Leading Real Change

This is a story for sustainability leaders who are at a crossroads. If you are struggling to make progress on your net zero emissions and create business value from your leadership strategy, this story is for you. It paints a picture of the world that already exists that you can discover and unlock to have more impact at scale. You may not be there today, but this story shows it is possible, when you look for answers in different places.

In this season finale of the Leading Real Change podcast, we wrap up this season focusing on culture change with Kate Ebner, CEO of The Nebo Company, a leadership development firm. Kate shares how she takes leaders through the process of leading culture change. It starts with vision exercises that includes admitting what is not working right now, as well as highlighting our strengths that can be built upon. The willingness to admit where we are vulnerable allows us to face that fear head on. Next she takes helps people to build a bridge to the future by preparing for change, building capacity for change, and then integrating change into corporate culture. She talks about being able to simply share your change story so that you can communicate the purpose of change to others. She also shared her belief that we can be more flexible in our leadership styles if we pay more attention to whether we need to be talking big picture or problem solving on daily tactics. And as leaders we need to be able to operate at multiple levels. We also talked about learning from the process of change. Acknowledging that what we thought at the start was important or true didn’t turn out to be. So that we make change a more creative and fluid process, where being curious and compassionate helps us to keep learning and evolving as the world around us changes rapidly.

In this week’s in-depth episode of the Leading Real Change podcast, I discuss the value of incentives with behavioral economics professor Uri Gneezy, who is also the author of the book ‘Mixed Signals: How Incentives Really Work’. In this episode, Uri explains how incentives really work, as they often don’t deliver the results we expect. In fact, they can backfire. Should you charge more in hot weather for a cold drink or charge less in cold weather for a cold drink? This is why every new incentive should be tested before being scaled. Uri and I discuss the different social and systems challenges in the workplace including remote work, paid leave, and affirmative action. Uri explains when incentives can work and how incentives are not always financial, sometimes a positive workplace culture and more focused work hours can incentivize retention and productivity. In some situations, we may not even realize what our incentives are communicating or that our policies we are favoring one group more than another, unintentionally incentivizing certain workplace behaviors. As more companies embrace motivational strategies to engage workers including recognition and rewards programs, understanding the psychology and science behind motivational tools will help convey the right message and outcomes. Although behavioral economics is not a new science, Uri reminds us how little we understand about how humans will react to new stimuli. Uri always tests these assumptions before making recommendations. This is why we should also be skeptical of computer science models that claim they can predict human behavior. Every new situation and solution is new, with new parameters and potential consequences. Checking our assumptions actually play out in real life scenarios, is an important part of learning what works, when and with whom.

This week’s eye opening episode of Leading Real Change talks all thing equity with CEO and gender economist Katica Roy of Pipeline. Pipeline offers natural language processing to detect bias in promotion review documents and then presents managers with the results. This changes the conversation from are you unintentionally perpetuating bias, to are you intentionally choosing to make inequitable promotional decisions? Our conversation ranged from the challenges of being a breadwinner mom, how to talk to girls about the barriers they’ll face in the workplace, the money wasted on unconscious bias training, and how to focus on designing equitable systems of hiring, promotion, pay, performance etc. Given how many women are discovering through pay transparency laws that they have been paid less and that their female bosses have also made decisions to reward the potential of men more than women, this conversation is long overdue.

In this week’s down to earth episode of Leading Real Change, Founder Art Shaikh shares his philosophy and practice of building relationships to prevent burnout and inspire loyalty. Circleit is a company that sends communications across the generations. For example, before a relative passes on they can prepare communications to share with loved ones long after they are gone. This is a unique mission that has inspired many employees because they experienced the loss of a loved one and cherish the opportunity to support families passing on advice and life lessons in perpetuity. So having a purpose in work is a great motivator for many. Given the mission is also about losing family members, Art has a unique sensitivity to supporting his employees when family members are sick. He provides flexibility and compassion. But also freedom and trust to make their own decisions about what they need on a given day. As a weekly practice, they have work from home Fridays. Art’s team also have a strong sense of loyalty and support to each other. They have each other’s backs because the mission is critical and they understand that when they support each other through good times and bad they can reach their goals more effectively. Many start ups burn through employees, but Art is focused on long term relationships, in the same way his products are creating life long relationships.