Here is the full transcript of Chris White’s talk titled “3 Ways To Create A Work Culture That Brings Out The Best In Employees” at TEDxAtlanta 2019 conference.
In his TEDx talk “3 Ways To Create A Work Culture That Brings Out The Best In Employees,” Chris White emphasizes the importance of fostering a positive and engaging work environment. He identifies three key strategies: firstly, encouraging open and honest communication to ensure employees feel heard and valued.
Secondly, he stresses the need for responsiveness from management, advocating for actions that align with employee feedback to avoid cynicism and disengagement. Thirdly, White urges companies to aim higher than merely avoiding dissatisfaction, by inviting employees to bring their whole selves to work, leveraging their diverse experiences and strengths.
He highlights the significance of dialogue and finding common ground in disagreements, offering a variety of responses when consensus isn’t possible. White also underscores the detrimental effects of “checkouts,” or disengagement, both financially and culturally. The talk concludes by urging leaders to foster a culture of continuous communication and responsiveness, leading to a more dynamic and fulfilling workplace.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Google Walkout: A Case Study in Corporate Protest
Do you remember when 20,000 people walked out of Google in protest of unfair and unequal treatment of women at the company? On a single day? The protest was dramatic. It was headline grabbing. It sent a clear signal. We will no longer check our identities and our values at the workplace door. It was also the exception rather than the rule. Because while brave, certainly brave, the Google employees felt safe enough to organize collectively without fear of reprisals.
They felt secure enough that even if they lost their jobs, they’d still probably be highly employable somewhere else. Not everyone has that luxury. Not everyone feels that way about speaking up at work. Social movement scholars would call the Google walkouts a mobilizing structure. Others mobilize in different ways depending on their context and their cause. In fact, walkouts do happen pretty much every day in the workplace.
They’re just not normally done with our feet. Instead, they’re checkouts. They’re invisible walkouts that happen with our hearts, and with our hands, and with our voices. And let’s be honest, amongst the TED group here, pretty much all of us have checked out at some point in our careers, haven’t we? When we feel psychologically unsafe or unvalued, we protest quietly, sometimes even silently or subconsciously.
The Cost of Disengagement in the Workplace
Maybe we stop trying as hard at work. Or maybe we act in ways that subtly undermine leadership or act against the organization’s objectives, just a little bit. In corporate speak, we become disengaged or actively disengaged. Like 70% of the workforce, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars a year to the global economy. So, if you’re an executive and you want to avoid walkouts or checkouts before they become issues at your organization, there are three things that you can do.
First, unblock communication. Walkouts and checkouts happen when we feel that we’re not being heard, we’re not being respected or considered in the workplace. And just about all of us have experienced having our ideas shot down or ignored in the workplace. When it happens, we tend to experience it as an identity threat.
Some of us respond to that by closing down, shutting off. When we feel that we don’t belong or that we’re unimportant, our reaction is to stop caring as much about our work and caring as much about the people around us. So, I remember feeling heartbroken when I was a new manager. I just asked a colleague of mine with decades of work experience for a recommendation on a problem that she brought to me.
Communicating and Responding to Employee Concerns
We stood in agonizing silence while she searched for an answer. Any answer? After a long pause, she looked up and said, “I have never been asked what I think at work before.” Now, that is tragic, and it’s all too common. And to avoid this pitfall, we need to continually invite people to speak up at work.
Because making these invitations just a routine part of how we engage with each other in the workplace actually lays really important groundwork that is needed for those times when people have to speak up and have to be heard on issues that are hard for management to hear. Backed into a corner by the scale and the intensity of the protest, Google CEO Sundar Pichai had a choice. He could choose to respond in a way that would close the door to people acting in line with their values, or he could choose to open it wider.
Pichai’s public response to the protest was not defensive. Instead, he sent an email out to the whole company. He said, “I understand the anger and disappointment that many of you feel. I feel it, too. And I am fully committed to making progress on an issue that has persisted for far too long in our society. And yes, here at Google, too.” He informed managers of the planned activities. He reassured protesters that they would have the support that they needed.
But checkouts, because they’re invisible, are even harder to notice and address than a 20,000-person walkout. Instead, managers have to proactively unblock the organization. They need to ask questions. They need to invite input. They need to foster creative conflict. But especially in that fragile moment where people have the courage to challenge us, we, too, need to embrace them for it.
Addressing Disagreements and Finding Common Ground
But then we need to become responsive because we know, don’t we, that it’s not enough just to hear people out. Words without action breed cynicism. They lay their seeds for future walkouts and checkouts. The Google walkouts were not a first step. They were a last resort. The Google employees had already spoken to managers and HR and ombudspeople.
This was an escalation because they felt their issues were not being addressed.