The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:21 - 00:00:44:22
Kevin Eikenberry
Meaningful work. It's like the Holy Grail because, well, we want it. And as leaders, we feel like for our team's success that we need it. We know that meaningful work is a good thing, but we may not know how or what we can do to create it for everyone on our team. We may be thinking, this is something that they're either going to find or not in this work, but it's our goal today to help you think about meaningful work in meaningful ways and to learn how you can create more of it for your employees.

00:00:45:00 - 00:01:09:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders grow personally and professionally to lead more effectively and make a bigger, positive difference for their teams, organizations and the world. If you are listening to this podcast in the future, you could join us live on your favorite social channel. And by doing that, you can get the information sooner, which is to your advantage.

00:01:09:11 - 00:01:35:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Because this is some good stuff that we do here every week. And you can find out how to join us sooner to know when these episodes take place and how you can get connected by going to our Facebook or LinkedIn groups. Two of the places where these are live streamed. You can go to remarkable podcast.com/facebook or remarkable podcast.com/linkedin to do exactly that.

00:01:35:06 - 00:02:03:20
Kevin Eikenberry
Today's episode is brought to you by my latest book, 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 where more complex. Excuse me? In a world that is more complex and uncertain than ever. Leaders need a new perspective, a new set of tools in order to create the great results their organizations and team members want and need.

00:02:03:22 - 00:02:29:20
Kevin Eikenberry
And that's what flexible leadership can provide you. Learn more and order your copy now. Remarkable podcast.com/flexible. And with that let me bring in my guests and you'll see their smiling faces as I introduce them to you. Whoops. If I can get my introduction to come back up. There it is. First of all, Wes Adams, he is the CEO of S.V. consulting Group.

00:02:30:01 - 00:03:00:06
Kevin Eikenberry
He partners with fortune 500 and scaling companies to develop high impact leaders and design operating structures that support high performance teams. He is also a positive psychology researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studies the leadership practices and organizational structures that help employees thrive. And also with us today is Tamara Myles. She is the author of The Secret to Peak Productivity, which introduced her proprietary peak productivity pyramid framework.

00:03:00:08 - 00:03:26:22
Kevin Eikenberry
Her insights have been featured in leading publications such as Forbes, Fast Company, USA today, and Business Insider. She has worked with clients including Microsoft, KPMG, MassMutual, and Google. She has a master's degree in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, where she also serves as an instructor in their master's program and she's also a professor in the Master of Science and Leadership program at Boston College together.

00:03:26:23 - 00:03:42:10
Kevin Eikenberry
They have written the new book, That's Why They're Here Today. The new book, titled Meaningful Work How to Ignite Passion and Performance in Every Employee. And with that, we should start to chat. Good morning guys. Good afternoon.

00:03:42:16 - 00:03:43:08
Tamara Myles
Good afternoon.

00:03:43:11 - 00:03:44:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Good afternoon.

00:03:44:08 - 00:03:46:00
Wes Adams
Thanks for having us.

00:03:46:02 - 00:04:01:11
Kevin Eikenberry
It's a pleasure to be with you and to have you here. And, I love the book. I want us to dive into it. So probably the best place to start is. So how did you end up at this book? And, like, why this book?

00:04:01:13 - 00:04:41:21
Wes Adams
So we met on the first day of the graduate program at the University of Pennsylvania. The Masters of Applied Positive psychology. And we came to the program with very different backgrounds, but with a very similar goal. We really wanted to understand how to make work more meaningful. What is the leadership impact? You know, our backgrounds. Were different, but we had both experienced work that was meaningful, that felt meaningful, workplaces where we felt energized and engaged, and then we experienced the opposite, often in the same industry.

00:04:42:03 - 00:05:16:13
Wes Adams
And so, you know, what made work meaningful wasn't always what we thought it would be. And there were some surprises. And we met on, the first day of the program and became fast friends and started sharing ideas, sharing research and resources. And decided to join forces to do the first academic, rigorous study that really investigated the leadership practices that make work more meaningful for everyone.

