US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has called out an epidemic of loneliness and highlighted how workplaces are one way to help. How can people get their needs for connection and recognition met in appropriate ways at work? And how does this impact the overall performance of the organization?
I dug into these questions and more with Logan Mallory. Today, we talked about why he is so passionate about this work and how his empathy for his customers comes from being a customer himself at one time! We discussed why employers and employees are having so much conflict right now, what leaders can do to improve the employee experience, and simple ways to create an above-and-beyond culture. We talked about how your company can create a Gratitude Flywheel and got real about the short shelf life of “surface perks,” why a more consistent culture is required, especially in dispersed or hybrid environments, and why a workplace can help support community and connection to keep us mentally healthy.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- Communication and transparency are two of the pillars to understanding one another’s perspectives. Without that clarity in understanding, there cannot be effective empathy.
- People want to be recognized and they want to recognize their peers. According to a Motivosity survey, 75% of people said that their mental health would improve if they were recognized at work more often.
- The higher you are in your organization, the less you know about what’s going with your teams and customers creating an iceberg of influence. This is the same for the good and the bad. Put systems in place to help bridge this gap.
- Good culture is different for everyone. What leadership in a company needs to do, with input from their team, they need to decide what those values are going to be. When you state who you want to be, that is empathetic for your employees and new recruits.
“We have people that are burnt out, people that are disengaged, you have a mental health crisis in the US. And maybe one of the easiest things employers can do is empower their people to say Thank You more often.” — Logan Mallory
Episode References:
- The Empathy Edge podcast episodes:
- Rebecca Friese: How To Build A “Good” Culture
- Shasta Nelson: Why Successful Leaders Encourage Work Friendships
- Claude Silver: Leading with Heart at Vayner Media
- Motivosity survey infographic, showing how gratitude leads to better mental health at work.
- The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor
About Logan Mallory, VP Marketing, Motivosity
Logan Mallory is the Vice President of Marketing at the leading employee recognition software, Motivosity. Mallory is a public speaker, adjunct professor, and thought leader on culture and leadership in the workplace to achieve employee retention. Motivosity helps companies create winning cultures by focusing on gratitude and connection at work. Mallory’s wife, four kids and poodle are all his favorites.
Connect with Logan Mallory:
Motivosity: motivosity.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/loganmallory
Facebook: facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009422255617
Instagram: instagram.com/motivosity
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FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast the show that proves why cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. The US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, has called out an epidemic of loneliness and highlighted how workplaces are one way to help. How can people get their needs for connection and recognition met in appropriate ways at work? And how does this impact the overall performance of the organization. Today, I dug into these questions and more with Logan Mallory, Vice President of Marketing at moda velocity. Motor velocity is a technology that helps companies create winning cultures by focusing on gratitude and connection at work. In a survey the company ran with 2000 respondents, they found that 75% said their mental health improved when they are recognized more often, recognition and gratitude matter, and they are keys to a healthy and high performing workplace culture. Today, we talked about why he is so passionate about this work, and how his empathy for his customers comes from being a customer himself that one time, we discussed why employers and employees are having so much conflict right now, what leaders can do to improve the employee experience, and simple ways to create an above and beyond culture. We talked about how your company can create a gratitude flywheel, and we got real about the short shelf life of quote unquote surface perks, and why a more consistent culture is required, especially in dispersed or hybrid environments. Finally, we discuss why a workplace can help support community and connection to keep us mentally healthy. This was such a great conversation, take a listen. Welcome Logan to the empathy edge podcast to talk all about happy cultures, connected cultures and engaging your employees. I’m very excited to have this conversation with you.
Logan Mallory 02:36
Thanks for having me. I am excited to spend some time with your audience and to hang out with you Maria.
Maria Ross 02:40
Yeah, it’s always great because this podcast has really branched out into speaking to leaders across marketing, social entrepreneurship, HR Dei, but you know, back to my original wheelhouse of marketing and branding. I love welcoming folks that are doing really innovative things, with their marketing with their own marketing and branding for their customers, but also being part of building a company that is devoted to improving workplace culture. It’s sort of like the happy marriage of the two sides of my interests. So I’m excited to get into it.
Logan Mallory 03:13
It’s a really nice Venn diagram. And I feel the same way. So I’m here for it. I’m here for it.
Maria Ross 03:19
It’s that’s that whole thing. I’ve always said it, my entire marketing career is like, I’m interested in doing marketing for good, not for evil, and marketing and brand. And storytelling has that power to pull us together and help us ignite action and help us persuade and help us to make things better, just as there’s a dark side to it, you know, more of us are hopefully turning towards the light. I hope
Logan Mallory 03:44
so I think that there is so much good that we can do and that has really become a big like cornerstone of my time at motivasi. And in my role, well in marketing at it, it makes both work and life better. When not you’re up, bro.
