Career Club Live with Bob Goodwin
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Career Club Live with Bob Goodwin
Empathetic Leadership and Future Workforce Strategies: Insights from Wagner Denuzzo
How do you conquer the corporate world while staying true to your emotional and empathetic self? Visionary leader Wagner Denuzzo, who transitioned from social work in Brazil to influential roles in major U.S. companies like IBM and Prudential Financial, shares his remarkable journey and the lessons he's learned along the way. Discover how Wagner's personal evolution shaped his unique approach to leadership development and emotional intelligence, and gain invaluable insights from his latest book, "Leading to Succeed: Essential Skills for the New Workplace."
Our conversation uncovers the often-overlooked facets of leadership—empathy, self-acceptance, and the balance between personal involvement and professional detachment. Wagner shares his strategies for overcoming societal challenges and conditioned beliefs, shedding light on the importance of clarity and understanding one's values. Learn how fostering a non-judgmental and authentic environment can elevate your team's performance and create a high-performing, empowered workforce. Wagner emphasizes the need for senior leaders to engage without emotional attachment, advocating for continuous learning and self-confidence as keys to effective leadership.
We also dissect the evolving dynamics of the modern workforce, highlighting the significance of building future talent strategies amidst technological advancements and shifting workplace demands. Wagner provides actionable advice on developing managerial capabilities, fostering self-managed teams, and promoting transparency in financial operations to drive accountability and innovation. If you're looking to understand how to create a sustainable talent management blueprint while navigating the complexities of distributed workforces and generational expectations, this episode is a must-listen. Join us and transform the way you think about leadership and the future of work.
Hi everybody.
Wagner Denuzzo:This is Bob Goodwin, and welcome to another episode of Career Club Live. We're so glad you've taken a few minutes out of your day to join us. Before we get started, I want to encourage folks to stop by careerclub. If you are in job search or know someone who is, click on the main banner right there on the homepage and register for our free Career Club Corner calls every Thursday at 1 o'clock Eastern. Register for our free Career Club Corner calls every Thursday at one o'clock Eastern. We share a little bit of content, maybe an insight, something that you would find helpful in your job search, and then we opened up to 45 minutes of questions and answers about your job search. It's free, it's always free, and we would love for you. Or, as I said, if there's someone that you know and who doesn't these days, who's in job search, Just go to careerclub, click on the main banner and register for our free weekly coaching call.
Wagner Denuzzo:So with that, let me start to introduce today's guest. I'm going to read this a little bit because it's fairly meaty and I think that you'll enjoy this. So today's guest is Wagner DiNuzzo. Wagner is a visionary leader, acclaimed author and expert expert in leadership development, emotional intelligence and the future of work. His latest book, which we're going to talk about a lot, is Leading to Succeed Essential Skills for the New Workplace. Wagner's journey from his roots as a Latino immigrant in the US to a thought leader for Fortune 500 companies showcases his own personal resilience and creativity. He has held significant corporate roles, including head of capabilities for the future of work at Prudential Financial and vice president of organizational effectiveness at Guardian Life. His expertise in integrating emotional development and human behavior into leadership makes him a sought-after speaker and consultant, helping organizations cultivate inclusive, high-performing cultures. Today we'll explore Wagner's ideas on the future of work, human-centered leadership and developing essential leadership skills, and with that, please join me in welcoming Wagner. Denuso Wagner welcome.
Bob Goodwin:Thank you so much, bob. It's great to be here with you. Career Club is an essential place for people to be aware of, so thank you so, thank you.
Wagner Denuzzo:Well, we do. We do share a passion for helping people and helping people fulfill their own dreams, so that's cool. Now, uh, let's go ahead and just kind of get to know you personally here for just a minute. So just a few little icebreaker questions so we can know you a little bit as a human being um, where were you born and raised? That's probably an easy place to start.
Bob Goodwin:I was born and raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I came to the United States at 22. Excellent.
Wagner Denuzzo:Only in 2022?.
Bob Goodwin:No, at 22 years old At age 22.
Wagner Denuzzo:Yes, okay, that makes more sense there, you go.
Bob Goodwin:That was a long time ago, by the way it was.
Wagner Denuzzo:Now just side note. If anybody that knows me even a little bit, they know that I love soccer football. Your national team is amazing. I don't know if you're a football fan at all, but uh, I I like brazil quite a bit oh, thank you.
Bob Goodwin:Of course it's part of the culture, it's part of our dna. It's incredible.
Wagner Denuzzo:Very much. So you came to the US at age 22. Where did you go? To university, well, that's the thing.
Bob Goodwin:I finished college in Brazil and then I came to the United States. I had to learn English. When I came I had no English, no money, no social support and no plans. So my career was this mosaic and after getting to know the culture, getting to know the US and New York, I went to NYU and I got a clinical social work degree.
Wagner Denuzzo:Excellent. What motivated that particular degree?
