Leadership has changed in the last few years, and it can be disorienting for leaders who’ve subscribed to and succeeded with the old narratives about good leadership. Companies and their leaders need to reframe their cultures to meet the new world of work in the 21st century. It’s more than just being nice or being a “cool” boss or giving everyone free lunch. It requires deep and honest self-assessment and a growth mindset to shore up those necessary skills. My guest today, Lisen Stromberg, tells us what skills are required for modern leaders to be successful and how cultures can transform for maximum success.
We discuss where existing leadership and culture paradigms came from and how they have changed, what skills modern leaders require for success, outlined in Prismwork’s HEARTI model, and Lisen also shares her research project on men and male leaders in the workplace that they are doing in partnership with the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Men and male-identifying leaders, you’re invited to take the survey linked in the show notes to share your experience.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- The army originally established the tenants of leadership back in the 1940s. That is not what is still needed in the modern business world. Influence has changed, leadership has changed, and it will continue to evolve as well.
- A failure of leadership that we see all the time is when a leader comes in, they do a great job creating a culture, leave, and then that just all falls away.
- Many leaders may not have the language, but are already doing the right things to promote equity and allyship in their company, even if they don’t know that they are doing so.
- Culture is a competitive advantage that is hard to replicate.
“Culture is the competitive advantage. If you don’t know how your culture is operating, and don’t have a North Star of where you want to go, you’re not going to win. You’re going to lose in the war for talent, profits, investors…in the war for all.” — Lisen Stromberg
About Lisen Stromberg, CEO and Co-founder, Prismwork
Lisen Stromberg is CEO and Co-Founder of PrismWork, a culture transformation and leadership development consultancy. She is a highly sought-after speaker and thought leader on the future of work. Her book, Work Pause Thrive: How to Pause for Parenthood Without Killing Your Career, covers how highly achieving women have navigated the work/life integration issue by crafting nonlinear careers.
Connect with Lisen Stromberg:
PrismWork: https://prismwork.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LisenStromberg
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisenstromberg/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisenstromberg/
References Mentioned:
Men and male-identifying knowledge workers, any level: Please take Prismwork’s and W. K. Kellogg Foundation’s research survey on men in the workplace. Your input is invaluable to the research: www.menatworkresearch.com
Primswork’s HEARTI Quotient inclusive leadership assessment for the 21st Century: HEARTI stands for Humility, EMPATHY, Accountability, Resiliency, Transparency, and Inclusivity. It is built on assessments with hundreds of leaders across numerous industries as well as extensive research on modern leadership competencies.
Re:Work, Understand Team Effectiveness. Info on Google’s Project Aristotle.
What is Psychological Safety? Google’s checklist to ensure psychological safety
Josh Lev: The Top Global Expert for Modern Dads at Work
Rebecca Friese The Empathy Edge interview: How to Build a Good Culture
Josh Levine The Empathy Edge interview: Building an Empathetic Culture
Susan Hunt Stevens, The Empathy Edge interview: The ROI of Psychological Safety
Don’t forget to download your free guide! Discover The 5 Business Benefits of Empathy: http://red-slice.com/business-benefits-empathy
Connect with Maria:
Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com
Learn more about Maria’s brand strategy work and books: Red-Slice.com
Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross
Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy
LinkedIn: Maria Ross
Instagram: @redslicemaria
Twitter: @redslice
Facebook: Red Slice
FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Oh boy, leadership has changed in the last few years. And it can be disorienting for leaders who’ve subscribed to and succeeded with the old narratives about great leadership. You know, the ones command and control show no emotion, all of that. companies and their leaders need to reframe their cultures to meet the new world of work in the 21st century. It’s more than just being nice, or being a cool boss, or giving everyone free lunch. It requires deep and honest self-assessment and a growth mindset to shore up those necessary skills. My guest today, a fabulous colleague and mentor, Lisen Stromberg tells us what skills are required for modern leaders to be successful, and how cultures can transform for maximum success. Lisen is CEO and co-founder of prism work, a culture transformation and leadership development consultancy. She’s a highly sought after speaker and thought leader on the future of work. Her book work pause thrived. How to pause for parenthood without killing your career is more relevant than ever, and covers how highly achieving women have navigated the work life integration issue by crafting nonlinear careers. We discuss where existing Leadership and Culture paradigms even came from, and how they’ve changed. What skills modern leaders require for success outlined in prism works and hardy model, please take the assessment to see where you land. The link is in the show notes. And Lisen also shares her research project on men and male leaders in the workplace that they’re doing in partnership with the WK Kellogg Foundation. Again, if you are a man or a male identifying leader, you’re invited to take that survey, and it’s linked in the show notes so that you can share your experience. This was such a rich discussion, and we covered so much, I really hope you enjoy it.
