Skot Waldron:
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of Unlocked, where we talk about unlocking the potential of people so that we can unlock our organizations and ultimately humanity, because you know, it all revolves around the people. So I'm Skot Waldron. Today I have an interview with Richard Polak, who is super recognized in a lot of different spheres. Been recognized in over 90 countries for developing wellness and HR programs. He has spoken at various organizations, he's coming out with a new book. He has formed two companies, sold those companies. He has created conferences, it's more of a global type conference. He is doing all types of things. He's a playwright. He's written seven plays. He lives currently in LA. His wife is a concert pianist who started playing the piano in the background before our interview, so that's awesome. Too bad I couldn't hear anything, but that was.
So he's got a lot of things going on. His new book, Work Smart Now talks about the premise of working smarter, not harder, which we've heard before. But the way he does it comes from a very, very specific perspective, the CEO's perspective. This book is for them, and it is all about what's the ROI on working smart versus working hard all the time. So we talk about different aspects of that, mental health. We talk about just productivity in general and what that means, and in a global remote economy, all these different aspects are what we're going to get into in this interview. So I'm super excited. Let's get started. Here we go, Richard. Richard, welcome to the show, it's awesome to have you. You got a new book coming out. We're super excited about that. Work Smart Now, and debrief us, what is that all about?
Richard Polak:
Well, it's really a book for CEOs, HR directors, and then there's a chapter, chapter six entirely, on individual optimization of your day. And it's about improving your life, improving your work. Work Smart Now means really not working harder now, just working smarter now. So you can do more with the same amount of effort and even less if you follow the precepts of the book. And for an employer, if you follow the five buckets of productivity that I've designed, then you should not just have your employees happier and working smarter, but your revenue will go up. In fact, I did the analysis, all of it's evidence-based and all through surveys and research. Not mine, by independent parties that shows that for a 1,000 people, and there's a business case scenario at the end of each chapter that says why you should do this, it's not just a good idea. And if you add every chapter together, and there's a conclusion chapter that shows this. If you have a 1,000 employees in the services industry and you can easily increase revenue $330 million in a year by following the precepts of this books and the processes.
SKOT WALDRON:
I have never heard of such a thing. I've never heard of a book that went through, calculated the ROI of that chapter. And then at the end calculated, if you did all this stuff, this is your potential. This is what the upside could look like for you. That's fantastic. I love that. Where did that come from?
RICHARD POLAK:
Well, in business there's no, you can't make any decisions in business properly. Having run two businesses my own and selling them successfully, and real and working in senior positions in Fortune 500 companies, and one of them I was on the executive committee, which was the five people really running the company. And I learned really clear from there that you don't make any decisions unless it's going to benefit the business. Even your charitable contributions. That was a big wake up call for me when I was a young guy and I went and I was so excited about a homeless charity and I ran to the managing director of the firm. And then I said, "Can we give this organization money that really need help?" And he said to me, "Here, Richard, let me teach you something about business. We want to help. We all want to do good, but who's on the board of directors of this charity. Who is it on there that we can reach to do business with? Because this is a business and we need to know that in advance before we give money to an organization so that we can get something back from it. Everything we, decision we made," he says, 'has to have return on investment."
So from that, I think I was 26-years-old when I learned that lesson, I recognized that everything I have to do, and then it was another case I remember, I was very excited, ran to my father, who's also in this business. And he taught me another valuable lesson, because I said, I was designing pension plans around what's part of my day job, right? I'm a global advisor in human resources and designing comp and benefit programs is part of that work, it's a very large part of that work for attraction retention. So I went to this, they were a construction firm and highly unionized, and I went to them and said, "You need a pension plan for these 300 employees you have in Germany, because they don't have a pension plan."
And then they said to me, "Well, they're not going to get one. I don't want to give them a pension. It's just going to cost me money." And I was so dejected. Said, "Well, what about your people? Don't you care about your people?" "No, there's unions, and they'll tell us what they want to do." So I went back and I went to my father and said, "Why wouldn't they want a pension plan for their employees? That's the least thing you can do for them, particularly in Germany." And then my father said, "Well, you're angling it wrong, Richard. You need to go to them and say to them, 'You'll increase productivity if you give them a pension plan, and you'll do more business if you give them pension. Because the employees will be more engaged and then they'll work harder or work smarter. And then the company will make more.'"
