Treat Your People Like Your Customers with Stephan Meier
Stephan Meier – Columbia Professor and Author
Stephan Meier is one of the world’s leading experts at the intersection of behavioral economics, corporate strategy and future of work. He is currently the James P. Gorman Professor of Business Strategy and the Chair of the Management Division at Columbia Business School. He is the author of “THE EMPLOYEE ADVANTAGE: How Putting Workers First Helps Business Thrive”. He is an award-winning teacher at Columbia, and every year hundreds of students learn from him about the “human side” of strategy in Columbia’s MBA and executive education programs.
To drive incredible, transformational business outcomes, you need to stop focusing on the customer, and start focusing on your employees. Learn why – and how.
In this insight-packed conversation, Stephan Meier discusses the importance of a human-centric approach to the future of work, emphasizing that technology should augment human capabilities rather than replace them. He outlines the benefits of an employee-first workplace, including increased productivity, innovation, and employee retention. Stephan also highlights the shift in perspective where employees are seen as customers, advocating for organizations to apply customer-centric strategies to enhance employee experiences. Real-world examples, such as H.E.B. and Costco, illustrate the success of employee-centric practices. The discussion touches on the concept of quiet quitting and the need for leaders to actively listen to their employees to drive engagement. Plus, Stephan shares strategies for humanizing work and motivating employees through personalized experiences and continuous learning.
You’ll learn…
Why future of work must be human-centric.
How tech should augment human capabilities, not replace them.
Why employee-first workplace increases productivity and innovation.
How employees are the new customers, deserving of attention and care.
Some real-world examples that show the success of employee-centric organizations.
How quiet quitting has been a long-standing issue, not just a pandemic phenomenon.
Why listening to employees is crucial for engagement and improvement.
How removing bureaucratic barriers can enhance employee experience.
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Episode Transcript:
Key Moments
00:00 The Human-Centric Future of Work
07:04 Benefits of an Employee-First Workplace
09:46 Employees as the New Customers
13:55 Real-World Examples of Employee-Centric Organizations
18:26 Engagement and the Concept of Quiet Quitting
20:26 Driving Engagement Through Listening
29:35 Humanizing Work and Motivating Employees
38:08 The Importance of Employee Wellbeing
38:37 Leading with Humanity
Sally Clarke (she/her) (00:01.518)
Welcome to We Are Human Leaders, Stefan. It's so wonderful to have you with us. And we're really excited for this conversation about so many important topics that are really at front of mind for people-centered leaders at the moment in work. Now you've said the future of work is human-centric. Can you tell us what you mean by this? And how does the research support this statement?
Stephan Meier (00:24.748)
Yeah, well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. And yeah, it's interesting. You know, we're talking today a lot about like, you know, AI and technology is taking over and maybe there is nothing left for humans to be doing and
I personally think that, you know, what is clear is that there is always going to be human machine interaction. So every human is going to work with a machine together. But I think we're overindexed a lot on the technology part and forgotten that, you know, in the human machine, there is the human. And that's what I mean with kind of the future is kind of human centric. And if you don't take the human into account, first of all, the human machine interaction is not really
reaching its full potential and also the adoption is probably getting, you know, is lagging quite significantly. And I have, I had a really interesting conversation. I wrote a case about Morgan Stanley using AI and their wealth management. The head of AI at Morgan Stanley said this quote, which I love, which is, you know, tech is easy, humans are hard.
And I think like over time in history as well, if you think about the investment in IT, in computers, it took decades for the investment actually to reach the full potential and productivity. And I think the reason being that we forgot a little bit about that there is humans and we have to work with those humans and the humans are really hard. And that's what I really mean.
with like the future is human centric. If you really want to use leverage and reach the full potential of what technology and the future of work can be, you really have to put the humans in the center. Otherwise, nothing is really going to move the needle much.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (02:28.73)
That's such a wise insight, Stefan, because I think there's so much focus and talk about AI as this kind of magic bullet solution to so many issues. I think in some ways, we almost over assume, I think, that tech is this easy solution that will somehow mean that we don't have to focus on the complexity of humans. But I think there's an opportunity when we sort of reframe that focus on focusing on the human first.
and then allowing technology to perhaps support that or to augment rather than technology as the sort of central focus.
