How Do I Get My Team to Love Work? (HBR Podcast)

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0:51I'm Alison Beard. This is the HBR IdeaCast, and we're looking at how to find joy in our work.

1:03At a time when lots of people are feeling burnt out, disengaged, and unhappy in their professional lives, we're explaining, with the help of author Marcus Buckingham, how to change our jobs for the better. We've already talked about how to figure out what makes you happy and shift your job so you spend more time doing those things. Today, it's about the team and organization. How to get everyone doing more of the work they love. What I've discovered over time is that my strengths are somebody else's weaknesses and my weaknesses are somebody else's strengths. So I really rely on my staff and my interns and my attorney and my accountant to help me in the areas that are not my core competencies so that they have not only a chance to shine, but also do good work for me.

1:47And because they are subject matter experts in these areas, it takes them less time to do. I really love the people that I work with. The team is incredible, passion driven, and really wants to make a difference and be accountable to their work. And as president, I manage that team. So I am working directly with a variety of different team members, trying to make sure that they're happy and fulfilled in all of the work that they do. Marcus's book is called Love and Work. And Marcus, I'm so happy to have you back.

2:26Marcus Buckingham:I'm so happy to be back.

2:33we've talked a lot so far about what we can do on an individual level you know managing ourself and what this process should look like the next step obviously would be to try to scale that up to the team level you can do it as we discussed before by helping other people find their red threads, which are those things that really bring them joy, get them into flow. But then, how does the sort of higher level person, the boss, the team manager, make sure that every direct report is moving in this more positive direction?

3:10Marcus Buckingham:Well, it begins with something, what we're talking about here is teaming. It is interesting, you know, you're on the phone with CEOs all the time, as you can imagine, because people are like asking about what about culture and should we bring everyone back to work because what about the damage to culture if we don't and when you really peel the onion and what the heck are you talking about vis-a-vis culture they're really talking about two things one is talent brand which we can get to later but the other one is teaming like how do we get people to work collaboratively with one another quickly when they don't know each other some of them will never meet each other.

3:42And yet we do a lot of our work together.

3:45Marcus Buckingham:So how do we do that? How do we team? One of the things that we've got to be able to do better than we currently do it is team joining. It should be a discipline. If you're a team leader and you're listening to this, get good at team joining. What team joining is, it's like onboarding on steroids. Onboarding is, hey, new team member, here's your password. Here's your computer. Here's how you get onto such and such. It's administrative. Team joining is, who the heck are you? We're going to get together as a team. And if you could, we'd like you to share. And again, you don't have to use the language of Red Threads.

4:21Marcus Buckingham:That might not be language that fits you. But what you want that person to share is, what do you love to do the most? When are you at your best? What could the team super rely on you for? Give us some detail. And then please tell us where you're a bit of a deer in the headlights. Tell us where you struggle. Tell us where you might need help.

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5:29Marcus Buckingham:people. We've got people that need one another. That's what a team is. So team joining, building a discipline around when you join a team, we do actually need you to share some of your red threads and some of the other colors. And hey, I'm your team leader. I don't expect you to have all red threads because then I don't trust you. And you know what? The team doesn't either. It's like when you say to a waiter, what's good here? And the waiter goes, everything. And you now don't trust the waiter. And so for you as a team leader, if you are one, start off with that, bring the new team member on and then figure out the way that works for you and your team for them to say hey listen this is when i'm at my best and then over here this is where i might need some help like that's just so great now initially they might be a bit scared because they've never really done that before so it might be good for you to have a session together like a team blend session where in order to make that new person feel comfortable you go around the room and each person does that?

6:28Marcus Buckingham:This is where I'm at my best and this is where I might need some help. Yeah, because it's not just for someone who's joining an organization or joining a team, it's for when project teams are coming together, right? You know, that's sort of the future of work. It's the present of work, actually. You know, and so anytime you're getting together with colleagues who you might not know that well, that seems like a useful exercise. Yeah. And look, when I was at Gallup, me and Don Clifton made something called Strength Finder. 25 million people have taken Strength Finder. That's sort of useful. If you've taken Myers-Briggs, that can be sort of useful.

7:03Marcus Buckingham:I made another assessment 10 years later called Standout. That can be useful to say, give people a shorthand for how you think or what drives you. All of those are kind of cool, actually. I would though suggest that that love note idea, just write three of them. I love it when, and then finish the sentence. Sometimes we, as team leaders, I know I'm guilty of this too. You're running so quickly. You bump into people pre-pandemic in the hallway. You've got some client you're trying to satisfy or some project deadline you're trying to meet. And you sort of think that by osmosis, you're going to pick up on that person.

7:41Marcus Buckingham:But it is like a massive eye opener to actually spend an hour. Let's go, guys, over lunch, let's sit down let's just all of us uh share three love notes just um and we'll share them with each other because sometimes we make assumptions and we shouldn't obviously you would explain what a love note is before suggesting that as a boss oh for fear of running foul of yeah harassment policies i'm just using that yeah you can figure out whatever whatever word you want use for that. It's a statement. Who I am, what I love most, where I'm at my best. And the language there isn't, I'm the best at. I mean, some of this really gets into the language.

