Remaining Workplaces: Crafting Environments that Inspire, Connect, and Elevate Well-Being

0:00 The topics and opinions express in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential.

0:45 Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want working on Purpose. Now here's your host, doctor Elise Cortez. Welcome back to the Working and Purpose Program, which has been brought to you with passion and pride since February of twenty fifteen. Thanks for tuning in again this week. Great to have you. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. If we've not met before and you don't know me, I'm an organizational psychologist and logo therapist, speaker and author. My team and I at Gusto Now help companies to enliven and fortify their operations by articulating their purpose and building inspirational leaders and cultures activated by meeting and purpose to turn those companies from a flatline EKG to a vibrant destination workplace. There people are intrinsically motivated to perform with their best, can grow into the fuller potential, and are committed to stay and dynamically deliver on the company's mission. You can learn more about us and how we can work together at gustodashnow dot com and my personal website, Atlascortes dot com. Now getting into today's program, we have with us today Kevin Kelly, who's an award winning architect, experienced designer and co founder of the bicoastal strategic design firm SHUK. Kelly as a lifelong advocate of bringing people together in pro social settings. Kevin's expertise is in studying how the environment of a place affects our behavior, perception, and decision making. Since opening their firms stores in nineteen ninety two, he has worked with executive leadership teams from some of the world's most well known brands such as Harley Davidson,

2:20 Whole Foods, Craft, J M. Schmucker, the Cleveland Orchestra, professional sports teams, universities, urban districts, and hundreds of local and regional businesses to stay relevant and profitable and are rapidly changing modern landscape. He's the author of Irreplaceable, How to create extraordinary Places that bring people together, which is what we're talking about today. He judges today from Los Angeles, Kevin, A hearty welcome to Working on Purpose. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. It's wonderful to have you. I really terribly enjoy devouring this beautiful book you brought into the world. It's just gorgeous. And as you're welcome, and as I was saying to you before we got on air, in the nine years of been hosting this program, you are the first and only architect I've had on that's exciting. I think that's good, and it says a lot about how our profession is evolving. Indeed, indeed, and you know, as an organizational psychologist and just somebody who's quite quite passionate about helping people to step into their shine. As I like to say, I was delighted at the way that you tell us in your book about how you discovered your passion and your craft at such a really young age.

3:29 And so let's open the conversation with you sharing just that those early days of what you threw yourself into that later led you into becoming an architect. I'd never met an architect before, I didn't know one, but at age six, I knew that's what I wanted to do. I do remember seeing a set of blueprints one time that my father had laid out on the dining room table, and if you've seen architectural drawings, they have all these little leader lines with notes and on the side. I didn't know what any of that meant or said, but it looked like the answer to universe to me. But my real desire for it was I was overwhelmingly observant of human beings.

4:15 I would watch how people knocked on the door, put the key in the door, even put ice cubes in a glass. I didn't really love this ability to observe. It was kind of a neurosis. But I started figuring out how to turn it into propeller for my life and started moving forward. And the thing I was most interested in were environments where people seemed to get along, and when I saw people fighting or intense. I had certain things happening as a childhood and during my childhood that scared me. And I was probably going sixty pounds and I was trying to figure out what I could do. I couldn't fight anyone, but I could go turn the lights down, I could put the right music on, I could move the furniture around, and I noticed it made a difference. And once I started doing it at home, I started doing my friend's houses at school, and then I needed a bigger playing field. So architecture became that kind of focus for me.

5:13 Most architects aren't interested in behavior, though I should say they're mostly interested in making objects kind of visual and aesthetics. And I'm fixated on behavior, on how environment of X behavior. I think that's a stunning way to open Kevin and listeners and viewers, Whether first if you're a parent or would like to be a parent, I really would like you to pay attention to this and just I really think there's such value in being able to go discover who your child is and then help them find a way to make that work in the world, and just go looking with curiosity. I would have loved to have been your parent watching this, Kevin. And I know you, yeah, go ahead. I know you have a young daughter of your own and that you're also delighting in which is wonderful. And you were going to say something else, well, I think for what it's worth, because I try to advise a lot of young people out there, and I find people far too often pursue what quote makes them happy, and I really believe you need to kind of focus on what makes you mad and what upsets you, what you're willing to stand up for. I exaggerate for effect, but I often say, what would you cut another person's ear off over? And it's a joke, But I read a story one time about Peter O'Toole wanting to fight everyone when he realized he wanted to be an actor and they didn't read their lines right. I get that, and for me, it's not politics. It's not education, although I love those topics. For me, it was odd things, the way a room was set up, the way a restaurant operated,