Maria Ross 03:57
100% 100%. So let’s get into that a little bit. Tell us your story. And what brought you to this work? What was your interest in leading marketing at a company devoted to employee experience and customer experience?
Logan Mallory 04:10
Yeah, you know, I was actually a motive opportunity customer before I ever worked here. And so I worked for a tech company called work front and work Brian used motivasi. And so I spent part of my career there using this tool that focused on connection and community and recognition. And then I left and went to another job that didn’t have that. And I can’t tell you how many times I thought to myself, Oh, I wish I had I wish I had motivasi I wish I had a way to say thank you to my peers. And I and I didn’t. When the opportunity that came up to work promoted paucity. I knew the founder of this organization because he also was the founder of Workfront, where I had worked previously, and Scott stories really fascinating. He started building Workfront Late 90s, like 1999, he was the CEO for a really long time. And they, they built a great company. Eventually, Scott left the CEO role and was on the board of directors and people were a little more comfortable with him. And so they would come up and say things like, you know, what this place has changed. It’s not exactly what it used to be. I feel like a cog in a machine. And, and I don’t know if he was frustrated or disappointed, but I know that Scott wasn’t happy, because he had tried to do all the things to make people happy at work, right, the snack room, the parties, the good health insurance, the PTO policy. And so Scott said, I’m gonna go solve this problem with technology. And that’s how motivasi was born. And I wanted to work for someone with that philosophy, like, I wanted to work for a leader that had that approach, and wanted to work towards something higher. And so here I am, and it’s been a really great three and a half years so far. Okay,
Maria Ross 05:55
there’s quite a few things to unpack in that story. Number one, what a great example of empathy that you were sort of a customer. Uh huh. And now you are working for the company. And you were so able to be empathetic to the needs of your own customers, because you were in their perspective, before you were I am trying to move away from the in their shoes, language these days, sure. But you do see things from their perspective. And you bring that to the work you do. And so often, when we go into roles, I know when I’ve gone into marketing roles, when you’re first there, you’re almost you’re most impactful when you’re first there, because you’re looking at things with a beginner mind and a fresh eyes, you get those fresh eyes, but then you get indoctrinated into the thing, and you sort of go into your ivory tower. And it’s, here’s what I think. And here’s what we think is best. And so we’ll talk a little bit later about what you do as a company to make sure that you still keep that customer perspective, always front and center, because that is one of the most important things about building an empathetic brand is never ever, ever lose it losing sight of the customer experience, and what they want and need and feel and what their goals are. So I love that. And I love this idea of moving beyond, I had a guest on a past episode, I’ll link to it in the show notes, Rebecca freeze, who wrote the book that goes the good culture, and how leaders can create workplaces that don’t suck. And she talks a lot about what many Silicon Valley companies did, or tech companies did in the beginning of of just throwing the veneer on it. Like let’s give them a foosball table, let’s give them free beer Fridays, and thinking that was going to solve culture problems. And I love that, even though those can be fun, and those are great, and even the perks that go along with them and the benefits. There’s a deeper need to connect and engage. And I love that your founder saw that and decided to say how can I look at this from a different angle? And how can we leverage technology to help us better connect and engage because that is something not to replace connection and engagement. We can’t outsource that to AI so to speak. This idea of leveraging technology to bring us closer, can you tell us a little bit more about that philosophy? And give us an example or two of what that looks like?
Logan Mallory 08:11
Yeah, for sure. And I want to take even one step back. I don’t always quote US Surgeon General. But our current US Surgeon General is evac Murthy. And I mean, this is the same administration that normally puts the the warning on cigarette boxes about about cancer, right. And he is now has six priorities. And one of them is the epidemic of loneliness. And the other is well being at work. And when he dives deeper into that He literally says community and connection is one of the ways that workplaces can help solve the health crisis that we’re experiencing in the US. And so I think that is really fascinating. I don’t I don’t know that companies should be the social place to meet all of the social needs for their team members. Right? I don’t think we can solve all of the problems. But organizations should be able to support their team members and be a place where they can get some of that community and connection. So let me give you an example. We’ve we’ve got a customer down the road. At this point, I think they had about 800 employees, and it was a tech company with employees across across the country. But they did have kind of a central group here in Utah. And they use motivasi. They use our tool, and we focus on interest groups. I like to call them micro communities, right, like micro micro cultures. And so these people loved road biking that that was their hobby, and they found each other through our product. So they started spending time together. They started biking in the mornings before work and so all of a sudden, you had people from finance and people from sales and people from support who have otherwise would have never interacted in this 800 person company, they were spending two or three mornings a week together, road biking. Now the company noticed that, and they could have just said, Hey, that’s great, go do your thing. They could have ignored it. But this company like doubled down on that they saw the micro culture and they said, that’s a win for us, we’re going to support that. So they gave them a little bit of money to go buy kits, right? Essentially, they’re Jered their their jerseys. They gave them a little bit of money to go sponsor a few races a year. And so they just, like supported this community. And when you have a community at work, you stay longer, you work harder, you solve problems more effectively, right? Like all of these roadblocks start to go away when you like and care for the people that you’re working with.
