SUBSCRIBE:
Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart
FREE COACHING CALL:
Need some quick advice? Jump on a call with me, and I'll provide some insight and action. This is NOT a sales call where I try to get you to hire me. Promise!
Click here to schedule a call.
Episode Overview:
In this podcast episode, Andrew Freedman, a culture and retention expert with years of experience in the field, joins Skot Waldron to discuss unlocking retention through understanding people. They delve into the three key components of retention: behavior, mindset, and emotion. Andrew shares his insights on using data to identify patterns and improve retention, as well as how companies can tap into the goals and aspirations of their customers or employees to create a sense of purpose.
The conversation then explores the emotional component of retention, with Andrew emphasizing the importance of creating a positive emotional connection with customers or employees. Throughout the episode, Andrew shares examples of companies that have successfully implemented these strategies to improve retention, making this podcast episode a valuable resource for anyone looking to understand and improve their retention efforts.
Additional Resources:
SKOT WALDRON:
Today, I've got a guest that was on this show previously. I don't do that very often, but for Andrew Freedman, who's a managing partner at SHIFT. It was a no brainer because this dude is awesome. We have some awesome, awesome conversations, and you can go back and check that last interview that was actually released about a year ago. And we talked about his book, Thrive that was just released and go into talked about the organizations and what they need to do to stay healthy and be high performing. Really, really great interview there. This interview takes a little bit of a different turn. We talk about some current events that are happening right now, but first of all, let me introduce Andrew. For over 25 years, he's been a driving force in building winning cultures whose foundations are built upon systems based approaches, creating barrier-free work environments.
He works with companies on strategy, execution, change management, organizational design, executive leadership, performance management, and reorganizing, revitalizing organizational systems and processes. So the guy knows a thing or two about organizational health and what it takes to create a high performing team. In this interview we're going to talk about the great resignation. We're going to talk about burnout. We're going to talk about the correlation between those two and what leaders need to be thinking about right now, in order to keep their people, in order to retain the talent that they have that is keeping them alive, because it's a scary time for a lot of companies. They're losing some great people and they need to know, what can they do to hold on to those individuals so that they can thrive in their own space. There you go, Andrew, I give you a little plug for the book. All right. Let's get on with this interview, Andrew. Welcome back to the show, man. So good to have you again.
Andrew Freedman:
It's great to see you, Skot. Like I was last time, maybe even a little bit more I'm excited by this conversation, because I know what we did last time. And so, that makes me even more ripe to rock with you today.
Skot Waldron:
Yes, yes. He reached out to me and were like, "Hey Skot, I got all these thoughts that are just ruminating my head. I want to be back on the show." And I said, "Obviously, because you're a rockstar and I loved that conversation was so good." So people can go back. And what's funny and I said this to you earlier is that, I actually published that show on March 1st, 2021. So it's almost been a year since, that we're recording this right now in March, that was launch. And another funny thing is, I'm wearing the same shirt that I was wearing when I'd recorded it. Which I promise I don't wear this shirt every day. I promise. I swear.
ANDREW FREEDMAN:
And you've laundered it since then. So we're all good.
SKOT WALDRON:
It's well, no, the conversation was so good, I haven't laundered it. I don't want to get rid of that good stuff that was happening there. So I want to keep it all the same consistency.
ANDREW FREEDMAN:
It's like the shirt you wore when you saw Elvis that time and you haven't since, right?
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah, because I'm that old Andrew, because I'm that old man. Okay.
ANDREW FREEDMAN:
Elvis was a bad example, but you know what I mean.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah. I know what you're saying. Hey, let's really quick, we're not going to talk a ton about Thrive this time. We talked about that a lot in your last interview. Thrive is the book that you were launching and it's been out over a year now. And so, this is my copy. So right here, so good. And how's the launch been since the book launched over a year ago?
ANDREW FREEDMAN:
It's been good. I'm proud, I had some moments of reflection in January this year. I couldn't believe that it had already been a year since the launch. And you probably remember this, the purpose of writing the book and hitting it out to the world was, really trying to get the message of how to build a high performance culture at scale, more than just one client at a time or a few clients at a time. And so, the response has been consistent. We didn't write the book to drive book sales necessarily, but they've been consistent.
