Reigniting Your Career Passion: Combating Workplace Disengagement with Adam Ward

Speaker 1: 0:00

Yeah. So let's say first of all this stunning fact two-thirds of US employees are not engaged at work, so that's a shocking high number, and if we compare engaged to non-engaged, the engaged people are 2.6 times more productive in their job than the people who are not engaged, and so that's just kind of a wake-up call right away.

Speaker 2: 0:30

Hey, uncommon Leaders, welcome back. This is the Uncommon Leader podcast and I'm your host, john Gallagher. Today I've got three-time guest and listener favorite, adam Ward. This episode today is a must-listen for anyone sitting at the crossroads of their professional journey, whether you're entrenched in the corporate world or striking out on your own as an entrepreneur. Adam, an acclaimed public speaker and coach, is here to peel back the layers on employee dissatisfaction and engagement or, frankly, the alarming lack thereof in today's workforce. Together, we explore the stark differences between large company dynamics and the autonomy of self-employment, weighing the freedom against security and sharing inspiring success stories that champion personal values. It's great to have Adam back on the show. Let's get started, adam Ward. Welcome back to the Uncommon Leader podcast, my friend. How are you doing today, man?

Speaker 1: 1:20

Oh man, john, great to see you again. I'm doing great. It's snowing outside. I'm not really care for that, but otherwise I'm doing pretty good.

Speaker 2: 1:27

Yeah, I hope you don't get any of that stuff down in Myrtle Beach, south Carolina, but I will tell you it's going to feel like that 18 degrees tomorrow and Sunday, which is going to be really cold for us. So if you don't listen to this until June, you'll realize that we had a pretty cold winter as we go forward. But anyway, adam, I'm excited to have you back on the podcast again. You've been now. This will be your third time appearing on the podcast and it's been several months that you've been here. What have you been up to?

Speaker 1: 1:54

Oh man, I've actually been pursuing pretty hard my speaking career and getting stages and some keynotes and some webinars and stuff lined up and working on my TED Talk, so I've been a bit of pretty busy winter already.

Speaker 2: 2:11

Well, it sounds like it has. Before we get started, maybe you could tell us a little bit about what really that TED Talk is going to be about. But I know you're doing coaching as well. What is going on and what are you hearing in the coaching with regards to folks in the workplace right now?

Speaker 1: 2:25

Well, I got to tell you, john, one of the big things that I kind of focused in on the end of last year, maybe the middle of last year, is there's a lot of dissatisfied employees that I've coached friends, also clients and I found through the research that it was way better, bigger than I thought it was, and we'd heard silent resignation and all of that stuff and but there's just a high level of dissatisfied people. They don't feel like they have someone to talk to and they don't even know what their options are and they don't even know why. And you would think that people would know how to switch jobs. Most people switch, have 10 different places before they're 50. But a lot of people don't. They stay somewhere or they stay longer than they should, and that's what I've been, my mind's really been on the past probably six months.

Speaker 2: 3:15

When you talk about it, that dissatisfaction I mean in some of that research that goes on what are the ways that it manifests itself in the workplace. I mean, what are the things that show up when people are dissatisfied?

Speaker 1: 3:27

Yeah. So let's say first of all the stunning fact two thirds of US employees are not engaged at work, so that's a shocking high number. And if we compare engaged to not engaged, the engaged people are 2.6 times more productive in their job than the people who are not engaged, and so that that's just kind of a wake up call right away. You've got your corporate output, your personal output, your national output is all down when you're not engaged, when you're not enjoying your job.

Speaker 2: 3:59

I mean some of the topics that we also hear in terms of that dissatisfaction could be burnout, could be that my boss doesn't listen to me, and things like that. And when I think about that and I think about the listeners of the Young Common Leader podcast I mean leaders pay attention. When I hear something like two thirds of our employees are not engaged, it's very important. You know, I realize that the perspective we may be coming from here is from our employee, but we're about to give you some voice of the customer, if you will, voice of the employee that you can use to understand and try to work to get your employees dissatisfaction turned around and engaged to become more productive. I mean, adam, I can't imagine what the numbers would say if you could just take that number from two thirds of unengaged employees down to one third and what that would mean for productivity in the workplace, that's a whole different conversation. But as you're an employee sitting in that dissatisfied space, right, so we talked about what it looks like in productivity in the workplace. What is that employee experiencing that you're hearing about? What are they saying is going on that makes them dissatisfied?

