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Work For Humans
Beyond the Job Description: Designing Work for Joy and Impact | Sam Schlimper
00:51:24
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- [00:04]
A
It makes me really sad in my being when I think about people drudging to go to the office and thinking they have to do this because they have a lifestyle to uphold, a family to feed, whatever those things are. That makes me incredibly sad. I don't think that's what humanity was put on earth for, and I don't think it's what we created work for, but it's become that for many people. How do we every day go into businesses and help them make their organizations a better place for people to have a great time and therefore them to get whatever your thing is? I think we have a responsibility, morally, societally, to actually change that.
- [00:45]
B
Welcome to the Work for Humans podcast. This is Dart Lindsley. Today I have the pleasure of bringing Sam Schlimper on the show. Sam is a managing director at Randstad, which is the largest HR service provider in the world. It gives her a great vantage to look at the entire industry. In her role, she works closely with leaders from top global organizations and in particular she facilitates a community of some of the most forward thinking chief people officers who are working to chart the future of work. Not just predict it, but to steer. Today we're going to get a window into those conversations. Sam and I agree on a lot of things, including advocating for an alternative system where all stakeholders thrive and that mutual success is what actually drives sustainable business growth. So we explore some of our nuanced differences between our positions. In this episode, Sam and I talk about what leaders are focusing on today versus what they should be focused on, the major forces shaping talent acquisition and three main types of engagement with AI. We also discuss using pixelation to rethink job roles, discovering the internal motivators of employees, designing work for neurodiversity, and other topics. As always, if you enjoy today's episode, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss future episodes. Okay? Without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Sam Schlimper. Samantha Schlimper, welcome to Work for Humans.
- [02:30]
A
Thank you.
- [02:32]
B
You sit in a position to see an enormous swath of what I'm going to call the talent industry. So Randstad is the largest provider of HR services in the world, largely anchored on talent acquisition, but not exclusively. You and I have had some long discussions about the state of the business and the state of how businesses are thinking about work. We mostly agree, and so what this means is that we're going to explore the nuances of how we agree instead of trying to bridge gaps. But there's just this view that you have into the industry that I really value and I wanted to bring on the show. What are the conversations that business leaders are having right now, in your view and in your opinion, what should they be talking about? What are they talking about and what should they be talking about?
- [03:28]
A
Great question. I think in the majority of my experiences Dart, they're talking about things. Language is actually interesting in what they use. They talk about customers a lot. So I think a lot of conversations about their customers and being customer centric. They talk about results, productivity, performance. They're talking about thinking about today, but also thinking about tomorrow. I think they talk about that. I think they talk about their people. And this is not new. Right. Like people are our biggest asset, whatever iteration of that. So I hear them talk about that a lot, but I see slightly different actions to talk.
- [04:10]
B
Let me part out some of those things. So first of all, when I say customer, I mean also employees. But when you're talking about customers, when that conversation is happening, the customer is the end customer.
- [04:21]
A
Agree. In this instance, yes.
- [04:24]
B
And they talk about people as their most important assets. Still using the term asset. So still very thing oriented toward people. Are there any other deep mindsets inside that conversation and then we'll talk about what they're doing?
- [04:44]
A
I think they are. And I do think it's interesting because you point out asset and yet people sit on the expenditure line. So there already is an issue in mindset. I think the mindset, the deep mindset is still I somehow know in my humanity that I should be investing in an asset, even though that's a thing, at least it's a positive. But actually what I'm doing is when I'm thinking about costs, I'm thinking about humans being one of the first things I go to to reduce. And so they are still thinking about their people in the terms of that is my reduction lever and particularly in this type of market. So I think there's still a mindset of people are a cost and therefore a depreciation rather than an appreciation of an asset, an investment and return. If you had this conversation, I think leaders would nod along and say, you're right, we should and absolutely. And this is what we're going to do about it. But I don't see them changing that even in the structure of how they put people onto their balance sheet.
- [05:52]
B
What I see is I see that there's a slider on where organizations put the experience of people who work in the company and that that slider goes in the 95% of the companies that are most advanced. It goes to, we're going to provide better HR services. It doesn't go to, we're going to provide better work or other pieces of it. But then the slider goes the other way. And you were present when we were at a conference together, and I got into a bit of a tiff with a leader. And it was about essentially, sure, how people feel is important, but what's really important is that we win. And it's about winning and how the experience of the workforce is good, that's great. But if it doesn't actually support the idea of winning, then it doesn't matter that much. And so I don't know how far over that slider is. It's pretty far over in my mind.
- [06:52]
A
I agree.
- [06:52]
B
Or truthful, it may be that the slider's over there all the time.