Maria Ross 03:16
Welcome, Lisen to the empathy edge. I have been looking forward to getting you on this show for a while now to talk about culture and leadership in the 21st century.
Lisen Stromberg 03:26
Maria, you know, I always love being in conversation with you. So, this is wonderful.
Maria Ross 03:30
We should just record our talks when we all have them. Right? Absolutely. And you you are such a huge proponent of the empathy edge. And it’s very seedling stages. And I remember sitting in your home in San Francisco talking about, hey, I have this idea for this book, but I’m not really sure where it’s gonna go. So, I look where we are now. I know Look where we are now. Now we have a podcast. So, so we are here to talk about 21st century modern culture, modern leadership. So much of the work that you do with prism work is helping companies build a more inclusive culture, transform their cultures, because it’s the right thing to do, but also so they can thrive in the market. Right. And that’s the thing I love about the work you do. And that I do is that we’re proving that all these these things about how you treat people, and inclusivity and empathy are actually good for the bottom line.
Lisen Stromberg 04:24
What a concept! what a concept, right? It can spend all this time worrying about your capital costs, it’s time to look at your operating costs and your people or your operating costs. So, let’s think about that.
Maria Ross 04:35
Exactly, so talk to us a little bit about how leadership has changed in the last few years. And what are those core competencies that are required for modern leadership?
04:46
Well, I mean, I think all of us have been so destabilize these last four years, right five years, you know, the the social unrest, the political unrest, obviously COVID has changed everything. We used to believe and we worked Reed, many of the leaders in leadership today were trained, there was a certain way to lead, right? It literally came out of World War Two, the return of all of these great soldiers, the army established modern leadership competencies literally in 1940 1955, I think is what it was. And what they established was, you know, that follow the leader is hierarchical, you know, in the worst-case scenario, my way or the highway. It wasn’t distributed, etc. And what I love is for starting, you know, and that really was how so many leaders came up came into their leadership roles, they were literally modeled and mentored after that. So, all of a sudden, COVID hits and the way they establish power, the way they establish authority, they we established an influence doesn’t work anymore. Couple that with a social media, you know, changing dynamic, and it’s fundamentally shifted. So, the question is, how, what we’re seeing and what the research that prism work has done. And what I have done in my class at Stanford that I co teach with Gina Nichols, is really looked at what are those core competencies, and thank you for asking for modern leadership. And after doing extensive 1000s, of cert, you know, a survey of 1000s of leaders and you know, scores of interviews, etc, we really came down to six core competencies, and they are humility. In other words, we think of this as servant leadership, we think of this as the ability to sort of say, I don’t know, have all the answers, but I really want to understand so coming with that kind of vulnerable, you know, humble mindset, rather than you talk to me, because I’m the leader, it’s, I want to find out you so I can lead better advisors. Who are who I’m leading right now. So, humility, empathy, I don’t even know Yay, we’re there. You know that answer, right? That’s fundamental, right? You cannot, you cannot leave in the modern workforce without understanding empathy. And you know, at length, we can talk about the three kinds of empathy and all those other things that you’ve taught me. Accountability. Now, interestingly, we’ve leaders, anybody who’s in the leadership role has to be be accountable it but it’s how you’re accountable, and how you have others be accountable. And it’s not just accountable for delivering results. It’s accountable for creating a culture, it’s accountable for how you show up and they show up collaboratively. So accountability is much broader than just that vertical, did you deliver the profits on time, etc. And that’s a real adjustment for many. Then we go on to resiliency. And of course, in the midst of COVID, and all of this, we’ve been forced to be resilient, and really test ourselves and