Don't just give a pension. Like go in there and say, "Give a pension, it's the right thing to do." Businesses is not in the business doing right. They're not in the business of doing good. By doing good they do good business. And by doing right they do right business, but it's all about making money. So it all has to be framed in the return of investment. That's why I did it, wrote this one.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's really, really interesting. Because you'll have personality types out there, right? And the back of my brain I work a lot with different personality types in an environment and how they react to different communication styles. How do you build influence and impact with other people in your group? Well, I can tell you right now, when you tell that message to a lot of the feelers out there, they're going to be like, "Well, you're a cold-hearted jerk. That doesn't sound very nice." But then when you think about the strategic side of what those thinkers are doing, those process oriented individuals, thinking about, yeah, good business. It is good business to supply this pension package. Which means that by helping them feel invested in by giving those pension package, which is maybe not a heartfelt decision, it's a business decision, I'm winning both sides. I'm winning the heartfelt argument, but I'm also winning the business argument because we're able to stay in business so I can give these people a job.
RICHARD POLAK:
Exactly. In fact, I have initiative now, you're one of the first to hear this. I do some work with Congress as an advisor. And I'm going to them now with the initiative, the right to disconnect. Now, you may have heard of this before, because it's already been a law in many European countries, even in the Philippines it's a law. It allows the employees to leave work and disconnect from all electronics and technology after their working hours. And they require it in France, now in Belgium they require it. In the United States that's sort of, "What? It's a crazy thought." And even when I talked to the congressmen and women they say, "Oh, I don't know if that's ever going to pass here." But there's a way of framing it, and through research, through studies, it's just not Richard Polak saying, "This is going to help you." There are studies that show if you allow employees to disconnect, you'll have less burnout, you have employees more engaged, and you'll be able to make more money by doing that. So that benefits everyone.
SKOT WALDRON:
So those are some smart, I guess it's smart advice to give to somebody. And it's scary, right? For a lot of people out there they're like, "Wait, what? I can't reach Richard at 7:00 pm while he's eating dinner with his family to ask him about this proposal? I need to be able to do that, right?" So talking, so you're saying that is an idea of work smart. You don't have to always have to work a billion hours per week to be productive, it's about working smart.
RICHARD POLAK:
No, it's not just, by the way, in writing the first chapter of the book, it talks about the point of diminishing marginal returns, which is an economic concept, same applies to work. And it's a graph there and it's not mine again. It's a graph that shows, if you work beyond a certain point, you're actually working less and becoming less productive and it becomes counter intuitive, and it hurts the organization. So very specific, very clear on it. Once again, not my thoughts, this is all documented. Tons of research in the book.
SKOT WALDRON:
Just claim them, Richard, just claim them man, just this is all Richard, is he's so smart.
RICHARD POLAK:
Well, the smart part is that I was able to put all this together in a book.
SKOT WALDRON:
There you go, that is smart. Claim it, Richard. Okay, so what are some other tools that we can help with productivity? Instead of just working so hard all the time, what are some other tips? Do you put some of those in the book, or just practice in general?
RICHARD POLAK:
Well, yes, but I'm hesitant to do so because then I become one of these quick fix guys and it's there, and you know it already, "Oh, I shouldn't be looking at my phone every six minutes, because that's what the study show. Okay, I'm going to put it down." But then six minutes later you're putting it up again. "Or I should get enough sleep. I should take my nap during the day. I should have breakfast." All of these are tips and they all help, they're all helpful. But really, it's like habits we've come to engrain in ourselves are really hard to extract. And it takes a lot more than a quick fix or CBT to do so. It's a cognitive behavioral therapy. It's really hard to change who you are. In fact, the greatest psychologist or psychoanalyst in the world would probably say, "Even with the best work you do on yourself, you might be able to change yourself 10% through a lifetime of work."