Bob Goodwin:Well, I think I understood the social needs of the populations that I was in touch with in New York at that time and I became very interested in volunteering. Through volunteer work in agencies, social agencies, I became very interested in becoming a social worker, but then I became very clinically inclined because I want to understand deeper meaning of what was happening. So that's how I became a psychotherapist and I became an employee assistance program. That's my journey into HR and leadership.
Wagner Denuzzo:Okay, so what you said is the next piece. You talked about your career being a mosaic. Do? You mind sort of walking us through just a little bit of where you started and where you ended up.
Bob Goodwin:It is a mosaic and it's a river at same time, because the water follows the crevices and you have to follow the opportunities. Basically, as an immigrant, I came and became an employee of restaurants, so I was in the hospitality business, if you can say it, but basically I had to learn English. I had to become aware of how to navigate everything. So, as a social worker, it was easy for me to work in hospitals. Then it was easy for me to move into employee assistance programs and I got to understand deeply what was impacting employees. That was an incredible experience.
Bob Goodwin:For six years I listened to people calling about their mental health issues, workplace issues and from there I said I'm going to be on my own and I opened my own consulting firm in New York to be a leadership development person, a coach, a psychotherapist and an HR consultant. That's when I decided to go into a corporate environment to have the experience. It's very important to have the creativity in how you architect your career. So for me it was important to have that corporate experience and I just got a job at IBM and that story is very interesting because I knew nobody. But I sent an email to someone there and somebody responded. In three weeks I had a job.
Bob Goodwin:It was an incredible experience there and at IBM. I learned so much about HR, about leadership development, transformations, global culture, intelligence, emotional intelligence, leadership management. And then I moved to start with hotels. They gave me a great opportunity to understand a different industry. And then I moved back to IBM. When I moved back to IBM, it was about transforming leadership there. It was amazing. And then I found the first ever title of Head of Capabilities for Future of Work. Nobody had that title.
Wagner Denuzzo:I was going to say that's ahead of the curve.
Bob Goodwin:In 2019, it was so I said, of course I'd take it, and it was fabulous because we built incredible capabilities at Prudential and since then I decided to write my book with my experiences and help people really understand what's required for the future of work, and I've been on my own for a year now. It's been amazing.
Wagner Denuzzo:Excellent, so obviously we're going to unpack the book in just a second. But before we do that, when you're not writing books and consulting and stuff, what do you do for fun?
Bob Goodwin:Well, for fun, I have a horse. I do horseback riding three times a week at least. I do yoga five, six times, because I do believe that's so important, this ability to connect the dots and create a habit. You know we talk about habits in leadership. It's important to have some rituals, habits and routines. So I spend a lot of time with my horse, my animals, my partner, of course, and I love yoga. Yoga has balanced my spiritual, emotional, physical needs, so that's very important to me.
Wagner Denuzzo:I suspect we might talk about mindfulness at some point during this conversation maybe. So just to first of all, I love your background. You know I love you know the US was built on the back of immigrants and people willing to do hard work, but also bringing different cultures.
Wagner Denuzzo:So you had me at immigrant, because I just think that that is what makes America special in so many ways this fabric, this quilt of so many cultures, experiences, perspectives, and I know that diversity and inclusion and things like that are very key to you as well. But just starting at the highest level, wagner, why this book and why now?
Bob Goodwin:It's interesting because it came out naturally. Every morning I would sit down and write because I had so many experiences, so many confluences of understanding psychology, understanding emotional development, understanding employees at all levels. To be honest, because I was talking to seniors X but I was talking to individual contributors and I was very interested in knowing how can we help the new workforce enter the new workplace, because even in 2019, we're already sensing the future of work taking shape Now with AI. It's a totally exponential discussion. But to me it was important to start thinking how can I help the new workforce understanding that actually they have to cultivate leadership skills from the beginning of their careers to be successful.
Bob Goodwin:The premise of the book is that that every single member of the workplace, in the workforce, has to cultivate leadership skills from the beginning. It's a little too late when somebody's promoted to a manager to start thinking how to behave as a leader. So to me, that was essential. And then I said my experience with the leadership development is that most programs don't work very well. So let's simplify things. So I talk about leadership expressions, because leadership doesn't exist in your house. It exists as you express your behaviors, your values, your beliefs. So to me, the three essential leadership expressions are consciousness. Me, the three essential leadership experience expressions are consciousness, curiosity and courage. So those three things when you put together and the skills that you need to be successful, the book came out by itself almost consciousness, curiosity and courage.
Wagner Denuzzo:Yes, and so that's really interesting. Obviously we think in threes. We like things that are in threes. Alliteration is my best friend, so you had me at three Cs, but how did everything kind of boil down into those three pots?