figure out, can we be agile, we, you know, there’s this wonderful book, Grit by Angela Duckworth. And it’s awesome. The problem with grit is grit is tenacious and you often don’t give up when you should, the great thing about resiliency is you have to fail to be resilient because you learn from it, and you evolve and iterate and grow. So, you don’t just want to have grit only all the grits great. You also want to be resilient, you want to fail, learn from it, and so on. Transparency, that’s a big one specially right now, when so many people are afraid about canceled culture and companies are being asked What’s your data, demographic data? You know, all of these things? Data Governance, management, how are you transparent? So, we look at transparency as an individual, how do you show up again? Do you show up in a humble way with empathy, etc? And also, what are you willing to take a stand on? Right? I don’t know, you know, what kind of leader you are until I know what you’re willing to take a stand on. And right now, given the political climate and everything else, Roe v. Wade, you know, all the conversations are, what are you willing to take a stand on? And how are you going to shop around that that’s part of what transparency is. And the last one, and we really think of this as the heart of the model that we’ve established har T, is inclusivity, you cannot be a modern leader, if you aren’t thinking about how do you include people? How do you make them feel psychologically safe? So, they can actually challenge you as a leader? How can you actually include their voices? And so, inclusivity for us is yes, of course, demographic, gender, you know, all of the things that you would imagine, but it goes beyond that to how are you including everyone’s voice? How are you showing up as a leader? So, those are kind of what we call again, I’ll say hardy, the six core competencies of modern leadership.
Maria Ross 09:24
Yes, I love it. I mean, it’s a great acronym, H E A R T I. And you can learn more about that at prison work. We’ll have all the links in the show notes, of course. But I want to just dig into two things you said one was, you need to be accountable for more than results as a leader and I think that’s a big shift for the the classic leadership model, which was I’m only going to be judged as a leader based on the results I produce. And it doesn’t matter if I’ve burned my people to the ground in order to deliver those results. And that’s not the game anymore. No. And so I have always talks about the fact that you know, the reason you’re a leader and they’re paying you the big bucks is because you have to worry about people. Like that’s your job now.
Lisen Stromberg 10:07
Yeah, yes. I was listening to McKinsey, talent talking. It’s called Talent talk. They had it. And they, one of the guest speakers said a really great thing, which is, how do you get people into the office, and the way you get them into the office is be a really great leader. Right? And in other words, not that I’m advocating to, you know, to everyone in the office, but the what’s cool, the new kind of really great, cool thing to have. It’s not ping pong tables, it’s not lunch. It’s be the kind of leader that people want to show up for either in person or virtual, or whatever it is. That’s the new currency.
Maria Ross 10:43
Right.
Lisen Stromberg 10:44
So, to your point, you’re absolutely if you don’t actually be accountable in a way that goes beyond profits, right? So, it’s people purpose profits, those three P’s, if you’re not focused on all three of those three P’s in this new world of work, you’re going to fail as a leader, and we see it happening all the time.
Maria Ross 11:00
And we should, you know, point out that to exactly what you just said, it’s something a colleague of ours, mutual colleague of ours, Rebecca Freese talks about engineering, right? Oh, punching bar tables and freak heads on Friday, do not a culture make no we’re in and we’re not asking leaders to just roll over and give their teams whatever they want, however, crazy it sounds. So, I think, you know, people don’t understand it’s a spectrum. And it’s about creating an environment. It’s just like, I mean, you don’t want it to be this paternalistic, but sort of like, parents create a good environment. That is the it has boundaries, it has expectations, but it also has fun, it has caring, it has empathy. That is, you know, most you’ve seen the research to on Gen Z and millennials where they want a second family.
Lisen Stromberg 11:48
Yes.
