Decoding AQ with Ross Thornley Feat. Kyle M.K. - Talent Strategy Advisor

Speaker A: Hi and welcome to decodingaq. Helping you to learn the tools, mindsets and actions to thrive in an ever changing world.

Speaker B: Hi and welcome to the next episode of Decoding aq. With me in my evening, his afternoon, I have Kyle MK from Austin. He's an executive strategy advisor, keynote speaker and a best selling author. In fact he wrote the Economics of Emotion, how to Build a Business Everyone Will Love. And I say to that, yes please. It was six years ago but we're going to get into that. He's got over a decade of experience guiding organizations to become more people focused and in an age of AI and tech and layoffs and all these sorts of things, be more people focused again. Yes please. CAR helps leaders to navigate that thing called future of work that we've spent so much talking about and really elevating emotional intelligence. So we're going to look at the sort of dance between emotional intelligence and adaptability and really looking at the customer experience. So he's currently serving as the talent strategy advisor at uh, Indeed. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. Welcome Kyle.

Speaker C: Thanks for having me Ross. I'm looking forward to this.

Speaker B: So as I said the, the book was six years ago since it came out. What's been the biggest surprise for you that came as a result of the effort that is producing a book?

Speaker C: Uh, uh, probably the biggest surprise is, is landing this job that I have at indeed. It is the most perfect fit of job and like of my expertise, the mission that indeed believes in, the clients that we talk to, the conversations we have. I could not have designed a better career in a computer. Uh, but it would not have happened had I not written the book. And so yeah, um, it's been a nice little uh, add on to the already great conversations that I had surrounding the book.

Speaker B: Walk me through that then. In terms of what was it that actually led to this role? What part of it was the book? Was it doing it? Was it a keynote? Was it an intro? Was it you applied for the role, they found you. Just walk us through a little bit of that because I think that's a uh, really fascinating, you know, thing you've shared there of I'm in a place where I feel I'm doing my best version of me. Uh, so tell us a little bit more about that, Carl.

Speaker C: Yeah, uh, it actually starts before the book. So right out of high school I started working for Apple at the Apple Store store as one does and within five years um, I became uh, obsessed with how people view cult brands like Apple and Southwest, uh, airlines and Disney. And because I knew how the sausage was made at Apple, I was a trainer of retail employees. And then I became, uh, the youngest project coordinator there where we helped develop a brand new call center. And uh, because I had all those experiences, I now wanted to see what it was like at Ritz Carlton and Southwest and Disney and Starbucks and all these other brands that everybody loved. Meanwhile, while I was going down that journey trying to uncover kind of the recipe of loyalty, a colleague of mine from Apple, uh, he was going, uh, he went to LinkedIn for a little bit and then he ended up here at Indeed. And after I wrote my book, we reconnected, which would have been 10 years later. And uh, he said, I think I have the perfect job for you. And he referred me and introduced me, uh, to the hiring manager. And after a very, very long hiring process, because there was a hiring freeze in there, Covid had hit, um, and the resulting hiring freeze, uh, that's how I got here. But it's indeed, uh, the, the hiring manager at the time, he kept up with me every single month for the entirety of that hiring freeze to make sure that I was still interested and that to uh, let, let me know that they were still interested in me. And so that's kind of where, uh, it came out of. But it's a good friend of mine to keep me in mind.

Speaker B: It's interesting, isn't it, how we connect things when we look back, right as we're doing it, we're just trying to lay the next, you know, next track on the train run. Right. And it's hard to often see what can come. We try vision boards, we try to build out, oh, what does it ideally look like? And I'm gonna pose, um, an opportunity for us to create a vision in a minute. But before I do that, that's what got you there, what's kept you there in terms of. You mentioned, and it came through very much in your energy of you're so aligned, you couldn't create a better, you know, job description, role, career than what it is. What do you actually do? What is a, uh, talent strategy advisor and why specifically? Uh, indeed. What is it? That's about it. And interestingly, I do want to bring up, uh, yesterday's podcast guest mentioned indeed. And so I'm going to call uh, out a couple of things that he shared as well. So. Yeah, what is it specifically about that that makes you feel it's so aligned to you and what is it that you actually do? Yeah.

