Hi, everyone. Kumar Dattatreyan here with Agile Meridian and the Meridian Point. And today, we're really excited to welcome Jeff Harnois. I think that's how you say his name. He's going to correct me as soon as he comes on stage, I'm sure.
He is the founder and CEO of iBridge. With a career spanning Fortune-fifty companies to multiple startups, Jeff brings a wealth of experience from tech giants like Apple, HP, and Microsoft. His unique perspective on organizational dynamics and innovation was shaped during transformative years at Apple, witnessing different leadership styles and their impact on company culture. So in our conversation today, we'll explore how Jeff's experiences have informed his approach to disruption and innovation, both at the individual and organizational levels.
We'll delve into the challenges of building innovative teams, overcoming organizational scar tissue. I love that word. I've got a lot of scar tissue from organizational dysfunction. I'll tell you that much. And fostering a culture that embraces change in today's rapidly evolving business landscape. So without further ado, I'm going to bring Jeff on the stage here. Did I completely butcher your name?
No, actually it's one of the variations that we accept. Okay. What is the right one? Well, you know, the anglicized version is Harnois. Harnois, Harnois, okay. We hear Harnois a lot, especially folks from the Midwest. The proper French pronunciation is Arnois.
Arnois, okay. Okay. Yeah, I didn't want to try that because I knew I would butcher it. But, you know, I get the same thing with my last name. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you have a hard name to pronounce, a harder name to pronounce, especially mine. I mean, I remember in school during roll call, especially the beginning of the school year, the teachers would stop at the D's, right? Stop at my name and it would just stop. They would freeze. They wouldn't know how to say my name. Yeah. And I would just raise my hand. I'm here. It's me right here. All right. I'm really curious about your decade at Apple during, I'm assuming, a transformative period for Apple. How did experiencing different leadership styles there shape your understanding of innovation and organizational dynamics?
Yeah, and it is such a great question and a story that's near and dear to my heart. I joined Apple in 1986. So it's a distant memory, but it's still very present for me. And so a few years after the company had gone public, Steve Jobs was still the CEO of the organization. We had experienced a tremendous amount of growing pains. And what I mean by that is Steve really did innovate and created an innovative culture. And we were coming up with new products. I think really the commercialization of computing for personal purposes and personal uses was really at the forefront at that time.
But, you know, Steve had this relentless pursuit of quality and doing everything, you know, above and beyond and outstanding. He's pretty well known for that. But his involvement in product development, as an example, led to products that were being created that were phenomenal products, but it cost a thousand dollars more to make than they did to sell based on current market conditions. And that's clearly not a sustainable business model. So he was creating new categories, which is something that Apple has done really well, or maybe transformed categories would be another way of looking at that. But the culture then that was downstream of Steve was very innovative. It was much like the Wild West is maybe how I would describe it.
There was a lot of shooting from the hip from that perspective. One of my sort of favorite elements of that environment is if you had a good idea, you could go get a million dollar budget by being able to describe your idea well on a napkin. And we would go and we would try things and we would learn. And there was a lot of failure and failure was accepted and expected in that environment. But Steve was learning the hard way that you can't build great products that don't have commercial viability. And so he was really trying to find that balance of how do we get it to be good enough that and still be better, but not to a point where we couldn't sell it. Yeah, interesting. And Steve didn't have that instinct. That's not how Steve was built.
And so certainly there were a lot of other variables and many that I'm skipping over, but he made a decision and it very likely could have been at the advice of the board and some of the key members of the board to go find, I don't want this to sound derogatory, but it might, but to go find some adult supervision. Okay. And we ended up hiring a guy named John Sculley, who was previously at PepsiCo, the CEO of PepsiCo. And there's some really great stories and information out available on the web on how that relationship came together and how John ultimately ended up joining the company. But what John brought to the organization was a business discipline that we did not have, simply did not have. Now we could have great ideas, but we kind of needed to justify them.
And that meant things like, you know, writing and creating full business plans, which, you know, a lot of creative folks are, you know, creative or innovative types of folks don't necessarily have that or didn't at the time. And so there was a whole learning curve that had to happen, but that business discipline was really the, the, you know, the, the significant shift. And one of the observations that I had, and I, It's sort of a retroactive observation because I didn't realize what was happening at the time. But the retroactive perception of it was that shift was actually a literal cultural shift in the organization. One of the byproducts of that is we started seeing a lot of those really, really awesome entrepreneurial types of folks. We started shutting them and then we started attracting people that were more MBA focused.
