Creating a Win-Win Workplace: Engagement, Profitability, and the Power of Feedback with Dr. Angela Jackson

In this episode, we dive into what it means to create a win-win workplace where both employees and employers thrive. Dr. Angela Jackson shares how to navigate resistance, foster adaptability, build trust, and empower employees for lasting organizational success. We also explore: 

• The direct link between employee engagement and company profitability
• Why a zero-sum workplace erodes morale and performance
• How fostering a culture of mutual success benefits everyone. 
• The best ways for employees to voice feedback effectively, ensuring they are heard and valued 

Show Notes: 

Dr. Angela Jackson is hosting an exclusive live book talk on April 14, 2025, a chance to ask questions about The Win-Win Workplace, career growth, and how to thrive in today’s workplace. Learn more HERE. 

Show Guest:
Dr. Angela Jackson, founder of Future Forward Strategies and Harvard lecturer, is a leading workplace strategist specializing in the future of work. Known for leading the Future of Work Grand Challenge and reskilling 25,000 workers, she’s a trusted voice featured in HBR, CNN, and TEDx. Her book, The Win-Win Workplace: How Thriving Employees Drive Bottom-Line Success, offers actionable strategies for building inclusive, sustainable, high-performing organizations.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Dr. Angela Jackson and the Episode Theme
• 19:07 Navigating the Employer
• 28:55 Creating a Win
• 34:40 Understanding Generational Differences in the Workplace
• 1:03:12 Emphasizing Employee Voices as a Strategy for Success
• 1:22:39 Balancing Generational Expectations: Insights and Solutions

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey friends, I am Jill Griffin, the host of the Career Refresh podcast, and I'm really glad that you're here because I am introducing you to Dr Angela Jackson. She is an author and founder of Future Forward Strategies, which is a labor market intelligence, design thinking and strategy firm, and she really thinks of herself as a workplace strategist. In this conversation we go over a lot of what's going on in the workplace and we weave the conversation back and forth between when we're talking to the employer and the employee. We talk about how do you create a win-win workplace, how do you make a workplace work for both the employer and the employee. We talk about that the differences in this generation versus the younger generations, versus the older generations, and how some of those gaps are creating some of the communication challenges and how you can navigate them, moving forward to create again the win-win workforce. And then we also talk about getting centered on employees' voices, with Dr Angela Jackson is a big proponent of that. To have a win-win situation, you want to make sure that you're centering around employee voices. One of my favorite things that came out of this was talking about resistance is data, and when you have resistance from your team or your leaders, what do you need to learn from that and where can you dig deeper and really dig in to what people are concerned about?

Speaker 1: 1:22

I had one follow-up question for Dr Angela Jackson that I wanted to understand how do we best balance the expectations of newer generations with more seasoned and experienced workers? We often hear about how the newer workers are not necessarily understanding how to work with the more seasoned worker, and the more seasoned worker feels like they're always having to adjust their work style to get you know the younger and the newer generations to produce the work right. There's that balance in between. It doesn't mean one side is true, it's just the perception out there. So I asked Dr Angela Jackson what she thought here and she said that this is about a commitment to a win-win. I'm going to read her response One where we recognize that expertise exists at every level of an organization. A junior employee brings fresh ideas, adaptability and digital fluency. A seasoned colleague offers institutional knowledge, strategic thinking and pattern recognition. Instead of expecting one group to adjust to the other, the best organizations create systems that value and leverage the strengths from the both. The key is structured collaboration, reverse mentorship, mixed tenure projects and open discussions about workplace preferences when we shift from generational stereotypes to shared learning, we create a workplace in which everyone wins. By valuing different vantage points and fostering reciprocal learning, we build an organization where employees contribute to success and thrive in the process.

