Digital Sparks, Human Sticks: Trust & Connection in the Phygital Future

0:01I think we've been asking the wrong question about the future. We don't need to be able to predict the future to build a team that can thrive in whatever the future throws our way.

0:13Amanda Schneider:Welcome to Design Nerds Anonymous, the podcast that sparks curiosity at the intersection of business and design. I'm your host, Amanda Schneider, founder and president at ThinkLab, speaker on TED.com, and now author of Work for What's Next, published by Wiley. Now, this season of the podcast is built around the core shifts inside this new book. And today, we're diving into one of the most foundational, trust and connection. We're connected more than ever, yet somehow we feel more disconnected. at the same time. My guest today is Eric Termondi, a bestselling author and keynote speaker who's delivered more than 500 talks around the world on leadership, culture, and the future of work.

1:04Amanda Schneider:After stepping onto that many stages, as you'll hear in his interview, we asked Eric what questions he hears again and again. Here's what he said. How do we build trust when it's been lost? Are we supposed to be in the office or not? And how do we lead when we can't see around the corner? So in this conversation with Eric, we'll explore why trust can't be rushed, why authenticity is more nuanced than ever, and how to build teams that are ready for whatever comes next. And yes, we even talk about what gas station sushi has to do with trust. All right, here's my conversation with Eric Termendi. All right, well, let's dive in here.

1:53Amanda Schneider:If you could just start with your name, a little bit about you and the work you do, and maybe one word to describe the future of our topic today, which is trust and connection. Thanks for having me. My name is Eric Termendi. I am a researcher and keynote speaker on all things leadership, culture, and the future of work. I spend my time working with category-leading organizations and then advising them on how to navigate the conversation that effectively we're having today. And given that our conversation is around trust and connection, the words that came up for me as I was reading the book, as I was sort of doing my homework, as I was preparing for today's conversation is slow and then fast.

2:31Amanda Schneider:Ooh, tell me what you mean by that. I think trust and connection, you can't take shortcuts. I think that it takes time and it's good time that needs to be taken to build the foundation of the highest performing teams as the world continues to be more uncertain and changing faster than ever before. I think in order to speed up first, we have to slow down, build all the things that we're going to be talking about today and then accelerate into the future as uncertain and as unknown as it might be. Well said. Well said. And I'm excited to dive into that a little bit more. So this whole season is about launching my new book, Work for What's Next.

3:07Amanda Schneider:For our listeners, when Eric says he did his homework, it's because I sent him advanced chapters of our chapters on trust and connection. 10 out of 10, would recommend. I'm gonna cut you off on, because I've been loving the homework and I can't wait to get a physical copy myself. That's awesome, that's awesome. And where I hope this book goes is I want it to kind of show a new viewpoint that once you see it, you can't unsee. So as we talk about these chapters on trust and connection, Eric, I know you are well-researched on this, well-spoken on this. You take the stage for keynotes around the world.

3:36Amanda Schneider:What is one core idea from these two chapters that kind of aligns well with the work that you do and how would you build on it? You know, your book is not about generations, though it's entirely about generations. You know, this isn't about a definitive sort of line drawn in the sand. What you're really talking about is the evolution of the world that we're living in today and a group of people who have grown up in a more advanced world than generations before them. And so that requires a deeper understanding of the world that they and we live in and an understanding of how this world works so that we can build high-performing, connected teams that can navigate this ambiguity and uncertainty.

4:17And one of the main phrases, the main keys that came out of one of the chapters that I read is this idea of physical and digital space. And my gosh, you know, so long as a company can afford that flexibility and that variability and can communicate it effectively to their teams so that people can be in the right places at the right times to get the most out of the relationships on the team, that is not a distant future that you're talking about. It's a workplace today that is required to navigate not just today, but the weeks, months and years ahead as well. So, you know, I'm totally on board with this thinking.

4:53Another idea that you were talking about is just the importance of and how to build trust. You're talking about digital onboarding. You're talking about the next generation, not necessarily needing to have meetings for the sake of meetings, nor not needing to meet in person just for the sake of meeting in person. And that an interesting idea could be a digital on-ramp where you can get to know bits and pieces of people before having the big networking events or before having the big meetings. You know, I think the next generation especially is really interested in efficiency, there is no, that's the way we've always done it before.

5:27And if there's a way to get an understanding of the people we get to work with every day, get to know them a little bit better on a personal level, and then get to do incredible work with them. I think that is, again, not necessarily just a way of the future. I think that's a way that could be adopted right now that organizations across the country will absolutely flourish in.