Maria Ross 10:50
100% and I am hearing echoes of another person that I interviewed on the show that you should meet actually, Shasta Nelson, she is a social relationship expert, she wrote a book called The business of friendship, citing many of the studies and the experts, one of whom you just mentioned the US Surgeon General, but about this idea of Korea, encouraging friendship in the workplace, not necessarily that we all have to be close to each other. But this idea of being friendly and being joyous and being connected at work, because there’s data around the fact that you know, you’ll you’ll retain employees more if they have a quote unquote, best friend at work as an example. Yeah. And it’s this idea of like, we this is the place where we spend the bulk of our time, it should be a place that we want to come to it doesn’t mean it’s always easy. It doesn’t mean that the work is always fun. But it’s this idea of like, do I feel this sense of belonging? Do I feel this sense of connection and camaraderie? So when I go there, I can contribute my best to the organization? You know,
Logan Mallory 11:56
it’s it’s interesting, and I have a little teeny bit of a different opinion about some of that, but not the overall concept. Gartner, Gartner in there, they have 12 questions that they asked about culture, and one of them is do you have a best friend at work? And I kind of laugh at that, because I actually don’t expect my work to replace John and Cory and Doug, who are my college roommates and my best men and like, I don’t expect work to replace them. But I expect work to help me have relationships with people that I like. And so I think about that, as you know, if I had to travel with this person, if I had to jump on a flight and go to London with this human being, would it be miserable? And what I dread it? Or would I have a good time on this work? Train, right. And so for me, there is this balance, like, I don’t want companies to feel like they have to provide the best friend, that’s really hard to do. Because it late best friends are created out of this deep life experience. I want them to provide me with people that I like that I would be happy going to lunch with, that I would not be opposed to hanging out with on a weekend or after work hours. And that might be a more might be a more like consumable goal for companies. Yeah, than a best friend.
Maria Ross 13:07
Well, and I think that’s the point. It’s not necessarily your best friend in life, but is that my best friend at work? Right in that situation. And as speaking as someone who met multiple lifelong best friends from my first job out of college and met my husband at work, we do form those relationships because, and then there’s some times where you, you are working in a company and you’re really, really close to someone, if you both leave, and you go your separate ways. That’s okay, too. It can be seasonal, temporary, but in those moments, when I was working with those people, I kind of felt like they were my quote unquote, best friends. And it gave me something to look forward to. To your point, when I have to do work, that’s a slog. When I have to travel for work, are these people that I know have my back? Do I feel comfortable with them? Do I feel like I can show up? Do I feel like I can offer out crazy ideas, or creative ideas, and not be afraid to take risks in front of these people? I think that’s when we really do our best work. If we’re sort of pretending to be somebody we not we’re not to protect ourselves when we go to work. That’s that’s a sign that we’re not really giving our most innovative selves to our work.
Logan Mallory 14:13
Yeah. And it absolutely means when we’re not giving our most innovative selves, that absolutely means that work isn’t getting our best result, right? We’re probably just doing whatever we’ve always done and checking the boxes the same way and not not coming up with new solutions to old problems or new solutions to new problems.
Maria Ross 14:32
I love it. I love it. So in your opinion, and I have a whole book coming out in the fall called the empathy dilemma about my own musings about this. But I’d love from your perspective in the trenches working with customers that are trying to improve their cultures. Why do you think employers and employees are having so much conflict right now?