Speaker 1: 2:51

I always want to hear from you what do you think about what is going on within the workplace and what is going on generationally, and how do we create that win-win? So you know, you can always email me at hello at jillgriffincoachingcom, but dig into this episode because I think you're going to enjoy it. It's rich with insight and also in the show notes you will find how to get Dr Angela Jackson's new book. So dig in and enjoy and I'll see you soon. Hi, dr Angela Jackson, I am excited that you're here For our viewers and listeners. I am Jill Griffin. I am an executive coach and the host of your Career Refresh, and I love to bring on authors and thought leaders. And today is a treat because we have Dr Angela Jackson, who has a new book coming out, and this episode if you're watching it or are listening to it is dropping the day her book comes out. It is win-win and I'm going to have Dr Angela Jackson introduce herself.

Speaker 2: 3:51

Jill, thank you so much for having me. So, dr Angela Jackson, I'm CEO of Future Forward Strategies. I think of myself as a workforce strategist and really workplace whisperer, and thinking about how can we use the research on what we're finding in companies to make meaning of what the modern workplace looks like today, and what are those strategies that we can employ that not only makes our lives easier as a manager and leader, but actually has a dotted line to driving business impact.

Speaker 1: 4:24

So I mean it's so good, it's so needed, and I know we are all talking about this in different circles and I feel like it's it's. It could not be more important and relevant the the idea of a strategic plan for the win-win workplace, which, of course, is the title of your book. So just to crown everybody, I mean again, you have this amazing background. I know you're also an educator at Harvard University. In the work that you're doing within the university or working with students is really more the question how do you see some of this creating the win-win workplace? Is it also showing up on university campuses in this way?

Speaker 2: 5:02

Oh, it's showing up in a major way. Jill, I'm smiling now because I teach two major classes. Probably each semester. I'm teaching over 150 grad students from literally all over the world and I'll give you a funny story. When we talk about the career refresh, I remember my first year of teaching grad students at Harvard University. I get an email from a mom whose son was upset because I had a presentation they were going to pitch on the first day and I hadn't given him time to prepare and I said well, the fact that his mom is reaching out to you alone is enough that I'm like oh well, that's the thing and I talk about this with colleagues and friends as we're doing this world of work is that we have a generation now that's in the workplace.

Speaker 2: 5:50

I'm Gen X. We think about millennials. They've been raised differently, you know they've been. You know there's this thing that we hear about helicopter parents, that people are doing everything for their children and in certain regards, you know, some of us may say that hasn't been so great when they need to show up as adults and listen to heart truths and everything is not going to go their way. But in other respects, I think about how I was raised professionally, and it was, you know. I was given an assignment, I put my head down, I do the assignment.

Speaker 2: 6:21

What I'd like to say about this generation is we're talking to your CEOs, leaders is that this generation is not okay with just putting their heads down.

Speaker 2: 6:29

They're used to having things explained to them and having a rationale, and so what I'm seeing with my students I'm seeing this at the graduate level, I'm also seeing this with emerging leaders in the workplace is that they want to be brought into the thinking of a company, of a CEO, of a manager.

Speaker 2: 6:48

That's difficult sometimes when you've been raised in a different way the fast-paced nature of business. But I've seen with my research and as I shared with you this was research over 1,200 companies over 10 years and just recently we replicated this research in 355 of Fortune 500 companies and really what we want to understand were what were the practices and strategies of investing in people that had a dotted line and showed business impact and lift on the financial side, and what were companies doing to actually thrive with this new generation of workers and what were the practices that weren't doing so well, that were actually receiving a lot of pushback and really trying to understand what changes do we need to make and which changes do we need to hold steady on. But we might need to explain and bring people into our thinking and bringing folks along.

Speaker 1: 7:43

Okay. So for our listeners and viewers, angela and I are going to weave the conversation. Sometimes we're going to offer the insight for the employer or the senior leader, other times it will be for the employee, and I think it's important to weave that because, again, even if you're a senior leader, you're still an employee. It's like both sides of the coin. So what I'm hearing you say is some of the tension that we're reading about or hearing about, depending on our access to the conversations that we're in is the millennials and Gen Zers are expecting to be brought into the conversation, which isn't right or wrong. It's what they want. But the seasoned worker that's already been there has not been trained on how to do that, because they were just told to get it done and necessarily it wasn't a participatory conversation. At times it wasn't a collaborative. So that's one of the nuances you're noticing is what am I getting that right?