Maria Ross 11:49
And they’re at work and they’re willing to spend the time at work and to deliver, if they feel like it’s a second family. Yes, you don’t have to go overboard and say yes to everything to be a quote unquote, good leader or a fun leader. But it’s, it’s about providing that balance and providing that structure and that environment where people can perform at their best. But there are expectations, there are boundaries, and there are responsibilities.
Lisen Stromberg 12:16
So it’s interesting, parenting, you know, may or may not be the appropriate analogy, but I do. Meaning that, you know, many people aren’t parents and their parents to dogs and cats and that, but I do think there was something in parenting that does play relevance to me. We talked about helicopter parenting, right, where you’re constantly right, as opposed to Bumper Car parenting, that idea that I’m going to give you the boundaries you can bump against, but you’ve got boundaries, but you get to test them, you get to go and challenge yourself, push yourself, you know, and I’m gonna give you those boundaries. So, you can succeed as a parent. That’s authoritative parenting, not authoritarian parenting, helicopter parenting is authoritarian parenting. So much like those you asked the original question, which was what has changed, I think that’s a fundamental change in leadership. We’re not about authoritarian Leadership Without authoritative leadership. You follow me, you, you, you listen to me. And I, as a leader, give you the boundaries, so that you can be the next leader, my goal is to help evolve you to the next leader, because there’s going to be a day when I’m gone. And I want you to succeed, I want to take what I do, and infuse it so that it can continue, right. A failure of leadership that we see all the time is a leader comes in he or she does a great job creates a culture, they leave because many leaders do leave and then that completely, you know, just all falls away. That is a failure of leadership. In my opinion, if you’re if your leadership doesn’t live beyond you, you’ve done anything wrong.
Maria Ross 13:51
And that’s a shift for a lot of, you know, maybe less than stellar leaders that I’m thinking of from my past. That’s a shift because that is it’s not just about leaving a legacy or secession planning or succession planning or anything like that. It’s about that as part of your role as a leader is to empower your team so that you are you are grooming them, you are you are skilling them up to be the future leaders and that’s not a threat to your leadership. In the moment you are the leader right? That’s actually what you leave behind and and the number of people that get promoted and go to leadership positions that are on your team is the mark of a good leader.
Lisen Stromberg 14:31
I’m sure there is a study out there I haven’t seen it if any of your listeners have seen it, haven’t sent it to us looking at kind of the impact of a leader and where how they trained or supported or you know, sponsored and advocated somebody and they then went somewhere else. They then infuse that in their culture and so on. There must be research out there. I’m sure if someone has done, I just haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard about it anecdotally. He was someone who has been led in the way that we’re discussing has built those skills has gone somewhere else has modeled that. And then that person that they met, LED has gone somewhere else and infused it, it’s a movement, right? You want to have that kind of mindset. And that approach of my legacy is vertical. My legacy is a web. And I want to kind of support people, you know, to go out and change the world and create workplaces that are better for all of us.
Maria Ross 15:26
Right? Right. And that is the mark of good leadership. So, I do want to mention quickly that you have with this Hardy quotient, this Hardy hodell, you have a leadership and inclusive leadership assessment called the Hardy quotient, and you think of it as a StrengthsFinder for the 21st century. So, we’re gonna put a link so folks can just take that right.
Lisen Stromberg 15:49
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, can go to Hardy quotient.com. And yes, please, thank you put the link in there. We now have oh, you know, well over 1000 leaders, you know, heading into 2000 leaders who’ve taken it, it just came out not that long ago. And what’s fascinating is this, this awareness that that the Hardy quotient gives leaders to understand how they’re showing up, they think they’re showing up, right, and then they can go back, this goes back to the humility. Hey, I did the Hardy quotient. It says that I you know, have an area of strength in inclusivity, which is wonderful. But I need to work on my accountability. Hey, team, why don’t you take this let’s talk about where we’re strong as a team and where we’re not what’s this look like? We have one wonderful early beta tester. She was the head of DNI at a global insurance company. And she’s now got all of her leaders, you know, 150 leaders now taking it and they’re actually having these conversations about how do I show up as a hardware leader? What does this look like? Where are we as a team strong? Where do we need to grow? What I think is fascinating with the data that we’re now seeing is there’s some we’re just beginning to see some cross tabulations, and we’re starting to run the analysis. And I think this will be really fascinating for you, leaders who show up really high in empathy, sometimes struggle with accountability. And I know you
Maria Ross 17:08
And I have heard that. And I actually just attended a webinar a while ago, that was given by business solver. And business solver is a company that puts out a yearly state of empathy in the workplace. And I use their research extensively in my book, and they were talking about the fact that, you know, you empathy has to be hand in hand with accountability. That’s how you don’t let people just everything run amok, right? So, then empathy lives hand in hand with accountability in the workplace,
Lisen Stromberg 17:43
Right. But you also taught me about compassion, empathy, right? Not over emotional empathy, not cognitive empathy, but the whole concept of compassion, empathy that says, it’s really service leadership again, right? That how can I be of service to you? How can I come with that full hearty mindset, and actually know that you need boundaries to you for you to be successful? You need accountability, I have to help you thrive.