Logan Mallory 14:52
Yeah, you know, I think about a relationship between employees and employers as a pendulum. And I think it kind of swings back and forth. And for basically most of human history, it was in favor of the employer, right. And then probably 100 110 years ago that like, started to shift, and we’ve seen it swing back and forth, right after COVID. It was, you know, for a minute, it was an employers market, and everybody was just holding, still trying to do whatever their employer needed. After COVID, it very much became the employee focused and people were leaving jobs and demanding more flexibility and making a lot of demands. And even in the last, I’d say, two quarters, we’ve seen that pendulum go back in favor of the of the employer, right, you have all these people that are all these layoffs, hundreds of 1000s of tech slash tech layoffs, and so employees are afraid again. And what I hope is that someday, as a society, we can, we can balance that out better, so that it is more so that the right things are being focused on, right for both groups. But you know, I’m a people manager, and I’ve got a team. And what I’ve realized is the more senior I get in my career, the more it is just about people problems. Yeah, like I spent so much of my day thinking about my team and who has what, that I can help solve that work. These two people aren’t getting along, how do I bridge that gap? This person has something happening at home? How do I support them as a human? And, and so like, I do think it’s hard because the conflict is real. The company needs to make money. Like we’re not, we’re not all here for social causes, right? You have to make money. And most of the wants or needs of the employees are in opposition to that they want more freedom, they want more money, they want more perks they like, and so I do think that we have to, and I won’t say be in each other’s shoes, since you’re avoiding that. I do think with each other’s perspective, we have to see each other’s perspectives. Yeah. And understand the realities of both sides. Yeah. And I’d say one of the solutions to that is really great communication and transparency, when we’re honest. And my talk about realities, that makes those conversations
Maria Ross 17:09
easier. 100% actually, in the new book coming out, one of the five pillars of being an effective and empathetic leader is clarity, because you can you can be as empathetic as you want. But if people are not on the same page, it doesn’t matter. You’re not even seeing you’re not even watching the same film. Right. Right. So I can’t even see the film through your perspective, because I’m in another theater. Right? Right, exactly. So it’s that idea of being able to be crystal clear. And also, one of the other pillars is decisiveness. Because I think what happens is a lot of very well intentioned leaders get caught up in people pleasing, which is actually not empathy, it’s submission, right? It’s, I’m just going to try to make everybody happy, which is an impossibility. So the clearer you can be in, the more decisive you can be, that’s when you can open up empathy, as you know, I’m sure you’ve experienced where you do have to make a tough decision. But I can use empathy as a leader to communicate that decision in a certain way. Or provide someone who’s particularly struggling with that decision, maybe some extra support. Yeah, but it’s those levers, right? Yeah,
Logan Mallory 18:15
exactly. It hasn’t been too long ago, but I was in a conversation with a team member. And this is a really great team member, like, they do really great work. They’ve been here for a few years, and, and are like wanting to grow. And I want them to grow. But the reality is, is that like within within the realm with which this person wants to grow, like, we don’t have the opportunities at the moment. And so it was a really interesting conversation to sit across the table from this person and say, You’re great talent. And if you want to be able to grow that way, like I will be your reference, I will help you learn, I will give you some projects to help you move that direction. But I don’t have that answer here. I like I can’t solve your problem in today’s work environment. Right. And that doesn’t make it an easy conversation to have. But it does kind of eliminate some question marks, right, because the decisions were made, the conversation was had, and so like that gives that per that helps that person know their real options.
Maria Ross 19:18
I love that story. And I mentioned a story about that in the new book, because it’s this idea of we can’t completely give all our agency to our employers to sort of like sit back and fold our arms and say, What do you got? Right? It’s got to go both ways. And part of that agency is understanding in a very kind, compassionate, respectful way, that maybe this isn’t the place for you anymore. Not for any bad reason. But but this is what the company needs to do. This is how the company needs to move forward. And if that doesn’t align with your values, I get it. So how can I support you in finding a place where you better meet your needs and your values because we just can’t do that for you here? err, yeah. And that doesn’t have to be a conversation. Right. It doesn’t have to be a contentious conversation. Yeah,
Logan Mallory 20:06
and I think that oftentimes, especially in, especially in today’s environment, and with, kind of, I’m gonna use the word entitled, like, we have some entitlement. And then that keeps us from seeing realities. i If I can share the story, it’s a few years old, but I was in a in a, in a role. And I got a call from appspot. Right a marketer’s dream, I got a call from a HubSpot recruiter. And it was one of those calls where I like almost texted my wife on the other line and was like, pack your bags, we’re moving to Boston. At the end of the call, at the end of the call, the recruiter said, Tell me about the budget that you’re managing. And I said, I’m managing a few $100,000. It’s mostly on licenses and tools. And I could hear this recruiter get bored with me. And they weren’t disrespectful. But they basically said, like, oh, that’s, that’s not going to cut it. And so I, I realized that my next role had better include a really large budget. And eventually that opportunity came knocking. And there was an opportunity to manage a multi million dollar budget. And the company that I worked for, said, What could we do to keep you here? And I said, unfortunately, you’d have to give me Mike’s job. Like, that’s the job. I have to have to keep me here. Yeah. And Mike was really good at his job. So it wasn’t I didn’t take it personal from the company that I couldn’t have that. I took it on myself. That was my career and my responsibility to get the experience I needed. Yeah, I just couldn’t do that there. So we shook hands and, and high fived and left with a really amicable departure. And I wish it could be like that more often. I wish. I wish we saw that more often. You had the
Maria Ross 21:45
clarity, though. And I think that’s what’s so important. I did it, I did an interview. I’ll link to that in the show notes as well with Claude silver, who’s the the Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia, Gary Vaynerchuk, X marketing company. And she talked about the fact that when they started to get really clear about not just job requirements, but expectations and values and progression and opportunity, and how you’re expected to show up and lead, she said entitlement sort of vanished, because we were so clear that it wasn’t that people were constantly asking, right? It’s like, everyone was clear, everyone was being honest, everyone was being transparent. And they understood what was in front of them. There was no sort of guessing about like, Well, I’m just not getting this opportunity. Because whatever reason you make up in your head, right, right. And so this idea of kind of coming back to it again, about clarity, and communication is so important, because it can actually eradicate some entitlement perceived entitlement, where entitlement can just be someone’s, you know, ambition, it could be someone’s desire, it could be some something burning inside of someone that says, I’m running out of time, and I need to do this, whatever, whatever the emotional and logical reasons are for that those requests. It’s that clarity can have that conversation of like, okay, I’m not happy with this, but I understand where the company’s coming from. And I understand they’re doing everything they can. And now I have to make a decision back to agency of is this the best place for me right now? Because, you know, like you said earlier, like, you can’t just make more VP positions just because people want them. Right, exactly. So it’s that it’s that idea of really nurturing someone and going okay, I see you. And I see you’re ready for this next role. And unfortunately, we don’t have that role available for you here. So what can we do while you try to find that role?