Bob Goodwin:Maybe that's an interesting place to start well, the thing is, I keep thinking why it's so difficult to affect change in an organization. Because actually it's easy for us to tell people what to do, think about. You know all the the recipes that we have out there for everything you can possibly think about. We know what to do, but it's so hard to actually do it. Because the how to change our behavior, how to approach things in a nonjudgmental way, how to lead without having the imposter syndrome, how to do it is the essence of good leadership, great leadership. So to me was maybe I can help people start thinking about how and that's what I do in the book, I think is really digging a little deeper into awareness, acceptance and action, because without the middle one, the acceptance of the self, we cannot move into action. It's very hard.
Wagner Denuzzo:Can we start with that? Because you know this is a little bit of you know, know thyself, yeah, and sometimes I think that the thyself that people know they don't like very much. Right, I mean, there's fear.
Wagner Denuzzo:There's fear, shame, anger, anger, guilt, you know, and we see that so much at career club. Right, I lost my job and I'm never going to find another one. I'm afraid I feel guilty because I'm letting people down, starting with myself and my family. Um, there's shame associated with that, there's anger, wagner. If you knew how unfair this was, I gave them 17 years, blah, blah, blah and blah, blah, blah, blah, et cetera. And and yet they're. They're struggling so much emotionally, psychologically, that the self narrative is really tearing them down. So so I love the fact that we sort of start with self-awareness and kind of getting through. Can you talk in the book and how you would help somebody think about those issues?
Bob Goodwin:yeah look, I think you know, bob, you do this well because actually you need to give space. The first thing we need to do is to give space for people to actually express what's going through their minds, their emotions, in a nonjudgmental way, because I think the risk is you trying to help people and pushing them into a solution before they go through the process of expressing themselves. They need to express themselves in a safe space. That's number one. Then I talk about in the book how important it is to know that your past conditioning in your family, in your culture, in your community and I talk about myself Imagine if I adopted the same beliefs as my country.
Bob Goodwin:I grew up in a military government. I grew up in a very homophobic culture. I grew up where racism was rampant. So if I start adopting all the beliefs and values from where I was conditioned to grow my emotional development there, I would be really in trouble in the United States. So, united States, I had to really approach everything and reinvent myself and really dig deeper, because shame is natural, guilt is natural, but they do not help you overcome your challenges. What helps you overcome challenges is to approach in a non-judgmental way and really express it and start accepting the self-acceptance. For example, I had self-limiting beliefs coming to the United States.
Bob Goodwin:My education in Brazil wasn't that great. I didn't have English. First of all, I didn't have the economic status to ask for favors, so I always thought I would never have a great job, but I would survive. So you have self-limiting beliefs that are conditioned through your experience. Now, should I feel ashamed because I had no money, no English and no prospects? I could and I felt many times. Should I feel guilty because I left my family in Brazil? Of course, but if I didn't overcome that and I had the luck to go to therapy, when you go through clinical work you have to have psychotherapy yourself.
Bob Goodwin:So I was lucky that way, but many people don't have the awareness that the conditioning that they experience might not have anything to do with the authentic selves that they want to be as a leader in the workplace or in their lives. So it's so important for us to eliminate judgment, to eliminate the idea that shame, guilt are serving a purpose, and allow people to express them until they find a way to feel safe enough to see the world differently. It's hard, isn't it? It's very hard, wow.
Wagner Denuzzo:So I mean, I just think about the context of what you're talking, about coming to a country with no money, not speaking the language you're kidding me and somehow getting to a place where you were able to do the work that you just described. One of the things that I would love to hear you talk about is working with leaders, and I'll use leader in more of the corporate structure, not in the distributed leadership, since I know they're in the democratized sense. I'm an SVP of whatever.
Wagner Denuzzo:Yes, yes, how often do you see that they got to where they got actually through negative motivation. My father told me I would never succeed. I am afraid to death of being a failure. My brother is a world-renowned brain surgeon, I have to. It's basically negative motivation versus self-fulfillment and self-actualization.
Bob Goodwin:Oh, bob, it's so good for us to talk about this because, first of all, I've been telling people, I've been talking a lot in conferences and speaking, and the tendency that we have to blame leaders for what's happening in the organization is really a serious problem Because, at the end of the day, you have to apply empathy across. It must be unconditional. When you are empathic towards others, you have to be unconditional and we have to stop this blaming, because binary thinking has no place in the new workplace. We have to deal with complexity, we have to deal with nuances and all that. So I work with a lot of senior leaders and once I tell you this, you talk about mindfulness. Let me just bring it all together here.
Bob Goodwin:I was talking to 400 senior executives responsible for a $17 billion business, and I start my session on leadership with the mindful minutes. I used to do that with my team Mindful minutes just a minute to calm down, calm your brain a little bit and focus. So we focus on being the hearing out and allowing ourselves to forgive ourselves for missing birthdays because these executives were very busy. They miss a lot of family reunions, events. The guilt is up to the, you know. So we started there, forgiving ourselves for not being perfect, because it's impossible to be in five places at once. So capacity is an issue. So we started there, and you should see the reaction of everyone. At the end of this session, I had a line of senior leaders saying nobody ever talked to us like this.
