The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:07 - 00:00:29:17
Kevin Eikenberry
My guest today calls it a work quake and you are living in it. Changing technology increased complexity, and a pandemic are all tremors that lead to this quake. And while we are now living in a moment, trying to create a picture of work that is different than we have lived and worked in before, now we must face it.

00:00:29:17 - 00:00:54:03
Kevin Eikenberry
And if you're going to be working for two more years at least, this is a topic you must consider. You must face and you must think about. And that's exactly why we're having this conversation today. Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders like you grow personally and professionally to lead more effectively and make a bigger difference for their teams organizations in the world.

00:00:54:07 - 00:01:17:06
Kevin Eikenberry
If you are listening to this podcast in the future, you can join us live on your favorite social platform. Well, unless your platform is one that we're not on, but know in all seriousness, if you're on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, you can join us live and you can get this information sooner and interact with my guest and I and get other great benefits from doing that.

00:01:17:07 - 00:01:36:07
Kevin Eikenberry
And the best way to do that is to join our Facebook or LinkedIn groups where you can find out the dates, find out the guests, get the inside scoop, and then join us live. And you can do that by joining our Facebook or LinkedIn groups. As I said, just go to remarkable podcast.com/facebook or remarkable podcast.com/linkedin to do that.

00:01:36:09 - 00:02:00:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Today's episode is brought to you by my latest book, Excuse Me Flexible Leadership. Navigate uncertainty and Lead with confidence. It's time to realize that styles can get in our way, and that following our strengths might not always be the best approach in a world that is more complex and uncertain than ever. Leaders need a new perspective and a set of tools to create the great results that our organizations want and their team members need.

00:02:00:07 - 00:02:23:07
Kevin Eikenberry
That's why flexible leadership is here and what it provides you. Learn more and order your copy today at remarkable podcast.com/flexible. And with that let me bring in my guest. His name is Steve Cadigan and I will introduce him as he smiles at you and then we'll dive in. Steve is a top talent strategist and leadership expert with over 30 years of experience.

00:02:23:09 - 00:02:52:22
Kevin Eikenberry
He famously led LinkedIn's early Hypergrowth phase as his first Chro building a world class company culture from scratch and scaling the organization from 400 to 4000 employees in less than four years. His clientele spans all the way from Google X, slack, the BBC, Intel to the city of Lisbon, which hired him to help develop the starter. Excuse me, startup incubator unicorn Factory.

00:02:53:03 - 00:03:13:00
Kevin Eikenberry
His book work, quake, prompts our conversation today. He has also written for Forbes and Inc and soon will be writing for Business Insider. He frequently appears on Bloomberg and CNBC to talk about the evolving nature of work, talent management, the big resignation, successful leadership and more. It should give you a good reason to see why we've had him here.

00:03:13:00 - 00:03:16:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Join us today. His name is Steve. Pat against the welcome.

00:03:16:10 - 00:03:17:16
Steve Cadigan
Great to be here, Kevin.

00:03:17:18 - 00:03:36:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Glad to have you here. So, I just spent a little bit telling the story that your mother would like to tell, I suppose, about your life. But I'd like to know a little bit more. Like how do you. You didn't start out when you were, like, eight thinking. I'm going to, talk about the future of work.

00:03:36:11 - 00:03:45:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Right? And leadership, like, what sort of gets you, what's sort of what's the journey that leads you to doing this work and being and joining me today.

00:03:45:11 - 00:04:00:13
Steve Cadigan
Yeah. Great question. I would say, you know, I'm one of those non traditionalists in terms of I went to college and had no plan and I graduated college and I had no plan. I still no plan. Yeah. I still have no plan.

00:04:00:15 - 00:04:01:02
Kevin Eikenberry
No, I didn't.

00:04:01:02 - 00:04:24:20
Steve Cadigan
Come back and hear this conversation. Keep it down. And so I, I raised in a home of an Episcopal minister and a social worker. My mom helped, you know, underprivileged community solve daycare. And I looked around, and I didn't have any business role models. So I went to college, majored in history, and found myself in a job in San Francisco after graduating.

00:04:24:20 - 00:04:56:23
Steve Cadigan
That was going to rotate me around and, if I'm honest, I probably spent as much time in the gym and college playing basketball pick up hoops as I did the library. And I quickly after about a year, was rotated into a job doing recruiting. And after a few months I just fell in love. I was like everything I love about sports trying to identify which groups work together, what environments produce the best outcomes, which coaches mass match best with which employees just became like, wow, they're going to pay me for this.

00:04:57:01 - 00:05:19:05
Steve Cadigan
And I found out I was pretty good at it. And, at least that's what people were telling me. And so that was kind of the the match for me was seeing that as a not only as an athlete, but as someone who loves seeing how people handle different environments. You know, how players handle being behind, how they go from being the star to not being the star, and how that works out.