00:05:16:15 - 00:05:35:09
Kevin Eikenberry
That's actually where I want to go next, because I hinted at this in the open that, I think a lot of times, a lot of people, maybe they haven't really thought about it, but their thought, if they have thought about it, is. Well, it's the employees job to find meaning in their work or to find a job that they find meaningful.

00:05:35:11 - 00:05:56:04
Kevin Eikenberry
And yet you say on page eight, I'm going to read this from page eight, nearly 50% of an employees experience of meaning at work is tied to what their leaders do, or fail to do. So we're going to that's where we're going to spend our time today is what's what's the leader's role and how this all fits together.

00:05:56:06 - 00:06:12:22
Kevin Eikenberry
Anything before we get we're going to get to the three C's and all that stuff and unpack all that. But before we go, there was, any initial thoughts that you have about that statement, or about what we should be thinking about as we go into this conversation with our leader hat on.

00:06:13:00 - 00:06:34:23
Tamara Myles
I would say two things. One, the reason that this matters is because meaning is the upstream factor that drives all of the outcomes that we want. So you just talked about individually, of course, we want to do work that we believe matters. You know, that we believe is having an impact where we have an opportunity to learn and grow, where we, you know, are able to connect with people authentically.

00:06:35:01 - 00:06:59:19
Tamara Myles
That gives us well-being, you know, gives us job satisfaction and those sorts of things that keeps us engaged. But also, it's the thing that drives performance, productivity, innovation. And there are very strong links now between meaning and bottom line revenue, stock performance, profitability, all of these things. So this is the upstream factor that drives those things that we want.

00:06:59:21 - 00:07:08:21
Tamara Myles
And the second thing I would say is that leaders are a huge influence and that you said 50, you know, from the book 50% of how much I understand.

00:07:08:21 - 00:07:11:07
Kevin Eikenberry
You said, well, I guess you you.

00:07:11:09 - 00:07:14:01
Tamara Myles
You repeated it from the book, but, you're.

00:07:14:01 - 00:07:16:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Right, you agree with it, but you're right.

00:07:16:09 - 00:07:40:16
Tamara Myles
We did originally say it. But yeah, it's it's a huge leverage point, right? There's been so much, you know, I think research and literature about how we can do that for ourselves. How do we find a meaningful career? How do I, you know, find more meaning in my job? But, the, the leaders role in that has been, you know, largely, you know, not ignored, but under researched, under focused on.

00:07:40:16 - 00:07:50:16
Tamara Myles
And so what we've really tried to do here is highlight the importance that leaders have in creating meaning and also provide a playbook for them to do that.

00:07:50:18 - 00:08:03:18
Kevin Eikenberry
And I think you've done that. And, and and that's really where I want to go is to think about this leader's role piece. And we'll get to the three CS in a second. You talked about being upstream, and I love that there's a there's a parable or a story or a joke, however you want to frame it in.

00:08:03:20 - 00:08:27:00
Kevin Eikenberry
It's not getting upstream. Like we can keep solving this problem that's in front of us, or we can get in, we can get upstream of it and see what's happening way up here. That's the cause of all this. And there's so many things that we talk about in the kind of work that all of us do, and that our clients all talk about, they want and meaning is on, is in front, as you said, is upstream of most all of that.

00:08:27:00 - 00:08:46:23
Kevin Eikenberry
And so that's why I think this is such a useful conversation for us to have. And you guys have put some very tangible stuff around it. Specifically, you talk about what you call the three C's of meaningful work. And so, we're going to I'm going to I've got some specific things I want to talk about inside of each of the three.

00:08:46:23 - 00:08:53:04
Kevin Eikenberry
But why don't one of you just tell us what the three are first and then we'll dive into each a little bit?

00:08:53:06 - 00:09:28:20
Wes Adams
Sure. So what we found through our study, you know, we interviewed dozens of leaders that were intentionally creating meaningful work. And then thousands of people, that were experiencing work as meaningful. And we found that meaning comes from three main sources, and those are the three C's. So the first one is community, and community is the sense of belonging, the the feeling of being connected to the people you work with and that you can show up authentically and bring your full self and your full set of ideas to the table.