Bob Goodwin:Because senior leaders are going through this process of trying to figure it out. How do I manage what I knew to be leadership, which is usually related to power and advancement, and how do I start managing effectively in an organization that's a little more distributed, that's a little less hierarchical, or even, how do I work with my peers without feeling less than? Because the fear is like I'm losing relevance? My peers are more relevant than I am, so the fear of losing relevance is becoming a pervasive problem, and that's what you're seeing when you're not getting to innovation, when you're not seeing things change for the better.
Bob Goodwin:It's usually because the structure is an architecture of safety and control that people are protecting themselves, because it's a human nature, we want to always be in control for our lives and our reality, and safety is primarily number one priority for everyone. So it's very hard to deal with this right now, but I tell you this. Bob, you asked about this right. How do we deal with senior leaders? Senior leaders would benefit from allowing themselves to be engaged, but not emotionally attached to all this. That's what I always say be engaged. Say that again.
Wagner Denuzzo:What does that mean? Engaged but not emotionally attached to all this? That's what I always say Be engaged. Say that again. What does that mean? Engaged but not emotionally attached, Attached.
Bob Goodwin:Because you can be engaged in the process of creating a new way of doing things. I used to love my teams when they used to come and say, hey, this doesn't work for me, how can we do better? It's allowing yourself not to be the smartest person in the room without shame, allowing yourself to be self-confident, and this is what I tell people. This is good for all workforce out there. Self-confidence is not about knowing. It's about a belief, a belief that you can learn what you don't know, and a belief that you have the right to be where you are. It's different, isn't it that?
Wagner Denuzzo:sounds like imposter syndrome or the antidote to imposter syndrome.
Bob Goodwin:Yes, because a lot of people are feeling like that. Oh no, you talk about imposter syndrome. Let me tell you your audience for those who you know, because I had the experience also to losing jobs in my career, it's amazing how the imposter syndrome comes up quickly when you get into a new role. When you move to a new role, for example, immediately you feel like, oh, can I do this? Maybe they don't know that they hire somebody without capabilities. We say those things to ourselves because the anxiety is heightened. What I tell people is like don't let this anxiety take over the whole, because this is just a natural reaction to a new advancement, a new role. It's like Freud used to say depression is the natural reaction to reality. Sometimes. What I'm saying is imposter syndrome is a natural reaction to a new experience that you never had.
Bob Goodwin:How could you advance your career if you're always doing something that you always know how to do? You don't advance that way. So leaders have to start taking this approach of being engaged being engaged in learning, engaging in exploring, engaging in actually not being right. It's amazing what could happen if you become curious and have the courage to just step inside of your conviction, because what happens is conviction is a big problem today. Right, people are not making decisions based on conviction, data or intuition. They are really making these decisions. That's much, much more than anything else. Let's be real we, emotionally, are driven to make decisions that keep our safety intact. That's right. That's right and that's what we do. It's natural. But you see, it's good for us to talk about this, Bob, because we are normalizing experiences that sometimes become a problem and a derailment. Let's not let that happen. It's natural to have these reactions. It's just the degree you allow this to happen to you.
Wagner Denuzzo:So gosh, I mean 50 different directions that I'm excited about All of them. So I want to go back to a couple things. One is I think it's so cool that you're talking about this Talk that you gave to, about this talk that you gave to these senior leaders and you gave them permission to be human. That's what they reacted to, right, it's not about their title or their degree or their comp or their span of control or whatever. You talk to them like human beings and they don't get that very often, and I think that that is one of the things that I enjoy the most when I'm working with a client like that is connecting with them, like as a dad, as a husband, a parent, somebody who's afraid. So I think that that's really interesting. The next thing is I'm going to marry two things.
Wagner Denuzzo:You talked about convictions, but you also talked about confidence, and in our model, what we talk about is that you need to know what's true for you, your values, right. But also in a work context, what are you really good at? Not, what have you ever done in your life? Well, I've waited tables. I've worked at a hotel. Well, that's great, but is that really what you want to do? No, but I've done it before. But what are you really good at from a proficiency perspective, which can and should include you know the air quote, soft skills or what my friend Johnny Taylor at Sherm would call power skills right, but I'm really good at bringing a group together. I'm good at getting people to express what they're really feeling, to feel safe. But what are your convictions about you right?
Wagner Denuzzo:When we've got our convictions, that leads to clarity and, in my view, clarity is knowing what to say yes to but, more importantly, what to say no to. Right, there could be a lot of potential good yes answers. We need to stay away from the no, the things that are unhealthy, like this. This is making me become a person I don't want to be. This is right, you know, and that's I want to hear you say work, work, life harmonization in a minute, but you know.
