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The topics and opinions express in the following show are
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solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
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What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the
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answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose
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at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their
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lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization
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that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their
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highest potential. Business can be such a force for good
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in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide
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guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we
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all want working on Purpose. Now here's your host, doctor
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Elise Cortes.
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Welcome back to the Working on a Purpose program, which
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has been brought to you with passion and price since
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February of twenty fifteen. Thanks for tuning in this week.
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Great to have you. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes.
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If we haven't met before and you don't know me,
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I'm an organizational psychologist, management consultant, logo therapist, speaker and author.
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And my team and I Augusta now help companies to
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enliven and fortify their operations by building a dynamic, high
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performance culture and inspirational leadership activated by meaning and purpose
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for today's enlightened in dynamic world. And did you know
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that inspired employees outperform their satisfied peers by a factor
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of two point twenty five to one. In other words,
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inspiration is good for the bottom line. You can learn
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more about us and know we can work together at
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Gusto dshnow dot com and my personal site at Lascortes
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dot com. Today we have with us Rashad Tobakawala, who
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has four decades of global and multi disciplinary experience in
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driving personal, team and business growth. He most recently served
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as the global strategist and Chief Growth Officer at the
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one hundred thousand plus person and marketing and business Transformation
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Publicist Group. He is the host of the What Next
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podcast and publishes a thought letter called The Future Does
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Not Fit Into the Containers of the Past, which is
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read by thirty thousand doar every week. He is the
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author of Restoring the Soul of Business, Staying Human in
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the Age of Data, which helps people think, feel, and
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see differently about how to grow their companies, their teams,
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and themselves to remain relevant in the transformational time, and
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also Rethinking Work, which helps people thrive amidst the seismic
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changes that will occur at work due to a combination
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of changing demographics, new mindsets, the rise of distributed work,
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and the spreaday by eye, which is the focus of
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our conversation today. He Jose is from Chicago, Rishat a
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very hearty welcome to Working on Purpose.
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Thank you very much, thank you for having me on
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your show.
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I'm so glad that you said yes when I reached
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out to you, because I got to read this amazing
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book that you put out. I saw you. I forget
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how I found you on Amazon, but I was, just
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as I told you in our LinkedIn exchange, devoured your book.
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It's just what the world in business needs today. Thank you, Rashad,
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Thank you You're welcome. You're so welcome. Well, you, my
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dear new friend. As a futurist, in forty years of
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your own experience starting and building companies, have come to
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understand what's the need, what's behind the need to rethink
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how we lead and run businesses? And I want to
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talk about just a few. I know we don't have
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time to talk about all them, but just a few
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of their driving forces behind the need for rethinking business
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and leadership.
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Today's let's start there.
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Absolutely well, there are five big forces. The first one
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of societal change, which is aging and declining populations, many
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generations that work with different mindsets. Maybe Loma is believing
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in capitalism, gen Z not. There's obviously the rise of technology,
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of which air happens to be one, which is also
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going to basically change work more than we know it
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and makes knowledge free to a certain extent. It is
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the rise of marketplaces, and those marketplaces could be anything
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from Amazon website services to Etsy to shopify that allows
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people to access markets as well as make themselves available
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to markets. There is the rise of the gig worker,
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the side hustle. In the United States, one out of
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every two people will be a side we'll get a
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ten ninety nine this year, not just a W two
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people who work. And finally, there's the long term impact
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of COVID, which is in some part on where you work,
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but more importantly why you work, and who you work
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for and what you think about work. So those five forces,
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which obviously are interconnected, are the five seismic changes changing work.
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Just a few to deal with.
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You know, I have a lot of empathy for the people,
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the leaders that I work with you have to help support.
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This is a hard time to be a leader. And
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I think your book really beautifully, as I was telling
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one my executive before we got on, really summarizes and
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encapsulates just really everything that's there for for us.
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So let's talk next.
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If we can. You mentioned that they're among these societal shifts,
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of course, which are not going away. I don't. I
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personally find it really kind of amusing that people are
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still saying things like, you know, when we go back
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to the way things were, why would we want to
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go back? Why would we want to be a graduate
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from college and say, you know, second grade back in
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elementary school was really good. I want to go back
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to those times, right. I'm just amazed by that. So
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let's situate next year some of the things that you
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suggest that organizations reimagine that will help us help them
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situate the needs and wants of today's workforce.
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Sure, so there are four. So one of the interesting
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things which I find that people find about my book
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that they like, which hopefully, as you have indicated you
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have liked, is that it's very recent, balanced with facts,
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and then says you know things you want to think about.
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It isn't a screed that says there is a symbol
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bullet answer you and I work too much in the
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real world to believe that there's some silver bullet that
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someone can find. So with that, what I basically sense
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is that there are four things that any business of
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insight should be looking at. The first one really is
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to think about do they need a new type of employee.
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So most companies today have three types of employees. Basically
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a full time employee, a contract employee who basically appears
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to be full time it works for another company really
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and you just hire them. And then there's a freelance employee.
