Seth Godin, Why Employee Productivity Is at a 70-Year Low and How to Fix It | Leadership | YAPClassic

23:11And you're panicking because you're not making an enormous amount of profit. It doesn't cost more for the people you work with to have agency. It costs less because when you offer people the chance to contribute, they're so eager to do so that productivity goes up, not down. I totally agree. So related to this, you talk about this Japanese concept, kokoro. I hope I said that right. What is kokoro and how can we employ it? It might be pronounced Kokoro, but I have seen different pronunciations. It's an ideogram from the Chinese, and it's a picture of a house and a heart. And what it says is that wherever you are in the world, if you can be in a place where your heart is as well, your life is better.

23:57It's a form of love and belonging and activation. And for too long, we've been confused. Either we say, don't bring your full self to work because they're going to beat you up. Or we say, you should be authentic at work, which is selfish. Because what you really need to be at work is eagerly empathic. You're not at work to help you when you're dealing with a customer. You're there to help them. And so if we can find heart in doing that, if we can find heart in the connection that we get to make with our coworkers and our customers, everybody comes out ahead. So next thing I want to talk about was really interesting to me.

24:37So you debunked the fact that people don't want to work hard these days because you actually put together a volunteer organization for the Carbon Almanac. And you were able to get a lot of people to work together for free for this project. So I would love to understand what you learned from putting on this project and how you created this culture of significance to get the project done. I love talking about this. I need to clarify, I didn't get people to work really hard for free. I also worked for free, full-time, for over a year to build something. And what I did, my contribution, was to create the conditions for people to do what they wanted to do all along, which is connect with other people, do work that matters, and make a difference.

25:21We had 300 volunteers, now it's 1 ,900 in 40 countries, working 24 hours a day around the clock. We had not one meeting, not one for the entire crew. It was all built online. And we beat our deadline. We wrote a 97 ,000 word almanac. We footnoted it. We illustrated it. We fact-checked it. We didn't make one significant error. And it was translated into languages around the world, including Italian, Korean, and Czech, and Chinese. And we did all that in just five months. And the way we did it was by following the precepts in this book, page 19 thinking, seeing other people, offering them dignity, figuring out how are we going to raise our standards in a way that thrills us.

26:10And the output speaks for itself. That doesn't mean people should work for free. That's not what I was implying. We did this for free so that we could spend every penny we earned to promote the book itself, because that's why we did the project, to change people's minds. But the same thing happens at a community orchestra, where you've got 100 people who are paying a conductor so that they can perform in an orchestra like they did in school. Why would someone do that? Some people get paid to play the flute, but people are paying to do it with passion and love because they can. So where we started this conversation a little while ago, it's not a good job because they pay you a lot of money It's a good job because you made a difference It's so true.

26:51I have to tell a personal story So I when I first started young and profiting podcast I had 20 volunteers who used to help me on the show and that turned into my company two years later But for two years 20 people worked for free for me because I had no Guidelines for them. It was like, what do you want to learn? What do you want to do? I'll teach you this? Sure You want to do that? Go ahead and do that. That makes you happy. Okay, cool. And it was just so flexible and everybody worked together and still some of the same people work with me. But as soon as we were a profit generating company, the whole culture changed and we're still a great culture, but it's just different because people can't do exactly what they want to do.

27:30Or now that I read your book, I'm going to try to think about that a little bit differently. But it's just so interesting how well things ran for a really long time when nobody was getting paid. Yeah. And one of the things I want to highlight is if you're doing productive work in a team, nobody gets to do exactly what they want to do. That's not what's on offer. What's on offer is helping people choose what they want to do based on what needs to be done. So as we were exploring the stuff in the Carbon Almanac, we learned a lot about climate. But that doesn't mean the readers knew what we knew.

28:07So we had to say, well, based on the person we're imagining is going to read this, what needs to be on page 25? You might not feel like writing what's on page 25, but you do feel like making the change we seek to make. So knowing that there is a hole on page 25, if you enjoy that thing, go do it. The difference between surfing and golf is really important. Most profit making institutions think they're playing golf. And golf is how do I beat the other person by a half a percent? And if they want to change the golf course, they have to have a meeting, and it's a big deal to move the little cup by a foot.

28:45Whereas in surfing, every wave is different. And that's the point. There's no bad oceans. There's just surfers who don't know how to surf what's right in front of them. And so a surfing champion actually built a surf farm in California on an abandoned farm, and he installed train tracks and a full-size locomotive with a snowplow in front of it. Then he filled it with two feet of water. So the snowplow comes down and makes a giant wave, and you can surf the same wave over and over again, because that was going to be the future surfing. You don't hear about that place very much because surfers like the idea that they don't get to pick the wave.

29:27They just have to surf it as well as they can. And that's sort of also why machines and AI aren't going to necessarily take over every single job, right? They're going to take over all the jobs where people have been trying to fit in. If you look, 80 % of the stuff that's on social media could have been written by anybody. So now it will be written by anybody, a computer. Whereas if you are distinctive in your point of view and are connected in a way that shifts over time, an AI can't do that because AIs only look backwards. And what we need to do is look forward. So you alluded to this concept of the page 19 principle that helped you guys get a lot done for creating this almanac.