Wagner Denuzzo:But knowing what to say no to is power. There is, you know, but knowing what to say no to is power. There is so much power in knowing what to say no to so that you know what to say yes to. But let me see you get to one more place and then I'll stop. I love this, that clarity leads to confidence, because now I'm being authentic and the way that we talk to our clients, because people are very self-effacing and they want to embody humility and they don't want to be perceived as bragging. Confidence is not cockiness, confidence is not arrogance. It's a self-assurance that's grounded in conviction. Yeah, and so, as a leader, when I'm confident, confidence is contagious.
Bob Goodwin:Yes.
Wagner Denuzzo:It actually, when your convictions are, as you said earlier, like rooted in empathy, care, intentionality for your people, people who are under your care, then that feeling that that gives them that safety because we've talked about fear that safety that it gives them is so empowering, and that's to me what unleashes the power in a team is that they feel safe and cared for, that they can make mistakes and that the leader's got vulnerability but confidence. I guess that's what I want to ask you. That's a weird dichotomy right of vulnerability and confidence, because I don't want to work for a basket case, you know, but I don't want to work for somebody who thinks that they're untouchable. How do we balance that?
Bob Goodwin:This is a hard one, but can we start with the clarity, because I love the word clarity, because people are talking to me about I don't have the capacity to upskill myself, because we're talking about like paradoxical things Take care of yourself but upskill yourself. Take care of yourself but be more efficient, be more productive, higher performance and there's less people doing the work. So all this, we know that's happening. So the confluence of all these forcing functions in the world are making us make decisions that are not the best for ourselves. So I say clarity, you say, leads to confidence. I agree, but clarity creates capacity as well.
Bob Goodwin:So think about capacity is limited. We are limited by time, space and physical energy. But if you are clear, you save time trying to figure out what others want from you. Because I just read a research 48% of employees right now, according to Gallup, don't know what's expected of them at work. Can you imagine 48% of employees not knowing what their managers expect of them? That's insane, because you can't create capacity for somebody who is so confused so they spend the whole time first creating rumors. Oh where we are going. What's happening here? Trying to figure out what people expect of them. Imagine how much time people waste being anxious doing that. So if clarity is there, all that time becomes capacity Imagine that that is such a great insight, wagner, I love that.
Bob Goodwin:So we have to start thinking about that. Then you talk about conviction and and and making sure that we create the conditions to me. Hr, for example. We talk about hr. The future of hr really is becoming a business capability unit in my view. So you're there to create capabilities, to really figure it out, the talent equation, and that is paradoxes, because you know, life is paradoxical and it's dichotomous as well.
Bob Goodwin:And I love how some people are referring to problems as dilemmas, because dilemmas actually is what it is. You don't solve dilemmas, you just manage them and navigate dilemmas. You know that's the world we are in. But going back to conviction and confidence in leading others, what I'm worried about is that and I see this happening we blame managers for everything. Managers, it's their fault that people are leaving. It's their fault the, the team, is not producing. It's their fault that things are not going well. It's their fault that the culture is not producing. It's their fault that things are not going well. It's their fault that the culture is not where they are. It's like that's a little binary to me, you know.
Wagner Denuzzo:Oh, it's managers.
Bob Goodwin:No, actually it's the whole ecosystem of the organization, because managers are a product of your senior leaders and your HR and your culture. So don't blame them because they're you right. How can you blame people in your own community? They're you, they're members of your organization. So let's help managers. Number one understand that we want them to take care of and the well-being of people, not because we want them to be therapists or counselors. Counselors because actually they just need to be more empathic and have the confidence of not absorbing everybody's problems, everybody's emotions. But they have not been trained. That's what I tell people is like we never train managers to set boundaries, to understand how a therapist, for example, allows emotions to come true, be empathic without taking it home. We never train managers. So it's time to train managers on how to set boundaries.
Wagner Denuzzo:Well, wagner, it's interesting. The study just came out and I'm trying to say Gallup, but that's probably because you just said Gallup, mentioning that a study just came out and I'm trying to say Gallup, but that's probably because you just said Gallup, but 66% of this is this is June 20th that we're recording this. So within the past couple of weeks, a study came out fully two thirds of frontline managers say they've never been trained. How can they provide clarity if they don't even haven't been trained? How can they provide empathy and real people skills, leadership skills, if they haven't been trained in them?
Wagner Denuzzo:And yet we know, and you just alluded to it, the strategy for the company comes to life at that level. That's where that's really where the rubber meets the road. That's where the teams are, and if they don't know what they're doing and what's expected of them, it's going to create stress, it's going to create burnout, it's going to create I love what you said just basically wasted capacity, which is a productivity measure. Ultimately, you can have attrition health care costs Like none of that is good healthcare costs like none of that is good.
Wagner Denuzzo:Why are companies like?