Stephan Meier (03:02.037)
Absolutely. you know, I think like what is interesting and like in the conversations I now have a lot with executives about this. I, I ask them sometimes, you know, I actually talk about a pizza. Think about a pizza chain. You know, what is the benefit of AI for a pizza chain when it comes to labor? And most executives, first intuition is getting rid of people. You know, they're like, you know, what is good about AI?
Alexis Zahner (03:22.241)
Mm.
Stephan Meier (03:30.592)
is, you know, eventually they can make the pizza so robots can make the pizza. They definitely can take the orders, you know, and then we can get rid of people. And so their first intuition is just replacing human beings because they think they're in the pain in the butt and we have to get get rid of them instead of thinking, you know, how can we actually augment them? How can they do better work? And I'm coming quickly back to the Morgan Stanley where they really think about the
Alexis Zahner (03:43.797)
Hmm.
Alexis Zahner (03:49.953)
Mm.
Stephan Meier (03:59.662)
the financial advisors, you know, how can we use AI to augment them? So free up capacity that they can actually do work that humans should do. And there's more value enhancing. And I completely agree with you, Sally, you know, we're thinking about, AI is going to do everything is going to be solved with AI. you know, hopefully it's going to solve cancer and climate change. mean, it would be great if there's this potential.
Alexis Zahner (04:11.414)
Hmm.
Alexis Zahner (04:25.474)
Yeah.
Stephan Meier (04:29.058)
But we need the human beings to actually get all the real work done.
Alexis Zahner (04:36.413)
Stefan, it's an interesting point this one around freeing up human beings to do the work that we might do best and I don't think our listeners will need much convincing when it comes to this idea of putting human beings first but can you help us understand a little bit more what are some of the benefits of an employee first workplace?
Stephan Meier (04:57.518)
Yeah, I think like the benefits for the firm and I mean, in my book, I mean, I do think it's also the right thing to do. But I also want to make the case it's actually a business case, you know, it actually helps organizations thrive. Otherwise, it's very difficult to get it moving if it's just like, that's the right thing to do, but it costs us stuff. And, and I think the benefits are at least fourfolds, you know, it really increases productivity through like engagement and motivation that goes up.
Alexis Zahner (05:04.949)
Yeah, yeah.
Alexis Zahner (05:13.673)
Yeah, a moral imperative, yeah.
Alexis Zahner (05:20.322)
Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (05:27.372)
Mm-hmm.
Stephan Meier (05:27.47)
It helps with innovation. If you don't have a people first organization, innovation is just not taking it full potential. And especially nowadays where it moves so fast, it's the people who are agile. If you talk about we want an agile organization, that's the people they are. So that's the second one. The third one is people are staying longer. So turnover goes down and that's a huge cost saver.
Alexis Zahner (05:29.805)
Mm-hmm.
Alexis Zahner (05:37.687)
Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (05:46.636)
Yeah.
Stephan Meier (05:57.312)
And I think the fourth one is if the employees have direct contact to customers, you know, the customer experience, you don't get happy customers with disgruntled employees. You kind of need happy employees to have happy customers. So at least those four are like significant benefit that will show up in the bottom line. Maybe not immediately, which makes it hard. You know, it's an investment.
Alexis Zahner (06:04.717)
Mmm.
Stephan Meier (06:23.892)
in the future. So you have to invest in that experience in order to get the benefits a little delayed, which makes it sometimes not so easy for leaders to do, especially if you live like quarters to quarter or like, but I think it's in order to be competitive in the future. I strongly believe that only the employee centric organizations will survive.
Alexis Zahner (06:27.053)
Mmm.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (06:49.187)
Such a great point, Stefan. And I think it's really also what I'm hearing is this kind of reframing of humans away from being just resources that we think about in sort of quarterly terms to the sort of full potential of the human, which can take sometimes, you know, those months or years to really manifest, you know, for example, you mentioned, you know, reduced turnover. And that might be something that you only start to see, you know, a few years down the line.
But the multiple benefits to that, not just in terms of not having to hire, you know, look for and hire someone new, but the retained knowledge and know how that you have and the impact that that has on sort of culture from a longer term perspective is enormous too. So these are four very compelling components of the business case. And you mentioned the sort of relationship between employees and customers, but you've also said that employees are the new customers, which is such a great phrase. We'd love for you to unpack that a little bit for us.
Stephan Meier (07:41.134)
Yeah, I mean, I think the yeah, I think there are multiple reasons why I think the customer employees are the new customer. you know, by the way, you know, the the title of the book, which very few people get, you know, it's it's the employee advantage in two ways. You know, the employees create an advantage and the employees also have some of the advantage. So I think there is a shift.
