The Power of Workplace Relationships | Jason Lauritsen

HSU Jason Lauritsen Ao v01

Natasha Nuytten: Hello everyone and welcome to Human Side Up. I'm Natasha Nuytten, your host and the CEO at Clara. I'm always excited to bring you great conversations and today is no exception. I learned a lot and had a lot of sort of aha moments while speaking with my friend, Jason Lauritsen. Jason is a prominent figure in the realm of employee engagement and management innovation. He's known very well for his commitment to transforming workplace culture through relationship-based leadership. He is currently the co-founder and CEO of Check-in to Thrive which is a company dedicated to helping organizations enhance their leadership practices through fostering meaningful connections between leaders and employees. Really, we talked a lot about how relationships drive better business outcomes and how important that is. Prior to being at Check-in to Thrive, he worked with his co-founder and friend, Joker Stand at Talent Anarchy and they have done a lot of speaking. Jason does a lot of keynotes. He has authored a book called Social Gravity as well as a fantastic book called Unlocking High Performance and they explore the power of relationships in the workplace. Prior to that, Jason spent years in corporate doing HR work as the Director of Client Success and Director of Best Places to Work at Quantum Workplace where he contributed very significantly to employee engagement initiatives that recognized top places across North America to work. You're all familiar with Best Places to Work. That was Jason's work. His insights on employee engagement and management had been featured in reputable publications such as Forbes, Fast Company and HR Executive Magazine. All right Jason, I am so excited to have you here. We were just chit-chatting as we were getting the tech set up and one of the things that I really have appreciated about our friendship is that we could just talk about all the things and we're both pretty comfortable with almost everything, which is great because it means that we get to have really thoughtful conversations and one of the things, so we met recently a few months ago, last year, but have almost immediately we were aligned around thinking about big things in challenging sort of messy ways and being able to, we care about people and we want them to have better experiences day to day and we wanna help businesses be a part of that and so wrestling with some of those ideas and so one of the things that I really deeply appreciate is your willingness to say hard things that shouldn't necessarily be hard because they're just true but sometimes our feelings get in the way and so I really appreciate that and I'm excited for this conversation so thank you for making time for me today. 

Jason Lauritsen: Anytime, I'm delighted to be with you. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah, exciting. All right let's just start a little bit with we have a question we ask everybody on this podcast, which is if there were one or two words to describe you that you would use that perhaps might not be on a CV or a resume, what might those two things be and when have you or did you start to own them for yourself as truth? 

Jason Lauritsen: Wow, okay. This is one question I would have loved in advance just because I'm not sure I'm gonna give you the best answer. I'll be thinking about this one for a minute. So let's see. I think one word is, okay, two words and maybe this would be on, I don't know if this cheats and this almost feels like it's, I'm gonna explain it because it's gonna feel like a cop-out, I think but one of them is authentic and one of them is integrity and those two are intertwined for me. So in terms of when or how did those come to, like, when did I own those things or take ownership? I think the authenticity has been a journey for me because I think there's a whole bunch of this is bigger, like we could spend probably the whole, this whole conversation on this topic because it's one that I care so deeply about and it's been so meaningful to me. But I think ever since very early in my life, I've been really passionate. I'm a passionate guy. I tend to be a little larger than life in terms of how I approach things. I get really excited and I'm all in on whatever it is I'm doing. And I tend to also be like a true believer in things. So like I get really excited and I get on board with things and then later find out that maybe I was misguided, right? It was more my passion or something I needed that wasn't true. And so I think I spent probably 35, 40 years of my life trying to unpack all of that, shed all the things that had been put on me to try to understand who I really was and how I really wanted to be in the world and the impact I really wanted to have. And that work is not easy work. It's work that takes real intention. It takes feedback, whatever. So it's taken a long time. And I think around 40-ish or somewhere between 40 and 50, I finally came to a place where I think I really understood who I am and what I'm about. And I think that when I took that on, then also the world started giving me that feedback too. Like people started describing me that way. So that's where I figured. And that gets to the second piece of it, which is integrity. Is that one I didn't learn, that one I inherited. That comes from my parents. I grew up in a house that like your word was everything, integrity was everything. And so I think the interesting connection between integrity and authenticity is that I think true authenticity has to mean that you not only are clear about who you are and what kind of impact you wanna have on the world, but that the way you're showing up in the world reflects that, is aligned, is true with that. And that people know exactly what they're gonna get with you and that they know exactly that they can trust you for these things. And so those are the two words. That's a lot of explanation, but those are the two that feel most resonant for me. 

