Work Blues & Broadway Tunes with Mary Faulkner
Michael Vandervort, Mary Faulkner & Phil Wilson.
Michael Vandervort: [00:00:10]
Our guest today is Mary Faulkner. Mary is a talent strategist and business leader with 20 years of experience helping organizations achieve their goals. After working on the operations side of startups and small companies, Mary is now a principal with IA, which is an advisory firm that helps guide organizations through business transformation. Mary, great to have you on The Left of Boom Show. How are you?
Mary Faulkner: [00:00:31]
Thanks for having me. I’m great. How are you two doing today?
Phil Wilson: [00:00:34]
We’re doing great.
Michael Vandervort: [00:00:36]
Phil is a little under the weather, but soldiering on.
Phil Wilson: [00:00:42]
Yes. That’s why we’re broadcasting from my … I look like I’m in a hostage situation here, but I’m just at home.
Michael Vandervort: [00:00:51]
Got dogs locked out. They could come in at any moment and cause havoc. So anyway, like I said, we’re going to talk about a couple of different topics. The first one we’re going to jump into though is more of a personal question for Mary, and that is Mary, who is somebody that you believed in early on and how did they inspire you to help you become who you are today?
Mary Faulkner: [00:01:14]
So, this is an interesting question because it depends on almost what part of life you’re in in some ways. But there are two key people. So, one is my first supervisor at Dish Network where I worked, and was my first adult job is how I joke about it. So, I had worked in startups and that sort of thing beforehand. Her name was Stephanie Sigler, and I’m still good friends with her today. And she cared enough to give me hard feedback is how I would put it.
[00:01:44]
So, I’d always been an overachiever in that sort of thing, but she was really good about saying, listen, we get that you have opinions, but you need to tamp it down, and you need to figure out how to read the room and that sort of thing. So, Stephanie has always been the person who tells me when you’re getting overboard type of thing. The other person I would highlight is Jennifer McClure. And Mike knows Jen. So, Jennifer and I worked at a company together, and she’s the one who’s like, you really should be writing a blog, or you should be tweeting, or you should get on social media and that sort of thing.
[00:02:23]
And I’m like, oh, I don’t want to do any of those things. Well, she didn’t make me but I credit her with that. And she’s the reason why I have an opportunity to talk with all these wonderful people and why I’m in my role today. So thank you, Jennifer.
Michael Vandervort: [00:02:37]
I didn’t realize you guys worked together. I never knew that.
Mary Faulkner: [00:02:42]
Yeah. We were at a company. I was working at a company, and Jennifer was brought in as a consultant because the CHRO was gone. And so, she was brought in. And she had worked with the CEO in the past. So, we had a chance to work together for maybe a year or so. And she took me to my first conference and all that sort of fun stuff. And that’s how I met everybody else.
Michael Vandervort: [00:03:11]
Yeah. And it was a big change.
Phil Wilson: [00:03:15]
It’s funny, a big misconception, Michael, that you hear about this when we teach approachable leadership is this whole thing about leaders. I have to be liked. I have to be friends with the people that I lead. And they’ll sometimes push back around “Well, does being approachable mean I can’t be tough? Because sometimes I need to give blunt feedback.” And I think it’s really interesting the people that often stand out to us in our lives are those people that are like, “Hey, you’re better than this. You can do more than you’re doing.”
[00:03:58]
And a lot of times they catch us at times in our life where that’s the spark that we need to move on to the next thing. So, I think it’s interesting you picked two people that did that right, that either gave you the rough feedback about reading the room and things like that, or just like, “Hey, why aren’t you doing this thing? I think you’d be awesome at it.”
Mary Faulkner: [00:04:23]
Yeah.
Michael Vandervort: [00:04:24]
You mentioned being friends. When I first started in HR, I had two mistaken assumptions. One was that HR should be like the therapist for every employee who walks in the door for an issue. And so, I spent hours listening to people. I was like, what am I doing in this profession? The other one was I had a hard and fast personal rule that I wouldn’t be friends with anybody at work because I might have to fire them someday. And it sucked. It was really hard not to be friends. You wanted to be, but I couldn’t break my own rule.
[00:04:57]
It took me about five years to figure out, which is a long time and wasn’t a great start to that early part of my HR career where everybody thought I was kind of standoffish and that sort of thing. I had to learn to get over myself a little bit. And I was helped by a couple of people who said, “What’s wrong with you? Why are you so [unintelligible 00:05:17]?” Anyway, I finally realized that was not the case. And my last 30 years have been a lot better and fun as a result.
