Dare to be Naive: Harnessing the Good in Business and People

Dare to be Naive: Harnessing the Good in Business and People

Hosts: Steve Boese & Trish Steed

Guest: Joshua Berry, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Econic and Author of Dare to Be Naive

Today, we met with author Joshua Berry to talk about his new book, Dare to be Naive and its impact on people and the workplace. We explored the intricate dynamics of workplace culture and personal growth, looking at the concept of naivete in business leadership. We talked about the importance of trust and love in shaping workplace culture and examined the impact of Gen Z on workplace values and layoffs. We also shared our own personal journeys that have been influenced by the book. This episode looks at conventional wisdom and challenges listeners to embrace a more innovative and empathetic approach to leadership in the ever-changing world of work.

Thank you for joining the show today!  Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!

This episode of At Work in America is sponsored by Paychex, one of the leading providers of HR, payroll, retirement, and insurance solutions for businesses of all sizes. We’ve worked together with Paychex and 9 of our HR insider friends to assemble a comprehensive guide to HR tech in 2024.  With so many new technologies hitting the market and what’s quickly becoming an AI- obsessed work culture, it can be hard to find a starting point. This toolkit is the first step in cutting through all that noise. Grab your free copy today at paychex.com/awia. 

Transcript follows:

Announcer 0:00
Welcome to At Work in America, sponsored by Paychex. At Work in America digs in behind the headlines and trends to the stories of real people making a difference in the world of work. And now here are your hosts, Steve Boese and Trish Steed.

Steve 0:28
Hi, welcome back to the At Work in America show. My name is Steve Boese. I’m joined by Trish Steed, how are you today?

Trish 0:34
I’m fantastic. How are you doing?

Steve 0:37
I am well. I’m excited. It’s as we record this, it is March Madness about to start against sweet 16 games tonight. Sadly, though, Trish, your team and my team are both out in the first round. That was awful.

Trish 0:52
Does that make you still like do you watch it still, if your team’s out? Like for me, I’m kind of like, I don’t really care now. It’s not bad.

Steve 1:00
It’s not bad. I’ve been less interested in it myself. I’ll probably watch the finals or something. But it’s unfortunate. But I remember seven years ago, Trish, we went to the Final Four as a matter of fact, when my school made the Final Four in 2017. So at least there’s that memory to cling to. So hey, we’ve got a great show today. I’m excited for today’s guest.

Trish 1:27
I am too, this is going to be, I’m going to call this a business self help show. Right. So we both have had the opportunity to read a phenomenal book called Dare to be Naive. And we’re going to talk to the author. I promise you as listeners, this is not just a boring interview, you’re going to walk away with some actionable things you can do back in your workplace, in your personal life probably so hope everyone tunes in.

Steve 1:52
Yeah, it’s gonna be a great conversation. And before we jump to that conversation, just let’s thank our friends at Paychex. Of course, this episode of At Work in America is sponsored by Paychex, one of the leading providers of HR, payroll, retirement, and insurance solutions for businesses of all sizes. Trish 2024, it’s going to be an incredible year for HR tech. There’s AI, there’s automation, there’s all kinds of new technologies emerging in the HR tech space. But lots of folks are probably out there saying Where do I even start? How do I begin contemplating new HR tech? How do I assess the market? What should I be looking for? Well, we worked together with nine of our friends, HR and HR tech, thought leaders and Paychex to assemble a new guide, a buyer’s guide for HR tech for 2024. It has insights to help listeners, evaluate shop for and actually start using new HR technology and new software that can save their organizations, time, resources, and more.

Steve 2:55
So I think folks should check this out. This is one of the best projects we’ve worked on in a long time. I’m ecstatic of how well it came out. You can get your copy of the buyer’s guide to HR tech today free at paychex.com/awia to start your journey today. So check that out. We’ll put a link in the show notes as well. And thanks to our friends at Paychex. We are excited to welcome our guests today. He is Joshua Berry. He’s the co founder and managing director of Econic and the author of Dare to be Naive. He’s a world class facilitator of change. Joshua has spent the last two decades evolving the what, who and why of fortune 500 companies and venture backed startups. Joshua, welcome to the show. How are you today?