30:12How did that principle help you guys overcome overwhelm and perfectionism? So on the third or fourth week, a few of us were talking and I said, well, you know, this almanac has to have page 19, but there's not one person in the entire community who knows everything they need to know to make page 19 happen. There's not one person who can write it, edit it, footnote it, copy, edit it, illustrate it, chart it, and finish it. But there will be a page 19. So how are we going to get from where we are to where we need to go? And the answer is page 19 thinking, which says, if you can write a paragraph of it, please do, and then share it with us.

30:48And if you can make that paragraph better, please do. And if you can footnote that paragraph, please do. And so the idea of here, I made this doesn't mean here, this is done and it is perfect. It's here, can you please improve this? When you improve it, I won't feel bad. I'll feel good because that's what we do around here. And too often in big and small companies, the opposite is true. We're afraid to show our work. And if we do show our work and someone improves it, we feel badly. And that's because we've been indoctrinated to feel that way. So I'm going to switch gears a little bit here and let's talk about the four kinds of work.

31:27So in your book, you have a two by two grid with stakes and trust as the two accesses. I'd love to understand these four kinds of work and why a significant organization is one with high trust and high stakes? Okay, so there are stakes, high stakes and low stakes. It is low stakes to go to the local coffee shop for your morning coffee. If they're closed, you can get it at the coffee shop next door. If the coffee's not that good, it's fine. But then there's high stakes work, like open heart surgery or a jazz quartet playing at Carnegie Hall and recording a live album. It's pretty easy to understand there's high stakes and low stakes.

32:05And then there's high trust and low trust. Low trust work is surveillance. So if you're taking an airplane, you know that nobody in the entire thing got to make stuff up as they went along. The pilot, the baggage handlers, the schedulers, everyone had to do it based on how it has been done before. And you like that because planes don't crash and it's quite likely you're going to get to where you're going. That is high stakes, low trust. And it enables our world to work because there's lots of transactions we have where we can't be sure and we don't get a do-over. But you don't have to work at an airline.

32:41I hope you don't because airline employee satisfaction is very low. People are mistreated by their bosses and by their customers. Not fun. On the other hand, when a jazz quartet is trading fours on stage at Carnegie Hall with people they know and respect and the bass player throws a riff to the trumpet player, that's magic. That is high trust, high stakes. Or if a barista greets you, even though it's not in the manual, smiles at you, says, hello, welcome back. I hope you had a good trip this weekend. That was worth more than the cost of the coffee. And it was worth more to you and to the barista because they got to do high trust work, even though the stakes were low.

33:26And so what we seek when we are a customer with a choice and what we seek when we're looking where to work is high trust work and maybe high stakes, maybe not. That's up to us. But if you're under surveillance, you don't have any agency and you're unlikely to find joy or growth at work. I love that. So one of the biggest ways to create a significant organization is to remember that humans are not a resource. Can you talk to us about the concept of human resources and why it's flawed and outdated? So you've heard the phrase, he was jerking me around? Yes. That came from the assembly line in 1920.

34:05Someone visited the Ford plant and saw the workers being jerked around like they were strings, marionettes with strings, this way, that way, this way, that way. And someone with a stopwatch measuring every motion. Because if you could get the human to act like a machine, you could make more money. And that's when the phrase human resources was born. because the job of the boss is to get the person to be a reliable machine. And just like the honey isn't the point of the hive, humans are not a resource. Humans are the point. Humans are why we are here. And if we can make productivity go up, that's great.

34:43If we can use machines and outsourcing AI, that's great. But sooner or later, the reason we are here is to dance with other humans. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors.

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39:28And as we start to close out this interview, Seth, I'd love to understand from you your best advice to leaders and managers who want to create a culture of significance in their organization. What should they do next as an actionable step? Other than read your book, of course. I would say the most important first step is to realize that you're either in any given moment a leader or a manager. They are two different jobs. Managers have a spot in the hierarchy. They have power and authority, and they move ahead by getting people to do what they say. Leaders do something voluntary and optional. They explore what might not work.

40:02They get voluntary cooperation. You can be a leader with no employees. That person who organized the book group at work, they're being a leader in that moment. And then the second part of it is once you decide to lead, the work is to talk about it. What does it mean to work here? What is it like around here? How do we have meetings? Why are we having meetings? What are we doing where we criticize the worker when we really should be criticizing the work? What are we measuring? Who are we here to change? My book has more than 150 questions in it because we're not talking about it. And the reason it's worth you and I talking in this setting is not because I like hearing the sound of my own voice.

40:43I really don't. It's because we are modeling something that should happen in every break room, in every review session. with every boss at every board of directors meeting, which is, why are we even here? The goal of a company should not be to maximize its short-term profit. Goal of a company is to create the conditions for better. And that means better for the planet, better for their employees, better for their customers. If you do those things, the profits will take care of themselves. There is a company that you talk about in your book that is employing this strategy really well. It's called Aravind Eye Care.