[00:05:26]
Mary, I know you well. Phil knows you a little bit. But let’s talk about Mary Faulkner and IA. Tell us what you’re doing these days and what you guys do at IA.
Mary Faulkner: [00:05:40]
Yeah. So it’s funny, you were going to say AI. We run into that all the time.
Mary Faulkner: [00:05:46]
We like to joke that we were cool before AI was cool, but that’s fine. So, IA is an advisory firm. We’re pretty small, but we handle clients anywhere from 500 to 500,000. And we are in the people transformation business. So, we help organizations really think through some pretty big-scale transformations, whether it’s their operating model, thinking through their business processes, and making them better. We help with selections around different software solutions or services.
[00:06:17]
But what we really do on the back end is we’re the glue that keeps the project going. And we really help coach the people that we work with. And so, while we’re transforming the business, we also like to think that we’re transforming the people that we work with as well. So, Mark Stelzner is the founder and one of the managing principals, and you probably heard Mark’s name. And he started it because he hates the RFP process and thought there would be a better way. And we completely agree. We always tell providers that we absolutely hate it, too. So, we’re trying to make it better every time we deal with it.
Phil Wilson: [00:06:55]
We hate it as well.
Mary Faulkner: [00:06:57]
It’s awful, isn’t it? It’s necessary. It’s a necessary evil. You need to get through and really dig into what’s happening. But we really focus on use cases. So, how does the software or how does the solution help us do what we need it to do, as opposed to just giving me a workbook that says you can do x, y, and Z. So, we really make it a little bit more interactive. It’s still painful. We do our best to make it a good experience.
Phil Wilson: [00:07:21]
I don’t know if you’ve had this experience, but one of the reasons I hate RFPs is a lot of times, the people who are running the RFP process really have no idea what it is they’re actually asking about. And they’re trying to make like a really good purchasing decision without really knowing what it is that even their own internal client needs. A lot of times the internal client doesn’t even really know for sure what they need. And so, you end up spinning all these wheels to answer a bunch of questions that honestly, what you should start with is do you even really need what you’re asking about? And is there a better way to do what you’re asking about?
[00:08:03]
And we don’t always get a chance to know that. You have to decide whether or not you’re going to participate in the RFP. We really now turn down most opportunities to do it, just because it’s not worth the time.
Mary Faulkner: [00:08:19]
Yeah. And I love that you pointed that out because our point of view is that you have to know yourself as an organization before you go out and try to do all these things. So, we do work with a number of clients who contact us to say, “Oh, hey, we’ve been looking at some software and we see that you do selections. Can you help us?” And we will take a step back and say, well, let’s look at your current state. What’s happening today? Do you have an incumbent? Why are you trying to leave
[00:08:47]
We really try to get them to the point where they truly understand what it is that they want to do. They need to have a point of view when they go into the RFP process, because when the provider is there and they’re telling them, “Well, here’s our business process, and here’s our library and we can implement you in three months.” They need to understand to say, “Well, no, we have this future state that we’ve designed that we really want it to do this. How can you help us do that? Because we’re process first and tech-enabled.”
[00:09:14]
And I really want you to be thinking through what is it that you need to do as a business and not be dictated. Now, will there be things that you want to do that no software can do? Absolutely. But we really want people to be thinking through what is it that’s the right thing for their business and who they are. That’s why we’re not huge on benchmarks, either. The library is a good place to start from, but every business is a little bit different, and every business needs to understand what some of their tweaks are.
[00:09:41]
And we’ve worked with organizations that we’re like ideally you would not have ten different approval levels for one title, but that’s who they are. And they’re like, “We’re never going to change it. We understand what the pros and cons are and this is where we’re going.” Well, there is not a single provider in the world that’s going to be like, “Oh yes, we fully accommodate automation for ten different approvals for positions.” So, you just have to know who you are and get into it.
[00:10:11]
A big thing that we do, that is why we love what we do, all of us do is, we get to know the client really, really well. We have people that we worked with. Well, not me personally, because I’ve only been with IA for five years. But Kimberly’s been with IA for ten-plus, and she has people that she still talks to that she worked with on her very first engagement. And it’s because we care. We really get to know the people. We do a lot of times act as that behind-the-scenes therapist and coach of being, of saying, “Okay, here’s what we’re seeing in the organization. How can we help you be successful?”