- [06:56]
A
Absolutely. And I think there is something in that. Dante, what am I supposed to say? How am I supposed to think? And again, it's this interesting gulf for me, because when I talk to individuals as leaders, they really get it, as humans, because they're in that same pot, they require the same things for the organization that they happen to be spending this current part of their career with. So as humans, they get it. But what seems to happen is we have this massive gulf then when we get into a corporate box, and I mean virtually where I cannot behave like that anymore because that's not what's required of me. I have to go to a different side of things. And as you say, you call it a slider. What I don't see them often seeing is that slider is one thing. I don't think they think of it as one system that works together. They think of it as moving the slider from one side to another. And so I think the mindset isn't all of these things click together, and that's how we should be unraveling what we have today. I think the mindset is the slider moves and you have the customers are important, shareholders important, employees are important. But when it comes to the decision making, which is always where I taste. So that's true. And you have hard decisions to make. Which one do you always pick? And then we know how you really feel about things or not even feel about things, it's how you're going to act, even if you feel badly. I think the other thing that's interesting, Dart, is that I think leaders feel bad generally. They don't feel great.
- [08:31]
B
Right.
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A
I don't think people are waking up going, it feels great. To be a leader today, I feel confident in what we're doing. I think they are in a constant state of flux, stress, anxiety, dealing with a million things that are beyond their control. And we tend to see that in human behavior. When that stress happens, we revert to what may be easiest or known rather than what's the right thing to do and how we work through complexity.
- [09:01]
B
I think that's a very deep point, which is that you can look at business as a trade off between stakeholders where giving something to one stakeholder is a loss to another. Or you can look at business as a system where all stakeholders need to thrive for the whole system to thrive and the framework that drives a lot of the decisions is the former. How does that manifest as action?
- [09:29]
A
I think it manifests in short termism around right now for this quarter. I need to do something and you know, we're all in this, right? And it's kind of like, well, what else do you want me to do? I need to manage my cost base right now because I need to survive in order to have a longer term future. That's what I hear it manifest in a lot of the time rather than I'm not going to have a long term future if you manage a cost base like this. And I think we have some prolific big characters of the past who were revered as leaders, who. That's what they did and that was considered to be the right thing to do. But I'm not sure we've evolved that thinking. It's still based in industrial revolution type of. We're in this linear way, we're in boxes, we're all in a box, we're in the hierarchy of boxes and we all shuffle along in the box. That is not the system of what we actually want to be in today. But that is often how organizations are set up. And the bizarre thing about it is we created that, we made organizations up, Don. They're not something that existed. Humans created this structure and therefore they have the ability to like unlearning, to disassemble that and assemble something that is good for the future.
- [10:42]
B
When you talk about big thinkers from the past, anybody come to mind?
- [10:46]
A
I feel like I may offend people here the likes of a Jack Welch of the world, right? Hey, bottom 10%, take it out, take it out, take it out. That is you using your resource in exactly the way. It's really fascinating. We're called human resources, which like we said, language matters. So we're considered a resource, an asset, a cost. And therefore that's how we are put forward in an organization and that was a model that people took on. Get rid of the bottom 10% and keep the churn over. That creates quite an interesting environment. It's not necessarily a thriving environment for the long term.
- [11:22]
B
Yeah. On the point of language, yesterday I interviewed Howard Behar and he was the past president of Starbucks, and he said, I don't even like the word customer when talking about customers. He said, as soon as you say customer, everybody in your store is walking around with a dollar taped to their head and you're thinking about the money in their pockets. I mean, I love the word customer. And now I'm not sure I can use it anymore to talk about employees, you know.
- [11:52]
A
Yeah, yeah, but you're right, language is really interesting and drives behavior. Right. It drives the behavior in people. And I actually had, I attended an amazing dinner a few nights ago with some fantastic leaders in HR and other, and we were having this conversation about what's good look like for you at this dinner. When would you know that you've had a great time and you know, everyone talks about, I take an idea, I take a connection, but underneath that I'm like, is that really true or is it because on Monday you can give me a call and hope at some point that we're going to do business together. And that's not a bad thing. I'm not saying that's a bad thing at all, but it is the reason. And yet we tend to sort of dance around that in a more, hey, I'm just going to have a connection with you rather than I'm going to have a connection. But I want to have a connection because I want to have professional relationship of where we exchange value and money. And it's really interesting how we find ways to work around that.
- [12:49]
B
Yes, it's interesting selling services into the world of work because you are tempted to sell them in the mindset of the dominant paradigm. But if you do that, you are reproducing the dominant paradigm and you're going to win the kind of customers who you're going to have to drag out of the dominant paradigm or you're going to fail. And this is something I wanted to ask about Randstad, which is that Randstad, if it wanted to, could just be a staffing company, it could just be that. And yet it's working to take the conversation forward in a much broader way. Why? Part of the answer might be, well, because we want to do business with you later.