00:05:19:05 - 00:05:39:06
Steve Cadigan
And observing human beings, I think, was a big part of my, you know, light bulb going on, if you will, to say this, this is a domain that's really interesting for me. And then over my journey working in six different industries, living and working in Singapore for two years, Canada for four years, I sort of sharpened my sword.

00:05:39:06 - 00:05:45:15
Steve Cadigan
If you will, and, and, found out the places in arenas where I like to do and can do some really good work.

00:05:45:17 - 00:05:55:14
Kevin Eikenberry
So back with that first company, did you tell them stop the rotations and leave me here, or did you go through the rest of the rotations and became even more convinced that this was the right place for you?

00:05:55:16 - 00:06:11:08
Steve Cadigan
Yeah, I did, I did what you exactly what you said. I said, yes, I found my destination. And then I think I was there about four years. And that's when I said, I think I want to do this for the rest of my life. Let me go try this in another company, because it was a really small organization and there was a small team.

00:06:11:10 - 00:06:30:09
Steve Cadigan
I think there were six of us. And, you know, just by the way, there's another super lesson which I share with, students who are looking to sort of figure out their first step. I was like, man, I really think the small organizations give you the benefit of, very wide breadth of learning, you know, and you can you're doing everything in a small company.

00:06:30:14 - 00:06:49:16
Steve Cadigan
And then when I went to a bigger company. So my H.R. Team at, at Esprit, where I started was maybe nine, and the team at the insurance company I went to was like 300. And so now I've got experts and who can coach me and teach me. Right. And that was really that was a great move for me.

00:06:49:18 - 00:07:15:02
Kevin Eikenberry
So the pandemic hits, and, and lots of people started thinking a lot more about or in different ways about what the future of work would look like. Not you, you included. And so you wrote this book called Work Quake. Embrace the Aftershocks Embracing the Aftershocks of Covid to create a better Model of working. What led you to write the book?

00:07:15:03 - 00:07:45:15
Steve Cadigan
I think honestly, Kevin, it was just a a lifetime of observing growing dissatisfaction between employers and employees, like both parties are like, this is just not producing an outcome that's motivating me. We're seeing, you know, increases in attrition. We're seeing increases in, you know, disengagement. And so I'm like, let me try to reverse engineer this and think of this differently and see if we can build a more satisfying world of work.

00:07:45:15 - 00:08:11:20
Steve Cadigan
And interestingly enough, I finished the draft of my book before Covid hit and then Covid hits and I'm thinking, oh gosh, I don't know how long this is going to be, how dramatic or how deep it's going to be, but I can't publish a book about the future of work that has no mention of Covid. So I sat on it for about nine months and I started to, address every chapter in in contemplating where I thought this was going to go.

00:08:11:20 - 00:08:19:00
Kevin Eikenberry
In Covid terms, so to speak. Correct. And even makes the subtitle of the book. Right. So,

00:08:19:02 - 00:08:35:04
Steve Cadigan
That was a big challenge for us. Like do we don't know how long the legs are of Covid. And my publishers, like, are you sure you want it in there? Because if this is just like SARS, which is three months and done, you know, it's it's going to limit potential interest in the long tail in your book. Right?

00:08:35:06 - 00:08:50:04
Kevin Eikenberry
100%. And I want to talk about the long tail, because I will admit that when the book was first pitch to us and I first got a copy, and, you know, now a little bit about some of what we've done around long distance and, and those sorts of things that I looked at the front, I looked at the back, which I always do.

00:08:50:04 - 00:09:06:03
Kevin Eikenberry
And then I spent a little time inside and I'm like, yep, this is somebody I want to have on. I mean, I, I dipped in and read various places, and it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that I realized that it was actually published in 22. So I want to come back to, you know, what you're thinking today.

00:09:06:05 - 00:09:30:00
Kevin Eikenberry
We'll get to that later. But I want to start with what's in the book, which I think certainly is very, cogent and very applicable. Still, you sort of talk about two ways of looking at it, and I think it's the same two ways that everyone who's listening or watching ought to be thinking about it, which is as, excuse me, as an employee, which as a leader, even if you're the owner, you're an employee, right.

00:09:30:00 - 00:09:57:17
Kevin Eikenberry
And but also as an employer. So I'm going to ask us to think about this with three hats on as an individual employee, as an employer, and even as a leader, which is slightly, maybe a slightly different take. So what are a couple of things either from the book or you would say today to us lovingly as employees, that we ought to be thinking about as we continue to live through the tremors, of an uncertain and changing work world.