[00:10:45]
We stand next to you or behind you, and we’ll never stand in front of you. We are not the here’s our process, do what we say because we’re the consultant people. We are the people who want to enable you to be successful and then we go away. We think it’s really important that you be able to take it over on your own.
Michael Vandervort: [00:11:00]
Sounds like we share a lot of organizational core values actually without getting into stating those. It’s funny Mary, that I was a client of LRI at a previous employer, and 10 or 11 years ago we were trying to buy a product that they were selling us. And because of the purchasing protocols that we followed at the company, I sent Phil a 110-page purchasing document where he basically signed over his life and his house. And he was like, “Yeah, I can’t sign this.” And I was like, sorry, that’s what they gave me. And they said, “Well, I can’t sign it.”
[00:11:36]
So, I called our purchasing department at that company and they said, “Oh, you need the short form.” Then they sent me a one-page form. We just sent out the big one initially because it was the standard document. And so, I guess the point is, they’re trying to make good decisions. They’re also trying to get as much control as they can.
Phil Wilson: [00:11:55]
I’ve had that conversation with a lot of clients. And the person who’s purchasing, the actual buyer is not the one who’s like, “Oh, I can’t wait to send you this 100-page document.” The purchasing folks send it over. And what I found over the years is, first of all, life is too short. And I’m a lawyer, but I’m just not reading this. So, I’ll give it back to you and if that means we can’t do business together, I’m sorry, but this document does not apply in any way to what we’re actually doing.
[00:12:33]
And then what I found is, you know, the example Michael used, that’s generally what happens is they go, oh, okay, they’re not going to sign our document. So, then what will you sign? And then we send over a 2 or 3-page statement of work. And they might add a paragraph or two to it. But it’s like okay, well that’s fine.
Michael Vandervort: [00:12:55]
All right. Well, let’s pivot. That was not completely on the agenda, but it was interesting dialogue. But let’s touch on a couple of actual HR-related things. So, one of the first topics I wanted to kind of tee up with you, Mary, I know you have a presentation that you’ve done in the past about disengagement and how it happens. And the Gallup survey poll says that only 32 or 33% of employees are actually engaged. Phil can probably tell that in more detail than I can. Younger workers are seeing a drop in engagement. So, let’s talk about how employees become disengaged. What happens?
Mary Faulkner: [00:13:32]
Yeah. So, the funny thing is, I’m starting to feel like engagement is not a real metric. It’s just not. Even Gallup with their 12, you have to have 12 different questions that somehow magically correlate together to create this one metric to tell you how engaged you are. And it hasn’t changed in 30 years. So, I do wonder, is it even a thing anymore? But you definitely can tell when a worker is connected to what they’re doing and what’s causing them to be disconnected. And it’s a lot of different things.
[00:14:03]
I think it’s a combination of is the work that they’re doing valued. So, it used to be is the work meaningful. And not everybody’s job is going to be life-changing. But if it’s something that people are going to use, people just naturally hate unnecessary work. So, if you’re going to give them a bunch of busy work like, ‘Please fill out this, this status report that no one’s ever going to look at, but at least we have documentation of it,” that’s going to cause them to get disengaged from their work if they’re not connected with their manager in some way or leadership.
[00:14:34]
So, maybe it’s not your direct manager, but then maybe somebody up the chain around do you feel like they are aware of you and care about you as a person, and what’s going on at both at work and somewhat at home? I don’t know that you always need to bring everything that’s at home to work, but it absolutely impacts you. When you think about people who are going through major life changes or there are health problems or whatever it is, that impacts your ability to be engaged at work too. You’re showing up to work, you’re doing your job.
[00:15:05]
But I have to tell you, I’ll just use a personal example. When I was packing up my mother-in-law’s house for her to come move in with us and we had to sell two houses and move, I was not the most connected person at work every single day, because I had so many other things going on. I love my job, I love the people I work with, and yet there was enough going on that I was just like, “I can’t give my full self to my job today,” and it’s just the reality of how things happen.
[00:15:31]
So, I think there’s this combination of elements of what is the work that I’m doing. Am I valued? And you brought up the younger workers. I think there’s this element too, of what’s the ethics of what I’m doing. Is the company that I’m working for behaving in a way that I’m proud of? Now, I say that because there will always be people who are unethical, who find unethical companies that they align with, and that causes engagement too. I’ve worked for some in the past where there are some really sketchy things going on, but if people align with the values of that organization, they’re going to be engaged because they get to do the things that they always wanted to do.
