BLOGS & RESOURCES
Higher Purpose Podcast 89: Allowing Humans to be Human with Mark LeBusque
Joining us for another session on what it means to live, love, work, and lead in
An appetite for the conversation
Talking about humanity at the workplace is not your usual business conversation, but an appetite is now growing for it. As one voice speaks, a second one does, and a third, and then thousands.
Leaders are now starting to realize they can drive this movement and have to start to role model to their people what it’s like — and then hold the line and walk the talk. Cultivating humanity in the workplace is no longer a compliance-based conversation with leaders, it’s one of intention. People want to intentionally bring back the human factor to work.
Experimentation
Mark decided he wanted to find out what happened if he treated his people more like human beings in the workplace, and if he was going to experiment, he was going to experiment on himself first and step into his own discomfort. Sometimes it looked like speaking his truth, even if it was a different opinion from the opinions of those in the room. Sometimes it was trusting someone to do good work. In any case, start small, start safe, and build from there.
Mark shares the story about an experiment he ran, where he asked his people to set personal work-life balance goals: goals for themselves, goals for their family and friends, and goals for the community. He talks about the real-life strategies he used, so that you can do this for yourself as well.
A “To Be” List
Most people have such a long to-do list that they never get anything achieved. So he created a to-be list: every day, be intentional about how you’re going to be. How are you going to behave and turn up? Are you going to be authentic? Are you going to be provocative? Because if you put the ‘being’ before the ‘doing,’ the doing happens so much better.
You can get the 50 Day Humannovation Challenge from Mark’s shop here.
Provocation
Mark considers himself a provocateur, but it really goes back to self-awareness and what’s really going on in the room. He only provokes with good intentions, to help the group make progress, and in the service of the people in the room. What he tries to do is help people get past the facade they put on when they walk into the workplace and deal with the real things.
Belonging
Mark shares a personal story about losing his father, who had said before he died that he felt like he didn’t belong. That’s why Mark does what he does. As humans, we crave two things: connection, and a sense of belonging. And for a species that craves belonging, workplaces have become places of social isolation. Are there any other species on the planet that practice social isolation like we humans do? Mark wagers that the answer is no.
A message for you
When Mark was in the workplace, he worked so hard to fit in: he didn’t push the system so it wouldn’t push back on him, and he spent a lot of his energy to stay unremarkable and average. But now with the humans first work that he does in service of the world, there’s a sense of belonging where Mark doesn’t even have to feel like he fits in.
His advice for you is to hold your nerve and do the hard work. This is the hardest work you’ll do, but once you can do this work, you can look outwards and do the other work as well.
Final thoughts
Ask yourself these three questions: Why this? Why now? Why me?
What are the things that you’re doing that are useful for you? What are you doing that isn’t useful? And be prepared to sit with that.
Resources
Being Human: Why Robots Are Not the Answer to Business Success
Higher Purpose Podcast 88: Everybody Matters with Bob Chapman
Adding to this series of conversations we’re having about what it means to approach business from a people first focus is today’s episode with Bob Chapman. Bob is the author of Everybody Matters, and today we’re talking about creating work cultures where people flourish, how that impacts our lives outside of work, and what it means to care about and be a steward for your organization. Listen to the full episode:
The business of caring
We work in a system where people are meant to be managed. But, as Bob realized, you can’t really manage anyone. And nobody wants to be managed. We have a broken language that dehumanizes businesses and focuses on value creation — profits and growth — instead of human dignity.
Bob shares the March Madness story about the time he realized: Why can’t business be fun? Why do we call it work? The number one source of happiness in the world according to Gallup is a good job working with people you enjoy, and that’s denied to most people in this country.
Justifying human leadership
During a talk on truly human leadership, Bob was asked, “How do you justify this truly human leadership?” To which he replied, “Did you just ask me how I justify caring for people?”
The person people report to at work has a bigger impact on our health than our family doctor. The way we treat people at work affects the way they go home and feed their families.
“How,” Bob asks, “do you justify not caring?”
Impact
The Church has people one hour a week, and they already have so much influence. We have people in our care for 40 hours a week. When you think of the time we have people in our care compared to any other institution, we could be the most powerful force for good in the world.
Inspired by parenting
Everything Bob learned about leadership, he learned from parenting. Both are a stewardship of the lives that come into our care — ensuring who they are and what they do matters, and they can return to their homes each night feeling valued.
Stewardship is caring. When we care for somebody, it’s not about being nice and giving in to anything they want. It’s about giving people responsible freedom and preparing them to be good stewards of their own lives when they leave.
Where do we start? Education: teaching people to listen to each other, and letting them know they matter while we give them technical skills. Too much of our education today is financial and strategic and economic, and not enough of it is human. How would you treat your own son or daughter?
The ripple effect
CEOs are all concerned about the rising costs of healthcare, but Bob points out: they are the problem. 74% of all illnesses are chronic, the biggest cause of chronic illness is stress, and the biggest cause of stress is work.
But when people at work are taught to care for each other? They say their marriages are better and their relationships with their kids are great. If you don’t feel good about yourself at work, then you’re not going to be fully present at home and take care of your children, your spouse, and your community.
Listening with empathy
Listening with empathy means being fully present when someone is talking, not judging, and being curious. This makes a big difference because collaboration can only occur if we know how to listen to one another. Most of us are more willing to tell others what we think than to listen to what they think.
Final thoughts
As Bob was being interviewed a few years ago, the interviewer remarked that Bob was the first CEO not to mention his product. He said he did: it’s their people. He isn’t going to go to his grave proud of the machines they built. He’s going to his grave proud of the people who built those machines.
It’s a long-term battle, but genuinely caring for each other can make a material difference in the world. We simply need to care.
Want to grow as a HumansFirst leader and connect in meaningful conversations with other HumansFirst leaders?
Join me for the HumansFirst Book Club, where we do a deep dive into a book a month and often engage the authors in conversation.
Resources
Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family