Ep. 27 Beverly Kaye - Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em

Dr. Beverly Kaye joins in this episode to discuss all things talent with specific reference to the practices highlighted in her book Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em, which has recently had its sixth edition published. This conversation sees us speak about ways to avoid losing your people, but also when it’s okay to ‘lose ‘em’. Additionally, Bev dives into why internal talent mobility is so important, why people leave organizations and the three things a talent-focused leader does.

She also shares with our listeners the gift of 26 ways to start a conversation with a remote employee. You can download the ‘Staying Connected While Working Apart’ article at https://bevkaye.com/staying-connected/.

As a thought leader, speaker, and author, Dr. Beverly Kaye's work and research in the career development, engagement and retention fields have been widely recognized for helping others discover greater meaning in their work and gain greater control over their career destinies. Connect with her on LinkedIn, Twitter @BeverlyLKaye, or on her website https://bevkaye.com.

For more insightful conversations, visit www.talentexperiencepodcast.com. We hope you enjoy this episode of the Talent Experience podcast!

Transcript

Rhonda Taylor  00:25
Hello, it's Rhonda Taylor, your host for TalentX, the podcast that addresses the talent experience. And today with us, we have no stranger to the engagement world, we have Beverly Kaye. And Beverly, oh my gosh, she's a legend. Beverly has spoken at every conference, you can name. I believe she's been recognized as a legend by the Association for Training and Development. She has earned her doctorate at UCLA. She completed her postgraduate work at organizational development at MIT Sloan School of Management, and she earned her master's degree from George Washington University. She then went on with all the knowledge that she had in time she created Career Systems International (CSI) and I think that's how I actually got to know about you. I can't believe it I think you've owned that organization for 30 years, I believe. So Beverly, did I miss something in introducing you?

Beverly Kaye  01:41
Oh, only that I have a wonderful husband of 47 years, and a wonderful daughter of 32 years. And a wonderful dog for 18 years who we had to say bye bye to. And that's me.

Rhonda Taylor  02:04
Yeah. The puppy went over the Rainbow Bridge aye? 

Beverly Kaye  02:08
Yes, yes, yes. 

Rhonda Taylor  02:09
Yeah and you know what and I also forgot to mention that Beverly is the author of some incredible books she authored the one book, which was called Up Is Not The Only Way and then the book that we're going to speak about today, which is called Love 'Em or Lose 'Em. And I think that it's coming close to selling a million copies, how far away are you? 

Beverly Kaye  02:40
Close to a million. I think we're at 800,000. Last I looked, and I aim to hit a million.

Rhonda Taylor  02:53
Good for you. So you know what, Bev let's talk about the book, you just ended up republishing it again and tell me why did you republish it? 

Beverly Kaye  03:09
Well, it is in its 20th year, and this is the sixth edition and every five years or so, something changes globally that tells my publisher, let's look at that book again. I think I'm the only book he's ever published that's had six editions. And this one, he said, I want you to show the connect between inclusion and engagement and I thought that was an interesting challenge. And my co-author and I are not diversity inclusion specialists. But we delved in to learn what is the difference really, between engaging someone and including someone and we found they're soul sisters, if you will. And so the publisher said, I want every single chapter to make that connection. And that's how we grew the sixth edition.

Rhonda Taylor  04:31
Keeping that in mind Bev let's get into some of the meat of this and I love the title, 'love 'em or lose 'em' and right off the bat I have to ask you, what do you mean by love 'em?

Beverly Kaye  04:48
So you know that word love. When we first wrote the book in 1999 our publisher said can't you find it another word, because love on a bookshelf and love as a business book and we like stood firm, because no other word says so much. Like, listen to them, respect them, say hello to them, notice them, compliment them, etc, etc, etc. And now that it's 2021 love is much more accepted as a word that organizations don't run away from. And I think the word love encompasses the 26 kind of love strategies or love practices that we talk about in the book

Rhonda Taylor  05:54
You're absolutely right about the word evolving, it's so much more acceptable to be used in the business world. Okay, so we covered love 'em. I think I know what lose 'em means. And I read the book, but I want to hear what your interpretation of lose 'em means.

Beverly Kaye  06:15
Well, it means there's several ways of losing 'em. You lose them, manager to your own group, you lose them to your enterprise, which is not bad at all, or you lose them to the competition. So lose means that we hope that you see your own organization as an internal marketplace, I think that's a word you all know well, and my other big area is, of course, talent mobility, and Up is Not the Only Way was written in the 80s. And I think that we want talent to stay in the enterprise, and see all those options for moving within the enterprise. So lose means you may lose them to your department manager, but try not to lose that talent to your enterprise.

