Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated with artificial intelligence. It’s in the queue to go through a review with human eyes!
00:00:00:00 – 00:00:23:17
All right, folks, let’s get going. Thank you so much for joining today’s webinar. This is part of the from crisis to momentum Webinar series that was started last month. If for some reason you missed the first session, you may want to go back and check it out on the Daggerwinggroup.com website. I’m Chris Thornton. I’ll be your host for the webinar today.
00:00:23:19 – 00:00:49:01
And today we’re going to be focused in on rethinking the future and how that fits into the five areas of focus that we think organizations have to be thinking about right now as they plan for what’s next. So this really sets it off and helps us think about what is how is work changing and what do we need to do to make sure that our organizations are keeping pace with change?
00:00:49:03 – 00:01:13:16
Are our speakers today. Cheryl Ferguson, our co-founder and president. Hello, Cheryl. Hi, Chris and Andy Rugeroni. How are you? Andy I. Chris Hello, everyone, and Cheryl is our co-founder and president. Andy is a principal joining us from London. Thank you both so much. A little bit about Daggerwing in case you don’t know about us, and you stumbled upon this webinar by accident.
00:01:13:16 – 00:01:44:06
Let us tell you who we are. We are a top ten global leader in communications and change Management consulting as ranked by alum. This is our 21st year. We are legal, fantastic, and we work across the globe in 35 countries, working with all different kinds of clients who are dealing with the same issues that you are. And now let me turn it over to Sheryl to focus in on rethinking the future.
00:01:44:08 – 00:02:07:09
Great. So so here we are. Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for joining. And I really hope this next half hour both is reassuring for you. You can see that other people are thinking the way you are and that we give you some good practical takeaways. So a key milestone is that it’s been about 100 days since most of the Western Hemisphere went into lockdown.
00:02:07:09 – 00:02:28:21
And for some areas of the planet, it’s been longer and some shorter. But I think it’s really easy to think that the whole world has turned upside down. We’ve lost four more than 400,000 people, and governments and businesses are really grappling with the implications of this. And we’ve focused so much of our time and energies on the physical safety of our people.
00:02:28:23 – 00:02:59:06
And then we have the murder of George Floyd and the protests for Black Lives Matter and leaders in business again and government grappling with their failures to address systemic racism. And all of a sudden, we’re also really preoccupied with the emotional safety of our employees. So, so. So it’s easy again, to feel that there’s never been such a period of such profound change and that everything has changed and businesses are so disruptive and everyone is in reactive mode.
00:02:59:08 – 00:03:22:11
And what we would like you to take away today is to remind you that a lot of business fundamentals have not changed. Human nature has not changed. What makes good leadership has not changed. So we really want to think today, as you’re rethinking the businesses, how do you take the context of all the things happening in the world and apply that by keeping true to those fundamentals?
00:03:22:13 – 00:03:38:03
Chris if we go to the next page, please. So so in that first hundred days, I know I felt this way. I’m assuming you felt this way. We all talked about we’re just going to get through this and we’re going to get back to normal. We’re going to get back to work. We’re going to get back to our regular scheduled program.
00:03:38:03 – 00:03:59:04
We’re going to get back to those plans that we spent so much time developing. And then what we’ve really seen over that 100 day period is an arc. And in that arc, Chris, if you can just do that one advance is that we are getting to the point where everyone’s accepting that we’re not going to go back, we’re going to go forward, and that’s really normal.
00:03:59:04 – 00:04:25:02
So the idea that, you know, as humans we fear change, we resist at all costs. So wanting to go back to normal, to what was familiar and predictable was so natural to us. But when our survival is at stake, we are much more adaptable than we that we know. And I’ve actually had conversations with with people, clients and people where the last 100 days has been a surprise.
00:04:25:02 – 00:04:44:02
And if there is a silver lining out of all the horrible things that have been happening, is that companies are discovering that they’re far more adaptable and able to change than they ever imagined. Every business feels like there’s a Titanic and they can barely move out of the way of an iceberg. And now they’re feeling like we have the potential for change.