Okay. Interesting. That's an interesting, um, I mean, you were there early in the early years of Apple, I don't know how long you were there, ten, twelve years, if I recall? Yeah, that's right. So you were there at the sort of almost the beginning when Steve Jobs was sort of finding his chops. And so that was a different leadership style that you experienced, right? Steve Jobs with his very sort of back of the napkin, let's go do it, let's experiment. It's okay if we fail, we will learn from the failure. And then you've got John Sculley with the adult in the room, and that's sort of imposing this discipline on the process of, hey, we need to be a little more disciplined in our approach of spending money on these great ideas. How did that, what sort of clash did that, or was there a clash between him and Steve?
ell, I think, I think ultimately there was, there were some very large clashes that took place. Um, and again, you know, a lot of, a lot of this is, is, is public information now and a lot of books have been written and even some, some, you know, shows have been created around it. Um, ultimately that clash led to Steve's departure from the organization. So, um, hard to have a judgment around whether it was the right thing or the wrong thing. We can only look back and sort of see what happened.
Steve left the organization. He went on to go found Next. And I, you know, my personal opinion is that Steve took that separation very personally. It was deeply affecting him. And so when he came back the second time, he was a completely, completely different individual. Interesting. Yeah. There's a, you know, there's a story that goes around Apple. After Steve came back, one of the things that, that happened was, was we had electronic key card access to all of the buildings because security is obviously a top priority for Apple. Those key cards, which we had to wear, had our face and our name on them, these badges.
And so there's a story going around where Steve would pop into an elevator with some folks who had their name cards on and Steve would say to them, how do you add value to this organization? I remember this story. Yeah. And if he didn't like your answer, I mean, by the time you got back to your desk, HR was waiting for you to let you know that you didn't work there anymore. And that has profoundly shaped how I think and how I operate and certainly how I coach my own clients in having a really direct and current understanding of your value proposition to any organization that you're either in or that you want to be a part of.
But back to your question about Steve. He was, yeah, he had a chip on his shoulder. I bet he did. And I wonder how much this relates to this concept of organizational scar tissue. I mean, certainly he had scars from that. Yeah, exactly. Is that related to this concept of organizational scar tissue? It's like, okay, the leader of the company was forced out, and of course he comes back later on. Or is it something more significant, something more holistic that you've got these culture norms in place that create scar tissue that it's hard to overcome? Maybe it's a little bit of both. Yeah, I think the concept of organizational scar tissue from my perspective, I think it probably does relate to the Steve story, but that's at least conceptually for me, that's not the origin. The origin for me actually relates back to a guy named Tuckman.
It's called the Tuckman model, which people may not be familiar with by name, but the model itself is forming, storming, norming, and performing. Those are the stages of team development. As teams are coming together, those are generally the stages they go through. As a side note, every time somebody leaves that team or even one new person joins the team, the team actually goes through that whole process again. Yeah. So for me, the idea of the scar tissue is created when you go through that process, when you go through those stages of team formation and you do it incorrectly. And there are a whole bunch of ways of getting it wrong. And there are a couple of really good ways of getting it right, which is one of the things that my organization focuses on. When we go work with clients, the focus is specifically how do we get to a place where we're either forming in a way that's really clean, that leads to cohesion sooner without creating organizational scar tissue, or are we correcting for it along the way?
An example of scar tissue. So we work a lot with psychometrics. Psychometrics is understanding individual and team psychology. So as an example, if you have a group of people who are more, let's use the word sensitive, they're more emotional by nature. It's how they're built. There's no, and by the way, there's no value judgment here. This isn't about right or wrong. It's about what is. And then on the other side of that, you have a group of people who are purely logical in the way that they approach things. And they keep pushing logic without understanding there's a need for an emotional or a humanistic component to decision making. Scar tissue begins to build between those two factions, even though they may be on the same team. What are we really talking about?
Well, trust is sort of at the core of that. Suppose I'm on that emotional or humanistic side and I begin to think that you don't see me as a person. In that case, you only see me as a resource who can do a job, your ability to influence me goes down precipitously.. my ability to commit to you and your ideas goes down precipitously. That's the scar tissue that I'm talking about. That's going to get in the way not only of things like executional excellence, but it is also going to get into if we're really focused on innovation, but we can't work together, we're never going to get to innovation.