00:09:57:19 - 00:10:23:14
Steve Cadigan
I think the biggest thing, honestly, Kevin, is the fact that the market and the universe needs new skills faster than any time in history, and that your superpower to make yourself more vital and more valuable in the future, wherever you sit, whatever industry, geography, level in the organization, your superpowers, your capacity to learn new things. And I know it sounds cliche.

00:10:23:14 - 00:10:47:12
Steve Cadigan
I know it sounds like we're all sick of hearing the be a lifelong learner, but truly, I feel like we're heading towards a world where in the next, I believe in the next ten years, you're going to be hired as much by what you can learn than what you know. Because I need to know that you can grow and adapt and learn new things, and my business is going to be facing new challenges faster than ever before.

00:10:47:14 - 00:11:09:17
Steve Cadigan
And so I need to know that you can equip yourself and yourself, study, an, a self-starter, and you've got the, you know, the, growth mindset. And you're curious. That's probably the biggest thing that I would say if I, if I'm an employee sitting anywhere, it's like, well, the whole world's coming. And then I'm going to add on to that sort of one be which is, you know, you haven't said those dreaded words that are in every conversation right now.

00:11:09:17 - 00:11:12:20
Steve Cadigan
I yet but what I as.

00:11:12:22 - 00:11:19:11
Kevin Eikenberry
You went first, I think you have an internal bet with myself how many minutes we will go before it shows up.

00:11:19:13 - 00:11:42:23
Steve Cadigan
All right. Okay. About ten minutes. And but listen, what I say serves us is the opportunity to double down on on our differentiator as a human being. You know, our capacity to connect dots, our capacity to see things in the data that AI doesn't see, because we've got context, and we know more about the realities and the nuance and leadership styles and the practices of our team.

00:11:43:01 - 00:11:53:16
Steve Cadigan
And so that those two things doubling down on your capacity to learn, you know, I call it sort of learning via high learning velocity and also your innately human skills.

00:11:53:18 - 00:12:12:06
Kevin Eikenberry
In the book, you use another phrase around this learning piece, which is which is learning agility. So you really talked about willingness and rate, but talk about that word agility just for a second, because I think it it adds another layer to what you've just said.

00:12:12:08 - 00:12:39:07
Steve Cadigan
Yeah, I think, gosh, we need to do a better job coming up with some better names, right? Like we all suffer from like transformation, word fatigue or agility or adaptability. But if you know, I look, a lot of, you know, sorry, I do a lot of reading every morning, if you will. And one of the things that cross my radar across it consistently is that most executives feel that the most important skill that they want is agility.

00:12:39:12 - 00:12:58:22
Steve Cadigan
Like, what is agility, right. So I think agility is, you know, if we want to expand on, you know, high learning velocity is sort of the comfort and the openness to go to different places and learn new things and move around. And why this is particularly important, Kevin, is because the world of work wasn't built to facilitate that.

00:12:59:00 - 00:13:16:12
Steve Cadigan
The world of work was built to keep you and your job and your job, family and your department. Because the longer you do that, the more confidence we have. We've designed an architecture, and we've inherited an architecture of work that wasn't built for the speed and velocity of change that we need to realize as an organization. And so we're started.

00:13:16:12 - 00:13:44:08
Steve Cadigan
We're in the what I call the recognition phase of a right now. And I don't see many organizations acting on, you know, moving people around, multiple assignments, multiple projects, so that you are getting great peripheral vision and experience. And that's building muscle in your organization. Spotify did something a few years ago before the pandemic. They had a big problem with turnover, of the their younger workers and they said, okay, everyone move around, you know, let's move around.

00:13:44:09 - 00:13:52:02
Steve Cadigan
And then they realized that the, leaders proclivity to sort of say, well, I hired you. You're really important to me. I don't want you moving around.

00:13:52:04 - 00:13:54:22
Kevin Eikenberry
I like the idea of moving around as long as it's not my people.

00:13:55:00 - 00:14:17:16
Steve Cadigan
Right. I'm sure none of you have ever been in those places where the manager says you don't work for the company. You work for me. And so. So what he did was, it was a brilliant with Daniel X, the name of the CEO. He said, I'm requiring everyone to move every two years now. Not everyone, but most people, because we don't require PhD, you know, knowledge based, expertise.

00:14:17:18 - 00:14:28:08
Steve Cadigan
And so that opens up. It's called sort of the fluidity of work insurance policy. If I've got more people who've done more things, if someone leaves, have Kevin Lee's Susan knows how to do what Kevin did.

00:14:28:09 - 00:14:49:02
Kevin Eikenberry
I've got you know, we think about that at the at the very simplest level, like people who leaders who are actually truly willing to delegate and delegate effectively, you're building organizational capacity. All you're talking about is that at like several levels, higher of an idea that we're building organizational capacity, as well as you, as you said, peripheral vision.