Rhonda Taylor  07:34
You brought up a really good point there Bev, because sometimes when leaders and managers hoard their talent, they don't realize that they're really setting up to lose that talent. You've got to be able to let the talent move on within the organization.

Beverly Kaye  07:57
Right? In our research, we found over and over and over, that I'm leaving because I don't see any other opportunities. And when we found that person in the next organization, and said, precisely what kind of opportunities were you looking for? And they told us, we went back to the manager who lost them and we said, Sally was looking for this and the manager always said, Oh my gosh, I could have done that for her. Why didn't she tell me? Well, why don't you ask? It's a two way street. Employee, why didn't you ask, and manager, why didn't you ask? And in our alphabet A is for ask. Ask your people why they stay and listen hard to the answer and don't ask them what you can do to keep them at the exit interview. Too late!

Rhonda Taylor  09:04
Exactly.

Beverly Kaye  09:06
So very important.

Rhonda Taylor  09:09
I love the fact that you were acknowledged by ASTD for your book, about other ways than up. And we're witnessing that in today's marketplace that people are not necessarily wanting to make a career move up the ladder to success, but they're looking to maybe make a lateral move.

Beverly Kaye  09:37
Well, they're wanting to make a growth move. And growth could be lateral, growth could be growing in place, growth could be a short term gig, etc. Growth could even be I want to go back to being an individual contributor. The management role is not for me. And I wrote about all of that, in 1982, when the first edition of Up is Not the Only Way was published. And I know that your CEO knows that book well.

Rhonda Taylor  10:19
I'm sure she read that book before she started considering the publication of her own book, I'm sure. In your book, you speak about good people and that's what you call them, you call them good people. What constituents a good person?

Beverly Kaye  10:39
It's my other big beef that I've had for the 40 years of my career and it is it's not just about your high potentials, do not ignore your massive middle. And the massive middle is filled with treasures that you just haven't noticed. So again, to what your organization stands for, you don't have to go outside to find talent. It lives under your nose. But not all talent knows how to raise their hand and say, choose me, I fit that. And we have to make that easier for them. 

11:29
I think it's critical. I remember, a good friend of mine was Roosevelt Thomas, he's one of the founders of diversity, passed away a number of years ago. And I said to him once, what is/does diversity mean? And he said, I'll never forget this. He said, it's the maximum use of the skills of the workforce. And I said, well, then the workforce does not know how to say, here are my skills and their managers don't know how to say, let me learn what your skills are. So it's this mysterious cloud around skills, that is another area that's very big right now and something that I know, Fuel50 is fueling.

Rhonda Taylor  12:25
Right. Right. When it comes to diversity, you want to get away from, there's that really neat gig assignment and that tap on the shoulder to somebody that you know, you have to get away from that, because the tap on your shoulder, does not necessarily go to the most qualified person. 

Beverly Kaye  12:50
Right. Right. And I say that good people is anybody that it would break your heart to lose. Anybody that's critical talent, and I'd say have you told that critical talent how critical they are? Have you said the words I want you to stay, I want you to stay on my team in this organization, what can I do to keep you? And we ask that magic question, what can I do to keep you at the exit interview. Shame on us for that. So good is anybody that you would not want to lose, look deeply, look broadly, and be colorblind.

Rhonda Taylor  13:48
Exactly, exactly. In your book, you spoke about getting good people to stay. You obviously have a methodology about this, but how do you go about getting good people to stay?

Beverly Kaye  14:11
And by stay, I mean, not just plunked in that seat. By stay, I mean, I'm engaged, I'm turned on, I'm looking at other ways to add to the organization. It's not just tucked in, it's tuned in and excited about what they're doing. So the way we teach it, because we've been teaching this for 20 years is you can't teach 26 practices so we said now let's see how they grew. And we say a talent focused leader, an engagement focused leader, even an inclusion focused leader does three things. They grow their talent, they show their talent where the opportunities are, they grow them. And there's a constellation of letters because the book is written according to the ABCs that fit into growth. 

15:22
Then we say a talent focused leader builds relationships with every single individual. And there is six or seven letters in the alphabet, we call them practices or strategies that really build relationships. And then we say, and the talent focused leader builds a culture that people want to come to. So all the letters, as Sharon and I tried to build it alphabetically fit into those three clusters. And then we had four leftover that we didn't know what to do with because they fit in all of them. And that was the A, the B, the N, and the Z. 