- [13:29]
A
But for sure that absolutely part of the answer. But I think and actually, all companies have a history, I think, for Ramsden, certainly you may know this history. Many people, well, it's a Dutch organization. The founder started by being that person who said, people out of work. I'm going to find people work. I'm going to put somebody on the back of my bicycle in Amsterdam and take them and give them, even if it's a temporary thing, to make their life better. That, interestingly enough, is what people go back to. Why am I here? This is what I want to do. And so that's how the staffing came about, the evolution of that in, as you say, what does Randstad want to do? It then seems to attract people, because that's what you do, who want to make the world of work a better place for the people who are going to the work. But it starts there. And I actually had this conversation with my enterprise CEO, who, you know, Mike, we were sitting talking about something entirely different, and I said to him, well, why are you here? Why do you do this job? What's in your inherent core? Why are you doing this? And he's like, I feel really passionately about people doing great work, but I'm also really competitive. I want to do really well and better than anyone else in that space and influence and make a, an impact. And so I think that's the thing. Randstad is made up of many people who are attracted to that and who want to do something better and improve work in the world for the people who go to work every day, that's it.
- [14:57]
B
It's very simple, competitive humanism. In the TV show Silicon Valley, I can't remember exactly what the quote was, but one of the leaders got up and said, we're going to make the world better than anybody else, which is a great thing. If you're going to be competitive about something, be competitive about that. I think it's a great thing.
- [15:15]
A
Yeah.
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B
There's a mystery I'm trying to solve, and I think we just touched upon something that might have the answer in it. And so I wasn't planning to ask you this question, but this question came out of the argument that I had with that leader. And my thought was, would you do something morally wrong if it resulted in earning more money? Now, when I ask myself that question, my first answer is, oh, how morally wrong? How much money, honestly? Which is, if it's jaywalking for a million dollars, I'm going to do that. But if it's crime of moral turpitude, I don't think you can give me enough money. To do that. And then I thought it through and I thought, but the really weird thing is that study after study has shown us that doing right by people in the workforce results in larger profits. And so nonetheless, despite all that evidence, we choose to do the wrong thing for less money. Now, that's certainly interesting. That's the case. Right. And so a part of what you were saying is that there's this mental model that people get into. And that mental model, I think what you're saying is that it focuses on one end of a system and the measure at one end, end of the system, which is the bank account, potentially, or potentially winning new customers, whatever the up thing is over on that side. And so it's like there's a system that's as big as a city and you live in one neighborhood and you're optimizing the neighborhood. And so the neighborhood gets worse because the city gets worse.
- [16:52]
A
My take on this, and I've asked many people because again, when I speak to people, one to one or even in small groups, people are nodding along vehemently and passionately and having conversations where they're like, this is the right thing to do. And it makes sense to your point, we know that if we do this well, we make more money, everyone's better. So then what is it? I guess this is the mystery. What is it? What I do think some of the answers that I get back are, and they all sort of form around a few elements is first of all, the frame in which we do business is quite linear. And again, I read something the other day, just things like that become standard, like you need to create a business case for your idea that's completely tied up, fully tested before we'll even think about it, really. We kill any form of the ability to create something new because the system almost shuts down those ideas. And what we've just spoken about is we know if you treat people well and they thrive at work, we get better profitability, diversity, all of those things come into that. But the system goes, here's how the structure works. Show me what you're going to take in, what you're going to take out. What is this person's KPIs, are they doing it individually? If they're not hitting it, therefore the incentives don't. And it's very linear in nature and people aren't linear in nature. So my hypothesis on this is it's quite a complex, beautiful thing to put into a linear structure and then we constantly get stuck because the complex, beautiful thing doesn't fit in the structure. And the structure always is what the thing's supposed to fit in. We spoke about work and designing work, and it's a bizarre thing that we say, your job is this. Here's the box in which it's in. Here are your KPIs you hit. These are the things that you're required to do. We all sign up, off we go. We either have great conversations about it often or we don't. But whichever you are, whatever you are, that's it. Fit in the box and do the things. Somewhere along the line you go, oh, I don't quite fit this box. But some things it's okay, I can live with, other things don't. And eventually that grows and grows and grows. Either my performance drops off a cliff or I no longer care, which is even more dangerous. And I think we have many people in organizations like that, or I leave and we all live with this. And I think organizations live a lot with. I'm just here doing my thing, not doing a bad job, but I'm never going to go and do the big thing, because your system makes me fit into the box, and therefore I'm in the box. And that erodes people down. I think that's true from leaders all the way through, people leading others and individual contributors in an organization. And so I think it's a hard thing to step out of that and constantly fight that fight to break the box in a positive way.