00:14:49:02 - 00:15:06:03
Kevin Eikenberry
It's a really important piece for us to consider. And I love that we have to we as individuals have to be open to that. And then we as leaders and, or as employers have to think about how are we going to do that? You know, it's interesting that you say that world, the world of work wasn't built to do those things.

00:15:06:03 - 00:15:22:08
Kevin Eikenberry
But you know what, the world of work all changed in a weekend five years ago. And, and, you know, 100 years from now, they're going to be writing. They're still going to be writing case studies about the last five years, about how we change the societal view of work in a in a weekend that took us 80 years to get to.

00:15:22:10 - 00:15:39:12
Kevin Eikenberry
Right. We 100 and 160 years ago, work was six days a week, 12 hours a day. And then 80 years ago, ish, Henry Ford, maybe a little a little longer than that. It was 45 days a week, 40 hours a week. And if you didn't work that you told people what you did. Like. That's how we thought about work.

00:15:39:13 - 00:16:08:06
Kevin Eikenberry
That's not the way we think about work anymore. And yet so many leaders, so many employers are sort of trying to claw us back to 19 to 2019. What what are your thoughts about what employers. You've just hinted that at that in terms of rotating people around, but what are the other big lessons that we as employers need to be thinking about in this, now that we're still in the tremors of the workweek?

00:16:08:07 - 00:16:12:20
Kevin Eikenberry
What should we really be seriously considering?

00:16:12:22 - 00:16:43:23
Steve Cadigan
Well, I think the first one is let's just call out the thing that everyone's debating right now in the break room or at home is the pajama revolution, which is, you know, this real tension we have between, let's just call them legacy leaders and a workforce. That said, for a year or so, hey, when I work at home, not only am I more productive, my life is more productive, and I have richer relationships with my kids, with my family, with my community, and I work to live.

00:16:43:23 - 00:17:03:07
Steve Cadigan
I don't work, you know, I don't live to work. And then employers are saying, Holy cow, you know, we don't know how to build great culture in a more remote world. We don't know that teamwork is better when more people see each other less like we're nervous. We're really nervous about our capacity to create and innovate in a more distributed world.

00:17:03:12 - 00:17:08:14
Steve Cadigan
And so both parties have really, really legitimate perspectives on this one. Right. And I think.

00:17:08:16 - 00:17:16:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Now here's the thing. Both can be true. Correct. We've done is we've said we've got to choose. And then and we're pitting each other against ourselves.

00:17:16:13 - 00:17:17:04
Steve Cadigan
That's right.

00:17:17:04 - 00:17:19:06
Kevin Eikenberry
And that's what we've been living in for four years.

00:17:19:08 - 00:17:36:05
Steve Cadigan
That's right. And so I think we you know what this and there's several other things we could talk about. Let's just stay on this one for a second. This notion of, you know, great work can be done in different ways. That ends up with a question I always get asked. And I'm sure you do, too. Hey, Steve. Hey, Kevin.

00:17:36:05 - 00:17:53:06
Steve Cadigan
Should we be in-person? Should we be remote? And should we be hybrid? And my favorite answer to that one is yes. And like, no, no, no. We asked you which one. And I said, yes, it's all of the above and you don't know. But this is what's really uncomfortable. And what I love about this moment is it's forcing experimentation.

00:17:53:11 - 00:18:16:16
Steve Cadigan
Some teams in your organization are going to be great at certain ways of working, and some will need a different way of working. And so that one size fits all talent strategy, which I've worked in. You've worked in, you know, we were many of our leadership school business schools are teaching. It doesn't work and it's not sustainable. And it can, like you say, everyone in the office.

00:18:16:18 - 00:18:37:01
Steve Cadigan
And that's who we are. That's what we're about. And, you know, JPMorgan is a great example of like flip flop. You know, Jamie Diamonds is a really brilliant dude. And when he's struggling to go and going back and forth, you know, this is a legitimate complex problem. And so I don't mind where you land as an organization, but I think you need to be really open and honest about having a conversation with your people.

00:18:37:01 - 00:18:42:20
Steve Cadigan
And if you say we're all in the office, that's great. But you're limiting your access to superstar talent.

00:18:42:20 - 00:19:05:14
Kevin Eikenberry
I think you're, you know, you're making a choice that's going that has implications. That's right. You know, I think the, the other interesting thing is even organizations and this this gets at an important point to even organizations. And there's lots of research in the last year or two that says this, that, and it's not changing. Right. We got all these organizations that are saying, hey, we're going back, or let's say we're going back three days a week.