Yeah, that's a really good example. And I see it all the time in my work and in organizations that I work with a lot of teams, leadership teams, execution teams, you name it. And the dynamics are, I would say dysfunctional is probably a generous way to put it. In some cases, it's generous. And I can see how this scar tissue has developed over time. And a lot of it is through the Tuckman cycle, right? The formation, they probably never formed as a team. I see a lot of instances where a group of people is thrown together and say, okay, go work on this. That's typical, right? It's typical, right?
And they're called teams, and they maybe exhibit some of the outward signs that they are a team because they have a common mission, a common purpose. But if you sort of peek beneath the surface a little bit and see how they actually operate, they don't operate anything like a team would. They don't trust one another. They don't commit together. They don't even have really any conflict. They just sort of are quiet. Or the conflict, the level of conflict is really high, right? Because there's... The level of trust has gone to such a low state that this team has descended into a chaotic state of being. It's really sad to see. And it's amazing how much I see that in companies. How do you, in your experience, how do you reverse that damage?
Oh, I love the question. And the segue here is right on point from my perspective. You talked about trust, you talked about conflict and you talked about commitment. And then the question is, how do we solve for that? How do we address those kinds of issues? Which again is exactly what iBridge is doing with its clients. We use a program called the five behaviors of a cohesive team. It's modeled after the book, the five dysfunctions of a team written by a guy named Patrick Lencioni. That book, I think, is on its twentieth anniversary.
And what I love about that is, you know, you may get some skeptics going, well, that's probably outdated or it's old. And I think, you know what it actually is. It's timeless. It's timeless. It really is. So the first thing that we do is we go in and we measure where a team is at so we can understand its current state. Where are you on trust? Where are you on conflict? Where are you on commitment?
The other two behaviors, by the way, that we look at are accountability, which is a really interesting conversation all by itself. And then results, which is essentially how do you balance what you're measured on as an individual versus how the team is performing? One of the big misalignments usually, by the way, is how the compensation program is structured. Whatever it is you're incenting is the behavior you're going to get. So if your comp program is focused on individual results, you're going to get a bunch of really talented people focused on what they do. But if we make that team component a part of the compensation program and the incentive program, you're going to get more of that.
And so that's usually a good place to look in parallel to the individual people. All the way back to the beginning now, we start with that assessment and we measure their current state. In that process, we also measure the psychological profile of each individual. When we understand that through psychometrics, the measurement of psychology, we understand what their preferences are for things like communications, decision making, what they're looking at, whether it's strategic or tactical, what they value. How do they show up in conflict? How do they extend and operationalize trust?
And often that look at the psychological profile is eye-opening, mind-blowing for many, but eye-opening for everyone. It's like, oh, now I understand when I speak to you in this way why your eyes glaze over. Yeah. Now I understand that you've been open and warm because you're trying to build trust with me. But because I'm deeply introverted, I'm holding back on that for you. And so we haven't really built that trust. So we get the psychological component in place and right.
And then we understand where are we on those behaviors? How do we operationalize trust and where are we today? Yeah. We do some really interesting exercises that help build trust sort of real time and in session. Very often we will see some emotional breakdowns in those conversations because people are digging deep. so that they can in fact then create those really high trust-based relationships yeah but from there the next big one is conflict and to your point you know where should conflict be is conflict bad is conflict good where's the line and what complicates this is If you don't understand the psychological profile, you don't understand that how I define conflict and where I would demarcate where conflict begins might be different than your own.
Well, if we don't have alignment even on what the definition of conflict is, how do we then find a place where it can be healthy, where we can have a stasis around conflict? Yeah. And so part of our workshop is let's set the bar. And what we're looking for isn't the volume of conflict. For certain groups, we need to get them out of being conflict avoidant and more participant in conflict avoidance. For other groups of people, we need to dial them back to a place where conflict is healthy and constructive. And that's really what we're looking for is finding that balance where you're having enough of the right kind of conflict where you're getting to the best decision, the right answer and the right outcome without creating additional organizational scar tissue. That's what we're looking for.
That's a wonderful description and actually quite mirrors some of the things that we do with our Disruptor Method . We start with a psychometric evaluation and then a series of workshops that help pull out the issues that the team, the leadership team is currently going through. And through that workshop, we call it emptying the glass right yeah maybe the glass is so full they can't really take anything in so we help them empty their glass and that's really just sort of um getting the emotions out getting their their complaints if you will the scar tissue out in the open so that they have some space to learn new ways to collaborate with their team members, right?