00:04:44:04 – 00:05:12:24
This is an opportunity to, while we have some big challenges ahead, that maybe there’s some big things that we can be doing different in this period where we’re now so adaptable. Christine, go ahead, please. So we know that in the next hundred days, you’re still going to be responding to all the things happening. But businesses are really now much more focused on 2021 planning, getting into a regular routine, thinking beyond tomorrow, thinking ahead.
00:05:12:24 – 00:05:37:21
And you’re dealing with the fact that, you know, consumer behaviors changed overnight, their buying patterns, the channels you’ve had to change, your operating model, dealing with health and safety restrictions. Maybe your supply chain blew up. All kinds of things are really different. And what are ask for you is, please, as you think about where you’re going forward, too, that you continue to consider employee expectations and you’re going to say, of course we’re doing that all day.
00:05:37:21 – 00:05:58:17
Every day we’re thinking about our employees and their safety and and what we’re doing to eradicate systemic racism and all those things you feel already that you’re so employee focused. But going forward, as you start thinking other things about businesses, it’s really important to shift and change how you’re engaging your employees. And that really brings us to the next page.
00:05:58:17 – 00:06:23:20
Chris, please. And our focus for today. We believe that all businesses need to be focused on these three profound questions. That first one about how are we evolving? That’s more of a C-suite, a leadership deciding where we’re going. Then how are we helping our people, leaders that critical step of equipping people, leaders to to lead us forward? And then the last one is how do we strengthen trust with our people?
00:06:23:24 – 00:06:41:09
So with that in mind, these three questions, I’m going to dive into each of these three today. I’ll pass it over to Andy to tackle question one. Thanks, Sheryl. So I’m going to be taking us through our first question, which is how are we evolving to become who we need to be for our people? Brackets two Very important.
00:06:41:09 – 00:07:04:02
We don’t have the humans in all of this, so we move on to the next slide. Chris So what’s the employee take on the last hundred days? Let’s look at some some very recent research data from Gallup and our sister company, Porter Novelli. 59% of workers want to continue working from home even when it’s safe. So that’s it.
00:07:04:02 – 00:07:27:23
That’s probably a huge change from previous to this these last 100 days. And then 77% of people think that companies need to make decisions in the interest of their communities. Again, another another very seismic shift from where we were before these hundred days. So what does this all mean? Well, it means people aren’t demanding that companies be perfect, but they are demanding that they want more.
00:07:28:00 – 00:07:51:08
They’re looking for flexibility not just now, but for forever. And we’re seeing responses from companies to this. So you may have seen the recent announcement by Square and Twitter where they’ve committed to letting their employee base work from home for as long as they’d like and potentially forever. And then also that the employees are looking for action not just in future around the issues that matter to them.
00:07:51:08 – 00:08:19:06
They’re looking for action now. And you’ve seen various examples of this. We’ll just call out one, for example, with Estee Lauder, as the companies forced the employees, forced the company to donate a larger amount of money to civil rights movements that it was planning to and to expand its campaign then from just focusing on anti Semitism to focus on wider civil justice movements if just go to the next one, Chris.
00:08:19:08 – 00:08:57:04
So what we’re seeing is a lot of this this bottom up change is colliding with a cocktail of other pressures to present the unexpected need for major decisions. The leaders and leaders are really under pressure to pick the right path through this. Let’s just look at a few examples that can can play into this point. So Adidas, for example, really sort of saw the need to make a statement about Black Lives Matter and that their employees didn’t think the company went far enough and that there was an underrepresentation of minorities within its workforce.
00:08:57:06 – 00:09:20:04
And they really caused such an outcry that the company had to change its tack and do more to address the issue. In contrast, BP has reacted to the financial and consumer pressures, acknowledging that now it needs to accelerate its strategic shift towards renewable energy. And this is going to have huge impacts for its employee base. But also is it going to do the right thing in terms of the climate?
00:09:20:06 – 00:09:44:08
So a major decision they’ve made in this moment. And then finally, by is having its reputation damaged as it seems to be using the pandemic as almost a cover to resolve a long running industrial dispute with its employees. So how leaders are navigating these big moments and accounting for what their employees are looking for is either going to secure or damage them in the long term.