Phil Wilson: [00:16:16]
There are super-engaged drug dealers and mobsters.
Mary Faulkner: [00:16:18]
Absolutely!
Michael Vandervort: [00:16:21]
Is it the fear of death or?
Mary Faulkner: [00:16:25]
Yeah. I talk about culture. I worked with a VP once who said ‘You’re never going to align 100% with an organization, but you want to align enough that it’s not a deal breaker for you.” And a strong culture comes from alignment. And that alignment is on a scale of chaotic good to unlawful whatever. So, that type of stuff happens.
Phil Wilson: [00:16:55]
I’m curious. The way I’ve talked about this for a while is that you don’t measure engagement by happiness or do I have a friend at work? A lot of the Q12 type measures, I understand if you’re engaged, you also probably agree with those statements. But those statements don’t define whether or not you’re engaged. The way you tell whether someone is engaged is by watching their behavior. Do they go above and beyond at work? Do they help each other out? Are they looking for extra stuff to do? Engagement is a verb, right? I’m just curious. What do you think about that?
Mary Faulkner: [00:17:43]
So, it’s interesting. Above and beyond has always been the big thing, like they’re looking for extra work. I think we’re seeing a shift in that. I think we as business leaders need to be okay with somebody doing their job. Their job well, they’re doing what is expected of their job. They’re not complaining about it. Or maybe they complain about it and they bring forward solutions. But just because someone isn’t constantly saying, “Hey, give me another ten hours of work to do this week because I’m bored,” doesn’t mean they’re not engaged.
[00:18:13]
So, I think there’s an element that just naturally happens of saying, “Oh, how can I help?” There’s that how can I help element of it.
Phil Wilson: [00:18:23]
I think I said that wrong. Because I totally agree with that part. There’s no question that we have way oversold on you need to hide how much you’re working so that you don’t get in trouble for working on the weekends or on your vacation. That’s ridiculous. I’m talking a little bit more around things like, “Hey, I thought of this new way to do this work that I’m doing better, faster,” things like that where I’m showing that I’m engaged with the actual thing I’m asked to do, and I do it well and I try to help do it better. To me, that’s more behavior of engagement.
Mary Faulkner: [00:19:09]
Yeah. I think I would agree with you on that. It’s that element of you’ve internalized the work that you do. It’s not necessarily your full identity or anything like that, but you value it enough to be like, “Oh, I can take it to the next level by offering to help or finding new ways to do things and doing it well.” And I’m really glad you said happiness shouldn’t be a measure of it. Because I remember one place I worked, we did a satisfaction survey. People can be satisfied with their jobs because they’re making good money, they’ve got a good benefits package, they might have a pension, whatever it might be. That doesn’t mean they’re engaged. They’re showing up, maybe. So, I’m glad you got that out.
Phil Wilson: [00:19:57]
Yeah. Satisfied is actually in a lot of ways disengaged. You’re like, “I’m good. I’m not striving. I’m probably not even really thriving. I don’t have any special needs.” I used to talk about this a fair amount too. A lot of times I tell a story about the worst day of my marriage, which was in this adventure race that I stupidly agreed to do with my wife. I was super, super unhappy that day but I was engaged like crazy. I wanted to finish that race because my dignity meter was down to zero. So, happiness and engagement are totally separate ends of the spectrum I think.
Mary Faulkner: [00:20:52]
That’s great. I think that’s a really interesting way to look at it of does engagement require a level of hunger?
Phil Wilson: [00:21:01]
Yeah.
Mary Faulkner: [00:21:04]
It’s an interesting question. I don’t know. I’ve not thought of it that way.
Michael Vandervort: [00:21:08]
I haven’t seen the new Hunger Games prequel yet or I would riff on that. But I didn’t even know it was out.
Phil Wilson: [00:21:15]
My daughter saw it, she said it was awesome but it was like a death march. I think 3.5 hours long. She’s like, “Every plot point was necessary so I don’t think they could have made it shorter, but it was it was long.”
Mary Faulkner: [00:21:30]
PSA. Stop with the 3.5-hour movies.
Phil Wilson: [00:21:34]
I know.
Mary Faulkner: [00:21:35]
I’m a moviegoer. I do not want to sit through 3.5 hours. Split it up.
Michael Vandervort: [00:21:41]
I was so happy that The Marvels was one hour and 55 minutes. I would have loved that movie regardless of what else it contained.
Mary Faulkner: [00:21:48]
It was so refreshing.
