Work For Humans – Episode Summary

Podcast: Work For Humans
Host: Dart Lindsley
Guest: Robert Glazer (Founder, Chairman Acceleration Partners, Glassdoor’s #2 CEO for SMBs, Author)
Episode: #2 – Glassdoor CEO: Leading People in 2025 and Beyond
Date: December 31, 2024

Overview

This episode explores how businesses can grow and transform by investing in people, not just profits. Robert Glazer, recognized by Glassdoor as a top CEO, shares his insights on building companies where work is a transformational offering, values drive the culture, psychological safety is foundational, and resilience and agency are actively cultivated. The conversation delves into leading with authenticity, designing work for human flourishing, enabling agency, and rethinking outdated practices like the two-week notice.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Unsustainable Pace of Growth-at-All-Costs Companies

• Problem Statement: Many organizations chase growth relentlessly, often burning out employees in the process. Leaders now face the imperative to bring people along in the growth journey—for mutual, sustainable benefit.

  “The problem is: how do we bring people along on the growth journey rather than growing the vehicle and sort of constantly burning people out and swapping people along the way?” (Robert, 04:33)

• Insightful Analogy: Growth without care is like a Mars mission where all astronauts perish on arrival: "Do you really think people are going to be cheering for that?" (Robert, 04:10)

2. People Are Whole Humans—At Work and Outside

• Holistic Development: Glazer stresses helping people develop holistic capacities—skills that serve both work and personal life (time, energy management, discipline, etc.).

  “If you get better at time management, energy management, prioritization, discipline—these are things that help you not only inside the workplace, arguably they might help you more outside the workplace.” (Robert, 05:33)

3. Rethinking Leadership: From Authoritarian to Human

• Outdated Management: The old, authoritarian style—based on power and control—is outmoded, even in the military.

  • Quote from Gen. Stanley McChrystal cited: “If you get to where you’re supposed to go and the order that I gave you doesn’t make sense, execute a different order.” (Robert, 06:34)

• The Modern Approach: Combine high standards and connection.

  “Leadership works best when you have both... rigor about your standards... and deeply seeing and helping the person.” (Robert, 07:35)

4. Work as a Transformation Offering

• Borrowing from Joe Pine’s theory, Glazer frames work as a product that changes the worker:

  “After you consume it, you’re different... so much of what you’ve written is about building, and it’s building along a lot of different dimensions.” (Dart, 09:07)

• Four Attributes/Capacities:

  • Spiritual capacity: self-knowledge & values
  • Intellectual capacity: learning, skills
  • Physical capacity: health, energy
  • Emotional capacity: relationships, resilience, agency

5. The Deep Roots of Leadership Style: Self-Awareness as Bedrock

• Personal History Shapes Leadership:

  • Leaders’ “instruction manuals” are typically baked in by adulthood—often rooted in childhood experiences.
  • Example: Leaders fixated on trust often had early trust violations; unawareness leads to dysfunction, while awareness unlocks effective leadership.

    “You’re not going to change at 40 years old... If you know it and you understand it, you’re not going to change, but you can communicate these things to your team.” (Robert, 13:34)

• Value of Self-Reflection:

  “Helping leaders unlock what is unique about their leadership style, where it comes from.... If you think you can build a transformational product without great leaders, you’re kidding yourself.” (Robert, 13:57)

6. Whole-Human Engagement and Cognitive Dissonance

• Lean into Relationships: Instead of demonizing poor performers to ease “cognitive dissonance,” engage with empathy and honesty.

  “Why don’t we lean in the other way around?” (Robert, 18:52)

• Rethinking Two Weeks’ Notice:

  • The standard practice is outdated. Instead, organizations should create psychological safety around departures, allowing for open & humane transitions.
  • Practical Application: Acceleration Partners offers 90-day transition plans, bonuses for early notice, and “open transition” support.

    “We will not walk you to the door. We want to have these openings, these conversations...” (Robert, 20:29)

7. Building Organizational Culture & Psychological Safety

• Culture is What You Do and Reward:

  • Explicit (bonuses, recognition) and implicit (stories, case studies) rewards set behavioral norms.

  “Culture is what you reward. Humans respond to what is rewarded.” (Robert, 22:51)

• Stories Trump Slogans:

  • Core values are reinforced by stories, not declarations.

    “It's actually the stories you tell and the stories people hear that impact the behavior.” (Robert, 26:13)

  • Example: The story of “David”—whose candid conversation about wanting a data-focused role led to a new job and, years later, a client relationship.

8. Agency, Learned Helplessness, and Resilience

• Agency vs. Helplessness:

  • Teams must be oriented toward agency (“locus of control”), always asking “What can we do about it?”

    “It was easier for them to place blame on some external nefarious factor than to change the things that they had the possibility to change.” (Robert, 45:15)

• Society’s Problem with Learned Helplessness:

  • Overprotective parenting and organizational cultures often inculcate passivity.