8:20Marcus Buckingham:Hey, team leader, don't get your people to claim what they're the best at. You don't need that sort of comparison anyway. And that's, by the way, one of the problems we have with our performance management systems. As we introduce all these comparisons, you're a five, you're a three, you're a four. And as we've all discovered as parents, if we have kids, when you compare, you disappear. So don't have people say, I'm the best at, say, I'm at my best when, or I love it when. That's what I mean by a love note. I mean, like, tell people what your red threads are. Maybe it's a red thread note. And you're just taking the moment to go, let's go around the room so that we can let each person be seen.

9:01Marcus Buckingham:Oh, my word. Yeah. And you mentioned regular check-ins in a previous episode. you know, suggesting that individuals might want to ask their boss for that time and attention so that they can begin shifting their work towards more of the things that they love. You know, from the boss's perspective, that's something you should set up with every team member. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks.

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10:08Marcus Buckingham:Absolutely. It should be the way in which we understand what a leader actually does. It's such a simple ritual. But I mean, Cisco does 3 million of these check-ins a year. It's not complicated. It's not expensive. It's just saying to every single team leader, you need to be talking with each of your people individually about the near-term future every week. There's Something super powerful, Alison, about a week. Every single human society ever studied has a seven-day week, which is weird because there's no cosmological equivalent to a week. There is for a day. There is for a month, the cycles of the moon.

10:43Marcus Buckingham:There is for a year, Earth around the sun. There's no cosmological equivalent for a seven-day week. It's just that every human society anywhere went, seven days seems about right. There's something about a week. So, and our memories are good for a week. Beyond a week, we suffer from the recency effect and we can't remember what we're doing. You can't. You are my manager. You can't remember what I'm doing. So if you want to really help me, that check-in is the core ritual. It's 52 weeks of you and me with all the complexity we could ever need in my loves and my work or my loathes in my work. And by the way, team leader, that doesn't mean that you've got to try to make everybody do only that which they love.

11:28Marcus Buckingham:Remember the Mayo Clinic research that says the 20 % is a threshold. But if somebody's sharing something they love and something they loathe, and you're talking about this upcoming week, you don't have to maneuver everything so that person gets 100 % red threads that week. Sometimes awareness is all that's required. Sometimes a person sharing something about last week they loved and loathed, they don't want you to do anything necessarily. They just want to be heard and seen. and the frequent rhythm of that, they're not storing it up for a twice a year individual development plan conversation. That kind of simple, frequent, it's not you telling them either, team leader.

12:09Marcus Buckingham:It's them telling you what you love, what you loathe, what are you working on? How can I help? I have to tell you, I think a week is too much. I think every other week is a good cadence. I feel like, and maybe it's just because I'm, you know mid-career slightly past mid-career probably and i have a great relationship with my boss and there's a lot of trust and a lot of autonomy you know so i feel like a week would be way too much for me every week is that okay yeah well when you run the data once every 11 days actually if you're checking in once every 11 days all the other outcomes that we correlate to engagement, resilience, employee turnover, productivity, performance ratings.

12:55Marcus Buckingham:When you get less frequent than once every 11 days, everything starts sliding south. Maybe not with you, Alison, because everyone is unique. And as a team leader, by the way, a good thing to do would be to check in with people to see whether or not a week works for them. All I can tell you is the data suggests really strongly that frequency matters. and the frequency that seems to work best for us. Once every 11 days is how the numbers shake out. But in terms of the rhythms of most of our work, once a week is what that turns into. I would just say with you, Alison, and I know you're a boss, just be really careful that you don't end up going, you know, now it's once every three weeks.

13:35Marcus Buckingham:Now it's once a month. How many CEOs have 15, 17 direct reports? Because they're like, oh, my people are so senior. They don't need me. Well, if you've had anyone saying that, just go watch the documentary, The Last Dance, where Phil Jackson isn't saying, oh, I don't need to talk to Michael Jordan. He doesn't need me. He's talking to Michael after every darn game. Right. Because he knows that so goes Michael's.

14:15or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+. Propel Fitness Water with Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar and vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade electrolytes.

14:44Marcus Buckingham:Tension and creativity and innovation, so goes the whole darn team. So, oof, it's one of the first questions I would ask, frankly, if I was joining a company and I want to figure out whether or not they take love seriously, the first question I would ask is how many direct reports does the CEO have? And if the number is north of 10, red flag. And so should that be the case for every manager? You know, should that org chart never have more than 10 people under another? Well, in terms of this whole love and work idea, if you're talking to people frequently about their loves and their work, their loves and their short-term priorities and what they're focused on.

15:18Marcus Buckingham:That is a mechanism for attention. And so when we talk about span of control, we should be talking about span of attention. There may well be some managers who are such great individualizers, their span of attention could extend to 15 to 20 people. I will tell you that when you run the data on this at scale meta-analytically, the chances that you'll be in the 90th percentile of engagement is inversely correlated to the size of the team. So I'm not suggesting, Alison, that you don't have some team leaders that are that good at keeping individuals feeling like they're paid attention to with teams north of 15 or 20.