Joshua Berry 3:50
Steve and Trish. I’m doing great, big fans of the show for many years and so excited to be with you today.

Steve 3:56
It’s awesome to have you and maybe we can Trish we’ll start there like you once ag once again, you are the impetus behind this show and having Joshua on maybe Trish, I’ll have you say say a couple words about why we’re even doing the show.

Trish 4:13
I actually have a copy of the book thanks to Joshua. And it’s an excellent book. So number one that was kind of appointment. Yeah, you have to hold it way back there. Well, we’re not gonna be able to see it disappearing. Anyway, do you have the book? But no, we were actually at an event last night. There you go. He’s got the book. We were an event last fall, we got to talking. I mean, we’ve known each other a very long time. I can’t even imagine like a decade or something. So we go way back. And anyway, we were talking though a lot about just work and how people are coming and showing up to work especially now that you know sort of the pandemic sort of period is over but people some are in the office, not in the office. And really, the book sparked my interest because when you think about how we show up what or it’s to a workplace that you’re going to whether you’re in your home and trying to work with colleagues that way, it’s really important to have self reflection and to think about that. And so for me, that was the most interesting point was, how are we going to really reflect on our own approach to how we show up for people, how we show up for our companies, how we show up for our customers. And I think this book is just chock full of exercises and things we can dive into. So that’s really what led to it other than that Josh was just a great guy. And now that I’m in Lincoln, a good chunk of the time, fellow Lincoln, or is that a is that? Lincoln Lincoln? I am a fellow Lincoln I even though I’m not there today, but yeah, so just wanted to have him on the show and really share this message, because I think it’s a little bit different twist on what we normally hear. And the last thing, Steve, I would say is that is, you know, we recently had Pat waters, the chief people officer from UKG, on the show, and she was talking a lot about being vulnerable at work. And so I think these two episodes really tie nicely together, because there is great value when you start being yourself truly and feeling comfortable and safe to do that. So I think that was more of a high level conversation. And this one I know is gonna get us into sort of the nuts and bolts of how do we actually make that happen?

Steve 6:25
Great. So welcome, Joshua, as I said, and we had the briefest of bios I just shared a moment ago. Maybe we’ll start with that, like, tell us a little bit more about you, you know, beyond that three sentence bio. And then let’s get into Hey, it’s a leap from, you know, your professional work your career and you can your consultancy, to boom, I must sit down and write this book, right? Because that’s a big, big step. I’d love to learn a little bit about, you know, the A to B there.

Joshua Berry 6:55
Absolutely. So, brief background went to school for international business in Spanish. It’s one of my first 10 years in an HR consultancy specifically focused on talent, assessment and development. And then that brought me around the world working with companies like the Ritz Carlton Hotel Company, or Mercedes Benz, or Cheesecake Factory restaurants where of course, I gained a bunch of weight. And then that led to going into my first startup, we put our house up for sale, we were pregnant with our fourth kid, and I jumped all into a startup that was focused on people’s motivation, and why they do things that they do. And that did not go as hoped. So a lot of lessons learned there, parlayed into helping other venture backed startups. And then that started to come together in 2015, when we co founded Econic, which is a current business that we do today, which is more focused on corporate transformation, and specifically in spaces of innovation and leadership change. And book writing lives. Yeah, it’s, it was about seven years into our journey with Econic and just professional growth for myself in terms of starting to understand some of the ways that I could see work evolving for good and maybe what some of those barriers were for anybody, from leaders to managers, figuring out how to shift the how and why of work. But then also some personal growth for myself some some of that self doubt about my desire to put thoughts out into the world. And so the book became not only a professional, but also a personal growth moment for me.

Trish 8:29
Thanks for sharing that Joshua. I wonder, it seems like you know, we don’t have authors on regularly, but we had one on a few months ago. And it was a very similar journey. And it was it sort of what you might perceive or be going through is, is maybe a failure. Right with with that startup, you sort of parlay that into some really interesting lessons that you take away from that that makes your next venture stronger. Do you think that that also played into this book at all or so I hear a lot of people say like, I’m too afraid, like, I’m not an expert on anything I can’t write.