00:19:05:18 - 00:19:19:23
Kevin Eikenberry
And the data says people are back two days a week, or let's say we're going back five days a week. And the data set, we're back three days a week. So there's one thing about having a policy, but what we really and I've been saying this for a long time back during the pandemic is okay. It's not about pilot policy.

00:19:19:23 - 00:19:45:14
Kevin Eikenberry
It's about pilot. It's about continuing to pilot and try things. And to your point, Steve, being willing to have different answers even within your organization. What's the work say? What does the group want and need? Where are they physically located already? You know, if everyone has an hour commute, that's what that's a different thing. And if everyone lives within five minutes, like there are big differences in context that all matter for us to be considering.

00:19:45:14 - 00:19:48:14
Kevin Eikenberry
And we're not going to get it right without conversation. That's what I really love about.

00:19:48:17 - 00:19:59:13
Steve Cadigan
That's right. And let's be honest, what would what are we solving for here? We're solving to we're solving for creating great value. We're not solving for treating everyone the same. Let's that's not the right. Solve the the right, solve for me.

00:19:59:15 - 00:20:03:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Or to be comfortable as a leader. Because this is what I this is what I'm used to.

00:20:04:01 - 00:20:20:21
Steve Cadigan
Correct? Correct, correct. And that, by the way, let's swing this back to I that's I think the biggest barrier with AI right now is that the first question we all ask is how can I use AI to do my job better? That's the wrong question. You've already limited what I can do for you, saying this is the only way this can be done.

00:20:20:23 - 00:20:43:20
Steve Cadigan
Take recruiting. I have so many friends to do recruiting. I have all these buddies asking me like, hey, how can I help us do recruiting better? I said, this is the wrong question. The right question is how do I solve what I'm solving with recruiting differently with AI? How might I? And we're also limiting ourselves by saying, by thinking about AI like it's all about cutting costs, going faster and reducing expenses.

00:20:43:22 - 00:21:08:15
Steve Cadigan
And that is an outcome we can realize with AI. But there's an even greater outcome, which is new markets, new new values, creating things differently, making jobs more brilliant and amazing, you know. And that's we're not talking about that. All the headlines this like oh yeah we're going to replace the Klarna came out of the gates. Swedish based fintech company said we're going to replace 600 customer service jobs with AI three months later.

00:21:08:15 - 00:21:17:03
Steve Cadigan
How'd it go? Yeah, not so good, because it turns out like if you want to build customer loyalty, it's not done so well with the AI.

00:21:17:05 - 00:21:35:18
Kevin Eikenberry
The the the the avatar is not good enough. As an example. Right. So you're right, the question and, you know, and and so here we have with us, ladies and gentlemen, a guy with a degree in history, or at least that's where you started. I don't know, that's where you ended. And history tells us what you just said.

00:21:35:21 - 00:22:01:07
Kevin Eikenberry
But long before we even ever put the two letters A and AI together, except in a word. Right. And that is the questions we asked to determine the outcomes we get. And you're suggesting and you're not talking about writing a better prompt. You're talking about thinking about the question differently, asking a better question will get us better results, whether we're trying to figure out where, where and when people work, how we use a technology, how we solve a customer problem doesn't matter.

00:22:01:09 - 00:22:21:08
Steve Cadigan
Yeah, yeah. And we're limited by our own human desire to feel safe. It's very, very uncomfortable to say, how can you, think about doing my job differently? Because now you're putting on the line all my education, all my experience, all my CV, all my credibility could be, you know, not as valuable. So why would I invite that?

00:22:21:08 - 00:22:24:20
Steve Cadigan
And that's really the friction I think a lot of us are facing right now.

00:22:25:02 - 00:22:40:22
Kevin Eikenberry
And that's why we all, as humans, will then get scared and we worry what's behind the green curtain when all it is, is a little dude with a megaphone. Right? Some of you might not be old enough to remember The Wizard of Oz, and I just get the punchline. But, that's a key and important thing.

00:22:40:22 - 00:23:06:09
Kevin Eikenberry
One of the things you talk about in the book that I think we ought to talk about a little bit, is that there are different models, different models for how we manage our talent, how we think about our talent. You talk about seven in the book and we don't have time to talk about seven, but give people a couple of ways to think about the talent on our teams differently than perhaps we've done in the past.

00:23:06:15 - 00:23:27:07
Steve Cadigan
Okay. I think that the greatest amount of relief and I think excitement I can give you as a leader is to stop thinking about your talent in terms of only the ones that work for you now and expand it and think more of an ecosystem caring about the people for their entire career, not just when they work for you.

00:23:27:10 - 00:23:48:07
Steve Cadigan
The biggest problem most of my clients have is Steve. People aren't saying as long. And I said, okay, do you think in the future they're going to stay longer? And the answer is, yeah, probably not. Okay. So how many of your policies, practices, rewards, design for your talent have been built to expect that people are going to stay less, let's say, 3 or 4 years?