If I could add on to that analogy, which I really, really like, you're not only creating space, but you're also changing the contents of the glass in that process. Yeah, that's right. And I think both of those together is probably what gets you there.
Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that. So very complementary work that we do. And I love the way that you've incorporated the... the workshop because I've used that one too and it's fantastic, it really is. The assessment combined with DISC is a really good starting point because it gets everyone aligned in a way that they now start to see why people respond a certain way. It's all there for them to see.
Very interesting. Um, you know, I, this, this show is really all around disruption and sounds to me like you do a lot of that with your clients, you help them disrupt themselves in a way, help them, uh, discover things about themselves, about the team that they're on. And so, and also then hopefully it translates to them working more cohesively together as a team and helping their company become more disruptive in their own, in their own way.
I love the connection and the relationship that you're putting in place there, and I would concur. We're disrupting their perceptions of themselves and each other. We're disrupting their perception of their capabilities and capacities often, which is a really important psychological thing. I don't know, lid lifting is what's coming to mind. They think they're here, but they're really capable of more.
And so we disrupt their thought processes and perceptions around that. We disrupt their thoughts and processes around their behaviors and how they're supposed to act. And when we do that, it opens up then to the point you're making, which is it allows them to be disruptors in their business, in their ecosystems, in their customer ecosystems.
What would you say is the most important set of characteristics that a team needs to be open to for this type of disruption to take hold?
Oh, that is a, that is a really good question. And I have to tell you, I wish that the answer that I'm coming up with was simpler than it is. The first, what's coming up for me in that question is, well, what's, what's needed?
What's needed from a disruption standpoint? What is the goal? What are we trying to do? What are we trying to disrupt? Then I look backwards and say, but who do we have? And think of it this way. What is their impetus to change? And what are their change limitations? So the psychological component is really helpful. We also use Myers-Briggs, which a lot of people are familiar.
People in teams that have the SJ combination are generally the most change resistant. And people who have the NP combination are not only not change resistant, they're usually the ones who are driving change. And so the question of, well, what is needed? And I think that probably the most important component is for that team to understand what the change, what the strategic mission is around the change, what are we going to get for it, how does, how do we drive forward and then have the discipline to say how are we holding, how are we holding that back, how are we disrupting us being able to achieve that and so I think I would categorize that as self-awareness where are you today how resistant to change are you because you may have a preference for change resistance, but that doesn't mean you don't have the capability of adopting and accepting change.
Yeah, I agree. I think I completely concur with that. We use something similar called predictive index, and it shows where people are on a scale. And it also shows where people aren't, right? What's missing. Because oftentimes there may be a characteristic or a personality type that could balance this team in such a way that, again, as long as they're on the line on a certain mission, a vision, a mission of what they're pursuing, the resistors and the proponents of the change will, you know, As long as they're in a trusting relationship, they will figure these things out and the resistors will sort of come around and they have a value to add.
It's not that resistors are bad and these promoters are good. It's the resistors see things in a way that the promoters don't and maybe can help them from jumping off a cliff. Right. Exactly. And so what this the psychometrics assessments do, and I'm sure you're you will agree with this, is that it helps the team see where there are gaps and what kind of skills to pull into their team to help round their team out.
Yeah, yeah, that is exactly right. In fact, the language that I usually use around this is we want to see your strengths, your natural strengths, because we want to amplify those. But in that same vein, we also want to see your natural blind spots. Now, you know, is this a matter of we have to hire the right people? I mean, there could be a component of that. But I want to show the blind spot because blind spots can be filled without having to change personnel. That's true too. Right.
But I, but I want that to, I want that to be seen and known and be explicit and then have intention around how we're going to solve for that. I want to give you a, I want to give you an example.
One of my, one of my corporate clients, the, the executive team, and this is not uncommon by the way, using the DISC model, a lot of concentration in the D and the I segments of DISC. So these are, these are, Very action oriented, results oriented. They're usually pretty competitive types of people. I say that they're in a state of perpetual motion because something is always happening around them. And they just didn't have anybody in the lower half of DISC in that C and the S section.