Speaker 2: 8:41

That's exactly it when we think about our social contract. For many years with the world of work, it was employer. We're paying you a salary, an hourly wage for you to do a job, worker, you come in and you do that job and the exchanges once you get that salary that was the win-win really. If we think about it, then what we're seeing with another generation of workforce who are fast becoming the majority of our workforce, is that that paycheck exchange, they're saying, is not enough. There was recent research that came out that people would take a 30% pay cut if they could work remote. So that's saying that dingling of a paycheck is not the incentive that it used to be. It still is an incentive. It's still important, but not as important. We see people who are also voting. Employees are voting with their values and their feet and so knowing that, if it's not just the paycheck that people want, values and they want seen and heard what I say to leaders are knowing and having this information and data is there a potential for us to reimagine what it means to be in the workplace and to work at a particular company, and I want to give just a quick example to make that a bit clear.

Speaker 2: 9:58

I was working with the CEO of a fast casual restaurant and he was really perplexed because he felt like they had best in class benefits. And you know, they were offering everyone from the front lines of the C-suite 401k benefits. And when he came to me and I was interviewing he's like he was perplexed because no one was taking advantage of it. And he goes Angela, you know I'm the Harvard researcher. Angela, do you know why this is happening? I would have killed for something like this. And I said is happening? I would have killed for something like this. And I said well, I don't know, but have you asked them? And he hadn't.

Speaker 2: 10:27

And so we did a set of what we call employee listening, and the book is the first chapter, which is the building block of centering employee voice. This is beyond the checkbox that we've already seen, the suggestion box that you see in certain companies. It's really trying to more deeply understand what are the expectations of the workforce, what are the lived realities and what are the barriers that could either prevent people from doing their job or could help them do their job better. And so, in doing that, one thing that he learned was that, while people appreciated the 401k we're talking about millennials, they reported overwhelmingly that there were more important things on their mind than how they were going to retire in 50 or 60 years. They were worried about how were they getting to work transportation we found that most of the people were spending 26% of their after-tax income on just getting to work.

Speaker 2: 11:21

We found about caregiving they're in the sandwich generation, and so what this employer was able to do was reallocate some of those benefits and give choice and optionality. What did that do? At the end of the day, employers when we serve at the employees it went from I don't think that they care about us. I feel they do. My employer cares about me. I feel like they care about the issues that matter most to me. So we're talking about the same budget, we're talking about a reallocation of that, and what you've got is that you've got employees that is happier because of that, and so that's one example Based on the employee.

Speaker 1: 11:55

Depending on where they are in that arc of their life experience, they may make different choices in that and depending on where they are in that arc of their life experience.

Speaker 2: 12:01

they may make different choices in that and they may say things in different value right, the value of something is different, right?

Speaker 1: 12:10

I think the other thing that's the nuance of what you didn't say which I think is important for our listeners to think about is so often when we hear about the tension between leadership, we'll just say and the employee. It's the interpretation as if the employee wants to change the company or to change what they're doing, or to change the goals. And while I'm sure that's happening in some pockets, the reality is we're not asking you to change the goal, the mission of the company. We're asking you to center on employee well-being and therefore the ethos of the company might change, but you still might be making widgets, you still might be a quick service restaurant, but the way you're showing up and I think when we read the articles in the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times and et cetera, or an HR article, we have to understand the ask is about.