And that now leads to the employees are the new customers. We reached customer centricity. was a trend before we were product centric. And then customers kind of quote unquote gained power because there were a bunch of trends that led to that. There is more transparency about the customer experience. There is more data about customers so that we can personalize.
there is more need for the customer experience because competition increased and preferences of customers changed. And I think the same trends are hitting the labor market as well. As I mentioned before, agile are the people. So in order to be innovative constantly, need human beings. The experience, the employee experience, there is more transparency. Like the Glassdoor is kind of the trip advisor.
equivalent. And if you screw up with your culture, you know, it goes viral and can actually affect how you attract talent. And we also have more data about our employees. So we can actually start to think about personalizing the experience of the employees as well. And last but not least, you know, it's the same human beings who want like brand with purpose and that their consumption is aligned with their values.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (09:06.766)
Mmm.
Stephan Meier (09:30.658)
Those are the workers as well. So I think that is one aspect. The other, how I think about employees are the new customers. We have so many tools in customer centricity that we now can apply one-on-one in thinking about our employees. So let me give you an example. Like if you would ask a marketing executive, you know, is it a good idea to ask your customer once a year how they're
Alexis Zahner (09:50.229)
Mmm.
Stephan Meier (10:00.258)
how they're doing, they would laugh their asses off. They was like, of course not. We need to constantly know what they're doing. And we have those tools, know, focus groups, have a customer journeys and so on and so forth. And now we can apply those and thinking what should we do with our employees? you know, most, a lot of organizations do still those annual engagement surveys, which everybody ignores.
Alexis Zahner (10:03.245)
Mm.
Alexis Zahner (10:07.405)
Yeah.
Stephan Meier (10:29.198)
So nobody fills it out. And that's a shame. And I think we should and we can use kind of the same tools from customer centricity to apply to employee centricity. So that's what I mean with employees are the new customer. I also sometimes think it's easier to convince leaders that there is win-win. know, when we think about customers like, well, customer centricity is not lowering the price. It's actually
Sally Clarke (she/her) (10:29.22)
you
Alexis Zahner (10:34.69)
Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (10:52.429)
Mm.
Stephan Meier (10:58.894)
proving the experience for the customers and then I can make more money. So the customers are happy and I'm happy. And so the same logic applies for the employees. I can make them happier or the experience of the employees can be better in order for making more profits going back to the four benefits that I mentioned before. And so they're real win-win and not this either or where we think like, well, it's either the shareholder or the...
Alexis Zahner (11:01.197)
Hmm.
Alexis Zahner (11:06.775)
Yeah.
Stephan Meier (11:28.8)
employee. No, you can actually get both. And we did it with customers.
Alexis Zahner (11:35.721)
And Stefan, I'd love to know from the work that you've done, how does this apply to small and medium sized businesses? Where have you seen this employee first sort of ideology play out? Have you got an example that you might be able to share for us and its impact?
Stephan Meier (11:51.03)
Yeah. So there is like one organization that I I've I've full disclosure, I've never been in the firm, but I talked to some of them. It's a it's a grocery store in in Texas. It's called H.E.B. And they're very, very employee centric. So they really care about their employees, you know, and those are not this is not a tech firm. You know, there's a gross a grocer.
Alexis Zahner (12:00.939)
Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (12:05.889)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Stephan Meier (12:20.558)
but they care a lot about their employees, everything they do about their careers, about recognition, about thinking about the social relationship they have. And everybody in Texas loves that firm. I mean, they're very, very successful financially, but they also have this dedicated following. So in the book, I actually explained that they opened the store outside of Dallas and people would line up overnight
Alexis Zahner (12:34.273)
Mmm.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (12:41.038)
Mm.
Stephan Meier (12:50.68)
to be the first people in that grocery store. It's like as if they would handing out Taylor Swift tickets for free. so because they really, really dedicated customers for that grocer. And I think their big success is what they do with their employees. And they do literally everything you could imagine in thinking very carefully about the careers they're having, supporting them.
Alexis Zahner (12:52.276)
Wow. Wow.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (12:58.808)
Hahaha.
Alexis Zahner (12:59.275)
Hahaha
Alexis Zahner (13:03.916)
Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (13:18.573)
Mm-hmm.