Joshua Berry 9:01
Exactly. And I and I was not the person who was doing a daily blog, or a daily email newsletter or anything and moved into it, I really had to be pushed into it. And there were a number of instances even leading up to it a couple of years prior, in fact, to starting the book, I was planning on co authoring a book with someone who was already in New York Times best seller, and eventually broke down she’s like, the way you want to write a book with me is how I would feel about writing a book with Brene, brown, and dagger, heart. And, and it fed that voice in my head again of like, See, you’re not supposed to go write a book. And so you know, it’s a constant battle that I think we have. And that’s at the core, I think of a growth mindset, right? It’s never, it’s never 100% that you’re always on in your best self. It’s so easy to slip into being defensive and then protecting yourself and your ego. But those moments when we do get people around us or when about ourselves, and we’re able to push through some of those things are some of the best moments in life. And yeah, that has led to a number of the things in the book.

Steve 10:08
Joshua, the book is called Dare to be Naive, right? And which I love the title. But the first thing you have to do in the book, really is kind of break down that word. Now, yeah, because it does have that connotation of, you know, just being kind of uninformed, easily taken advantage of, you know, just not, not in a business context being called Naive is often you know, that’s the kiss of death. Right? So let’s start there with the both the title and sort of understanding a little bit more about what you mean, when you say naive.

Joshua Berry 10:42
It was what came out of the research, when I was interviewing great leaders, who had chosen to figure out ways to make their business successful, but also were using their businesses for good. And what I mean, there is just continuing to think about the other stakeholders involved and the impact that they’re having beyond just the bottom line. And what what struck me was, it wasn’t just they finally learned the return on investment. And it was a good business decision to use their businesses for good, there was something else. And the pattern that I saw is they frequently said, This might sound naive, but and then they led into a great idea or a great philosophy or a belief. And I even saw that those successful leaders, three egos, and everything, we’re using this like this might sound naive as a shield. And that’s what really dropped me into this whole level, what is naive, even mean? And to your point, the current modern definition of naivete is to be unsophisticated, and to be uninformed, and aloof, and therefore it is the kiss of death. And yet, if you actually dig into the etymology, the meaning of that word, naive wasn’t a negative thing, even a few 100 years ago, like it really just meant genuine and authentic, and that which was in you from the start. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence, then that, you know, the Merriam Webster word of the year, last year was authentic. And our, our great ancestors would have you also mean, something that’s authentic. And that’s you. And so that’s, that is the case that that I use it in, and we can dig into that it’s very much a balance of what I talked about in terms of it doesn’t just throw all of your reason out the window and go chase that.

Steve 12:27
Sure.

Trish 12:28
Do you think Joshua, that sort of embracing that naivete, if you will, especially in the way that you’re framing that if you’re a business leader, I almost get the sense that that is maybe the secret sauce, to what builds better connection with your colleagues, with your employees, your teams? I mean, have you found that there is a link there? Because sometimes I feel like a leader will put on a front like a mask at work. They’re very stoic, maybe they’re, you know, they want to always appear knowledgeable. I feel like if you’re bringing your naivete to work, you’re also you are showing your you’re vulnerable, right? Absolutely. Does it make you more relatable? Is that why you’re finding that these leaders are having great success?

Joshua Berry 13:14
100%, they’re being more themselves. And people will like to work with other people that are also imperfect, I guess, the best way that I can say it, like we are all imperfect, and being able to show some of that, and that vulnerability is important. It also there’s a there’s a confident humility that I saw on some of these people who well, it wasn’t that they were extremely passive, or that everything, you know, they still desire to achieve things and work through things. And they were looking for a genuine ROI in their business. But they also realized that there was something else that mattered more beyond just what they were bringing. And they didn’t always know how to get to that or what it could be. And so it ended up being what I call it a chosen night, which was a combination of this great rational thinking mind with this curiosity and this wonder and listening to maybe other voices that you can’t always rationally explain the reason why it is but it just feels right to you.