Speaker 1: 13:02

We want to be, oh my God, treated as humans. We don't want to be treated as, you know, cogs in a wheel. And you, changing the way you do business doesn't mean that you have to reinvent your product, or maybe it does, but that's not the first line of what we're talking about here and I think that's a major distinction that I often hear pushback on. Yeah, employees don't know they're not the strategic leaders we didn't say they were. They're asking to be treated with, you know, centering on employee well-being yeah, and it's well-being, but it's also saying I love what you said.

Speaker 2: 13:35

You know they're not the strategists. What we saw in companies was another phenomenon where they were actually thriving is that, depending on where an employee sat, there was a feeling of that that person had a set of expertise and had a viewpoint from where they sit within the organization. So, whether they're at the front desk, they might have insights on how you could better welcome people, and so the idea is that really valuing everyone and saying they have a set of information and expertise that when we're doing a strategy, we need to know that. We need to know what the barriers are. We're working with a global financial firm and they noticed that with all of their bank branches, that there were a third that were very high performing branches, they had a second that were moderate, that could do better, and they had the underperforming ones.

Speaker 2: 14:28

And it was fascinating when they began to do some of this, listening to understand what some of those barriers are and their reasons were when they begin to center that to think about things that they could do for the employee. They begin to center that to think about things that they could do for the employee. They begin to measure this and the assets under management at those banks, at some of those non-performing stores, begin to go up. As employee engagement went up, so did assets under management, and so there's a direct correlation to some of these dot dot dots that I'm saying. My big guidance to companies are begin to look at this, see what employees are wanting, see if it's something that you can measure and that actually fits within your existing strategy.

Speaker 1: 15:09

So the Right Breaking that down another way and again. We don't know for sure, but what we hear implied in that is that when employees are engaged and well taken care for, the assets under management increase because if they're showing up differently than their interactions with their end consumer or customer, they're able to increase in customer retention and everyone is just a little bit happier and you want to do business with companies that you also feel good about doing business with.

Speaker 2: 15:37

Well, think about that. You know, I've had certain banking relationships that I like. I would avoid them like the plague. I'd rather go to the ATM, but if there's a friendly face maybe you'd stop in. We're all looking for connection. That's that human touch point. And again, I keep saying, if we measure these things, we can see some indicators.

Speaker 1: 15:56

I love it. Let's get into a couple of book questions so just to ground everybody. I mean I know the answer because I read the book and again I'll put was really really well, just so simple as a framework to understand the zero-sum game workplace and why you want to be in a win-win organization.

Speaker 2: 16:26

Absolutely. When we looked at the zero-sum workplace and looked at a set of companies, what we saw was a traditional management, and it's the one that we talked about, that many of us were raised professionally. You know your exchange for showing up as a paycheck and that's what we owe you, and you know we're in business and that's what you're here to do. What's happening in your personal life doesn't matter that. Check that at the door. Come in and do the work. Someone has to lose in this, and so if there's going to be a loser, it's going to be you. We'll do a reduction in force. If you don't like it, hit the highway. There's not this time.

Speaker 1: 17:02

I'm like shuddering as you're saying these things as a fellow Gen Xer.

Speaker 2: 17:07

I'm like oh, and we did shudder right, we did Well we didn't do it in the bathroom stall.

Speaker 2: 17:15

We did it in the bathroom stall. You know We'd wait to six till our boss left, even if we didn't have any work. It was very performative and what we're talking about in this win-win is that we still want people to be productive, but we don't want them to spend energy performing for us. We actually want them to apply that to doing their job, being honest, being transparent, giving us, from their vantage point, the insights that they have that can actually drive the business. And I'll tell you a quick story.