Logan Mallory 23:40
Yeah, it’s, there’s so many dynamics to have to manage. Yeah. And again, being able to see each other’s perspectives can really help with that. Yeah.
Maria Ross 23:48
So I want to I want to talk a little bit about what you’re hearing from your customers, as they look to your product to help them increase communication and clarity and collaboration. What are the challenges that they tend to come to you with and and how does a solution like yours? How does technology help solve those problems? For leaders and cultures?
Logan Mallory 24:10
I think that when people think about motivasi, they they come to us through two separate doors typically. One is very as we’ve kind of talked about community and connection related, right, they have they have dispersed workforces, they have multiple offices, we work with a decent number of financial institutions where they’re, you know, across different branches. And and they want to take what is a good culture and do two things. The first thing is cement that good culture and make it a great culture. Right. So like, I don’t I don’t think motivasi solves your bad culture problem. Now I think when you have a have a good culture, we help you like, turn that into something more tangible and kind of the the like Town Square like the place where everyone comes in the company,
Maria Ross 24:58
almost like codify it. I’d like to systematize it in a way I did that sounds so cold. I don’t mean it to sound that way, but in a way that makes it repeatable and scalable and inclusive of everyone. Exactly,
Logan Mallory 25:10
exactly. So with the community and the connection piece like that really is, how do we create the happy spot that your employees want to go, so many tools are created for the administrator or for corporate in mind. And motivasi kind of becomes the social intranet. And and our adoption is so high, because people want to go there, it’s where they’re seeing the highlights, it’s where they’re getting the good news throughout the company. It’s where they’re like, where they’re getting their onboarding experience from a culture perspective. So from day one, motivasi helps you and I’m going to steal your word Maria codify your culture and your values. And and like this, that that community matters within your organization. The second door that people approach us through and this is, frankly, what motivasi was born from, like this is our entire legacy is through a recognition door. People want to recognize their team members. And so often well intentioned executives or HR people default to what you mentioned earlier, the foosball table, the pizza party. And it’s not that those things are bad, right, they default to swag. I’m wearing my motivasi hat today that love this hat. And we’re all the time. But it doesn’t get me out of bed on Monday mornings. And it doesn’t make me a better team member.
Maria Ross 26:29
I was mentioned when I’ve referenced Rebecca freeze earlier and her book, the good culture, she talks about that as bungee nearing. Like it’s a way to, it’s a way to hide a little bit of like, oh, solve our culture problem. That’s called fungineer thing. So yeah, that’s it. That’s, but that’s often what we default to when we don’t know that there’s a different way. It’s exactly well intentioned, as you said, it’s
Logan Mallory 26:51
super well intentioned, but the shelf life on it is almost non existent. It lasts for a day or two, and then it’s kind of just and then it is just this the expected standard. And so what motivasi does, is motivasi, recruits all of your team members to look for and recognize the good things happening in your culture. And so we do that we wish give every team member a few dollars every month, normally like three to five bucks. And they can only use those dollars to say thank you to someone else. And so you end up again, in the same place where your community and your connection and your micro cultures and your org chart are, you end up with this social feed of all the positive things happening throughout the company. And, and so like, I feel recognized people are seen, they feel like their day to day work is is being noticed. There’s this this theory that I talk about a lot. It’s called the iceberg of ignorance. And the concept is that the higher you are in an organization, the less that you know about what’s happening throughout the, you know, kind of the the bottom of the org, that’s
Maria Ross 28:01
a real, that’s actually been studied that Yeah, that happens that you act and actually What’s also been studied is that many founders lose their empathy as the organization gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and they get further and further from the people and the customer. Right?