00:09:44:10 – 00:10:18:04
We move on to next, one piece goes. So we’re going to give you a takeaway with each of these questions. And our first one that we really want to land is we need to get ahead of what our employees want and take bold action. And what does that mean? We’ve got four areas. The first is anticipate waiting what those needs might be by using data, whether this is social listening and language processing, so you can spot those needs and trends before they become issues, risks or or things that you need to worry about.
00:10:18:06 – 00:10:46:20
The second is, if you did have employee personas beforehand, there sure is. How are going to be different now than they were 100 days ago? So it’s about relooking through your employees eyes and trying to predict what they what they think is important. Thirdly is not to go against this this this trend for flexible working and the need to really reconsider what that employee working experience is going to look like and to co-create what it can be.
00:10:47:00 – 00:11:22:12
I mean, real estate departments across the world will be shuddering as their budget potentially moves from office space to home working grants and then finally commit to accelerate purpose led change. Whether this is bold commitments and action in terms of diversity and inclusion, or like a company like IBM, where you’re moving away from product lines, which could have a negative impact or negative use in the world, such as IBM has decided to stop using facial recognition or selling facial recognition software.
00:11:22:14 – 00:11:40:01
So those are first key takeaway. I’ll hand it back to Sheryl will take us to the second question. And while we’re doing that, this is Chris again. Folks, if you have questions or comments, please put those in the chat box. In the Q&A box. I’ll be reading those and I’ll be happy to interrupt the conversation and see what our panelists have to say to your question.
00:11:40:05 – 00:11:58:15
Sheryl, over to you. Great. So Andy just said leaders need to take bold action and to take bold action. What you need is to equip your people, leaders to do that. We work with leaders all the time, and they’re they’re impatient. Either they have a vision and they want to get going or they have an urgent issue and they want to address it.
00:11:58:15 – 00:12:20:06
So they want to go right from the C-suite to an all company meeting to a video, you know, send to everyone or, you know, to a press release that’s released. And we always say, stop, stop, pause, equip your people, leaders because they are the secret to employee engagement. They’re the ones that do the heavy lifting in helping to engage your employees.
00:12:20:07 – 00:12:50:22
We go to the next page, Chris. Here is where you don’t want to lose sight of the fundamentals. Three of these four things are true and you know them. Know that engaged employees are more productive, more profitable. They give better service to customers, they generate better quality products they stay with you Engaged employees are good for business. Second, we know that when you help employees connect what they do and their role in helping a company achieve its clear direction that improves employee engagement.
00:12:50:24 – 00:13:16:11
So that connection is key. Sadly, the third point is true, and even before COVID happened back in 2017, a Gallup study showed that only about one in five employees really felt that their leaders had a clear direction. So that sad. So that leaves the fourth one to be completely untrue. 100 days in is every one do we have a sense of clear direction and are we all aligned?
00:13:16:11 – 00:13:41:21
Absolutely not. And so in this time of uncertainty, when you’re trying to shift from chaos to momentum, trying to move forward, even though you don’t have everything figured out, what you need is your people, leaders. You need them to take on even more responsibility. So. Chris, so the next page is to say to people, leaders, hey, everyone, this is your moment and so let’s look through their eyes, your people.
00:13:41:21 – 00:14:12:24
Leader, You did not sign up for this. You did not sign up for every day the burden of the lives and livelihood of your people. You started 2021 thinking about like driving agility, hitting your quarterly numbers, launching new products. So so now we’re asking them to do more things. They are the secret of engagement. Engagement where employees feel recognized, where they understand exactly what they’re supposed to do when they can connect their day to day job to what that future is.
00:14:13:01 – 00:14:45:13
So you need to be engaging your people, leaders in new ways. Chris, you can go to the next page. Here is why we think that there’s even more. If there’s two stats we want you to remember about why it’s important to engage with the leaders is this incredible time period where you have two things on the rise. So a study puzzle recently in our executive, you know, seven out of ten employees believe this is the most stressful period of their whole professional lives, more than the 2008 recession, more than, you know, any implications they felt around 911.
00:14:45:15 – 00:15:13:05
This is incredibly stressful yet yet 38% of employees feel engaged, meaning they feel excited, enthusiastic, motivated at their job. That’s the highest level that Gallup has reported in 20 years of tracking employee engagement. So heightened engagement likely due to the fact that there has been all kinds of communications day to day with employees about what’s going on and this heightened sense of stress.