41:19So I'd love to understand what they're doing and how we can learn from them? So if I add up the total population of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, that's how many people Aravind has restored eyesight to. Wow. They are a hospital chain in India that does cornea replacement and operations. And if you go there, these are numbers a little old, but pretty close. If you go there, you have a choice. It's either$130 or it's free, up to you. You get exactly the same surgery either way. The only difference is how nice the recovery room is. Now, you take a look at what is it like to open an eye hospital.

41:56The thing you should be the most afraid of is that you will make someone's eyes worse. And the way that that could happen is with an infection. Well, the rate of infection on the eye surgery at Aravind is less than the infection you would get rate in London. So they have rigor. They have high standards. They are operating at such a high level that if you go to an ophthalmologist in the United States, it's likely they studied at Aravind in India. At the same time, the nurses, the staff, they have agency. Their job is to make that patient feel like they're the only patient. Their job is to find new ways to create possibility.

42:38So they are balancing high standards and humanity. and the output is that they have restored the sight of more people than any institution in the history of the world. And they do that every single day, often for free. So this is doable. It's not just doable in Chicago or New York. It's doable in small villages. It's doable for big companies and little ones if we decide it's important. And I think the big thing with this organization, right, is that they don't have like really strict rules from my understanding. They're all acting in their best judgment and getting the job done. So it's high trust, high stakes, which is pretty unusual, right?

43:18Yes, but I have to balance this with, except for that 20 minutes of the actual surgery, then the standards are insanely rigorous because the only way to reliably do this at high output is to learn from the people who came before you. So if you have an improvement, they add it to the system, but the system is a system and they relentlessly criticize the system. They keep improving the system. But if you are doing eye surgery at Aravind, you do not get to do it your way. You must do it their way. Okay, one last question on the road to significance. And this is the idea of avoid false proxies. How can we avoid the trap of measuring the easy measurements and instead focus on measuring the health and output of our culture?

44:03I'm really glad we're including this. This is the cause of so many of the problems in our culture. You know, we need proxies. You're not allowed to read a book before you buy it. And you're not allowed to taste the ketchup in the store before you take it home. So you have to judge a book by its cover. You have to judge the bottle by the label. Proxies are important. Well, if we were hiring folks to work in a factory with heavy manual labor, we would hire people who were strong. And that's an easy thing to measure and an accurate proxy. But when we started working in the office, us, we have no clue.

44:38So what we did, we started hiring people who looked like us. We instigated all sorts of prejudices. We brought misogyny to the table. We gave attractive people the benefit of the doubt. We reinforced caste systems. We discriminated against people with disabilities that were totally unrelated. We rewarded people who went to a famous college or didn't have a typo on their resume, none of which has to do with your actual job. And just because you're good at interviewing doesn't mean you're good at your job. And then add to that, once you have your job, we're measuring easy things as opposed to the things that the customers actually care about.

45:15So how long, if you work in the call center, how fast did you get that person off the phone? Well, that's a proxy for one thing, but it's not a proxy for customer service. Customer service is, did you delight this person? The end. That's what you were supposed to do. We need, now that we have all this surveillance, now that we have all these measures, to ignore the easy ones and focus on the important ones. Because yes, some people perform better than others. We should find out who those people are and learn from them, not get confused by plugging into old-fashioned cultural tropes. I totally agree on that.

45:53So I asked you a question about leaders and managers, Seth, but I haven't asked you about what employees, people who are in the corporate world, I have a lot of listeners. What can they do to contribute to this and make sure that they're in a workplace that has significance, that gives them dignity, agency, and so on? Yeah, well, this is the whole point. I could have written a blog post, which would have reached far more people than writing a book. I don't write a book because I want to chop down trees. I write a book because it's a way to have a conversation. You don't have to have your boss tell you it's a significant an organization for you to make it one.

46:28That in five minutes a day or 10 minutes a day or 15 minutes a day, you have enough agency to do something that matters to someone. And if you take responsibility for that, give away credit, take responsibility, do it again, do it again, then they're going to start asking you to do it. And I have worked at some big companies and some little ones, and I have seen millions of people at work. And people are happy or unhappy in the same job because they have chosen to bring significance there. And yes, bosses are going to figure this out. And one way is you can leave a copy of this book on the desk.

47:06But what's really going to happen is that workers are going to show up and make things better by making better things and working with people they care about. And that is already changing our world. Thank you, Seth, so much for your time. The last question I ask all my guests is what is your secret to profiting in life? I would say my secret is being really clear about what profit means. And if you can leave things better than you found them, you have created a profit. I love that. And where can our listeners learn more about you and everything that you do? If you go to seths.blog.com, you will find videos and links about the new book.

47:44And at seths.blog, there's 8 ,000 free blog posts that should keep you busy for a little while. Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you. What a pleasure.