Speaker C: So first, uh, question first when I started writing the book I was just a 27 year old kid, um, it published when I was 29. And at the time I was really just, I just had this, I have this gift, uh, of pattern recognition if you will. And so by shadowing and studying all of these different brands, I had noticed this like common theme that it really didn't matter how they did business as long as it centered around human emotion and that is how they gained all these loyalties. What indeed has been able to do is add the data side of things and truly add numbers to these theories that I had. Um, and uh, indeed happens to be the owner of the world's largest study of work, well being. So uh, our partners out of Oxford um, have proven that how someone feels about a brand directly impacts their performance over the next year. And so we can predict how well a company is going to perform um, like from a bottom line standpoint by looking at how like the surveys of how people uh, self review of what they feel. And so yeah that's, that's how indeed has kind of kept me here is uh, giving me full access to the world's largest data set of well being as well as just labor market data. Globally we have more labor market data than every government on the planet. So it gives us a really cool crystal ball and um, gets me to really understand kind of what's going on in the market. And then my job is to take all that information and I'm kind of like this defunct feeling future of work philosopher where I take the current trends and I obviously look at the historical figures. But then we project it into the future and say what do we think is going to be popular? What types of advice should we be giving employers now so that they can skate to where the puck is going. So a lot of my job is having one on one, uh, strategy conversations with executives from every type of business of uh, every size and every industry. And then obviously speaking at conferences like Unleash, um, and then on TV quite a bit or talking to um, publications about our latest findings and our latest research and where we think things are going. So as you can imagine quite a bit of stuff is going on right now. Um, you live in the world of adaptability. Very much a theme that I talk

Speaker B: about quite a bit, very much so. And um, one of the phrases a few years back that somebody said to me about the future is we've shifted from this model of prediction to preparation. And so where we're entering it's you know, unexplainable. We're on this exponential curve how much we can really vision out what historically would do yet three year, five year plans and it would be a slight copy and paste with a few tweaks from before. That's totally you know, shifting uh, at this pace. So with all of that data and the challenge of what's noise, what's signal and what will actually be relevant for tomorrow. If we were going to create a vision where um, the future. Kyle, let's say at the end of the year, end of 2025 we're having a conversation and you say that was the best year ever. What actually happened? What were the initiatives, what got done, what were the changes that were made, what did you stop doing? So if you think about that, say end of the year we're having the conversation and future Car says the year was amazing. Why fill in the blank?

Speaker C: I think maybe the, the, the first thing that comes to mind with that is uh, seeing a lot of employers take the human side of work more seriously. So far we've, we're very good like businesses are very, very good at optimizing data and operations like that is. And we um, incentivize that type of thinking by promoting operationally gifted individuals into leadership roles. Right. I think if by the end of the year we see a very intentional shift not necessarily away from operational efficiency, that's going to continue to be a thing but more towards uh, community driven engagement and ah, human centered like purpose and mission. I would say that that would make it the best year. And, and I don't know, I don't know if it'll happen this year. I, I think that with the addition of AI agents, um, robotics within the next few years like we will start to see a shift of mindset and uh, and I hope that employers will start to take it seriously then. But I find that most employers wait till something is knocking on their door before they start to move. And so 2025 might be a little too early to hope for that type of change or that type of shift.

Speaker B: I mean we measure as part of uh, our component of adaptability, intelligence. We look at something on a spectrum between burning ambition and burning platform in terms of what would motivate somebody to make an adaptation and a change. And you've just referenced that, that some people lead because they see a better version, others need to wait for it to be taken away, something that they cared about. And you know you've also painted this picture where we're shifting perhaps from this um, management of productivity and efficiency into Imagination and experimentation and technology drives a lot of that. But what I loved in what you said and what led us to this opportunity of a conversation is really around the human side, the connection, the love, the humanity, the massive disruption we're going to face. There's going to be a lot of that. How can we do that in a humane way? So what might we do? The decisions that we can make now and the opportunities you're seeing to give us a fighting chance of that happening. Even if the timescale is maybe not end of year but, but it moves to continually and perpetually move us towards that human center, human connection, you know, love and joy in the world. Rather than task robots.