6:46 and I would observe these behaviors in me, and you can physically feel it, the hair rise on the back of your neck when something upsets you. And so I started to lean into that and pursue that, and I tell my friends, I'm like, doubt that territory. It's more of a broad, fuzzy territory at first, But just keep pursuing that about what you'd be willing to fight for because you'll do that for free, and that's so much easier than having to do something that you've got to constantly motivate yourself to do. That's really interesting advice, Kevin. I quite align with that. We look at where does the Where does does the world break your heart? Is another way that we look at it. From you to the purpose Spanish point beautiful. I like that. Yeah. The other thing that I wanted to echo to your opening of how you got into this is for leaders now since we talked to for parents, is I really want leaders to also incourage I want to encourage them to go looking for this on their teams. What's that weird, strange way that Sally does this thing with the way she plans for meetings. What's that that way that Wayne always seems to want to go about problem solving. Go looking for that and then just see if there's a way to be able to unleash that. So it's amazing what happens when people feel seen and you give them a way chance to be able to play as only they can play. So you've unleashed that force already, Kevin, just in your share, So thank you, You're welcome. You're welcome. And then I just because I'm a part of what I've done in my life in my career has been a meaning and work researcher, and so many people ache

8:16 for meaning in their lives and their work. I thought the way that you describe how what your work means to you just needed to be shared as well. What does your work mean to you? It's everything? I mean. I don't think we're all wired to be so fixated in an environment. I some think some people are fixated the way things sound or the way things feel. But I'm certainly wired to look at how building shape or behavior, and you know, I Oftentimes hear people talk about saying they're in an environment, but I don't think we look at the environment being in us just as much as food is in us. And if you eat junk food or candy or bad food all the time, it'll affect your health and the quality of your life. And I believe the same with environments. And I am shocked at the number of people with money or cities with money, that live in bad places that stunt their growth, hurt their businesses, and threaten their livelihoods.

9:16 And I want it to stop, you know. So this is part of the reason why I wrote the book. My profession hasn't necessarily solved the problem, and that so much of their work is around kind of intellectualizing design on some you know, art abstract level, and then we have this kind of utilitarian approach. But there's a whole lot more room in between that to really make the quality of life and the quality of our environments a lot better for our kids, for our businesses, for our main streets or our homes, and for our local stores. And we're going to talk more about obviously you know what that means, especially for the workplace. Since the show is focused on that realm. Though, before we do that, I do think it's interesting that you say in your book that you really really made quite a place for yourself in designing things like around grocery stores, convenience stores, pad stores, gyms, restaurants, bars. Why those particular places. Yeah, it's kind of an odd thing. As I, you know, we discussed earlier.

10:16 I was so observant about everyday places, the post office, the department, motor vehicles, grocery stores, people standing in line. And when I went to architecture school, everything was so focused on operas and orchestra halls and you know, beautiful houses and asps and churches and other facilities. And while those are great and I really enjoyed those, I couldn't understand why we weren't solving the everyday places. Why do dry cleaners have to be so bad and convenience stores have to be so threatening and harsh, like almost like an airport tarmac? Yeah yeah. And then I started dealing with the leader of those entities, and they tend to be hyper rationalist, utilitary and efficiency focused individuals who make a really compelling case why design has no place and their places.

11:09 But then I started going I think it does, so I have to prove that environment effects behavior and ultimately sales. So I set myself out on a mission with my colleagues, my business partner Terry Shook, who's my mentor, great architect, and others to really say, how can we change these everyday places? And a word we use is extraordinary, and we break that word down into extraordinary. How do we take those everyday places and make them better? That's so beautiful as someone who really does respond what we all do. As you know, but I'm maybe not nearly as aware of it as you are. But when I walk into a place that makes me, that delights me. For example, there's a place here in Dallas called The Finch that's pretty new on mar you can bring seventy five and do you know it.