Michael Vandervort: [00:21:51]
And it was actually a pretty good movie too.
Mary Faulkner: [00:21:53]
It was fun. I liked it.
Michael Vandervort: [00:21:55]
I liked it as well. So yeah, 3.5-hour movies are a trendy thing. I want to pivot to an example. I don’t know if this was really engagement or not, but it’s one of the most bizarre situations that I’ve watched in a long time. And that is what happened a week and a half ago at OpenAI, when they fired their CEO, Sam Altman, the board melted down. Something like 745 out of 770 employees, including some of the board members who actually voted to fire the guy, signed a letter that said, “We’re all going to quit en masse and leave the company and go to work at Microsoft unless you return Sam Altman,” which ultimately happened.
[00:22:39]
We won’t get into all the details of that. That’s a Harvard case study of for the centuries probably. Was that engagement when so many people or is it a cult? I don’t know how to read that at all.
Mary Faulkner: [00:22:55]
Yeah. I’ve been thinking about that a lot. Obviously, I don’t work there, so I couldn’t tell you what the day-to-day is like, what they feel like. But if you look at the history of startups, (and really, OpenAI is a startup and a lot of different ways), and you had a board that was formed for the nonprofit arm of it managing the profit arm. So, there’s that piece of it. So, that’s a whole thing for the Harvard case study. But when I think about it, look at Theranoss, look at WeWork, look at some of the other startups that exploded and people were all in, (even HubSpot was like this), and really being excited and believing in the mission.
[00:23:47]
But then you had some leadership that people believed in and then it turned out there was something hinky going on in the back end. Which I’m not saying Sam Altman has anything hinky. But in retrospect, we look back at a Theranos and be like, how did you not know there was something crazy? And they were so all in. And that all in piece of it, I think it’s because it’s something new and exciting. It’s something that gives a lot of people a chance to flex in a new space.
[00:24:16]
So, when you think about OpenAI, it’s like, “Hey, you’ve got talent. We want to give you space to explore it.” And I think there’s that element with any startup of you’re at the beginning, might there be people who are there like, “Oh, I might get options in the future,”? Maybe. But I think it’s really about you’re in on something unique and you’re belonging in this very special brand-new space that no one else gets to be a part of. So when somebody comes by and says, we’re going to change that and make it more traditional, that makes people angry, and that makes people feel like you’re telling me that what I’m doing is not special to or you’re saying what I’m doing is wrong.
[00:24:56]
So, I think there’s that element of protectiveness of “This is cool, this is fun. I want to be a part of it. So stop messing with us. We’ll be fine.” I watched the documentary of WeWork fairly recently, and I was just like, of course, this wasn’t going to be successful. It’s just real estate. It’s just subleasing. But they were so bought into the idea of it. And I think that’s a little bit of what you saw with OpenAI. AI is really exciting. It’s scary in some respects, but it’s also really exciting. So, when you get a lot of really talented people working on an exciting new element, they are going to rebel. If you tell them you have to go back to doing it a different way.
Phil Wilson: [00:25:36]
Yeah. I think the Harvard case study is going to be all about the whole thing morphed. Right. When a board of directors goes, “It’s okay. Killing the golden goose is a possible way that we can fulfill our mission as a board,” that tells you everything that you need to know about that. The people that were signed on to do this were not on that same wavelength. And Altman wasn’t either. And then, at that point I understand. If the majority of the board is like, “Yes, we need to we need to stop this now,” and everyone else is not on board, then, yeah you’re going to have like a total mutiny, which is what they had.
[00:26:29]
And then, unfortunately, companies now, this is a multi-billion-dollar company that’s just like exploded on the scene in months essentially. There’s a whole lot of value. The people that were really probably choking were all these banks. Microsoft was going to end up fine. But everybody else that was still holding the bag on OpenAI, I’m sure we’re having a very hard time sleeping over that weekend.
Mary Faulkner: [00:27:06]
Oh, I’m sure it was. It was so crazy. Like, every day I was like, oh, what else has happened today? One thing I wanted to point out when you’re talking about, I think a big aspect of it was the lack of transparency. So, even the CEO said, “I’m going to quit unless you tell me why this happened.” And it’s that idea of governance. When you have a technology moving this fast with so much potential for bias. United Healthcare just got sued because they said 90% of their claims just got rejected by AI. That’s a concern about bias, right?
