Leaders learn pretty quickly that who is their biggest problem, not what.
Most resourcing (books, journals, articles, conferences, seminars, training, coaching, and consulting) focuses on what you do. Of course, they do this because it is valuable. What you do does matter.
Recently I was at a dinner party and talked with a few middle-aged men I had never met before. Two of the group hail from another country in Central Asia, English is their second language, and they have an entirely different culture than my own. However, it only took about five minutes for this group to start asking, "what do you do?" (This was true even though one of us in the group was retired military and hadn't been an employee in decades, and of course I think some of you, my readers, are still trying to figure out what exactly I do.)
Yes, it may be an annoying over-simplification to jump to what someone does. But there's a reason people ask it. The what question others ask is not just about the address on your paychecks. It's about the way you add value to the world around you, not just doing it for "human masters." In my SixQ coaching journey I explain it this way:
Your what is your process... the way you turn one thing into another, or one person into a new one, or many people. It's about turning this, into that.
However, your what is often over-emphasized. It shouldn't be the first question about you, even though it likely always will be at a dinner party. It should not be the sum total of your identity. Who is your biggest problem, not what.
More valuable to you, and also more valuable to your work than what you do is who you do it with. Super-intense leadership guru Jim Collins agrees with me on this point as he emphasizes that leaders should focus on "first who, then what."
"The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team." - Phil Jackson
Hiring, onboarding, supervision, correction, firing, and succession have challenged organizations for years. And of course, the flip side of each of those—what it is like to experience each as a team member—is likewise critical: searching, launching, reporting, improving, quitting, and retirement.
And then there was a pandemic.
Before Covid-19, each of the above subjects was key but relatively stable. During Covid, new dynamics surfaced that seem to be of a different variety. You're not alone if you've been thinking that there is a new day dawning in work life in the West and beyond. I've spoken to dozens of business leaders in the last few months and they are all echoing similar refrains. What follows are a few.
Shifting Workplace Dynamics in Late 2021:
Workplace satisfaction is nosediving.
73% of workers are actively thinking about quitting their current jobs. In the month of April, 4 million in the US quit their jobs, quickly being dubbed "The Great Resignation" by the press (more on that in a moment.) But the key factor behind it all was people who quite plainly didn't find satisfaction in their work anymore, even if it was the most flexible job they had ever had, due to new Covid adaptations.
In the Church leadership world, David Kinnaman stunned many with the bold claim in January 2021 by saying their data showed 29% of pastors were thinking of quitting their jobs. In October, his data revealed the trend had not subsided but climbed to 38% of pastors that have "...given real serious consideration to quitting being in full-time ministry in the past year."
Working from home policies and impact are a mess.
Most who work in an org have found disparities and inconsistencies in working from home policies and their application. It has been nearly impossible to figure out a happy medium when both extremes are felt in each workplace and among management teams. Add to that a new emphasis not only on flexibility in where we work, and when we work. While working at home, many have wanted to likewise stretch beyond 9 to 5 local time workdays.
We've learned that kids aren't learning as well at home as all of us had hoped (don't worry, I'm not biased against school at home, I have one kid who is in an ongoing school-from-home curriculum, so we personally kind of love it). But who is to say people are working at home as efficiently either? They say they are "much more efficient" when H.R. sends them a survey. Many supervisors are not reporting the same results, as well as many honest employees when you get them talking about their work from home patterns. Yes, it's nice to do your work a few steps from your own bed, pet, and fridge, but that in and of itself is not more efficient, it's just more comfortable.
Our just-in-time supply chain is mucked up.
This is being reported ad nauseam in Christmas-shopping-days-obsessed-media at the moment, without mention of one key dynamic, and that's the disruption of our reliance on just-in-time logistics. Walmart perfected this with physical stores at one point and then was beaten at its own game by Amazon. In a "pipeline-style" organization like these, just-in-time product delivery is essential to overall productivity and profit. The pandemic has proved that such dialed-in efficiency is wonderful for everyone until there is some wrinkle in time, and then everything falls apart. We've all become quite entitled in our ability to click something on our phone today and have it show up from the Lord Knows Where tomorrow, somewhat magically. Now that we cannot always do that we're adjusting.