Steve 14:15
Joshua, the book is interesting, because it has a multitude of I don’t want to use the word case studies because there’s more stories, right there more business stories about different organizations around the world, who’ve adopted different or unusual or non traditional business practices, and achieved really some really exciting and positive outcomes and kind of, I guess, my, my sort of when I stopped, you know, when I, when I got to the end of the book, I was thinking, well, this is kind of what I’m taking this way as Hey, business doesn’t owe doesn’t have to be done. Like the typical way like you have Milton Friedman quote in the book, right? The Milton Friedman way, which is essentially the only reason a business exists, is to maximize value to shareholders very specifically. Right? And, you know, we’re presenting lots of different alternatives to that approach. I’d love for you to maybe share one or two of those either specific stories that you talked about in the book or more general, like, what does this mean? Right? What is? How do we translate the idea of hey, it’s better to be approach tonight with naivete with authenticity with genuineness, and how that sort of changes our traditional approaches to business? Yeah.

Joshua Berry 15:27
So as you mentioned, the the first half of the book sets it up, and what we mean and helps people get over the hump of do I actually want to be naive and and how really beliefs power are practices, right. And then the whole second half of the book is these chapters that get into as you’ve said, some more non traditional business practices, things like letting people have side hustles, or being more relaxed with your intellectual property or lessons that can be learned from pay what you want in businesses. And the first thing that I want to call out before anybody’s like I’m not going to show my boss this book is it is not a how to book and saying those are the right way to do things. And I think that’s very important, because I think the world has enough two books that say, this is how to do it. And here’s the 10 steps you need to follow. And, and I don’t think we need another book that tells us what to adopt this book was created to help people understand how to adapt and to start to think for themselves. In fact, I kind of kind of push off this idea of being a thought leader, because again, this book is about helping people lead their own thoughts at the end of the day. And so one of those examples is Manisha Singh, she was she was a manager, not the head of HR, but a manager and a large, global 500 company. And they’re having to remake their talent marketplace. They’re specifically though having to decide what some of the rules in the algorithms would be within this open talent marketplace. And anybody who’s been involved in any sort of large process design, you have to think about all the stakeholders that are in there, and one of the key pivot points that they had to come to was whose priorities are going to value more the managers or the employees, for instance, you know, Trish, if you if there was a great match for a job outside of department, should your manager have to say, if you get to apply to that, or should you get the opportunity.

Joshua Berry 17:25
And of course, that’s an interesting paradox to think through, because that has to be designed into the system. And that pushed them as they were, as they really reflected upon that practice. They had to dig in and think about, well, what are the beliefs that power our practices of one over the other. And as you can read in the story, that they ended up landing on a spot where they said, We’re going to prioritize employee needs, even over the managers needs. And we think that that’s the right thing to do. Now, back to the first point that I made, the book doesn’t say, and that’s now what you need to do. The book introduces a framework that says, hey, there’s a practice. Hopefully, what that did is like, poked you in the head or poked you in the heart a little bit to say, Did you agree with that? Did you disagree with that? What do you think there? And then most importantly, what do you believe about something like this? Right, the one that I get a lot of pushback on the IP chapter, because in essence, it talks a little bit about some organizations that are being more free and open with their intellectual property. And again, it doesn’t advocate for go go open up the secret recipes. But what it does say is think about what you believe here. And now. Where did you create that belief? And is that really true? What do you gain and what you lose by holding that belief. And so it creates spaces of reflection and intentionality. Because we have so so much of the change that you to report on all the time, is increasing and rapidly increasing. And what I think we need to do is actually take a little bit of time and go a little bit slower, be more intentional about the decisions that we’re making, so that we can go faster in some of those ways. And that’s what those those frameworks and tools are meant to be.

