Host Intro (Gene Kim)

Continuing on the topic of tools and techniques so we can be better leaders, our Chuck Lafferty, Vice President of CRM, and Dr. Mary Hayes, Director of Research, People and Performance at ADP. They gave such an amazing talk last year, and we got to learn how some of ADP Research's work is helping people become better leaders to increase employee engagement.

I loved their talk because it underscored the responsibility of the leader to behave in a way so they're trusted by their team. And I love how Dr. Mary Hayes and Chuck taught us about the big why, but more importantly, the little why that every leader needs to create for their team. They talk about values and people's strengths to get the best from people. So I'm so excited that we're getting to do this follow-up Q&A session, just to learn more about the theory of causation, but more importantly, how we can become better leaders.

So Chuck and Mary, if you can turn on your camera. Oh, fantastic. Hello. Thank you so much for joining us again.

Q&A

01Gene Kim

So Mary and Chuck, I gotta tell you, I watched your presentation again, and I studied a transcript of it, and I found myself learning so much about the actual tactics that every great leader should use. Mary, you talked about mission and expectation. So mission about why a company does what it does, but expectations, Chuck, you talked about how the local leaders need to frame that mission across their team's work.

So Mary, on the one hand, it seems so obvious now that you say it, but it struck me as profound how you said it. The way I frame it, and why I'm so interested, is that I think many of us, we've been part of these long, insufferable meetings where people talk about the big vision. They craft the mission statement, and they move words around, often leading to nothing. But I think it's because so many times people overlook the little why.

So Mary, can you help talk about why that's so important, and what leaders can do to become better at framing the little why? And of course, same to you, Chuck, as well.

02Dr. Mary Hayes

Yes, the little why is why I fit, or where I fit within the organization as to what are my tasks, what are my duties that fit into the why we're riding on this train towards something called a mission or a vision. And it allows people to feel more connected to their organization when I know that my leader is providing these clear expectations around how I do what I do and where it fits in the bigger picture. So the little why is the employee's contract to fit into the bigger picture.

03Chuck Lafferty

Yeah. And I'll just comment on, it's the manager's job to help clearly have those expectations for their folks. This is one of the questions that Dr. Mary Hayes has brought together. One of the questions is, at work, I clearly know what's expected of me.

And so if we're shaping those expectations, and I consider that the part of the why of what people are doing every day, and us as managers or as leaders of organizations, we get to translate the grand vision, the big thing you talked about, to the team itself. Sometimes those visions are, let's say, very visionary, maybe impossible. And so we have to take those things and we have to shape them in a way that teams can actually execute on them. It's a tough job in order to convince people how we're going to do that.

One thing I want to mention here too is, when we talk about the why or the little why, I am always constantly going to people explaining why. So there could be a very fast deadline that's approaching, and the senior leader could say, we need this in two days. Everyone's going, why? Why do we need this in two days? What's the big rush?

It's our job as leaders to come back to them and at least give them something. Even sometimes we could drive a deadline by just having an arbitrary date. It's just to motivate us. And as long as people know that, okay, this is the date, this is the date we set, and this is the date we're going to try and go for, if people know that they'll execute even better on it. They just want to know why they're being asked to do things, and also it's motivation for them on their team to feel like they're being productive every day for work.

04Gene Kim

Yeah, I love it. And again, it's so obvious now that you mention it, seeing where we fit into the big system and the achievements that people talk about at the most senior levels. Can you talk a little bit about things that maybe you've seen leaders do not so well, and specific ways that you've seen leaders get help to become better at the little why? Mary, why don't you go first?

05Dr. Mary Hayes

Yeah, I can jump in here. One of the things that happens when expectations are not clear is that it, in ways, erodes the trust that you have. If I don't know why I'm doing something, it seems like, is this important? Is this something that is necessary? I just don't want to do work for work's sake. I want to know that I'm being valued and how it all fits together.

And when leaders don't provide those clear expectations, people wander and their mind wanders, and they think, am I really that important to the organization? Where do I fit in? Maybe I should go look somewhere else for work. And so, if we don't provide those expectations and allow people the grace to complete them as they need to, the tasks or the activities, but the expectations are clear, then people can flourish and build that trust with leaders.

06Chuck Lafferty

Yeah. Falling short on the why creates disharmony. It could create an environment where people don't know which direction to take. And so reminding everybody in the organization why we're doing, even if it's grandiose, we're trying to solve a large problem, or even minor, we're trying to create this report by the end of the day, having people explain that is really important.

And those leaders who struggle with it, just whenever you're in conversations, don't expect everyone to be able to read your mind. Just explain to folks. Just always have in the back of your mind, I'm asking you to do something. I'm always going to tell you why I need it done, and the folks will appreciate it. I know I appreciate it from my leaders, and I'm sure people appreciate it from me when I help coach them.

