How leaders can shape work culture, an interview with Danny Gutknecht
Repost from Medium's interview of our Pathways co-founder and CEO and co-founder, Danny Gutknecht, as part of their series about how leaders can create a "fantastic work culture".
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
After I sold my first business, I realized that I wasn’t passionate about what I was doing. Generating revenue wasn’t complicated, but to what end? I knew I was an entrepreneur deep down, but I decided to join the world of human resources to find a calling that could tap into my unyielding fascination with the human condition. I wanted to know how to channel my unique qualities to the fullest. But, unfortunately, I had the feeling that work couldn’t offer what I wanted. Thankfully I was wrong.
Second, when I took a job in recruiting, I immediately saw that current approaches to interviewing didn’t work, and worse, everyone thought they were good at it. No one had a defined methodology that reduced bias and got to the right type of information with clarity. Hiring authorities and recruiters too quickly insert themselves into the conversation before listening completely. So, I began to look at recruiting as a lab. I used models and methodologies from psychology, cognitive science and business philosophy to reconstruct the interviewing framework. It worked by getting people to articulate core drivers and in what conditions those drivers worked best.
Third, I realized that the interviewing framework I created along with other tools could transform the lives of people and organizations. It took 25 years, but I eventually came full circle to helping people and companies do what I was attempting to do for myself, tapping their unique potential.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
One of the companies we were working with had me fly out to use Pathways’ interviewing methodology on their employees. I visited five different locations and interviewed 15 people in each location. We recorded every interview on video and discovered that even though everyone had their way of expressing their connection to work and the organization, they had common themes. When we shared these themes, people could empathize and understand each other better. Culture has an underlying architecture that, when articulated, is powerful.
I spent the next seven years on the road interviewing over 4,000 employees on video. I traveled the globe, and the same structure emerged no matter where I went. It wasn’t easy, considering each video is a little over an hour long. We ended up capturing and analyzing the largest lake of data on motivation in the workplace. But, more importantly, we used a consistent methodology to mine the information.
Are you working on any exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?
When you find something new that gets incredible results, you can take two paths as a business. The first is easy, sell the magic. You can make a lot of money selling your ability to execute using your tools. The second path is to teach your secrets. So, we developed a “Work At Meaning Program” so people and companies can use these tools to transform their existence in whatever way they see fit.
We are already seeing great results. People are communicating better with much more authenticity. People report improved relationships at work, not just between other employees but also with the organization itself. Empathy, sense-making and meaning at work are direct benefits of the program.
Ok, let’s jump to the main part of our interview. According to this study cited in Forbes, more than half of the US workforce is unhappy. Why do you think that number is so high?
Most studies point to bad bosses, poor communication, toxic working conditions, and other culprits, which are real issues. The number is unusually high today because the pandemic exposed what was already happening — a crisis of meaning. But, until you fix things at their core, you’re playing musical chairs.
Based on your experience or research, how do you think an unhappy workforce will impact a) company productivity b) company profitability c) and employee health and wellbeing?
I’ve worked with several companies where gossip, drama, absenteeism and lack of empathy crushed excellent business models. Even customers can feel it in the various interactions with employees; it shows up in attitudes, vitality and eagerness to serve. There is a ton of data coming from neuroscience that shows how biochemically responsive our systems are to anxiety and despair.
We already know that companies with highly engaged workers and excellent communication have 4x the profit and 2x the revenue, less absenteeism and a greater sense of well-being. Yet, Forbes, Gallup and many other researchers report that 80% of our workforce feels disconnected from work or the company. It’s happening everywhere. So today’s profits, productivity and well-being is only a fraction of what it could be. We deserve better because we can be better.
Can you share 5 things that managers and executives should be doing to improve their company work culture? Can you give a personal story or example for each?
The first step would be to amend the age-old advice of “know thyself”, into “know your meaning.” A particular CEO of a $100M+ company went through the Pathways’ Work At Meaning Program, and as he began to examine his mental models, he realized he procrastinated in certain situations. For example, he started his career as an excellent labor negotiator. It was his comfort zone, where he felt like he was in control. However, stalling and procrastinating could wear everyone down to the point that people in the negotiation would share their true motives and begin to orchestrate win-win situations. He is good at it. It was an unconscious meaning model. It turns out that he used this approach in situations where he felt he didn’t have a lot of influence or control.
While it’s a brilliant model for negotiations, it held him back in other areas of business. By making his model conscious, he could see where to use that approach and situations where a different approach was much more effective. Abraham Maslow has a great saying, “give someone a golden hammer and they will treat everything like a nail.” It’s best to use different hammers for scenarios that need different approaches.
Second, learn how to communicate authentically. When you know your meaning, your conversations transcend business-speak. You begin attracting the right kind of people to your cause. The conversations that ensue have more substance.