So what was happening in the environment? Well, this is a leadership team. I describe them as a high velocity, high volume organization. They were making a lot of decisions on a regular basis. And what was happening was a lot of those decisions were coming back and having to be remade because they didn't get it right the first time. Well, what's happening? When you look at Ds and you look at Is, they're sort of energized by that high volume, high velocity. They love making fast decisions. They want to move through things.
What was missing? Well, the skepticism and the discipline that normally comes from doing due diligence, which is a slowing down of the process. Yes. And there was nobody on the team who represented that counterbalance for them. Yeah. Was the answer to fill up the ELT with C's and S's? No. The remedy is teaching the D's and the I's how to adopt those behaviors that would naturally come in that C and that S category.
No, you're, you're absolutely right. I think in the cases where we, recommended that they find people to build out their team is when the team was small. So it was, uh, what we call a catalyst team. So it was sort of handpicked people from around the organization to make a cross-functional team. And it wasn't quite complete. It was small. It was, it, we need a team of, you know, six to six to nine people to really be effective in, in the type of work that we're doing with them.
And so. The lower number, the better, but they were like a team of four. But you're absolutely right though. If the team is already established and you're not adding people, you're really helping them build the capabilities that they may lack, so they can be more effective as a team. That's awesome. To your point, just before we move on, to your point, if the team is growing, if you know you've got capacity for new headcount, and you understand the psychometric profile of your team, you can look for attributes in an interviewing process. And you can actually make them requirements of the job description. Yeah. And that's what Predictive Index is so good for and has been used for for a long time is to do just that. Not just find the skills that you need, but also find the personality that would fit in with the team. So people, companies that are more intentional about team building use this type, this, this tool, this psychometrics tool, which I mean, it's a fantastic tool.
Anyway, I wanted to ask you how you see the relationship between personal disruption and me advancing my career in a company. you know, learning new skills to become more marketable, you know, do the work that I like to do, and an organization's ability to be disruptive in the market. So individual versus organization.
That's, yeah, such a good question. So just a tiny bit of context here. iBridge came to be in the career coaching space And so this focus on the individual and where they are, their branding, their value proposition were all sort of key to the work that we were doing. And so you're asking the question from that perspective, and I want to start there. Again, we start with a psychometric, so we understand natural strengths. We also can see blind spots. And one of the reasons that we do that is we help our clients look at the opportunities differently. So when they take themselves out to market, I expect that they're going to have a value proposition, a clearly defined value proposition. What difference do you make for an organization?
You should be answering the why you should hire me over other qualified folks. You should know the answer to that question when you take yourself out to market. Why that's so important is when you find an organization that needs that, you've got really good alignment and you are naturally going to be disruptive in all the right ways, all the right reasons. That's right. Let me just finish this thought. Sorry about that. What people don't understand is, oh, yeah.
Gosh, there's this company and I like their brand and I'm going to go do the work, except what they're looking for doesn't necessarily align with my natural strengths. Well, now I'm going to take that role and I'm going to be disruptive for the wrong reasons. I'm going to be disruptive because I don't have the natural abilities or skills. It doesn't mean that I shouldn't go take the job. It just means... when you're making decisions about the opportunities you should prefer, find the ones that align best with your natural strengths and talents and then disrupt for the right reasons. Yeah. Is that approach sort of inspired by your experience at Apple and the things that Steve Jobs did with The elevator story that you mentioned.
I'm so impressed that you made that connection. I am so impressed that you made that connection. That is exactly right. It's that being able to at any time say, what value do I bring to the organization? Well, if you're in the market, you're trying to go get a job in the marketplace. If you can't answer that question, why should they even consider you?
Yeah. It's so funny because many of our clients are hyper smart, very technical, very accomplished folks, but they're subject matter experts in their field and they really have these big blind spots. And what do you mean I have to have a value proposition? What do you mean I have to talk about how I make a difference? I build great products.
Well, okay, but why does that matter to that organization? So really helping them connect to that is a direct result and inspired by the Steve story. I love that you made that connection. Well, thank you. I was I was also reminded of a person about ten years ago. I was I was coaching in an organization and this was an executive. I was coaching and he he had some advice for me. He said, Kumar, you know, you're a great coach. Do you have a brand? And I was like, what do you mean? Do I have a brand? I'm a coach. I mean, and he says, no, no, that's not what I mean. I mean, what is your brand? What will people remember you for? What value do you bring? Are you able to articulate those things? And that really stuck with me. I mean, he wasn't the most pleasant guy to deal with, but he was a fan of mine, I guess. And I think he was, he really was. And, and. Although we sometimes clashed not as coach and, uh, he was sort of in an adjacent department. He, I think he saw the value I brought and he was trying to help me, which was a great thing because I still remember it.