07Gene Kim

I love that. I've learned over the decades that having people read your mind is actually not a high-probability-of-success expectation. That's great.

Mary, when I studied your presentation again, something else that really leapt out at me was values and strengths. Values, you said we left open to interpretation, allowing each respondent to understand its meaning for themselves. But Chuck, you said for values, enterprises need to define the values, senior leaders need to model these values, and local leaders should incorporate those values into team working agreements.

So we heard some great techniques that Christine just mentioned, but can you connect the dots between values and modeling, and explain why it's important? What tips would you give to leaders to model them better? And Chuck, you can start with this one if you want.

08Chuck Lafferty

All right. I'll start with this one. I can tell you, at ADP, our leaders model our values. I go to presentations with our senior leaders, and they will bring up our values. We are contributing to service excellence, because one of our values is service excellence. We are contributing to service excellence because we've done these things. We are making sure that we are having impact on our community because we are socially responsible.

They are constantly bringing up these values because this is how we're guiding our company, how we're guiding ADP, and making it the best payroll provider we can, HCM, human capital management company in the world, is because we follow these principles and these values in the organization. And so what that does is that trickles down to the organization. As our senior leaders are modeling that for us, they're actually showing us a path in order to do the same thing.

And you'll see this from other companies too. Companies have a list of values. They might have 10 to 12 values that they all really respect. I think it's just a great practice. And you see it throughout all of ADP. We're all trying to model these very positive values.

09Dr. Mary Hayes

Yes. And I would add that values for my team versus another leader's team may look a little different. But as leader, we have to be in it with them. It's more of, I'm a leader, but I also want the people to follow me. So if no one follows me, then I can't be a leader.

So by showing how I value someone through recognition or listening or dedicating time every week to have a 15-minute conversation, a 10-minute conversation, that's showing what leaders should be doing with their folks. And as long as it goes all the way up the chain, and that my leader is getting that same role modeling, so on and so forth, that's what makes a difference with the values in an organization, is that leaders are living that and their people feel it.

10Gene Kim

Yeah. It just deeply resonates with me. By the way, a lawn blower just started outside, so I'm going to mute my mic when I'm not talking.

I love what you said, because I felt it viscerally. Everyone knows that our job as leaders becomes much easier when our leaders are modeling it and constantly reinforcing those norms. In the audit community, we had the saying called tone at the top. Whether it was fraud or operational excellence, certain things you could just tell by observing leaders, whether it's operational waste or fraud in financial reporting, that tone is set by the top.

That deeply resonated with me, and I just love the way that you could sort of even boldly imitate the messages that ADP leaders are giving. But what advice would you give to a leader who's having difficulty, despite all that support, integrating that into their daily behaviors? Maybe they feel like they're being put in a place of discomfort, that I just don't feel comfortable doing this. What advice would you give to leaders who struggle with that?

11Dr. Mary Hayes

For me, I would say that the first thing you need to do is to know your people. And there may be something going on with them that you don't understand. They may be at a different place, or they may interpret your listening skills differently than what they want. And so, if you don't know and have that conversation with your teams, you'll never know. You'll never know what is perceived differently. So open yourself up to have those conversations with your team so that you're on the same page. If you don't ask, you won't know the answer.

12Chuck Lafferty

Yeah. The first thing is, if the leader's struggling with how do I apply the values to my organization or to my team or to myself, the first thing is, hey, let's have a conversation about the values. Go to the website, go to the place, the document that has the values, bring them up, and have a conversation with your team. We mentioned this, Mary and I mentioned this in the talk too. How can I know if we share the same values unless we talk about our values? As a good organization. I'd say that's the first thing.

And then through that conversation, you'll probably discover things that are common amongst the team around those values, and then you'll discover how you can actually go about and implement them on your team.

13Gene Kim

In fact, I'll give you one. Dr. Mary, I'm good at schedules and spreadsheets, managing costs. What you are presenting makes it sound like you want me to be an actor, and I'm just not very good at that. Help me get to where I need to go.

14Dr. Mary Hayes

Yeah. Being good at something is great. That's what we hired you for. But also, the role of the leader is nurturing and helping those behind us fill the role once we're gone. We are always training our next replacement in one way or another.

And if I'm good at something, let's talk about that. Why do you feel you're good at it? What is it that is your strength in this area? And how can it translate to this nurturing, this talking to your people? Let's give you a script. Let's figure out how to know your people, how to focus them, and how to engage them.

How do you provide that focus? Of course, we always talk about there's simple questions, right? What are you working on and how can I help? The how can I help is crucial for us as leaders. How can I remove the blockers? We always talk about in development, are you blocked by something? Well, as a leader, we need to do our best to remove those blocks so that the job or the task can be completed.