16:10
And the A was ask, primarily with every single strategy, the manager has to learn how to ask. Ask your people why they stay, ask your people what the best part of their day is, ask your people what the worst part of their day is. So you get to know them. The second is 'Buck'. Buy into that you can do something about it. Not about every single thing, but about a lot of things. And the N is for numbers, if you doubt the importance of this, run the numbers, and you'll see how expensive it is to lose talent. And the Z is for Zenith meaning, this is never done. You've got to do it, do it, do it, do it. So we call those four success indicators and the rest are practices. And of all those practices, and I know Fuel50 will be glad to hear, one of the most important is career. If I don't see a future for myself in this organization, then I'm not staying.

Rhonda Taylor  17:29
That's true. That is so true Beverly and that drives a lot of people in their success. It's not the amount of money that they're being paid or free pizzas on Friday, or a ping pong table that they can go up and play a match with. They want to know where their future is within the organization.

Beverly Kaye  17:59
It's right.

Rhonda Taylor  18:00
You're bang on. Yeah. Okay, so you kind of covered this already. Because you talked about your 26 engagement strategies. Do you have any favorites?

Beverly Kaye  18:11
You know, one of my favorites is the C for career. Because that's my other whole big body of work. And there are several chapters in the book about career but I think if I'm not fueling my passion, then I'm gonna not give you my all, or I'm gonna leave. The other favorite chapter turns out to be the J for jerk. We had to put that in. It's been in the book for the past 20 years. And when again, our publisher said, Why do you have to put that one in? It's a negative. We said, we have to, because we followed up people's exit interviews and they said, whatever: a better job, more money. We found them in the next company and we said, we have your exit interview right here. Why did you really leave? Are these the factors. Almost to a person they said, Well, not really, I left because my boss was a jerk and I could not stand it anymore. 

19:36
And as good researchers, we said, well, what do you mean by the word jerk. And they gave us 55 Jerkatudinal characteristics that are in the book and in our workshops. Because we run training and workshops around all of this and the way we get managers to kind of cup to their jerk behaviors we show them the list and we say, have you ever had a manager who did this to you? Or a manager with this behavior? And they all I did, I did, I did. And then we say, and what did it do to you? And then it's all there. Well, I withdrew my ideas. Well, I started looking around. Well, I shut down at meetings, etc, etc. And then we can lead them to, and which of these jerk behaviors do you have? And do you want to check that out with your employees? And a lot of them say, Yeah, I do. And there's some great conversations around that chapter.

Rhonda Taylor  20:54
I love it. Your two favorites C for career and J for jerk. Beverly, at TalentX, we wholeheartedly believe that everyone should have a job that they love. And you're just so passionate about what you do and Beverly, you're a trailblazer you have been doing this a long time. What drives Beverly, to keep doing going forward and loving it at the same time?

Beverly Kaye  21:36
Can I say wine, no? My daughter asked me that recently, because my daughter and her partner moved in while they look for a new house and she said, you work so much. Why? And it's cause I love it. I'm passionate about it. You can probably see it in my body and my expression and I have a little bit too much of it right now. But it feeds me. In other ways it feeds me.

Rhonda Taylor  22:20
Yeah. Well, Beverly, you are just such an inspiration and you have touched so many lives with your prowess in the space. And I hope you continue for many more years to do it because you are just a fountain of energy, and of knowledge.

Beverly Kaye  22:46
Can you see what it says over my office door? Do what you love and love what you do. 

Rhonda Taylor  22:53
Yeah, so true. Now Beverly, you have got a gift for everyone who listens to this podcast, do you want to share with them what it is.

Beverly Kaye  23:04
The gift is, and here's why we built it. The gift is an article titled, 'Staying Connected While Working Apart'. Because I have been hearing from managers that they don't know what to say when they check in with their remote employees. After 'well how are you doing?' What else could I ask? So we took the A-Z's and I brainstormed with one of my trainers and we said, here's 26 ways to start a conversation with a remote employee. So I will make that available. They can probably get it off my website. And we'll figure out how best to make that available.

Rhonda Taylor  23:57
Yeah, we will be putting a link with it attached to this podcast for anybody who receives it, on our website at a later date. And on that note, Beverly again, thank you. I wish you the best of luck in your new endeavors. I hope you hit a million by the end of 2021. What a great great celebration, the end of COVID and your book hitting a million. So this is Rhonda Taylor from TalentX saying take care of yourselves. You know what the sun is starting to shine. Bye all.