- [19:43]
B
Yeah, it's very interesting. I've been watching the pattern of layoffs in Silicon Valley, and not fitting in the box is very hazardous. We refer to it as the legibility reaper. If you're illegible, if you're hard to understand, if you're not acting as a node in the network, you're actually acting across the network in some way, you're very hard to understand. And honestly, a lot of the leadership would just rather you stopped, you know, because you tend to be doing things that are hard and challenging and don't look like sitting at your desk and coding.
- [20:22]
A
Yeah. Or whatever your thing is. I think that is you don't look like, I know what to do with you. I know how to do it, I know which box it fits in. And therefore, that's really hard for me too, because I don't really have time for that because I'm in my box too. Right. So habituates itself. I think that's where we are. I think we have a responsibility, morally, societally, for organizations to win, to actually change that.
- [20:46]
B
So you've Been working with a group of leaders who are thinking about the future of work and in particular how AI is going to be rolled out ethically. What are the kinds of conversations that you're having?
- [21:00]
A
My gosh, they are all over the shop. So start kinds of conversations. Everyone's got a view, but no one's really got a view. But the themes are, yes, ultimately jobs will no longer be, but new jobs will be created all the way through to jobs will no longer be, and there won't be any jobs all the way through to jobs will still be, and there'll just be a different way of doing the jobs. No one really knows what that is. I think what is fascinating and really, actually uplifting and inspiring is there are certain leaders out there who are leaning in and going, right, any of those things could be true. What do we want it to be? And so I do think there are some leaders we come across who want to put their hand on the wheel and go, this could be any of those things. That is true. But what do we want this to be? And how do we then step into working with this in the way that we want it to be?
- [21:59]
B
It's an interesting thing because AI, what it is now versus what it is in the future, what it is in the future is very black box. We don't know. And so imagine you walked into a room of people and you had a box, and you said, there's something in this box. What do you wish was in this box?
- [22:17]
A
That's it.
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B
And so some people, I wish for peace on earth in that box. And other people are like, can I just not work weekends in that box?
- [22:28]
A
Yeah. I think everyone knows that AI and generative AI and agents are going to have a profound effect on work. What I've been working with a group of leaders is experimenting with, how can you do that in a really positive way where you do get great results for organizations, but you also get great results for the humans doing it, and that those things aren't on the scale we were talking about earlier. Those things are intrinsically linked together. That's what I'm working with. Agreed with that. We had a conversation at that summit as well where. And if it's not going to be, just be really honest about it with people. Because where people get super disillusioned is when you tell them it's going to be that and then you don't act in that way. That creates all kinds of problems and much broader problems and deeper problems in an organization that I think anyone cares to measure or understand. Whereas humans generally can handle the truth as long as they know it's coming. They don't like the uncertainty. They like to know, right, this is what we're doing. This is why we're doing it. But I do think, and the hypothesis was this, with this group we can actually create great work with AI in whichever shape or form. And not just AI, any form of automation, whatever that's going to be. And humans. And we can come together to really do some fascinating things. I had a great conversation.in this working group with a gentleman from Distil. His name's Arjun. He's got a very strong view of the world. He works with AI daily. So this is what he does. And we were talking about what will the type of work become less about? Domain experience. And one will be the checker validator. Right. Because AI will do something and our job will be. Does it smell right? I'm checking and validating, making sure that it's not doing anything it shouldn't. The other is the. I'm a deep subject matter expertise and therefore I can interrogate this and really do the sniff test. But my job will be to teach others what I know because those coming into the workplace aren't subject matter expertise and so they can't do the. Does this smell right? They don't have a basis under which to make that. So what we're saying, actually the role of people who've had subject matter expertise will rather be then be. Be the subject matter expert. They will become the teacher of those. Your job will be about teaching rather than doing and so you will move through. So an apprenticeship type of model will be what work actually looks like as a possibility of the future.
- [25:02]
B
I had Matt Bean on the show and he talks about how many technologies break the link between experts and apprentices or experts and novices. And that's just because we deploy the technologies so that we can make the experts more efficient. And it works. And a lot of the way that we used to make experts efficient was by giving them novices to support them. And so many now that actually can have the opposite effect.
- [25:32]
A
Yeah. If the role of the human is to make sure that we are testing and validating and accurate and doing the right things, then we will have to actually have that apprenticeship model in order to make that work. So that becomes what work is. The third role was. And again, it depends on how far out you go with this, is that currently AI does just have what it feeds on, the data we feed it. That may change, but for the near to medium turn, we will have the things that we feed in, and only the very new will come creatively from humans. And even though AI can do that, well, we don't understand, we are a mystery ourselves, Right. So we're a bit of a black box. And therefore we bring things to the party that AI can't. And that should hold true.