Right. Yeah. Right. It's about, it's about knowing who you are and knowing what value you bring and you know, we talk about brand building and from a company standpoint and all that, but really at the end of the day, especially in today's world, the world we live in, which is hyper-connected, everyone has a brand in a way, right? And it's about knowing what yours is. I think you have to because the noise is at a level that is more intense than ever. And the only way you're going to cut through that is if you have something that makes you recognizable and differentiates you from everyone else.
Yeah, absolutely. So for our career clients, that's exactly what we're doing. We want to help them understand what is your brand. And we do it from the perspective of full authenticity. And that's one of the reasons the psychometrics are so helpful. Because what we're looking at and what we're using are actually very true for you. So the second part of the question I just remembered was, Um, the relationship between the brand, the, the individuals, um, sort of value proposition, if you will.
And the relationship between that, I guess you did answer it. So it's, it is that relationship. It's, it's that brand that you bring the value proposition you bring that will attract you to the companies that will serve that need and vice versa, right? Because they're going to hire you because they are themselves disruptive in some way. They, they're looking for the types of skills that you bring. So I guess you could answer it. Yeah. And the way to sort of put a bow around that, we don't do much career coaching anymore because we're so focused on the team cohesion and leadership development elements.
But the messaging was simply this. We want to help you find a role that you love. What does that mean? That means that when you go to work, you're satisfied, you're gratified, you're challenged, you're rewarded because you're doing great work. We want to help you find a role that you love. But we also want you to find a role that loves you back. And it's the symbiosis of those two things because – When you find the organization that needs what you bring authentically and naturally, they are going to love you. If you're force-fitting that in, you may not get that same level of overall satisfaction in the relationship.
And when you find a role that you love that loves you back, you're going to do your best work. You're going to be elevated to the highest level of position that you can. You're going to be compensated in all the best ways. and you're going to feel good about the legacy that you're creating that I think enables disruption because everybody is working on a frequency that is super positive and, and very aligned. I like that. Especially the word you use, the frequency, they're all sort of, they're humming at the same frequency. They're in tune with each other. It's a really good analogy. I have one more question. And that is, You know, a lot of the companies that I help, big, larger companies, Fortune five hundreds or bigger, they augment their staff with contractors, you know, like myself. Right. And oftentimes contractors are not so much in my role, but certainly the people that are the doers, the ones that are on the hands on keyboard doing the work. are treated as sort of second-class citizens. And there's a question in here, so bear with me. All of this is great when you are working with companies where it's teams of employees and they're all in tune, they are humming the same tune, they're aligned to the common vision and so on.
And the Tuckman model works with that because you have these teams, they stay together, And of course, hopefully they aren't disrupted too often. All that goes out the window when you have teams of employees with contractors, because again, these contractors don't have the same, they're not perceived the same. They don't have the same rights and privileges. They're not treated the same and they come and go. And so it breaks that model, right? Tuckman model, even though they may form bonds while they're working with their their employee counterparts, they have a short life. They have a half-life and they know it and these people know it. What are your thoughts around that? How to bridge that bridge? I used your company name. How do you bridge that in a way that makes it beneficial for the organization as a whole, but also for those contractors, those humans that have that short experience with this company?
Yeah, I actually want to start with a little bit of a pushback on the assertion. I don't necessarily agree that when we have differently designated employees, so temps or contractors coming into a team, I don't think that that breaks the Tuckman model. I think it amplifies it. Yeah. regardless of your relationship to the organization, are you getting paid on a ten ninety nine or a W two? Do you have the same kind of stake or commitment or loyalty? Those things are not variables to team formation. You still have the forming process. You still have the storming process. You still have the norming process and then ultimately performing. Yeah. So I don't think I don't think it breaks the model. That was the piece that I wanted to push back on.
I agree with you. However, these people are temporary. So just by their nature, temporary nature, they're going to be gone. And then that team has to reform with whoever's left Yeah, right. And so again, I don't think it breaks the model. I think what it does is it puts a magnifier on the model. Yeah. Are you forming and storming and norming? Are you doing that right? Are you doing it in a way that allows it to serve the environment, which is we've got people on a carousel?