More than that though is, I keep getting testimony from leaders across the globe with them saying, how the tools, the templates, the frameworks, the methodologies, how easy they are for people to put into play and that they in fact have put them into play in their organizations and they're seeing impact. To me that means everything. And as a byproduct of that, it's kicked up some interesting business conversations. We've brought in some new clients as a result, which is a great byproduct, certainly that was an aim of the book, but I'm really proud of the impact that it's having in changing the way that leaders are thinking and taking action in their organizations. To me that's everything.
SKOT WALDRON:
And I know you put a lot of heart and soul into this book, and a lot of time was spent and it's very intentional and it's so impactful. It's just chocked full of good advice. So I encourage anybody, go out there, get the book. It's really, really good stuff. I want to talk today though, a little bit about what's been on your mind recently, as far as, we're going to hit on this Great Resignation thing, because that's something that I know you've been thinking a lot about. It's something that we've talked about a little bit together. So shed some light on this for us a little bit. So it was, I guess, August, of 2021 when we had some crazy numbers and it brought everything to light that there was this huge exodus of things happening in the workforce and numbers have been fluctuating back and forth since then. But talk to us a little bit about those numbers and what this Great Resignation thing's all about.
ANDREW FREEDMAN:
Yeah. It's a fairly straightforward and also rather complex situation. If you can handle those two realities at the same time. So even tracking back as early as April of last year, we were seeing month after month, somewhere between like 3.5 and 4 million people leaving their employers. And depending on the research that you looked at, whether it was Korn Ferry, or Mackenzie, or pickup your famous consulting shop or research house. And they were all saying the same kinds of things, which is, somewhere between 40 and 70% of employees were considering leaving their employer in the next 12 months. That should have been really alarming. What I was seeing in many organizations is, they were saying, "Yeah, I see the research, but not us. That's not going to apply to us. Our place is different. Our place is special.
Our culture's great. Our people love it here."
And what leaders, many of them were missing is, they really were divorcing themselves from how their people were really feeling about life. And so, if you look at some of the research now and you see what's going on in the world, part of what's happening is companies are truly just throwing cash at people, big signing bonuses, tens, twenties, fifties, thousands of dollars. They're increasing the pay rates. They're giving people bumps as a strategy to lock up their people and/or attract new people to their company. And that's all well and good, Skot, but you and I both know that if you get people for money, you're also likely to lose them for money, for sure, because money really isn't the thing. So there was a study that was done by some folks at MIT Sloan.
Recently they studied a lot of organizations, Fortune 500 companies. And what they found in relation to compensation were these things about the Great Resignation. People are 10 times, 10 times more likely to leave their company because of toxic culture, than compensation. They're three and a half times more likely to leave due to job insecurity and reorganization, than compensation. They are three times more likely to leave because of failure of leaders to recognize employee contributions and performance, than compensation. And they're two times likely to leave based on a poor response to COVID. And what that includes is things like, we don't have a plan, we haven't communicated our plan. Are we bringing people back? Are we bringing everybody back? If we bring people back, how will we make sure people are safe? And so, these things are far outweighing compensation.
So that what's happening from a Great Resignation standpoint is, people are, they're fed up really, Skot, that's the point. They're fed up with living a life at work that isn't fulfilling. We talked last time about people wanting to go home at the end of the day, feeling like their work was worthy and worth it, that they achieved, that they accomplished, that they were part of something greater than themselves. They want to go home filled up, not depleted. And what many folks have realized over the course of this pandemic is, just how depleted they are and just how depleted they were. And so, there's a whole new scoreboard that people are using as it relates to what's important to me in my life. Work is a component of that. And they're just not going to tolerate being in a place where there's toxicity and negativity and lack of connection and lack of recognition and lack of fulfillment. And you don't need to look anywhere, more than just the votes that people are casting with their feet consistently as they leave. That's what's going on.