Trish 19:06
I love that you shared those examples, because the book is just completely full of examples like that. And it really is to me as I was reading it, it’s designed for me to think about and I tried to pick out the ones where do I see myself currently? Or where do I see I want to be because those might be two different things. That standpoint, I sort of thought about having that growth mindset. being intentional. You know, you mentioned I ridden that confident humility, right. So I think for me, if a leader is picking up this book, aren’t they in fact then able to say yeah, I recognize this might be my approach where I’m at, but boy, this one sounds really exciting. really intriguing. Are you hearing stories of people that say like, That one got that one got me and now? Absolutely. That’s direction.

Joshua Berry 19:58
Yeah, absolutely. So they definite really are sparking and thinking about things I will say the side. So there’s a chapter on side hustles and permitting, research and several anecdotes of companies who have encouraged side hustles among their employees. That one has obviously caused a lot of people, especially in today’s gig economy to say, what do we believe here? What are our practices going to be? And in some of the executive teams that we work with, whether they’re talking about allowing side hustles, or what their balance of return to work policy might look like? What is forcing and creating is they’re not arguing up at this level of three days in the office two days in the office or no side hustles? or Yes, side hustles, they’re actually starting to say, Well, what do you believe? Well, what do you believe? Where did that come from? And they’re starting to have richer conversations, because there’s obviously going to be different points of views. And most of the arguments and debate people are having are because that there is some other fundamental assumption about human nature, human behavior underneath of it all. And those are the things that teams can further get into alignment, or at least not even aligned, at least understanding perspective for the diversity of what those beliefs might be. And then be able to figure out how those things are reflected to the evolving practices at work.

Trish 21:18
It makes sense.

Steve 21:20
Joshua, you mentioned this idea of the assumptions we make or that we have about human nature, and how we believe people are going to act, especially people in an organization were one of the stories that really stood out to me in the book, Joshua was the factory in France, was right where the new CEO is named. And he was it was a male, I don’t remember his name off top my head. But he, he arrives to find some curious rules and business policies that had been implemented. Mostly, I’m not gonna give away the whole story in the book. And you can read the book and get the story, but mostly around very much control command and control kinds of things, very strict rules around supplies, and clocking in and clocking out, and the things many of us have lived in our work lives as well, right. It’s not an uncommon thing. And the story goes on to expand upon what he how he interprets some of those rules and what he does to change them. And you talk about that yourself, Joshua as being someone who defaults to trust, right? I’m going to trust people first, unless I find some reason not to. Maybe let’s talk about that a little bit. Because I think we’ve come up certainly in businesses where the old ways of doing things and not defaulting to trust of people, especially in the workplace has been, has been the the default or the go to for two minute organizations there.

Joshua Berry 22:43
Yeah, the CIO John Francoise, that CEO at that factory, he made all these shifts and changes. But the reason why he made some of those changes is he observed that, that a lot of the prior ideas of the org chart or systems were built upon the belief that mankind is bad, or they’re going to cheat. And and what he really said is going back to Douglas, McGregor’s work from the 60s, and Maslow’s work and whatnot, is saying that, what would happen if we created a an organization where the base assumption was mankind was good. And his belief was and people well before him was that people tend to act as they are considered. And so that’s where there’s a concept in the book that I talked about, about ripples of impact, and specifically thinking about either vicious or virtuous cycles that we create within our practices in work, and especially in HR, when we create policies that potentially assume people are going to cheat, and we’re trying to prevent them from that. Often, subconsciously, people will tend to act as they are considered. And similarly, that’s that’s where the trust comes in terms of the extension of when trust is extended, oftentimes, trust comes back to it. And there are a number of stories in the book that talk about that, but I’ll just speak from our own business. I have found many times when I think about the level of transparency we have in our financials to our employees, are the trust that’s given for people to have a side hustle, or any of these other instances that a lot of my peers do look at me and say like, That’s naive, like you as the owner, you know, you get to take and reap a bunch more rewards. And when I challenge and say like, actually, we have enough and so we’re pursuing more equitable pay ratios, and here’s the transparency that we’re doing. That’s really naive. That’s that’s not how things could be done. I, I take it upon at least myself that if I want to see a different world for my kids, I want to start to act in small ways that create virtuous cycles where that can be more of what’s happening and and that that was what was represented in that story was Yeah, Francoise. Not only did they start to drastically improve the results within that factory, significantly grow more could share significantly improve the productivity, but also the well being of the employees was improved. People were showing up and staying later, like all of the other things that we’re seeing were trying to chase from an employee engagement or performance standpoint, started to take care of themselves, because people were acting as they were considered.

