The Give and Take in a Supportive Company Culture with Bob Glazer (Episode #140)
Entrepreneur, author, and renowned podcaster, Bob Glazer, is known for his novel, common-sense ideas for creating business cultures that employees rave about. This is because his ideas focus on multiplying our better impulses, rather than trying to throttle back our worst. This hour, Dr. Lynda talks to Bob about the insights in his new book Elevate Your Team, and we all come away with some pearls we can use everyday to elevate our own working lives.
Episode Highlights
About Our Guest:
Bob is the founder and Global Chairman of Acceleration Partners, and builder of an award winning company culture, including Glassdoor’s Employees’ Choice Awards two years in a row.
He is the author of the inspirational newsletter Friday Forward, which started as a simple avenue for his thoughts to his employees, and it turned out to be so insightful and generally valuable, that sharing outside the company has landed it in the inboxes of tens of thousands.
And I’m one of them! (This is Dr. Lynda writing about Bob’s great work in the world.)
Bob is also the author of Elevate, and 2 other international bestselling books: How To Make Virtual Teams Work and Performance Partnerships.
We recorded a conversation with Bob about all those insights and pushing beyond your limits and unlock success for yourself and others, in the second year of the pandemic (Episode 36 of the Conspiracy of Goodness Podcast)
And now we’re here to talk about EleVate your Team: Empower Your Team to Reach Their Full Potential and Build a Business that Builds Leaders.
He is a sought-after speaker by companies and organizations around the world and is the host of The Elevate Podcast, where he interviews some of the best minds in business in the world.
His zone of genius is in emphasizing the importance of truly effective communication..
He provides strategies for building trust and rapport with team members, as well as tips for delivering feedback and having difficult conversations. He also stresses the need for transparency and open communication in order to build a culture of accountability.
It takes many of the concepts in the earlier book EleVate and applies them to the team context, emphasizing the importance of creating a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
Enjoy this actionable conversation to help your working life become part of a life that feels well-lived.
You can find Bob at https://robertglazer.com
Wand to connect more with Bob’s work?
Bob offers courses on core values that include live coaching. I was one of his Beta-Testers for his first course and I can say from personal experience, that this is time very well spent. In fact, the little card I wrote myself with the findings from his course, about my own distilled values, sits in front of me every day at my desk and I use it to make better decisions all the time!
Bob is also a guest writer on the Goodness Exchange. Read all of his articles and insights here.
Show Notes
00:00 Preview
01:46 Intro & Welcome
04:26 Friday Foreword
- Bob’s newsletter, Friday Forward has over 100,000 subscribers.
- Friday Forward shares good news on a weekly basis.
- Friday Forward started with Bob sharing positive news and stories with his team of 40 people.
06:45 Eliminating Unnecessary Fiction
- There’s a centrist mindset to a lot of important issues.
- Bob listens to the viewpoints that he doesn’t necessarily agree with.
- Everyone has the ability to improve our way of thinking.
- We tend to make vague celebrations of exceptions while ignoring the rule.
11:15 The Growth Wall
- In the past decade, teams have been optimized to achieve growth at all cost.
- Teams have hit two walls:
- A Covid fatigue wall
- Free investment capital wall
- Organizations need to grow but the focus should be on the people.
12:57 The Great Questioning
- People questioned what their mental well being would be like if the working world continued this way.
- 80% of the people who sought out new jobs because the grass was greener regretted it in the end.
- If everyone quit during the most difficult moments great success stories wouldn’t exist.
- Cognitive dissonance is one of the most important things that people should understand.
19:04 Eliminating Two Weeks Notice
- We sometimes pretend that people are going to stay in jobs forever.
- Instead of having difficult conversations with underperformers, people tend to make them the enemy.
- We could consider helping the person find a better fit inside or outside the company.
- Why can’t we have honest conversations about leaving companies?
20:55 Being an A Player
- Being an A player is not a fixed state.
- You can become an A player and you can stop being an A player depending on the situation.
- As the organization changes, a reevaluation needs to be done to determine if you’re still the right person in the right seat at the right time.
22:31 Right Seat on the Bus
- Unicorns can do much more than what they’re being asked to do and they exceed the company’s growth rate.
- For most people in the organization, there’s a capacity building zone that can help them build their skills to be ready for the next position.
- In Bob’s book, Elevate, he described capacity building in 4 areas:
- Spiritual
- Intellectual
- Physical
- Emotional
31:40 Break
35:04 People are the same People
- Leaders can encourage positive morning routines.
- Rather than looking at your phone or tv first thing in the morning, a more productive person could do a few things.
- More hours does not equate to more productivity.
42:50 Flexible Work
- Employees that seek our flexibility in the work schedule should also be flexible when critical business issues arise.
- The gig economy offers an opportunity to work solo.
- People may not know what they want out of remote work as the data shows that many people are isolated and depressed.
44:54 Core Values
- Core Values should just be the words on the walls of the corporate office.
- Knowing your core values and being able to articulate them is key.
- Bob offers courses on core values that include live coaching.
52:33 What Gets Rewarded?
- What is actually getting implicitly or explicitly rewarded in the company?
- Company’s can take a stand on issues but not everyone in the company needs to agree.
- The company being tolerant might be more important than agreeing with any one stance.
57:26 Closing
- There’s a cost to hyper growth.
- The better way is to grow by growing the people.
- You can find Bob at https://robertglazer.com
Bob is also a guest writer on the Goodness Exchange.