SKOT WALDRON:
Powerful. There's something that's very relevant. And I was thinking about this before our call today. When we talk about chemicals in our bodies and how they react to our situations and what we do in life. So if you and I bring this all back to culture, my wife's into functional medicine and talks a lot about body chemical and makeup. And I was thinking about this. I was like, okay, so we've got dopamine on one side and we get these dopamine hits from things that we do and excite. So offer me a raise, offer me 10 grand, whatever, dopamine hit. What happens to a dopamine hit? It's really short lived. We get these dopamine hits, but we also crave them over and over and when we don't get them, we hit these lows.
There's also things like cortisol in our bodies, and cortisol is there to alert us to dangers and things like that in our lives to help us survive. So what happens is, when we feel stressed, when we feel threatened, when we don't see vision, when we don't understand what's going on, we don't feel hope. Like you said, when we feel job insecurity or failure to be recognized, things like this spike our cortisol, which cortisol is supposed to come in your body and leave your body immediately. Alert you, get out, go back. But what happens when we're constantly in that environment is that, cortisol stays in our bodies, which when cortisol is present, oxytocin, which is the thing that gives us long lasting satisfaction, trust, all these other things, is non-existent. Cortisol and oxytocin can't exist in the same space. So when our cortisol spiked because of all these other things, oxytocin levels are way down, which is that thing that keeps us loyal, which keeps us happy over long periods of time.
So what you're saying, bringing all this back is that, as employers, we're offering the quick fix, that quick dopamine hit, but overall what's happening is that, we feel like we are not in a place that's safe and we are not in a place that we want to be long term. So what we do is we flee, we get out of that danger environment, because we're built that way to survive. And when we feel like we are in danger, we flee. And so, there's just an interesting... I don't know, all that sparked just some ideas and in my head about what I've been thinking about lately with all that.
ANDREW FREEDMAN:
Yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
How would you respond to some of that?
ANDREW FREEDMAN:
Well, I couldn't agree more and I love the way that you took it down to the body chemistry level, because not only do I agree with it and I believe it's factually correct, for all the reasons that you know and that we've talked about. There's also an organizational parallel here. So when people aren't feeling great, most of the time we have some kind of habits or routines that we do to soothe ourselves. And we were talking about this a little bit before, just into the level of distraction that we have and the digitization of everything and how that can be really useful. And also, it can be really divisive, but what people are doing is, they're finding ways to soothe themselves. In a lot of cases, they're not great habits.
And so, people are over sleeping or under sleeping, they're over eating or under eating, they're over binging TV. They're over binging on things like social, because like you said, the dopamine hit doesn't last very long. And so, if I'm not feeling great at work or about my contribution or about where I am or about my future, I need to find other ways to make myself feel better. So what do I do? I distract myself maybe with more social media, maybe I make more posts. Maybe I'm always looking at my phone because I want to know did somebody like my post? Did somebody comment on my thing? Because, I need more dopamine. Well, what does that do? That creates more distraction for me at home. I'm more disconnected from my family. You've seen all the photos and the memes that I have, which is today, the family dinner.
I remember growing up, it was me and my sister, my mom and my dad sitting around the table, eating at home. Today you see the family sitting there and they're all looking down at their devices. They're not actually interacting. They're not engaging. And at the organizational level, what leaders are really struggling with is, in this hybrid or fully remote world, how do I really keep my people connected? How do I keep them connected to each other? How do I keep them connected to me as a manager? How do I keep them connected to the mission of the firm? So that people are really clear and they're feeling this bond. They feel like they're a part of something. That's the fabric that's partly become torn in a lot of organizations is, people are feeling less a part of things. Now we talked about the Great Resignation and the millions of people who have left, that also means millions of people have been joining firms.