00:09:28:22 - 00:10:00:03
Wes Adams
Community says I matter here. Contribution is the feeling that you're making a difference, that what you do has a bigger impact. And so community, contribution says what I do matters and challenge is the feeling that we're learning and growing that we can use our strengths and bring the best of ourselves to our jobs every day that we have leaders who believe in us and see potential in us and give us opportunities to grow.

00:10:00:05 - 00:10:23:17
Wes Adams
And so challenge says my growth and development matters here and together. Those three CS, when all three are present, they really, you know, inspire us and motivate us and, you know, cause us to become engaged and excited about the work that we do. More creative and more productive work feels meaningful when all three are present.

00:10:23:19 - 00:10:46:21
Kevin Eikenberry
Community, contribution and challenge. It's so I I've been preparing for this for day or so. I finished the book, I've made all my notes and I just had an insight that, if we have time before we're done, I'll share an example of how all this works together. But for now, I want to talk about community and first, and people who are listening might be thinking about this.

00:10:46:21 - 00:11:12:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Okay, that makes a lot of sense. But ever since this thing called a pandemic happened, that seems to have been upset for us. Our folks aren't always together. We're not always the same. Like so the first thing I want to say is that some people might be feeling like that's harder to create than before. So how would you respond to that?

00:11:12:08 - 00:11:18:15
Kevin Eikenberry
And if you agree, what do we need to be doing to as leaders to help overcome that?

00:11:18:17 - 00:11:45:11
Tamara Myles
I think you've nailed it, Kevin. And I don't think it feels like it's harder. It definitely is harder, you know, especially for those of us who are working in hybrid or remote environments. Even those of us who are coming into the office a few days a week, you know, we don't necessarily bump into other people. We don't always have those watercooler conversations or have the opportunity to build more authentic relationships with people, because when we're online, it can be very transactional.

00:11:45:11 - 00:12:12:04
Tamara Myles
You know, we're jumping into a zoom or a teams meeting. We're getting right down to business, or there's a lot of communication that's happening on slack or teams or whatever program you use. And so we actually have to intentionally create that time that used to happen a little bit more organically. And what that means for leaders is part of their job now is to facilitate that, to build those opportunities in, to create the space for that.

00:12:12:06 - 00:12:34:08
Tamara Myles
One of the folks we really admire, Vivek Murthy, who was the Surgeon General of the United States for quite a while, he has a practice to do this that he calls the the inside scoop. And so at the beginning of every weekly team meeting, someone gets five minutes and they're invited to share a photo or an object that they have at their house or something.

00:12:34:10 - 00:12:56:13
Tamara Myles
And just tell the story about it. You know, it may be, you know, a photo of your last vacation, or it may be, hey, here's this, you know, gift that my mother gave me. That means a lot to me. And this is why. And it's a way to invite people to bring their full selves into the conversation and to create that formal space for building community and building connection.

00:12:56:17 - 00:13:16:16
Tamara Myles
And that doesn't just make people feel good. It also, he found, facilitated much more effective collaboration across the team and across you know, teams in different business units. So, you know, this is a really important part of why we show up to work that can be missing if we're not making it happen.

00:13:16:18 - 00:13:39:19
Kevin Eikenberry
One of the things, that I found really interesting in this section and it's just a it's just a short, short piece, but it's something, you know, I've had I've had a largely hybrid team for, I don't know, 12, 13 years, a long time, long before the pandemic and wrote three books that have the words long distance in them, one of them before a pandemic began and all that stuff.

00:13:39:21 - 00:14:06:06
Kevin Eikenberry
But you talk about something in there that I think is this wouldn't have to only be for a hybrid or virtual team, but I think is a really useful idea, which was the idea of home base teams. Can one of you talk about that? Because I thought it was brilliant and that's not something I'd ever heard. I think I've got I have clients, we have clients that I think could really benefit from that particular little idea.

00:14:06:08 - 00:14:38:01
Wes Adams
Sure. So, you know, I have three kids and and, you know, as they went through middle school and, and I noticed that they were in different schedules, you know, they all have different classes and different. But one thing that they do have is at the start of every day they go to a home base, and that is their kind of group of 15 people that they do things together with, not only to start the day and ground them, but also to share experiences with on field day and other things.