12:03 I've heard about that. I was just in Dallas two weeks ago. I would love to hear your opinion on it. For me. When I walk into that place, Kevin, it just automatically lifts me. It's beautiful, so it pulls me up. It invites me to play with food and drink in a different way. Fascinating. I've heard about it, I haven't seen it, but I will tell you this that the thing that I mean, we all know something that others don't know, and it's great when somebody can give you some insights and how we function as people and work in society. And the thing that I really spent my life understanding is how our senses affect our behavior, our mood, our perception of places, and not only intellectually, but biologically and socially. And when you walk into a place that feels good, it's almost always starting with your senses first, and we could break down each of those senses into what's happening, but those places create a kind of visual harmony and a social list and a feeling of safety. And when I say safety, that's physically, socially and emotionally. And when you get in those kind of forums and they're stimulating your senses, it's so invigorating for us. And that's when memories are made. You know, during the pandemic, when people were staying home, they lost all sense of time because they kind of hit a cognitive impairment of just the same old place in and out, and they couldn't remember their memories well, because memories are generally differentiated through

13:35 the places we're in. If we think back to all our great memories. We imagine being on that dock, or on that island, or in that restaurant. We all remember where we proposed or where we are one of our relatives was born. There's something really powerful about memory and place, and it's those types of things that really make a place feel great. And so I'm always looking for those types of behaviors when I see people entering that social bliss and that social harmony. And if I could extend this idea a little further, as human beings, we like to get in sync with other people. That's what's so powerful about a movie. You know, where we generally walk around pretty defensive, we suppress our emotions because we always have to appear like we're in control. But when we go to a dark room theater with a bunch of strangers, we can cry, we can laugh, we can scream around them because the movie does such a good job of breaking those barriers down and eliciting those really powerful emotions, which are therapeutic for us. Right, who would think crying is good? But it's very good. I would, I know, yeah you would. And so when you go to a place that feels good and you walk around and you stroll hand in hand, and you see other people and you feel like it's okay to say hi or to talk to a stranger. That makes us feel really good. We're cooperative species, and when we feel like everybody around us is cooperating and we're all together and we have a sense of belonging and synchronicity, it's very powerful, and

15:09 it's really lacking in our current era. We spend up to seven eight hours a day in front of a screen that is having a significant impact on our ability to relate to others and to feel that social connection. Indeed, I completely agree, and that's why I thought there were so many things about your book that you wrote about that I were wholly unanticipated, like this all that we've been talking about so far, and more to come. On that note, let us take our first break. I'm your host, Doctorlie's Cortes. We've on the earth Kevin Kelly. He's the author of Irreplaceable, How to Create Extraordinary Places that bring People Together. We've been talking a bit about where his original ideas came from, why they're important to us as human beings, and really how we can live a more vibrant life when we pay attention to place and do something to actually steward it the way that we like. We're going to talk about this new multidisciplinary field that he and his team has created called convening. Stay with us, we'll be right back. Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce.

16:38 To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to a lease a LISEE at eliscortes dot com. Now back to working on purpose. Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes, as I too, am dedicated to helping create a world where people realize their potential at work and are led by inspirational leaders that help them find and contribute their greatness, and we do business at Betters the World. I keep researching and writing my own books.

17:30 So the latest one came out in March of twenty twenty three. It's called The Great Revitalization. How activating meeting and Purpose can radically enliven your business. And I wrote it to help readers understand the lay of today's workforce, what they really want to thrive, and then I offer twenty two best practices to help equip you in your culture and leadership to provide that for them. You can learn more about my books at a lasecoretes dot com or find them on Amazon if you are just joining me today. My guest is Kevin Kelly. He's an award winning architect, experience designer and conder of the bi Coastal Strategic firm Shook Kelly. So I was quite intrigued. There were so many things about your book that I, like I said, did not expect and was delighted by. And one of them is this notion of this new multidisciplinary field you and your team have created called convening. Let's talk about that.

18:18 Yes, my business partner and I were. You know, we're thinking a lot about language and our team and I are extremely observant about the words people use, the jokes they tell you were talking earlier about organizations and helping team members. Well, when we interview people, we are beyond focused on where they sit, if they cross their legs or not, what kind of drinks they put in their hand, their pens, their notepads. We're looking for cues and triggers, and it really helps us understand underneath each leader or each team member, what they're feeling and what big ideas they have. Because we're so observant to language, we would listen to the way people would talk about places. They would use words like architecture, which tended to have a high brow kind of sound to it, or they would talk about facilities, which tended to be very utilitarian. You would hear other words out there. But we started thinking about this idea of how it could be bigger and more meaningful than the kind of old habitual ways I guess habitualays we talk about place, and so we started thinking about what are we just trying to attract people like, no, we want more than that. Are we trying to gather them we said, well, we like that, but we want to convene them around an idea, a big idea, say in the Harley Davidson world.