Speaker C: Probably the biggest thing, at least a crusade that I've been on since, um, giving. Since been given the opportunity to speak to so many executives and employers is remind them why they got into the work that they do. Uh, one of my favorite questions that I ask is what did you want to be when you were 8 years old? And you see this interesting line of people who wanted to be baseball players or astronauts or paleontologists. Sometimes we get law enforcement folks, but all of those skills that they like, all those jobs that they had dreamed of when they were eight, those skills still exist in the roles that they have today. A lot of times it's about protection or it's about curiosity, um, innovative thinking, like problem solving, uh, all these skills are very transferable between the dream job of an eight year old and the job of an executive in a tech company or a manufacturing company. Um, so a big part of my job is to remind folks that the work that they do now, although that they are mostly centered on numbers and data, uh, it is driven by the humanity of it all. And so I think when companies start to consider this shift and to be more like human centric, we really have to rely on what makes us human, which a part of that is our sense of purpose and what drives us, what motivates us. And also, um, why does the business exist in the first place outside of making money, which is of course a nice result of a really great product or service. The that product or service was built out of a need, um, or out of a desire to help people. And uh, really, really reconnecting folks to that main mission kind of opens up their eyes. I've seen it in real time where they opens up their eyes to see new ideas and I and futures for their business and to where they aren't squeezing their employees for everything that they're worth, but rather like Cultivating an environment that allows that, like, that unlocks human potential, that removes the friction between people and their best work. And that's been a really awesome shift of mindset that I've seen multiple times over the course of a number of years. So that's kind of the way that I approach it at least is reconnecting folks through their own personal experiences and then also through the purpose or mission of the business and identifying what is the core human trait here that we can latch onto as our grounding or as our ground. And, um, how do we center every bit of operations around this? Uh, from the language in a job ad to how we say goodbye to individuals who are choosing to leave the company. Like everything in between there, there's a lot of opportunity to make more human and to connect.

Speaker B: And these are often decisions that are made under pressure, under duress. Right. So we might feel connected to that purpose and the outcome, to protect the vulnerable, to leave the next generation better educated, whatever it may be that we're really connected to. And then we have what often comes along is, uh, a duality, a paradox that I'm connected to that. And technology often gives us a way to deliver it, that on the flip side might dehumanize and devalue certain people, certain roles and tasks. And so, um, that conflict, that inner conflict. So, for example, you mentioned robotics. I was, um, at a conference with the founder of Figure 1. They were talking about the sort of 20 key players of humanoid robots, from uh, Tesla to Chinese ones to all of these and the various predictions of numbers that will have 10 billion of these by 2030, how many would you want if it was 300 bucks a month to lease one of these things, and they were capable of doing a lot of the dirty, dangerous and disgusting jobs. So that fire service, whatever it may be, that's in there, when we're under pressure making these decisions, we're rewarded, as you mentioned, often by efficiencies, numbers, you know, and not hugs and joy. Uh, so how do we re engineer and set and rig the game for a better, humane world? Because I don't feel it's got the design for that currently. So are you seeing the same thing? Are you seeing something differently? And from what you're seeing, how do we move that forward?

Speaker C: We're in a very interesting time because a lot of the leaders today are very operationally minded, not all of them, but a good section, uh, of them. And so they are thinking of how are they going to build a more efficient, uh, less risky future. And These are folks who would consider humans to be risky because they can be late or tired or stress, you know, whatever. And uh, I don't know. But for me it's like you have to lead with the work. This is a, this is a phrase that's spoken by a gentleman that I actually just interviewed earlier this week, uh, Robin J. Suthasan. Uh, he's a thought leader, speaks at World Economic Forum quite a bit. And he always says lead with the work, not with the tech. And if we think about the work that we're trying to accomplish, it's say if you're building furniture, obviously you want that furniture to be high quality and comfortable and easy, uh, to like accessible for folks from a price standpoint. So in that case you might think like creating a, um, an entirely automated manufacturing plant would make sense. I say like that is partly true, but humans are the ones using the furniture and humans are the ones that are looking at the furniture. It is a human based product. So even if you may not have an individual stapling a chair over and over again and getting all sorts of hand, uh, pain throughout the day, um, maybe we provide them with an opportunity

Speaker A: to

Speaker C: uh, find places for this furniture to enrich the lives of, of other human beings. So if we can make it more accessible. Okay, instead of building chairs, now I want you to start building communities using our furniture. So let's go talk to libraries, let's go talk to uh, other like nonprofit organizations who wouldn't normally be able to use our stuff with um, with high prices. And now that we have these cost saving measures, how do we get our product in front of as many people as possible so it becomes their favorite place to, to sit and connect with one another. So it is a completely different dynamic for these individuals. And you talk about this a lot is like some folks are going to have entirely new jobs within the next few years and all these skills that they've been developing, they may seem like they aren't necessarily relevant to the future or their future, but every single one of them sticks and they go with them, um, and just kind of reframing why they're there and why it's important to have a, a human behind some of those texts I think is super important.