00:15:13:11 – 00:15:36:22
How are you going to get the stress levels down and dial engagement up and harness that to move forward with your recovery? Let’s go to the next page, Chris. So here’s our second group of takeaways for you and what we’re asking you to do. Often leaders just kind of assume that they’re people managers are going to just go out there and do that and they were not trained or equipped for the situation they find themselves in.
00:15:37:03 – 00:16:00:11
So you need a model, a senior leaders to them the way that you want them to model to your employees. So three things to do help make your people leaders feel prepared. If you’re not doing so already, give them good, clear feedback to what they are doing now because we know that decreases their stress level. Give them Q and A’s, give them a heads up before you’re making big announcement.
00:16:00:12 – 00:16:19:21
So they feel really equipped to deal with the questions that they’re getting from employees. Second, now is not the time to ask your people leaders to deal with their weaknesses. It’s let’s focus on the things that they are strong at. We also know when people’s jobs, when they’re focused on what they feel are their strengths, they are six times more engaged themselves.
00:16:20:01 – 00:16:45:24
So let’s really understand your people. Leaders focus on their strengths and help them steer those strengths to what you need. Get to get done. And the last is to your people. Leaders strongly signal empathy and your engagement. So you know what? We know you’re listening. We know you’re empathetic. But when there’s this level of stress in the day to day workplace, you have to actually dial that up, especially when you’re doing it over Zoom.
00:16:46:03 – 00:17:11:18
So you may need to be even more pronounced in your signaling overtly. Ask for their opinion, acknowledge that their point of view might be different because they’re closer to the front line. You know, repeat back what you just heard from them so that they know you’re listening. These are things you can model for them because you want them to model for your employees because they have a really challenging job of helping you to sense to to regain in some cases and sustain trust.
00:17:11:18 – 00:17:31:05
And that’s what and he’s going to talk about in the next question. Thanks, Cheryl. So our third question is, how will we strengthen trust with our people and articulate the role they can play in our shared future? So we go to the next slide. And what’s clear here is we’ve got to make significant efforts to bring people along.
00:17:31:05 – 00:18:02:04
And that’s not can’t be just down to doesn’t stop with just the leaders. So can a campaign or tactics is never going to be enough or in many cases, as we’ve seen over the last few weeks, a statement. Sure, sure isn’t enough at all. The dynamic that Cheryl mentioned about high stress and high engagement means it’s more important than ever that we’ve got to connect employees to what the business stands for, where you’re going and how they fit into that bigger picture.
00:18:02:06 – 00:18:29:13
And this is going to involve listening, empathy, authentic sharing and action and then all of that on repeat. So if you just go to the next slide, please, Chris and we’ve got a quote here from the Unilever CEO, really just backing up what we were saying here. There’s a real need to show authentic care for employees as you define what the organization is going to look like going forward.
00:18:29:13 – 00:18:58:17
As I spoke earlier in this presentation around those big, brave decisions that are being made as those are taken, you can’t forget this, that the connection and who you are as a business and really remember that your employees are going to going to spot an inconsistency or inauthenticity between between leaders as they they they speak about things as we go to the next one.
00:18:58:19 – 00:19:42:18
I’m being true to purpose and caring for employees as those tough decisions are made is going to be really challenging. We’ve got a couple of examples here. One good and one one less. So in the last webinar we brought up the Airbnb example and we’re going back to it here because we think it’s a fantastic example of when a tough decision to let go of a large amount of staff was made really at the Airbnb CEO and leadership were really, truly clear about how they wanted to be true to their purpose around belonging and connection and the actions they’ve taken to ensure that the recruitment department is repurposed as a placement department to ensure that
00:19:42:18 – 00:20:01:19
everyone can have health care provision for at least a year after they leave the business to ensure that everyone can have a keep their computer after they they leave the business so that they’re able to find a new job, those type of things. It’s a tough decision, yet they’re showing they authentically care and are standing up for what their purposes.
00:20:01:21 – 00:20:34:12
Starbucks has had a rockier path here. They were made to make a U-turn after a backlash around their staff being able to wear clothing and badges in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. And they were asked not to because they didn’t want it to so that the messaging could be construed as inciting violence. Now, this in contrast to how they have been able to wear clothing for other movements such as pride.