[00:27:41]
I’m not sure that the board was acting out of malice. I think there were concerns about how quickly the technology was moving, and they didn’t feel like there was proper governance and stage gates in place. Put those in place. If you’re worried about it, put those in place before you get to the point where you feel like you have to fire this guy that everybody loves. So, it’s everything. But I think transparency ties back to what employees want. Maybe Altman’s a super transparent CEO that’s really approachable and everybody felt like they were a part of his team. And yet you had this board who, in a black box just one day decided to do this.
[00:28:22]
We don’t know why they did this. They still haven’t really said why they did this. There was chatter about, well, he was raising money in the Middle East to start his own company. We don’t know if that’s true. There’s chatter that they were worried that I was moving too quickly. We don’t know if that’s true because they haven’t said. So, I think there’s that element of transparency of people just want to understand what their leadership is doing and why.
Phil Wilson: [00:28:43]
And I think to boil that down to just frontline supervisors in any organization, it’s the same thing, right? It’s like, are you transparent? You may not have all the answers. You may not even really understand why a decision was made. But if you are able to explain, like, “Okay, here’s what I’ve done to try to figure it out. Here’s what I can tell you that I will commit to do that I have control over.” That’s what employees need to hear and need to understand. And that can be true for an entire organization. That can be true for a department.
[00:29:20]
It’s still the same basic tasks, right? It’s like, tell me what’s going on based on whatever information that you have right now. If you feel like you don’t have the information, tell me that too. It’s not complicated.
Mary Faulkner: [00:29:35]
Yeah. People have a pretty strong BS detector. They’ll know if you’re making it up. So, you just need to be honest with people.
Michael Vandervort: [00:29:45]
So, we have a couple more quick sections to cover. That example we just looked at is like Silicon Valley hustle culture on steroids or something. I don’t know. You wanted to talk, I think for a minute, Mary, about burnout, mental health at work, and some of that kind of stuff. It’s pretty obvious. I had the question stated as is burnout on the rise? I think it’s pretty obvious that it is. I think we’ve all been affected by the pandemic and work and uncertainty and return to hobbies and all the things that are out there.
[00:30:15]
So, what’s the main cause? And to go back to what Phil just said, what can first-line supervisors do to help with this environment that we’re operating in?
Mary Faulkner: [00:30:26]
I could find the article again. I read this great article that said, ‘Why are we still like this? Why is burnout continuing to spiral even though there’s a little bit more stability?” Not for some people. There’s been a lot of layoffs and reorgs and that sort of thing going on. But we’re a few years out and what’s going on? And a big part of it is just saying we’re still in protection react mode. We just don’t know when the next shoe is going to drop. So we didn’t get a chance as a society to collectively take our breath and say, “Okay, what’s next?”
[00:31:05]
It’s sort of we’ve been through this. There was a beginning and a middle, but the ending is iffy. It’s not really an ending. And so, you’ve got a spectrum of people who are like, “Oh, it’s nothing. It’s a cold.” And then the spectrum of people like, “I mask and wash and act like it’s day one because I just don’t know what’s going to happen.” And so, I think there’s just collectively people just don’t know how to get back to non-reactive mode.
[00:31:34]
And we’re bringing that into the workspace. So, work has changed. There are different values. We’ve all decided whether or not, I think you could say engagement for however it’s been defined has gone down because people have reprioritized work. They’ve said, “You know what? It is a thing I do. It helps me sustain my life and everything. But it’s not my number one thing anymore. I want to spend time with my family, spend time with my dog, travel, whatever it might be.” So, there’s still so much flux.
[00:32:05]
The other piece of it, too, is that there’s this tension between the old school of we just want to get it back to what we were. We have commercial real estate that we’ve been renting, and we need people back there. It’s easier for us to lead you. We can control you this way. And then you’ve got all these workers who are like, “No, there’s a better way to do this.” And I am not leaving front-line workers out of this by any means. They’re the ones who are dealing with the brunt of it, because they had to go into the stores and work in the stores or be public facing or whatever it might be.
[00:32:34]
So, they had all this fear this whole time. And here we are talking about, “Oh, return to the office. And it’s so unfair.” And they’re like, ‘We have been there since day one and no one’s recognizing that.” So, there’s all this tension going on, and yet we’re supposed to be constantly creating and constantly doing that. And we’ve not given people in general the space to just almost grieve. Grieve what society was. Grieve what we might have lost during the pandemic or just reset. And we’re just like, go, go, go, go, go. Now it’s back, let’s go. Because, yeah, maybe we were slower during the pandemic, but we weren’t relaxed because we didn’t know what was going to happen next.