Bob Goodwin:not addressing this more intentionally? It's easy for us to put on paper a plan to create a better culture for everyone, a plan for men to be trained, a plan for everything. Now we need to start talking to the board of directors in big companies. I think the board of directors, they have to pay more attention to the talent piece. They talk about governance, they talk about the financials. There's a lot of risks that they are mitigating, I understand that, but talent is the biggest risk.
Bob Goodwin:To be honest, talent has become the biggest risk for an organization. With AI, with technology, with all the massive improvements in how people are delivering services and products and all that, there is no competitive advantage or growing your market share. It's not like that anymore. It's like how do you become so signature, so special in the market that actually you have a chance of growing your business in a different way? It's through building capability. So let's start with the managerial capability. How do we create the capability that, pervasively across all functions, are going to create the greatest value, which is empowered, engaged and skilled talent? To me, it's a no-brainer, but I don't think all businesses are there because they believe that. Oh, let's just ask managers to complete the annual surveys to complete the annual cycles. Identify talent, putting them in boxes. This is a dying strategy.
Wagner Denuzzo:Well, let me ask you this. Let me ask you this, wagner, because maybe this is a good segue into distributed workforces.
Bob Goodwin:Yes.
Wagner Denuzzo:So we come out, the pandemic. Obviously remote is big and CEOs very on board with remote. This is great until it's not great. And now it's all returned to office and you know if you want to come to the office, like, go find someplace else to work, you're finding, you know, employees going, I don't want to go back to the office or I want to do it on my schedule, and there's this real clash between management saying which I think is a very old school mentality you need to be in the office and they cite a study from an Indian call center of people being present and their productivity is much higher. It's like, well, that's not what we're talking about in most companies. So how do you? Maybe you can just start to lead us in a little bit of a conversation on the future of work and particularly distributed teams.
Bob Goodwin:I study this so much and I explore so much. Even at IBM, when millennials became popular because they're the new generation in the workplace it was very important for me to sponsor them, and when we created the Millennial Corp, they're fully active in engaging with our C-suite folks to understand what is expected of them, but also infusing the C-suite with some new ideas. That's essential, but you have to accept that as a leader, that maybe other generations have something valuable to say. Yes, and that was the case at IBM. So I was very lucky there.
Bob Goodwin:And management development was the same thing. We didn't train managers. Let me just say this. We didn't train managers on cycles, processes or programs or policies. What we trained managers on was the moments of impact, or the moments that have the greatest impact on the relationship of the employee with you. Dealing with failure first day in a client or in an account or in a team. Dealing with personal difficulties you know crisis. Celebrating milestones you know, you know crisis. Celebrating Mario Stones you know, so everything. Or taking a challenge when you say, oh, in a gig economy, there is an initiative that I want you to take, how do you help somebody feel confident in taking the opportunity? So all those six moments of impact is how we train managers and we increase engagement by incredible points. We decrease attrition of top talent by 5% and we went as far as asking could they have an impact on business? And we proved that the managers who had the experience with us, their teams, had 13% more likelihood to attain their business targets. So I've been doing this for almost 20 years now and I know it works.
Bob Goodwin:But folks have a hard time waiting for the product of a humanistic, human-centric approach to management development. They like the metrics of here and now, completion and cycles. That's not a good metric, but anyway. So, going back to what you're saying, how, how, how important this is because you're talking about the study that I did a lot of studying the new generation, the workplace, cross-generational workplace and I came to the 5ds. They are distributed because, even for people who are co-located, think about enterprises becoming ecosystems. Everybody's talking about this enterprise becoming an ecosystem of partners, these different talent pools.
Bob Goodwin:It's not your full-time employees only. You have to build capability by leveraging everywhere that you can find the skills and the capabilities. Because time really is so important Talent acquisition takes three months sometimes to find the right candidates for a skill that you need today. When you tap into Upwork or different A-teams an advisory that I do with A-team they have technology folks available to do incredible work, including AI, that you can build a team in a week. So you have to have this mindset that your workforce is distributed no matter how you place it.
Bob Goodwin:They are dynamic because Korn Ferry just published embraced a short term, because they don't think about months. First year dynamically they want to know that they made the right decision to come to you. Second year they want to prove that you are serious about developing them. Third year they want to prove that you said that advancement is something that is culturally what you want to do. So you have three years To be honest, you have only three years to show that you are serious about developing people and then in the third year, you identify a leadership pipeline or you let them go where they need to go.
Wagner Denuzzo:You know what the average tenure of a millennial is it's 2.13 months right. It's 2.8 years.
Bob Goodwin:Yeah, 2.8. But I do know that it's possible to do it. So they are distributed, they are dynamic, they are digital and we cannot leave other generations behind. When I say digital, the workforce has to be all very fluid in digital tools, in collaborative tools, in social media and all that. But they're also diverse because we can get away. It's becoming even more diverse as we speak. And my favorite D discerning. I think the new workforce is very discerning. They have access to social media. They have access to information that even the senior leaders don't. Sometimes it's more important for you to ask your employees about what's going on in the industry than trying to tell them, because probably they know more than you sometimes. But they're discerning, they're asking questions. Does this align to what I want to do? Does this align to my beliefs, my values? So, to your point, we are helping the workforce be more discerning and more self-confident, and I love that because I think we are grooming a lot of leaders for the future of work and I think that's excellent.