So they've been joining firms, mostly remote environments. How effective do you think leaders have been at connecting people and onboarding them and integrating them into the culture in a hybrid or fully remote environment? It's been really tough. Clients, they're coming to us every day saying, "We need help with this. We're onboarding hundreds, if not thousands of people. How do we help them feel part of our culture? How do we help them know our story? How do we help them meet people?" Metaverse is cool, it's fun, yeah. But are they really getting connected? This is tough. Leaders have not dealt with this before. So that's my response to what you said. And I'm throwing in a couple more chips here to say, and it gets even more complex and interesting right now.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah. There's so many clients that I'm talking to lately that are like... And we're seeing it now, that they've never met each other in person. And some global teams have had that happen before, but we're talking even stateside, inside of countries they've never even seen each other. Inside of states they've never really seen each other before, at certain points. And so, now it's starting to happen a little bit more, but they're just like, "I've been on this new job for nine months and a year and I've never seen anybody in person, on my team." So there's going to be a real interesting dynamic that happens there, over the course of time. One thing I wanted to talk about too, in relation to this is that, research is talking about this correlation between burnout and attrition and all this other stuff that's happening within the workforce. What's your viewpoint on this whole burnout thing? And how is that contributing to this overall flow of inflow, outflow of people?
ANDREW FREEDMAN:
Yeah, there's a direct link without question. There's no doubt. There's a ton of research that shows this, and burnout is a real thing. There's no doubt about it. It's a real thing. And because it's a real thing, it's like one of those, if you remember when WebMD first came online and part of the challenge that people had is, they were feeling ache or a pain they'd go on WebMD, they'd look at things and say, "Oh my God, I have these symptoms. I must have that." And so, part of the challenge is, burnout is a real thing. And as there's more talk about burnout, you see more people going, "Yeah, yeah. I'm burned out too." And so, I do want to talk about why it's a real thing, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to say, and let's not just leap to, everybody's burned out.
Maybe, maybe. So burnout, the world health organization did some research last year, they came out with a study and what they have termed burnout as, is an occupational phenomenon, an occupational phenomenon. And the way that my research, our work, that we see it is, it's really a systems issue. So burnout is not an individual issue. It's a system and organizational issue and people are feeling burned out because they're anxious, they're depressed, they're stressed, they're uncertain. These things, they're causing people to feel this way that's being term burnout. And the reason that, although who didn't say it like I'm about to say it, the reason it's an occupational phenomenon Skot is, because there are six major influences that, when they're in direct alignment, really help leaders build a high performing culture.
And by high performing, I don't just mean always driven to hit goals and always working hard. I mean learning, growing, developing, empathetic, connected, listening, humble, vulnerable, those things are all included in high performance cultures. But the six influences that I want to share with you and with your leaders, it's really important is, they go like this. At the organizational level, there are three things that leaders need to own. One, environments, systems and resources. Are those things in play and aligned with the culture that the organization and the leaders want to have? Environments, systems and resources, that's the first. The second, expectations and feedback. Are we setting the right expectations? Are they clear? And are we giving people real time, useful feedback to help them perform better? Three, rewards, recognition, and consequences. So, as an example, a lot of roles have changed over the course of the last two years, work has changed.
Customer demands have changed. And so, the expectations for a job, for a person in a role, they should have changed also. So have the expectations been made clear as they've evolved and have the rewards, recognition and consequences also changed in alignment? Let me give you a very specific example that I see all the time. A lot of people have left as we've already talked about. So who's left behind when there's attrition? Usually it's some of your best people. So you've got a core group of really, really talented high performers who are left behind. When people leave and they aren't replaced, where does that work go? Well, it doesn't go nowhere. Often where it goes is on the shoulders of the best people. So you've got the best people who are now inundated with more work, more responsibilities, more territories, more clients, bigger sales goals.
So on and so forth. That's an example of a negative consequence for being a top performer. So are the rewards, recognition and consequences in alignment with what you want? You don't want to overload anybody. You certainly don't want to overload your best people, because then, becoming a flight risk goes up. So those organizational influences are critical. I'll quickly hit you with the three that are owed at the individual level. My motivations and preferences. Do they align with the work that I do? Skills and knowledge. Do I have the skills and knowledge required to do the work? And capacity and job fit. So those six influences, three at the org level and three at the individual level, have to be in alignment.
And when they're not, you start to see things like burnout. When people aren't clear, when they're fearful, when they're uncertain, all those things that we talked about, come up. This is a systems issue that is absolutely addressable and fixable, but most leaders aren't getting it. And so, they're just throwing tactics like, "Let's give you an extra paid day off. Let's have another Zoom happy hour. Let's send you a kit to your house. Let's send everybody a $50 massage gift certificate." That stuff is cute. It's just ineffective. It's not getting to the root of the problem.