Stephan Meier (13:19.63)
recognizing that what their lives are, they're supporting them when they're a natural disaster. And this is not a big, big firm. They're actually focusing just on taxes, Texas. And and and I think that's an enemy. I personally like that. It's also an alum of Columbia who is now the president there. So that that also helps. But yeah, they're very dedicated. They really, really care about their employees and they're extremely successful.
Alexis Zahner (13:41.57)
Love it.
Alexis Zahner (13:49.1)
And quite fascinating that their customers are willing to line up overnight. think that demonstrates the downstream, know, putting the employees first is obviously winning business, which is, you know, a positive impact on the bottom line.
Stephan Meier (13:59.265)
Yeah.
Absolutely. mean, a good example, but much larger is Costco, which also is an employee. would consider an employee centric firm. And then you can see the benefit of, the loyalty that the that the customers have allow now custom Costco to have like private labels, you know, where the margins are much higher because they really dedicated. They love Kirkland, the Kirkland brand.
Alexis Zahner (14:05.249)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (14:06.042)
Mm.
Alexis Zahner (14:12.546)
Mm-hmm.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (14:17.978)
Hmm.
Alexis Zahner (14:24.428)
Yeah.
Stephan Meier (14:30.772)
And so absolutely, they're like direct benefit on, you know, on the willingness to pay off the customer and as a result on the margin that firms can make.
Alexis Zahner (14:40.055)
Mm.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (14:42.916)
What I also love about the HEB example, Stefan, is that there sounds like quite a conscious decision for them to stay a certain size. And particularly when think companies experience a lot of success, there's this sort of natural tendency to always grow, to go bigger, to sort of expand across all, you know, for more states. But for them to sort of see that, that's not actually in alignment with our values and that's actually going to potentially do a disservice to our employees and then also our customers.
Alexis Zahner (14:50.613)
Hmm.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (15:10.116)
think that's quite a courageous decision in the current economic climate.
Stephan Meier (15:14.346)
Absolutely. mean, there is always this tendency of like, you know, we have to grow more and like this, especially when I mean, they're a privately held farm, you know, if you're on if you're publicly traded, the pressure is even more extreme. Yeah, but I completely agree with you, Sally. I mean, that that happens very often. I sometimes think, you know, that's what happened with Starbucks, for example, who were actually pretty employee centric.
Alexis Zahner (15:18.977)
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (15:23.609)
Hmm.
Alexis Zahner (15:29.111)
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (15:37.402)
Mmm.
Alexis Zahner (15:37.717)
Hmm.
Stephan Meier (15:41.932)
that then led to that third place. know, people actually wanted to stay there. There was the vibe in the in the stores that is not coming from, you know, just the furniture there. It's actually the baristas and the people who work there who created that atmosphere. And I think they they lost it now. I mean, they scaled significantly and that might have been a good financial decision for the founder and somebody who had stocks, but they
Alexis Zahner (15:55.839)
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (15:58.746)
Mmm.
Stephan Meier (16:10.762)
Now they're in, I think they're much more in trouble. And, and, and I think the reason is they kind of lost that how the baristas create that feeling in the, in the coffee shop.
Alexis Zahner (16:18.956)
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (16:19.694)
Totally agreed.
Yeah, absolutely. Now, Stephen, the concept of quiet quitting, which sort of that term came to came to the media, think, sort of around the pandemic. And we're seeing this kind of like mass exodus of people. actually, you've pointed out that this is something that's gone on for a long time. And I have to quote a Simpsons, Homer Simpson quote that you've used, which is that if you don't like your job, you don't strike. You go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way.
Alexis Zahner (16:40.109)
You
Alexis Zahner (16:50.125)
And the Australian way, I must say. Yeah.
Stephan Meier (16:53.566)
Yes, I think that's the human way. Yeah, I I sometimes also used to quote, you know, before quite quitting, was Microsoft Solitaire. You know, we we were like phoning it in for years. And now obviously not everybody was but like, you know, if it's a very engaging and motivating work workplace, you know, people would not quite quit.
Alexis Zahner (17:04.887)
Yeah.
Stephan Meier (17:21.086)
whether with Solitaire or phoning it in or otherwise. But unfortunately, you know, many do. And if you look at like Gallup engagement numbers, you know, they're depressing. We're like, you know, 60 or north of 60 % of Americans are disengaged at work. And that number is even higher worldwide. And that's not just a pandemic thing. That actually happened for many, many years.
