoughtful strategic decisions.
Speaker 2: Right, I use it to recap things and then and then prompt, you know, other dialogue and you can use it for translation capability, but it can, like this can, really make you know, the employee experience significantly better if we take the time to figure out how it works.
Speaker 1: Well, and if you take the time to train people, I mean, your schedule probably looks like mine, which I've changed dramatically that you know I am on the West Coast, so I have the curse of the West Coast.
Speaker 1: You know it's 6 am to.
Speaker 1: You know 6 pm, meeting after meeting, after meeting after meeting there's no, and then after 6 pm, getting the work done right and summing up things.
Speaker 1: That's not sustainable.
Speaker 1: I don't live that way anymore, but it is not sustainable.
Speaker 1: And the reality is, if we are going to use tools like AI or other analytical and insight tools or automation manufacturing, whatever it is, we need to take the time to teach people and to give them opportunities to practice it, and we're just not doing that in the name of productivity, which is why engagement is so low and why you know we're spending $322 billion a year on mental health issues.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is the new pandemic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: So let's, let's talk about that a little bit and I you know, and you talked about you know, you talked about purpose, agency, wellness and connection, and I think, I think my, my thought would be that this wellness and connection piece are so incredibly intertwined.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: And I will like like my own personal experience.
Speaker 2: So I was essentially stuck at home for a year.
Speaker 2: In that time we transitioned from a largely in-person workplace into almost exclusively virtual as it related to meetings and offices.
Speaker 2: But I was just personally lonely.
Speaker 2: I'm an extrovert, right, there's a reason I'm in human resources.
Speaker 2: I actually like people believe it or not, to anybody that's listening to this but you know it's like lonely and tedious to just be sitting at home and there's no break or disconnect between that little desk that you sit at and talk on a laptop on, versus the you know, driving to an office that can actually missed a commute, believe it or not.
Speaker 2: Um, and, and so you know, I'm curious what?
Speaker 2: What advice do you have for us that work in these organizations that that have have this as a component of their workplace and will continue to have it for the you know foreseeable future?
Speaker 2: How can we help support mental health, support that connectedness and, you know, kind of give people what they're asking for in their employment experience?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, I think that the basics have to be there, right?
Speaker 1: So if you think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the organization has to provide services that people have access to and that are paid for to get mental health services right.
Speaker 1: So I think that that's changed a lot, and you've seen technology really impact that capability Companies like BetterUp, for instance, being able to provide that kind of access is really quite remarkable.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing is is we have to start thinking about what are the systemic issues that are impacting mental health at work, whether in a distributed way or not.
Speaker 1: Those systemic issues and the return to office kind of mandates impact women and people of color more significantly than straight white men.
Speaker 1: Because of child care issues, right, or elder care issues.
Speaker 1: We don't have, you know, access.
Speaker 1: A lot of our companies don't have access for child care stipends or elder care stipends.
Speaker 1: So that is a huge impact In terms of, you know, the ability for individuals to find meaning and connection at work.
Speaker 1: It really goes back to what we've been talking about even before the pandemic that we still haven't executed well on, and that is how do we design work differently, right?
Speaker 1: How do we fundamentally design work differently so that people can have much more flexibility and predictability in their days for either coming into work or not coming into work.
Speaker 1: Who are they?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 1: Are we taking a project-based model where people can work on their work in teams, whether it's in this format or not?
Speaker 1: So we just haven't.
Speaker 1: We've had a failure of imagination and execution when it comes to how we design work.
Speaker 2: I think that's a power, really powerful point.
Speaker 2: A power, really powerful point, um, you know, and I, and I think it's it's, it's interesting because, yeah, this, this isn't, this isn't new.
Speaker 2: You know, people have been asking for flexibility in the workplace for for years.
Speaker 2: Um, I continue to see more and more and more what I like the outside trickling in.
Speaker 2: Right, there used to be such a like, such an attitude, certainly when I first started in my career, that you leave home, at home, and you know, you, you, you shut that door when you come into work and you go back home and you leave, you leave them both separate, right, but the reality is now, everything's integrated, right, there's no, you, you're not leaving it at home, um, you're bringing it with you.
Speaker 2: And, and the reality is, human beings don't operate like that.
Speaker 2: You can't compartmentalize your entire existence and hope to not have some sort of a mental break.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just not how it worked.
Speaker 2: And so I think we've, we're realizing as a society this isn't working, um, but to your point, we, we have, we have an opportunity now to be creative, to think a little differently and redesign this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have generations in the workforce who are in polar opposite thinking around this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: And who have different skills to navigate it.
Speaker 2: That's fascinating.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, there's like this great sucking sound to get everybody back in the office now, you know, and it, and it's like, well, it's so I and it, you know, I'll tell a true story.
Speaker 2: So, you know, we had a similar, similar phenomenon in my organization and we brought a bunch of people back.