Many are quitting and don't want to come back
In June 2021, 3.9 million quit their jobs in the US. Rather than a glitch in the Matrix, this was repeated in July, with another 3.9 million quitting, and in August, it increased again, to a record 4.3 million. Young workers were a huge factor in the numbers. The following month, in September, upwards of a quarter of workers ages 20 to 34 were not considered part of the U.S. workforce anymore—some 14 million who were not working nor looking for work.
The supply of workers is much lower than the demand.
Because of the above dynamics, the supply and demand of workers have reached a new imbalance toward much more demand. This is why you'll see banners advertising bonuses for fast-food job hires and other assorted anomalies. If you, like me, have never gotten a signing bonus in your life before and you think that would be cool, then strap on a hairnet, flip some burgers for a day, and you'll get your first one.
Certainly, Covid has made all such jobs worse to do, so workers are bailing. But the supply has also been impacted by immigration policy shifts before Covid which limited the amount of needed labor (specifically categorized as "unskilled labor" by the government, and thus not allowed in.) Lower birth rates for among parts of the population play a factor, as the increase in how many have higher education, leading to higher wage and career expectations, all of which is happening in an age when the minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, is the same as it was in 1952.
Mental health and holistic care by a company are becoming expected.
Rather than the past practices of "doing your job and then leaving it at work," the inverted pattern is showing. What a previous generation might have considered "one's personal life" is now intermixed into work life. A more holistic view of the employee is no longer innovative but expected. Even for an uncaring executive, it makes sense to decide that the overall mental and physical wellness of their team members is a direct factor in the efficiency and effectiveness of the company. And of course, the motives here are more than just uncaring; most do want those who work for them to thrive. It makes for good business and common sense.
However, in this day and age, you'll find some managers experiencing whiplash at the expectations a team member will have from their org. Of course, with supply and demand for workers being what they are, there's not much that can be done to deny these claims. Potential workers are discovering they are in a "seller's market" for their skills.
The Pandemic officially ushered Millennials onto center stage.
Millennials already became the largest generation in the United States before the pandemic in 2019. But during Covid, Millennials completely overwhelmed the conversation about workplace approaches. Millennials already rank as a third of the US labor force. Back in 2016, they were already the largest, passing the Xer generation who only held that title for a couple of years, after the unprecedented near half-century with Boomers at the helm as the largest part of the workforce. So this is just rational and demographic.
The huge shift, however, is that we are going from the largest part of a team being one generation to in just a few short years, having the largest part of an org be 20-40 years younger than them. Of course, this functionally skipped an entire generation in terms of values and thinking. If you've been humming, "the times, they are a-changing," well, ok you're likely a Boomer who listens to Bob Dylan in the first place, but you're also right. It's not just the pandemic, it's also the inevitable demographics of your co-workers and your constituency.
The Pandemic accelerated Boomers fading from the workforce.
Speaking of generations, the Boomers are retiring in droves, and the pandemic accelerated that. In the third quarter of 2020, some 28.6 million Boomers (born= 1946-1964) said they were retired and out of the workforce. That number is 3.2 million more than the 25.4 million who said the same a year prior. Boomers were retiring at a rate of 2 million per year on average for the eight years before, since 2011. So the statistical bulge within the Boomer generation is hanging up the towel right now, and who can blame them, during a pandemic? Seems like a good time to ride off into the sunset if there ever was one.
Those are some of the dynamics at play uniquely in 2020-2021. I think it's safe to say that we have a lot to talk about.
In future installments of these articles, I'll be touching on these related categories below. Each item on the left is from the perspective of the organization, and the bosses doing that work for the org. Each one on the right is that same subject from the perspective of the team member, employee, etc. Almost all of us wear the latter hat. Some of us only wear the former hat. Many of us wear both at the same time:
Hiring / Search
Onboarding / Launch
Supervision / Reporting
Correction / Improving
Firing / Quitting
Succession / Retirement
I also want to have a keen eye on what has changed in each dynamic during, and likely after, the pandemic. The inflection point of the 2020s is crucial (I suspect everyone will eventually recall these years as the "post-pandemic Twenties"). Covid and these subsequent or corollary changes shifted the playing field and we'll need to adapt to the new ballgame, and still gain a sense of winning at what we do.
But remember, winning isn't merely about what we do, it's who we do it with. So winning will mean assembling the right team, getting the team you have right, or joining the right team—all of which is a great ride, even during a pandemic.
This podcast connects with the who vs the what - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS85Nzk4OTcucnNz/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC05NjI0MzM4?ep=14