00:14:38:01 - 00:15:02:11
Wes Adams
You know, they have those closer connections. And so when we were doing the research and noticing that some organizations do that, and one that we highlight in the book is Dropbox, we kind of saw a lot of these parallels between what education already kind of gets right and what some organizations are borrowing from, from what's working in, in schools.

00:15:02:13 - 00:15:27:10
Wes Adams
And so it's it's a practice that we propose. And the idea is that when you have a, a dispersed team and you have perhaps groups of people that work, you know, remotely, but in the same area, they can be in a home base. And I think Dropbox calls it neighborhood right there, like in the Dropbox neighborhood. And they these people, they don't need to work in the same function.

00:15:27:10 - 00:16:05:23
Wes Adams
They can be, you know, it's actually better if they are, cross organizationally and work in different areas. But they can be a home base and they can get together either in person if they are close enough to each other, you know, once a quarter. But they can also be a group that comes together in a, kind of, with a regular cadence, whether it's, you know, once a month or once a quarter, that they're, committed to being together to, to doing things together, whether they are facilitated experiences that somebody at work facilitates or whether there's like a leader in the group that takes charge of it.

00:16:06:04 - 00:16:29:14
Wes Adams
But the idea is to intentionally cultivate those connections because they're so important for our own well-being at work, our own, desire to show up and come in, but also for, the sense of community and the benefits that come, you know, organizationally when we experience those connections.

00:16:29:16 - 00:16:58:22
Kevin Eikenberry
100%. And I think there's we could we could do I think the entire show on that point, because I've got all these things in my head that I would like to say, but we can't go there. Right. So one of the things like when I, when I read a book, especially for the show, but when I read any book, I usually find things that, that strike me as in a way that I'm going to be remembering that for a long time.

00:16:59:00 - 00:17:20:04
Kevin Eikenberry
And one of the things for me in this book is on page 88. This is not a book report. I'm not going to ask you to tell me. Besides, I'm reading the Arc, so it might not actually be page 88 in the final book, but it's, it's a, it's a model where you talk about what can we do as a community that frames around is the purpose high or low, and is the difficulty low or high?

00:17:20:06 - 00:17:39:07
Kevin Eikenberry
And it's sort of for those of you that are watching, you can see it just looks like a four box diagram kind of thing. And what I like about it is that during the pandemic, there were so many people doing things that were low purpose, low difficulty, like a happy hour, icebreaker games, a zoom coffee. And then people said, well, those aren't helping us.

00:17:39:07 - 00:17:59:17
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, they did help us until they didn't help us. And what you're really saying here is be thinking about some other stuff. How can we raise the purpose here and tomorrow? What you were saying about home base could look more like that, much higher purpose, but not necessarily that high in difficulty. But we could also have things that were that are higher in difficulty.

00:17:59:17 - 00:18:22:15
Kevin Eikenberry
So, I just really love that, the, the tension or the connection between those two ideas and how we think about what we as leaders can do to build community intentionally in our organizations, whether, we're virtual, hybrid or altogether anything you either of you want to add to that before we go on?

00:18:22:17 - 00:18:49:06
Tamara Myles
I'd love to add, you know, I think that it can feel very intimidating as a leader. Now all of a sudden, I have responses like, I have to, like, connect people and plan events for them. And, you know, I have my work to do and all of this stuff. And so I, you know, I think I would add to that idea, read it, for example, does, something like this very well, where they empower people with the resources to do it themselves.

00:18:49:06 - 00:19:07:18
Tamara Myles
Right. And so as a leader, you can you don't have to be the planner of all of these things. You can simply be a facilitator. They have a grants program where any group of folks that work at Reddit can apply and say, hey, we want to go to a baseball game together, or we want to take a lipstick making class together or whatever that thing is.

00:19:07:18 - 00:19:09:19
Kevin Eikenberry
I didn't even know that existed, but I didn't either.

00:19:09:19 - 00:19:10:09
Wes Adams
I didn't either.

00:19:10:15 - 00:19:11:23
Kevin Eikenberry
And so we.