Speaker B: Giving yourself permission to find an uncommon, you know, through line to a destination you didn't perhaps imagine for yourself. A lot of us work to uh, a mastery. You know, we go, we get educated, we pick a particular discipline and we work up the ladder and we're given more and more responsibility but it's still in a lot of terms the same environment, the same field, the same game. We're now looking at an opportunity where we're trying to reimagine. You talked there. An example of a uh, factory worker to a community builder. And these transitions for many, whilst the skills might be a through line, what we've often seen is the barriers, the mindset of an inability to imagine myself, um, you know, the potential of that person or for others to recognize that opportunity because the squiggly career didn't look like that, um, of those things. So I'm curious in terms of who's doing this work, which departments, which budgets and how is it getting a business case to help that transition through

Speaker C: who's doing this work? Uh, the first comment that comes to mind, you may not have ever heard of um, uh, have you ever heard of the grocery store? H E B. I haven't, but I,

Speaker B: I forgot to compliment you on um, Raven's pronunciation because I had him on the show. And Jason Carson, I really struggled with his uh, pronouncing his name but an awesome guest. Sorry, I haven't heard of the.

Speaker C: He's incredible.

Speaker B: Yeah, really cool.

Speaker A: Cool.

Speaker C: Guess so. HB is a regional grocery store here in Texas. Anybody that's ever lived in Texas or been to Texas or has you know, uh, um, looked up employers, they, they know of hb. HB is one of the most human centric companies I've ever had the pleasure of working with. Working for my dad worked for them for 20 years. They have never strayed away from the community piece even though they have come up with new technologies to make their operations run smoother. And they've purchased uh, uh, or they've purchased a company to make things more uh, convenient for their customers through delivery. But uh, they've never really lost sight of that core mission. Uh, so they're the first ones that come to mind. Trying to think of some others that have shown a lot of growth because I really like the companies that have identified change. Um, uh, is, is coming and, or rather it's already here and that they are not necessarily waiting for data to make a move. So I, I think it was like Spotify, um, had said, like we're never gonna go to, we're never gonna return to office. You know, we have offices but we're going to treat our folks like adults. Like that's something that came out of

Speaker A: COVID

Speaker C: Um, Shopify is uh, also saying that they want everybody to be like have reflexive AI and um, instead of Just saying it, they're actually providing their employees with all of the time and the tools and the resources in order to build this brand new muscle. So those are the types of traits that I really love seeing in employers nowadays are the ones that are saying like oh, instead of telling our employees what to do, let's actually build an environment where they feel empowered to do these things and that they are obviously enabled to do them by giving them the extra time. Um, so yeah, that's a piece. But then you've got other companies that are going the opposite way, um, and that they are laying a bunch of folks off maybe because they over hired in 2022 or maybe because they've already started to implement some of this new technology, but they're not thinking about how to be creative and utilizing all this institutional knowledge to the benefit of the future of the business. They're just saying let's just cut off this arm of the business or this, this finger. And uh, we could survive with four fingers. Right? And so that's uh, that's been something that I think we, we will, we will also see are these uncreative companies that are, are totally fine with letting go of this wonderful talent that knows the business, that loves the mission or believes in it, but they're not creative enough to think how can we reutilize this uh, this talent in ways that serve our mission in new uh, and like innovative ways outside of the role that they might have done in the past.

Speaker B: And that's a huge challenge that many are facing. Right. The employee mobility inside as previously that might have been over a longer period of time in which to find the new home, the new skills, the reskilling that's required, the speed that, that is now um, economically viable is very challenging for organizations to be able to deploy uh, initiatives and programs to do that unless they're playing a long term game.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Ah. Like you said. And um, I'm curious where. We've spoken to loads of people who get it. I get what the vibe that we're talking about human centered stuff. Love doing that. You know, even when it comes to technology, it's never really a technology issue, you know, AI or this isn't working, the adoption's not up there yet. It's always a human, it's a human issue. Right. It's why IQ before AI, right. It's adaptability before into whatever the technology is is that we're still, you know, we're speaking to senior chros in big organizations that get it, understand this, but they've still got to get budget and sign off from the CEO, from CFO on these sorts of things which are less understandable or tangible to the business outcome of finance and money, uh, and growth. And so how have you seen that and are you seeing it? To overcome that barrier of we want more love, we want more connection, we can see more value in this human side of it, but where's the budget for that? You know, where does it come from? And I think that's one of the biggest frustrations we're seeing in the HR world. They get it, but their hands are tied, they're restricted. And they're often under such pressure to deal with too many things that some of the decisions they're making is causing them internal conflict as well.