- [26:18]
B
This relates to something which is largely about selection and who's going to work on what. You talk about people's true essence, their deep self, but at the same time, a lot of the work that you've been doing is around data. What is pixelation? I don't know if Randstadt coined it.
- [26:38]
A
They didn't. No, they didn't coin it. We'd heard it in a couple of other places, but I think it was super fitting. So it is the breaking down of something into itself, smaller pieces or atoms, and then putting it back together. That's what it is. So when we are applying it in the context that I work with it in, we look at that from when you take work at the moment, if you take the most common way that work is articulated, it's in a job description or a job that comes with characteristics. For us, when we're thinking about work redesign, we're thinking about, well, let's not start in the box and rearrange things, whether that be for humans, AI, automation, we're like, let's put the box aside for a minute and think about what is it we're trying to achieve with the work. And that's what pixelation is. Therefore, if you were trying to achieve that, what would be the things you would need to get done? And therefore what skills and capabilities would you need to have and what's best to do that type of work? Is that a human or machine? And if it's a human, what type of humans would really have a great time doing that, really be in their flow, be fantastically engaged and have meaning and purpose? Great, let's put them to work on that. But that does mean a deconstruct of the way work is architectured in organizations.
- [28:00]
B
Today, especially talent acquisition has an incredibly hard challenge. And it's usually framed as a knowledge problem and as a sorting and a search problem, which is people are impossibly complex and hidden, or very complex, maybe not impossibly complex, but complex in who they are is quite hidden. Work is complex and dynamic. It's constantly changing. The people who are paying people in the talent acquisition world want the outcome of solving the matching problem, the solving the searching problem. And the knowledge problem. And I often feel this is something I said on. I made up on stage and said it out loud. I should never. I should never make things up on stage and then say them out loud always. Which was, you know, I've dissected a hundred metal arcs looking for the song, and I haven't found the song yet. But I think if I dissect a hundred more, I can find the song. And hope springs eternal. So I'm going to keep trying. And it's one of these things where I am uncertain that it is possible to break work or maybe work, but maybe not. People into pieces to learn more.
- [29:19]
A
And, you know, it's not just acquisition, right? Acquisition in bringing people in. It's mobilizing people around your organization to do the right work. It's the same thing, right? I'm matching something really complicated with something really complicated. Like what are the things that make the difference of the match that for both parties. That is the complex thing to solve. And I don't disagree. Work. It's able to be broken down, right? Because it's a thing. You can break it down, you can reconstruct it, but it's agile, right to your point. You can't break it down, reconstruct it, and then leave it in the box. And then expect that box to. Next time we're hiring for that or putting somebody into it or promoting somebody, let's just check the box. That's not the way it works, but that is the system in which it works today. That's the first thing. The second thing is what's really fascinating. Dart. And I come from an acquisition background, right? From a psychology perspective. It's weird. We kind of say, hey, here's a job, everyone. This is the prize we want you to win. And then we wonder why people morph themselves to win the prize. We're asking them, you've got to fit this box. Show us how you fit it. But actually what we want to know is who you really are. That's like a mess, a complete mess. So in other words, show us why you fit this beautiful thing that we've set out. But tell us who you really are. Because if you don't fit, then you're not going to get the prize at the end of the day, which pays for your food on the table. So it's a weird situation that we've created and how we go about. And we go about talking about it. Let's tell you how amazing we are. Let's tell you. We go about with a Promise of something that come to us. We're going to attract you into this. We're going to almost sell you this, whether that be internally, externally, but when we get there, we actually really want to know what you know. And we're going to say, oh, no, maybe you're not. Maybe so. It's a really fascinating psychology and what we've created in that process. What would be great is if we turned it the other way around. Dart. And we said, dart, who are you? What makes you get up in the morning on most mornings? And I'm not talking about everyone being happy every day. We all have challenges and what have you, but really what other things that if you look back at your day, you went, when I did these things, I felt really great. I felt like I had an impact. I felt like I was doing what I was doing and let me go do that work, wherever that work is needed. If we could do that. I guess it's the same system problem as when you've got nodes of transport. Some of us don't live near the train station we need to live at or whatever it is. We live miles out. And actually, if we could just swap each other round, our life would be much easier.
- [31:50]
B
Yeah. One of the assumptions that I think companies make is that the work itself is inflexible and a given. And so if we knew what people really wanted, could we build companies that attract and deliver that kind of work?
- [32:08]
A
How cool. What an amazingly cool concept. Yes, I think so. Why not?