00:20:34:14 – 00:21:04:00
And that really was something that didn’t go down well with consumers and the employee as well. And they were made to try to turn back on that. Now, something that they may have thought up was a great idea close to their purpose around not wanting to get involved in political political issues, it was actually backfired upon them. And a business that has in the past been really greater to authentically connecting with its own staff and doing a lot has found itself in a real, real issue.
00:21:04:02 – 00:21:24:13
Just move on to the next one, please. Chris So we’ve talked a lot. This is our third and final takeaway. We’ve talked a lot about how everything is changing. Well, the good news is the world may be changing, but human behavior hasn’t. It’s still important that the employees are taken on the journey so that that trust can be earned.
00:21:24:15 – 00:21:50:22
And we would encourage restate your vision. Your purpose has it changed? Have you explained that properly to your employees? Then? It’s about building that understanding, helping them connect with what where the business is going to, what they need to do within their particular role. Then it’s about helping them get generate that belief through proof points, actions and calling out where mistakes are being made.
00:21:50:24 – 00:22:14:17
And finally, it’s about creating that environment and opportunities to support the new direction, help employees live and the the the new roles that you’re asking them to. So that hearing believing in living structured that’s been in critical to all behavior change over many years is still there and that that focus on great leadership isn’t going away. Cheryl, over to you.
00:22:14:19 – 00:22:39:19
Great. So, again, these are the three questions that we think that all businesses should be grappling with. I know we’ve been grappling with it even here at that hearing. And that’s hard because you’re thinking every day to day about your people and about your your revenue and your viability as a business. But you do need to stop and take that time to look look ahead And again, keep in context those fundamentals.
00:22:39:19 – 00:23:09:01
And if you feel that your business is in a position that you’re potentially more adaptable than you thought, you are. And given the outside environment, some of the things we’ve talked about here could be a moment for some big change, even if there are some negatives ahead and some really challenging businesses, decisions that you have to make going forward, that there is the opportunity to be even more profound and to think bigger about the type of change or accelerating change.
00:23:09:03 – 00:23:43:01
You know, that, and that could be important for your going forward. So that brings us to those were quick going through those three points, and now we invite your questions. Fantastic job. So we’ve got a two questions that have come in. One is, you mentioned your clients are adaptable. They’re surprising themselves. What are some of the things that they’ve been doing that you think others could learn from?
00:23:43:03 – 00:24:27:03
So so I’ll give you a couple of examples. Thanks, Chris, for that one. So I think clients felt like they were simply just trying to get through the day to day and they were trying to make minor modifications to all their ways of working. Adjusting for people, being at home and supply chain changes and things like that. And one client said to us, We really feel like we can make some profound changes in purpose for our brands, that we can make some big leaps forward in what we stand for, and that the what might have been a challenge and getting executive of alignment for some of these things is now easier because executives are in
00:24:27:03 – 00:24:57:22
a mindspace of fluidity. They are accepting that things will be the same. So especially for these big things, like we’re going to change our purpose, we are going to change some of our operating model, we are going to change our focus of channels for how we reach our contestant customers. Some of these more profound things that it might have taken months of negotiation across executive leadership to get alignment that they’re now going to get there faster.
00:24:57:22 – 00:25:17:05
So that’s one of the things that we heard was just the receptivity of executives to to address those more profound changes. I think they also feel like employees won’t accept small changes, but the things they thought were let’s just be reasonable, let’s not try and boil the ocean. They’re now feeling like people are watching and they’re expecting big things.
00:25:17:07 – 00:25:49:10
Yeah. Yeah. Andy, any thoughts or should we move on? I think so. I do a lot of work in the pharmaceutical sector and I think this is a real moment of acceleration. And then, you know, a lot of the pharmaceutical and marketing efforts and sales efforts have been focused on that human to human physical connection. And really what we’re seeing is that the things that have been in the in the pipeline for many years have almost been sort of, you know, the foot has gone down and they’ve gone up to 120 miles an hour on it.