Alexis Zahner (17:30.423)
Yeah.
Stephan Meier (17:51.054)
Because during the pandemic, they're like, well, maybe it's the pandemic. I think the pandemic put it maybe on top, know, put a bright spotlight on what was not working well for a long, long time. And yeah, we were phoning it in for some were phoning it in for a long time.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (18:01.402)
Hmm.
Alexis Zahner (18:11.927)
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (18:12.634)
And so in this context, what would you advise a leader who's really looking to drive engagement and that kind of lean-in effect that we want to see for employees?
Stephan Meier (18:24.396)
Yeah, I mean, it's a it's an interesting question. So, know where to start as well, you know, what would be the first thing to do? So I so one thing I really think is important is like listening to the employees, you know, what works well and what doesn't work well and take them those ideas and and go forward. and on that front, there is another quote which I like is like so Amazon, which is not a particularly
Sally Clarke (she/her) (18:29.975)
and
Alexis Zahner (18:41.964)
Hmm.
Stephan Meier (18:54.198)
employee centric organization, but very customer centric. so what what Bezos once said is, know, what is great about my customers, they're always dissatisfied. Even if they're happy, they're very dissatisfied. And that's amazing because I can always do better. Now, there is very few leaders who would exchange customers with employees. There very few who would say, you know, what is great about my employees, they're always dissatisfied.
Alexis Zahner (19:22.775)
Yeah.
Stephan Meier (19:22.89)
even when they're happy. But I think the same logic applies. You know, we can actually do better by listening what's happening on the, you know, with with our workers, what is frustrating them? What are like stuff that are in their way and starting to improve on those dimensions? Just the other day, I read an academic study who looked at a
Alexis Zahner (19:35.042)
Mm.
Stephan Meier (19:48.478)
Baker in Germany actually where they ask people they have it's very bureaucratic. have very bureaucratic rules And so they asked their employees. So tell us like the most stupid rules that yeah from like Stupid to like very very stupid and so they took the two most stupid rules and Eliminated those for they actually did the real experiment. So for a control group, they kept the rule and for a treatment group They removed those two that the employees themselves
isolated as being being very, very stupid and frustrating. And then they looked at the performance impact afterwards. And it has a huge positive effect on, you know, the productivity, the engagement by just remove first listening to their employees and then actually following through on that. And it's it's it's amazing. And there is, you know, like in the book, I talk about
Alexis Zahner (20:21.345)
Hmm.
Alexis Zahner (20:27.981)
Mm.
Alexis Zahner (20:37.805)
It's such
Sally Clarke (she/her) (20:40.218)
and
Stephan Meier (20:46.946)
Best Buy as well, where like, Kubert Schauli actually says the same thing. you ask the people and they will find what is like the crazy goofiest rule that are in the way. And then from there, you can actually improve the experience of the employees. So I would start there. The other tip is like, you know, if you think about employees are the new customer, let's take customer tools, ideation workshop. We have like,
Alexis Zahner (20:48.418)
Mm-hmm.
Alexis Zahner (20:58.678)
Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (21:15.393)
Hmm.
Stephan Meier (21:16.27)
processes left and right to come up with new flavors, new products, new services. Let's maybe take those and think about how can we now improve the experience of our employees? I'm actually running those workshops, like one day workshops where it's an ideation workshop, but about the employee experience. And I think it's not easy. You know, I'm not saying it's easy, which is good. You know, if it were easy, everybody would doing it. If it's just like handing out kind bars and
Alexis Zahner (21:25.899)
Mmm.
Alexis Zahner (21:33.901)
Mmm.
Alexis Zahner (21:39.308)
Yeah.
Stephan Meier (21:45.438)
and installing nap pots, then everybody will do that. But it's actually hard, which is a good thing. Then you can differentiate from the competition.
Alexis Zahner (21:54.166)
Yeah, I think everyone wished it was as easy as doing that, Stefan, which is why we've seen people installing nap pods and handing out guide bars, but we're realizing quickly it's actually not fixing the problem. Yeah.
Stephan Meier (22:00.586)
Yes. Exactly.
Exactly, Alexis. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just have ping pong tables and then we would be done? Yes, exactly.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (22:11.13)
you
Alexis Zahner (22:11.873)
Well, now that we've tried it, we're gonna have to do better. So, but it's a great point. And I love this idea, Stefan. Two things you said that really stood out, obviously, the first one is just listening. I think so often leaders look for a really complex silver bullet.