Logan Mallory 28:15
Yeah, exactly that that distance grows, and you lose the empathy, you don’t really know what’s happening. And I would, I think lots of times the iceberg of ignorance is referenced with the problems, right? The drama in the company, the systems and the processes that don’t work. It’s also very true for the winds and the good things, the higher you are in the organization, you can’t see the day to day things that people are doing to contribute, let alone take the time to thank them. And so motivasi, it puts that kind of power to recognize in the hands of of the individuals. And it makes a massive difference on culture. One, one last stat on that Maria, we did a survey motivasi did of 2000 people. And 75% of people said that they thought their mental health would improve if they were recognized at work more often. And so we’ve we have people that are burnt out, you have people that are disengaged, you have mental a mental health crisis in the United States. And maybe one of the easiest things employers can do is to empower their people to say thank you more often.
Maria Ross 29:21
I love that. Is that a publicly available survey? The
Logan Mallory 29:25
survey data is somewhere we did that in combination with one poll, and I would be thrilled to to send a link Yes. So that you can share that
Maria Ross 29:34
a link. Yeah, we’ll put a link in the show notes to that because that is powerful. And I also just want to point out this idea of, you know, as I talked about in the book, the empathy edge, that you have to be walking your talk and part of the walking your talk is modeling, celebrating and recognizing that this value, whether it’s empathy, whether it’s service, whatever your company decides to call empathy, right? Or caring about each other. Whatever. It’s just a nice bullet on a poster on the wall, that the brand strategist raising my hand said should be important, right? But comes to life when you model it when you celebrate it when it’s recognized, and people see that it is celebrated. And they start to understand this is how I can find success here. So what I love about what you’re saying is this idea of peer recognition and executive recognition and making it so public creates a learning environment that this is who we are. And even if you were skeptical about it, when you joined our organization, you’re seeing it in action. And now you want to get on that bus. So now it’s who can I thank, who can I recognize? I want to I want to participate in this, that when we do so much of that recognition behind closed doors, or just like a bonus check every quarter that nobody else sees. We’re not really we’re not really creating a culture that celebrates and models recognition and empathy and understanding and like you said, being seen.
Logan Mallory 31:06
Yeah, we we talk about that a lot as like this virtuous cycle, right. And I know that concept is used in a lot of places are the idea of a flywheel, it’s, it’s kind of like the gratitude starts. And then it just takes on a life of its own. And so you don’t even have to think about it anymore. Because it just becomes a part of who your people are. Reading. I’m reading right now The Happiness Advantage by a Shawn I believe it’s a corps who has a infamous TED Talk. And he talks about the impact of happiness on cultures, right? And how people who work from a positive perspective, are faster, quicker or faster. They’re just better on all the metrics. And gratitude is a big part of being happy. Absolutely,
Maria Ross 31:52
absolutely. And we’ve even talked on the show about gratitude being a great gateway to empathy, because it gets you out of your own situation and sort of get you in a very external mindset of looking up from whatever you’re dealing with. And saying, what what am I grateful for? Who am I grateful for around me? And then to your point, then taking that that next step? So what kinds of transformations have you seen from clients, or customers that have implemented this? Or is there any sort of even if it’s anonymous, any sort of before or after you can share with us,
Logan Mallory 32:29
one of one of my very favorite conversations that I’ve ever had with a customer is actually from from an organization, it’s called Desert, first credit union, their credit union kind of in the western states here, and, and I’m happy to share this because that their their president and CEO, Shane London, shared it with us. And we’ve used it all the time. Shane has been with Deseret first credit union for a really long time. And like, basically been in every role the organization has, right. And when we were interviewing him about the impact of gratitude and connection, he said, you know, I’ll be honest, when when my team brought mode of audacity to me, my CFO attitude, my skeptic attitude came out. And I did not think that this was going to work. And his exact words were, Boy, was I wrong. And I think that the reason that Shane and their organization sees so much value and Moto biocity, is because they have all these branches that are disconnected. And it can be hard to create a consistent culture, when you’re not all in the same place. Like that adds an extra element, and motivasi it helps them focus on that, again, I want to be really clear, I think desert first credit union had a good culture before and motivasi helped codify that and make that a great culture across across the board. So I think they were doing a lot of things, right. You know, one of our, we were with a really big company in kind of the FinTech area. And they wanted, they wanted to create a more powerful Foundation for their culture. And so they would use the appreciations in their feed in each of their in each of their all hands meetings, and the executive would get up and reference those. They would, they would use motivasi to like, help onboard people and help them understand the values of the company. And like they weren’t just appreciations. They were recognitions around when values were being lived. And when one of their senior executives left that company. And her first phone call at her new organization was was to us and so like, we just hear people say that we hear people say that motor velocity helps our employees feel seen route work. Right. And, and that’s really hard to do. Like, you can’t do that in a one day pizza party. Right.