Natasha Nuytten: That is not too much description or explanation. It's perfect. And you're right. We could talk about that for six hours, I think, because man, there's so much there. And I wanna pick on a couple of threads if I can. One is, I think there is a lot of, it could be underestimated that a person, the level of hard work that it takes to realize what's yours and what's not. But also, there's a real vulnerability that is required for a person to get excited about stuff and then be able to take a step back and say, ooh, maybe I should have had a little more, I should have paused just a little bit before I stepped into that, right? And that really resonates for me because I have been that and I have not ever articulated it the way that you just did, in that I do oh my gosh, I get excited about an idea and I latch onto it and I explore it, whatever, and I do the things, and then I'm like, oh, you didn't, maybe you didn't think about all of the things before you got into that. And I think that what I love about you sharing that, Jason, is that it already displays the exact, it manifests and put in front of us the exact thing you were just talking about around this authenticity has to be tied to integrity, right? You just modeled that by describing how you land there. And I think that's really amazing because it requires these other things like vulnerability and reflection, right? Which are all things that if you are going to be leading people, making an impact in the world, that you have to be doing. And so it is leadership at its core. So yeah, there's like a lot of stuff. You could write six books on that in addition to the ones you've already written in the world. Could you, would you be willing to give me an example of a place where you had to make, that you maybe had to rethink about something and maybe you landed in the same place or a different version of the thing. I'd be curious if you'd be willing to share that. 

Jason Lauritsen: I'll give you, actually I'll give you the origin story because I think it's the one that is probably most profound in helping me recognize this journey I was on. So I grew up in rural Iowa, Northwest Iowa, farming community, kind of everything, every stereotype you can think of about what that looks like is what I grew up in. And we were a front pew church going family every week. That was our social, our social community was the church community. We were at the church several times a week. When I got to high school, I was like, I was a crusader. This was my first kind of big crusade. I was all about converting people to the truth of Jesus and all the stuff, right? And so I was all in, and one point actually in high school, I thought I was going to go be a preacher because I have a skillset that would be really great as a preacher, but there was a fundamental problem that was revealed later for me. And so that's where I was, that's where I went to college. I showed up at college very much in this mindset, very, like I said, energetic in my belief and in my evangelism around my religious beliefs. And at my college, they had this sort of honors program, which was really just an opportunity. They would pick out certain students that were excelling academically, put us together to have discussions around challenging topics, right? Just top big topics to push on us and teach us to think more critically and to be engaged in debate over bigger ideas. And so I remember one of them, I ended up actually in a group because of scheduling. I got thrown as a freshman with a bunch of juniors and seniors. And one day we ended up, we had some kind of piece that had to do with religion. And we were having some kind of conversation about religion and I'm against it. I'm in there and I'm just all exuberance and I'm a pretty smart guy. And I didn't realize any of my blind spots and we start debating over religion. And I don't remember if it had to do with the existence of God or whatever, but I got my ass handed to me that day. In terms of they just kept poking holes and poking holes. And I remember walking out of there being very shaken about boy, I need to think about some things. And then shortly thereafter, I actually, then I think it was in my sophomore year, might've been, yeah, I think it was my sophomore year. I ended up in a philosophy of religion class, which was an incredible class. And basically through that class, it was, I was able to go through removing, it was an invitation to remove the scaffolding of all the belief systems that had been constructed for me that I never participated in, I never bought in, I never purchased, I never had any agency in any of that other than this is just what we did, what we believed. Took all that scaffolding down and then started from zero to rebuild. 

Natasha Nuytten: Wow. 

Jason Lauritsen: And ultimately, like initially I then ended up, was that I was in the middle for a long time. I think something exists out there, which is really the whole, like just non-committal, they won't pick a side. And then I think that was mainly just because I was so uncomfortable without having that crutch. And I finally landed in a place that I like, I have a very different kind of moral code now. I think you should treat people well and take care of people and be nice and be a positive impact on the world and do the right thing because it's the right thing to do as a human being on this planet with other humans as opposed to believing. So I eventually realized, no, I am an atheist. That is what I am. That's what I believe. And that to me was the journey that was so profound and that if I had these, I would have gone to the mat over these beliefs, right? I was so certain and then found out that certainty was built on, there was nothing there. There was nothing underneath it. And so that's if that was built on a foundation of nothing, what else is? And so then I started so I'm pretty, but I survived it. And I came out the other side feeling more solid. I feel more grounded and I feel more confident. I'm not afraid of any conversation about religion. I'm not afraid of any, like I don't hold now, I don't hold any beliefs that are precious. They're all up for discussion because if I'm wrong, then, okay, good. I need to replace that with something that is more solid, that is more grounded, that is more right. And so that's the origin story. And so then it's been one thing after the other since then, but that's where it is, I think that's where it started. 