SKOT WALDRON:
And we see this a lot. In my past life and past career of working in marketing and design and brand strategy for companies doing external stuff, there are a lot of people that came to me and were like, "Skot, we're launching this new company. We just need a logo, a Facebook page and a website and we'll be good." And I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, hold up. Why are you doing those things? And what's the point? And where's it going? And how are you thinking about three years down the road?" Because this is usually what would happen is that, somebody that has been in business three to five years would come to me and say, "Hey, Skot, we hate our logo. We just threw something together really quick and we just had to launch this thing. We didn't have much money. We didn't want to invest much. We just wanted to get things going, but now we hate it."
And I'm like, "Well now, you're going to spend a ton more money because you've got it on signage. You've got it on all your collateral. You've got it everywhere. And now you got to re envision the brand and what it is and externally what your people think of it." And I said, "I want you to focus on strategy, not tactics." Because tactics are like your boots on the ground, in a war, and it's like your armies that are going forth. Sometimes you lose a battle, sometimes you win a battle, but your strategy is like air support. It's almost that thing that is looking down, that can see the whole thing and say, "Listen, this is where we're going. This is where we've been. This is what we're going to do."
And that's the way I wanted people to think when they were thinking about their marketing stuff. But I use that same framework now, when I talk about internal cultures. And you're talking about it too. They were throwing tactics at the wall. They were just like, "Hey massage, little bonus here, give them a day off. They could work from home now, which everybody does anyway." But they were throwing all these things at them, not thinking about the big picture. And the consequence to that is what, in your eyes? What do you think is the major consequence of not thinking long term strategy as opposed to more short term tactics?
ANDREW FREEDMAN:
Yeah. Well, I see this, so it's not even my opinion. I see this in the clients that I serve is, employees feel unheard, undervalued and unseen. They feel like leaders are doing things, while the intentions might be good, that are disconnected from the realities that people are experiencing. They really do believe that the leaders don't understand their reality and they're making decisions in a vacuum. That's part of what is causing this disconnect at the individual to manager and individual to company level. And that's part of what's contributing. There are triggers that cause people to take a phone call or answer a LinkedIn email from a recruiter. These things that we're talking about, these tactics that you're mentioning are things that they are making people go, "You know what? I think I'm going to take that call today. You know what? I think I'm going to respond to that email. You know what I think I'll at least listen." Where before, they may not have. That's what's happening as a result of this. It's problematic.
SKOT WALDRON:
There's a breakdown of the armor. There's a breakdown of that loyalty aspect of what we want. And I liken this to... I do a lot of analogy kind of stuff, don't I? It's just like that dating thing, right? It's, I'm going to pacify this relationship by inserting a little gift here or something like that. But over time, we're never going to get married. And that relationship probably won't last over time, because really, it's just these little anecdotal things where I'm trying to do to fix the temporary problem. When over time, as they get to know me and they start to learn my patterns, they start to see, what am I consistent in? Am I consistent in listening? Am I consistent in how I communicate with you?
And is it a good communication or am I consistent in my jerky communication to you? Or that I don't listen to you when you talk or others? So that's just one example, but in relationships, dating relationships, it's the same thing. And employee relationships, you can throw those little tiny things at people, but over time they're going to see through it. It's going to become obvious to them, what your real goals are and what your fears are over the course of that period and that relationship.
ANDREW FREEDMAN:
Yeah, it makes me think of the phrase, authentic connection. You and I were talking about this a little bit earlier. Really, that's what part of what humans crave, authentic connection. I'll give you just an example, and this is not meant to be political in any way, shape or form. It's a current event that's happening as we're having this discussion, which is everything that's going on with Russia and Ukraine. There's a lot of people in the world right now who are really having a tough time with what's going on there, regardless of what you believe and what side you're on and any of that stuff. That's not the point of the conversation. The point is, people are experiencing stuff, much like in Baltimore here where I live, when Freddie Gray happened. And all the other things that happen with social unrest and racial injustice and things like that across the country.