15Gene Kim

When you say write a script, that also resonated deeply with me. In fact, long ago when I was at Tripwire, I was there from 1997 to 2010, and like many, I was not good at conflict, how to say what I really think. And so I went to be coached by the best. It was our VP of sales, the late Bob Dunn. I was like, how do I behave in this meeting where I'm really trying to get this point across?

And so he said, he's probably going to say X, Y, and Z. And I kind of froze. I'm like, what do I say then? And so he wrote both sides of the script. Jim's going to say this, and here's what he would say next. I would go into these meetings with this huge mind map of a pre-written script that I got very good at reciting. I can say with some pride that, over some months, I got a reputation of being one of the few people who could actually say what they really thought.

So is that an example of how people can use a script to acquire and learn what these skills feel like, and what it feels like to actually deploy them?

16Dr. Mary Hayes

Yeah, it allows you to internalize. There's a great book. It's called Quiet When the Rest of the World Is Screaming, or something along those lines. A lot of us in the technology field tend to be introverted and don't like conflict and don't like talking off the cuff.

And for us, really what has to happen, as you can attest to the copious notes in the presentation that we gave in September, it's really, what am I going to say? May I not say those exact words, but I have written it out. I've provided that mind map for myself and allowed me to take it to the next level of understanding.

Because we always have those moments where we're like, ooh, I'm going to say the wrong thing. Maybe play out what would happen in your mind if you said that wrong thing. And it's just a way of checking the boxes and allowing yourself the grace that you know what you're talking about, and that you now just have to let other people know that you know.

17Gene Kim

That is so fantastic. One of the other, so many stunning quotes, and I'll put a link to your fantastic talk so everybody can listen to it many times, like I did. You shared how important it was that the team trusted the leader. Again, obvious now that you mention it, but you talk about just how important that is.

Can you talk about, hypothetically, what trust and distrust look like and hypothetical coaching you would give to leaders who are falling short on this?

18Chuck Lafferty

Mary, I'll jump in on this one first, because I want to, Mary, I'll probably talk a lot about your talking points as I go through it. Trust is, Mary's probably going to say this, trust is the number one thing on a team. And you need leaders who are building that trust. Leaders sometimes can fall short in this.

I'll give you a very brief example of how words can impact trust. Just an example, Gene. Let's just say you're a developer on a team, and I'm your leader, and you happen to be working on a feature and it has a bug in it, and the bug goes to production. What I want this leader to focus on is not using the word why, because why is accusatory.

So if I were to come to you, Gene, and I want to build trust with you, but I go, Gene, why'd you deploy that bug to production? Instantly you're going to go, what? I didn't mean to deploy the bug to production. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't me, it was Steve. It wasn't me. Point blame.

But if I said, Gene, what led to the bug reaching production? I just removed why. Gene, what led to the bug reaching production? I didn't have to change my tone. If you notice, my tone would be the same. Why did you deploy that bug to production versus, Gene, what led to the bug reaching production? I didn't even change my tone, I just changed one word.

And so what that does is we're focusing now on the problem. We're focusing now on the process, not on the person, not on Gene. Then you'll be able to say, okay, what factors did make that go to production? Now you're thinking backwards about every step that you made in order for that thing to go. That subtle little twist is going to either create trust or destroy it.

There's so many things you pick up over time as you mature as a leader to figure out what to say in order for people to feel comfortable that they can voice their concern. Go ahead, Mary. What are your thoughts on people who build trust?

19Dr. Mary Hayes

I think trust is central to everything that we do. It's that my leader has my back, right? Even when I'm not in the room, my leader will say what's great about what I do and why it's important to the organization, and sees the bigger picture of, wow, Mary's doing all this research. It's great, and it can amplify the brand and fit into PR and fit into marketing, and she can tell you how this works with sales. All of those things that leader is building trust even when I'm not there.

So it's how leaders talk about you, how your work is perceived, how the team feels cohesive, and there's not, you're your favorite right there. Everyone's voice is heard at a different level and equally at the same time. Those are simple ways you can build trust by listening.

And if you are giving kudos about a person in another meeting, at the executive team level or whatever, you can share that back to the person and let them understand that you really do value them as a member of the team. It's very difficult to build trust, but it's very quick to break it. So finding those ways that enhance trust and continue along the lines of, I am caring about my people and I'm listening to them, will go a long way to building trust.

20Gene Kim

Oh, good. One of my favorite sayings is the goal of science is to explain the most amount of observed phenomena with a few number of principles, confirm deeply held intuitions, and real surprising insights. I have to say, I can think of no better words for the research that you've done.

As someone who's studied the literature on this, it's just one of the most parsimonious and delightful and practical ways I've seen of how to become a better leader. So thank you, Dr. Mary Hayes and Chuck Lafferty.

21Chuck Lafferty

Thank you. Absolutely.

22Gene Kim

Thank you all. So thank you, Chuck and Mary.