Speaker C: So this is my favorite question because this was the piece that I was missing. Um, although I had an inkling because all these companies that I had, uh, studied, they treated their employees well. Their employees loved working there and they just happened to be at the top of their respective industries. Like, that's not a coincidence. And I don't think it's, uh, the question was like causation, uh, right. Or correlation. And, uh, our partners at Oxford, uh, specifically, uh, uh, Jan Emanuel Deneuve, who runs the well Being Research center out of Oxford, and, uh, his partner, Dr. George Ward, they have proven that when you take care of your employees, your employees take care of your business. And we went so far as to create a fake, like a simulated stock index that we call the Work well Being or the well being 100, where we look at all of the surveys from these employees. Um, because on, indeed, whenever you go to fill out a review for your company, uh, you're also asked about how you feel about them. We ask you 15 questions around your wellbeing. Okay? When we look at the highest well being, scores of companies, we took that, uh, in December, uh, at the end of every year, we look at the highest well being and we invest a fake thousand dollars into the, into our work wellbeing 100, as well as into like the Russell 5000 and the NASDAQ and S and P and so on. And our stock index outperforms every other stock index every year. And all we're doing is looking at previous history of how people say that they feel at the business. And they went so far. And they really, uh, they just released the book. George Ward and Jan Emanuel, they just released a book about this. But they went as far as proving that no matter how much money you invest in your employees, they will Pay it back tenfold. And so if we put in a thousand dollars, they will return 10. And if they, you've put in a hundred thousand or ten million or a hundred million into creating a better environment for your employees, that money is earned back, um, and obviously with plenty of interest. So uh, this question of is it really worth it? The answer is yes. Like it is proven and we've proven it many years in a row now. And this is probably, this is the very first time that someone has truly been able to prove it. Because without the help of indeed's kind of breadth around the world, um, we haven't been it, we wouldn't have these tens of millions of data points to pull from. Um, but I believe that that's probably one of the, if not the most groundbreaking finding, um, from a, from an industry standpoint for the last few decades, like it is a pretty significant find that how we treat our employees directly impacts the work that they do. It sounds super obvious.

Speaker B: It sounds obvious.

Speaker C: Those who rely on numbers. Here it is, here's the number.

Speaker B: And then it's the responsibility and the jobs of those people leading those initiatives to speak that language, um, and be able to leverage that data to get the things done that they want to get done. It's interesting when you talk about that we um, have been softly launching a research project that we're wanting to do because we have, in the same way you mentioned, uh, there this hypothesis of well being and it's linked to business performance. We have a hypothesis of adaptability and it's linked to performance based on the fact that, right, we're going into this VUCA world, Barney world, you know, all of these things, exponential technologies. It's the ability of humans to adapt. And we're looking at things like psychological safety, mental flexibility. We look at, you know, ah, 15 components that we're looking at. Funny, you mentioned 15 questions. We've got 15 sub dimensions across ability, character, environment. And I've often talked about if we had the map of that across organizations, that would make a great fund the AQ index. Um, our view from the research we've done is that the most adaptable people, teams and companies will survive in an uncertain world. So uh, I'd be fascinated to see how might we be able to scale up that research project.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: We've uh, put in some funding to be able to say, okay, our AQ assessment, we can gift that million dollars worth, 10,000 of these things to get into the hands of people so that we can then do some data and research. About it. So maybe there's an opportunity with the reach and things that you have to look at that study where we're combining with a couple of um, universities around that, that project. Because it's the balance, isn't it, between data driving it stories, then from that data to drive it and then the emotional impact of, oh, I make the decision around those, those kind of things. So if you're giving advice now to an organization around this challenge of AI, AI agents, humanoid robotics, all of these things, what's the scoop? What's the skills, what's the cuts, what's the reorgs, what's the advice you're giving them around how they make decisions of that? Because I know that many of our listeners would be super grateful for your insights around that challenge because they're facing it right now of how do they think about this? What are the right questions they should be asking themselves so that they are better prepared for what's coming? Because many are quite blind to what's coming.

Speaker C: I think they are. Yes. I would agree, um, uh, with uh, the, the thing that I've been talking about the most lately is skills first hiring. Are you familiar?

Speaker B: 100. I just had uh, Gary Bowles in for the second time around from Su, good friend of mine who, yeah, Skills First Hiring, Skills transformation. We've had lots of people about it, write about it, we're on it. Tell us more.