5:44Amanda Schneider:How would you kind of build on this idea that digital sparks, human sticks, and really looking at using one to augment the other to build trust and connection. One of my favorite lines from one of my favorite coaches in the NFL, his name is Kevin Stefanski. I think given what he had to work with, he did incredibly well with that team. And by the way, it was one of the most beloved coaches in the league for many years, one coach of the year, twice, especially with a team that didn't even win the whole championship. You know, he said, when our team gets to know each other off the field, we play better together on the field.

6:15And I just love the idea of that line because often we're just kind of throw it into the deep end with the teams that we're working with. We're expected to solve big problems faster than they've ever been solved before without laying a foundation. You know, it's just kind of like building a house without a foundation. It's going to look really good until the first storm hits. Then all of a sudden everything is going to be crumbling down. And so when you talk about like a digital on-ramp or when you talk about sort of taking a bite-sized piece to getting to know each other better, I would say the more we get to know about each other off the field, the faster we get to play better together on the field too.

6:47So what does that mean? You know, I've created a bunch of exercises, but one of the ones that Stefanski actually used is he called it a 4-H exercise. And he shared with his team, his heroes, his heartbreaks, his hopes, and his history. It took 10 minutes, you know, and he talked about his favorite heroes. They weren't NFL players or coaches or anything like that. They were his parents, you know, he talked about how his parents were his heroes. Then he talked about his heartbreak, then he talked about his hopes. He didn't talk about football at all. He talked about his favorite cuisines, the first rock concert that he'd been to.

7:15He talked about anything but football. but when his team started to feel that connection, that relatability, that understanding, that empathy, you know, but also experienced a little bit of vulnerability that this coach shared with the team, they started to lean in a little bit more and play harder for him and each other. Then they started to share these four H's as well. And the connection in this team, the trust that grew on this team increased significantly. The year they implemented this exercise, they went from seven and eight to 11 and four in order to fully commit to the work that we're doing, the teams that we're working on, we have to be able to understand at a pretty fundamental level who it is we're working with in the first place, regardless of the generation, regardless of whether we're remote across the country or whether we come into work five days a week.

8:00Amanda Schneider:To your point, whether you're in the office five days a week or now, you know, collaborating across countries with different offices and different continents, one of the keys to me there is this digital aspect and how we connect, be it a Slack channel, be it, you know, personal texts outside of work. There's some ideas in the book about a slide deck, but I think some of this is where Gen Z gets really interesting to me because what's really natural to them maybe doesn't come as naturally to some others that didn't grow up in this digital first world. Well, I love that slide that you shared too.

8:32I actually did something similar with a few of my clients. I called it the seven windows exercise, like seven windows into the lives of the people that we work with and everything from like hometown to, you know, deep rooted belief to thing that I'm proud of, to lesson that I've learned, you know, seven things that is just a fun way to explore some of the things that make you different than me. There's no deep vulnerability that requires some discomfort. Like, you know, it's just an opportunity to start a conversation. You want to start with a coworker, but don't necessarily know how. I want to share with you what a sort of funny realization that I had around trust.

9:06I come from Vancouver in the north of Seattle right on the Pacific Ocean. Like our knowledge and love for sushi, for seafood, it was just like off the charts. Trust is a lot like gas station sushi. I was walking into the gas station the other day and the light must have just been shining off the light just right because it stopped me in my tracks. I lived in Vancouver for like 11 years now. I'm a connoisseur of sushi. And I got to tell you, I saw this gas station sushi stopped me in my tracks. I looked at it and I got to tell you it looked really good. And for$3.99, like how could I say no, right?

9:36But I didn't get the sushi. And if I did, I probably wouldn't have been able to record the podcast today for all, you know, for reasons that we know to be true when you buy a gas station sushi. I didn't get the sushi. And as I was walking into the gas station, I was thinking to myself, why didn't I get the sushi? And I came to conclude that I didn't get the sushi because I didn't know anything about it. And because I didn't know anything about it, I just didn't trust it. You know, I didn't know if it had been there for five minutes or five days. And I found the same thing happens at the workplace too.

10:00We've got people who are skilled, educated, competent, qualified, all of these things. You know, they wouldn't have the job if they weren't. And I think the more we get to know about the people around, just like that gas station sushi, the more we're going to be able to commit to them sooner and get some great stuff done.

10:15Amanda Schneider:Love that. Love that. And that seven windows exercise, as you called it, or the example that Eric referred to for our listeners in the book was an onboarding document that we use here at Think Lab that basically says a little bit about each human you're going to be working with and kind of how you'll be working with them. So it's just another idea of something that's kind of a reference. So I love tying that to gas station sushi. Didn't see that one coming. Didn't see that one coming. Yeah, here we are. Yeah.