Trish 25:19
I’m so glad, Steve, that you brought up the trust component. And Joshua, that you actually touched on ripples of interest. Like that was going to be my next question. So I’m so grateful that that popped up. But I would also love you to talk a little bit about not just the role that trust plays right in in that that relationship, it within an organization, what about love, right? This is one that at least in my career, was sort of trained in professional services, there is no love or caring or compassion, right? In an organization, we are there to purely do what’s right for the shareholders. So with that in mind, with many of the people listening might have been raised that way, but want to incorporate a more loving work environment.

Joshua Berry 26:10
That hits very close to home for me. And so the way that I’ve reconciled that and brought it into the workplace and with the clients that we work on, is to first start with what I think is a pretty good working definition of love. This comes from Eric from the book, The Art of loving 50, some years ago. And it’s the act of concern for the care and development of the other. And when you start to think about that active concern for the care and development of one another, if I remove the word love from that, I don’t know how many managers or leaders aren’t going to say, Nope, we don’t want to have active concern for the care and development of our people, or our customers, or suppliers or vendors or anything else. And so when we turn it into an actionable thing, and we say, how do we care about their growth and development? Yes, then absolutely. And that can maybe go into an extreme example, we have layoffs, right, not saying we’re having layoffs. But let’s say we have some company of layoffs. I do believe at the heart of hearts of people, they actively are concerned about the care and growth of people, they’re thinking about the sustainability of the business, they’re thinking about the people on the other side, they’re thinking about those things. And when you can bring that sort of care and concern into it, it may not always come with the results that are desired, or that the employee wants or the employer wants in those cases, but there still can be that that feeling of there. I mean, there have been people on my team that we’ve had to fire. And because of the way we’ve approached it leading up to it during it, and afterwards, I would say it was done in a loving way. And I think that so it doesn’t have to be a performance or love sort of thing, I guess is what I’m also saying here, because if I truly, I’m thinking of an individual from two years ago, if I truly cared about their growth and their development, their care. And I knew that this was not the right fit, and we were not the right culture for them at that time. Why would I continue to hold on to them in that way? And so there’s a there’s a deeper meaning when I think about what love could be and how that’s continued to evolve in the workplace.

Trish 28:14
Thank you for those examples. I think that as someone who has been on the delivery side of many layoffs in my career, it’s a gut wrenching experience. If you are the manager making that decision, that choice, it is certainly the gut wrenching experience, if you are the one delivering that message personally to have done as many as 50 in a day, individually. So it’s like, to me, you can’t get through that without demonstrating love and care and compassion. Because these are people these aren’t it’s not a number. It’s not a spreadsheet, right? But then on the flip side, I understand what you’re saying, because when I was laid off many years ago, after being somewhere for 10 years, you know, I was either given a choice I didn’t like of moving or that was it right? It was handled in such a loving way that I am still in contact with all of my bosses there. I think so highly of them, because they treated me with such care and respect. So I think that your description, I love that idea of having a definition. And you might not even need to say what the word is. That’s probably true with a lot of ways that we approach work, right focus on what is the goal of of the treatment and have the feeling versus, you know, yeah, we think like, oh, gosh, we can’t have love at work.

Joshua Berry 29:37
Yeah I mean, just to maybe apply that framework that I gave before to, because that’s the core of what I hope people take away from here. Regardless of if you can change new programs are bringing or say love or not, or work or anything at all is you have the agency to even say we’ll take what we just said love should be in the workplace period. Where did you learn that? Is it true? And then what do you gain? And what do you lose by holding that belief, love should be in the workplace, right? Because even even I know there are things I lose, because I choose to bring that into the workplace. If we could all just help people wake up a little bit more and be a little bit more conscious about whatever beliefs, they’re buying from the three of us today, or anybody else, and just start to think for themselves and reclaim some of that agency. I think people can wake up again, more to what the subtitle of the book is, which is waking up to their true self in a noisy world.