Natasha Nuytten: That is fantastic. I think that there are, for those of us who, I also grew up in the Midwest, in South Dakota, not far from where you grew up, but we are of a similar age. I think that maybe just one year behind you. And there is something about, I love the way you described it is there's a scaffolding underneath of a thing that maybe you didn't even, you didn't put there. It's just part of the fabric, right? Of being in some places. And it looks a little different in wherever you are, but we seem to, we have a similar sort of background. And I think what's fantastic about that is the notion that you can break down the scaffolding if you so choose, you can change the scaffolding, but you have to look at it, right? You have to step back and take a look. And I think for me, part of that, part of what made it so critical to the experience that I had, because we also, our church was a big part of our social fabric, right? It was a big part of how I spent my week and my time with people around me and the people who showed up in our lives, right? Outside of our family. And it was the piece that I did hold so dear was the showing up for people and the connection part. The rest of it was all sort of trappings and the way that, the thing that brought everybody together, the formalization of that group, but the thing that mattered the most to me was relationship. And but it took me too a long time to figure out that was the piece that made those things so valuable to me. So I'm challenged by what you said in a way that is, I need to, I probably still need to keep digging. That feels like something you do for a long time, like to your point, you used the words, you said nothing's precious because you're always trying to find what's more right? There feels like an evolution there where it constantly is stepping forward. So that's awesome.

Jason Lauritsen: The other thing that has been really powerful for me about that journey and other journeys is that it's allowed me to say, okay, I know where I stand. And because I am not fearful of a conversation or a challenge or a revelation about the sort of ground that I stand upon, I can then see things more clearly. I can see things differently. I can parse out the value of organized religion or spirituality or whatever. I've found my, actually over the last couple of years, I've found my way back to, I shouldn't say back to, forward to a different kind of spirituality that is really meaningful to me. But it's very different and it's not rooted. I understand the difference between spirituality and organized religion. I also can see organized religion for the things that it does that are really uniquely powerful and positive for people and communities. I can also parse out the really harmful, dangerous, hateful things that come out of it as well. And you can separate those and it's not either or, right? I don't have to, I can just, because I'm not hiding or protecting my own belief system from some kind of assault or some kind of challenge, then it allows me to see the world, I think, in all of its colors, right? In all of the different layers and perspectives. And that's been true through religion. That's been true through understanding the really complicated topics, right? That we both love to get into, the topics of race and gender and all the different things, these different things that exist and are part of being human and are part of being in community with people, but are difficult to talk about because we've got a bunch of scaffolding around them that we're not often willing to look at or we're not aware of even. And so once you get into the scaffolding and you start to understand it and you peel away the stuff that doesn't serve you and you get really clear on where you are, it frees you to see the world in a completely different way. That is, it's not fearful. You don't have to be fearful. You can approach it in a much more productive and constructive and kind way. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah, agreed. So how has that ability that you've learned and continue to refine around seeing clearly and then short, it's like where you see all those old houses that people are buying in like Italy for a dollar, right? And you have to put up a thing before you take something else down or the whole thing crumbles. I'm curious how that concept has then played out in the work that you do with organizations since then and how that's evolved. 

Jason Lauritsen: It makes me, I spent about a decade of my life in corporate HR as a corporate HR leader. And I think in that time, the thing that comes, I'm really good at the work that I do today because of this journey and how I see the world now. I'm really annoying and dangerous as an internal corporate leader because nothing is sacred, right? It's like, why wouldn't we question it? Why wouldn't we pull it apart? And I looked around, I was an HR leader. And so I would look around at all these HR practices and be like, what are we doing? I started railing against performance appraisals 15, 20 years ago. It seemed obvious to me very early on that this was a completely broken process before anybody else would, everybody hated it but nobody was willing to talk about it, right? And so that led to one of my books eventually. But there was all kinds of things. I just was, so I was always pushing back. So I think that's why I will ask a question.

Jason Lauritsen: And I'm never taking anything on surface value. I always want to know more. I tend to reject the sort of easy narrative that comes right. One of them that is out there is when we talk about employee engagement, Gallup has this, has this data that has led the world to this really easy narrative, which is it's people leave managers, they don't leave jobs, right? We have a bad manager problem. I'm like, you know what? Those bad managers are good people. Most of them, they were never equipped or they got put into a job or the system basically almost forced them into a job that they either don't want, aren't suited for, aren't skilled for. And so let's be more precise about what's actually going on. Maybe it is a manager. The manager is causing that, but let's stop blaming them for what is a systemic problem. Let's solve the problem and support those managers so that then we can change the course. So that's an example of how this shows up in my work on a regular basis. 

Natasha Nuytten: I love that. It's that point, like even questioning why XYZ person is a manager, are they a manager because they're good at people? Are they a manager because that's where they want to be? Or are they a manager because they were really great at doing the job and so then we promoted them out of doing the job and to managing other people who were doing the job, right? Yes, I love that sort of question about everything and how that can help dismantle a few things. So in thinking about that, have there been any specific things, I won't ask for companies or organizations, but have there been outside of performance appraisals maybe, specific things that in your experience that you've helped people to dismantle that have led to these more inclusive environments where we see, you wrote an entire book about high potential, like unlocking and unleashing high potential. Are there certain things that you see that when we break this down or we take another look at it that lead to creating those more dynamic teams and higher performance? 