[00:33:15]
So, from a supervisor and a leadership perspective, I think what you can do to help is just really acknowledge that. Check yourself. How are you feeling? How are you adjusting to what the new world is? Do you need help? Do you need to figure out a better way to supervise people if you’re no longer in the same building with them? It’s asking for help and just acknowledging that you yourself as a leader don’t feel 100% every day either. And it makes the space for your people to have that same reaction. And I think if you just start having more conversations about it, it can help a lot.
Phil Wilson: [00:33:52]
Yeah. I think that’s so important. And for the leaders to be on the lookout for it. It’s not all work. You need to be concerned about the whole person who’s on your team. And you mentioned earlier Mary, like when you were moving your mother-in-law, there’s going to be seasons in life and there’s going to be periods where someone is not going to be fully engaged at work, however you define that. Or going to be going through something. And being on the lookout for that. I do think it’s talked about a lot more now and it’s safe to talk about it now in a way that it really never has been before. I think that’s progress, but you still have to talk about it when it’s happening.
Mary Faulkner: [00:34:43]
Or give people time off. I hate to say that, but it’s one thing to acknowledge it and then say, “I know you’re really burned out right now. And, oh, by the way, I need this tomorrow morning.” That’s not a good message. So, finding ways to accommodate people going through this. We’ve worked with a number of global clients and they have a burnout leave available for their people where they’re just like, “I need to take 4 weeks off.” Okay. Go reset. Imagine if we had that. Or even not 4 weeks, just that we could take a vacation without feeling like we had to check our email.
Michael Vandervort: [00:35:17]
Yeah. We still struggle with parental leave and all that.
Mary Faulkner: [00:35:21]
Yes. Lord forbid you have a baby and actually take a couple of days off to hang out with your kid.
Michael Vandervort: [00:35:30]
Yeah. There was an interesting article that, Suzanne Lucas wrote, evil HR Lady, about paternal leave. She was like, “I didn’t really need my husband hanging around with me for 12 weeks while he drew pay. We didn’t both need to look at the baby all day long. It would have been great if he could have taken days off intermittently.” So, it’s not even just the leave. It’s how it works and how you apply it. I thought that was a pretty interesting subtle observation. We still have a long way to go on that, I think.
Mary Faulkner: [00:36:05]
Well, even think about bereavement leave in terms of 3 days right after it happens and you have to prove that’s when it happened. Those are your dates. It’s terrible. For most people, if you think about it, yeah, there’s stuff that you do the first couple of days. It’s really like a couple of weeks later that you’re you really need the time. Or if you’re traveling, you really need that time. Or maybe in 3 months when you’re trying to close out the estate and you need that time. I think the flexibility is growing to your point, Phil, around people really understanding that this impacts how people work and how they show up at work so let’s figure out a way to make it more meaningful.
[00:36:45]
But there again, we’re back at that tension between the old ways and the new ways, and it’s sort of that death throes of, like, ‘Well, I want it to be this way still,” and it’s like, “Well, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Michael Vandervort: [00:36:57]
Alright. So, let’s wrap up with our fun section, which is going to rely at least from my perspective. I have no idea what Phil’s knowledge level is on the topic we’re about to jump into. But, I know, Mary, that you love, musicals. So tell us, 3 musical replays that people should see going into 2024.
Mary Faulkner: [00:37:21]
Okay. I actually came up with 4, so I apologize.
Michael Vandervort: [00:37:23]
All right. Bonus points.
Mary Faulkner: [00:37:25]
So, a couple of them have been around for a while and a couple of them are a little bit newer. But, if you haven’t seen Hades Town, see Hades Town. Hamilton’s a given, but I figured at this point, everybody has seen it or watched it.
Phil Wilson: [00:37:41]
I would love to, but I have not.
Mary Faulkner: [00:37:43]
Oh, okay. Hades Town is beautiful. It’s just beautifully written. It’s a great album. It’s a beautiful production. I saw the touring, on tour, because Denver has a really great tour. So Hades Town. I would say Six is great. We’re going to see that, on tour here, in December, but the music’s fantastic. And it’s a quick 90 minutes, no intermission, fun, kind of cabaret style. So, I would say Six.
Phil Wilson: [00:38:11]
In Chicago, it’s like I have a basic idea, and then wow! It’s very cool. I won’t go into it, but it’s surprising. It’s fun, smart.
Michael Vandervort: [00:38:30]
It’s cool.