19:40 We want to convene them around freedom, rebellion and kind of stick it to the man idea. You know, we were looking something powerful, and then we not only want that idea, we want this forum to have a kind of structure and experience that impacts you, that leads an indelible endprint on you. Again, most of this is subconscious. You know it when you feel it, but it's not something that you reflect on a lot other than a great memory of it. So convening really helped us help these help our clients understand the greater power of their place. I just especially, and we'll talk more about this as we go, but just really fixated today, of course, not just on where we live and dwell and visit and play, but where do we do our work. And that's something we'll talk about later.

20:26 I thinking about making it more a compelling place to convene. It just fascinates, so we'll get there. But one of the other things that you said that I thought was really worth discussing, and something that I too find myself shall we say disgusted by I don't know if you are or not, but I am. But you talk about how there's this fixation on ease and efficiency technology. You're supposed to make things faster and better and easier and all these sort of things. But then you say, shouldn't some things in life require effort? Yeah, there's this this whole attack on anything inefficient, and you hear the tech titans constantly talk about it. You hear Wall Street talk about it, and the spreadsheet driven folks just constantly talking about ruthless efficiency. It's almost a prideful thing that they brag about. And I start, you know, they keep saying, well, you can use chat GPT to write a love letter, And I'm like, well, shouldn't I write a love letter?

21:26 Shouldn't I actually make it? And you can send a text message instead of buying a card? And I'm using those as exaggerative examples. But we have a tendency as humans to not want to do things, and we get resistant, and we get kind of heavy in our seats, you know, we get heavy on the couch and we don't want to go out. But I can almost guarantee you every time you go out and go into the world. You have such a great opportunity to expand your mind, to activate your senses, to meet somebody. If I think about all the changes in my life, I met my wife in an airport baggage claim on a trip that I debated about going to, and it completely changed my life. I mean everything about my life. And to this day, my wife and I lay in bed and go can you believe we met in baggage claim. It's that trip I would have never met her. And so there is this kind of force out there that wants to keep us at home and our pajamas, binge watching Netflix, ordering our food in And yes, that's easier, but it's kind of dangerous for us. It's dangerous for us personally, socially, civilly.

22:36 We need to get out and meet the other and to interact just as much as we need to walk and move our body. I align with that, Kevin, because as a logo therapist, what we know is that we in logo therapy. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's or logo philosophy is really it's about healing through meaning. But what we know about human beings is that we need a certain tension in our lives to be vital. That tension between who we are today and what we're striving for tomorrow or in the next moment. There's that reaching that you're really talking about that we need. Otherwise we become apathetic and we start to atrophy, which is what you were talking about. Yes, yeah, And I just worry that we are getting more and more this way. And what I've noticed among my friends, my colleagues, even myself, is this tendency to go.

23:26 I got to put on clothes, I got to put on a tie, I got to go to this event, And we're all developing a form of social anxiety. Yet every time I do that, something great happens. And I just can't encourage people enough to don't let that kind of gravity pull you down, because you're just going to become a lemming. And we all remember that film Wally and there were people floating around a lot, you lazy boys, having all their drinks and their legs and their knees didn't work because they hadn't used them. They couldn't push buttons. We're not that far from that, yeah, we really are. And we're growing generations of kids that don't go out. Yeah, not that we want to focus on this, but I heard statistic that one billion people in the across the world are now considered obese. Yes, so yes, we are getting there. We are getting there. So let's move on to more and more interesting or enlivening things than what important things to talk about. But I was very also intrigued with your whole bonfire effect idea, Kevin. We've got to talk about that. Sure, yeah, I you know, I won't try to play myself as some intellectual that grew up, you know, around some glorious environment. I grew up in the swamps in South Florida. There wasn't a lot to do off a dirt road, and the weekends were well. During the week we built vehicles that look like something out of mad Max vehicles, airboats and buggies and

24:59 four wheel drives, and we all went out into the six miles out into the Everglades to a big kind of redneck river air a mound of dirt in the middle of the swamps. And we came from different high schools in different places, and we did this every weekend. It was a ritual, and nobody sent out a notice because we didn't have notices back then, but we knew that's where to be. And we also knew how to organize ourselves. To build a bonfire. A bunch of strangers put a whole bonfire together, and then they would, you know, the bonfire master would set the thing a blaze and get just the perfect glow, not too big and not too small, and it would create this kind of magical enchantment where everybody got along.