00:23:48:07 - 00:24:04:00
Steve Cadigan
They ten years ago it was five. Now it's four and the demographic 25 to 35. It's two and a half years in Silicon Valley. A software engineer, as you know, stays about a year and a half. Okay. So and oh, by the way, Silicon Valley has some of the greatest creativity and innovation in a most fluid world of work.

00:24:04:00 - 00:24:22:10
Steve Cadigan
So something's going right in a high fluid world of work. So so what I would say is I would build to expect shorter tenure college basketball, college football are great examples. Players used to stay four years in a college. Now, you know your best player is only going to stay a year. So what.

00:24:22:10 - 00:24:28:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Is that? Unless unless you're a Boilermaker. But that's a whole other story. That's a different conversation.

00:24:28:17 - 00:24:46:08
Steve Cadigan
You look at. Look across that look, look down the freeway. Indiana has not a single player on the roster in basketball that was there last year and the year before, and it was super interesting. But listen, if you have high turnover, I think what we need to do is lean in and say, how can I create value when people don't stay as long?

00:24:46:08 - 00:25:03:08
Steve Cadigan
Well, I can make a simple teach, a simple offense and a simpler defense. If you have a job that takes someone three years to learn, you're shooting yourself in the foot in today's economy. Yeah. You know, and so the and that's part of, you know, all of us were taught that the teams that win or the teams that stayed together, the longest.

00:25:03:10 - 00:25:22:20
Steve Cadigan
And what we're starting to see right now, especially in technology companies, actually, it's the teams that don't stay together the longest that are inviting new ideas and new ways of solving problems. That is a superpower in a market that's changing really quickly. It turns out that extent, you know, long tail domain expertise can be a limiter for you.

00:25:23:00 - 00:25:27:09
Steve Cadigan
It can be a blocker for your creativity. And that's really uncomfortable.

00:25:27:09 - 00:25:35:18
Kevin Eikenberry
Becomes how do we how do we get people to a level of cohesion that's valuable quicker because we may not have them as long, right?

00:25:35:23 - 00:25:51:11
Steve Cadigan
Correct. Yeah. I did a great exercise, with a group I was working with the other day. I said, what's your biggest problem? You know, people leave. And Steve, I said, okay, let's do an exercise, break out in small groups. And here's the here's the mandate. The government has just declared that nobody can stay in a company more than three years.

00:25:51:11 - 00:26:15:01
Steve Cadigan
It's illegal. Build a talent strategy that optimizes for that. And you know what happened, Kevin? The ideas started flying. Why? Because it was no longer something that they could resist. I have to accept it. And so what did they do? Faster onboarding. And then someone got really smart and said, I'm going to build a shell company so I can move my best people between my various companies, and they won't have to leave like that.

00:26:15:01 - 00:26:16:14
Steve Cadigan
Yes. Let's start thinking.

00:26:16:14 - 00:26:37:17
Kevin Eikenberry
Like, that's right, I love yeah, I love that. So, I said we'd get back to this, and I want to spend a couple minutes here because, like I said, I was already sold on the book before I saw the copyright date. Right. And so, you know that there's forget, forget your situation of writing it and then sitting on it and then deciding for love.

00:26:37:17 - 00:26:58:22
Kevin Eikenberry
But even, you know, when you're working with a publisher like you or I, you. Right. And then there's a window after that before it comes out. And in your case, we're talking about something that's been has been a little longer in a world is fast, fast paced, changing rapidly. Lots of complexity, etc.. So what would you say today that isn't in the book, or that we really ought to be thinking about that?

00:26:58:22 - 00:27:02:12
Kevin Eikenberry
You really weren't talking about a lot three years ago.

00:27:02:14 - 00:27:29:02
Steve Cadigan
Gosh. So much. And what's really great is, and I'm sure every author says this, I really feel, like my book is more valuable now than when I, when I put it out, because the awareness that I need to really think differently about about about a talent strategy. So I would say probably the one that's really jumped out at me the most is this hybrid notion of work.

00:27:29:04 - 00:27:47:07
Steve Cadigan
I didn't contemplate that, in the book. It was it was really a, you know, and where I start in my thinking about that, Kevin is like, listen, every organization ever worked with had a Salesforce that was remote. So we know because and those people are bringing in the bacon. We know how to do that with a really critical dimension of our team.

00:27:47:07 - 00:28:08:09
Steve Cadigan
Now they're not making new products, but they're feeding their information back to product, into marketing and into engineering. So I think that's an area and we covered it a little bit. That's requiring real experimentation. Like to your point, like being in the office, everybody like if I look at my whole career, I sat in the Cuban office 90% of the time.