Speaker C: Yeah, I, I would expect nothing less. Um, so obviously Skills First Hiring is not the right name because it doesn't just talk about, it doesn't encompass just hiring. It is a full ecosystem and uh, it's a total restructuring of talent strategy and talent management. Skills first is probably the most operationalized version of humanizing a business because it speaks to being open minded about people's backgrounds and uh, what they bring to the table. It's uh, it encourages um, employers to really think to do what Robin says is lead with the work. So what are the outcomes that we're looking for? And my favorite phrase has become like your next hire should not look like your last and it won't look like your last because whoever we hire next, maybe we want them to improve uh, team morale. And we don't necessarily care as much about their productivity as we do about the team morale. Maybe we are hiring for innovation. So we're hiring so we want to look at folks who think differently than others. That means that they're going to have a different career than others. I fall in that boat. Um, a very, very different career than the folks that I'm lucky to work with. Um, so that, that comes to that, that really like kind of uh, shakes the ground and uncovers these things that employers haven't really thought about in an intentional way probably in a very long time, if not ever. And um, and so that's been the, the biggest kind of bullhorn that I've been using lately is walking folks through what a skills first ecosystem looks like, what it takes at each step of the talent journey from before someone searches for a job to after they exit the company and identifying what you need internally from a training standpoint to really like help this along. And probably not a surprise, but emotional intelligence training for people leaders is like the biggest thing that is missing. Um, so yeah, like that I would say is my short medium answer to like how to operationalize a more human

Speaker B: centric future is to use that kind of playbook and framework from having a taxonomy or an ontology around it to mapping where you currently are to then, you know, reimagining uh, roles, uh, in new ways. Right? That we have skills, we have tasks, and we have a job to be done, an outcome. And that might not go under the old title, and the title is kind of a, uh, funky way of envisaging a unicorn that never exists in a, uh, job description to imagining, well, what are the skills? We can figure out some of the tasks right now, but they're going to shift and change. And the outcomes, some of those will be reimagined too, of those things as we adapt and learn along the way. So give me an example of an initiative that you're working on right now that you're really excited about that is helping you and indeed drive towards that vision and that future of people centric, more connected. What are some of the initiatives that you're doing? Is it a skills based initiative? Are there some other things that you're working on right now that you can give us a little bit of detail and then I'll hit you with the final question that I ask every guest on the show once we've done that.

Speaker A: Kyle.

Speaker C: Great. Uh, I think two things come uh, to mind. So the first one is we are very, very uh, interested in improving the, the match between a job seeker and uh, and a potential employer. And obviously, as you probably are aware, there's a lot of dating apps in the world that are also trying to solve the same problem of what makes a good relationship. And at work it's so funny to think about it as kind of a dating app, but that's really what indeed. And LinkedIn and Glassdoor and ZipRecruiter. That's all we're doing is we're just trying to build long term relationships ideally. And so that's something that we're working on pretty heavily is what makes up a good match. Um, uh, obviously skills match is a big piece of that. Uh, that's probably one of the main things that's on the top of mind for employers is like we have these requirements, we need to fill them. So we need a skills match but job seekers are thinking about it uh, also from a purpose and mission piece. So we need to know what the employer believes and we also would like to know what the job seeker believes so we can help folks find that place where they feel like they can thrive. Um, management styles is a big piece of that. Like I know what type of manager I work best under and what types I don't work best under. I'm sure all of us have stories and ideas. So okay, so that's one is matching. How do we make matching as human as possible? Um, so that way folks can uh, find some of the best work of their lives, uh, through us. And then the other piece and the one that I've been thinking a lot more about, which is kind of a little bit of what I just talked about is the culture map of how does an employer sell itself and how does it describe its culture. And Ross, uh, I've had this amazing opportunity to speak to hundreds of huge and medium sized companies and executives from all around. Maybe 3% of those folks know how to, how to describe what it's like to work at their business. They'll say oh it's fun and we've got a great like collaborative atmosphere. I was like yeah, you can say that about every single environment and it would be true.

Speaker B: Um, it's like going into a grocery store and a ah, skew saying I've got a price sticker. You know, it's like

Speaker C: hey, that's kind of table stakes. That's so what makes you specifically a great place to work. Like what makes you so special? What makes Apple different than Microsoft, different than Google, different than OpenAI? They're all tech businesses but there's um, that soft tissue in between. The structure is truly what makes it worthwhile. Um, and so helping them find the language to really present themselves well so that job seekers, so it's easier for job seekers to find that, that good match. Uh, that's been top of mind for me. Like how do we, how do we label a culture in A way that's authentic and transparent and uh, um, and signals to job seekers. If this doesn't sound like it would work for you, please don't apply. Um, because this is what we've got.