Wagner Denuzzo:So so that builds or maybe leads to your expression of teams or the future of work, and I think that's excellent. So that builds or maybe leads to your expression of teams. Are the new unit of value?
Bob Goodwin:Yes, I had the experience and I'm sure you did too, bob how amazing it is to be in a team that everybody's psyched into contributing whatever they can with what you're saying, what they like to do, what they are good at. Let's explore and allow this to happen. I had so many experiences in teams that came together and actually we treated each other equally as a collective leadership team the self-managed team of the Agile Ways Manifesto from 2000,. Look at this 2000 is 24 years ago and we're still having a hard time with self-managed teams. Allow teams to take the lead in innovation, simplification, automation and org design, new ways of working, new work design. Let teams come together, comprising all this talent and make them do what they need to do that they do best.
Bob Goodwin:I think that's the best way forward. But it's hard for senior leaders to allow that to happen because decision-making is a key issue. Decision-making makes people feel empowered. So giving and distributing power is very difficult. I say teams are the new unit value and for distributed teams you need distributed power. How to do that is not so simple.
Wagner Denuzzo:Yeah, I had a three-star general on the podcast a couple of years ago and his last role was leading the US Army for Europe. Not a small job, and one of the things that I really took away from that I think it ties in nicely with what you're talking about is senior leadership should help provide basically what some of the top line goals are Strategically. Here's where we're trying to go. I'm going to empower you with how we get there. The goal is what it is right, the timeline is what it is, but I am providing the trust and the autonomy for you guys to figure it out Right.
Bob Goodwin:The military is such a role model for us too. There's so many lessons there. I never forget working with people from the military, from the West Point Academy. It's helped me so much becoming an ambidextrous leader, becoming a leader the day you start your military career. I was just talking to another senior leader and he's in charge of human resource for the Air Force, and he was telling me it's like in the military our goal is to make frictionless. That's our goal. It's not to impose roles or how you deal with your career. We believe that you have to lead from the beginning. We encourage you to go through leadership training from the day you start and our goal is to make frictionless. How amazing that is, isn't it? That's really strong.
Bob Goodwin:Everybody's talking about trust. I was just in a panel where they said what's the number one problem that we are confronted with today in HR? And I was like trust. It's like trust is not a product that you can manage and produce. It's the outcome of everything you do every day, the single decisions you make, how you approach people, how you talk to people, how you approach your managers, how you talk about them. I have a good example. Somebody was saying to me managers have a huge problem. They have a gap in their skills because they don't know how organizations make money and they don't understand financial operating models. And all this I said to this person when was the last time you opened the books to managers to understand how you make money and to understand how you're managing the company financially? She said oh no, we don't do that. It's like how do you expect people to be aware of the financial operating model if you never explore or gave them access to understand how the company functions?
Wagner Denuzzo:I worked at a startup and one of the principles was transparency to a fault, and a big piece of it was the financials. And when you understood the levers, I mean one, you're just more informed, but it actually allows you to be more innovative, so you're able to A identify. Oh, that's a big lever to our profitability or growth. Let me either stop the bleeding over there or figure out how to go run through that door faster and better, because that looks like that's a big value driver. But if you don't know these things, then you can't act on them and you can't ideate and be creative around them bob, you just right here, right now.
Bob Goodwin:help me create another belief access leads to accountability. Think about that. How can you ask for accountability when you don't give people access to the information, the data to be accountable for? It's exactly what you're saying If you give people access, they take accountability to manage the reality, but not giving them access and expect them to manage well I think that gets back to what you were talking about in somewhere and all this is rooted is fear that I am losing control, and if I lose control, I lose relevance. Yeah, therefore I lose relevance.
Wagner Denuzzo:Yeah, Therefore, you know it's better to kind of hold it close.
Bob Goodwin:Yeah, and then exert authority, which is not the same thing as leadership. Oh, that's so important, isn't it? Because think about the and I know we're discussing a broad, broad themes here but this is important, isn't it? Because we are talking about the open source environments that we are in today. Let's be real. Companies are so focused on mitigating risks because information can leak to the public. Information has to be kept confidential, but how reasonable it is to try to spend so much energy trying to keep secrets when the whole world is an open environment, an open platform, an open source data, infusion of information that actually we are trying to mitigate the risk of being saturated. That's what it is. But why don't we reverse thinking and allow leaders to not be so worried about mitigating risks of information being leaked and just focusing on like, give access to people, ask them for accountability, to take responsibility for what is theirs. It's collective leadership, it's owning. Everybody owns the information, everybody owns the reputation of the company. What a different environment, isn't it?