00:19:12:01 - 00:19:15:06
Tamara Myles
You know, did this research, but it is a real thing, apparently.

00:19:15:08 - 00:19:18:14
Kevin Eikenberry
I'm not a user, so I wouldn't be the right. So, I.

00:19:18:18 - 00:19:19:08
Tamara Myles
Don't know, I could.

00:19:19:08 - 00:19:39:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Tell you Friday about all of that, especially on the lower difficulty end of this is it doesn't even have to be. It can be stuff that we integrate. It goes back to the idea of making it intentional. How do we find ways to integrate? How do we create more interaction rather less, as you said, rather than simply transaction?

00:19:39:11 - 00:20:06:17
Kevin Eikenberry
I think that's that's critical. We could spend, a lot of time on community, but I'm looking at the clock. I need us to move on. I want us to talk about contribution. And when we think about contribution, and certainly when I think about folks who, have had sort of grown up in and studied in the positive psychology world, we would certainly I would have been surprised if there wasn't a chapter about feedback here, and certainly feedback as it relates to contribution is important.

00:20:06:19 - 00:20:19:21
Kevin Eikenberry
But this idea of how do we help people see bigger impact, which is another section here. I'd like us to go there West. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you mean by that about in terms of having a bigger impact?

00:20:19:23 - 00:20:46:13
Tamara Myles
Absolutely. I think this is where, the idea of meaning and purpose sometimes get conflated, right? And the distinction here is, you know, purpose is this idea of having a larger goal, having something bigger that you're working towards. Right. And that's important. And I think we really encourage that. And meaning comes from seeing, you know, an advance towards that purpose, seeing progress towards something that matters.

00:20:46:13 - 00:21:08:03
Tamara Myles
Right. It's not just having won it. You have to activate it by actually doing something to get there. And so whether that's something world changing, you know, you're working at a nonprofit and you're making a difference in people's lives, or if that's even just advancing organizational strategy as an employee, I want to know how the work that I'm doing day to day ladders up to that.

00:21:08:09 - 00:21:33:09
Tamara Myles
Right. How do you connect the dots for me? How do you create a clear line of sight in between what I'm doing and how that's helping advance what matters to the team or what matters to the organization? And so, Calendly, actually does this really well. So Calendly the scheduling software that probably most of us are familiar with, you know, is is essentially very transactional software, right?

00:21:33:09 - 00:21:51:00
Tamara Myles
It's like, hey, I need to schedule a meeting with you. We're gonna, you know, do a little back and forth. And the, you know, the mission of Calendly, though, is to save people time, right? They estimate they save about an hour a week, of back and forth from people not having to, you know, do the emails to schedule meetings.

00:21:51:00 - 00:22:11:07
Tamara Myles
And Tope, I want Tona, who's the CEO and founder, tells this story in a really powerful way. So, you know, he talks about how, people can do something with that hour. You know, that hour that you get back. Oh, it's, you know, you can do some more meaningful work, or maybe that's an hour you go and spend more time with your family during the week, right?

00:22:11:07 - 00:22:45:01
Tamara Myles
If you add that up over the course of the year, that's like a week's worth of work that you get back. Right? And so when he meets somebody that uses Calendly, he asks them about, you know, what they're doing with that hour or the time that they got back. And then he'll make a video about that and tell that story of what the, you know, the customer is doing and send that to the team so that, you know, for example, the person making the iPhone app, the developer who's sitting, you know, at home coding all day and never actually interacts with, you know, usually.

00:22:45:01 - 00:23:03:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Got a face. Now they've got a story right now they've got something to connect to that, that to me, maybe the other one of the other things I really love about the book is actually the chapter that follows, around greater impact. And it's the idea of personal connection. It's something that we've we've consulted with clients on a lot over the years.

00:23:03:02 - 00:23:22:05
Kevin Eikenberry
And it's that idea. You have a couple stories in the book, one about people coding for trucking companies, and then when they send people out to a warehouse or a logistical site, or maybe even got someone in a truck, like it changed everything. Like once people can say, I'm not just doing this thing, I'm doing it for Joe.