Jason Lauritsen: One of the big ones that is underlying everything that I do because it's so foundational is helping people recognize that we inherited a system of management within organizations that was built about or originally conceived or brought into existence 150 years ago in a period of industrialization where we had, the people were moving from small communities to the cities to work in these new factories and the factories were built around work or sort of stuff that needed to be done that we know now was better suited for machines because it's all done by machines now, but the machines didn't exist. So we had to have human beings stand in for the machines and guess what? Humans are not, are terrible as stand-ins for machines because we're, we get tired and we're messy and we're inconsistent. We get distracted. We want to talk to our neighbors, all these things. And so to solve this sort of humanity problem or bug that they had, they invented a whole body of work called management. And so management was actually designed to engineer humanity out of the workplace so that people could behave more like machines. And that's what, like you go back to some of the stuff in the early 1900s and Frederick Taylor and scientific management and all that stuff was really rooted around solving that problem. How do we get people to act more like machines and then to do it more consistently and more efficiently over long periods of time, right? That was the goal. That's what we inherited. And so that's built into the DNA of management. And the other thing that is closely behind that or is tied to the same thing during the same era is that work is, was largely thought of and treated as a contract with the employee. Very early on, the unions came into existence to try to help advocate a little bit for employees and they turned work very intentionally into a contract. And so we think of people like machines to be managed and optimized. And then we treat it like it is a contractual obligation. So either you do it or you're gone. And what I came to realize through some of the research and the work that I've done over the last 20 years is that when you look at all the data we have about what actually engages people and invites them to perform better, it's things like feeling valued and trusting the people that lead, that you follow and that you work with. It's feeling appreciated. It's feeling cared for, right? These are all relational constructs. These are all elements of what drive relationships. And so what I realized was we treat work like a contract. Employees actually experience work like a relationship, unless we fix that we're going to just keep spinning our wheels. People keep leaving, we'll keep having underperformance forever. And so when you start to think about work as a relationship, then you start to step into some different things. And so it's teaching. So what does that look like in practice? It's helping managers, number one, understand that, but it's also helping managers learn how to have better conversations with their people. Like how do you have a conversation with them where you can get to what's really going on? It's recognizing that humans don't only exist when you're looking at them or when they're locked into their computers. They exist on a, they're very interesting, messy, diverse creatures that are complicated and they have lots of things going on that impact how they're going to show up and do their work. And so you have to be aware of, and in conversations about that as well, and how do you support them? And so that's the kind of work that I do generally with organizations is helping them retool manager perspective and mindset, and then add the toolkit they need then to treat people like human beings at work instead of like machines to be optimized. 

Natasha Nuytten: I think I'm going to put on a t-shirt for every person that I encounter. We treat work like a contract, but people experience work like a relationship. This is just going to be, I'm going to stamp it on everything. That's what I was like, I have to write this down as you were saying that, because that is the heart of the matter. That is the heart of when you listen, we, I think when we talk about how sideways and how lost the conversation is, DEIB gets hit hard for all kinds of reasons, but the reality, and I say this for years, cause I feel like it's so obvious. I can't be the only per, I'm not the only person saying it, but I've been saying, I can't be the only one who thinks this people, everyone you know wants to be appreciated for who they are. Who do you know that doesn't want to be valued or treated with respect? So the fact that we have this conversation around whether or not diversity or equity is valuable is in my mind, just like total bullshit. The reality is like, how is it not valuable? That is not actually the conversation we're having. You were talking about something else entirely. And I think the way you've just articulated that, I think that makes sense to people because it resonates with how we all experience being in those spaces. So I'm going to start a t-shirt booth and that's the only t-shirt I'm going to sell. But I love that. I'd be curious if we can double click a little bit on it and see that's a hard thing to change, right? We all know change management is an entire huge, enormous business for a reason. I'm curious if there are, say I am a manager listening to this, or I am a leader with some issues around how our leadership connects with the folks in our organization. What are a couple of questions I should start with when evaluating, because you have to figure out where the problems are, right? What are some questions I should start with if I'm trying to figure out where to start? 