Yeah. Is the model really your model? Are you operating on it so that new people coming in are being exposed and onboarded through that model so that they can get to that performing state sooner or are you in fact treating them differently using a different forming and storming process? That's where it breaks down. If you're consistent and you say, look, we have to understand that even though the relationship is temporary and their status is different and they're compensated differently, they're still a part of the team. They have specific roles. That's fine. And they have different employee status.
But if we still continue to look at them as a team and then treat them as such, everything works fine. When we don't do that, when we have a different set of rules, a different set of operating guidelines, then I think it falls apart. Yeah, I agree with you. And I think you said something very key there is that as long as the Tuckman model, the framework, if you will, of forming, storming, norming, performing is followed, right?
And the magnifying glass metaphor, really, it resonated with me because it's You need to do that even more. You need to really look at it very closely to ensure that these people, these humans that are coming in to help your organization function better, deliver more, whatever it is, right? They are treated and almost welcomed in a way that is special Because you're trying to get that team to that norming performing state as quickly as possible.
That's right. If your forming mentality is these people are a resource and they're an annoyance to me. They get in my way and they're just something I have to do. That relationship is going to exist the entire time they're there. On the other hand, if you say, these are an extension of my team, but they don't report to me directly or we don't have an employment relationship in that way, but they are a member of the team, you're very likely going to get the maximum productivity that you can. You're also going to have a good relationship with them. And who doesn't want that? Exactly.
Yeah, I've certainly seen both sides of this, you know, companies where they, they take extra care to, to welcome their contractor colleagues, and go through a more rigorous, if you will, or more elaborate onboarding process to welcome them to make sure they understand the team structure, the team themselves are, are welcoming, they know what, because they've been through it before, right?
And of course, I've seen the other side where it doesn't matter if they're employee or team, the formation of the team is sort of an afterthought. And so, of course, then you get the results, you get the appropriate results because of that. It's a sad state. Exactly. Yeah. So, Jeff, what have I not asked you that you'd like to share? Yeah, that's, it's such a good deep question. I think, I think that, I don't know if it's necessarily a question, but maybe just a perspective. We're, we've been so focused on the work and so unfocused on the people and the team dynamics. So I want to park that there for a second. In depth there, we have not been paying attention to generational differences in needs and priorities because we're so focused on the work that we are avoidably creating unnecessary conflicts and again, disruption from the wrong perspective.
And it's, that's all manageable. I feel like saying, gosh, if you're in a leadership level, it's unexcusable. I get that you have to put points on the board. I get that. But if you're not going to pay attention to the human component of your leadership scope, you're the problem. Yeah. Yeah. I think the final sort of bow to wrap that up is, If you look at any big company's P&L, typically the largest line item, the number one line item is headcount. You're spending more money on people. And the question is, what are you getting for it? Are you maximizing your ROI on that spend? If you're not thinking about that from a leadership perspective, your leadership is incomplete.
Yeah, that's a very good perspective and a great way to end this thought. I'd say for anyone watching, think about that. For the leaders out there watching this talk, for the employees out there watching this talk, I think there's lots of lessons to be gained from the advice and the counsel from Jeff. If you're an individual contributor, work on your... What was it you called it? I call it a brand, but you call it something else. Your value proposition. Your value proposition. Thank you.
And of course, if you're a leader, then you should be focusing on, to your point, the employees are the biggest line item on the P&L. What are you getting from them? And how can you make it better? I'm going to ramble here a little bit on the whole employee thing, you know, most companies, especially large companies, engagement rates are poor, forty, forty five percent, maybe if employees are engaged. And that is a horrible metric. Can I can I interject one thing? Yeah. Yeah.
The the latest Gallup poll, which they do annually, shows employee engagement across the board at thirty percent. Thirty percent. So I was I was being generous. That means seven out of ten employees are not engaged. Seven out of ten. Yeah. That is a scary statistic. And for any leader not to be aware of that and want to do something about that, to your point, they shouldn't be in that position. They should be looking at What is wrong? What can I do to engage my people?
What can I do to engage my teams? And that could be a huge and immediate ROI from those actions. All right. This has been a real pleasure talking to you, Jeff. I really enjoyed the conversation. I'm sure the viewers of the show and the listeners of the show will agree. And I hope to have you back at some point. Thanks so much. I really enjoyed the conversation. Would be happy to return and talk about anything with you. Thanks so much. Awesome. Thank you so much. Bye-bye, everyone.