These are tough moments that people are dealing with. They're struggling and they're already disconnected. And then, these things are happening. Authentic connection in the workplace could actually create some space to have a dialogue about how people are feeling about what's going on in the world and how they're feeling about what's happening from a pandemic standpoint or returning to the office. Leaders that do this really well, create intentional space. It's not kitschy. It's not a tactic. It's not a one time thing, a flavor of the month. They do it because it's authentic to who they are and they believe they're creating this space for their people, to talk about this stuff with their peers, bonds them together really, really strongly. They become a community, not a family, a community that cares about and values. The same thing, doesn't mean they have to have the same point of view.
They can disagree. They can debate. This is about creating space, authentic connection. You know what you just triggered for me. That's an example of this. I know some clients who are having this kind of discussion and I will tell you, the impact it has on their people is profound. It's so meaningful to the people to, let's have a meeting where we're not just saying, "Look at the numbers, look at the metrics." Of course, that stuff's important, but let's really talk about what matters in life right now. Are we really upset and I read about the email that you just got, that you didn't like the tone of the email you got? Are we really upset about that when there's all this other stuff going on in the world that truly is bigger and more meaningful? Can't we solve the, I didn't like your email thing? That's the kind of stuff at the organizational level that tears companies apart, and it doesn't have to, it doesn't have to.
SKOT WALDRON:
So what would you say then, because I've coached people, you've coached people and worked with leaders that, for some leaders that comes really easy. There's just some leaders that are just naturally great at that. And they have a natural ability to understand how other people are going to be impacted by certain information, whether internal or external and that really reach out in a genuine way. I would be willing to bet that most leaders are so stressed with performance, with now that we're on... I say, I'm not even going to go there, tail end of this pandemic. I'm not going to say that, because I just got myself in trouble. That giant stress ball is getting smaller maybe, but we have new challenges that come along with that. They're so inundated with all this stuff.
Let's just say, how do those leaders that find it really difficult to break away from the performance, from the day to day, from the thing of the business to really start to talk about feelings. And because some of them are going to be like, "Feelings have no place here. We don't need to worry about feelings. You need to get your work done. We need to focus on performance, because if we don't have performance and we don't have jobs and you're going to feel really bad after that anyway." So what do we do there?
ANDREW FREEDMAN:
Yeah. It's a fair question and it really takes a complete mindset shift. It's moving from the industrial age to where we are now. People are not widgets. We're not machines and workplaces. I get even in manufacturing, places where they're making widgets,.it's still about empathetic connection. If you want people to care, if you want them to give extra discretionary effort, not because they're being compliant, but because they really want to put their heart, their soul, their blood, their sweat, and their tears in it. This is a leadership imperative. It is absolutely fundamental and critical. If you want to be a leader today, you have to get this. Anybody can learn in any online course or college curriculum or MBA. You can learn all that you need to know about finance and marketing and sales and operations and lean and value chain, all that stuff.
What makes those things happen though, is human ingenuity, the human spirit. And so the first thing is, leaders need to understand that this is not optional anymore. It's a nice to have. And they're certainly not soft skills. Retire that phrase. They're not soft skills. These are critical, human connection skills and without them they're businesses, in today's market and move moving forward in the future, they will perish, period. That's it. So it's really a choice. Do you want to have a sustainable, successful organization or do you want to go by the way of Circuit City and Blockbuster and all the companies that you know were studied way, way back. These companies are amazing. And they're gone and they're gone. So it's a choice.
SKOT WALDRON:
It is a choice. That was really powerful. And I did have some great experiences at Blockbuster.
ANDREW FREEDMAN:
Me too.
SKOT WALDRON:
Just some good memories anyway. Yeah. But we know why they're not here anymore. So that's really profound. Last question I want to ask you here. So leaders today, what do we need to double down on? Those leaders need to think something. What do they need to double down on to create those high performing cultures that you talk about in Thrive and that you coach and build teams up to be now? What do they need to be thinking about right now?