Maria Ross 34:48
Right. And you know, and we should add, I mean, of course, like, you’re on the show, You’re my guest and there’s probably other technology solutions out there that can help people. But I think what I’m hearing you say Hang as well, what I’m seeing as the common thread is that it wasn’t like, it’s probably not a good idea to start at throwing technology at something if you don’t know what your culture problems actually are. Am I hearing you right? Like, is there some work that needs to be done before technology can be a panacea and solve your problems? Like what would you say a company needs to really honestly look at? Before they can expect that technology will help them? Just deal? You know, quote, unquote, deal with all the people issues?
Logan Mallory 35:31
Yeah, I have I have two answers. They’re the super obvious answer is the values. What what do you care about? What do you want to convey? Like whether you know, you are you had mentioned, you had mentioned service or empathy, but like, it could be a million things, right. But pick some that you really care about. And then the other challenge that I would offer is, do you really care, like, if you are an executive, or a leader, or a person in HR, if you’re trying to check a box, then don’t invest the money, don’t invest technology, like just go check a box in whatever way you want to do it. If you sincerely want to create a great place to work, where you care about your people, and they can thrive both as their skill set, and as their human being, like, what they what they want to prioritize? If that’s truly valuable to you, then I think that that’s the question you need to answer and you should be sincere about it. Not every place has to be a great place to work, like some places can be all about the money. And some places can be a stepping stone, and some places can be the you know, like a law firm that it’s all it’s all about the hourly and the and the billable hours. And like, I guess what I appreciate is that, and maybe this is my patriotic side and rear coming out. I’m grateful to live in a in a country where there can be different options. And there can be different places, because not everybody speaks my love language.
Maria Ross 37:00
Well, I love that you said that. Because good culture is different for everyone. Yeah. And what accompany has to do with the leadership of a company has to do hopefully, with the input of their best people, you know, not, we’re not going to go in a boardroom and then decide between the six of us what our values are for a 200 person company, right? Yeah. And this is why when I do my brand strategy and brand messaging projects, I bring together a cross sectional group together that’s like, I don’t even know what marketing does, why am I here? Right? It’s because you have a different perspective on the company and on what we do and on our values. But you know, getting gathering that input, synthesizing that input, and then deciding this is who we want to be. Because when you clearly state that that’s actually empathetic for your employees to know, what have they gotten themselves into? And is this the right place for me or not? Right, but it’s also empathetic to your recruits. So you’re putting a band a very clear banner out there. This is who we are, this is what we stand for you if you did this, come work with us. And you know, there’s companies right now post pandemic, that are, you know, making some questionable leadership decisions. And I talk about a few of them in the new book. But also, one thing I have always said is at least you know, where they stand. Exactly, if that’s okay, for someone, they just need to be okay with taking the responsibility for the stance that they’re taking. Yes. Do you know what I’m saying? And so it’s this idea that, like, if you really do want to attract the best talent, and you know, that within Gen Z, and younger millennials, these things, you know, and all the data is there, these things are important to them. If you’re gonna say, No, that’s not important to us, you need to accept the responsibility for that decision as well, of the impact is going to have on your business.
Logan Mallory 38:45
Yeah, and I bet you, you also can’t please everyone, like Hypersoft, you can’t craft a group of values. That is the perfect banner for every US citizen. I was, excuse me for I guess quoting myself, maybe this is a little weird. I was in the LA Times not too long ago, when there was an article about about Elon Musk and Twitter and what culture he was creating. And again, I will defend for or against
Maria Ross 39:11
my his approval, confirm or deny. Yeah, right.
Logan Mallory 39:14
But you know, exactly what Elon Musk, you know, the banner he’s putting up and it is meritocracy and hard work, and dedication and toeing the line. Like, right, that’s, that’s the flag he put up. Right. And if you don’t like it, it’s claimed as different. Yeah, at least, you know, it’s time to move on. Well, and
Maria Ross 39:33
that’s the risk that that leadership team runs in terms of long standing sustainable business performance and innovation, right? So if they understand the risks, and they want to, you know, defy the data file that they can but I think it’s this idea, you know, and I’ve, I’ve long said this in my brand strategy work. You can’t be all things to all people or you end up being nothing to no one so you as a company Leadership along with your employees need to decide who we are. And that’s not just five bullets on a website. Yes, if we’re going to claim that these, it’s also not 14 values because I was in a, I was in a workshop one time with a company that said, when I asked them about their values, because we were going to revamp their their values for their brand messaging, they were like, Hold on, let me check the website, because I can’t remember them all. And I’m like, exactly, and throw them away, because
Logan Mallory 40:26
they’re not doing you any good, right? There’s, there’s your first problem, there’s your first
Maria Ross 40:30
problem, right? And you’re not actually living by them. But what are those values? And then take that next step of what are the behaviors that show us that those values are being lived out? So what are the examples that we give to our leaders to say, if we’re going to look at your performance review and judge you or assess you based on how you’ve lived these values? Do I, as a manager, or leader actually have the actions and behaviors that we have determined? Show each of those values? Because if I don’t, I’m just making it up. Right? Yeah. So linking to your point about recognition and whatever. If we don’t agree what each of those values look like in action? How can we acknowledge and reward it doesn’t matter how great our technology is? Great thought, I love it. I love that. Yeah. So um, so as we as we wrap up, what is what is your biggest piece of advice to a leader listening to this right now that’s like, Hey, we are we are struggling, as an example with hybrid work, or a dispersed workforce. And we think technology can solve our problem, but we’re not really sure. What would be your your first two steps they should take.