Jason Lauritsen: That's a really good question. I think it depends, to some extent it depends on what issue you're up against, right? So you might use a little bit of a different question, but here's what I would, what I generally advise is that, as in most relationships, right back to, everything comes back to me for if we are going to understand it's a relationship, then this is all about relationships. And so if we have a problem, it's a relationship problem. And at the heart of almost every relationship problem is, I would say two things. One is clarity or a lack thereof and communication. And so when you, if we parse those two things out, I think clarity is at the heart of a vast majority of the issues that we run into at work, especially with our people. So it's a lack of clarity about what's expected of me. It's a lack of clarity about how I am doing, I'm not getting, I'm not getting clear feedback or I'm not, it's a lack of clarity about my, where I fit. It's a lack of clarity about what's safe and what's not safe. And so there's a lot of, there's a lot of lack of clarity. And so what I, if you're, let's say, if you're dealing with a situation, I've got an employee that, let's, yeah, let's use performance, right? Because performance is a great example of a really broken process. So the way, if we have someone on our team who's underperforming, they're either, they're not meeting their expectations, or maybe they're behaving in a way that you're like, what are you doing, right? That's inconsistent with what you want them to do. Those are the two most common things that keep us up at night and we're stressed about as leaders. The first thing that you have to do is check on the clarity to see if there is clarity. And so the practice that I offer to leaders is to do what I call a clarity check-in. And the way a clarity check-in is this, works as this, is that you schedule a meeting with that employee, you need to allow them a couple of days. And in advance of that meeting, you ask them to answer a couple of questions in advance. The first one is, what are the top three priorities or objectives of your role, right? What are the three most important priorities or objectives of your role? Then the second question is, how is performance, how is success measured in your role? And sometimes I'll add in a third one what success look like or something like that, that just gives them different ways to do it. But the idea is to invite them to share what they believe is most important, see if they're clear about priorities or focus and how they think they're being measured. And then here's the key, the really important part of this is that you ask the employee to take [ those questions and write their answers out, written pre-meeting, but then you as the leader need to take those same questions and answer those questions from your perspective about that employee. So you answer the same thing. What do you see as the top three priorities or objectives for them? How do you measure success for them in their role? And then when you come together, basically it's an exercise in comparing notes. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yeah

Jason Lauritsen: And you can do that in any kind of way if a project's not going well, it's okay, let's put up a couple of questions about okay, what are the, what is the, what are the most important measures for this project on a scale from one to 10? How are we, how confident are we that we will meet those or how confident are you that you'll meet those objectives? What are the biggest challenges? And you write it down and then you compare. Anytime you do a clarity alignment exercise like that, you will identify that there are misalignments and humans are like, the interesting thing is we are complicated and we are messy, but at work, we do exactly often, like if we're clear, we will do exactly what's expected of us because we will do exactly what you pay us to do. So as long as my pay is aligned with achieving my objectives and I'm clear on what those objectives are, I want my pay. And I also want to be successful. I crave appreciation and acknowledgement. So when we get that clarity in place, everything else gets more simple. 

Natasha Nuytten: Okay. So going back to something you said earlier about having a skillset that would lend to you being a preacher, you just convicted me, Jason, from across the screen here, because literally just this morning, as I was coming into this conversation with you. Some situations, not major, but one of those where I was like, I thought we were, this wouldn't come up for us with someone that I work with. And the situation arose yesterday and I paused, it was really busy yesterday. I wasn't able to respond at the moment. And I was really grateful for the pause to be very frank, because when I started thinking about it, when I had space, like I let things rattle around in the back of my head sometimes, and I'm thinking on them, even when I'm not thinking on them. And when I give myself then space to go back to the thing and focus the light in my brain on it, I recognized that I thought I'd been super effing clear. And that's where my frustration was like, what the hell dude? Come on. And I took a step back and I didn't go through this exercise though. It is going to be a part of my future work. I stepped back and I was like, you know what? This piece was clear, but this piece wasn't. And you have to explicitly say the thing. And I recognize I've had to do some work for myself. One of the reasons that as a leader, I sometimes struggle to be that specific is because I hate it when people boss me around, personally. So I've had to deal with my own experiences with micromanagement, feeling like you're doing that because you don't trust me rather than that really being your problem. And getting through those things. And so I tend to be, here's the thing and I'm not as clear as I sometimes need to be. So that's where I was arriving quite literally, 40 minutes ago before this conversation. And I think it's really I really appreciate you saying that. And I did land there just wanting to give myself like a silver star on the fridge this morning that I did say, you know what? I wasn't clear. But it took me a minute. I really had to hit pause and I love that exercise, Jason. I think that's fantastic. Even things like, we do talk about big rocks, the whole jar concept, sand and rocks and little pebbles and all that. We do talk about what are the big rocks? What are we focused on? And this is going back to multiple things being true that seem like opposites. You can't just do that once. You can't just do it once a quarter, even if you have to do it all the time, because again, Claire is kind. And so yeah, preacher Jason will be here has just convicted me in a real serious kind of way. 