10:43Hello, this is Cindy Kaufman. I am the Vice President of Marketing and Design Solutions for Mannington Commercial. Mannington Commercial is a proud sponsor of this season of Design Nerds Anonymous. And as someone who's had the privilege of reading Work for What's Next early on and even being quoted in it, I can tell you the shifts Amanda writes about are real. B2B selling has changed. Our clients are more informed, but decision-making is more complex, timelines are tighter, and loyalty is earned. At Mannington Commercial, we take that seriously. We've invested in equipping our teams differently, not just with product knowledge, but with context, with better digital tools, with a deeper understanding of the pressures our design partners are navigating every single day.

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12:00Amanda Schneider:I would love to hear what is one way either maybe these chapters challenge you to think differently, maybe a new idea you'll carry forward in your work, or maybe it's something you want to challenge about one of the concepts in the book. It's challenged me in a lot of ways. I don't think there's a bad recommendation in the book. I think it's all wonderfully well-researched, wonderfully presented, easy to read. And exactly what I'm looking for is a leader, a teacher, a student, and everything in between. There is something that's come up for me though. And so I've done probably 550 keynotes or something like that.

12:39So hundreds of thousands of people. And one of the challenges that I'm working through always is to make sure that there's a universality to my message so that someone who's a first-time leader or maybe a first-time frontline employee, but also someone who's in the C-suite, everything that I'm sharing is in some way applicable. And I think the book has that. I also have been hearing the word authenticity and authentic thrown around a lot lately. In fact, I think it was like the word of the year in 2023 or 2024. And I think that there's a lot of well-intended meaning behind authenticity I also think that authenticity can be very dangerous, you know, and I don't think that authenticity or being authentic is necessarily always a good strategy.

13:26If it was, I would probably wear PJs and not shower this morning because authentically I wasn't really feeling like getting out of bed, but that's not going to be the right approach. I also think that if someone is 20 years old and new to the workplace and says, oh, my cat was sick today and I didn't feel like getting out of bed. And like, that's just me, honestly, authentically. That's how I'm feeling today. I think your leader, whoever he or she was would tell you, come on, kid, you know, let's get to it. Meanwhile, if you've got a 60 year old, you know, veteran leader, who's gained the trust and respect of, of his or her team, it has looked, I'm having a really bad day.

14:05I just want to share with you guys. I want to work through it together. You know, I think that would be received a lot better. And so the conversation that I would love to have with you is a conversation around trust, is around authenticity, and is around truth. So my question for you is that in the workplace, as we're looking to build great teams that are multi-generational, multi-disciplinary, and cross-functional, as we navigate the future of work, when do we need trust? When do we need honesty? And when do we need authenticity?

14:36Amanda Schneider:I think one of the things that this book is designed to do is really trying to spark these conversations across generations. Let's say for a baby boomer, that authenticity doesn't come naturally. They think about polish. They think about professionalism. They think about maybe separation of work and life. The fact that we can put words to this and have these conversations about maybe how one end of the spectrum can be a little more authentic and one end of the spectrum may have to edge into a little less authentic. And I think that there's a piece of this that relates to companies as well, not just about individual authenticity, but authenticity of those brands.

15:13Amanda Schneider:When we talk to our Gen Zers in our ThinkLab research, and again, ThinkLab's main work is around architects and designers that select product. And when we talk to them about what they're missing from brands, one of the most common things that they're saying is, save me from myself. Stop trying to be so polished where you airbrush the seam lines and the wallpaper out of the image, like you're actually doing me a disservice by not telling me what that's going to look like. And now I look stupid in front of my client. So what they're craving from brands is that authenticity of show me the good, the bad, and the ugly, because I'm still going to specify your product.

15:51Amanda Schneider:I'm just not going to specify it in a wrong way, which is going to be a better experience for you and me. Where's the line in that then? Because let's just be honest, I'm not picking on anyone in the industry or anyone in any industry, it's not always wonderful behind the scenes. Where do you draw the line in that like the team behind me, we're in shambles right now, but like I want to be authentic or like our company is, we're really close to filing for bankruptcy. And if we don't get this deal, we're in big trouble. Like there's the, there's the positive side of it too. But then like, where do you draw the line in like the truth of what's happening behind the scenes?

16:27Amanda Schneider:To me, it depends if that helps them do their job or adds noise. Okay. So what's, what is noise? Yeah. I agree with you, but I think through the sense of clarity. Let's go back to your example of the baby boomer sharing that he's having a tough day, right? It probably helps everyone do their job and work together as a team. If he shares that he's having a tough day, because maybe it means that big thing that would have caused him to blow up that they decided to save for tomorrow. Cause really it can wait. Maybe they didn't put on him. Let's take your example of the bankruptcy, right? Bankruptcy, you know, probably isn't going to help that client make a decision.