Speaker 2: 17:43

There's a factory that was in Chicago, outside of Chicago, and what they did was new management came in and they had drivers and many of the drivers who were going on their routes. They were given automated routes, like GPS, like we all see, and there was a frustration among the drivers, specifically ones that were like born and raised there, because they're like this route is wrong, and we've actually experienced that with GPS. Sometimes it's supposed to be the shortcut, it's the longer cut. What this new management did was they took that employee listening and they put a call out and they said look, over the next two years we're trying to grow the business by this much. We're looking for efficiencies in the business. Give us your ideas on how you can do your job more efficiently. So this time this driver actually makes that recommendation, they're able to pilot, implement it. What they were able to see were two things that I thought were really stark. One is they were able to save money. They were able to optimize the route. The second thing they were able to do is they had a frustrated set of drivers who felt that they weren't listened to, that a machine was trusted more than them, and so you had a group of employees who now felt heard, seen and felt like they could contribute.

Speaker 2: 18:55

After that instance, they began doing more of that. So they had a budget to reinvent and do some upgrades to the facility. They asked the front line where should we be using these dollars? By a Democratic vote, people voted and they used the money in that way, and when I went in and interviewed employees and said, okay, what was good about this? What did this mean to you? What did it signal mean to you? What did it signal? They were like, well, so many times we've been asked about things but nothing's actually happened. You know, they didn't do all the things we wanted, but they did the two, and they explained to us why they couldn't do the other ones. And someone said, a guy said, you know, while I didn't agree, like I understood it and I respected the fact, they actually circled back, because for years no one's ever circled back on any of my suggestions. So, again, it's the perspective that people are given when we're investing and we're bringing people into our thinking.

Speaker 1: 19:45

So let's say, I'm a leader that reports into the executive leadership, the CEO and I also have a team and I'm listening to this conversation or I've been really curious about how to fix this. I want to hear both sides of it. How do you suggest they pitch their executive team as to why making these changes and creating a win-win organization, like why is it helpful? I mean, I know you just gave data and data works, but I can hear in my ear someone saying, like well, we just don't have time, we don't have the ability, we don't have the budget to hire in external trainers to come in and do this. It's not the right season to reorg our whole structure. What's something that someone who's listening to this can do this week to be able to slowly chip away and start to make these changes?

Speaker 2: 20:40

Yeah. So I think the biggest thing and I hear this often, I mean time is the most precious resource that we all have Typically and I talk about this in the book and it's in chapter 10, and it's measuring the ROI on the win-win workplace. What I talk to businesses that we're looking at and what we saw the businesses that were making in this investment. They actually started really small, so no one overhauled the program. They thought about one or two measures that they thought would matter most, impact their business. They thought about the one or two metrics that if they went to their CFO that would actually get their attention or get the attention of a business unit leader. They started with those and they started the tracking there. Again, what is the one small thing that you think could have a marked difference? And so asking about maybe that one or two metrics, taking that data and actually going to your leadership and say I've surveyed the team of all the things we can do. They said these one or two things are most important. What are your feedback on this If we were to do these, working with that CFO?

Speaker 2: 21:46

And I really recommend CHROs leaders, get with your CFO and really try to understand what metrics are you measuring and which ones are most important to the CFO? Because these things cost money. Right, you're pitching them and you really need to have an analysis on how this is going to drive the business. And again, you're not starting with 10 things. It could be one or two that you're going to commit to measuring, that your team will commit to measuring. We're not going to ask them to do 10 things and you're going to make sure that that will move the needle on the business side and you're going to track that and typically what we've seen companies do and leaders do. They do a pilot over three months and they come back with the data and they learn from that.

Speaker 2: 22:25

So a 90-day trial Got it. That's exactly it. So we're not saying shift everything, we're saying try this One metric.

Speaker 1: 22:33

Would you recommend across departments, or would you like say, let's try it in this department or this business unit first?

Speaker 2: 22:39

Let's try it in this department and this business unit. First, Because once you have the metric, what we say is if you've seen some traction good or bad and if it's good, you can learn from it, you can begin to share it with another department. It just shifts the tenor of the conversation when you're having a data informed decision, Right right and then also for our listeners and viewers.