00:28:08:09 - 00:28:31:02
Steve Cadigan
I was sitting in front of a computer. Right now, I was available. I was there for, you know, unplanned, you know, conversations and brainstorming. But I think we've got an opportunity here with this hybrid to really build something amazing and special. And what we had wasn't all perfect, you know, let's just take a zoom, a zoom meeting.

00:28:31:04 - 00:28:49:12
Steve Cadigan
What's great about a zoom meeting is that person that drowns everybody out. Can't do that on a zoom call. When we're in the office, you know, and when we're online, everyone. No one can hear what I was saying. When multiple people are talking, that's a beautiful thing, right? Greater participation and engagement in how we communicate and how we can be productive.

00:28:49:12 - 00:29:04:04
Steve Cadigan
So it's not a one or the other. I, I love the way that you framed that earlier, Kevin. It's, Yes. And, you know, and I think the more we lean into new ways, I think the more ability, the greater our ability to be creative.

00:29:04:06 - 00:29:24:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Is there any one other thing that we haven't talked about? I'm confident, Steve, that you and I could have a long conversation, whether it was on camera or with a beer. We could have. You and I could have a long and enjoyable conversation. But that's not the purpose of the podcast in this particular moment. So is there any one other thing we didn't talk about that you wished we had?

00:29:24:06 - 00:29:41:15
Steve Cadigan
You know, I think I, I think we hit the big ones, Kevin. You know, the the if we if we put all this together right now, you take higher turnover, you take the the believe, the shared belief that we're not going to have people stay longer. You take the understanding that we need new skills faster than ever before.

00:29:41:17 - 00:30:04:12
Steve Cadigan
I think the the victory and the spoils are going to go to people who are rethinking their talent strategy. And and let me say it in a way that, I haven't said so far in this conversation, the educational institutions of the world are not equipped to build skills as fast as we need them. The businesses of the world are not equipped to build the skills as fast as we need them.

00:30:04:14 - 00:30:25:13
Steve Cadigan
We are not going to see an increase in supply of qualified talent. Businesses are going to need to become business schools. That is a big one. The first team to go in a downsizing these days is a learning development team. That is a self-inflicted bad decision. Right now it is. We need to build the capacity to learn and grow our people fast.

00:30:25:13 - 00:30:45:16
Steve Cadigan
And that doesn't mean send all our people to schools. That means new projects, new assignments, you know, new opportunities and new challenges for our people. And here's the block. The block is most business plans. Most investors are building a model that says 95% of the time you're delivering something they've not built in a reality that, yeah, but someone leaves.

00:30:45:16 - 00:31:03:10
Steve Cadigan
Then we've got like six, nine months of empty space. I would rather have three months to train someone inside and get them up and running, then spend the nine months to, you know, try and find someone. So that's probably a, you know, connecting the dots that we've already talked about, but maybe taking in a little different direction.

00:31:03:12 - 00:31:22:04
Kevin Eikenberry
So Steve, we've I'm going to take a slightly different tack for the last little bit of our conversation. And you've hinted, a couple of times, something about being in the gym, liking sports. And we even bantered a little bit about college basketball, which is another thing that you and I, I'm confident, could have a really interesting conversation about, what do you do for fun, Steve?

00:31:22:06 - 00:31:44:15
Steve Cadigan
Oh, gosh, I, I play a ton of tennis and I, I've coached my kids basketball, so you can probably guess I have three boys. One is graduating from high school in two weeks and is going to play college basketball. So I'm so full of joy that I can be that dad in the stands and still follow one of my kids and the other son is, started his club team at his university club basketball first time ever.

00:31:44:17 - 00:31:54:14
Steve Cadigan
So that I mean, that's what I do. And, you know, and on the goofy side, my wife is teasing me about this. I am getting into bird watching and identifying birds, too. Yes, I am one of those guys.

00:31:54:16 - 00:32:03:15
Kevin Eikenberry
You are the third person I've talked to in one week that has said that to me literally, and I don't remember someone telling me that in years I it must be.

00:32:03:17 - 00:32:22:20
Steve Cadigan
Let me nerd out on this for just a second. There is an app that Cornell University has produced called Merlin, and if you are bored and you're going for a walk like I do, and you're walking the dog, whatever. Open up. Merlin. Merlin will identify birds based on their sound. And I have had mornings where I've had 15 new birds, identified.

00:32:22:20 - 00:32:25:23
Steve Cadigan
And it's just I can't even describe the joy.

00:32:26:01 - 00:32:44:22
Kevin Eikenberry
Merlin, the bird watching app will be among the things, in the show notes, including, how you can get Ahold of Steve's book work quick, but I'm curious, Steve. What else? What? When you're not watching birds, shooting hoops, watching hoops, coaching hoops. What have you been reading lately?