Jason Lauritsen: I want to, a couple of things I'll add on to, or just to build on what you just said. I think it is a very real, I'm of the same design in that I I am the kind of employee or kind of person that just tell me what needs to be done and then get out of the way. And so there's a very, when I'm talking. So there, there are, there's clarity that exists on many levels. I think the thing that's really important to remember is like the, what defines that, what is really, that's that is a critical thing and that's not micromanagement, that is good management. If I don't understand really clearly what needs to be done and how we're going to measure it and why it matters, even if you throw why on top of that, then it's turbocharged, but you throw, make sure that what is clear, that's never micromanagement, micromanagement happens in the how. And it often happens. It's not even often, it's not even about the how it's, if you define it, because sometimes you do need to define the how in terms of there are things that are really important to how this gets accomplished. So here's what, and then here are the things that are important to the correct way or the right way or an important thing for the how, which might be attached to your brand, it might be attached to how we're going to treat each other. It might be attached to whatever, right? How we're going to do it. But it's when we get in the weeds about the things that don't really matter, that's where micromanagement comes in. The other thing is the way in which we hold people to account. And so if you and I say, we agree on what needs to be done. We agree on a timeline, like it's next Friday. And then I stopped by on Tuesday and said, how are you doing? That is a breach of trust. And that is micromanagement because we were clear. And now I'm breaching that clarity through my actions. And so now it becomes confusing. And so that's one, what and how define the things that matter. And then the other piece I would say, that's really like one of the most, the simplest, most powerful tools, but it's something we all miss, I call it the golden rule of management, which is if it matters, put it in writing, because if you don't, if you don't, if you're just verbally, I leaders, inevitably we fall into the trap of, we think we're clear, we always think we're more clear than what we are. And here's the hard truth of it: it doesn't matter how clear you think you are, it doesn't matter how much effort you put into clarity, it doesn't matter how much time you invested in clarity. It doesn't matter how brilliant you thought that email was that you sent. Clarity only happens when the person on the other end on the receiving end receives and understands whatever it is that's being communicated exactly as it was intended. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yes. 

Jason Lauritsen: So that's all that matters, right? So if they don't, if they're not clear, you failed. And it is always a failure for the person communicating. It's never a failure on the person being communicated with. And when you own that, everything gets, it's not easy, right? Clarity is hard work, which is why that's, this is why engagement is so low is because we're, clarity requires real effort and commitment and tension. And it's, it is the turbocharger of performance. It's a turbocharger of engagement. It's a turbocharger on everything. Even though we come back to this conversation about DEIB, a big reason that we're in the situation we're in is because that work was so unclear. There was a distinct lack of clarity about what this work is about and why it matters and how it should be executed and how we measure it that allowed the uncertainty for haters and the pushback and those that don't understand it to come attacking with their pitchforks. 

Natasha Nuytten: I could not agree with you more. And I'm actually just drawing some dots here for my own self. Just this week to that point, we're, we have an incredible team. I love every person on my team. I love working with them. And we all are, as you're building a team, y'all need to learn how to do that. And I have to recognize that.

Natasha Nuytten: And if I am not going to be a blocker, I need to be able to systematize things just a little bit so that I can be helpful, right? My job, I look at my job as here's the thing we're doing, here's the vision, what do I need? Giving you the thing you need to do your part to get us there. And as such, and ironically if we had done this, I probably wouldn't have had this experience yesterday if I had done it sooner, I put together this I am going to have questions for you, I want to get out of your way, and I'm going to have some questions that we need answers to. So help me help you by thinking this through with me first, right? So put together, here's what I want to do, here, and then answer these questions. And I know, and I really did think about this before putting it out into the world because I was like, I don't want this to feel like a homework assignment or a, I need to see everything you're doing, and it is also true that I do have to sign off on it, and I want to save you time, I want to get the hell out of your way, so I know I'm going to have questions because I'm me and that's who I am, so help me answer them ahead of time, and then give me the opportunity to review it. So we actually just created a thing that was, and listen, product people, engineers, and those types of folks have been doing this for a million years, right? This is not new to them. But in the people realm, it's a little less common, and so to exactly your point, why are we doing the thing, what's the value to us, what do we need to, and we get into a few more details, like who else needs to be involved, what do you need from them kind of thing, but having that in writing means that we can all be clearer, and then I don't have to fail again, thinking I have been clear, when in fact I have not been, I have been anything but, right? Or I expect someone to read my emotions, which is something that, for better or for worse, right? By the time you get into a leadership position, at some point in your career, you are somewhat, I think disillusioned or blind to the fact that people have probably been doing the hard work on helping you be clear in a lot of circumstances, right? You've just had the right people around you who spoke Tasha very well, or who spoke Jason very well, so they got it, right? And so you get lazy, is the word I should say, not maybe disillusioned, but lazy about the work that actually needs to be done. So I think that's really important. And so tying all of this, Jason, as you did there at the end to what has gone sideways around DEIB, I would just ask you a question. In the last set of work that you've done in your book, High Potential, how do you see the work that leaders can do to unleash that in their teams so that we are getting the best out of folks by allowing them to show up as their authentic selves, be in our spaces with integrity, and bring those diverse perspectives? And it's an entire book, so I'm certainly not going to get everything out of you here, but I'm curious if you could give us a few little nuggets around that. 