- [32:20]
B
Hey, everyone, I want to let you know about some upcoming speaking events. If you happen to be in the Great lakes area on September 30th. I'm keynoting the HR track at the UWEBC 27th Annual Emerging Best Practices and Technology Conference in Madison, Wisconsin. The conference pulls in some fabulous speakers to discuss topics across all of business, not just HR. Also in Oakland, California, September 17th and 18th, two of our past guests and work for humans will be speaking at the Responsive Conference. Bree Grof will be talking about her sparkling new book Today Was Fun. And Simone Stolzoff will be talking about his next book. So check it all out@revolutionive.org use promo code elevenfold. That's eleven fold to get a substantial discount. All right, hope to see you there. Do we have the taxonomy of desire? And this is an interesting question because a lot of what we talk about when we talk about how are we going to do this matching? How are we going to solve this matching problem is we talk about what's the data model that we're going to use. And when we talk about that data model, we talk about what we want from people who work in the company. But the language of, for instance, skills is not actually the language of desire, which sounds like a movie title, doesn't it? It sounds, we should have the movie, the Language of Desire.
- [33:48]
A
It is part of the conversation. But I would say that in the predominant cases, Dart, you are right. And again, I speak to organizations about this, as long as they'll listen to me. I say to them, do you know who your people are at the inherent core and do you know what motivates them and what their aspirations are before you even looked at what can be the very most reductive part of skills, which is can you do X? Can you create a presentation? Which is where organizations tend to start with skills. And makes me a bit sad because I think skills could be so much more. But skills are inherently in that system of who are you at your very core, what are you motivated by that makes you happy and what are you aspiring to do and then what have you learned on top of that, which are technical things which help you and non technical things, power skills, soft skills, whatever the words are. But where we see most organizations going is let's create a skills taxonomy that is in the learnt box, mostly in the technical learnt box, some in the non technical, but still in the learnt box, but hardly ever in the who are you at your inherent core? What are you motivated? Why? And that's the thing that makes the system work, right? That's when you get the momentum in the system, when you get that, when you understand that. So that's, I think the change in.
- [35:14]
B
The data model, that was the phrase that you used in a number of your other talks was who are you in your inherent core? And I'm not sure that that fits in any system of today. No.
- [35:30]
A
No, I agree. But I do think it's something you can put into data. Why can you not? And why would you not want to know that about a person? It's what they get up to do in the morning, irrespective of their context.
- [35:44]
B
Interestingly, I used to have back issues and so I went to a doctor and I said, can you diagnose this? And they said, go to physical therapy. And I said do you have a diagnosis? And they said, no, go to physical therapy because physical therapy is the billing machine. Right. And so you want me to go to physical therapy not because you have any idea that physical therapy is going to help me? Well, when I got there and I started Doing physical therapy. What I realized is that physical therapy is diagnostic because we're going to learn your body is too complex to just diagnose you up front and come up with a solution. So we're going to start working with you as physical therapists to discover what works. And I suspect one of the things we would like is we want the diagnosis in talent. We want to know up front who you are. And maybe the only way to get there is to make work the diagnostic.
- [36:41]
A
I think it's a bit of both, Dot, because in your same analogy, there are some times where they would be able to diagnose. Right. But I agree with you. It's not in all cases. And not everyone is like, oh, this is who I am at my inherent core. And there are ways of finding that, but there also needs to be over time and there also needs to be consistent data around that because not everybody is deeply connected to that and don't have to be. So to your point, I think there's a little bit of do I know that? What is that? How have I looked back over time? How am I tracking that? But I think organizations can help people with that. It's not a hard thing to do. What are the types of things you are doing that you go feel energized? I feel great after that, or I feel tied after that, but really happy. What is it that. So I don't think feelings are things we discuss necessarily at work. Right. But we are. So in other words, what are you feeling when you do certain things? That's not a language. We talk about thinking and design and data and technology. But actually, how do you feel when this happens? Is not. And I think it's a really helpful word just to insert in. You've just done this activity, this piece of work. How do you feel and why? What created that feeling in you and how do you check that? Interesting enough, one of our big clients and an absolutely wonderful person and you actually and I have this in common. But there's a wonderful person, I think, who we both know had said they color code their diary by red amber greens. I often do this around with my team about where they're feeling. But they color code their diary because they know there's certain activities that are red. It really is hard for them to do. It takes a great deal of energy. It's not the thing. And they manage. And everyone's different. They manage their day by not starting or ending their day with red activities because that just makes them feel bad. Right. They start or in their Day with green activities. One of my team actually has a completely different strategy that says, I start every day with my red activity. I've got to get done in the day and when it's done, that actually makes me feel great and then I can move on. So everyone has their strategy, but that's a very easy data to capture, right? How did you feel after this activity? What was it that made you feel that way? So I think there's much data we can capture to help people. I think there's a deeper thing here we haven't touched on that, and that is would they trust you with what you're going to do with that? That's a very good question. Because if you're going to use it to help them thrive and have a better time, amazing. But if you're going to at some point go, oh, so you no longer fit here because these things aren't right, then they wouldn't necessarily want to have that shared.