Speaker B: It's a filter, right? It's linked to that. Matching is the story, the articulation. And in fact, in the um, recording I did yesterday, we were talking about Palmer, uh, Luckey and his campaign for Underworld that said, don't come and work for us basically everywhere. You know, it's going to be hard. It's, you know, long hours. It's all of these things. Whatever you are, uh, how do you articulate what that is, as much to repel wrong fit as it is to attract right fit for those things? And I think the challenge is as we transition from a pre designed, pre expected list of tasks and responsibilities and hire for that, that within three months or six months, what we expect them to do is going to be entirely different and what we want them to do is going to be entirely differently. So, you know, things like learning, agility, we measure unlearning. You know, some of these things are as important as, oh, I've been there and done it before. You know, we've had, uh, what's your experience? Oh, well, that predicts you might be good doing it again. Well, if the entire environment shifting, how we do it, what we do is shifting, then the value of experience might actually be a devalue in some future roles. Right. Uh, of that ability to experiment, to be naive, um, to ask silly questions, to come up with the solutions to problems we don't know that exist just yet. I, I find it such an exciting time to be alive. And I'm sure everybody would say that based on their mindset. Right. The mindset is just the time that time that you are. So the, uh, question that I ask is around curiosity. It's a tip of the hat to one of our first guests, uh, Dr. Diane Hamilton, who wrote the Curiosity Code, and it was inspired by my conversation with her. And it is. Kyle, when was the last time you did something for the first time and what was it?

Speaker C: Uh, yeah, in my, in my personal life I've, um, My wife and I, we live down the street from some great, uh, mentors of ours. And uh, this gentleman, uh, his name is Alan, he speaks about community in a way that like, he's just kind of the, he's the local Fred Rogers. Um, Right. Uh, and so the way that he talks about storytelling and that's the world that he lives in, he's in theater. And the uh, way that he speaks about storytelling and community is wonderful. And so one of the things that I'm always trying to do is how to take his teachings and apply it to work. Apply um, it obviously in my own life and with my family and friends. So something that I have been curious about is is it possible to uh. Very similar to like when you go to the theater, you've got this gigantic auditorium of individuals from all different walks of life. But they're all sharing in this story and all this experience. They're laughing, they're clapping at the same time, they now have something in common afterwards. And then not to mention the people on stage, they're going through their own experience. How do you replicate that lovely feeling at work in a way that's authentic and not forced? Um, and so uh, that's been a big mindset shift for me and just how I present and how I speak. Um, so it's a little bit of self discovery. It's also a little bit of experimentation with uh, these different types of presentations that I do at executive briefings or at conferences just to really disrupt people's understanding of what these types of conversations can be. Because it really comes down to the point of humans, uh, are always going to human. That's something that we can always rely on and that means that we are emotionally driven. And uh, if we truly stop to understand those emotions and what it takes to enrich someone's life, then uh, we are more fulfilled in doing the work and enriching those lives. I think so yeah. That's a uh, long answer. Sorry.

Speaker B: No, it's beautiful and it do you know, it made my brain spin in lots of different directions. And I'm going to share a couple of quick bits of it though. I was joining some. I don't know whether they actually joined together but some dots in my head of years ago I saw this story about a theater where um, essentially the, the price or the bill or something was linked to whether you actually laugh or smile. So they were come along, they had the, the tech and the bits that would look at you and if you smiled you'd have to pay, you know, let's say a penny per smile, a laugh, 5p a laugh, etc from this it will guarantee you the outcome of those uh, things rather than saying yes, we're going to be funny, it's going to do. This is. Well if it doesn't land with you, you don't laugh, you don't pay. Right. And it was just that interesting Concept So almost like the next layer of, uh, pay, if you liked it at restaurants and things like that. We got this tech in. What it made me think of with all of this tech that we got, you know, aura, ring, sleep, you know, if we're wanting to build wellness, if we're wanting to get to coherence, you know, lower cortisol, if we're wanting to have, you know, different physical states, emotional states, mental states that are the upstream precursors to great problem solving, great connections, great solutions. Could we connect up to the next presentation that Kyle does? Uh, they're wired up to, uh, I made them all feel love or joy or these sorts of things. And that's what gets the sign off or the applause or those sorts of things. So it was just a random thoughts I was having about where might we take this to really push ourselves. Um, in what are we responding to? Um, of things and making that more visible. Right. Because a lot of this is secret, invisible and unseen. Other than in a survey. Um, what might be the next level? That just curious, your reflection on my random thought there before.

