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John (00:08): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Kai Anderson. He’s a seasoned strategist who started with his own company and now leading workforce transformation for Mercer has spent years guiding organizations throughout Europe. His book, digital Human, championed the concept of Prioritizing Humans in the Digital Transformation. And today we’re going to talk about his new book Work, different 10 Truths for Winning in The People Age. So Kai, welcome to the show.

Kai (00:41): Thanks much, John. Great to be here with you.

John (00:43): So I always like to pick apart titles and subtitles particularly, and so let’s start with people age. How do you describe this thing you’re calling the People age?

Kai (00:52): I’m glad you’re picking that, John, because in fact, the idea was that the initial title was the People Age, but we turned it around. So why is it the people age? We had some major trends evolving in the past like 50 years, which brought us from the industrial age into another age. Some people argue it’s the digital age, we say it’s the people age, right? And of course we have some short-term events like the Pandemic that also accelerated some of these trends.

John (01:26): So what are some aspects that make this, I mean, what you referenced the industrial age, what are the aspects that make this the people age?

Kai (01:36): John the industrial age was very much the core paradigm of the industrial age was command and control. And that worked pretty well. And we have to see that employers and employees were not on eye level. So this was, as we see still in some organizations like military, that was a different kind of organizing work and it was a different relationship. And that has changed significantly through of course, demographics. Now that labor, we all face labor shortage, things have turned around, values have shifted. So that is something which is very different to what we’ve seen in the industrial age where we are now coming towards, well, the balance of power, if you would like to say. So where we’re coming to a new kind of relationship between employers and employees or contributors as we say.

John (02:36): Yeah. So the book also unveils 10 truths. I’m not going to ask you to name your favorite truth or name all 10 truths, but I wonder if there’s one or maybe two that you would say, Hey, these are the most significant things, or these are the things people get wrong the most in this age.

Kai (02:54): It really starts with John, what I just mentioned, the contributors. So the first chapter is Goodbye employee, hello contributor. And I think we need to get rid of the idea of an employee. People want to contribute, they want to bring their very best to work, and they want acknowledgement for that. And that is something that has changed a lot. I guess when we started working, it was all about getting a good paycheck and that was it. And that has changed dramatically. So the contributor, and we see that in our global talent trends, you might know that we do annual of course, surveys on what is trending and what people expect. And more than 40 of people say that they want appreciation for what they bring to work for their contribution. So that is a very important chapter. One of my favorites. It’s the first one. Of course, I have others.

John (03:46): And I also like the use of new language too, because I think a lot of times old language employee is kind of loaded with how people think about that. And I think it probably in some cases almost takes an entire, you mentioned paradigm, almost a paradigm shift of what an employee or the term employee even is.

Kai (04:03): Absolutely.

John (04:04): So you also mentioned the pandemic, and it’s hard to talk about any kind of thing around team and staffing without bringing it up. Hopefully we’ll grow out of that at some point. But remote work certainly has been around for a period of time, but talk about accelerating that. It’s certainly changed a lot of organizations dramatically. How does the people age, how do the 10 truths really relate to the idea that so many people now are not physically in a building with their place of employment?

Kai (04:31): I’m glad you’re asking. Of course. We have a dedicated chapter on that. It’s called The New Rhythm of Work. And that is, by the way, we have a lot of musical references. So if you’re not into music, you might not like the book, but if you’re into music, we have a lot of references here. And the new rhythm of work is the good thing. There was one good thing about the Pandemic then it was that it showed us what is possible with regard to working virtually. And in the beginning it worked out pretty well. But then we kind of struggled in organizations started to struggle because we were getting out of sync. So some people were starting early, others were starting late, some were commuting, others were working from home. So we are not in sync anymore. And that is why some companies are calling people back into their offices, which is of course not the answer because the ghost is out of the bottle. You cannot turn it back. But we need to find that new rhythm. We need to get back in sync with each other to make that entire thing work.

John (05:42): If the workplace is changing, if organizations are realizing this is the people age, what leadership, how does leadership have to change? Does training need to change? Do who we think of as a leader need to change? Certainly the hierarchical structure of leadership has to change. What do you tell people now when they’re trying to think, how do we develop leaders in our organization in this kind of new age?

Kai (06:04): First of all, leaders should read our book, John, obviously, of course,

John (06:09): Yes. Well, that of course,

Kai (06:14): Because, no, I think the book is not targeted at HR people, not primarily it’s targeted at leaders, at executives. It’s targeted at people that want to understand how this new world of working is working and what it takes. And I think we have some really great advice also for leaders in here. Let me take one or two things. The basics of good leadership have not changed, not really being on eye level, these kinds of things. But of course there things that are new. And let me take empathy for example. Empathy is something that has really emerged strongly with the pandemic because we had to ge