Wagner Denuzzo:yeah very much, and and I would argue that the people you really really, really want on your team want that yes and the people who don't want that level of accountability and autonomy may not be the people that you want on your team. Let them go work for your competitor.
Bob Goodwin:And you see, the work you do in Career Club is so important because actually you're preparing people to face these realities right, because there's not one single reality. Each organization has their own ways of dealing with their culture and their realities and it's important for people to not be emotionally attached again, because what happened to us when we get laid off, what happens to us in an organization that do not allow us to use our skills, all these are consequences of something that you don't have control of, most likely. So it's so good the work that you do, because allowing people to realize that actually there's a little bit of your capability, skills and competency and ability to come through in an interview, but 70 percent. When you say 70% of the variance in engagement is due to managers, let's be real. 70% of the variance of your success in your career is due to organizational health.
Wagner Denuzzo:Really.
Bob Goodwin:Because, let's be real, it's not only the managers. Let's start being a little more open to all the nuances that are impacting the employee, because we are not doing a service to them and the employee experience that's frictionless is a great employee experience.
Wagner Denuzzo:Wow, that's such a great philosophy. I'm going to go look up the head of HR for the Air Force. That's pretty cool. I'm going to go look up the head of HR for the Air Force. That's pretty cool.
Bob Goodwin:So, lastly, we're going to end on kind of like a big question note kind of a big bang question, but take people through Wagner's definition or however you want to think about it of of leadership, and particularly leadership for the future of work. You know, I'm going to simplify my idea because I truly believe in this. It's almost my mantra. The role of the leader could be in HR, in business. The role of the leader today is to create the conditions for talent to do their best work is to create the conditions for talent to do their best work. So how might we, as leaders, allow that to happen? Get to know what people are capable of doing. That's curiosity. You have to be very curious and not follow your guidelines. I went to an mba at harvard. This so-and-so should have had an mba no actually the experiences you might have.
Bob Goodwin:One year experience that's much more fruitful than 20 years of the same experience. So let's be real about that. So to me, it's creating the conditions for talent to do their best work, and I think that requires a lot of humility, but I think I'm very hopeful. I think Gen Zs are really careful in how they see the world and how they lead. The only problem is we need to eliminate the fear of becoming a leader in an organization. Only 35% right now of employees wants to become a manager because they think it's too hard. Let's make a little more palatable to become a leader. Let's prepare people from the beginning of their careers to be a great leader, because they don't need to be perfect, they just need to be great.
Wagner Denuzzo:How about being a leader even if you don't have the title?
Bob Goodwin:Exactly Everyone. Well, that's the part of my book and I love saying this. In today's business, everyone is a leader. You know, everyone is a leader right Dealing with performance.
Wagner Denuzzo:There's so many opportunities and it really has, in so many ways, very little to do with title. Yeah, I agree, it's got everything to do with intentionality, exactly yeah. Is there anything that we haven't? I mean, there's a ton, but I want to make sure just for this particular little blob of an episode. Is there anything that you would like to leave people with that we haven't covered already?
Bob Goodwin:The only thing is what I always say Every encounter is an opportunity to learn. Just keep that in mind. Every encounter is an opportunity to learn and it's so rich when you live like that. So I hope people take that seriously. Curious, be curious.
Wagner Denuzzo:Yes, people take that seriously. Curious, be curious, be courageous. So, Wagner Danuza. Thank you so much. Wagner is the author of Leading to Succeed Essential Skills for the New Workplace. It's available now, wagner. Yes, people can go on Amazon.
Bob Goodwin:Yes, it's available on Amazon Barnes, nobles.
Wagner Denuzzo:And if they would, like to connect with you. What are the best channels to connect with you?
Bob Goodwin:My website's very simple it's WagnerDenusoglobal, so WagnerDenusoglobal.
Wagner Denuzzo:We'll put that on the final edit.
Bob Goodwin:Thank you.
Wagner Denuzzo:And connect on LinkedIn.
Bob Goodwin:Yeah, on LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm always posting, but thank you so much, bob, for this opportunity, because I think the the opportunity is to create confidence across the workforce, no matter where they are in their positions in their organizations, employed and unemployed, because actually everybody's in a transition right now. So, thank you so much. We are helping people, I hope.
Wagner Denuzzo:Well, and likewise, wagner. That's why I was so excited to have you on, because the principles that you're teaching people really, really resonate, and I know that people would benefit from being exposed to what you're sharing. So thank you for sharing that with us, and thank you everybody who took a few minutes out of your day to listen to today's episode on YouTube, and we encourage you to tune in next week when we've got another terrific guest. But in the meantime, go to careerclub and register for our free class, if that looks like something that would be helpful to you every Thursday.
Bob Goodwin:So again.
Wagner Denuzzo:Wagner, thank you so much.
Bob Goodwin:Thank you, Bob.