Speaker 1: 23:00

What I know to be true for sure is many of the FANG companies, in order to get promoted, you have to prove that the project and the research you did was also beneficial to another department, so that somebody else has to take your case study and build on it, and that's one of the biggest criteria for getting promoted within those companies. So this could be a real like ding, ding. Hey, this could be a win not only for you, but to also your own career trajectory, which I think is important. So come from the other side. I'm the again. I'm that senior leader and I've got a team who is like I'm already busy. You've already taken enough out of me. You want me in the office three days a week and now you want me to start measuring something that's like I don't know. Is this really going to be worth it? How would you suggest a leader work with a resistant team?

Speaker 2: 23:54

So the big thing is and I keep going back to this because sometimes you have to go slower to go fast if that makes sense, and as a leader of a team, just by background, I worked in the private sector at Nokia Viacom. I managed dispersed teams from around the globe and so sometimes you're like, can I give someone shorthand so we can just get this done? When we're talking about these types of change, we're thinking about changing people's minds and hearts. One, we need to understand that resistance is part of it, so not taking that personal. Two, resistance is also information, so using that as data to really more deeply understand what is being said and what is not being said in that moment, so that you can actually speak to that and taking a beat and pause. So again, not-. Resistance is.

Speaker 1: 24:46

Data is like a true takeaway If your team is resistant. There's a story behind the story. Ask more questions.

Speaker 2: 24:53

We have to ask more questions and sometimes we get triggered in the moment. Right, you're doing the best as you can, you're a great manager, you're trying to do all the things and you're like why is this happening? Take a beat to understand why that is and what's the story behind the story. Once you have that, then you can come up with what your game plan is and you can also bring them to your thinking. Sometimes, as managers, our direct reports don't see that we actually have a boss too.

Speaker 2: 25:19

Right, as humans and I talk about this in the book, and this is why you have to bring people into your thinking and your rationale, so that you're all in the boat rowing in the same direction. It's not leader against their team, it's like team, it's your leader, and we also have another body that we're reporting to. So I need your help to build the case for our larger management, for these types of investments. Without your support, I can't build a case. So without your data, without your insights, I don't have a fully informed strategy that I can go forward with.

Speaker 1: 25:55

Right, and I would say from where I sit in this conversation, I often work with leaders who are hesitant, because it's not that they don't want to be challenged, they want to be challenged intellectually, they want to make the product, the process better, but they don't want to be challenged by junior people who don't know what they're doing kind of mindset, right. So, working on the mindset that great ideas can come from anywhere, it's creating a culture of respect that someone should be able to give feedback in a respectful way. So that kind of goes into. My next question is that how would you recommend that an employee voices their concerns about changes or what needs to get done without being perceived as resistant or disengaged or disrespectful?

Speaker 1: 26:44

Because that's the biggest thing I hear is that the the tone and sentiment between the generations is so different that I think you and I, as Gen Xers, if we said some of the things that are very common today, I would have been walked out the door faster than I would ever predict, right? So there's just again. It doesn't no one's right, no one's wrong, it's just a different time, and if you want to succeed, you have to figure out how to continue to reinvent and stay agile in this. So what are your thoughts there? Like, how do I approach this without being the problem?

Speaker 2: 27:24

Absolutely, and I want to tackle it from the leader's perspective. Everything you said Jill about what would have happened. Those are unspoken and unwritten rules, right. And so there's something you learn trial by error. I always tell leaders get ahead of it. What's your process by which people can give you feedback? What are the norms that you want to put in place? Because when you set that up, as you're onboarding people, or if you're an inherited team, you're setting what the ground rules are and then you can have a conversation about is this out of bounds? So I've set up so that we have weekly meetings that you can give feedback. I've set up that we have all hands, teams meetings and that we've allocated a portion of the time that's around. You know how do we drive the business, how do we solve this problem? So what you're doing as a leader, you're beginning to model and to manage how this feedback comes. Again, that doesn't prevent you getting a comment from out of left field, but at least you can go back to what these norms look like and process and you're actually teaching this new generation. And that's the thing that I'd say.