Jason Lauritsen: I think so much of it is, again, there's a journey, I, like you, am a little bit puzzled by and let's be right, looking behind, beyond the headlines, you are, I think, one of the first people that said this. There's a study out that surveyed business leaders that found that over 60% of companies are not backing away from their DEI commitments and programs. Another 20 some odd percent are actually investing more or planning to invest more in 2025. So like over 80% of organizations, at least in this study, are saying we're either standing pat or investing more. So the headlines, and yes, it's the, we have the government and a few companies that out of sort of marketing fear are bailing on something that's going to hurt their business long term, which seems like if they had smart shareholders, there'd be shareholders angry about it because it's going to harm them in the long term. Because there's, it's so obvious, the case for diversity. If you think about putting together a basketball team, you're not going to get, nine centers or nine point guards. That's stupid. You need diversity. And the only way that team operates at its peak is you put the, you put this diverse group together and then you have to figure out how to uniquely, you design a system that uniquely unleashes the power, their individual skills and talents and abilities and perspectives, and you have to get them to communicate or figure out how to communicate in a way that helps them communicate across those differences because they see the game different. They stand in different places, it's like it's really interesting. Or like I had somebody else talking to me about a symphony, if you have a symphony and the conductors we need to add a, some kind of instrument that we don't currently have. I want to add it because I think it'll bring a richness, there's a depth or there's a piece that's missing to the, to create the best performance or sound that we can. The other members of the orchestra aren't like, oh man, you can't add another instrument. That's going to take away my ability to play my instrument. Like they understand it's additive, right? As long as it's designed in a way, like diversity actually is really important. Our customers are diverse. Our communities are diverse. Like we're all different. I have diversity in my house. So it's just stupid to say that it's something harmful or doesn't exist or whatever. And so I think in a team, as a leader, what I always think about is understanding. And again, there's some, this ties back to the very beginning is that there has to be a degree of self-awareness to understand the value of diversity. Because if you don't, if you don't recognize or actively think about, like Tasha, you and I have sat down and had coffee and it was so fun just immediately. Like that we both grew up in similar sort of parts of the world, but we've had incredibly different experiences and that was so rich and interesting to talk about. And there's so much there that was fun to, to even start getting into. We have many more conversations to come, but as a leader, recognizing that my bias, when I interview my bias, when I build a team is going to be O to overvalue the things that are like me. So people that communicate like me, people that look like me, people that think like me, people that have the same background as me, that's going to be my bias because that's what I understand. But being at but when you think about value from a team, if I hire people that all act, think and have similar experiences to me, then I'm not, we're missing out on a whole bunch of potential perspectives and solutions and ideas. And so when you're interviewing, you want to actively be looking for things that compliment, right? You want to hire people who do have a different experience. So that's one being conscious of who are you bringing into the team or into the sandbox. And then once they're there, I think a big piece of it is you have to be very active then invite people the way that you like even do meetings, right? Making sure that you are like, the simplest thing is like in every meeting, if you're leading a meeting with your team, have we heard everyone's voice? And if I have not heard everyone's voice, the meeting's not over until we have, I'm going to invite whoever it is to share what you've been thinking about or what's happening, what's your take on this, but like bringing those in actively encouraging people. So when someone raises a viewpoint that is not conformist, that's pushing back or challenging, thanking them, acknowledging them, making it safe for people to be a little bit different or have a different point of view. There's just little things that you can start to do that invite people to feel more comfortable bringing more of themselves. I don't know if we, I think the standard of like people being able to bring like their full authentic self to work is a little bit misguided because that's not how work works, but we want people to bring the stuff they want to share and feel safe and sharing as much of that as they feel safe sharing. And as an organization, I want selfishly. And this is why I also think that I question the, especially any pushback on inclusion, because if I'm going to go, if I'm going to spend all the money on bringing these people into my team, I want every bit of value that you can offer me. Yes. That's what inclusion is about. I want maximum performance contribution. And the only way I can do that is make you feel like all the parts of you that could add value are included and safe here. 