15:58Marcus Buckingham:I'm just saying it's the exception that proves the rule. We should be thinking about org structure through the lens, frankly, of the check-in, which is why the hospital example of one nurse supervisor to 60 nurses, it makes sense for the CFO. It just doesn't make sense for the way that human beings work, which is why, you know, just last week I was the CEO of a hospital who's got 13 ,000 people and 750 nurse openings. And that's not just a pandemic. If you get north of 10, then you better be a really good chess player in the sense that you the team leader better be able to keep that uniqueness, all that wonderful unique set of loves.

16:40Marcus Buckingham:You better be super, super good at keeping all of that uniqueness in your mind, which a few people are. Isn't it really hard to find enough people to love everything that needs doing on a team or in an organization. You know, those 750 openings, for example. You know, this is a sort of, seems like a Herculean task for any boss or, you know, CEO to say, I'm going to find all of these people and every person here is going to have red threads, 20 % red threads in their roles. That seems so hard. Well, but not when you think about the sheer range of the human condition. How varied are we? We are extraordinarily varied.

17:29Marcus Buckingham:We've got these 5 ,000 Milky Ways in our brains. And that's not a bug. That's not a design flaw. That's actually what's powerful about human beings is we've got this kind of range. So when we think about putting teams together, 50 ,000 years ago, we figured out that the team was the best mechanism or technology or context within which we make use of that kind of uniqueness. That's the team, which is why, frankly, another great question to ask if you're considering joining a company is what does this company do to understand what its best teams are like? Frankly, many companies don't see the team as the most important unit of analysis and discovery in a company, and yet they should because that's what work actually really is.

18:13Marcus Buckingham:So it lives and works on a team, Alison, and it does occur there everywhere where we see great teams we see uniqueness and we don't yeah we don't see everybody having a hundred percent red quilt we don't but we do see intentionality around the fundamental design principle is each of my people loves different things each of them therefore learns and contributes differently and i as the team leader i can't pretend that's not true I can't tell people their loves are a lie.

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19:26Marcus Buckingham:Or irrelevant, which unfortunately in many organizations is exactly what we tell them. We certainly tell our students that in high school and college, but in the real world of business, you want to build a great team. your fundamental design principle has got to be curiosity about the unique loves of each person because that's what drives excellence so if you want excellence you got to do it team by team for the ceo yeah maybe that they're sitting there all by themselves five miles behind the front line and going oh man all these darnly sillyly unique people although i'll tell you this when about 20 years ago i had the good fortune to spend some time with general colin powell and we were talking about human uniqueness and teams and this wasn't about love i wasn't talking about that at the time but we were actually just talking about individualization and he said you know what that's why the army has squads attend people think the army is full of conformity it isn't it's full of squads and the best squad leaders are incredibly curious about what the unique role is of each person on the team one's the sniper one's the explosive experts one's the communication And yes, they're taught to do all the different roles because in combat, you know, people get killed or injured and they've got to do everything.

20:40Marcus Buckingham:If you want to build a really good squad, you've got to figure out who's wired which way. And then you build a squad around that. The problem in most companies is they just don't. They're not trying. But surely the bosses and the companies that do are better able to attract talent. Absolutely. And this is where the fundamental opportunity is for organizations. I think what we're going to see moving forward, any CEO trying to say, you must come back to the office, as though they're dealing with a workforce that's the same as it was pre-pandemic. It isn't. The people in all walks of life, every company, have had a really interesting last two years.

21:22Marcus Buckingham:And they have looked at themselves in the mirror. And they have seen some scary things about themselves. And then they've sort of bounced back or up and they've figured out who they are, independent of anything else, independent of any rituals, who they are and what they value, which is, by the way, we see more employee activism than we've ever seen before. so the best ceos will have to deal with the fact that we are changed we are changed people and we're coming back to work saying i've actually found quite a lot about myself and i want to go back to a workplace which at least accommodates that as a design principle it doesn't have to be perfect they probably won't use this language but no one's really saying i want to do only that which I love.

22:10Marcus Buckingham:Most of us are realistic, but we want the design principle to be, we are super curious about you and who you are and how you're wired and how you can contribute it. We want that. So if companies want to deserve the best people, one of the most important things that they could do is have a talent brand that is explicit about that. We're curious about you. We want to know what's inside you and we want to know how that can be turned into contribution lululemon does a really good not to you know pick one company but they'll when you first join they want to know all about your goals and aspirations and dreams and if your dream is to become the ceo of lulu that's so great but if your dream is to in three years leave and start a healthcare brand or a yoga studio that is equally celebrated.

22:59Marcus Buckingham:So right from the get-go, they're like, what's inside you? What are you into? That's a really, right now, a very compelling talent brand. It's not vague. It's very specific. And I think it ties right into where people are right now. And the organizations that you've worked with to make this happen, you know, whether complete or in progress, I guess it's always in progress. What concrete results have you seen in terms of increases. Dave Portnoy here. The wait is over. Football is here and so is DraftKings. DraftKings is now live in all 50 states. One app, every sport nationwide. New DraftKings customers.

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