- [39:20]
B
I'm going to go back a little bit in what you just said because I want to agree that diagnoses are sometimes possible and also that the question of fidelity is one that matters, which is now, I don't know exactly what's wrong with you, but I'm pretty sure it's a back injury. You should go to a physical therapist who knows back injuries. We can at least get you within proximity of the place where you can start to agilely identify the next steps. So it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be you broke your left arm, not your right arm. The thing about the diagnosis thing is that it's things that are wrong with people. I'm really talking not about that. I'm talking about things that are right. And then on the later point of what people really want and what makes them happy. I'm going to start going into my closing questions because that's what I'm going to ask you.
- [40:10]
A
What do I want and what makes me happy? Is that the question?
- [40:13]
B
The question is what job do you hire your job to do for you?
- [40:18]
A
Yeah. Great. If I think about my work, I am really motivated to make work a place where people can be joyful. It makes me really sad in my being when I think about people drudging to go to the office and thinking they have to do this because they have a lifestyle to uphold, a family's feed, whatever those things are. But actually they're anxious, they don't really like it, it's not a good place for them. That makes me incredibly sad. I don't think it's good for all the outcomes we've spoken about, but it makes me really sad. I don't think that's what humanity was put on earth for, and I don't think it's what we created work for, but it's become that for many people. And so what makes me happy, what my job is and how I lead and run, the part of the business that I'm in is how do we every day go into businesses and help them make their organizations a better place for people to have a great time and therefore them to get like you say, I have to talk their language. I can't go in and say, should we just have all these wonderful, happy people bouncing around doing macrame? That's not what I mean. But essentially that's what, you know, actually works. So how do I every single day make that? So that's what makes me happy. There are parts of my job which I could ditch in an instant. Dart. I actually wrote today on LinkedIn, some parts just like, get over it, Sam. Grab. Those are things that you can live with. And that's just life. And other parts where I go, actually, no, I'm not going to put up with that. And then just because you've made that frame in my organization, why do I have to sit in it? It is risky, though, Dart. Right. Because that means I'm a difficult individual that doesn't quite fit the mold. And so there is a conscious thought around that of also being not just about what Sam wants, but in the broader sense, how does that help things work? And where do I not compromise myself, but be a little bit flexible in those things, too.
- [42:16]
B
Would you work for Randstad if its main objective was just to get butts in seats for clients?
- [42:21]
A
No, I wouldn't. That's not for me. That's not our organization. But if there are organizations and then great, that's their purpose and people would be very happy. But that wouldn't be the place where I would want to work.
- [42:30]
B
Now, one of the challenges of wanting your job to have broad impact is that it is very hard to detect when you've succeeded. This is one of the big problems of breadth of impact, is that breadth hides the results in the system. Right. You can't tell when it's happened. And so do you get the detect that says, no, I made a difference today. People are going to be more joyous sometimes don't.
- [42:58]
A
And those are good times where I go, I've had this conversation. Someone went along and got it, and they will go and do some. I do believe in the butterfly effect and so whilst I can't necessarily see the ripple that's gone further down, I do. So I do get that there's some days where I really don't and I think, what the hell am I doing? Like everyone. And I feel like, gosh, the system's never going to move and I'm literally, I feel like I'm squashed into a tiny box myself and I'm trying to find my way out. But that is not most of my days. Most of my days I look around and go, wow, I can see that's just made a slight impression or gosh, that piece of work really moved us forward and it can be smaller, it can be slightly bigger. I do live in a positive place of people want to do the right things. We've just got to find simple tooling mechanisms for them to get there. And I think that sometimes is what we just have to do. We have to meet them where they are and go, here's just one thing that might change and actually that's a little step forward and might not be, wow, look, we've got motivations and aspirations and inherent core, but actually we've moved you from here to here and gosh, that's going to make a difference and so we'll keep that momentum going. I want to say one other thing on that dart. I work with an amazing team of people who are so bloody challenging. On some days they give me free feedback darts which I've asked for, but some days it's like feel like I've had too much feedback. Thanks so much. But they're an amazing group of people who have the same center of purpose. Our lives are not easy in terms of team because we are so strong willed and so that makes complicated. But they are so wonderful to work with because they do that every day. And so when I see that also, that's massively fulfilling and I get to talk to people like you. We believe in a similar essence, right? So the work you do articulates it in a different way, but the essence is the same. I meet enough people around the world of that nature that I know it's making a difference.