Mary Faulkner: [00:38:31]
And the music slams. So, I’d say Six. I would say, Purlie is Victorious. I really want to see it. I haven’t seen it. Leslie Odom Junior brought it back to Broadway. I believe it’s a revival, but it’s getting amazing reviews. And the whole thing is premised on the idea that people can’t tell two black people apart and so he uses that to his advantage to advance something. I don’t remember what it was. I’m sorry. I should have read it better. It’s a musical but it’s also very [unintelligible 00:39:09]. And also it’s Leslie Annem Jr [sounds like], who was the original Aaron Burr. And he’s just an amazing performer anyway. So, I’d say Purlie is Victorious. And then, Spamalot is in revival. And I love Spamalot. It makes me laugh.
Phil Wilson: [00:39:22]
I somehow have never seen that. I have to go see that. And I love Monty Python.
Mary Faulkner: [00:39:29]
It’s really great. It’s a wink and a nod to how ridiculous the musicals are. There’s a song called “This Song That Goes Like This.” It’s just fantastic.
Phil Wilson: [00:39:40]
My daughter was in the theater big time in high school. They had a cabaret where they did that song. That song is just fantastic.
Mary Faulkner: [00:39:55]
I love it. And the key
Phil Wilson: [00:39:59]
Here’s the bridge. It’s really fun.
Michael Vandervort: [00:40:02]
And then I discovered Corn or Shucked rather. I discovered the Corn song from Shucked by uncharacteristically watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and they did this performance of this song about corn. And I was like, what? Literally, like, what the hell is that? And I posted that on Twitter, and somebody said, “It’s a great musical. Leave it alone.” And then I asked you the same question, and that was basically your response. So, even though you didn’t add Shucked to your list, what is this phenomenon?
Mary Faulkner: [00:40:34]
It’s fun. It’s one of those things of it’s a low-stakes local community. They’re really into corn. It’s funny. It was nominated, I think, for 9 Tonys. It won one for a featured actor. Alex Newell won. She’s amazing. It’s just one of those things of it just hit right. It’s kind of like Avenue Q. If you remember Avenue Q. Low stakes, but great fun. You just hit the right thing. And I think it’s just one of those things. It’s okay to go see a musical that just makes you happy. Pretty traditional story arc. The music is fun and ridiculous. Just let it go. Let it be a thing. Let it be its thing.
Michael Vandervort: [00:41:24]
That’s a great place to wrap up because we’ve run over as we typically do here. Our 30-minute show is 42 minutes or something like that right now. So any final thoughts? And then, Mary, if you could share where people might find you if they care to reach out and get in touch with you for some reason?
Mary Faulkner: [00:41:38]
Absolutely. So, you can find us on LinkedIn. Find me on LinkedIn. Our website is ia-hr.com because I guess Iowa has IA wrapped up. But ia-hr.com and you can find all of my contact information there on the about page. I’m still on Twitter or whatever the heck it’s called these days. I’m trying threads, not really in love with it. And then definitely on LinkedIn and Instagram. So, I’d love to see you there.
Michael Vandervort: [00:42:07]
Phil, any last thoughts?
Phil Wilson: [00:42:08]
Just great to get to know you better, Mary. It was a fun conversation.
Mary Faulkner: [00:42:13]
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.
Michael Vandervort: [00:42:15]
Thanks for joining us on Left of Boom, and we will see you for the next show.
Strap in for a unique spin on The Left of Boom Show today, where we’re mixing the serious world of work with the sparkle of Broadway. Think of it as your guide to thriving at work and unwinding at the theater.
Mary Faulkner, the talent wizard with a knack for transforming workplaces, joins us. She’s been around the block, turning companies into places where people actually want to work, and she’s here to spill the tea on everything from why your coworkers might be feeling meh to how you can help them find their spark again.
We’ll dive into the nitty-gritty of workplace engagement (or the lack thereof), tackle the big, bad burnout beast, and then lighten the mood with some Broadway banter. Mary’s got some hot takes on must-see shows for 2024 and will even defend the honor of the corn song from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade (yeah, you heard that right).
By the end of our chat, you’ll walk away with some solid advice on keeping your team happy and healthy, plus a list of Broadway and off-Broadway gems to check out.
Tune in to get the best of both worlds: a happier workplace and a happier you, courtesy of the insights and recommendations from Mary Faulkner, right here on The Left of Boom Show. Whether you’re leading a team or just love a good night out at the theater, this episode’s got something for everyone.