Maria Ross 18:07
It’s yeah, compassionate empathy. It’s compassion is really the empathy and action. And so, what are those boundaries? What are those expectations? What are those policies? What are those, you know, all the things we’re going to do in order to exhibit m&a in the workplace. So, I love that. So, I want to pivot because, you know, we’ve danced around this a little bit in terms of inclusivity, and also with leaders having to sort of change their mindset and change their their MO, maybe even to the point where this is where I have empathy. They have to change what got them to where they are, that’s, we need to have empathy for that. Because their whole careers, they were told the rules were one thing. And now they’re being expected to just turn on a dime, right. And so that’s why organizations like yours, that are helping leaders and helping cultures make that shift are so important. You don’t have to do this alone. And so, you’re doing some research around men and male leaders in the workplace. Because, you know, let’s face it, most of our leaders in the workplace have historically been men. And we want them to be allies. We want them to open up the leadership opportunities to not just women but people of color to transgender individuals to individuals that have all kinds of viewpoints that they bring to the equation and to the challenges in the workplace, which actually, you’ve probably seen the research to it talks about the fact that the more diverse your leadership team, the better decisions you make.
Lisen Stromberg 19:38
Right and that’s that research is all proven that now we’re well beyond the conversation. Well, this data extensive.
Maria Ross 19:44
Yes. I love it. So talk to us about the research you’re doing on men and male leaders in the workplace and what your what are male leaders saying maybe some of the ones that are struggling with this shift? What am What do you hear them saying what what are they What are they going through? Where do they need to shore up their skill set?
Lisen Stromberg 20:04
Well, I want to share a little bit background. Yeah, it’s a great question. And I want to share some background. So, the Kellogg Foundation approached us they have a racial equity program that they have been doing for a number of years with corporations, you know, across the country, actually, I think it’s even global. And one of the challenges they were experiencing is many of the leaders, not at the very top. In fact, 62% of CEOs report being true believers in inclusion. So that’s not the problem. It’s that next layer down the VP, the director, even the manager, who are struggling with what does this look like? What does this mean for me? How do I do this, because to your point, many of the individuals who have gotten to that point, got to that point based on an old narrative about what leadership look like they earned their power in a different way. So, I too, have deep compassion and empathy for so many who are trying to lead this new way. And again, for men in particular, because often we blame and shame men, you’re not showing up the way we need excetera, which then goes into that kind of scarcity mindset of Oh, my gosh, there’s only so much pie to go around. And of course, you and I both know, world Carol Dweck research out of Stanford growth mindset. It’s not a pie people pie just gets bigger. And it’s hard to truly understand what that looks like. So Kellogg approached us and said, Hey, we’re really interested in this. Can you help do this, this research around kind of men at work is sort of what we were talking about. And again, this is the knowledge not the bands. Yeah, no, not the bands. Don’t make that go into my head. But they, but again, this is the knowledge worker space, this is, you know, and they were looking at really kind of that, that segment of, I don’t want to call them middle middle managers. That’s not what I want to call them, because I do think they’re leaders. But but but they’re not the CEOs, if you will,
Maria Ross 21:57
I like to call it that level that stuck between leadership and doing, you know, it’s like they they’re, they’re also responsible for implementing, as well as leading, they’re not so far high up that they’re just, you know, making declarations and IIDX. And sort of solely focusing, but they’re the ones that have to bring initiatives to life.