Trish 30:32
I think too, if you’re if you’re someone who’s more stoic, and that’s how you’ve been raised throughout your career, it in some ways, it is more difficult, but in some ways, like in the case of layoffs, or even, you know, letting someone one person go, you think it’s, it’s preventing you from getting hurt, really, it’s a little bit of self preservation, I find, if I was, if I’m in HR, and I’m working with a leader, they’re they’re trying to protect their own feelings, really, they’re not going to say that. But if you can get them past that, and say, No, let’s feel this, let’s feel these feelings with this person, we’re changing their life, how do we then help them on that next step? I will say this, it across the board, every company I’ve worked for where we’ve had layoffs, or you let someone go, if you handle them that way, very respectfully, very lovingly. They always wind up in a better place, always. And then they’ll will call you email, you give you a thank you card, like they circle back and they say, gosh, thank you for that. Now, I’m much better off now I see it. So but you know, you mentioning an employee, like, you know, if you have to let them go, Gosh, it could be better for them. It could be better for you as a business. Right?

Joshua Berry 31:42
Absolutely.

Steve 31:43
Joshua, the last thing I think I wanted to ask and I had two things, I’m only going to pick one though in the interest of be respectful to your time, as well as we do a lot of work here with our H3 HR Advisors, team and on the podcast, our family with the newest folks entering the workplace, our Gen Z friends, right? We have a Gen Z podcast. Trish and I are both parents of Gen Z people. I’m not sure Joshua, how old your kids are, but I’m sure your thought about this, some of these either at home or at work or both? I’d love for you to maybe talk about that a little bit? And how will organizations really be forced to think a little bit more differently about work? Because is it true, really, that you’re seeing that Gen Z is coming in and thinking about values and mission and how a company makes money versus just, you know, if they make money that I’d love to comment on that? Some?

Joshua Berry 32:41
Absolutely. I just actually volunteered and gave a workshop at the University here in Lincoln this morning on the evolution of the workplace in the last 20 years, to our lifelong learners initiative group here. And one of the key things you know, the there was a focus on was how is that shifting and and what that compact is right between employer and employee. And some of those big value shifts that we see in millennial and Gen Z absolutely are around why am I doing this? What is the purpose of this the passion for the one of the surveys, I quote, in the book, I’m not gonna recall the source off the top of my head, but it was 75% of millennials would take a pay cut to go to a more responsible company and the definition of that in the book, but I think we’re seeing more and more that idea that the why you’re doing something matters more than ever, the why in my job, the why and the business that who we’re serving what what are, what are our stances are and where they’re going, and that those things might shift. And so even the tools that I provide, and we started to talk about here, help people get to more of a why we’re doing some of those sorts of things. And so I think we need to pay more attention to it. Yeah, absolutely.

Trish 34:03
I’m glad that you mentioned Gen Z, Steve, because to me earlier, something I wrote down, sparked my thought of this is actually a book Joshua, I think needs to be in the hands of educators, especially at the high school level, right? Because I think many of us took on maybe some less desirable traits or skills in the workplace, right. And we’ve brought those forward over the years. So we’re having, you know, maybe people in their 50s are having to unlearn people in their 40s are having to unlearn a little bit some of these barriers we’ve put on ourselves. I wonder, are you getting any interest or is that a thought to get this in the hands of educators? Or is there a different version that could come out? Yeah, kind of nearing the workforce future workforce.