00:23:22:07 - 00:23:42:17
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, or Joe's my avatar here. It's not just this thing that I read about on, in an email. Like, it changes everything, right? So tomorrow, what would you say about that? To help people think about how how do we help people make this meaning more personal? What can we be doing as leaders to help make that happen?

00:23:42:19 - 00:24:12:08
Wes Adams
I think a key finding in our research was the power of storytelling, and in specifically to highlighting exactly what you said to bring this up, this this personal aspect and the bigger impact aspect of what people are doing every day to life. Right? And so it really is about telling the story, because so much of meaning in life and meaningful work is related to storytelling.

00:24:12:08 - 00:24:44:05
Wes Adams
It's the stories we tell ourselves. And so we are always telling ourselves story and stories, and we're going to do that about our jobs. Whether the leader helps us or not. You know, we're going to create a story about what it is that we do. And so when a leader can help us craft that story and connect it to people that are impacted by what we're doing, that is so powerful, that is so powerful, and it can happen in any job.

00:24:44:07 - 00:25:07:01
Wes Adams
And, you know, every job can be meaningful because everything that we're doing every day, whether it's responding to emails or drafting proposals or creating spreadsheets, those are all adding up to something bigger. And, it's, you know, it's really helpful when somebody can help us see what that bigger thing is, especially if it's connected to other people.

00:25:07:03 - 00:25:30:14
Kevin Eikenberry
The third see is challenge. And as I was reading the book, I was thinking about something that happened on our team last week. The word challenge came up in a context that doesn't necessarily matter for this conversation, but one of the members of my sales team said, like, I don't like us when we use that word because people have already got plenty of challenges at work, and we were trying to use it in a different way.

00:25:30:14 - 00:25:53:06
Kevin Eikenberry
And, and the way she was seeing that word was as a, a potentially negative word. That's certainly not what you're saying here. And so, the reason I share that is because others, as they're now hearing us use the word challenge here, might be sort of channeling their inner Marlene on our team. Right. So, what do you mean here?

00:25:53:06 - 00:26:04:16
Kevin Eikenberry
And why do we see this as something that's positive and powerful and not just we've already got plenty of challenges at work. Thank you very much.

00:26:04:18 - 00:26:42:21
Tamara Myles
I would say for the Marlene's out there, you know, that are interested in learning and growing, reaching your full potential that requires struggle, right? We grow through struggle. We grow through challenge. And in fact, when we ask people about their most meaningful moments at work, which is an exercise we do often with our clients, a very large percentage of the time, someone will talk about something that was really hard that they had to do a challenge, a struggle, but that they made it through or that they delivered on, or they created these amazing connections as a result of going through that thing.

00:26:43:01 - 00:26:56:07
Tamara Myles
And so I think it's not always comfortable. It doesn't always feel great in the moment to be doing those things, but there's a huge amount of growth. And through that meaning that can come from those challenging moments.

00:26:56:09 - 00:27:17:14
Wes Adams
And I want to add two things to this. You know, the kind of challenge that we are talking about is this kind of meaningful challenge that it's not just, you know, a leader kind of throwing people out in the wild and saying, go do this like we need a done tomorrow. You know, go do figure it out, right.

00:27:17:14 - 00:27:40:05
Wes Adams
Those can be the kind of negative challenge you're talking about where we are in an anxiety zone, where we don't feel supported, we don't even know where to begin. But we're also scared to ask because we're going to get fired. What we mean is a high challenge, but also high support. Having high support is critical for challenge to become meaningful.

00:27:40:05 - 00:28:10:04
Wes Adams
Challenge in what we mean. When we say high support is anything from resources, mentorship, classes, tools, you know, so so when we have a hard assignment, something that's going to help us learn and grow, but we also have high support. We grow, we learn, we become fully engaged, work becomes so meaningful. And we remember we really remember those moments.

00:28:10:05 - 00:28:15:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Since I used Marlene's name and I didn't mean to. And I'm sad. I want to know that you love.

00:28:15:07 - 00:28:15:19
Tamara Myles
You, Marlene.

00:28:15:19 - 00:28:16:07
Wes Adams
We love you.