25:42 And Carl Jung called this participation mistique. He said, this is when there's something happening underneath our consciousness that unites us. It goes back to that social synchronicity I mentioned. And when I left the swamps and ended up going to college and eventually at Arburn myself. I saw bonfires everywhere. I see them on Rodeo Drive, I see them on Fifth Avenue. I see them in you know, Minnesota and Oklahoma. They're everywhere. And I'm very intrigued with when do people come together and create that social harmony and that social connection. And so a lot of companies have chief brand officers, which oftentimes becomes more about economics or just promotions, and I'm more interested in what brings people together around that idea, that form, and that experience, and who's tending to that flame, because we all know brands that get too big, the bonfire gets too big and chases everybody off, or they die down and kind of dwindle and don't really have that power to bring us together anymore. Imagine if Sears had a bonfire master as opposed to a financial engineer figuring out how to sell private equity. I think it would be a wildly different store if they had a bonfire what do you call it? On fire? Well, on fire master. So I advocate to my clients that they create a chief bonfire master, and that they create a regular functioning group of people who tend to the flame of that of their place to protect its livelihood. It's vitality,

27:18 its strength, it's magic glow, and we measure that. We measure it through a tendance and engagement, experimentation and socialization. Of course, ultimately with sales. You know what's interesting about that to me, Kevin, just quickly that relates to it for me, as what you're really speaking to is is somebody inside of the organization that's really I don't know, stewarding well the health and the heartbeat of the organization. For sure, it's flame. But to me that reminds me of what you do, or maybe I don't know if you still do this. It really did delight me to know that, you know, the way that you have continued to sharpen your own saw and develop your craft is you know, you're the guy that sits out in parking lots and the you know, the folding chair and watches people come in and out of stores and I think a long every week. It's delightful. You had to confess this to your wife, Yes, I did, and you know, every day she'd see me going to work and she'd go, why are you wearing that? And I'm like, I just want to blend in and because I'm going to all different types of environments and I go and just become an eavesdropper and a lawyer, a professional lawyer, and I just watch and observe people. And you know, I've been doing this thirty one years as my own company, and I whenever I go to these places, I don't know what I'm going to find, and that would normally give me an anxiety. You know, it gives my staff an anxiety sometimes. And I'm

28:49 like, we're just going to sit here until we start seeing anomalies, patterns and trends. And sometimes that'll happen in one hour. Sometimes it'll happen in a week. And I help my clients because they're always looking for breakthroughs and they're like, you, how do you come up with them? And I'm like, deviations to the norm. If I see people coming in and everybody's wearing the same sock, there's something to it. Or everybody's driving the same type of car, everybody's buying the same type of product. That is a clue that gets me in deeper. And I will keep mining that seam until we hit upon the breakthrough we need. So anybody ever come over up to you and say, what are you doing? I mean you've been sitting here, I mean for two hours or three hours? Anybody ever do that?

29:33 Yeah? I tell the story briefly in the book about Ernie the tow truck driver Harley Davidson. So, oh, yes, you're doing it so fun? Yes, And so Ernie was a great guy, and I loved Ernie, and you know, if I could deviate there. The great ritual was when you go to Harley Store, everybody kind of circles the interior and watches other people get on bikes and grip it, and people do exactly the same thing. They look down at the engine, they pull the handle, and somebody eventually says to them, They go, what do you think? And they have a whole conversation around that. And that would be odd that ritual at a Banana Republic store if he said, what do you think of that sweater? You going to buy it? You know, we would call the police. But in Harley store is perfectly normal. And Ernie and I became, you know, friends, and I was just really learning a lot about them. But I went to another store about an hour and a half away the next day and lo and behold, Ernie was there. And my staff started freaking o O, oh, my gosh, Ernie's there. And I'm like, yeah, what am we going to do? So I went up to Ernie and accused him of following me. I said, Hey, what are you doing? You following me? And he said no, No, I go to different Harley stores every day because I like to just hang out and I feel like if I'm not buying stuff, they're going to make me leave. That was exactly the insight. I needed my team and I started focusing on They're like, why does the store make you feel like you have to leave? So then we started designing the stores with bonfires and cafes and gathering spots and saying why don't you come here anytime you want? Because everywhere

31:08 else, Ernie didn't feel like a hero. He said the funniest thing, he said, you know, I need six pack abs and a MacBook Pro to go hang out at Soul Cycle or Blue Bottle Coffee goes. But in this store, I'm a hero. And that was everything I needed to know. And I get those kind of anomalies by listening to people talk. I said it early, but oftentimes jokes are where they really tell me the truth. Because Ernie said one line and our discussion he said, he said, yeah, this is a place for midlife is Christ, midlife crisis, males fading and strength. It told us volumes everything we needed to kind of start focusing on. Oh too bad we only get an hour together. Kevin, You're delightful and so much. No, it was lightful, was terrific.