Speaker C: It's very interesting. Um, I love when we start thinking about how do we quantify this, uh, like a feeling.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Because like, I, I wonder why, why we're always drawn to wanting to quantify everything. It's for us to make it more efficient, for us to understand, probably, maybe to.

Speaker B: To live it. If I've, you know, the. The frequency and resonance of gratitude, you know, and that helps us live healthy, you know, less disease, all of those sorts of things. And whilst I might journal, what was it? Was it this person or when I'm ever in their energy, in their space, they uplift me. Or when I walk in nature, we do those things and we're trying to figure, um, out along the way. Many just walk through life as zombies, right? Not really aware, not really present. They're just repeating and not, uh, figuring out. I've always been somebody who's been curious to. How do we decode this? How do we find this out in order, like you say, to understand and to reduce what we don't want. Dark, you know, dark room, sharp objects, those sorts of things. And increase what we, what we do want. Right? Yeah.

Speaker C: I always think of like the, um, the emotional nutrition plan is that we always think that we only want happiness. But that's like only eating pizza all day every day. You don't get another choice. And I am the biggest pizza fan. Uh, the, uh, pizza place catered to our wedding. Um, it's so like that sounds like a dream, to be happy all the time. But the emotional nutrition plan says no. We want to feel frustration because then we, like, anger tells us when we feel like we're being treated unfairly or if we're being blocked from something that we desire. Sadness is, uh, a opportunity for us to connect with one another because it's our response to loss. And we're always going to experience loss. I mean, that's the one inevitable thing we can always count on is loss. So we're going to respond to that. We don't want to get rid of. Um, helps us, uh, appreciate the present more. So, like all of these, same with disgust, same with fear. They're there to save us from a perspective.

Speaker B: It's Disney, Pixar, inside out.

Speaker C: It's exactly that. It's exactly that same psychologist that I subscribe to, Dr. Paul Ekman. Uh, and yeah, that is. So when we think about quantifying, I would want to quantify it from the standpoint of, yeah, understanding. But I don't want to use it to try to predict or try to manipulate in a way that says, uh, like, all of our customers are happy 100% of the time. It's like, oh, well, then that means that there's some manipulation happening and you're not allowing them to be upset. And you've created this operation that doesn't allow them to be upset, which means that you will never grow, they will never understand what really matters to them. So we want to. There's a spectrum here that we want to spectrum.

Speaker B: The opportunities in the friction, you know, the opportunity is in those tension points that lead us to, you know, good and bad decisions in the moment and hopefully healthy habits for ourselves and others around us that we care.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: That same emotion that is felt could trigger the creation of the most impactful NGO or, you know, uh, effort, or it could end in suicide. Now that emotions, you know, inert, we give it the action and the meaning, uh, around it. And I think that dealing with those extremes where it leads to addictions, bad addictions, whether that's drugs, alcohol or workaholism, you know, lots of different things that are unhealthy habits, it's not the emotion itself, it's our response and reaction to it. And I think this is where emotional intelligence, where adaptability, intelligence, when we experience these things, how are we reimagining and responding in an effective way, uh, of those things? Uh, so this has been absolutely awesome. I'm excited to see where we might take things, uh, in collaboration, maybe off live. Uh, in terms of our research study, that would be an awesome thing to explore. But I'm really grateful for your time, uh, today, Kyle. It's always a highlight for me is to hang out with awesome thinkers like yourself who are willing to share, willing to give their opinion and listen along the way. So thank you, Kyle.

Speaker C: Thank you very much for the invite. Ross. This has been awesome.

Speaker A: Do you have the level of adaptability to survive and thrive the rapid changes ahead? Has your resilience got more comeback than a yo yo? Do you have the ability to unlearn in order to reskill, upskill and break through? Find out today and uncover your adaptability profile and score your AQ. Visit AQAI IO to gain your personalized report across 15 scientifically validated dimensions of adaptability. AQ AI transforming the way people, teams and organizations navigate change. Thank you for listening to this episode of Decoding aq. Please make sure you subscribe on your favorite podcast directory and we'd love to hear your feedback. Please do leave a review and be sure to tune in next time for more insights from our amazing guests.