00:28:16:07 - 00:28:43:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Marlene here because he is absolutely has a growth mindset. She absolutely. But but I the reason I used her, the reason I used her that quick story was because, well, I think I think everyone can can understand. And I know that Marlene would agree with everything you guys just said. That word isn't as obvious around around this conversation, around meaning as is community and contribution.

00:28:43:09 - 00:29:07:19
Kevin Eikenberry
And I think most people would probably say, well, this meaning is about contribution. And what I love about what you've done here is you put the other two with it, and your research backs up. It's the combination of those things that matters the most. And to take us back to where we started, all of those things will won't happen automatically, but will happen with the help of leaders.

00:29:07:19 - 00:29:32:06
Kevin Eikenberry
And so for those of us listening as leaders thinking about, well, what which of these could I be adding and and doing more of and helping my team see more of building the connections to that can make all of the difference for the team? I'm curious to both of you if there's something that you wish I would have asked, that I didn't.

00:29:32:08 - 00:30:00:03
Wes Adams
I would say, you know, one one important part. And I know we talked about contribution, as the, the connecting, to bigger impact. But for leaders who are listening and watching and want something they can do right now, when they finish listening and they go back to their day. One very simple but very powerful practice that they can implement right away is positive feedback is to say thank you.

00:30:00:05 - 00:30:24:03
Wes Adams
There's research from Gallup and Workman that shows that one thing you once a week from a manager is enough to cut burnout in disengagement in half one. Thank you once a week. That's really powerful. And so if you want to start making work a little more meaningful, notice people notice what's going right. What are they doing well, what are they engaged in.

00:30:24:03 - 00:30:33:09
Wes Adams
And then highlight those things. Say thank you. Let them know you've seen them, that you notice them. Appreciate them. That can go such a long way.

00:30:33:11 - 00:30:51:11
Kevin Eikenberry
I completely agree. And and I didn't and everybody didn't mean to give the feedback piece a short shrift in the conversation, but I had to make choices. Right? And so I'm so glad that we did come back to that. I do appreciate that very much. Was anything that you wish I would have asked or that we would have talked about, that we didn't.

00:30:51:13 - 00:30:53:14
Kevin Eikenberry
I you know, I think I.

00:30:53:14 - 00:31:24:07
Tamara Myles
Would just want to reiterate the fact that, you know, meaning can happen in every job, every day, right? And that we aren't talking about, you know, huge transformative changes here. We can give people moments of meaning, small moments every day that have a big impact. And so really thinking about what are these little things that we can do as leaders in the day to day work that build up to larger meaning, I think is really important.

00:31:24:09 - 00:31:42:22
Kevin Eikenberry
So before we finish, I've got a question that I like to, ask the two questions. Really? They like to ask everybody, and so the first one and tomorrow you can go first on this one West. You can go first on the next one. First one is Tamara. What do you do for fun?

00:31:43:00 - 00:31:59:10
Wes Adams
Oh, gosh. My most fun endeavors lately is cheering for my kids. My son is a wrestler, and my youngest daughter is a lacrosse player. And so being on the sidelines with the community of other parents, cheering them on, is really exciting.

00:31:59:11 - 00:32:03:07
Tamara Myles
He's also really good. So that makes it more fun, I think.

00:32:03:08 - 00:32:04:04
Wes Adams
Exactly.

00:32:04:06 - 00:32:06:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Can you guys still hear me? There we are. Yeah, I.

00:32:06:13 - 00:32:08:20
Wes Adams
Froze for a bit. I got we could hear your camera.

00:32:08:20 - 00:32:17:00
Kevin Eikenberry
Stop for a moment, everybody. At least it wasn't to embarrassing for those watching of how I know, but, let's. What do you do for fun?

00:32:17:02 - 00:32:33:13
Tamara Myles
I love to travel. I was just on a surfing trip to Costa Rica, a couple of months ago, which was amazing. And for me, just, you know, seeing different parts of the world, seeing how different people live is fascinating. So that's something I try to make time for.

00:32:33:15 - 00:32:39:05
Kevin Eikenberry
So the only thing you knew I was going to ask was, have you go first here? What are you reading these days?