Speaker 1: 5:01

Well, there I mean. So there's a bunch of things right. Probably the biggest one is they've become resigned to the culture, although it could be that they don't feel their advancement is keeping up with where it should be. But the number one thing so a lot of research done by this Harvard professor and what he found, the number one thing that is going to have a sense that is, I mean, that's going to make people work harder, be happier is they need to have a sense of recognized accomplishment. They need meaningful performance and rewards. The link between the meaningful performance and the rewards has to be there. So if you don't have that, then you're missing out on your employees.

Speaker 2: 5:43

Again yeah, that's right. And listening again again. You might be an employee listening to this Calls well, and experiencing just that, and you get to the point where you, like you know I've tried to communicate that, I've tried to have conversations with my boss, I've tried to make them understand that I don't feel like I'm being heard. At this point in time, what I sense is some of the things that you're talking about is also how you hope folks help folks when you're coaching them to make that transition. And what is it that you work with? What are some of the maybe the advantages and, frankly, disadvantages of making a transition either to a new department inside the same company or, frankly, maybe making a decision to leave the company as well and start somewhere else?

Speaker 1: 6:22

Yeah, I mean if you're okay with where you are. I mean some people. I mean I have clients where the average you know tenure of the people I'm working with is in the double decades or triple decades. So there are employers out there where people stay there a long time. But the issue is, if you ever plan on switching jobs, you after about three years you start to lose focus on what's actually happening in the world and you just know what's happening at your place. So you become a little Less marketable from that perspective. The further you go in your career, the the other thing is we get very comfortable with performing our job almost where it's rote. You know, if we're not chasing advancement and we're not learning new stuff all the every time, we can get very comfortable with where we are and then we're not pushing ourselves to grow and develop. And you know a lot of places where I go and there's clients that won't do that. They just they don't want to change, they don't want to rock the apple cart right, they just want to. They want to coast to retirement and that's fine, there's room for that. Unfortunately, there's a lot of people that are not happy with that and don't want to do that so, and sometimes your bosses hands are tied. Obviously, making a clear link between meaningful performance and rewards is is mostly up to your boss, but a lot of organizations don't do that. They don't have a true meritocracy right. They have a peanut butter spread. Here's what you get. We've got a limited number of promotions. It doesn't know how well you you know, no matter how well you've performed, and so when I'm coaching people, I really want to know what is it and you enjoy doing, and are you doing it or not doing it? So if you're not doing it, can you do it internally? And if you can't do it internally, then you need to let look externally. And some of those people stay in the same ministry and some just bail on the industry completely and start a whole new, a whole new career.

Speaker 2: 8:09

It's fun as I think about that a little bit. Even in what you know, maybe I mean we could have conversations, just what you and I had gone through in our years working for a larger company and understanding some of the challenges within that, and then the differences in working on your own and the challenges become different. But I believe in sense and I've been doing this for a few, near a few years now, not that I suggested for everyone is that some of the freedoms that go along with that are certainly worth some of the Securities that you had Inside of, you know, working for a larger company. I mean, I think I I agree with you with regards to that change. I make up that a lot of folks really need that security. You know, healthcare becomes a huge conversation with regards to I go out and I might lose my healthcare. My family needs that. But that that you know, that sense of that, that fear of taking that step, can make it very difficult, and if we find ourselves Sitting in a workplace, that's just again not satisfying to be able to work. We know what that means for us in terms of our our own health. We know what that means for us in terms of our mindset, and it becomes very difficult to live a productive life outside of work as well. Oftentimes in our coaching we really don't just talk about what's happening inside the workplace, but it's the relationships on the outside that are damaged as well. So you know you've had an opportunity to coach many people in your time and, in terms of this space, what's a success story of someone you've worked with who's been able to make a change and how they've been able to thrive in that?

Speaker 1: 9:41

Yes, I'm going to use an external example and an internal example, and so the external. I'll do the external example first because it seems more obvious that there's a physician that you know was in my group and on this innovation team and we were developing new products and they just got the innovation bug and they're like I can't do anything but this and actually went on to be part of a startup, sits on the C-suite of one of the startups I think she was on your show too, john, and that now she is. I mean, that Startup is growing fantastic. I think they're you know, they just had a multi 100 million dollar, you know investment in them and they're they're national and Obviously she loves it. It's very different. Now the internal example another person this one just examples healthcare too, but Was just really dissatisfied with the performance, with advancement. You know, the pandemic was really hard and so I was just like, okay, no, you just need to be really clear about what you want and you need to talk about it, and I'm going to do a little piece here on introverts. So I'm an introvert and a lot of us introverts don't talk up, we don't share what we're thinking, we get, you know, we bypass for promotions and it feels uncomfortable for us to brag about ourselves. I know females a lot of times will have trouble bragging about themselves as well, but we have to do that and soon as that happened there was a new role that came up, a promotion. They took it and are loving it and stayed inside the same company. So I know I put a lot into that response, but that's just a couple of examples, and I mean there's so many of them out there.

