90. Rethinking Two Weeks Notice

Jeff Hunt:

I'm Jeff Hunt, and this is Human Capital. My question for you as we start today's show is, have you ever found yourself blindsided by an employee's sudden resignation? Or perhaps you've been the one leaving a job, feeling compelled to keep your plans hidden until the last moment. How often do we stop to question the way most workplaces handle endings?

Which is abruptly, it's usually transactional, and it's often riddled with mistrust. What if there were a better way, one that fosters transparency, trust, and mutual respect, even as people part ways? In today's fast paced, professional landscape, the standard two weeks notice has become a deeply ingrained norm.

But is it truly serving anyone, employers, or employees? Could rethinking this outdated paradigm improve workplace culture, engagement, and even productivity? As you listen today, consider how might your organization benefit from a more thoughtful approach to employee departures? And if you've experienced a bad ending at work, what lessons could have been learned to make it better?

To help me explore these questions and more, I'm joined by Robert Glazer, a number one Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author and a globally renowned thought leader on workplace culture. As the founder and chairman of Acceleration Partners, a global partner marketing agency, Robert has led his company to become a multiple time recipient of Glassdoor's Best Places to Work Award.

He's also the author of several influential books, including Elevate, Elevate Your Team, Friday Forward, and his latest, Rethinking Two Weeks Notice, Changing the Way Employees Leave Companies for the Better, which is the book we're going to talk about today. Robert's TEDx talk on the subject has surpassed 100, 000 views and his insights have been featured in leading publications like Harvard Business Review and Forbes.

Today, Robert will share how organizations can adopt a new playbook for employee transitions. One that not only minimizes disruption, but also builds trust and strengthens relationships, even at the end of a working relationship. Welcome, Robert.

Robert Glazer:

Thanks for having me, Jeff.

Jeff Hunt:

It's great to have you on the show. This is such an interesting topic because as I mentioned in the introduction, it's such an ingrained way of doing business, isn't it?

Robert Glazer:

Yeah, we have, there's some muscle memory with this. And the issue is there, we have sort of two divergent paths. One is. It's no longer lifetime employment. No one's getting a pension.

If you look through this year's glass doors, best places to work, you probably find an average tenure of two, two and a half years, maybe under 32 years if you're lucky. So people aren't staying at jobs forever, but the way they leave still feels like someone abruptly ending a marriage under the assumption that it's forever.

It really should be more like a sports team, like, Hey, that one year deal is coming up. We should revisit that and see whether you're due for a raise or a pay cut, or we're going in a different direction or otherwise. So the way people leave, it's still from this era where you expected them to stay forever.

But the other side of our brain just knows that. Not the reality. I just don't think people have a different playbook or even know a different way to do it.

Topic 1. A thumbnail of Robert’s career. Who or what inspired you to write the book? (03:58)

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah. And so we're going to get into the weeds of your book a little, which I just finished reading. It's a great read. And for listeners, of course, you can get it on Amazon and wherever you buy books, we'll put a link to the book in our show notes for the show today.

But before we dive into all of that, give our listeners just a very brief thumbnail on your career journey. How did you end up in this space as a kind of a cultural guru?

Robert Glazer:

Yeah, my, my sort of intersection is someone who thinks about ideas in the way an academic might, but I've actually started six businesses and helped grow one to 300 people, a global agency acceleration partner.

So a lot of this thought and things was forged on trying to build this company and examine how things were done and try to find better ways to do it and share with other people. So, yeah, I grew that company. I had another company called Brand Cycle at the same time. We sold a few years ago. And I started doing some writing in the company, as I just even notes to my team and it got shared outside the company and it became.

I reading a newsletter called Friday Forward, which like a hundred thousand leaders had signed up in over a hundred countries. And, and so I just started to dial in on these opportunities and things that didn't make sense around business and leadership, where I thought there, there might be a better way.

Jeff Hunt:

And so when you got to this book, what really prompted you to write this book?

Robert Glazer:

Yeah, so I did this Ted talk on how to end two weeks notice. I wrote an article for HBR and I had spoken a few times on it and people would come up to me and we had developed this whole open transition program at my business, which we'll kind of get into.

And I was like, look, this is just better. Like I, but I think if anyone would try this, they would realize this works a lot better. And people who had seen that talk otherwise would reach out to me and say, look, I just, I tried one of these conversations and this is. It's amazing. I couldn't believe how well it worked.

And this is with like no context. And so it's like, you know what? I got to write the book and sort of lay it all out there in a program, sort of a how to, and I wrote the book in 2019 and I plan to come out with it in 2020. And then we had this small thing called a global pandemic. So no one was really interested in that.

And then. You know, so to 2021, I started dusting it off and then we had this great resignation and we'd been in this like yin yang battle between employer abuse and employee abuse. And I was like, look, this hasn't gone away. In fact, it's still kind of as bad as I see it. And if we don't, if I don't do this, if I don't get this out now, it's never going to happen.

So I really went back, dusted it off, rewrote most of the book. It was kind of four or five years later. And, and sort of came up with the term open transition program. But the goal was it just like, for those people out there who, who know it's a problem or want to do something different, but they just needed to know how I just wanted to give them that manual.

Topic 2. The open transition program (06:50)

Jeff Hunt:

That's great. And so you mentioned this open transition program, and I want you to explain a little bit more about it, but I'm also reflecting on as a leader or an executive that's running an organization, and if they start thinking about these concepts of eliminating this paradigm of two weeks notice.

Some of them might feel like, Oh, that's risky because I'm losing control. And so I want you to talk to that, as you mentioned what this whole OTP or open transition program is.

Robert Glazer:

Yeah, I think control is just an illusion, right? In terms of when you think about a lot of people say as a whole section in the book on the objections that I hear and like they're all I have answers to all of them, but the one thing that two things that common I hear most one people like, look, this can never work, blah, blah, blah.

It's all from people who wouldn't haven't tried it. Two is this notion that you can't do this. Cause you can't have people at your company are leaving. Cause they're going to behave badly. They're going to steal. They're going to do all this stuff. My answer is always like, I've had news for you. Like the devil, you know, is much worse than the devil.

You don't know. And the person I know who is. Quitting my company and leaving who I am supporting and I have my eyes on versus there's a person at your company that quit a year ago, they're dead. They're gone. They're just waiting to find the job. They've been stealing the stuff for a year. Like, like, like, I don't know.

There's a lot of this thing that was just what you don't know is better. And, and, and that's one of the reasons why I think a lot of those objections just aren't valid. They're sort of under this whole assumption that it's better to just not know these things and deal with it. You have all. And by the way, we've all had that employee when they finally leave, right?

Or you finally come to your wit's end and they leave, or you ask them to leave and you start digging in there and you realize it's like a year's worth of damage. Again, they haven't been doing anything for a year and probably making things worse for a year. And there's no way that that's just a better outcome for your business.

Jeff Hunt:

No question. So take a few minutes to describe what this open transition program looks like.

Robert Glazer:

Yeah. So the concept is like. It's that people are going to leave our company and it's okay. And when we reached that point, because you've started a discussion, because we have the psychological safety or otherwise, or we started a discussion.

It doesn't mean that your job is gone tomorrow. We're going to figure out maybe a lot of times we can save it. Like we can shift you to a different apartment. We can move it around, but we're going to start a discussion and you might enter our transition programs, which means you'll be someone that's working here while you're looking to find a new job, and we'll have sort of an outline around that.

And it gives you the cover that you need. And it gives us the organization, the time that we need to find your replacement and try to make the whole thing a little bit smoother, particularly If you're in a client service business, you like have to do this because the biggest risk, if any of us have ever like account turnover drives clients.

Crazy. Right. And, and so just think about the difference between Jeff's, my account manager, and I love Jeff and Jeff has to get on the call and be like, by the way, I'm leaving in two weeks and we'll let you know, like who it's going to be. Versus Jeff and his manager have agreed to a transition. Jeff, you know, says, Hey, I want to introduce you to Sylvie.

Sylvie is rotating on the team and six weeks, you know, in three weeks in Sylvie starts leading the calls and building the rapport. And now. Nine weeks later says, Hey, Jeff, Jeff, I just, I just want to let you know, like I'm, I'm actually going to be leaving in a few weeks and they're like, that's great. We love Sylvie.

Someone's telling me the other day, they're about to fire this company and they've made a hundred referrals with them because they're getting a new account manager every six months.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah. And it's interesting too, because I'm immediately making the connection to avoiding the lost revenue syndrome in these situations, because How many customers end up leaving because of a two week notice situation with a bad transition and so their service suffers.

Robert Glazer:

And then you can look elsewhere and you're paying a severance for someone not to work rather than pay their salary for them to work, even if they're somewhat reduced capacity. And so look, it's bad for the organization. The other thing is a lot of employees don't realize it's bad for them. Like they don't, they're like two weeks.

That's what I'm supposed to do. Right. That's sort of the cultural norm. And now Jeff, you've mentored me for years and you, whatever. Now you're like, Oh, Bob, like he had all these doctor's appointment in the last couple of weeks. And that was a job. And that. You know, if you study psychology, beginnings and endings matter a lot, and events focus on their opener and their closer.

In fact, on vacation, you should plan like one of your best activities the last day because it impacts the memory of the entire event. And so what you're going to remember is sort of how I left, right? And then I'm going to be looking for a job in a couple of years, and I might not give you as a reference because maybe I'm onto the fact that you're really annoyed.

But this is a small world and there's firms that do that. And there's LinkedIn and someone reaches out to Jeff and was like, Hey, I'm Bob's a, I see you worked at your company and he looks like you worked on your team. And I don't think employees realize I get these calls all the time. You might have someone who's like a permanent blocker in your career.

And you didn't even realize it.

Topic 3. The benefits of psychological safety in the workplace (11:51)

Jeff Hunt:

And so it seems like psychological safety is really a foundation for making all of this happen. Is that correct?

Robert Glazer:

Yeah. The four principles are sort of our psychological safety, open communication, mutual respect, and then a commitment to mutually beneficial outcomes, right?

What can we do? I'm not saying everyone's going to be super happy and it's perfect, but how do we make this work for both of us? And there's this, I'm fascinated by different psychological and human behavior, and this is really tied to it. And cognitive distance is one of my favorite things. Subjects and there's a phenomenon that goes on that I haven't named it yet, but it's spin off of cognitive dissonance where Jeff, you're on my team and like, you know, you're in, we're in sales and you're, you've put up 50 percent a quarter for the last four quarters.

And I love you. I'm like, look, Jeff's in the bottom quartile. Like he's got to go, this isn't working at all. And what I do, my brain can't handle cognizance, can't reconcile these two things. So I really like Jeff and he's doing a terrible job. So there's two ways to reconcile that. The easiest path for the brain is to make Jeff a bad guy.

So what starts happening is like, Oh, Jeff's lazy. Jeff's this. So I eventually finally fire Jeff. I I'm now like, I've made Jeff into the bad guy so that I can feel better. About firing Jeff. I like, what if we did the opposite? Like, what if we leaned into the relationship and like, Jeff, I love you. Like you've worked here for years.

I know you want to try the sales thing. It's clearly not working. You're at half the quote of the higher team. Like. We can't let this go on. What do you want to do? Like, do you want to talk about going back to marketing? Do you want to figure out something different to do and lean into the, and like, I think this is the problem we have and people aren't too far on either side of the spectrum.

Like we can lean into the relationship and we can have high standards. Those aren't mutually exclusive.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, and as a both and, it really requires a very crisp definition of what's most important. Not only for the role the person's in, the goal, there's goals they're trying to achieve, but what sorts of things we need to be communicating on an ongoing basis with that employee, right?

Robert Glazer:

Right. Exactly. And the other premise of this is, and I had this timeline actually not in the book, but in the HBR article. This is a massive time shift. If I look at my, let's, let's stop picking on Jeff. So Sarah, my employee, Sarah, it's like a toxic, bad situation now, and I'm firing Sarah or Sarah's quitting.

Well, if I actually rewound the tape, probably March of last year, It is when Sarah started showing some signs of disengagement. And when I did a performance review plan, I said, Sarah, you know, you just need to get better, but I didn't do a real conversation. Like Sarah, you've been a great employee here.

Like suddenly you're late, you're missing deadlines. Like what what's going on. And here's where I can start. And I call the book digging to the root. Right. And we solve symptoms, not we solve the. The, the problem, not the symptoms. So if three people have a headache and you give them a Tylenol, it might fix their headache, but one might be allergic to gluten.

You know, the other has, is dehydrated and the other has a brain tumor, right? The Tylenol is not going to cure any of those problems. It's going to fix the headache. This is what a lot of our performance remediation is. And my dig to the root is, okay, Sarah, what's going on here? Well, one, Sarah lost her childcare.

Okay. Let's just say, and so she's been super tired and, and not engaged in a mess. And look, I, that's actually up for her to fix, but I can work with her and I can work on her schedule and you're going to have to fix this, but if you fix that, we should go back to where we were. Right. And now that I understand you have this problem, I'm going to, next time you have a bad day, I'm going to be like, Oh, did you have coverage, cancel on you?

Like, I'm just going to try to, I can't, I still have to hold you accountable to work, but I understand what's going on. And the second one, Sarah goes, you know what? I know we hired three new people at a higher level and a higher comp than I have. And I was promised a raise years ago and I was promised this and I'm super frustrated.

And you can either agree with that or you can, Oh yeah, we really, we've not done Sarah solid here. Like she's right. And actually we're going to remedy that. She deserves a promotion dues or raise. Again, Sarah goes back to the engaged employee that she was. Or the third is Sarah's like, you know what? I came here and you told me it was a remote only company.

And I thought I wanted flexible work, but I really miss an office. And these are the things that are, so there's the things, the employees can change things, the employer can change the things that won't change. Well, we're not getting offices, right? But each of these things is a fundamentally different remediation plan.

And depending on how it goes, the third one actually is Sarah, like. We're not changing that. So if that's really important to you, maybe we should start a transition now. And let's figure out how to get you into a company that does that. So just treating the problem without treating the symptom doesn't give you a chance to.

And that's why I think this program works when someone's in the green and they go into the yellow and then you're bringing them back into the green. Even if they're leaving, you're bringing them back into the green because we have a good ending plan and a finite versus. If you try to do any of these things when you're already at red engine over red, there's too much damage.

Now, if I didn't ask those questions, we would just get into this chicken egg. And I'm me keep telling Sarah that her work sucks and her getting mad. And I don't, and I don't know why, and I don't care.

Jeff Hunt:

I'm also just reflecting on how, on this example with Sarah, if the issues are really addressed and discussed it back in March, when performance starts to suffer, then the other thing that you're accomplishing from a cultural standpoint, Is other people seeing that example that's being set?

And if it's not addressed, which is so common, then there's a reduction in morale over that period of time as the rest of the team members seem, they see the tolerant this poor performance and behavior, right?

Robert Glazer:

Yeah. And people respond to incentives, whether they're explicit or implicit. So if people know that, Hey, person leaned in with them and they had a conversation and they're working on solving it, I had a company years ago telling me they had a great culture otherwise, and people would give two weeks notice and they ask them to leave that day.

And I was like, do you think anyone's ever going to give you more than a day's note? Do you, they're going to make sure everything is locked up and stolen or whatever, if they give notice and they knew it wasn't congruous with their culture. So people will respond to this behavior. They'll hear that. You know what?

I actually had a conversation with my manager and told them I wanted to do something different. And they actually told me they just were doing this rec for a role. And I'm transferring into that role. We've had a couple of great employees that probably would have left this toxic employees if we weren't able to have this conversation that like, I'm just not doing what I, this isn't what I want to do anymore.

And they wanted to do something different or operational and we were able to identify that opportunity because we knew that. But again, you need psychological safety to happen. You need to. Care about your employees and and be willing to have that discussion and we would say we will never walk anyone to the door You can go on glass door.

You can out us like if you start one of these conversations I can't say you're gonna be working here for two years, but we will not walk you to the door.

Jeff Hunt:

The other thing that seems really Important to reflect on is that going back to the example with Sarah back in March when she loses her child care and the contrast between leaning into that and really expressing to her that you care about her as a person, even though she has to solve that problem, you're demonstrating compassion and you're demonstrating improved engagement and connection with the employee and that they're more than just a producer versus the alternative is waiting and waiting and waiting and making it and just increasing the pressure on her without really understanding the backstory.

Robert Glazer:

And then when the pressure bursts, it doesn't matter what the backstory was. And to your, to your example is exactly what I was saying before, leaning into the relationship, like, Sarah, I'm going to do everything I can.

Like, I am going to I'm going to shift your hours. Like if you need to cut them back, we'll do this. But again, like we're not going to be able to have you put up 50 percent quota and continue to be paying you what we're paying you. So we're going to do what we're going to do. I'm going to try to help. But again, you're going to have to, you're going to have to figure this out.

That to me is like an honest conversation and it does both of those things. I care about you as a person, but I also, everyone else is going to be like, well, why can't I hit 50 percent of my quota and my. Uncle's sick and my cat died. And, you know, like it just becomes a very slippery slope.

Topic 4. How to identify and promote psychological safety? (19:59)

Jeff Hunt:

Yes. So when you think about this whole concept of psychological safety and Sarah's willingness to speak up, when she's struggling on the personal front that's, and that's impacting her job, a lot of times leaders don't really have a good sense for what sort of levels of psychological safety exist in their organizations. And so I'm wondering if you have some suggestions for leaders to determine where they're at.

Robert Glazer:

Here's a fun one. Have your team in a room and give them something that's fundamentally impossible to do. Can't, can't be done. And even by someone who was giving me exam, I was like, all right. And then I said to him, go find me a 750 business class ticket to London tomorrow.

Like, I'm sure it's possible, but some things are just out of your control. And like, see who, Says something or ask questions or like, look, that just, or is everyone quiet and nod and leave the room and then say all the things behind your back that they wouldn't say in front of you. You can also just tell with, I actually, I wrote about this recently.

I was doing the keynote speech for an executive offsite and they had me sit in on the offsite in the morning and they did their kind of opening went around. And they talked about personal, professional highs, and there was some, you know, Lowe's and there were some tears and people talked about difficult situations and divorces and stuff that were going on.

And then they did a, what's the elephant in the room. And everyone said some really like challenging stuff. And the CEO is right there and some of them involved the CEO and you could see, he laughed it off or otherwise. And I was like, They're doing strategic planning later in the day and they have to have some time.

This team's going to have no problem. And it was, and, and, and actually the CEO asked people later in the day. So like, how long do you want to be doing this? And some people were like five years, you know, maybe like they're talking about like when they're leaving the company, like, look, I want to plan around this.

We're building the org chart and you can just, it's tough. I, I hate to use this analogy, but you know, the, the famous Supreme court test about pornography, which is, you know, when you see it, like you just. You know, psychological safety in an organization when you see it, and it comes from the top, it comes from demonstrating, it comes from the two biggest components are sort of vulnerability and feedback, you know, your willingness to be vulnerable and share stuff, and then also make it clear that you're willing to do feedback.

I think when you see that in an organization, you'll see a good sense of psychological safety.

Jeff Hunt:

And so with vulnerability, that's tough for, uh, some people to, especially when there is yet to be established a trusting relationship. And so that makes me think that in some cases for organizations, they may need some sort of process or structure to try to help encourage these conversations between employees and managers, especially.

And so I'm wondering if you have any sort of pragmatic approaches or strategies that you can recommend for leaders to implement so that they can actually manage the, if you will, the vulnerability.

Robert Glazer:

You can start with, again, when you're doing one on ones or whatever, start with these little updates. What was your personal high, professional high, high low? I mean, low lows are important too. What's something you wish you had done differently or give me kind of like an icebreaker. And the leader goes first and the leader totally sets the tone. We were an offsite years ago. We had a facilitator. And he did this as he took eight people in the group. He's like, all right, something no one knows about you.

And he's like, I don't know, I scuba diver. And then they all go around. And then the second time he goes, my stepfather was an alcoholic and, you know, I spent most of my nights planning out like who he was going to go after and who I had to step in front of and whatever it was, you know, And then everyone else went and it was like a completely different level of story.

So just leaving these little things for personal and professional, and also the leader goes first and the leader sets the tone. I think a lot of times when I do some of the core value and why I work with our team, or we're doing leadership training. You know, I, I just, I'm like, look, yeah, I was an underachiever for all of my life.

And then I became an overachiever. And then this was my problems. And I think they're so surprised that I just lay that all out there that then they understand it's okay for them to share the similar stories. And I've called that so many times. I don't, you know, telling it to strangers on your podcast. I got that, that I don't know. Like, that's this, that's my story. I'm good with it.

Topic 5. Leading with vulnerability (24:21)

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah. I love that. And it's really. I absolutely want to reiterate one of the things that you're driving home. And it's that the leader needs to first be the one to be vulnerable. They need to lead with their own vulnerability. And so if they're struggling to do that, they really need to examine what's holding them back from that.

Robert Glazer:

You know, when we have an offsite and there's an icebreaker, a difficult, always the leader goes first. Like that's sort of the, that's the rule.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, I love that. And we've consulted with clients for the past 20 years and teams. And one of the things I'm also reflecting on Robert is that there have been times when the CEO, they're discussing a major strategic change in the business and the CEO has presented a concept and like clockwork around the room, everybody agrees a hundred percent.

And so what I'm hearing you say is that when there is no dissension, that does not equal alignment. In other words, it might equal the fact that people are not willing to speak up.

Robert Glazer:

Yeah. And this is Patrick Linceoni has done a lot on this and the foundation and the five dysfunctions of the team, which is that you want to have, you want to get the arguments and opinion out there.

And then you can see this is task conflict versus personal conflict, right? We're arguing about ideas. We're not. Arguing about the people behind them. And then we agree to disagree and we move on, but everyone feels heard. But what he talks about is if you build that pyramid on false agreement, it is sure to collapse.

A hundred percent.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah. I actually interviewed Pat on this show about the working genius model, which is another, I'll put in a plug for that because. If you run the working genius with your team, it gives you a better understanding of the sort of predispositions of each person. And so you can draw people out in better ways and you can understand they're bent when you're having these strategic discussions.

100%. Yeah. For leader who might still be skeptical because they've experienced a situation where An employee breach has been so major they've had to let somebody go and walk him out that same day. Talk to that person. What are some, are there ever times when you actually do need to not allow somebody to be in employment anymore?

Robert Glazer:

Yeah. Look, there are, I just think the majority of firings happen because people waited way too long to address the early signs. There are certainly some. Things that people do that are fireable offenses that are breaks of fiduciary or confidentiality or whatever. And you really. You can't keep them around your company.

There are also some people that get a little agitated or bitter. One of the big goals of this program is to have as many employees opt in themselves versus you opt them in because then they're in control of it where they're like, this is great. And then you see their start to getting a little bitter and a little frustrated.

We, we had someone, we had to end their employment in the middle of a transition because they were. Sending emails on behalf of another business to clients. It was like super awkward. And so, yeah, I don't, I, this is, I think this can cover 90 percent of your cases by moving to earlier intervention. I guess early intervention is a term I probably should have used more and better outcomes.

But sure, if you have fraud, if you have other issues, if the employee is putting clients or employees at risk in any way, you do not want to keep that person around. I think, I just think a lot of things that end. in toxicity probably could have been avoided had there been more early intervention.

Topic 6. Culture as a competitive advantage (27:54)

Jeff Hunt:

It seems as though organizations that have a really rich and robust culture that's attractive would have an easier time implementing this whole OTP process versus those with low trust. Cultural challenges and a lot of turnover.

Robert Glazer:

Yeah. Two major warnings. One, do not do this. If you have a horrible culture and no one trusts anyone and no psychological safety to do not read this as an employee and go into a company that lays everyone off that day and say, yeah, I want to talk about. Whether I want to work here in the future or not.

So this really needs to be company led and top down led to go to employees and say, look, we're trying to do this different here. And by the way, even then, and one of our biggest mistakes is like, you have to repeat it 10 times and it's new for people and they won't necessarily believe it or understand it.

And I was still amazed after I feel like we had talked about it at Nazem. I'd written a book on it at TED talk. And people still were like, well, really, do you mean that? Like. And so what we wanted, what we did was like, again, I think, I believe incentives follow behavior, falls incentives. We said, yeah, okay.

Now 2, 000 bonus or whatever was close to that. If you give 90 days notice, thousand dollar bonus, like we started putting bonuses for the amount of notice. You just saying, look, clearly we're incentivizing this behavior. We really want it. That's great. You put your money where your mouth is for sure. Yeah.

We paid people also to go on vacation and not. Check their phone or anything because we actually wanted them to unplug. I mean, that's a, that was a good motivation to do that.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah. And I think one thing I'll add to that example that's so important is if you expect your people to do that, you have to do that yourself.

So I've seen situations where the C suite is all saying, yeah, well, we really want you to unplug when you're on vacation, but then when they go on vacation, They're checking and responding to emails and you're receiving an email on Thanksgiving or you're, you know, so you have to leave an example.

Robert Glazer:

400%. I have a slide on this that I show in one of my presentations is look, can you say, look, I'm going on vacation. But Slack me, email me, I'll be online. I'll be around like, or you say, Hey, I'm going on vacation next week. This time's really important. My family and I, uh, I'm not really going to be reachable. If you need to reach me in an absolute emergency, here's my wife's cell phone number and text her and she'll get me right.

In fact, There was a CEO that wrote a very similar thing, email. And he said, if you need to get in touch with me, text this alias, interrupt my vacation at first round. com. So these are, that tells people that it's okay to have a vacation in your company. They will do what you say. They won't have the cardinal rule of leadership of parenting is they will do what you do, not what you say.

Right? So. If you say, this was Marissa Meyer took over at Yahoo and put in a nursery next to her thing and worked 110 hours a week. No, no, but this, but I'm not telling you not to take maternity leave, like I'm just opening a nursery next to my office. Like, I, I, the mixed messages that that sent are, there's a lot of them.

Yeah, ultimately people see that as hypocrisy, really. Um, yeah, and, and look, they'll, as you said, they'll follow the behavior you're going to set it. And if you want a workaholic culture, then you'll reward workaholism and you'll celebrate Jeff being in the office 10 hours. If you want outcomes, then you'll celebrate outcomes.

Topic 7. Implementing transition across or out of the organization (30:15)

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah. And I want to talk a little bit about transitioning people to a different part of the organization versus out of the organization for a second, because we've all been witness to the train wreck of examples. Where a manager says, or a supervisor says, John's actually, I'm, he's not working in my department, but I think he'd be a great fit for you over there.

Robert Glazer:

You're just trying to alleviate your guilt, right?

Jeff Hunt:

That's what, yeah, exactly. So how do you address this and how do you really, uh, assess role fit for somebody in terms of their transition, uh, laterally or out of the organization?

Robert Glazer:

Yeah. So the rule I used in the book is you should only do this if you believe it has a 90 percent chance of success.

And if you've done these assessments, if you've done the why or the working genius or whatever, you might rise. This person is just typecast in the wrong role. Like we had a very operational detail oriented person in client service, and she just got exhausted by client service and she became our training and ops person, and she was amazing in that.

And it's still here to this day was one of those sort of internal transition stories. Or maybe again, the person came from marketing into sales. And wants to go back to marketing and they want to have them. I think the person's a, a super high core value fit, right? Obviously they're not a high performer, probably in that role.

If you're changing their super high core value fit, and you really believe they were in the wrong role and you have a high degree that this can be successful. And that you're not just trying to get away from making the hard decision by tossing around, you know, someone.

Jeff Hunt:

Mm hmm. Completely. And when you look at this in terms of implementing it, so I want to get really pragmatic for a minute.

Organizations never done anything like this before. What are, obviously they could read your book and there's some great information in there, but. What are the steps that they need to take?

Robert Glazer:

So there's seven steps, I think, part of any successful transition. Have a written plan, like expectations all on the same page.

Like here's what we're doing, you know, what the expectations are otherwise. Set a clear client timetable. When we did our first sort of experimental one, I think this is one of the things we got wrong. We didn't have a, Hey, look, this we're starting this on March 1st, the end date's June 1st, either way, or earlier, if you've got a job, like.

Again, expectations, clear communication. Hey, you're going to be here for three months, but you might get an interview the next week. And then I know if you're in a final round, two weeks later, I understand if they offer you the job, like you're going to take it, you're not going to tell them that you need to wait to two months, but if we're communicating, then I know that, and I can plan around it.

I think the leaders at the company open their Rolodex, do your resource, try to be helpful, and I think that's what we're Even if that doesn't work when people are leaving your company, I think they just deeply appreciate that. Use your internal resources. So your HR team can look at the resume. They can help coach.

You also might have external resources like an outplacement firm or some sort of training that they're looking for. All of this is better than paying someone severance not to work. And it's probably a lot less money, you know, if they're trying to get into a different field, maybe get them into a course or something like that.

And that sort of ties the last one was just keep it personal. I think there's all kinds of ways to do things that are low cost or no cost, knowing based on what the person wants to do where you can just be helpful to them.

Jeff Hunt:

And should people look at Any changes that might be necessary in terms of how they're recruiting and people that are bringing on board as well.

Robert Glazer:

Look, you can communicate to people that this is your default way that people leave your organization. And that might make it more attractive as a place to go. Cause people are like, look, if it doesn't work out, it's going to be okay. But anytime something doesn't work out, if it keeps not working out, you should do a post mortem and you should figure out what it is you need to tweak in there. In fact, one of the things I find interesting is one of those objections is, or someone will say, well, all these people keep leaving my organization and they're stealing stuff and they're toxic and whatever. My answer would be, if everyone leaving your organization is a toxic, terrible human being doing bad things, either you're doing a terrible job recruiting or something about your culture is making them that way. And either way, like you've got a problem.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, exactly.

Robert Glazer:

It's either. Either you're recruiting the wrong people or you're not paying people well enough or you're making them so angry by the time they leave your company. Like, what are you doing to them if they were nice when you hired them? Exactly.

Exactly.

Jeff Hunt:

And so when you think about how there, there's been so many kind of shifts toward gig work, how does that come into play with this whole concept?

Robert Glazer:

Yeah, it's tricky. I look, I, people need to decide what they want. It doesn't as much correlate to the work I've said here, but you can't have Frank and job as I call it, like the best of all worlds.

Like you're either part of a team. I hear a lot of people saying, and a lot, you know, after great resident, oh, people just want to work. On what they want, where they want and how they want, like, well, that's great. But that sounds like a, an Uber driver or a gig worker, not someone who's part of a team.

That's just not, you don't go on a, when Mike Krzyzewski was a Duke and say, Hey, dude, I'm just going to practice when I want and play how I want. Like, this is not part of being a team. So I think people need to decide, do you want to be a freelancer? Do you, or if you're part of a team, it involves different sacrifices and involves thinking about the team.

You know, doing like you might want to work home five days a week, but what's best for the team is to work in the office three days a week.

Topic 8. Lighting round questions (36:55)

Jeff Hunt:

That's a great piece of wisdom. Okay. So Robert, as we wrap up, I'd love to ask you some kind of personal lightning round questions. You ready for those? Sure. Yeah. The first one is what are you most grateful for?

Robert Glazer:

I think just my family and friends and just the opportunities that I've had.

Jeff Hunt:

What's the most difficult leadership lesson you've learned over your career?

Robert Glazer:

COVID. COVID was like, just. A month of hell. And then three months, it was our clients were leaving. We lost like 30 percent of our business in two weeks and our clients that stayed were telling us, you know, we were now providing 0 percent financing for the next 360 days.

And so that was a lot of shock, but. I always seek out best practices. And so two of the best practices were, were first of all, I talked to all the people that had been through 2008 and like, what did you do? And they were like, take money, take your credit line down, break your covenants, get in a different bank.

It can like talk to the people who had actually been through something similar. And I also sort of adopted the Stockdale paradox, which has become my sort of crisis management framework. It's like, look, we are going to offer some optimism and where we're going with this, but we're also going to share the brutal truth.

And I was telling the story to a bunch of new employees earlier today on our onboarding, because someone asked me about it. And some of our employees, if you were under 30, you hadn't even seen a recession. So you didn't even like, they didn't even believe what was going on. And we were telling them all this stuff.

They're like, why are you terrorizing us with all this bad news and information? Like, look, we're telling you the truth. We're telling you what we're watching. We're taking our inflection points. And then slowly by surely a week or two later, their husband gets laid off with no notice. Their roommate gets laid off with no notice.

And they kind of come back like, Oh, you know what? I just appreciate that you guys were trying to be real with us. So you can't avoid the hard realities, but you also, people need some optimism or something to look forward to in a crisis.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, as they say, never waste a crisis, right? Robert Glazer:

Yeah, exactly. Although, I'm happy to have wasted that one. I lost years of my life in those first three weeks.

Jeff Hunt:

For sure. Who is one person you would interview if you could, living or not? Herb Kelleher.

Robert Glazer:

Ah, say more! I just, it's funny, I don't like Southwest value proposition in any way, shape, as a frequent flyer. I like my early boarding and my upgrades and my assigned seats, but having studied the culture of that company and just how they were so like made more money than the entire airline industry, breaking every mold and paradigm, I just, I loved all their marketing and the wild Turkey story, if you know this and how they survived by becoming the biggest.

Liquor distributor in Texas during a three month period. So I just think it's a great entrepreneurial story. And I love the book nuts and everything I read about Herb. And I feel like he was the one person I really wanted to talk to. I didn't get to.

Jeff Hunt:

That's very cool. In fact, listeners, if you're interested in learning a little bit more about that, I interviewed. Ginger Hartage on the show previously, she's the former chief culture officer under Herb Kelleher at Southwest Airlines. So she has some great tips and tricks.

Robert Glazer:

There are some great stories too.

Jeff Hunt:

As well. Robert, what's your top book recommendation? Are you reading anything or have you read anything recently that you'd really like to recommend to our listeners?

Robert Glazer:

Oh, I've read a bunch of stuff recently. The One of my favorite books, the one I like a lot is, I mentioned Cognitive Dissonance, but there's a book called Mistakes Were Made But Not By Me. And to me, it's like the definitive book on Cognitive Dissonance. And Cognitive Dissonance is everywhere in leadership and decision making in a mass.

And once you really understand it, you see it everywhere. And so I always think that is such one of my favorite books I've read. Cool.

Jeff Hunt:

What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Robert Glazer:

I don't know whether it was sort of delivered in that. form of receive, but that I took away was that I needed to be able to articulate my personal core values. Doing that was the biggest change in my life and family and leadership. When I was able to clear that this is what I value and I should make decisions according to it.

Jeff Hunt:

Very cool. You've brought so much wisdom onto the show today about this open transition program. I just want to thank you. And I want you to take a minute to just describe what the top sort of takeaways are you'd like to leave our listeners with.

Robert Glazer:

I would say as an employee or a leader or an employer, you do not have to be the running the organization. You can be running in a team and adopt this as your sort of mantra. But if this has never felt right to you in the back of your head, like this seems really like a bad thing, but I don't know how to deal with it.

You can go on my sub stack and you can read the first three chapters for free. Okay, no one makes a lot of money writing books. This is really an idea that I just want to share. And I challenge you to take a look at that and see if you feel like, Oh, this is what I've been missing to, to change this practice.

Jeff Hunt:

Great info. Robert Glaser, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Robert Glazer:

Thank you very much, Jeff.

Outro (41:49)

Jeff Hunt:

Thanks for listening to Human Capital. If you like this show, please tell your friends and also take the time to go rate and review us. Human Capital is a production of Goalspan, your integrated source for performance management. Now go out. And be the inspiration to other humans. And thank you for being human kind.