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I believe it's time for another employee, which is a
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fractionalized employee. So what is a fractionalized employee. They're an
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employee of the firm with all the benefits that an
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employee has. That in addition to base compensation if they're eligible,
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they have both either equity or bonuses, and they have
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one hundred percent healthcare, but they only work maybe sixty
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or eighty percent of their time. This person is different
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than the freelance because they have both health care and
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they have benefits, if that makes sense, but different from
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a full time employee than they only work sixty to
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eighty percent. Why is that a good idea? The reason
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it is a good idea is a it offers the
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individual and the talent a lot more options than they
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had before. A lot of people want to spend a
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little less time working because they may need to spend
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that time either looking after kids, aging parents, their own health,
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or following some side passion. It is a good idea
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for the company because eight can attract this type of talent.
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But more importantly, in an AI age, I think most
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companies are going to find that they need about fifteen
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to twenty percent fewer employees to do the same amount
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of work. And this is a fantastic way of actually
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having a fifteen to twenty percent savings without having to
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do any layoffs, without hurting your company, because in effect,
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you turn around you ask everybody do you want to
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work sixty eighty, one hundred percent? Some people will say hundred,
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some will say sixty, some will say eighty. You may
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end up with about eighty percent without having to do
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any layoffs, and in effect you can then move up
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and down based on demand and supply. So that's one
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key thing. Second is how do you machines and human
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beings co exist, which is how do you train? How
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do you rethink your company for an age of AI
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where knowledge is free. A third one is very importantly
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to unbundle the office. So I truly do believe that
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in many many companies, in many many industries, in person
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interaction is important, which is human being connecting together. But
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nobody said that that necessarily was ever done most meaningfully
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in the office. In my career, when we needed to
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do creative brainstorming, we'd go to offsites. But I wanted
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to build relationships, I'd go to bars and restaurants. When
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I wanted to learn, I would go to events. And
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nobody goes around and bangs into people in a water cooler.
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We basically you carry our own water bottels. And there's
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a lot of research that says, unless somebody is twenty
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five meters from me, you're not going to bang into
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anybody in a large company on different floors. So, in effect,
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rethinking the office and rethinking the question not how do
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I get people back into the office, but how do
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I maximize the benefits of in person interaction while allowing
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as much flexibility that I possibly can and also eliminate
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costs of real estate as much as I can. And
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the last one, and this one is particularly fun, is
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I've begun to believe that one of the reasons people
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are not wanting to come back to the office may
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not just be because it is a long commute, it's
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a waste of time and a whole bunch of other things,
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but they don't want to come back to the bosses.
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That's one the key things in my book is what
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I call about the fall of managers and the rise
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of leaders, and managers and bosses tend to be people
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who have zones of control, while leaders have zones of influence.
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Boss is basically what all the people sitting in their
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seats so they can conduct them. A leader is improvisational
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like jazz, and I basically believe those four things. A
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new type of employee figuring out how to basically have
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the machine human coexistence, rethinking in person interactions to maximize
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them with flexibility, and retraining leadership to actually lead versus
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just be a boss are the four things every company
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should be thinking about right away.
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Let me come around a couple of those things.
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One the first thing about this idea of a fractionalized employee,
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I really like that concept for show. I haven't really
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seen much of that as socially novel concept to me,
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And one of the things I like about that is
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it also allows more people in the full population to work,
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giving people more access to the world of work and
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being able to earn an income for themselves, which I
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think is going to reduce the overall lift for us
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to support everybody in the community. And then, of course,
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going back to what you're also just saying there, that
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flexibility piece, you know, offering different ways for people to
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embrace and engage in the world of work versus what
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we're seeing today these forced mandate you turn to office
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the same hours, so that ability to be able to
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recognize that the need for that flexibility. You're going to
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get a much more engaged, motivated, committed person when you
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offer that flexibility.
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Absolutely. I think one of the key things is the
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same companies who basically talk about agility, flexibility at personalization
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show no agility, flexibility or personalization for people coming back
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to the office, which means they're lying. That's all. It's
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completely fake. And that's what I tell leaders, the fact
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that you don't give personalization, agility, or flexibility to your talent,
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and then you go around telling your customers you're an agile,
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flexible and personalized company. How does that work? Please tell you, sir.
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Well, speaking of that, Rasharda, the other thing that I
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also quite enjoyed about your book is the idea of
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really encouraging leaders and companies to embrace gigwork, side hustles
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and passion projects so you can speak to why there's
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a benefit for them to do so.
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So there are three benefits, So let me begin with
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the benefit to the talent. To the talent, the side
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gig its side hustle allows you to basically have your
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cake and eat it too. To a great extent, I
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had managed to attract and retain world class talent who
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might have wanted to have a passion of starting a
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gaming company. So I said, look, you can work here,
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work with us on gaming practice, and start a gaming company.
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That's one. The other is what it also basically does
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is that side hustle or side gig brings skills and
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credibility to our own clients. Look, this person is doing
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this other thing so they get more credible, Which is one,
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they can have their cake and eat it too. And
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the third is they're maximizing their optionality, which is they
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now have two revenue streams versus one revenue stream, which
243
00:12:46.480 --> 00:12:48.360
also allows them to take a little bit more crap