Speaker 2: And you know it was a, it was a broad initiative and you know, our thought is, well, it's really going to drive engagement.
Speaker 2: Let's get people back collaborating more and collaborating more.
Speaker 2: And somebody came to my office after we started and said, you know, I'm just sitting on virtual teams meetings in a cubicle with, like, nobody else around me, right, like I'm literally doing exactly what I'm like, yeah, maybe we can think a little differently about this, right?
Speaker 2: So if you're in the office, collaborate, like there should be like an intentional collaborative opportunity, and that makes sense to have people in person for some of these things.
Speaker 2: But where it's not required, then why are you requiring it?
Speaker 2: Right, and I, I, my argument is I think it's more about that flexibility piece.
Speaker 2: People don't necessarily care about being in the office, but they want that flexibility in that, that, uh, that agency, as you put it to.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And for those who are not in the office, yeah, those who are not in the office, let's be creative and look at the zip codes of where our employees are working remotely and, you know, rent out a table at, or reserve a table at, starbucks for everybody to go work there.
Speaker 2: Right, right I mean there's a lot of ways to do this.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of ways to do this.
Speaker 1: I know that sounds simple, but gosh, you know that does not take.
Speaker 1: You know that doesn't take a lot.
Speaker 2: Right, right, totally, totally agree, so much.
Speaker 2: So my argument on that is like and so I I'm a little bit in the middle on this Like I, I love being in person.
Speaker 2: Personally, I also appreciate that some people don't.
Speaker 2: But there's also like, I think that you just have to be very, very intentional about it, right, like, if you have an intentional collaborative opportunity and you need to be in person, great, go figure it out.
Speaker 2: But where you don't need to, there's a ton of there's like technology enabled tools where you can collaborate really, really heavily asynchronously, yeah, and probably do, probably have people perform better, because maybe someone has their best ideas at two in the morning and somebody does at 10 in the morning.
Speaker 2: Right, you know, there's all these.
Speaker 2: Now you're, now you're actually playing to somebody's.
Speaker 2: You know own individual um, you know capabilities.
Speaker 2: That is 100, yeah, I capabilities.
Speaker 1: That is a hundred percent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm totally, I'm totally with you.
Speaker 2: Well, I told you before we hit record that we would just start getting into the heart of the conversation and not want it to end.
Speaker 2: But unfortunately, here we are.
Speaker 2: So we're going to awkwardly and unfortunately shift into the Rebel HR flash round.
Speaker 2: So, all right, question number one where do we need to rebel?
Speaker 1: Designing new models for leadership.
Speaker 2: I couldn't agree more, and I think you know I love that you have kind of put a roadmap together in this book, and I think it's just so incredibly correct that this is what employees are asking for.
Speaker 2: This is what they've been asking for for a while, but at a certain point this is just going to become a mandate.
Speaker 2: This has to be the new model, because the employers and leaders that don't adopt this approach are just not going to be able to keep people.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's just the reality of it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we believe that, obviously believe that very strongly in the emotional leader and leader Yep.
Speaker 2: Couldn't, couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2: Question number two who should we be listening to?
Speaker 1: we be listening to Yourself.
Speaker 1: I think we need more time for people to be in reflection and really discernment, not only around what they want for their own lives, but their own desires for their purpose in the work that they do and how they build that connection for themselves, not wait for someone to build it for them.
Speaker 2: I love that, I love that response and in this, you know, especially in this, in this world there's there's a lot of external noise and external factors and influences and I think the people that can get reflective and quiet.
Speaker 2: You know that's necessary for a number of reasons.
Speaker 2: All right, last question how can our listeners connect with you and how can they get their hands on the book?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they can go to our website, smith-monaghancom, and that's where you'll find information on the book.
Speaker 1: You will also find links to the Humanity Studio.
Speaker 1: You can also go straight to thehumanitystudiocom and you will find more about us and the book.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 2: The book, one more time, is Essential, and the subtitle is how Distributed Teams, generative AI and Global Shifts are Creating a New Human-Powered Leadership.
Speaker 2: We will have a link to that in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Open up your podcast player, click in and get your hands on the book.
Speaker 2: Christy, just an absolutely wonderful conversation.
Speaker 2: Thank you for putting in the time and energy to put this content out there and appreciate your work.
Speaker 1: Thank you, kyle, really had a great time.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: All right, that does it for the Rebel HR podcast.
Speaker 2: Big thank you to our guests.
Speaker 2: Follow us on Facebook at Rebel HR podcast, Twitter at RebelGuy, or see our website at RebelHumanResourcescom.
Speaker 2: The views and opinions expressed by RebelHR Podcast are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any of the organizations that we represent.
Speaker 2: No animals were harmed during the filming of this podcast.
Speaker 2: Baby.