Speaker 2: 28:29

Even when we were promoted to managers, we were never trained to be managers. Oh no, we were promoted because we were great individual contributors and so in this moment there's this great relearning for us, not only how to manage, how to manage differently than how we were managed, and to manage this new generation and so to set themselves up. What we want is a leader to set up the structures. If you're an employee, I think what you can do is to recommend those structures and give ideas for what that looks like. Jill, is there a portion of our one-to-one? I've been having some noticings and insights about the business. Is there a portion of our weekly conversation that I can put that in and talk about these? Yeah, the framing is very different because you're talking about how insights that I can put that in and talk about these.

Speaker 2: 29:14

The framing is very different because you're talking about how insights that I have from where I've seat that can drive the business, that can solve problems, and so, if we think about as a manager and leader, if you're an employee, your manager wants there's lots of problems to be solved. They want someone who's solution driven, someone who's tracking and knowing what goes on, who's connecting the disparate dots and coming in and thinking about how they can add value, and so that framing typically puts them more at ease. It makes someone want to lean and say, what have you noticed? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got the business. So it's again, it's an approach and it's a frame to that.

Speaker 2: 29:49

But again, for a leader, if you know yourself and I love the work you do Jill in coaching and allowing leaders to do work on themselves, really understanding how best do you receive feedback? How can you set up those systems so that you can get in a way that works for you and that you can begin to share with the team and get them into model and the ways of working, of doing that? So it's being more proactive versus reactive.

Speaker 1: 30:15

I mean really, really helpful, and I think that idea of looking at yourself first and offering your teammate or your direct report an opportunity in your status as your one-on-ones, that this is a great way and also getting ahead of it, like you said, I think that's another way of really thinking through, inevitably based on behavior, people are going to ask questions and they should be able to ask questions and we don't want a situation where, just because we may have been in fear-based organizations, we don't want to keep that because it's not healthy and it gets toxic.

Speaker 1: 30:48

And there's so many things about the Gen X or not the Gen X, excuse me, the Gen Zs and the millennials that I'm like you go. It's amazing seeing how different they're navigating things, but also there's a lot of wisdom at the Gen X and the boomers that can also be shared. So finding the constant way to meet in the middle, I think, is a way that a culture can then begin to change and then change together, so it's not just getting pulled to one side or the other. And I think your book is outstanding and really a great tool for people to use as they're kind of going through this. So tell us, is this work that you do personally. Would you go into an organization and help them with this restructure? How do people find you to do this work?

Speaker 2: 31:34

Yeah, absolutely so. There's a couple of things I really lead with the research that I have at Harvard University. I'm also a senior advisor at the Harvard Project on Workforce, and so we have doctoral students that we go into companies. We write case studies on these practices. We partner with senior leaders when they do pilots like this to actually think about how do we do the pilot, how do we think about the information, how do we report it out? How do we measure what this ROI looks like?

Speaker 2: 32:01

Again, we think about ourselves when I say the workplace whisperer. All of us are doing the best that we can and all of us need a partner in thinking about this new world of work. And so we go in, we do this work. Some of it's just the plan, some of it's just listening and some of it's around execution and finding the other right partners that we need to put some of these systems in place, be it other people, be it looking at your tech stack so that you can do this employee listening and thinking about how you can do this in a sustainable way. And everything we do is research. Back Again, we want to connect the leaders with good solutions, good technology, great coaching and having a data-informed plan that they can move forward.

Speaker 1: 32:45

Thank you, Angela. This is really, really helpful. I will put all of your information in the show notes. I'll also put a link. You can get Angela's book at any of the major sellers and retailers. But I will put that link in there. And if you have questions, you know I want you to email me. We will bring Angela back. We will get those questions answered if you have them, and you can email me at hello at jillgriffincoachingcom. And until next time, be intentional and think about reinvention. How can you apply some of this into your workplace? And, as always, be kind. I thank you for being here. No-transcript.