00:25:49:12 – 00:26:16:10
They’re trying to to to think about how to how do you do virtual Congresses? How do you how do you enable peer to peer connections that aren’t about work and those conversations to take place and to replicate, you know, how the how humans have interacted with each other in that virtual setting. So I really have seen an acceleration in things that would have previously taken a year really starting to get focus or tried to get done in about a month.
00:26:16:12 – 00:26:36:03
Yeah, Now, you know, one of the things that and we’ve also got a question from Tim. Thank you, Tim, about what has most surprised you and what you’re hearing from clients. I’ll tell you, one of the things that has surprised me most is that people are I have two clients that are talking about, yes, we are fast at decision making.
00:26:36:06 – 00:27:09:23
Yes, we are. We are prioritizing in a way that we never have. There is speed. We are breaking through the red tape. Nobody’s complaining much about the bureaucracy because we all feel this urgency. What I’m what is surprising me. And my question then is to Sheryl and Andy, what’s surprising you? But what is surprising to me that I’m hearing from my clients is they missed that human time that because they’re moving so fast now and so focused, they’re missing on that personal interaction that they had with their team members, with their peers, some of that socializing that was happening around the decision making.
00:27:09:23 – 00:27:30:03
Yes, it was taking too long to get things done, but there was human contact around and relationship building around that decision making. People are feeling an absence of that with the two clients that I’m thinking of, and they’re trying to figure out how do we build that in in a way that is natural while we’re still trying to move fast because they miss each other?
00:27:30:05 – 00:27:51:02
How do we how do we build that? And we don’t have a great solution yet, but it’s something that our clients are thinking about. Indian Sheryl, over to you and feel free to take it in a different direction. And I’m going to take it. I’m going to take you in a completely different direction, because one of the things that surprised me from a client was they said was, you know, people I’ve worked with for five years and I barely knew them.
00:27:51:06 – 00:28:15:24
And now that we’re all just communicating on Zoom, I feel like I know their kids names, I know about them, I know about their vacations. So they’re actually feeling like this moment has as heightened their level of human connection. And so the taking of the first 5 minutes of even really profound executive meetings where everyone is connecting and say, I see I’ve bought new patio furniture and things like that.
00:28:15:24 – 00:28:45:22
So so the the humanity has actually gone up. And so the vibe and the connection, you can’t escape that even when you’re in your executive decision making mode. That surprised me and the survey surprised them. And I think something that’s really surprised me is it’s kind of the that the debunking of kind of a long held personal assumption, which is co-creation and collaboration is is way better in in in the flesh.
00:28:45:24 – 00:29:12:24
Whereas I’ve seen that some of the tools and the that the platforms that you can use to actually collaborate when everyone is sitting in different places is absolutely fantastic. And we’ve been able to get some some great results. I’m a little bit trepidatious or or don’t know what’s around the corner when we go to a hybrid model. Some people are all sat in a in a meeting room and then one or two people are sat in different areas.
00:29:12:24 – 00:29:33:24
How is that going to work? How are we going to make this working, experience the future work for that kind of hybrid? You know, and we have we have figured it out, haven’t we? We and our clients have figured it out. I think the challenge next is in all that you’ve talked about today is how do you radically rethink what’s next and think about the company that you need to be.
00:29:33:24 – 00:29:59:11
So thank you all. I’m so sorry. We are out of time for questions, but just a couple of things. This has been recorded today. You will be getting hopefully by end of day, but perhaps tomorrow you’ll be getting a link to this recording and it will also be posted on our website. Please join us in two weeks. You’ll get a notice about this as well via email to sign up for the second part of our five part series where we talk about doubling down on culture.
00:29:59:11 – 00:30:18:11
Today, we’ve talked about rethinking the future. How do you use culture to help move you forward into the future? So stay tuned for that. And if you’d like to get in touch with our panelists, Andy and Cheryl here, their email addresses, please do reach out to them as you have questions. Thank you both, Cheryl and Andy for your time today.
00:30:18:11 – 00:30:29:09
Thanks, Chris. Thanks, everyone, for taking time from your day to join us. We really do appreciate it. And special thanks to Lauren Southern for making all this happen today. Thanks, everybody. Have a good day. Thanks, everyone. Bye bye. Bye.