So accept who you are, and look at things from a different perspective. Productivity does not began at work, that's my biggest tip, all right? It begins before you get there. All the work you do on yourself, whether it's at home or whether it's at work before you get to work, it's all internal. And the mental health aspect of your life is key to everything you do. If you really recognize that most of the external forces that come towards you, they're all there certainly to help you. Every one of them is there to help. Your spouse, your children, your coworkers, the guy that cuts you off in the street that probably saved you from an accident two blocks from there, everything's there for your own benefit. That's the first place to come from. Look at yourself and look at the issues you have.
Change what you can do yourself with the support of others, by the way, because it's almost impossible. You wouldn't give yourself heart surgery, you'd get a cardiologist to do that, or a heart surgeon do that. So you work on yourself with the support, and there's a chain that helps that does come from an employer to do so, a whole process. Should I go into some of that, Skot?
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah. Just, yeah. Give us a glimpse of that because I like where you're going with this thought. I'd love to hear how it's implemented or [inaudible 00:13:45].
RICHARD POLAK:
Okay. Here's the process of mental health. Number one, when we have an issue that our first line of defense is, "I'm going to talk to my spouse, I'm going to talk to my friend. I'm going to talk to my coworkers. I'm going to talk to Skot. What should I do with this issue that I have?" And then you can get help that way, and then sometimes that's all you need. But for most of us we need a little bit more help. Or we certainly do, every one of us at some point needs more help in our lives. So the employer helps the employee by, at this point almost all employers have, large employers I shouldn't say all, but large employers have what's called an EAP, an employee assistance program. And they provide you with an opportunity to talk to a professional in the field of support, a counselor, a psychologist, for three free visits typically.
Then that sometimes solves that issue and then you can move on and you can go forward. But often it doesn't, and you got to go a little bit deeper. So then now the employers have all these digital technology tools and you get them on your phone. You have this calm app and you've got apps. There's some even that have these bots that you ask it a question, that the bot will even wake you up in the morning say, "How are you feeling today?" There's fantastic bots that are out there. And then you'll say, "Well, I'm not feeling that good." "Why aren't you feeling good?" "Well I kind of feel sad." The bot will say, "Why are you feeling sad?" And it will start your process of you working out, this is CBT working out these issues to help yourself through yourself. And through that technology the employers provided you, helps the employer get you a little bit closer. Maybe helps you with that too.
Now that's another step, but that's the same step that that therapy, CBT therapy goes into these firms that employers have hired to actually give you 18 sessions, 20 sessions through cognitive behavioral therapy, which is evidence-based and which is helpful. Now, that's good. Remember, we've got your friends. Now we go to CBT. Now you go to another level if you need more support. And that is usually some form of longer term therapy with a qualified psychologist. And you go every week, sometimes you might go twice a week. Because you've got some burning childhood loss that's beyond your cognitive thought. And the cognitive behaviorist can't help you with that, because it's not cognitive anymore, it's deeper. And the therapist can help you.
And then finally the deepest highest level you can go to to get support for yourself is psychoanalysis. Which is deep, deep work on your mind. And the dig into what's been holding you back your whole life, and then making real structural changes that affect your entire character. That's all done before you get to work. You do all of that, work's going to be easy and it's going to be fun. And you're going to be super productive for your employer, get promotions. You're going to have all the money you need for the rest of your life.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's the answer, to having all the money I need. That's it, that's it. So it sounds like a lot to me. I sit there and go, "That sounds like a lot."
RICHARD POLAK:
Oh, which part sounds like a lot? What do you mean? What sounds like a lot?
SKOT WALDRON:
So I'm not going to go do all that probably. I may do pieces of that, but the general 90% of the people out there are not going to go through that entire process. So, how does that play into your philosophy of still working smart, instead of the hard? How does that whole thing come together?
RICHARD POLAK:
All right, great. Thanks for the question. And it is hard and it's actually less than 1% of the people go the full distance of that whole process. So what employees can do, it starts too with the employer, because I want to address that. Employer has to be in a position where they want to increase their revenue, but they all do, through a process, which I call compassionate productivity. If they don't have that set in their culture about caring for their employees, then I can't even help them or start, all right? If they have an unhealthy organization, because organizations are psychologically healthy and unhealthy as well. Worked in one organization with a CFO that's actually made all the major decisions, financial decisions for the company and employment decisions, because the CEO really wasn't strong enough to manage it himself, and it was a disaster.