Lisen Stromberg 22:16
So not only are they leading, they’re also doing imagine how hard that is, right? Yeah. So we’ve just started this research. And we’re excited. We’ve done a series of qualitative roundtables and interviews, and then we’ll be launching our survey very shortly. And what we’re finding already is something that I didn’t expect, which is we went into it talking about and thinking about inclusion, and they came back to us saying it’s all about leadership. In other words, for them, the number one challenge, as you’re saying was, I don’t know how to lead now. I don’t know, what is the you know, what’s the tip sheet for how to lead today? We thought they were concerned about how to be allies, that was way down on their, their, I need to know list. What was also really fascinating to me, and part of this is generational meaning, you know, how do I navigate the many generations that work the different priorities, etc. So that’s part of it. But truly, I don’t know what leadership looks like today. I just feel like I’m in quicksand. The other thing that I thought was really fascinating is there was clarity on what ally ship looks like. And in some didn’t even understand that, you know, what didn’t even have a name for it. But interestingly, many of them were actually doing things that you and I might say, oh, that’s what an ally does. This is a how ally ship. So there’s also confusion about the stuff they’re already doing. They’re already showing up with their power intentionally. They just don’t call an ally ship. They call it management. There’s a there’s right, because right, or mentor ship and some mentorship. Yeah, but exactly. And so, for them there was this is the nomenclature was confused, is is confusing. I think, also what I find fascinating is this disconnect between, you know, this belief, that’s what’s in it for me, you know, if I have to advance your book, while What about my book, or what about me, right? There’s this kind of zero sum thinking going on. But in fact, what we’re trying to help so many of the men see through this research, and what’s really showing up is those individuals, men who actually do know how to lead in this new world of work, succeed, they rise up, they deliver their numbers, they actually feel more confident. I mean, this the benefits to self are huge. And so, I think the the narrative that Oh, I have to be ally, and I’m going to give up my power is completely flawed. The idea that being an inclusive leader means that, you know, again, I’m sharing my power, it’s a fundamental flaw in the way we think of it. It’s literally Oh, I benefit when this happens. I actually grow as a human, I become a better leader, and that means all the results that are counted ability thing, that’s all going to get better for me. So, we’re seeing all of this richness right now I can I can wait to get the final results.
Maria Ross 25:07
Right. And so, and male leaders can still take this survey.
Lisen Stromberg 25:11
Yes, we’re right in the middle of the research right now. And so, we can send you a link and please,
Maria Ross 25:17
We will have a link in the show notes. Do you have a Do you have a verbal link? You can let us know.
Lisen Stromberg 25:22
We don’t I think we’re gonna probably call it men at work. men@work.com survey? I don’t know.
Maria Ross 25:27
We don’t know yet. We will have it in the show notes. For sure. Thank you. So, so men, and what type of men can take this survey any any L in the workplace,
Lisen Stromberg 25:37
Any male in the workplace can take this survey, again, it is knowledge workers. So, you know, first line, you know, first line workers and all of that that’s not really where the focus of this research is not to say that an important research needs to get done. But any any buddy in the knowledge worker space,
Maria Ross 25:53
So, they don’t have to be a VP or director.
Lisen Stromberg 25:55
Oh, no. On the contrary, we’re already seeing interesting dynamics between, you know, the Gen Z’s versus the boomer with a diet that’s so rich in itself, right? Yeah, yeah. The thing that I also finding fascinating is, you know, in the midst of COVID, all this research was, was being shared about women leaving the workforce or down downshifting. But in fact, we’re finding there’s similar data around men. So men who were forced to be cared, not forced, but have the opportunity to be caregivers, and you know, either their children, their families, and suddenly didn’t have a network in place to do it. We’re seeing huge shifts around that I was literally on the phone earlier today with Josh lens, who wrote all in about, you know, fathers in the workforce and what that means. And he said, the data that he’s seeing is literally that men suffered the same level of anxiety, the same challenges to their careers, etc. And that couples were trying to figure out who was going to pause their career. And in fact, in many cases, the women did not because they felt that the women were better caregivers, but because the women weren’t making as much money as the men, right, so it’s all full circle. Right? Right. If women had fair pay and pay equity, men might have more freedom, if you will, to actually navigate their their their journey in the workplace. So, there’s this stuff goes on forever. Talk for hours.