00:32:39:06 - 00:33:01:17
Tamara Myles
So I'm just about finished with a book called lessons from Plants by Brandon Montgomery, and it's really it's it's totally a nerdy book, but it's essentially like the, you know, the, like, the biology of plants and how they communicate and make decisions about how they grow and what they invest in, and compares that to leadership in organizations.

00:33:01:17 - 00:33:10:10
Tamara Myles
So it's, it's actually very cool. Like, it's a it's a very interesting comparison. So if you want to nerd out, I recommend you check it out.

00:33:10:12 - 00:33:33:20
Kevin Eikenberry
When you think about when we when we begin to think about organizations as more than just mechanics, but biological, and natural systems, it changes that way. And I think in a positive way about how we think about organization. So I'm fascinated by that. Where is it is the first time anyone's mentioned that book on the show? Like every book that's ever mentioned on the show, it'll be in the show notes, with a link to get it.

00:33:33:20 - 00:33:43:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Lessons from from plants. Tamara, you said. And before we hit the record button, before we went live, that you had three books you're reading right now. It's one of them.

00:33:43:17 - 00:34:08:04
Wes Adams
So one of them is shift by Ethan Cross. He's a professor at, Michigan. And that's his second book. His first book is also great, but shift is it's very well-written and it's a great read, and it's really about learning how to regulate our emotions every day in the big moments, in the small moments. And those are such valuable skills.

00:34:08:06 - 00:34:25:07
Kevin Eikenberry
Both of those books, as well as Tamara and Western's new book Meaningful Work, will be in the show notes for you. But where? Where can people find more about you guys? Where do you want to point people? Where can they get the book? What do you want to say about all that? Before we finish up.

00:34:25:09 - 00:34:47:18
Tamara Myles
Please come to our website. It's, dot make work meaningful.com. And you can, find the book there. But we also have a ton of free resources, tools from the book, and even an assessment that we can take a self-assessment, based on the research that we've done about your leadership and the three C's. So that's a great place to start.

00:34:47:19 - 00:34:58:03
Tamara Myles
As well. And we're both on LinkedIn and active there and on Instagram. So follow us, reach out, slide into our DMs, and we're happy to chat.

00:34:58:05 - 00:35:24:13
Kevin Eikenberry
Make work meaningful.com everybody. Now the question that I ask all of you that are watching or listening, and if you've been here before, you know, I'm going to ask. And here it is. It's the most important two word question I could possibly ask you right now. Now what what are you going to do? Because if you were here and maybe it's as simple as what Tamara said, maybe you're going to say thank you to someone in the next ten minutes.

00:35:24:15 - 00:35:47:02
Kevin Eikenberry
But it could be anything that we talked about today. I'm not going to tell you what it should be for you. I know the notes that I took. One of it is to buy the book lessons from plants. I'm just saying. No, but but my point is that the the only way this becomes more than sort of edgy, entertainment is if you take action.

00:35:47:04 - 00:36:06:16
Kevin Eikenberry
And if you are a leader that would like to have all of those downstream benefits, like more engaged employees, higher productivity and all those other things, then hopefully you leave this conversation knowing that one of the upstream things that you should be trying to figure out how to do is to create, help your team see and create more meaningful work for them.

00:36:06:18 - 00:36:19:16
Kevin Eikenberry
And so you got things here today that you can tangibly go try. My challenge to you is to pick one and go start, lesson tomorrow. Thank you guys so much for being here. It was a pleasure to have you.

00:36:19:18 - 00:36:20:17
Tamara Myles
Thank you for having us.

00:36:20:18 - 00:36:21:12
Kevin Eikenberry
Thank you so much.

00:36:21:14 - 00:36:23:04
Wes Adams
Thank you.

00:36:23:06 - 00:36:46:03
Kevin Eikenberry
And so, everybody, if you found this useful, tell somebody else. If you found this for the first time, where have you been? Make sure wherever it is that you watch or listen to podcast, that you subscribe so that you come able to come back, tell somebody else, we'd love to have you do that. Why? Because we're here every week and next week we'll be back with another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.

00:36:46:05 - 00:36:46:20
Kevin Eikenberry
Thanks everybody.