Intro

Welcome to the Make Work Not Suck podcast, hosted by Ryan Hodges and co-host Daniel Steere. In this episode, we're going to talk a little bit about a new paradigm for thinking about work. In our first episode, Ryan challenged us to consider that the paradigm we've been working in contributes to making work suck. So today, we're going to explore an alternative—a better way of thinking about work. We hope you enjoy our podcast, which discusses our process, vision, journey, culture, and results. We present real-world business solutions that make a difference. Our goal is to make work not suck. Join us each episode as we strive to achieve that goal.

Main Discussion

Alright, Ryan, in our first episode, we talked about the fact that work sucks for a lot of people. When work sucks, it has bad consequences not only for your work life, but it also spills over into your personal life. But it doesn't have to be that way, right? You challenged us to rethink the paradigm—the way we’ve thought about work and the way work has been done for a hundred, maybe two hundred years. There’s another way. What’s the other way? What’s the better paradigm for work?

I want to hit on a few things here and go down memory lane, history lane, if you will. For generations, prior to modern technology entering the workforce—there’s always been technology, even the hammer was a form of technology at one point—but if we go back many, many generations, the way things were passed down—great-great-grandfather to great-grandfather, to grandfather, to father, to son—this could have been farming in fields. When a tractor broke down, you repaired it. You broke it, you repaired it. You broke it... well, yeah, you usually repair it after you break it. But that's, you know, I’m not a farmer. Got it.

But, you know, those skills of how you did the craft were passed down from generation to generation. There was a lot of unknown emotional intelligence that happened there because you were working together. These inherited traits grew within you, almost like an apprenticeship model.

Yeah, apprenticeship, as opposed to an academic model where you're not in a classroom learning how to fix a tractor; you're there with your dad. There was a lot of emotional, social, and emotional connection there. A lot of relationship building. Back in the sixties, older sales guys were all about relationships, and younger generations are more about processes, which we’ll get to.

Then, the millennial entered the equation with technology. Dun, dun, dun. For the first time in human history, millennials had technology in their hands since birth, pretty much. You know, the digital natives. They hit the button, the red light comes on—that was a form of technology that didn’t exist in prior generations. For the first time in human history, we actually have a generation teaching technology to older generations. That’s a flip from how it used to be.

So then, you've got a very IQ-driven technology world. In the late seventies and eighties, it was all about going to college—college, college, college—pushing to be smarter. And then we entered the computer age, where the personal computer came into business in the eighties and nineties. It’s all ones and zeros; very IQ, very mathematical. We pushed IQ. We’ve got this entire generation that has grown up with technology, but they didn’t learn skills from the older generation. They learned technology.

At one point in time, there was this gap between a generation that grew up with technology and a generation that passed down skills, creating a divide. You hear about this in the workforce: “Millennials, millennials, millennials. Some are good, some are bad.” There’s a gap, and the paradigm shift is starting, but we don’t know how to push it over the edge. That paradigm shift is the balance between EQ and IQ.

We were subconsciously EQ-focused before we even knew what that meant, since the beginning of time. But as technology evolved, we became very IQ-focused. A generation starting with the millennials became less EQ-driven. They had their own ways, like meeting people online through video games—something older generations didn’t understand.

And it's like, "How is that a relationship? You need to get face-to-face." Well, the reality is, both perspectives are right, and we can learn from both. The paradigm is bringing a balance of EQ and IQ into the equation. Business used to be predominantly EQ with handshakes and relationships, but in the past 20-30 years, it’s been heavily IQ-focused. The pendulum has swung too far. We need to find balance.

If we can balance those in the middle, we can actually achieve what we're trying to do. Not only can we bridge the generational gap, but it's getting worse with younger generations like Gen Z. They’re even further removed from the millennials. All they have is technology. The average five-year-old can work an iPhone. I still ask my ten-year-old to fix my iPhone. I think kids are born with iPhones.

We’ve shifted into this IQ world with SOPs, KPIs, and processes. It’s all IQ-driven—work hard, more KPIs, more process—but we don’t live by the core values we put on the walls. The paradigm is to bring IQ and EQ into balance and look at an organization from four perspectives: belief, mental, social-emotional, and tangible results.