Alexis Zahner (22:30.797)
just asking employees what some of their pain points are. And that kind of leads me to the second point you made, which is around removing the friction that employees experience in the workplace. And as someone who's worked across industries as well and in sectors like government, where there is a lot of red tape and barriers to just getting your job done, often that I think is so frustrating when you're an ambitious.
Stephan Meier (22:52.718)
Mm.
Alexis Zahner (22:55.789)
creative person and there's so many barriers in place for you doing your best work. That's so detracting to the employee experience.
Stephan Meier (23:04.833)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And what is important, think, Alexis, is like, you know, one is the listening and then is following through, you know, we're like there because like just listening after a while, it is like, well, you just wasted my time. If you're just listening to me and nothing happens. And so that's kind of you have to be devoted to be employee centric, you know, and it's the same actually with customer centric. You know, I've never heard an ex there is no executive in the world who says like, I don't care about customers. There are also none who would say
Alexis Zahner (23:11.863)
Totally. Yeah.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (23:12.036)
exactly.
Alexis Zahner (23:17.74)
Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (23:23.22)
Yeah.
Stephan Meier (23:33.91)
I don't care about my employees, but it's like the difference is really those who are really taking that seriously and are really employee or really customer centric and follow through with what they hear after they listen and actually change something tangible.
Alexis Zahner (23:39.788)
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (23:50.17)
That's such an important point, Stefan, because I think so often engagement surveys, for example, sort of get stuck in this, well, we've asked you 100 items and then it just sort of fades into the background and we never hear of it again. Or we do hold a session and maybe do some brainstorming about what we could change and then nothing comes of it. And I think when leaders don't actually have the courage to then see it through to the end, see it through to actually changing things in a tangible way.
It can actually be counterproductive because people have been gone to the effort of sharing their ideas and being transparent about where their frustrations might be. And then seeing that nothing changes. And I think that is a really huge missed opportunity for leaders. And it might take some extra effort. But I think making sure that you're sort of mapping that from the outset, that you're really sort of really being very intentional about translating those insights into even just like you said, a couple of minor changes, a couple of minor rules shifting.
Alexis Zahner (24:19.478)
Hmm
Alexis Zahner (24:29.067)
Yeah.
Stephan Meier (24:44.92)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (24:46.704)
can actually have a hugely transformative effect.
Stephan Meier (24:50.112)
Yeah, no, I think like this is super important. What do you say, Sally? Because like it then feels if you just listening for listening sake, it feels like a bit like ping pong table solution. Like, let's have a roundtable. Everybody can share.
Alexis Zahner (24:59.114)
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (24:59.354)
Yeah
Alexis Zahner (25:03.852)
Yeah.
Stephan Meier (25:04.814)
And no, that's not it. Like, that's the beginning. You know, then you actually have to follow through. to your point, you know, then you rather don't do it. If you already know, I mean, if you know, those who have kids, you know, if you like, ask the kids, let's have a family, let's have a family, everybody can get their inputs, they will figure out pretty quickly whether you actually listen to them or it's already pre decided what is going to happen. And then after a while, the kids are like,
Sally Clarke (she/her) (25:07.492)
Mmm, great.
Alexis Zahner (25:18.22)
Ha ha.
Stephan Meier (25:32.77)
Don't waste my time. mean, there's like no way why I would share it. But if you take it seriously and you have a plan and to your point, maybe the small things where you start are making a good, potentially make a huge difference or at least being the beginning of of a transformation.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (25:33.912)
No way.
Alexis Zahner (25:34.199)
Totally.
Alexis Zahner (25:51.31)
Stefan, I have a word for this. I'd love to run it by you. I think someone who continually asks questions and does nothing with that information, we should be calling them ask-holes.
Stephan Meier (26:01.39)
I love this.
Alexis Zahner (26:02.591)
I think for me that's how it lands as well because when you're continually asked questions and you see no follow through for me, it's so tokenistic and it's so manipulative. You're trying to show you're taking action, but actually you've got no follow through whatsoever. And I think it's more detrimental. And as an employee who's been on the receiving end of that, I dislike my superiors even more than if they just didn't ask at all. So that's the word I use to describe that.
Stephan Meier (26:26.05)
Yeah, I like that. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna borrow this Alexis ask all. Exactly.