ANDREW FREEDMAN:
If I were doubling down on one thing, the phrase that I would use is, authentic and empathetic connection. That's what they need to double down on. They need to double down on understanding their people. They need to make sure that their people know that they're heard, they're valued and they're understood, because everything that leaders need to know about improving business processes, improving productivity, stripping out waste, adding more value to customers, innovating growing revenue. I could go on and on. All that they need to know about this stuff, their people can give them amazing, powerful, relevant insights. Why? Because, they're people are the ones who are closest to the work. The leaders are not. So they really need to double down on making sure that they know their people. They value their people and that they're actually engaging with their people in a way where their folks know that they really care. When they do that, unbelievably amazing things are possible. I see it every day. That without question, is what I will double down on.
SKOT WALDRON:
Very cool. I'm just going to have you on every week. You cool with that, Andrew?
ANDREW FREEDMAN:
Yeah, man. Are you kidding me? I love these discussions with you.
SKOT WALDRON:
Let's just do this every week because my goodness, my notes page is like, I have no more room on this stuff you're dropping on us. So this is so good. All right. So people want to get in touch with you, get ahold of the book or talk to you more about what's been going on here. How do they reach out to you?
ANDREW FREEDMAN:
The book stuff's easy. It's on Amazon. We also have a website set up for it. It's thrive.shiftthework.com, thrive.shiftthework.com. People can get in touch with me on any social channels. The one that I use most often is LinkedIn and I'm @afreedmanthrive, on all of them. So LinkedIn, Twitter, Insta, Facebook, all that stuff. So those would be the easiest ways. I'd love to connect on LinkedIn with any of the folks who care about some of this stuff that you and I care about. So folks, if you're listening to this, you send me a LinkedIn request. I will surely accept it, because if you care about the stuff that Skot and I are talking about, we got a lot in common. We're going to vibe together. So I'll happily connect with you.
SKOT WALDRON:
You're a rockstar man. Good luck on everything. This is so good. Now, when the next piece of brilliance comes out of your mind, let's go ahead and reconnect again. You're always welcome back.
ANDREW FREEDMAN:
Most definitely. Well, I appreciate it, man. You're a person that I dig very much. I follow what you do. I love all the episodes that you put out. I'm always listening to them. The content is just, it's so relevant. It's so spot on. And the things that you do really help at the individual, the team, and the organizational level. So I'm with you, man. I will wrap with you anytime that I can.
SKOT WALDRON:
Cool. I'll send you your $5 in the mail. Thank you Andrew, for saying that. Appreciate it, buddy. It was really hitting home for me when he was talking about how we get and lose people right now, because of money. Money's being thrown around like crazy right now. I'm just looking around, there's just this influx and outflow of money everywhere. But those stats were really powerful. 10 times, people were 10 times more likely to leave because of culture, than money. Three times more likely to leave because of job insecurity, than money. Three times more likely to leave because of failure to recognize their performance or themselves in that space, more than money. Two times more likely because of a poor response to COVID and it's not mask mandates or non mask mandates. That may be a part of it, but how are we reshaping the workplace and what are our expectations and what is the vision of what our workplace looks like and our culture looks like now, as a result of what we've all just been through in a global economy.
So powerful. Burnout, and that topic is so relevant and what it's doing for not only our own personal health, but our team health, organizational health, and our societal health in general, burnout's a real problem. And it's really easy to say, "Oh, I'm so burnt out. I'm so burnt out." But really looking at what is causing that burnout is going to be vital to fixing it. And Andrew believes that comes with authentic and empathetic connection. Helping people feel valued, heard, understood. Listening, and understanding what they can do, to play a role and helping people feel like they are liberated and like they want to be at that place. So Andrew, another awesome conversation. So great having you again, good continued luck with Thrive and with the things you're doing up there, in Baltimore.
Good luck to you and the team. If y'all want to find out more about me, go to skotwaldron.com. I've got some free resources. All my interviews are posted there as well. You find out more about what I do. Connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm there all the time. I offer some good advice and connect and free tools, things like that for you. And like, subscribe, comment on my YouTube channel, please. A lot of these interviews are there. All of them actually, are there as well as some again, free tools and advice for you, podcast interviews, other things that I've done personally. So thanks again for being here on another episode of Unlocked and we'll see you next time.