    “It is one of the greatest problems of our times.” (Robert, 52:53)

9. Designing for Resilience

• Resilience is Built Through Challenge: Like muscles, resilience grows when you’re pushed outside your comfort zone—in life and at work.

  “It’s also a muscle. You cannot build it without using it... it’s not an intellectual exercise.” (Robert, 54:34)

  • Leaders must allow, and not overprotect from, above-the-waterline mistakes (errors that sting but don’t sink the ship).

10. Aligning Personal and Company Core Values

• Individual Purpose First: Glazer’s leadership programs help employees discover their personal values—then assess alignment with company values, rather than imposing the company’s values top-down.

  “This is not company propaganda... if they're not aligned to the company core values, you're probably going to leave and it wasn’t going to work out anyway.” (Robert, 36:29)

• Team vs. Individual: Leaders must ultimately choose: Is your company a “rugged individualist” shop, or is it a team with real shared values and standards?

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Burnout and Growth Objectives:

  "We sent the thing, it landed on Mars, we opened it up, we’re live streaming... and all the astronauts are dead. Do you really think people are going to be cheering for that? And that feels like what growth has felt."
  — Robert, 04:10

• On Wholeness at Work:

  “People are the same inside and outside of work. Sally doesn’t suddenly become energized when she turns on her computer.”
  — Robert, 05:13

• On Outdated Leadership:

  “This came out of military leadership—interestingly enough, the military really doesn’t use this anymore.”
  — Robert, 06:27

• On Core Values and Self-Awareness:

  “If you think you can build a transformational product without great leaders, you’re kidding yourself.”
  — Robert, 14:16

• On Culture:

  “If there’s anything I have learned from leadership and parenting—one and the same—it’s that people will do what you do, not what you say.”
  — Robert, 24:28

• On Agency & Locus of Control:

  “Sales teams that never lost a deal that was their fault... that is a leader who allows that team to talk about all external variables and not look internally.”
  — Robert, 45:26

• On Resilience:

  “Resilience is a muscle. You cannot build it without using it. It’s not an intellectual exercise desperately missing from people's comprehension.”
  — Robert, 54:31

• On Expanding vs. Narrowing Company Focus:

  "Organizations have been adding for a long time, and I've noticed the last couple of years are: What can we take away? And no one will notice."
  — Robert, 64:40

• On Mindfulness:

  “It costs me living in the present because I spent a lot of time thinking about the future and it cost me time with friends and family.”
  — Robert, 65:06

Important Timestamps

• 03:44 – The unsustainable nature of “growth at all costs”
• 05:13 – People’s work/home selves are the same
• 06:27 – Shift from authoritarian to human-centric leadership
• 13:34 – How core values and history shape leadership style
• 18:01 – Separating personhood from performance in tough conversations
• 20:29 – Open transition policy and psychological safety around departures
• 22:51 – How culture is shaped by rewards, not just words
• 26:13 – Stories as carriers of values and culture
• 36:29 – Alignment of personal and company values
• 45:15 – Example of learned helplessness vs. agency
• 54:31 – Building resilience as an active, experiential process
• 62:17 – The Volkswagen emissions scandal as a lesson in fear-based cultures

Flow & Structure Highlights

• The episode flows from problem definition (burnout, outdated leadership) to tangible, real-world solutions (storytelling, off-sites, individualized values), constantly anchoring advice in stories, research, and business analogies.
• Dart’s questions repeatedly bring principles down to actionable practice, while Robert shares frameworks (like “above/below waterline” mistakes) and direct stories.
• The conversation weaves personal and professional seamlessly, modeling the “whole human” approach advocated in the episode.

Conclusion & Takeaways

• Leaders must move beyond old playbooks: Burnout and turnover are symptoms of a system that treats people as resources rather than whole humans.
• Build transformation into work itself: Help people develop capacities that serve them at work and beyond.
• Culture is lived, not stated: Reinforced through behavior, rewards, and especially stories.
• Agency and resilience are essential skills: Foster by encouraging autonomy, surfacing root issues, and welcoming above-the-waterline mistakes.
• Alignment of values is critical: When personal and company values don’t match, no amount of “selling” company purpose will keep talent.
• Leadership starts with self-awareness: Know your childhood scripts, triggers, and “instruction manual.”

For Listeners

Whether you manage a team or are thinking about workplace experience, this episode offers a roadmap for designing work that elevates people and organizations together.

Resources & Further Reading

• Robert Glazer’s new book: Rethinking Two Weeks Notice
• Friday Forward newsletter, books, and core values course: robertglazer.com
• TED Talk: Why You Should Rethink Two Weeks’ Notice (not linked in transcript, search recommended)
• Glassdoor: Best Places to Work & CEO lists

End of Summary