Natasha Nuytten: Yes. Plus a thousand on that. And I think it's really interesting, Jason, you led early on with tying some of the challenges that we have to my favorite, my new favorite phrase, but that was coming out of how we management really was trying to create consistency, right? So it is not, it should not be lost on us that our tendency to hire like us means we get shit done faster because I don't have, it's easy. Exactly. I was thinking that as when you were saying, I was like that's why we do it. And it takes more time and it takes more effort and it takes more energy for things to be different and to take that. It's not as easy, it's less of a machine. And we have learned, I think, I don't think, I don't think, I know it's actually been evidenced that when we don't do it that way, when we do to your point, allow people to bring as much of the best bits that they are comfortable doing, and we invite them to bring more by making it welcoming, we get the best out of them and it takes a little bit of time because it is relational. So 100%, 100% times a thousand, whatever the kids are saying these days, I would thumbs up that

Jason Lauritsen:  If you even think, if you even think about it let's go back to work as a relationship, right? So if you think about any relationship I sit down, you and I sit down to have coffee, like you meet lots of people probably for coffee all the time and you have to assess walking into that conversation there's going to be some things you're going to figure out, like how safe is this conversation? How am I getting into it? What kind of person am I meeting with? And if you feel like you've got someone who maybe is got whatever bias, or maybe they are, like you've got someone who maybe is a bit sexist. The way you're going to show up or the, what you're going to offer to that conversation is going to be different. If you're working with someone or you're having a conversation, even in a relationship with someone, and you think that they have some bias against you, or they don't value some part of you, what you're going to offer them back is less. 

Jason Lauritsen: They're not going to get the full thing. And so it's again, it's like it, that feels so obvious to me because we've all been in those, that we've been in those relationships with people who see you only for one piece of your identity, or they see you for only one thing that you can do for them. And we know how that feels. And so why would we want to make our employees feel that way? Obviously then we're not going to get their best work. And if you're not about getting their best effort, then what are you doing? 

Natasha Nuytten: That's it. Because what's the point? Like business and it is business, right? There is a responsibility to driving better business outcomes with the people who are bringing into our teams. All of it is pointed at that. One of our co-founders Kenny Williams once said, " if you could improve your company's performance by 37% and refused to do it, how are you explaining that to your board and still thinking you're going to have a job? That is true, right? It is, we do have a responsibility to outcomes and we get better outcomes by being responsible to our people. And being, we're part, making sure that we all know we're a part of something bigger and then being responsible for that thing. So yeah, I love it. 

Jason Lauritsen: Everything is about, that's one of the things that, being in HR for the period I am, I work with HR all the time there, HR leaders are my primary clients and people I work with and, I try to frequently remind them that I, I talk about, I sound, I think sometimes because of my work, it's work as a relationship and lead with relationship. And I talk about check-ins and conversations and it all feels very natural. People can start to assume that this human workplace stuff is about being a nonprofit and I'm like, guys, but we have to remember that everything is about performance, right? And every organization, whether it's nonprofit or for-profit has a performance imperative. Organization exists to produce some kind of outcome in the world. If we didn't need that outcome, then the organization doesn't need to exist and there are no jobs. And so you have to always remember that there's a performance imperative on everything we do. If it is not impacting performance in some way favorably, then why are we doing it? Why are we doing it? And so I think that's so much the stuff that we end up getting twisted around or getting, that gets a lot of pushback. Engagement for a long time was that there was a lot of pushback about employee engagement. To this day, sometimes there's executive groups that, HR groups come in and they're talking about employee engagement and they're talking about findings in the survey and executives are rolling their eyes because they're not telling the story that connects it back to performance, the performance imperative, like I don't care about my employees feeling cared for, unless you show me how that is going to help them perform better. If I understand that, then even if I don't care, I might fake it. And if I can get you to fake it, that's better than not doing anything at all. 

Natasha Nuytten: I'll take that. Yeah. Let's get, yes, 100%. I love this. Oh, Jason, I could talk to you for 17 hours straight, I think. In fact, it would be a long podcast, but I love what you're doing. I love your perspective. I think people should be, you drop gems and nuggets all the time. I think people should get your book and listen. I think they should reach out to you and have a conversation with you because the first question I asked you, your authenticity and integrity are so high that they are going to have this kind of conversation with you if they are willing to show up in the same way. And so I really appreciate you. I love the work that you're doing. We, I'm going to have you back on if you don't mind, cause I still really want to talk about the role of connection, because that's an entire conversation. And honestly, where I thought we were going to go, and then you just gave me all this beautiful stuff to, to chase and dig into, and I love the work that you're doing and however I can be helpful to you. I would love to be helpful to you. And we'll encourage the folks who are listening here to do the same. So thank you so much for being here and showing up. 

Jason Lauritsen: The feeling is mutual, Tasha. I appreciate the invitation and I will come back anytime. 

Natasha Nuytten: Awesome. I love it. In the meantime, have an amazing day and I will talk with you very shortly. So many practical nuggets and great things we can put into practice right now. I loved his series of questions when meeting with an employee around expectations and how you're being measured. And he's totally right. It's about clarity and clearness, right? So many great things. I hope you learned as much as I did. It is entirely possible that in the future you will find this podcast, a t-shirt that says we treat work like a contract, but people experience work like a relationship. So that could happen. In the meantime, I hope you have an amazing week and I look forward to talking to you next time. Thanks for listening.