Joshua Berry 34:50
So I would love to see if there’s a broader interest in it. There’s been some interest from some business ethics classes that we’ve talked to just because obviously of how the book is set up. And it was included in the kit, our publisher put it in the catalog that went out to all the universities to potentially be chosen for core curriculum where for first year, yes, and then in a couple of months, I have a webinar that we’re doing for it’s like the association of alumni book clubs or something. And so I’m hoping that there’s going to continue to be some inroads into some of that, because, you know, part of my life’s mission is to evolve work and school to unleash more human potential on the world’s biggest problems. And so much of that is because I see so often when we’re working with senior leaders, like so much of this has to your point, then baked in, in a way that I want to honor and respect. And I want to find ways that we can continue to help people develop more of those critical thinking capabilities that they’re having to hire us for now, to be able to start to bring back to the workforce and bring in some of that adaptability and, and learning like we do in our innovation programs.

Trish 36:01
I think that’s it. I think the book, the book framework really shows that it’s possible. I feel I feel changed, Steve, I’m being serious, like, I don’t know, if you feel changed after reading it, I actually do. I feel like that’s, I’m actually thinking about work differently. I’m thinking about my relationships with people in general, differently.

Steve 36:19
I love just at the end of every chapter where it’s like, okay, what is this belief you have? Are you sure it’s true? What are you gaining by holding on to this belief? And what might you be losing? I love that approach just to help you reevaluate the things that you’re taking to work every day or maybe even in outside of work as well. So to me, that was so just spot on. So yeah, I love the book. Joshua. I’m not just telling you that because we’re sitting here talking to you. But it’s fantastic stuff. So the book is dare to be naive. I don’t know if you can read that. Because there we go. So bright. I will tell a quick story. Real quick, let you go. You can see on the back of my book, they’re saying it’s like Bert. So my desk was so messy, right. And the book had come a couple of weeks ago, and it was on my desk, and I was shuffling things around, and I moved it to the side to do something else. And after some period of time, I was I was in the house by myself at the time too. And I thought I smell something like did I leave the stove on is the oven on is something happening. And then I got up and looked around, didn’t didn’t didn’t discover anything, sat back down, continue to work. But it’s got even stronger that smell of voice something I think is there’s a problem here the house something, couldn’t discover it couldn’t discover it sat back down a third time. And finally, I realized, oh my gosh, the book is on fire. Because I set it down. I have one of those warming coffee mug thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I set it on there. And it was just enough haft in the book Joshua to turn the heating element on in the pad must have been on there for an hour and a half. And finally, I pulled it off of there. And it was it wasn’t quite in flames. But it was smoking pretty good. And I ran outside with the book just in case and set it outside for a little bit. And then I brought it back in it was fine.

Trish 38:15
It is indestructible.

Joshua Berry 38:16
Yeah. And so yeah, look at that. It’s like a Stanley.

Steve 38:20
I know isn’t that incredible? Gosh, that’s my burning book story.

Joshua Berry 38:27
But there you go. Audio listeners, make sure you come check out the video. Yeah, that’s impressive.

Steve 38:32
I almost burn the house down for your book, Joshua. That’s how much I care. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to put links to your websites, Joshua berry.com. We will link there. Also your LinkedIn profile if folks want to find you connect with you, Joshua, this has been so much fun. I love the book, Tristan as well. Thank you for spending some time with us. And congratulations on this. It’s fantastic.

Joshua Berry 38:57
Thank you. May it may it continue to light a fire within everybody who I love correctly.

Steve 39:04
I love that.

Trish 39:05
I know, Joshua, if you would just like maybe hold it up and turn it sideways. This is not a isn’t this is not a huge, huge book, right? It’s it’s a good easy read. And it’s I read it more that I could even jump around a little bit. That’s exactly it. And I look at it now like now that I’ve kind of gone through it. I can go back just to certain chapters to certain exercises. So it’s gonna be one of those. I think that you actually keep on your desk when you buy it. And go back to it when you need it. It’s more like, like a book that you read and a reference material. Yeah, for sure. Good job.

Steve 39:43
Right. Great, great stuff. Thanks again, Joshua. Trish, thank you. Thank you to our friends at Paychex of course and remember all the show archives are at HRHappyHour.net And you could subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Steve Boese, for Trish Steed, for our guest, Joshua Berry. Thank you so much for listening. We will see you next time and bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai