The Great Resignation

Tiffany Lentz 0:05

I've been talking to a lot of people about this.

Robert Greiner 0:07

So it's running rampant, not just for us, though, but it is. It's an epidemic.

Tiffany Lentz 0:14

Oh, yes. And the NPR article, which?

Robert Greiner 0:17

Have we talked about that?

Tiffany Lentz 0:18

I don't think so. I don't think we have, but we should. Because I'm fascinated by this, this clash, this clash of it's not even cultures, but like clash of demands and decision making right now. That is companies, whether you're Apple or Google or somebody more boring, like Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, saying that you demand that people be back in the office by like, Labor Day, or you're demanding X Y, Zed, at the same time, that people are like voting with their feet.

Robert Greiner 0:51

And saying on the way out, I'm looking for something with more remote flexibility. Right, which is not typical. Like you don't usually get good insight into why people are leaving, you always get a very polished rehearse response. Yeah, I'm looking for something that's better for my family. This is a great opportunity. I wasn't looking, I was so happy to be here. Thank you for everything.

Tiffany Lentz 1:13

More money? Blah, blah, blah, blah? Yeah, no,

Robert Greiner 1:15

you would, you should never say anything different. And so it's one of those things like you actually get insight people are saying, when they're voting with their feet, hey, I'm looking for more balance. I'm looking for this. And then to double down, like we talked about before, yeah. And still insist, and not say, Hey, we're going to look into this or whatever

Tiffany Lentz 1:37

it is. I'm wonder I haven't really thought about it much. But you almost have to look at those brands individually and say, Are you taking this sort of a hard line? Because you think that your brand is strong enough to attract people anyway? Are you doing it because your insert fancy bank here? And nobody will tell you what to do? Like, what is it about a set of decision makers? That's like, yeah, let them eat cake, and not realize that actually, the people will rise up, and they will do something. I love that analogy, actually. But it's just this massive clash of completely different agendas. And I think for the first time that I can think of people are not, they're not backing off of that agenda. They're not saying, Well, I'm afraid what if I don't find anything else? Because it's a seekers market? It's a candidates market?

Robert Greiner 2:30

That's right. Yeah. People are leaving for more money, better job title, better perks, better work life balance, and companies in order to attract others, even the the early adopters of this sort of hybrid model. is, it's interesting, because yeah, you can very quickly in a lot of industries, and a lot of skill sets go and very rapidly find another job. I've been surprised how quickly people go from not looking, you know, everyday not looking, then something happens. And they're like, Okay, I'm looking. And three weeks later, they're in their, their new desk, or dialing into the or onboarding orientation for their new company. And it's Wait a minute, that was such a short amount of time. And so that's been collapsed as well. It's not easy to hold on to people I know, that's for sure.

Tiffany Lentz 3:20

No, and it makes me it makes the psychologists sociologists in me ask just so many questions about what does that say about our workforce, this isn't just millennials, it isn't it used to be it was there's a whole quote generation of people that we can look at out of the side of our eye and say, Oh, they just want all these things. They want to be able to work from their phones, and they want to be able to sit out on the in the park and whatever it's we've we have to if we're honest leaders, we have to move from like a place of Oh, oops, maybe I was being arrogant. And judging to a place of, Wow, this is a movement. And we we should evolve to wrap around it or I don't know where all the talent is going to land. But there are going to be some companies that are going to get really lucky with extraordinary people who wouldn't have gone there maybe in the first place, except that they were offered something. They were offered the ability to work at home.

Robert Greiner 4:19

This is interesting, too, so that the great resignation, right is the article name. And you mentioned the sort of sociologist in you I'm wondering, so when humans experience some kind of catastrophe, some kind of event in their lives. Most of the time this is on the back of something negative but you see it on positive things too. It spurs people to make life changes. I'm wondering also if especially because the job market so good right now is changing jobs like just an obvious choice, a low hanging fruit that lets you make a change that let you feel good about coming out of this weird time and into what's next. You may be making a little bit more money, and our companies paying the price of attrition. Because we've experienced this macro event together, and humans are just looking for a change to respond to some calamity in their lives. Does that make sense to you?

Tiffany Lentz 5:14

100% I think there's several different things to pull apart there. One of them. I'm riffing on this a little bit. So if it doesn't work, just delete it out. But I wonder when you started talking about people act a certain way, at the time of a calamity. And we've done a whole series on leadership and crisis and things like that, and how to respond, how it's different, how wartime is different from peacetime, and so on and so forth, makes me think of the behavioral shifts, that all that seemed to happen around the time of World Wars groups of people who didn't know one another or didn't know one another bonding together over a common cause a common enemy, whatever. You also see, in the United States, we have a category called Baby Boomers, right? There was a whole there were actions that people took when they actually thought they were going to die. There were actions people took when they didn't die. There were there were things that happened that shifted our entire population. And that happened in other countries as well. So that's one response. It's not even a it's not even a that's a deep psychological response to a crisis, like doing something that leaves a legacy, something that makes a difference in its own way. So that's one thought, in response to what you said. And then another is, and this is something I've heard from a few people, even some people at our firm who have spoken to me about because I lead our social impact strategy and our social segment work. So I've had people mentioned to me, is there anything I can do? How do I get involved, I want to do more, I want to do more of my community, I want to do more for the firm, I want to you know, there's a hunger in us that, that when we're confronted with life and death, essentially, that makes us want to do something that we interpret as being more meaningful. So what that's a second thread of responses, like, I'm going to go find a job that I feel is more meaningful, because I don't know how much time I have left, I don't want to go through that, that phase of introspection again, and having to think deeply about the values in my life. And then I think the third is less a little less interesting. But it is around, I'm going to do something, I'm going to take control of something. And we do see those human behaviors regularly. We see them a lot in teenagers, where when they feel like they're not in control of their lives, because they're halfway to adulthood, they rebel or lash out in some other like what seems like a random area, but it's like they're doing the one thing that they can control, like, I'm gonna dye my hair blue, I'm gonna, well, I'm gonna pierce something because I can, that's something I can control in a space where I don't feel like I'm in control. So those are my three different thoughts in relation to what we both see is this massive overhaul.

Robert Greiner 8:08

Yeah, yeah, that you can control it. And the market is making it really easy for you.

Tiffany Lentz 8:13

Yes, during the pandemic. Yeah, I know. And I'm sure you talked to a number of people who were feeling some of that already. I feel out of control, I need to do something or, gosh, I want to make a change in my life. But you couldn't.

Robert Greiner 8:27

So there's like a pressure valve that also compounds this problem to

Tiffany Lentz 8:30

Yes.

Robert Greiner 8:31

Oh, yeah.

Tiffany Lentz 8:31

And a fear of, if I go somewhere else, there isn't a there's not a landing pad.

Robert Greiner 8:37

And that's gonna make you want to make the move even more, even if you were only thinking about it. If you thought about it, but I can't, it's too risky. Then as soon as the ship doors open up, you're like, Oh, hey, let's move. And maybe you thought it was your idea the whole time. But you just felt trapped before and you don't like that feeling?

Tiffany Lentz 8:53

ustries, or like the whole of: 2020

Robert Greiner 9:06

So it's interesting. We were very open about, we do a industry study every year. And our salary objectives are to be in the top 75th percentile. And our whole rationale behind that is we invest in other areas, one of them chiefly being career growth, like we put a lot of energy, we invest a lot of nonbillable dollars in the growth of every person at the firm that tech that's quite an investment, in my opinion, is paying great dividends, but it's still an investment, that you can't use that money to pay top tier salary. So we're in the 75th percentile, which is still pretty good. And so the thinking is, you could always go somewhere and make more money. We're not trying to keep you on money alone. We just can't based on our model. That's an intentional decision. Cool, but people stay because they value other things. And so what you don't want in an organization is if you have people running to something to a great opportunity to a life changing thing to a dream job, because the job markets hot and they thought they put their toe in the water, and then this thing came up. And it's great. That's hard to fight against. But the baseline here is you don't want to force people out, you don't want them to be running from your organization into a lateral position into less money just to get out because they're frustrated, they're tired, whatever, there's enough forces at play in the market right now to pull your best people away from you. You need to do what you can to not encourage them through your behaviors to leave. And then once you have that, what are the things you can do around building trust, investing in career growth, those kinds of things that will keep people wanting to stay, even though there are other good opportunities on the table? That's like the advanced topic right there.

Tiffany Lentz: 10:59

Yeah. And that is, it's hard. I don't know that there's a right answer. There's maybe principles and parameters. The right collection of things that will keep one set of people is not the same collection of things. That's right, another set of people. So I don't know the answer to this. I'll pose it as a question, are we? Because we're admittedly in a complex environment now and not a complicated environment? Which means there are multiple right answers. are we suggesting proposing, what have you that we are moving toward a customized for me experience for employees, where you can pick and choose from this list of things? And so that it draws people in or keeps them

Robert Greiner: 11:49

more of a marketplace less standard. Even within an organization. There are different teams that offer different things, and it's up to you to opt into what you want. And maybe you do that over the type of work you're doing. Or whatever happens? Yeah, normally, it would just center around opportunity. Yep.

Tiffany Lentz: 12:07

Or, if you're a company trying to draw someone in, you just throw more perks at them. And I think what we're circling around, is that not even that is quite enough. If it's just a little bit more salary, or a little bit more equity or a little, it's not enough, there has to be something else. And I don't think it's the same for everybody. That's right. This was interesting, because if we assume that we're on the right track of something quite interesting here, how on earth do you standardize it and scale it and create equity, that's a big problem.

Robert Greiner: 12:46

But I think it does keep coming down to controlling what you can control. We talked about this in the back to work episode, maximum flexibility, your organization is going to move too slow. I don't think it matters where you work, unless you already are aligned in this direction of maximum work flexibility. It's you we're definitely an early adopter of that idea. But at the end of the day, it's one of those things that it took some time to align the organization that direction. So if you're not there, right, now, you're going to move too slowly. You have control over your team, your work situation, your environment, that's the place, I think it comes back down to the individuals making decisions for the people around them. They're on the ground, they know what their people need, they know what the people want, and ultimately move forward with your best guess on what will keep take the best care of your teams. I think that you have to do it that way. You can't do it at the organizational level, because it requires a more bespoke approach. And organization is meant to standardize.

Tiffany Lentz: 13:50

Yeah. And now you're you're, you're like sacrificing a sacred cow, right there. Because you said without saying it, that hierarchy will not work.

Robert Greiner: 14:03

Yeah, you certainly have to push down authority decentralize decision making authority, which is a hard thing to do. And there's no guarantee it's gonna work, you're gonna have people the next level down doesn't know what to do 100% of the time either, even though they're closer the problem and so you're opening up a whole nother can of worms, but it's going to, it's going to have to be that way. I think as we move forward, more and more of the decentralized model.

Tiffany Lentz: 14:29

You're you're really betting on a horse that you don't that you haven't seen enough races one yet it because doing I'm with you on. From a philosophical standpoint, this feels like moot. It's responsive, and it's moving in the right direction. But the fact that you rightly said, this isn't going to work all the time, and people are not going to know what to do and they're going to mess it up. That doesn't give every organization at the top a lot of confidence. But you I guess my response to that is what you're doing today is not working. So what do you have to lose?

Robert Greiner: 15:05

Yeah, the only other option you have is to endure the volatility, like your stock portfolio might, the whole thing is built around. When the dips happen, you can't jump off the roller coaster is ride the dip down and hope you can write it back up. And that is a strategy. I think, the problem you have here is that, unlike a portfolio strategy, where the dollars that go out are the same color, shape and sizes, the dollars that come back in the people that leave earlier tend to be the people you least want to leave. And the people that stay are the ones that maybe you'd rather go look for other opportunities, because maybe this isn't good fit. Yeah. And so you're dressed there,

Tiffany Lentz: 15:45

you just to add a little color to that it's people with say, more experience, like more cultural experience more expertise, in your area of expertise that tend to leave. So you're losing like Tenex that there they are. I forget I did math on this one set my former firm, like how much does it cost to replace a person in leadership? 10 years of tenure, it's a lot of money. And that's like, the how it's obviously opportunistic, or like opportunity cost type math, but you're it's not just how much it costs for the recruiter and how much it costs for the time spent with candidates or even like an executive Headhunter talking about how do you quantify years of experience, and overall kind of penetrative value, that one adds to a culture because those are then, as you've said, that people that tend to leave where you have more junior less experienced people are like, that's cool, I'll stay. And so you have this double, like two levels of kind of a hit to accompany when you've got a wrong ratio, or a weak ratio, I should say, of people. That's very interesting.

Robert Greiner: 16:59

Yeah, difficult. Now's the time to lean in, though, we're just starting to go back into the office. And I remember saying it makes no sense to drive in to commute in and then all of a sudden, be in a situation where you're just dialing into zoom meetings from a desk that you've commuted to. And so it takes some intentionality to branch out into the kinds of activities that can only be done in a group, synchronously in person. And so if you focus on that, focus on the connections between people, making sure that you're understanding the needs of your team, they're supported their understanding that what the future could look like, even if you can't branch out that far. I think that's a good start as a leader, and that can maybe help hold on to some people. And then there's other things you can do, too. We've seen a lot of organizations have a survivor bonus, if you're still here, some cash. And we know last year was rough, but those things are not sufficient in and of themselves, but could be part of a package of attrition, inoculation that you're trying to create around your organization. And so I think those didn't need to be intentional things, to be public, you can get a pretty good idea of what the people around you what your teams want. Try to say yes to as much of it as you can.

Tiffany Lentz: 18:14

I think the idea of being public, and being intentional with that sort of communication is another really important thing. Because as a rule, we like the broad collective have done a pretty darn good job of communicating a lot of the negatives and a lot of the negative impacts and the fallouts and blah, blah, blah, we have, we haven't always as intentionally done a good job of communicating the positives. Here's what we're doing for you, because we care. Here's what we're doing, because we appreciate you, here's what we're doing, because we heard you, here's what we're just that those simple. It's a lot of small pieces of work. But I think they I think the collective of that sort of intentional bits of communication, it sends a message that people are looking for

Robert Greiner: 18:59

100% it is not one decision. It's not one policy, that's 100 Little Things 100 little decisions that will resonate.

Tiffany Lentz: 19:07

Yeah. I have a question for you. Because I have a theory. I think there's another piece that is that's missing in general, that is tightly coupled to attrition. But right now, we're swirling over here on one side, as an industry looking at the things that will keep or attract people and not looking at not thinking about the fact that often when people leave, they make a big decision like this. It's an emotional response.

Robert Greiner: 19:38

Yes.

Tiffany Lentz: 19:39

And what we're in our response to their emotional questions, and their emotional response is a statistical. Where what I want to hear is I want to hear firms start talking about why I should be excited to work there. I want to hear themselves Talking about what their vision is for the next five to 10 years, not not in specifics, not in like, here's my implementation plan. And we're going to do this and explain it like no one knows. And I don't, that's not it, I want to know, why am I linking arms with you, for the next five years. Remind me of the emotional decision I made to come hear it, just think about it, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that kind of broadly, and how it might inadvertently be connected to this attrition problem. But perhaps there aren't many people seeing it from that angle. Yeah,

Robert Greiner: 20:34

I'll tell maybe a quick story. As an analog, I have a friend that just bought a house just closed on a house. And the housing market in Dallas right now is bonkers. their asking price is much higher than it should be. And then the houses selling for 25% over asking price. Within four days, no inspection, those kind of things, just people are throwing money at the sellers right now. And it's getting worse because people selling houses don't want to sell their house because they know they're gonna get taken advantage of when they go buy their next one. And that just Compounding the problem is just crazy. And my friend wrote a letter to the homeowners and said something along the lines of, we are not your highest bid we wish we could be. We're giving you the max, this is all we can afford. We have kids doing this, that they're they want to go to this school, we have friends over here, like you're going to sell if you sell your house to us, you're going to sell your house to a good family with these values. And this is we see our family growing old here, our kids going off to college here, those kind of things, and love your house all of that. And you implant that's very personal, like it takes a lot of energy to custom tailor a message for someone like that and say, in your mind, this is what it looks like this is who you're entering into a partnership with. And this is what we want to do with it and they were accepted. Doesn't always work out that way. But you're really increasing your batting average, if you connect on a human level around where you're going, what you want to do and what role the person you're working with plays in to the organization. It has to be that way that should be standard best practice now. Because if you don't do it, you can't create that picture in their mind. Someone else will?

Tiffany Lentz: 22:22

Yeah, that's brilliant. That's a brilliant, it's a great example. It's a brilliant approach. I applaud them for being so courageous and really vulnerable. Actually.

Robert Greiner: 22:34

Yeah.

Tiffany Lentz: 22:35

Because there there is a vulnerability to that. And then,

Robert Greiner: 22:38

because you can get rejected if you get rejected because your bids not the highest, you can say, Oh, they just obviously, no hard feelings, I would have taken that bid. But you put your heart on a piece of paper like that to go wrong. And it takes a lot of energy, right? When you might win, you may be bidding on four or five houses. Can you write five of those custom notes? Like I don't know, it's a lot of energy. So it doesn't scale well. And I but I think it really, you hit a smaller group harder. And I think that's really important.

Tiffany Lentz: 23:09

So tell me share, share with me your opinion on that, that connecting to attrition from this angle? What all I really see. And it's not like I don't read everything that's out there, obviously. But what I all I really see is I see a number of companies going after corporate social responsibility. ESR, ESG I see them going after green initiatives. I all like as if they are as if they're sorta trying to do something that will appeal to people's emotion. But I don't see people doing the corporate equivalent of the example you just gave. So customizing? Yes, but I don't see people like paint, Paint me a Picture, tell me a story. Tell me where? Why should I pick you? Why should I stay with you.

Robert Greiner: 24:01

And it really comes down to the hiring manager. So if you're an individual contributor, going to work for a manager coming in to work for a director coming to work for a VP all the way on up, whoever is hiring you. It's their job to articulate in within the scope and the sphere of control of that position and that group and that organization, what you're going to be doing, how it fits in with the broader strategy, where we're going, as a company, those kinds of things and be honest about what you can and can't promise and sometimes you just don't know. But here's where we're, here's what we're looking at, here's the direction we're headed in, here's how you will play a role in this larger group. And you're going to join a really good team that is supportive and what collectively we're better than the sum of our parts. And this is where we're going this is how to play that role. It has again, it comes down to if this if the CEO comes and does that it's actually not helpful now, maybe 10 years ago, the CEO comes and talks to you like cool points, right? There's the prestige of the role. And that still exists. But right now, it really needs to come and be an accountability of whoever's hiring that person to go and articulate in very clear vision, how their contributions will move the organization forward. And maybe how the benefits package of the organization including salary, but also health and remote work, flexibility will help them live balanced lives where you can create, you can be productive, you can create really good career growth, and you can be home for dinner and those kinds of things.

Tiffany Lentz: 25:37

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I wonder I'm, I really do think that more of that the voiceover, as opposed to, yes, we need to figure out the package of things. But the not, we hear you, we understand you were trying to respond to that. And also, we're fostering something that is that appeals to you, it appeals to your energy, your intellect, your passion, it's interesting, this place we're going in the future is interesting, and you want to be there.

Robert Greiner: 26:16

And you can do, you can opt in, in a way that does not demand your soul. Yes. And that's an in a world where the tenure of employ continues to the half life continues to decrease, you can start doing these little things that adds three months, that adds four days, that adds a week in aggregate. That's that's compounding at its finest right there. So I think that's it really is, every time we talk, and maybe we're just completely biased, and we don't know we're talking about but it keeps coming back down to the individual and their sphere of influence and taking good care of the resources that you're entrusted with. It's really, it's that simple on paper, but it's harder to do because there's more nuance. And yeah, in argument,

Tiffany Lentz: 27:06

I don't think it's an accident that we keep coming back to this place, I think we see, we are both coming from different spaces very on paper, non traditional leaders, non traditional manager types. And I think we see people differently, we see emotional quotient, culture, energy differently, that's probably a good thing that seems to be working for us respectively. But I think it's a good thing. It's a fresh perspective, as opposed to everybody gets in a rut of what they have seen work before. But that we're in a we're like in a brave new world, this point. So it does different kinds of thinking.

Robert Greiner: 27:48

And I remember in the 2008 recession, a blog post company basically said, we put this job description out, we had 6000 people apply, the person we picked created a website and told us a story, this story of their life, and why they would be a good fit and how much they have followed us over the years and how they use our products and an opinion on what they would want to do when they're here. And it was, it must have been 80 hours of effort just to apply just to create this extra piece of context, which no one may have looked at. And that got them a job. In the face of intense competition. We are just on the other end of that massive pendulum swing. We're now organizations have to make that case, to not only people apply example, but to the people who already have working here to get to keep them wanting to stay. That is an ongoing dialogue, an ongoing decision people are making and they have to opt in every day. And if you're in an industry like consulting, where that's your whole asset, you're the entire value of your company checks out on Friday. You hope they come back on Monday. That's tough.

Tiffany Lentz: 28:57

Yeah, that's I love that example. Thank you for sharing that. So a conversation I was having earlier today, around some of our topics, Seven Deadly leadership, team leadership sins and the short book that we're writing was around what you were just saying about teams are living organisms anymore, they're even more so and more more complicated rotations inside all the time. And if we thought before that our job was people management, like it's not it's like people cultivation or we need some other word. Some other more extreme word that describes that my job is to garden harvest something this group of kind of precious assets and brains and I better be watching it all the time because the minute I take my eye off of this living organism, it's it's something might something is a bit is about to go awry. I think everything we're talking about feeds into that theory of okay, what is what's this newkind of cultivation? Or if you have a better word, what's what's this gonna look like? Because it isn't just

Robert Greiner: 30:06

like gardening. It's not architecture, it's not a hierarchy. It's not structural. It's not mechanistic. It is just like gardening, you're planting seeds every day you're attending. And that has to do with relationships with an organization. That's the key to long term success. And the problem though, is and, and we might be there right now is, if you're too late to respond, there's like the cascade, right? Like environmental systems, when enough things go wrong, and that the fallback systems don't work, or they get overwhelmed the whole ecosystem, the whole jungle turns into a desert. And I'm wondering, because you're in a more garden mentality, like it's harder to make scale changes, you can make small little decisions, you can prune here, you can, water here, whatever. But if you have a massive thing that needs to happen in order to curb something, like attrition, you're behind the eight ball, like you you need to be gardening early, I think otherwise, you're gonna get, you're gonna get

Tiffany Lentz: 31:12

Yeah, yeah, some, that's this is an interesting analogy, to flesh out because they're, nothing stops moving in. The weeds are constantly growing. Plants are constantly growing fruit, or flowers or whatever, constantly growing, and things are constantly dying. Some of those things you don't want to die, some of those things you do want to die, the pruning has to happen all the time, it's, there's never a time to not be cultivating. And to your point, the longer you wait to make a decision. Even if it's a series of small decisions, the longer you wait and do nothing, the bigger the problem is going to get night after night, as the weeds keep growing, and the fruit keeps dying. And

Robert Greiner: 31:56

yeah, and it is a weird analogy. There's also an if you've ever tried to plant something before, like you all the conditions could be perfect. You could do everything right. And the rain doesn't come when it should, or these macro events happen, and you still have a negative outcome. And so what we're talking about here is there's no silver bullet, but you do have to constantly be tending, looking at the situation, getting feedback, making adjustments, so that you can maximize your chances of success over time. And if you're going to lose people, then you should be setting things up to attract the types of people that you want to come in who are going to leave their job.

Tiffany Lentz: 32:35

Yeah, this is a good topic. Thank you for bringing Yeah, today.

Robert Greiner: 32:38

Yeah, went a few different directions like it normally does really interesting. And we'll have more to say on it. As this whole thing emerges it it's so silly to think about crazy to think about. We've just we're at the beginning of this, whatever next phase is. Yeah, and we've just barely started coming into the office and as a society, those kinds of things. And so I think we're gonna take a few twists and turns that no one sees coming, and we're gonna have to respond to those as well.

Tiffany Lentz: 33:06

Yeah, I agree. 100%.

Robert Greiner: 33:09

Cool. I think we're running close on time. It was great talking to you today.

Tiffany Lentz: 33:13

Yes, you too. As always, I enjoy our conversations. Thank you.

Robert Greiner: 33:17

Right. We'll see you next week.

Tiffany Lentz: 33:18

Take care.

Robert Greiner: 33:19

Bye.