00:32:45:00 - 00:33:04:19
Steve Cadigan
Listen, two, two things. I am going crazy on audible. I'm reading a book right now called God in the woods, but I would say that's side hobby. The biggest content that I'm consuming is probably for an hour every morning. I'm looking at all kinds of articles on artificial intelligence and the future work. I feel like a kid in a candy store.

00:33:04:19 - 00:33:21:21
Steve Cadigan
This is a thing that's changing every day. And it's so it's so interesting and so fun for me to kind of see how it's going. And it's the biggest thing on the mind of most people I'm talking to today. So, you know, there's not a specific, you know, you know, magazine or publisher that, let's.

00:33:21:21 - 00:33:26:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Just say yes, there is there a place that's the hub that you're finding that's been specifically helpful?

00:33:26:04 - 00:33:48:06
Steve Cadigan
No, I've done I've done a, you know, I query, I and Google to give me a feed every morning on future work and AI and workplace implications. So you're going to get every day maybe 75 to 100 links. And then here's the thing that I would say on this topic, Kevin, I think it's really important for all of us right now.

00:33:48:08 - 00:34:06:17
Steve Cadigan
We all have to be students of AI. And so it's delivering a class on this in, in, in, Lisbon a few months ago. And someone asked a great question, which I didn't have an answer to, which is I said, be wary of big tech telling you about AI, okay? Be wary of being educated by Big Tech because they've got a real, you know, they got a reason.

00:34:06:17 - 00:34:07:18
Kevin Eikenberry
For you got a stake, right?

00:34:07:19 - 00:34:24:09
Steve Cadigan
That's right. They got a stake. So then someone said, so who should we be listening to? And I go, oh, I need to have a list. So I'm in the process of building, you know, list of academics and researchers and thought provoking people, who can sort of help inform me how to think about this. I had most of a Suliman on there.

00:34:24:09 - 00:34:39:12
Steve Cadigan
Now he's over at Microsoft. Connor Grennan is already on my list. And just sort of, like, really, like, introduce me to stuff that I wouldn't be thinking about. And I think we all need to have that in our pocket right now is someone who can educate us on this.

00:34:39:14 - 00:34:47:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Would you be willing to and never done this, live like this? I mean, would you be willing to share 2 or 3 of those with me that we can put in the show notes?

00:34:47:06 - 00:34:48:13
Steve Cadigan
Yeah, I would, I.

00:34:48:18 - 00:35:01:03
Kevin Eikenberry
Will have that in the show notes for you. Okay, great. Before we go, any anything else, any place you want to point people, anything else you want to say to people about how they can connect with you while you do that? I'll hold the book up for people to.

00:35:01:04 - 00:35:18:14
Steve Cadigan
Yeah. Thank you so much, Kevin. Yeah, you can get my book anywhere. Steve Catty Inc.com is my website. I have a TikTok channel which has a stream of, TikToks called the, two stories from Corporate America. They're all true. And if you want to reach out directly to me, it's Steve at Cardigan ventures.com.

00:35:18:16 - 00:35:37:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Awesome. Steve at Cardigan Ventures, dot com, Steve carrigan.com. Before I say goodbye to Steve and goodbye to you, I've got to do what I do every single episode. It's the question that I ask. Some of you know it. You can say it with me now what? What are you going to do as a result of this? None of this matters.

00:35:37:08 - 00:36:02:16
Kevin Eikenberry
I mean, it might have been entertaining. You might have enjoyed it. You might have liked the sound of Steve's voice. All of that might be true. But what really matters is what action you take as a result of being here. And so, I have a bunch of notes. I'm sure that you do. And if they're just mental notes and you've been multitasking listening to this while you're doing something else, do yourself a favor and stop and say, what's what's the one thing I'm going to do as a result of this, whether it's by book or.

00:36:02:16 - 00:36:22:08
Kevin Eikenberry
But more importantly, my what it might be is what action am I going to take today? What question I'm going to am I going to ponder? What step am I going to take now? It's those things that will change the future of you or your success as a leader and the success of your organization. So I hope that you'll do that, and I hope that you'll come back next week.

00:36:22:10 - 00:36:24:19
Kevin Eikenberry
Steve, thank you for being here. It's a pleasure to have you.

00:36:24:21 - 00:36:26:04
Steve Cadigan
Thanks for having me.

00:36:26:06 - 00:36:39:20
Kevin Eikenberry
And like I said, we'll be back next week, so hope you all will be too. If you enjoyed this, make sure you subscribe wherever you're listening so you don't miss any future episodes. And invite someone else to join us next week. Because we'll be back with another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.