You don't have a CFO running their company. If you're a healthy organization, you recognize that you, like the individuals and coworkers you work with, are people and you want to do good for them. And doing good for them is an increase in productivity, is called compassionate productivity. That's the essence of it all. Then you get into all the stuff that you too are into, Skot. When you're talking about engagement, you talk about the ways to reducing absenteeism, reducing present. You provide wellness programs for them, specific wellness programs, by the way, because you can throw a lot of money away unless it's designed properly.
And then you have each individual give them the opportunity to train them, how to help themselves optimize their day. And that includes means of showing them how breakfast could help improve their lives. You would give them smoking cessation programs, all these things that most employers are providing today, but it won't matter unless you, as an employer, as a CEO says, "I'm really taking this initiative forward in a whole new way. I'm really making my best effort to do this. I'm changing my own life as a CEO, and this is what you really have to do first. And then I'm going to have my employees change their lives." Be the example for your employees.
And that's a whole list for employees to take, to do. For example, for me, I have a treadmill desk sitting right here, okay? I have my printer back there. So I don't have to walk down the hall to get to a printer. And there's something good about that too, because you run into coworkers, but I don't waste certain amount of time doing. I exercise here. I exercise in the morning too. I go for a long walk. I'll do my walks on, these are the easy things to do, right? I'll take my conference calls walking around a neighborhood, quiet neighborhood. And today that's very acceptable.
Everybody sort of expects you to be wherever you are, work from anywhere. And they're going, "Wow, Richard, you're walking in the conference." Said, "Yeah, I'm walking in the conference." "Well, that's terrific." All those things as an employer, if you're the CEO or the manager, you can set those kinds of examples for employees, that's okay to do that. Go out for a walk and do your calls out there. Instead of sitting at a desk and being set their. Obesity is a killer. You know, they say expression right, sitting is the new smoking. So it's really, really bad for you. Anything you can do to be active, be active.
SKOT WALDRON:
So they're going to start implementing sitting cessation programs?
RICHARD POLAK:
Essentially. That's a really good, that's a good term for it. They should be doing that.
SKOT WALDRON:
They should, there's something interesting about what you're talking about, because in the industrial age, we measured productivity based on how many widgets per hour were created. And we gained influence through the competency, through the IQ measure. Can Richard do this job? Yes equals he gets a job. Yes equals he has influence. Now in the digital age and in a world of post COVID, where we're remote, where we had to be flexible, where now we can't look over the shoulder of every single employee and measure the widget basically per hour of what they're doing. Now, it's relational, relational impact, the EQ, that emotional idea. And the self-awareness first of all of my own strengths and weaknesses, to be able to gain influence with that person.
No longer is that just my competency, because now we have bots. You just mentioned, or widgets or AI doing some of this stuff. Now it's really about is this person, do I trust this person to get something done in a way that is beneficial for all of us, in the way that we work now? Because we all work differently. So what would you have to say about that idea of how we used to work versus the new mentality of working?
RICHARD POLAK:
Well, I think that you're right on it, and I'm not surprised you are, because I've read all your work. And I know in essence of who you are by your work, and it's all about that. And it's always been about that. Employers haven't been able to really let go, like you said, it's scary that, if you're an employer and you now have no choice because you've got employees working from anywhere, right. And you got to figure this out. You can't make them come into the office because there's no office to come into. So you got to figure out, "Well, how can I not look over their shoulder, but still kind of?" And then find really quickly, you just can't do that. The only way you can do it is say, "This is a job. I'm hiring you to do a job. And this is the expectations, and we have to come to an agreement with that together, so that you're not overwhelmed and distressed and then becomes worse for us, and then disaster. Let's work this out. Let's decide what your job goals are going to be. We have measurable attainable goals. This is a business, and then you're accountable for that. And if you're not, then I've got to come down on you. And I've got to give you a support. I won't just come down on you."
Come down on you meaning, I'll come down on you with some support. And then we'll work together to get to the place where you can achieve these measurable goals that we both agree on. And by the way, we're going to agree on these goals. And then I want you to stretch. We're going to have a stretch goal too. Because then if you do that stretch goal, then you get additional bonus.