The human brain is fundamentally in four parts: belief, mental, social-emotional, and tangible results. These align with organizational aspects like core values, customer experience, culture, and KPIs. The vision and culture are EQ-focused, while the journey and results are IQ-focused. But there’s a shift as you move from vision to journey, where an emotional experience is created for the customers.

The paradigm is that if we bring balance to the IQ and EQ side, and look at an organization from these four perspectives, we can actually achieve what we're trying to achieve.

Recap and Million-Dollar Question

Let me recap. Any organization—from the largest Fortune 500 down to a startup with two people, for-profit, non-profit, church, school, synagogue—has four things that are true about it. The first is vision—maybe you call it purpose, or your reason for being. The second is the journey, a set of processes, standard operating procedures, how you do what you do. The third is culture, how people actually behave, not what we want them to do, but what they actually do. And the fourth is results—the measurables, how do we keep score, how do we know if we’re winning or losing?

These four ideas are true of any and every organization throughout history. So the million-dollar question is: how does this tie to making work not suck?

I’ve yet to see any company organically bring balance to those four. It’s not because they don’t want to or don’t desire it; it’s just really hard. The current paradigm we operate in is KPIs, finance, results, results, results. It takes bringing in that EQ and IQ balance into the equation. When you can look at an organization in those four pillars and find where the gap is, therein lies the challenge and the change.

Organizations don’t know which problems to solve. The paradigm is focused on results, results, results, IQ, IQ, IQ, process, process, process. But when you bring social-emotional balance into the equation, you actually get more results. But people feel like it’s not going to, or it’s a waste of time. They want the result now. But as my stepdad always said, you can half-ass anything, but you always get bit in the ass on the other side of it.

We’re so result-driven that we hit quarterly earnings by cutting costs like office supplies or headcount, but that's a red line result. It’s not going to produce the ultimate result you’re looking for because somewhere in that equation, there’s an imbalance. You don't have to cut paper expenses or wipe out headcount just to hit earnings targets.

Analogy

Here’s an analogy I’ve used with some people. Imagine you own a professional football team. Your vision is to be the best football team in America. Your journey is the way you’re going to win. Let’s say you decide on an old-school smash-mouth offense and a super stingy defense. But Peyton Manning is your quarterback. You’ve got a problem. You have a Hall of Fame quarterback, but he’s the wrong guy to run that system. So when you get to the results, you’ll have very mixed outcomes. Peyton Manning is going to look at completion percentage, but your offensive coordinator is going to look at time of possession and yards per carry. You’re misaligned on how you’re going to win. You don’t have the right people in the right places, and you’re probably not going to win the Super Bowl if that’s your situation.

You’re outlining a results and journey misalignment, which means your culture is highly confused, and you’ll never achieve your vision. That team is never going to win the Super Bowl.

Versus if you have a clearly defined vision and set expectations, a clearly defined customer experience, and a culture that’s aligned to it, the results will take care of themselves. What makes work not suck is going through those three pieces—vision, journey, and culture—and the results take care of themselves.

If you take care of the people, they’ll take care of the customer. But too often, we take care of Wall Street. We want the money, the cash.

CEO and Individual Application

This "make work not suck" idea doesn’t just apply to employees. We’re saying it applies to the top of the organization as well. We have leaders who think, “If we just had better people, better salespeople, better engineers,” but that’s not the root cause. The paradigm is pushing for results, but they’re not taking care of the people first. They have this notion that the process and the results will just work out. The problem is that leaders aren’t giving their people the right tools, environment, or trust to do their jobs.

What if you took time to invest in the people and the culture? Not in a superficial way, but truly investing time in those three pieces—vision, journey, and culture. The results will take care of themselves. That’s what makes work not suck.

Closing

Thanks for listening. We hope this episode of Make Work Not Suck was insightful. Next time, we’ll dive into actionable strategies you can apply in your organization to start making this shift. Join us as we continue this journey to make work not suck.