32:00 I don't apologize for being brilliant. Let's grab our next break here. I'm your host doctor Release Cortez, who going on air with Kevin Kelly. He's the author of Irreplaceable, How to Create Extraordinary Places that bring People Together. You've heard him talk about some of his things that he is fixated on over the years, including the bonfire effect and convening after the work. We're going to devote that segment to really focused on being focused on the work versus payoff ratio of place and how we can really look at our physical our environment in the workplace. Stay with us, We'll be right back. Doctor Release Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author.

32:55 She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and developed purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at Elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise Alise at Elisecortes dot com. Now back to working on Purpose.

33:40 Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to Working on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. As I mentioned in the last break that my latest book came out in March of twenty twenty three, The Great Revitalization. What I did for you is I created a three page organizational assessment for best practices to help you gauge the extent to which your current operations are meeting the desires standards of today's workforce. You can find it at gustodashnout dot com if you are now just joining us. My guest is Kevin Kelly. He's an award winning architect, experience designer and co founder of the bicoastal strategic design firm Shook Kelly. So this whole idea here, I've been very, very very intrigued that part of what I wrote about it in The Great Vialization is how vastly things have changed since the pandemic and such, and how people have elevated their consciousness to recognize what more they really want from life and the work revolution. You use the word revolution in your book that's occurred. So let's talk about this notion of what you talk what you call the work versus payoff of police. Yes, you know, I'll try to make this quick, but the you know, all over our country, for hundreds of years, people participate in the American dream of setting up businesses and car washes and barbershops and small cafes and pubs and bars. But since two thousand and seven, when we had the iPhone come out and the kind of adoption, mass adoption of social media and online paying, less and less people started visiting place and places started dying kind of death by thousand cuts because they can't afford to give

35:15 up ten to twenty percent of their business. And yet these people are calling me to save them and save their places. And when I try to study how they were competing, they were trying to emulate the online businesses that focused on price, variety and convenience and ruthless efficiency. And up until that point, really stores, local shops, local places were the only places you could get things done and get goods. But in this new world, you can get stuff from China, you can get stuff from into you can get stuff anywhere in the world. And anybody with a computer and a garage or even a smartphone and a you know, on a side of a road can set up a business. And so it's very difficult to compete on that and that contest. So I get my clients out of that race and like stop competing on price, writing, convenience, and start convening on other aspects social bliss, harmony, connection, discovery, adventure. And so when we look at going to a place versus ordering online from our pjs at home, to go to a place, I've got to get dressed up, brush my teeth, comb hair, getting a car, fine parking, going and building. That's work and it's irritating, and a lot of companies aren't really focused on that because they're focused on that price, variety, convenience. To MENSI, well, what I want them to focus on is really making the payoff higher than the work. They need to work on the work aspect, but they also need to work on the payoff, and those payoffs are normally emotional and social, often physical too. There are physical payoffs you can get from going to a place. So whenever we are evaluating a place, the first thing we

36:50 do is really break down what are the aspects that humans would consider work and what are the aspects humans would consider a payoff. And I'm giving you the short answer of that, Yes, I know, and I appreciate that, which is just because we it goes by so fast. One thing that I became very aware of, Kevin, you just said that to so in such an enlarging way, is how experience became such an important criteria, especially after the pandemic. People people were searching for and wanted experiences, rich experiences, connective experiences. And so, of course, you know, in my world, a lot of what I do is either consulting, speaking, workshops, et cetera. So the difference between doing that via Zoom and in person is about three and a half worlds to part. Now, Yeah, yeah, I mean I every time I have to, I have a choice go visit my client, do the presentation, or do it on Zoom. Every time I go visit them, it's a lot of work, it's a lot of expense. The meetings are just so much deeper, better, the connection stronger, and the ideas are richer. Whenever we do it on Zoom, it is a lot more efficient, and we just don't hit that level. Now.

38:02 I'm not suggesting we get rid of that because it is a useful tool, but we need to save room in our lives for those connections. We need to at least do some of that in our life. I completely agree with that. Yes, and even just I want to recognize something, Kevin, about you, even just the quality of your voice has got such a it's such a rich sort of it's velvety. It's a velvety voice. I hate my voice, but that makes me happy to hear that. I can't listen to myself talk. Have you heard that before, that it's velvety. Yes, my wife and one of my friend's advisors tells me that. But but I really appreciate that. I feel like I sounds like a guy with pebbles and whiskey in his mouth. Well it works, It works for me, and that's my favorite. That's my favorite sense, Kevin. So just let's just go with it. Powerful. Speaking of sense, I did want to go a little bit deeper. You have a whole chapter on making sense of place that and I know you've you've already talked a bit about the importance of our century experience, our century interaction action with places that we go.