But only stretch goal where it's not going to stress you out with the stretch. You work all these things out with the employee and then you leave it to them and they then become empowered. And this is your thing, empowerment. And if they can become empowered, they go, "Wow." You feel the release of that. I don't have somebody looking over my shoulder going, "And I'm not straight. I can do my job when I want to do it, how I want to do it. All I have to do is be accountable for the results." And that's the way that management needs to change if it hasn't already. And I know so many firms haven't. I mean, I just know it because I know these firms that I give advice to and they're backwards thinking that they've got to be right on the person all the time. And that's the worst way to increase productivity.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah, no longer, right? That idea, and we still, I think some of those individuals that have a tendency to micromanage are trying to do it virtually, and they're probably a bit frustrated.Or it's putting even more pressure on that team member or employee feeling micromanaged in a remote environment. It's got to be even exponentially worse than it was probably [crosstalk 00:25:49].
RICHARD POLAK:
Exactly. Exactly. So it involves a new paradigm in management training. And management training can only go so far because you can't change who you are, as we talked about earlier. You've got to really get in front of the ball and hire the right kind of managers first, and have the least amount of training you need to do, because a manager is as much born as it is made. And I think the leaders are the same way. You can make a good leader better, but it's hard to make a leader who's out of somebody who's not a leader. Who's an administrator, basically a paper pusher.
SKOT WALDRON:
So Work Smart Now it's coming out, getting ready.
RICHARD POLAK:
April 20th.
SKOT WALDRON:
April 20th.
RICHARD POLAK:
You can pre-order it now on Amazon, but it's coming out officially, you can get the hard copy on April 20th.
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay. Okay. And so will be available on Amazon. Anywhere else people can buy it?
RICHARD POLAK:
[crosstalk 00:26:47] Bookstores when bookstores are open. Right now it's only on Amazon.
SKOT WALDRON:
I know I tried to go to Barnes & Noble the other day. And I was like, "Can I go in here?" I mean granted, Barnes & Noble is still as empty as it was before, but we still like to go there and get free cookies with our receipts. But that's fantastic. I'm looking forward to your success and seeing what comes out of that. Again, I love your idea, the ROI, and putting that in there. That is very smart business. that just shows your, I guess, perspective and intentionality about making this a business book. You're in the mind of the CEO, knowing what needs to happen. And so that just shows that, so well done.
RICHARD POLAK:
Thank you, thank you.
SKOT WALDRON:
Good luck on everything. And I hope to follow you and see you soon.
RICHARD POLAK:
Thank you. Thanks, Skot, me too. Appreciate the time.
SKOT WALDRON:
Again, I love his premise about taking the ROI of each of these chapters. And by the end of the book, you could be making $330 million, right? Well, okay. Maybe not making $330 million, but the principles there are to show the ROI and the impact you can really have by working smart, not hard. Productivity doesn't begin at work. And we have to ingrain that in our minds and in our hearts and our souls and how we run our companies. It's really, really important. I also loved his phrase, compassionate productivity. We can't be just taskmasters, right? We can't just come down on everybody of task, task, task, task, task. Tasks are important, that is how we get things done. Measuring and documenting and creating tasks.
But the compassion, bringing the people side into that. Understanding their strengths, understanding what they're going after. Setting goals with them, not for them, so that we can all make sure that we are aligned in what we're trying to produce.
That is where it's going to just blossom and explode. So thank you, Richard, for sharing your insights. I really appreciate you. For anybody who wants to find out more information about Richard's book, I'm sure you can go to his website. Again, it's going to be on Amazon, Work Smart Now by Richard Polak. I'm really excited about that book. I'm very excited for you. If you want to find out more about me, you can go to skotwaldron.com. All my interviews are posted there. I also have some free resources for you. You can go to giant.tv/30days and get a free subscription to giant TV. It's like leadership meats Netflix. It's all, it's beautiful. So you could go there and check that out. Go to YouTube, so like subscribe, share, all those things, I'm there as well. Again, I appreciate you being here. I hope to see you next time on another episode of Unlocked.
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