Third, learn how to listen. It’s a difficult skill to master, the foundation of trust and the originator of more profound questions. A lot is going on when two or more people talk. We have prosocial tendencies where we have the urge to find common beliefs. At the same time, we develop responses to something someone else said in our heads. We also don’t realize that we are over-personalizing what someone says.
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Listening is what drove me to reconstruct the interview. I was frustrated that people weren’t listening to each other, and I wanted to fix it. A great example is listening to music. When we first hear a song that resonates with us, the vibe pulls us in, the chorus sticks and we run around for days before looking up the lyrics online and realizing the song wasn’t remotely about what we thought it was. Conversations in business are like that.
Fourth is to manage your models and methods. Models are how we make sense of the world and methods allow us to make improvements in our models. Sound methods, generate better models which help us see things more clearly. For example, if you grew up in a house with politicians your core dialogue model might be to debate. If you marry an entrepreneur their core dialogue model might likely be persuasion. You can see how those models might clash. The debate doesn’t work with customers and persuasion gets old when someone wants to express themselves. The same thing applies to organizations. The models that generate compliance language aren’t the same as sales and marketing. Neither of those three languages is the same as meaning. If you aren’t aware of what models you are using your approach will likely be more disruptive than productive. One of my core mantras is, “right model, right time.”
Fifth, mine the “meaning language” of your organization. Meaning language is the most accessible way to get to meaning models. Your meaning models are what drive behaviors and attitudes. Understanding how meaning is shared and articulated between your employees and eventually customers transform several functions of your company. Meaning language can add value to various organizational and operational processes.
It’s very nice to suggest ideas, but it seems like we have to “change the culture regarding work culture”. What can we do as a society to make a broader change in the US workforce’s work culture?
You’re right. This affects everyone, and it’s a problem that has to be dealt with by everyone. As a company, you can create conditions for improving the lives of your employees, but you can’t solve how they connect to work; they have to do the work. Culture is just a symptom. It’s like many other things we are seeing in society today. We address the symptom by looking for the next solution instead of dealing with the root cause. We will struggle until we realize that the inner world is responsible for discord and keeps us from transforming ourselves and our companies.
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung had the best remedy for society. He said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.” As a country, we’ve excelled at mastering the external world. We have excellent tools at our fingertips. However, our problems come from an imbalance in our inner journey. We will struggle until we realize that the inner world is responsible for discord and keeps us from transforming our companies.
The good news is that all it takes is people taking that first step. That’s where companies such as Pathways can play a significant role. And as we discussed above — there’s a big payoff for organizations to care about this problem. We already have the numbers to show that even a little meaning at work goes a long way.
How would you describe your leadership or management style? Can you give us a few examples?
My approach is pretty straightforward. One, listen with extreme focus and intent to understand. Two, master my questions. Three, deliver brutally honest feedback with the kind of care a physician would if they had to deliver a diagnosis of breast cancer to someone. I use this approach with customers and employees.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
In early 2000 I was introduced to Bijoy Goswami. His perspective and our collaboration together have been essential to my journey. After we met, I would send Bijoy white papers, musings and insights from the data produced from my interviewing framework. He would always say, “I’m looking forward to reading your book someday.” So, in 2013, I sent him a paper outlining the psychological connection to companies, brands and our work. About 45 minutes after I sent the paper, Bijoy called me and said, “You’re writing a book, and I am not taking no for an answer.” So basically, I was forced to write, Meaning At Work And Its Hidden Language.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
The people who attend Pathways’ Work At Meaning Program are coming out a better version of themselves than when they went in. They are saying, “I didn’t realize that I could change the nature of my relationship with my company; I can participate in making the culture better.” Or “I can now see how to begin to access the potential within myself and do something about it that helps my company.” We’ve been able to do a lot more for companies, but if all we did was move the needle on those two statements, that’s extremely valuable.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
It’s a stanza from a poem by T.S. Elliot: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring, will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time.” If we slow down and pay attention to the process, we notice things that are not as we want to be. So don’t skip steps; slow down to speed up. The turtle wins the race.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
You can be the hero of your journey if you do the work. It’s not easy, but it’s the most fulfilling path you can take. You can turn your problems into curiosities and spend less time dancing with drama. To start, get rid of your gurus. The people in your head that you want to be like, the voices that tell you who to be. Just be yourself. You will be more effective. You will be happier, healthier and humankind will be better. Get to work on yourself. It’s the best contribution you can make.
Danny Gutknecht is the co-founder and CEO of Pathways, thought leader, entrepreneur and author of “Meaning at Work and Its Hidden Language.” He has spent decades decoding and mapping the journey between an organization and the employee.
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