- [45:14]
B
That's the thing about genuinely wanting the people at work to have agency and live outside of the box is that they'll tell you a lot when you're wrong or when they think you're wrong. It can be exhausting. It's absolutely true. And that may be one of the answers to the next question, which is what does your work cost you?
- [45:37]
A
Gosh, I spent a lot of time doing self reflection. And again, that's a really good thing. But sometimes that can be super exhausting. And I question myself all the time, dot going, I know that the essence is this, but the how is what I question all the time. And again, that's an incredibly good thing. But it does mean there's very little repetitive cookie cutter in my day. And that can be costly because the emotional and intellectual, it takes that. Right. And I do a lot of travel because I want to go and talk on a global level. And so it costs me from that perspective, but it's absolutely worth it. I'm in a fortunate position. My husband is super flexible and super supportive, and my kids are kind of grown up and need me, but in different ways, not in the I need you now. And so those times can be different times than it has to be right now. They can go, actually, I can wait to talk to you about this thing. But find their moments. And so it's costly from that perspective, from an intellectual and emotional, but for all the right reasons.
- [46:48]
B
On the point of enhancing joy in work, you've also done a lot of work around neurodiversity. And we tend to say on the show neurodistinction, it implies a little bit less that there's a center and then there's a fringe. People are distinct from each other. So how does that work relate to that purpose that you were describing, that job you hire your job to do for you?
- [47:14]
A
I am in a very neurodistinct family, and so it's very close to home for me as well. And actually watching my eldest go through an acquisition process who is on the autism spectrum was fascinating because you see it in someone you deeply care about and want to do something really meaningful and purposeful. And so it's very close to home for me. But one of the things about diversity, whether neuro or other, is again, and we talk about the system of organizations, I feel like we have this rise of people who look after that in an organization. And I don't think that's a bad thing. But I don't think we've inherently built it into the systems. I think it stands on the side and looks to insert itself into the system. And so wouldn't it be wonderful? Again, imagine where we didn't design a process of mobilizing or whatever it is or experience. We got a group of distinct people to design it with the same outcomes. Therefore, you've got equity, but they don't have to have the same pathway. Not everyone has to do the same thing to be able to measure an outcome or get a decision. You can have different pathways of doing that. Why don't we just let them design it and do what they want as long as those outcomes can be fair and valid? I think when we sometimes get around equity and fairness, we think it has to be an absolutely consistent process. As in 1 to 10 followed in that order in this way. That is just not true. And so I think some of the work that we do is why would you do that? Stop designing consistency in that way. That is not what consistency is. Dot While we're still recording, I just want to say to you this is a lovely conversation to have in my day. So this gives me great joy, this conversation. And I also want to say to you, what is lovely to have is with you who, yes, you've thought about what you want to ask me, but you're also in the moment considering what our discussion is and then really being thoughtful about what do I want to ask next. And that is a wonderful experience. So I wanted to tell you that you should know that.
- [49:25]
B
Thank you. Thank you. I am here to learn from you and I am asking you my deepest questions. And you happen to be very far down the road in a direction that I have also gone. And so I'm asking you questions that are right toes on the edge of the known in that direction. So that's my objective and that's why I think it feels that way.
- [49:50]
A
Great. Good.
- [49:52]
B
Thank you very much for being on the show. The enduring image that I'm going to take away from this is this idea that in our regular life we're all just people and we think like po people and then somehow we climb into a corporate structure or a business structure and we are governed by the mental models there. It's almost like we're mostly regular people now. We're going to climb into a car and we'll be on the highway. And when we're on the highway, we think like cars. And I think that that's a complete mystery that needs to be explored further. Thank you very much for bringing it up because that's going to take some thought.
- [50:28]
A
My absolute pleasure. It's been such a fun experience.
- [50:32]
B
Where can people learn more about you at Randstad?
- [50:35]
A
If you go to my LinkedIn profile, I have a very unique surname which is helpful in this regard because there's not many Schlimpers in the world. So if you go to Sam schlimper on. On LinkedIn you will find me there.
- [50:46]
B
Schlimper spelled S C H L I M P E R. It's the S C H L that's going to get you to the right search term.
- [50:54]
A
That's correct.
- [50:55]
B
Well thank you very much. This has been fantastic and I really appreciate it.
- [50:59]
A
Thanks Doc.
- [51:03]
B
Thanks for joining me for another episode of Work for Humans. If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a five star rating. Wherever you listen to the podcasts and share the show with one person you think would get value from it, believe it or not, this really helps us grow the show and reach more people who want to build the kind of work that people really want. As always, thank you to my producer Jason Ames at 9th Path Audio for his insights into content and his high standard for quality. Final note, the opinions shared here are my own and not the views of Google or Cisco Systems. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.