39:12 But what else would you like to help us understand about this notion of making sense of place. Yeah, we you know, there's a famous joke that older fish asks the underfish house the water, and the younger fish says, what's water? Right? Kind of have that sense about our lives. We're not really aware that we're in an environment. And as I said earlier, that environments in us. And so when we get up in the morning and we walk to our office or to the coffee shop, we don't actually have a walking plan. Our brain automatically makes those decisions. We also don't tell our eyes where to go. Our involuntary eyes go where they want to go, and our involuntary sound mechanisms listen to what they want to listen to.

39:55 Now, those aren't random things. Your brain and your body have been hardwired pay attention to the things that will enhance life and be aware of those things that could act as impediments or threats to your life. Well, those same skills are brought into restaurants, grocery stores, shopping malls, even the office. And so if you become knowledgeable in how the senses work and how we comprehend our world, you'll have a much greater understanding of how humans behave and understanding what they do. Even our language, you know, we constantly talk about people in terms of being slick or rough on the edges, or hard headed. These are physical qualities that we put into our language, and our language is based on those metaphors. So it's really important that we study the senses. But the senses are not studied in business school, nor in design school, and none of the retailers or restaurants are learning about the senses.

40:47 So therefore, you walk in the bathroom and it looks horrible, and then you think the food is bad or it smells bad. And I can't tell the number of clients that have terrible bathrooms that are like, what's the big deal, And I'm like, get the bathroom right, and then you'll sell more seafood. And then they have a hard time believing that. But I'm like, it is the number one criteria people base your cleanliness on and the health of your place. So our senses are just so powerful and hardwired, and they've been that way since we evolved as a species. You know, speaking of the whole toilet issue, Kevin I redusted at someplace that one of the big reasons that people don't want to come to work in the office.

41:28 Yes, the bathroom experience. Yeah, yeah, this gets back to our our weakening socialization skills. You know, we're getting really conscientious about everything, and imagine Instagram on top of this, heightening up this need to be perfect right and not really showing the unsavory parts of our lives or what now is being deemed as unsavory and used to just be normal. But these are things that I think we have to work in getting over right. We have to work at getting used to those things, cooperating and being around each other, and it's never as bad as we think it is. But yes, you're right, people, the bathroom is a very intimate issue, and it's a very personal issue, and it's one of the things that companies need to get right. Yeah, yeah, I agreed. Well I want to go there next. A couple had a couple of questions here. But one thing that you talk about that's really been interesting to me is, you know, the reinventing office building in today's changed world of work. I mean, I have been so as somebody who helps organizations to shape and their culture. So much of what I was doing was helping people recognize why do people actually have to be in the office each day, that they why when they are asking not to be The resistance to that was so interesting. But you really have quite a really compelling chapter or more where you're talking about just this notion of that.

42:58 You say that you say many standard forms and shapes, such as the mall, grocery store, and convenience store concepts discussed in this book are long overdue for reinvention. Same goes for the institution of institutions, of universities, museums, and performing arts facilities. But the most concerning standard forms and shapes needing radical reinvention are office buildings and by extension, downtown areas, central business districts, and urban employment centers. Yeah, there's so much unpack in that, and I will try not to hit all of it. But let's start with form in shape. Because our brain is operating off a very low wattage, about a sixty light bulb of power from calories that we take in, we try to digest the world as best we can, but we can't scan everything, and so we look for the most important aspects again that relate to enhancement and impediments to life, and so we do something all predictive coding, and when we recognize what something is, we don't spend any time on it, which is okay on one level, but it's not great if you're a department store or a mall or another place trying to break out of an old stereotype. Malls certainly are trying to break out of those stereotypes. And I'll meet mall developers that say, well, we've banished the word, we never say mall. But I'm like, but your building still looks like them all.