16:59Amanda Schneider:If anything, it's going to guilt them. It's going to add this noise that's not really helping them do their job. It's adding more weight. So to me, if authenticity helps everyone be better as a team, you know, helps the business, you know, maybe it's a good idea, but it's not an always thing. So it's funny because I wrote this whole overview and pitch for this book. I called Strategic Authenticity. And then I ended up moving forward with it because I didn't think the market was too interested in a book that sounded like deceit or manipulation. Yet what you're saying could be misconstrued as deceiving a potential buyer, deceiving a client or deceiving a potential employee if you're strategically authentic about what makes us sort of look better.

17:45Is there any sort of clarification? I'm just curious on your take on this because again, there's nothing I disagree with what you're saying, But I just think this is such a rich conversation because I think there's too many people in the market today that have blindly accepted authenticity, you know, as an entire blanket statement. And again, this is from buyers, this is from customers, this is from employees. How do you think about this, you know, conversation and where the line is? Because you said it's whether or not it helps the company. I'm just trying to understand even on a personal level where that line is for me.

18:13So I'm not manipulating, I'm not deceiving.

18:15Amanda Schneider:It's a fair question. It's interesting because I've spoken at a lot of design schools that are really struggling and actually ask me a lot of those same types of questions, right? Because they don't like this idea of you have to not wear your pajamas to school and you have to be professional, right? They're really struggling. I just did one two weeks ago and they were really struggling with this. But what does that mean? And is that real? Because they are so anti this poised, polished kind of social media. Like I'm going to put out there only what I want people to know of myself. They really want that raw authenticity and they kind of want it all.

18:50Amanda Schneider:But again, I think this is not about abandoning what one generation wants so that the other gets what they want. I think that the sweet spot to me comes somewhere in the middle. I don't think we can go to either extreme as much as I would love to say, sure, let's be wholly authentic. Let's put everything out there. Do not polish anything. Let's do it. It gets really weighty. And I think that if we look at what the world needs now, one, nobody got time, right? That is the biggest scarcity that's out there is nobody has time. And part of managing your time today and what Gen Z is also so good at is also managing their energy.

19:25Amanda Schneider:So I think, you know, a good, I guess, gut, if you're just asking me personally, is just, is that adding weight or removing friction? If it's adding weight, to me, it's going to be something that's just what I'm talking about when I say adding noise, that could be emotional weight, that could be time, that could be tension, that could be pressure on a coworker or someone else. If it's removing that, helping that designer make a better decision, helping save them from themselves, helping save a blow up from a senior manager who is just at his wits end for that day, then I think that you should move forward maybe with a little bit more authenticity, if that's a word.

20:02I think that's such a great answer. And I'll tell you why. Number one, I agree with it. But number or to give something actionable for us that are listening. Is it adding weight or is it removing friction? And that is such an awesome filter question that I certainly can apply post this conversation to say, okay, this is my metric. Is it adding weight or is it removing friction? And I just think that's such a great takeaway. That's a filter for any decision we're trying to make is we're moving forward. I love it.

20:26Amanda Schneider:As we think of trust and connection, and maybe I'll start with this one as a dark side. My team, I built this company fully remote. That is not for everyone. It is a cultural thing. we have all chosen, but I will say it is not right for every company. One thing about us, though, as you think of a fully remote company is I am closer to the coworkers that have helped me build this brand and still continue to work at it than probably anyone I've worked with a physical office with. We all know each other so well. Sometimes we try to protect one another from things. So it may mean I'm not going to tell my coworker Erica about that project because I know she's having a really tough week.

21:01Amanda Schneider:And so I just, I want to keep her out of this to protect her mental health. But then it really would have been better to just tell her about it and let her in on it because that would have been up to her to kind of delineate. And now she feels like she's being protected and maybe doesn't want to be protected or something like that. That's just one example of maybe a dark side of overtrust and connection that we have definitely felt on our team at Think Lab. What is one caution that you have to all generations? Maybe give advice to leaders, teams, individuals, whatever you choose. I think it's kind of been woven in directly throughout our conversation today is that you can't be everything to everyone, you know?

21:35And I think that intention is really important. So if your coworker, Erica is having a bad week, you know, you're not sharing that information. It's well intended because you're trying to protect your mental health. I think if she knew that and knew your intentions behind it, you're not going to get yourself in any trouble. She might say next time, as much as I appreciate you protecting me, bring it to me. And that's not really what I mean about trying to be everything to everyone. But I think when you've got a culture that is defined, like what you're describing to me is what I would consider like a family culture.