Maria Ross 27:17
Such great stuff. I want to ask you kind of a rogue question here. But you know, in your work with culture transformation at prism work and the companies you work with, what is the problem? They’re articulating? Are they are they actually coming to you and saying, we want to transform our culture or transform the way they lead? Or how are they articulating the challenge that they have?
Lisen Stromberg 27:39
It’s a really interesting, it’s a really great question. Our clients have come from us, and a whole host of ways I want to understand work from anywhere, can you help us look at our culture to help us figure out how to do this? Well, I want to increase more gender diversity in our company. And we know that there’s a problem, can you help do a culture assessment to understand what the issues are and help us grow from there, we want to go public, we have a number of, you know, high tech firms or tech firms in Silicon Valley that want to go public. And they know that they know to do that, they actually have to have a certain level of you know, women on boards, or diversity on boards, etc. All of that’s being challenged in the courts these days. But they actually want to have that kind of best-in-class culture. Help set me up for success. So we can you know, venture capitalists are reaching out saying, Hey, we’re about to fund this company, can you do an assessment? So, because of that, they we know where their issues are, like, sort of our assessment looks not just a DNI, we’re actually looking at a full plethora of what is the 360 experience of the company, we actually call it gleam, its governance, that’s probably the policies leadership, how to leaders show up the employee experience, what’s the lived experience for the employees, the environment? What are the tools and training? And what are the what are the systems in place, right, you know, people analytics, are they work from anywhere? Or are they not? What is that? What is the environment? And then market with their employer brand? What’s their employer internally brand internally? What’s it externally? What are their competitors doing? So that is a pretty robust assessment, but it allows us to look at where they are on this kind of continuum, a 21st century readiness. What’s interesting is we’re starting to see private equity firms are reaching out to say, hey, we’re thinking about purchasing this company, but we’re not we want to know what the problems are, before we get in there were the fingers and the filters and how culture transformation or just culture is understood is fascinating.
Maria Ross 29:38
Well, I’m just heartened to hear that this is becoming a part of due diligence, for lack of a better term and not just looking at product market fit. They’re not just looking at, you know, year over year revenue. They’re not looking at total addressable market. They’re also looking at culture as a competitive advantage and as our tagline and as it comes had an advantage that you it’s very hard to replicate. Right?
Lisen Stromberg 30:03
Well, that’s exactly right. And also, if they’re trying to merge cultures, they need to understand what’s the dynamic here, and how effective or ineffective will this be, because profitability at the end of the day will be impacted if you can’t merge effectively. So, we’re starting to see a really interesting movement around that. So, what I love, and I do believe this really is a shift in these last five years is this fundamental understanding that you culture to your point, as we say, that’s our tagline. Culture is the competitive advantage. And if you don’t know how your culture is operating, and don’t have kind of a Northstar, of where you want to go, you’re not going to win, you’re going to lose in the war for talent in the war for profits in the war for investors in the war for all right.
Maria Ross 30:44
Well, at the end of the day, I mean, your company is made up of a group of individuals that are getting the work done quickly. And so, it’s, it’s surprising that it took us so long to get here to understand that, but we’re here and it’s good. And I’m gonna put a link in the show notes as well, to a few other episodes I did with culture experts, Rebecca Greece and her good culture, and also Josh Levine of great Monday. So, I will I will put those links in the show notes as well, because we, we talked about this issue of culture sort of being being the last not the last bastion of competitive differentiation, but one of the hardest ones to, to copy and replicate. So, if you’re really trying to stand out from your competitors, this is a great way to do it. So absolutely. So, as we as we leave off, I love if you could just you know leaders listening who are like yes to all of this. And I’m a deer in headlights, I don’t know where to start. Where do you suggest leaders start shoring up their skill sets? Or even like I said, assessing where they are on the spectrum? Where can they go? What can they do, obviously, maybe the hearty quotient right place to start?