Logan Mallory 41:43
So I think that you nailed one of those, you need to look at the team members that exemplify what you want. And hopefully you have some of those in the organization. But who are the team members that that exemplify if you could clone that person? Who are they, and making sure that you have their input and their feedback, and that you’re very intentional about any kind of caught a theme here, Maria? Like I think intentionality is one of our is one of our themes today. You can’t you don’t need to say yes to all of the ideas that your team members give. Right. But if you’re going to say no, help them understand why if they say we think this should be a value, or our culture should be based on this, and you’re going to disagree with that. Why is it? Is it budget? Is that something in your background? Is it an experience you had with with a former employer, and I think kind of explaining that can go a long way? Well, one of the very best things that a leader can do when it comes to improving culture or changing culture. And I actually believe this happens just as well, at the individual level as the team level, is what I call a relationship reset. And that’s not my phrase, I’m certainly borrowing that. But I think that the concept is being able to say, Hey, this is our current reality. And we’re interacting, this, we’re interacting, and I don’t like how it’s going. And I’d really like to reset that. I’d like to, I’d like to start over. And here’s what I can do differently. What could this look like to you? Let me give you an example of that. My, my team, the vast majority of my team has been here for a few years, at motivasi. And I started notice a couple of months ago that things felt kind of stale. Like it, it just felt like we were doing the same thing over and over. And so for one of our team meetings, I said, Listen, like I can feel that we’re all a little tired. Like, even at a place with a really great culture. Yeah, I can tell that we’re that, that we’ve been doing the same thing. And just
Maria Ross 43:42
to interject in there, too. It’s the what do you guys think? Yeah. Like, are you feeling this? How do you is this all in my head? Like what? You know, and opening that door for them to give their perspective as well of like, actually, yeah, it’s been a little weird, you know? Yeah, I love that. Sorry, go on. I
Logan Mallory 43:58
know, I appreciate that. And I think I did that more in the individual conversations, and then brought that sentiment to the, to the meeting to the group. But I, I basically said, like, I think one of the things that we’re not doing is putting new inputs into our head, so that we have new outputs, right. And so like, we watched, we watched a TED talk. And I said, Hey, for the next for the next little bit, whenever we have our team meetings, I want you to come to the meeting. And we’re going to spend the first 15 minutes talking about the new things you learned whether it was a new conversation over over lunch, whether it was a podcast or a book, or a YouTube video, like I want you and sometimes it’s going to be worker related. Sometimes it’s going to be just related to you but like, I want you to be putting in new inputs. And and I think that’s been pretty successful. We’ve we’ve had some really great conversations, the team is looking at new ideas, and we’re trying things we haven’t done before. And I attribute all of that to just the concept of a relationship reset. And so for leaders Don’t be afraid to say this isn’t working, we need to push the reset button. How do we push that button together?
Maria Ross 45:06
I love that I let’s leave it there because that is such a great, a great piece of advice. That is low cost. Yep, low risk, and will actually help your people feel seen heard and valued by by getting them together and saying our relationship as a team. And my relationship with each of you is important to me. And so we want to make it as positive of an experience for everybody as we can, because that’s going to help us deliver results to the organization. You
Logan Mallory 45:37
nailed it.
Maria Ross 45:38
I love it. Logan, I could talk to you for a whole another hour or two. But we gotta go. So I will have all your links in the show notes as promised. But for folks on the go, where’s one of the best places they can connect with you or learn more about your work? motivasi.com
Logan Mallory 45:51
is a really easy place and I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. If you just look for Logan Mallory, you’ll see a guy wearing a hat with a goofy smile. And that’s me.
Maria Ross 46:01
That’s your signature. I love it. So it’s motivasi motivosity.com. You guys, thank you again for such a great conversation. I’m sure it won’t be the last that we have. And thanks for your insights today.
Logan Mallory 46:15
Thanks to you and your audience. I
Maria Ross 46:16
appreciate it. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast if you like what you heard you know what to do, rate review and share it with a friend or a colleague. And until next time, please remember that cashflow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