Alexis Zahner (26:31.179)
You can borrow that fresh out of Australia for you. It's a urine ask hole if you ask too many questions and do nothing about it. I think it gives people a visceral response as well. You can feel what that's like being on the receiving end.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (26:32.174)
Yeah.
Stephan Meier (26:43.542)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And, know, it also is like this this sign of disrespect. You know, you don't know. You don't know that I realize, you know, like it kind of shows that you actually think the other person is stupid. Well, they're not. They know. And yeah. Ascle, ascle.
Alexis Zahner (26:50.944)
It is.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (26:51.652)
Totally.
Alexis Zahner (26:55.116)
Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (27:01.56)
100%. Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah. I'm glad it landed for you now, Stefan. I think this has been a really helpful starting point, this idea of listening and following through. It's seemingly simplistic, yet we're obviously getting it wrong because it's not something that we see happening within organizations. And I just want to double click a little further on this. The second section of your book is around humanizing work.
Can you share with us a few other key strategies or practices that you think leaders need to be using or implementing right away to create that employee first experience?
Stephan Meier (27:40.91)
Mm hmm. Yeah. So, I mean, I talk about like based on the research, you know, it shows what actually motivates humans, you know, about those four motivators, like purpose being one autonomy being another one, the feeling of competence, and then relatedness or call it working together works. And I think those four are like key. Now, you can almost double click on any of those. So let me pick one.
Alexis Zahner (27:50.177)
Mm-hmm.
Stephan Meier (28:10.38)
You know, I think this this notion of competence or I call it just right tasks is becoming more and more important. So the idea being, you know, that we what is really engaging and motivating is if we have a task that is just right for our skills. You know, and another book I shared the experience of my son reading and what I was so frustrating until he found the just right book and the just right book is.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (28:16.068)
Mm.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (28:36.068)
Mm-hmm.
Stephan Meier (28:38.922)
not a baby book, you it's not too easy. But it's also not when he was six, he wanted to read Harry Potter. He couldn't understand shit. You know, it was very frustrating as well. Now, that's a very but if you find the just right book, that was extremely motivating. Now, that's a very human tendency. So we want to have like a just right task. Now, the problem is a little bit it it moves the top. You know, once you mastered some, once he read those books,
Sally Clarke (she/her) (28:53.466)
Mmm.
Stephan Meier (29:08.182)
it became a baby book. So you actually needed to do something new. And we know that about 40 % of people, their number one reason to quit is because they don't learn something new. They're stuck. But I think the research, only about a quarter of organizations actively encourage their employees to learn something new. And part of it is also that about 80 % experience talent hoarding, where like the manager
You know, doesn't want to like, Alexis, you're like my best team member. I want you to do this particular task for the rest of at least my working life as your boss. And I don't want you to you to learn something new. Otherwise you're leaving. Now, the problem is you're actually leaving the organization once you're stuck. And I think thinking about what those just right tasks are.
Alexis Zahner (29:50.507)
Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (29:54.784)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (29:59.673)
You
Stephan Meier (30:04.046)
And matching it to the right is an important step. Now, I sometimes tell my executives, know, now that you know that it's easy, you know, now you just need to figure out for all of your team members, what's the just right task, match it to the task and constantly update. And then they look at me as if I have like seven heads. It's like, know, Stefan, do you know how hard that is? have like, even if you have only
Sally Clarke (she/her) (30:23.144)
Yep.
Stephan Meier (30:33.838)
10 people, you know, that's really difficult. And I said, that's true. But like, you know, nowadays, actually, AI can help because it sounds a little bit like an AI task, where, you know, that's what Netflix does. You know, Netflix figures out, know, Sally really likes.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (30:43.534)
Mm-hmm.
Stephan Meier (30:53.442)
nature documentaries, drama. Okay. So, Salini really likes nature documentaries and Alexis really likes like crime dramas. So, it shows you whatever you like. Now, after a while, Alexis is like, this is like, there's no more, no more crime dramas that are interesting. I'm actually starting to watch a little bit more of nature documentaries. In Netflix, the algorithm then is like, let's switch and show her something else. And now we can use kind of the same for
Sally Clarke (she/her) (30:55.14)
She does. Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (30:57.261)
You
Alexis Zahner (31:02.859)
Hmm.
Alexis Zahner (31:22.721)
Hmm.