Lisen Stromberg 31:54
Right, I would I would highly recommend they go and sort of understand go and get the hearty quotient, that would be a great place to start. I teach this class at Stanford, our next class will be in January, you can go to Stanford, and so they find that class, it’s part of the next gen.
Maria Ross 32:10
And it’s delivered on its delivered virtual exam. Anyone can take it. Wonderful.
Lisen Stromberg 32:14
Yeah, yes.
Maria Ross 32:15
And I’ve had the opportunity to guest lecturer at that class. And it’s a great.
Lisen Stromberg 32:18
Again, and again, and again.
Maria Ross 32:19
I know, I love it. I love it. Such good stuff.
Lisen Stromberg 32:23
Feel free to reach out to us at prison work, we get prison work, we’d love to have to support you. There. There’s so the good news is right now the resources are better than ever. One specific resource that we in our class send people to is Google has done some work around psychological safety. And they’ve open sourced what the you know, what the issues are, and how to provide that. That could be an immediate today, what do I do today, I go and find out what psychological safety is and how I can set my employees up for that. Because so much of what we’re finding is that employees don’t feel that they can really show up with humility, because they’re afraid to say, I don’t have the answer. It’s we’re taught in our culture, that it’s not okay to not have all the answers, right.
Maria Ross 33:13
It’s that outdated narrative, like you said earlier, it’s that, and that’s the thing that I you know, if you’re a leader, you’re saying, Well, I was told my whole career, never to admit, I didn’t know never to admit I was wrong. Like, that’s gonna be really hard for me to make that shift after 30 years.
Lisen Stromberg 33:30
That’s right. Exactly right. Exactly. And I back to that compassion and the empathy for that situation. But the truth of the matter is, if you leader wants to succeed, you have to make this shift, it’s not an option.
Maria Ross 33:42
So, and the good news is, you know, the good side of that is you can let your guard down a little bit. You don’t have to, you don’t have to have the pressure on yourself. And it’ll bring you closer to your team used to, you know, you still want to be a decisive leader, you still want to be a confident leader, but you can have confidence and still admit you and you can confidently admit, you don’t have all the answers. Let’s work on this as a team. So I love it.
Lisen Stromberg 34:09
And then the other side of that is to listen. Yeah, right. That’s where the empathy comes in. Listen to what they’re trying to tell you and and give them the safety to be able to tell you what you need to hear.
Maria Ross 34:19
Right. Right. I love it. Well, listen, this has been awesome. Thank you for this conversation. There’s going to be so many things in the show notes, listeners, I’m going to put links to everything we referenced and discussed some past interviews on the empathy edge that will be helpful. And of course, for the men in the in the I don’t even know what it’s called the listening audience,
Lisen Stromberg 34:40
the listening audience,
Maria Ross 34:41
I’m gonna put a link to the research that prison work is doing and they would love to hear from you and and hear your story and hear your voice. So please do fill that out. Lisen, where again, we’ll have all the links in the show notes, but where can folks find out more about you or connect with you? You and your work.
Lisen Stromberg 35:01
Sure, they can find me on LinkedIn, Lisen (L-I-S-E-N) Stromberg (S-T-R-O-M-B-E-R-G). They can find me on Twitter. I’m on a little bit on Instagram, but mostly on Twitter and LinkedIn. And of course, they can go to prison work and find me and find us there.
Maria Ross 35:17
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. It’s always a pleasure talking to you. I always I always learned something when I talk to you. So, it’s amazing. Thank you for coming on the show.
Lisen Stromberg 35:25
It’s a pleasure. Thank you, Maria. Good luck.
Maria Ross 35:27
And thank you everyone for listening to another great episode of the empathy edge podcast. As always, please rate and review it if you get a chance and tell your friends tell your colleagues about the show. Until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind.