44:16 It's still the form and shape of them all. And that's how humans relate to buildings. So until you change that form in shape to something different, you won't get the reaction you want. The office building and the downtowns are one of the most concerning features I see in our current economy because the attendance is terribly low and it doesn't appear to be changing, even with mandating that employees have to come to work. And so the value proposition was set up under an old paradigm where we had to be close. And really, if you think about the word proximity, proximity was how you moved up in the world. You had to be close to the movers and shakers, close to the factories, close to the courthouse, all of those things that really helped. Well, now we don't have to do that. We can be on a laptop in Tahiti, and so we need to change what are the values of proximity in different senses. Now, young people, young professionals, the creative talent oftentimes are single and looking to connect with others, and so downtown environments provide a wonderful opportunity to serve as playgrounds and kind of atom smashers of social identities and social experiences. So that's about the best bet our central business districts have. But this old paradigm of I have to be on the thirty third floor next to a secretarial pool just doesn't cut it anymore. Unfortunately.

45:43 Yeah, it's really, really, very very fascinating for me to see how this is going to play out. And as you say, there's no easy answers, and there's a lot of complexity in this. And I also agree with you you talk about this moving away from mandating a return to the office to making the experience compelling, and you've mentioned this a little bit here, but this is something that I'm watching more and more organizations start to focus on recognizing we can't just say you but because I said so, you have to come in because I said so. Yeah, Well, the best talent and that's who the companies want can go wherever they want to go. That's where we really need to boil it down to is we're not talking. You know, we all want the best talent, and it's really they're calling the shots. And so what what I do find is if you peel to different drivers in them, different sides of them, you can actually you can get them interested. And we do want to have experiences, We want to play, we want to bond, we want to you know, have pep rallies kind of really a fort mentality and a bonding mentality. So our own for our own offices, we've turned them much more into forts where people can come and get you get away from working home, you know, and actually come and connect. But we have a ten year cycle here we're going to have to worry about. And it's not just downtown environments, because we all will inherit these problems. Yeah, some really big, hairy problems like you talk about in your book, you know, fall some of the revenues from the

47:15 local tax base can be lowered, undesirable activities including crime, vagrancy, loitering, and graffiti will increase. So it is a massive problem, it really is. And so then I look at again as I'm thrown to is, well, what can we do about that? And I liked what you wrote about in terms of the potential repurposing of central business districts. Yeah, the secret to any type of urban district or downtown environment is to have a built in base of people. And the built in base can become residents, it can become universities, it become laboratories, it can become any number of things. But the key is you have to have a built in base. And you know the history of cities, what I find interesting is that they were much more service oriented and that we had local shops that served our needs and local things that we really really valued in living those places. And then we somehow turned cities into these giant, kind of rich places that are over the top theme penthouse places, and therefore they stop becoming functional and local. And I think we have to get back to that. Even service retail as opposed to theme park retail, but service retail with residents, with universities nearby can do a lot for a city because then you build in a quality of life with a built in base of people that then start to kind of civilize the place and really kind of keep it up, keep it from falling into apathy.

48:47 Apathy is the word I worry about the most. Yes, me too. Once a place becomes apathetic, it is very hard to turn it around. Not impossible, but it's very difficult. Agreed. And on that note, we we have to close. We're coming to the close. So I want to say thank you Kevin for writing this beautiful book, sharing with the world, for coming out of the program, and sharing with my listeners and viewers across the globe. You are a gift well, doctor Lees, thank you so much. I am so impressed with what you do, your books, your language. I think I'd like to interview you because you have so much knowledge that would help me. So thank you for having me. I would be delighted. We'll talk further. Of course, listeners and viewers, you're going to want to learn more about Kevin Kelly, the work he and news team do at Shook Kelly and look further into his book. So you've got a couple places to go. Their professional site is shook Kelly. Let me spell that for you s h O O K K E l l e y dot com. And then his personal site is Kevin Ervin Kelly dot com.

49:46 So Kevin k E v I n Irvin e r v I n Kelly k E l l e y Kevin erwin Kelly dot com. That's the site for the book. Site for the book. Okay, last week, you miss the live show, you can always catch it be a recorded podcast. We were on the air with doctor Andre Martin, a fellow organizational psychologist, talking about his book Wrong Fit, Right Fit, How the way we work matters more than ever. He gave us some tremendous insights into how individual talent can seek and find work environments that best suit them, and how companies can showcase their actual day to day experiences rather than their aspirational wand to encourage a better fit right from the start. Next week will be on the air with Todd Davis. He's a senior consultant and thought leader at Franklin Covey, talking about how to navigate difficult conversations, not that any of us have those.

50:34 See you there and remember work as one of the best adventures and means of realizing our potential and making the impact we crave. So let's work on Purpose. We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes, each week on W four C Why. Together, We'll create a world where business operates conscientiously. Leadership inspires and passion performance and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on Purpose.