Stephan Meier (31:23.522)
within organizations and that's now what more more organizations do with internal marketplaces where, you know, I wrote a case on MasterCard where they use internal marketplaces and the kind of, you know, the employees tell, I want to learn something new. It matches it with the project within MasterCard within the organization. I get a new experience. I learn a new skill. The platform that knows
Alexis Zahner (31:40.973)
Hmm.
Stephan Meier (31:51.416)
you know, that I have now new skills and can match me to just right task even better. And so over time, it's those personalized experience almost that despite the fact that we might have started and in the same job position over time, we actually have different experience according to what we want, how ambitious we are. And that's just one way that really, especially in a time where we're all afraid that we are not having the right
Alexis Zahner (31:54.528)
Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (32:09.878)
Hmm.
Stephan Meier (32:21.344)
skills and tasks and it moves so fast that we're all anxious. Like if I haven't learned something in the last week, I'm thinking like maybe I'm going to be obsolete in a month.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (32:22.137)
Thank
Alexis Zahner (32:24.204)
Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (32:31.083)
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (32:34.274)
Amazing, Stefan. And we do see that for so many people, learning is a really key component of why they work, what they want from their workplace. That is such an essential aspect of, you know, the sort of employee experience that we can offer. And what I love about this, this, way you framed it as almost kind of an algorithmic matching of people's needs is that it also means we can allow for the right amount of stretch at the right time, because there might be phases of
Alexis Zahner (32:41.74)
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (33:00.354)
a career where people are actually perhaps new parents or whatever it is and they don't have the bandwidth for that level of stretch at that particular moment. But by making it quite intuitive to sort of meet that need. And I think then also leaders can sort of step in where they might see that someone's sort of, you know, just getting a little bit stuck with those nature documentaries and maybe they could use a crime drama as well to sort of create that additional stretch and having those conversations. But I think the way you've
Stephan Meier (33:21.73)
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (33:27.906)
And frames it also as integrating AI means that that question, which we get so often get of like, I already have so much to do now I have to sort of track everyone's learning journey. That's absolutely not the case. We can use tools to support that process.
Alexis Zahner (33:36.565)
Mm.
Stephan Meier (33:39.906)
Yeah, absolutely. We can really use technology to then humanize, you know, humanize work even more and enhance those motivators. But it's also it's easy to destroy it as well. You know, we can also use technology to for surveillance, you know, for automation, like so that only like and so I think we have to be very careful in using technology to actually enhance motivators and not and not destroy it.
Alexis Zahner (33:41.569)
Mm.
Alexis Zahner (33:54.378)
Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (34:05.004)
Yeah.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (34:10.348)
Amazing. Stefan, we could talk to you all day about the employee experience and your vast, incredible research, your incredible book. We would love to finish just with perhaps one insight that you have for leaders who are feeling really excited. In addition to buying and reading your book, what would you suggest as a starting point to really, really improve their employees, their team's experience today?
Stephan Meier (34:35.882)
Yeah. yeah, the I mean, the reading of my book will be an amazing story. I mean, I think like, yeah, I mean, I do think like if if leaders start to think about them or their employees more like customers and like think about what are the tools that I use for my customers and then apply it for their employees that could be, you know, listening like the journeys, the experience that we want to
Alexis Zahner (34:41.869)
We recommend it.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (34:41.914)
100%.
Alexis Zahner (35:03.308)
Hmm.
Stephan Meier (35:03.628)
to creating value with our customer, but also thinking that for our employees, that's a great start. And then you can, as I mentioned before, you didn't use the same tools, ideation workshops. And some organizations actually do that. They take the marketing team basically and to turn it inside, inside the organization. And I think that's a great start.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (35:14.306)
Hmm.
Alexis Zahner (35:14.466)
Mm.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (35:21.039)
Mm.
Sally Clarke (she/her) (35:25.058)
I love that Stefan, because I think what you're highlighting there is that we look to form these relationships with our customers. We really need to focus on that relationship that we have with our employees too. Yeah.
Stephan Meier (35:34.518)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because the employee experience, you know, is like the equivalent of the customer experience. And that that is really what drives. I mean, maybe it's a fancy word for not phoning it in. But but that's what it is. You know, you you prevent phoning it in if the employee experience is.
Alexis Zahner (35:48.971)
Yeah.
Alexis Zahner (35:55.467)
A great note to finish on there, Stefan. Thank you so much for being with us on We Are Human Leaders. It's been such a pleasure to sit down with you today.
Stephan Meier (36:02.222)
Thank you so much for having me.