Speaker 2: 11:26

Well, they don't always work out perfectly, but I like this success of both internal and external. You know, often folks will be thinking about this from the perspective I just need to get outside this company and They'll get this viewpoint of the grass has got to be greener on the other side. But I've also heard the cliche that the grass is Greener where you water it the most. And that's really where it's going to happen If you can find a way to do that internally. If you're, and the other the other thing I heard that you talked about Was in regards to an alignment of values, your personal values that may or may not line up with the Core values of an organization, and that's important consideration as you go forward. What are some of the other considerations that you coach folks on in terms of saying, if you're going to make a change, you know you want to do this well.

Speaker 1: 12:10

Well, for me personally, I like the freedom aspect of it. I think people get into an expectation that it has to be an eight to five or, if you're an executive, an eight to eight or seven to seven. A job five days a week, six days a week, and it actually it doesn't have to be. I don't remember the last time I worked a full 40 hour a week when I wasn't on site somewhere, and there's just a lot of freedom in that. Obviously, like you said, there's cons that come with that, but when you switch jobs you can reposition your value and I tell people who switch jobs the number one thing is you set your expectation for how hard you're going to work and they're going to get used to that. If you're busting your butt to get in, they're going to expect that all the time. If you're doing your job and you're still maintaining minimum hours or whatever, they expect that too and they'll be fine with that. You're defining it in your first three months with your new employer and you can define your sense of freedom either way. The next biggest one, I think and I don't know if they necessarily go hand in hand but advancement slash pay. You know a lot of people. They want advancement, they want new challenges, they want to be responsible for something else and there's only so many places that they can go and a lot of them are afraid to get out of their expertise zone and try to make an advancement. And so I would say, you know, besides the culture, the freedom and the advancement, you can completely reposition yourself when you do that.

Speaker 2: 13:47

Yeah, it's interesting when you talk about that freedom as well. I mean you mentioned earlier the COVID times. I mean it changed the workplace. We became a work from home workplace for a while and the organizations are, you know, even now, in 2024, almost four years post COVID are still trying to get people back to work and that freedom. Frankly, that work from home freedom and where you can be as productive if you were in the office, is a real scenario right now in terms of what's happening and there's a feel that many employers have that you got to be in person to be successful. But others get a chance to measure that in terms of what's important to them the reduction in a commute of a 30 minute or 60 minute or live in Boston an hour and a half to two hour commute that you have to do every day each way to get to and from work. Those are hours that you get back and can be much more productive in other spaces, both inside of work and outside of work. You know, what are you seeing in that? What are you seeing as trends in the workplace? Are folks backing off of that a little bit, trying to drag people back in, or are you seeing?

Speaker 1: 14:52

that, yeah, and actually I've seen it move a little bit where the bad apples ruin it for everybody Now, and so we had mandatory telecommuting, then we had optional telecommuting. Now I see more and more that people are revoking telecommuting because there's people who are there. You know it's not that okay, I have a suit and shirt on right and I have sweat pants on the bottom Right, so you know I can go from my business. Look to my workout in two minutes and you know you can't do that. But the people are taking that to the extreme right. They're checking in, they're going to meetings, they're not tapping between you know social media or whatever they're having. You know conversations and teams with other employees and they're actually not getting their work done. I think it's still works for a lot of people and I think a lot of jobs can still get done that way. And so I mean, if it works for you and you can find the job, that that's good and they still allow that, then do it. But if you have to have any type of collaboration man, virtuals, it's rough.

Speaker 2: 15:58

Hey listeners, I want to take a quick moment to share something special with you. Many of the topics and discussions we have on this podcast are areas where I provide coaching and consulting services for individuals and organizations. If you've been inspired by our conversation and are seeking a catalyst for change in your own life or within your team, I invite you to visit coachjohngallaghercom forward slash free call to sign up for a free coaching call with me. It's an opportunity for us to connect, discuss your unique challenges and explore how coaching or consulting can benefit you and your team. Okay, let's get back to the show. You know you touched on that too, in terms of the swinging momentum, like the word I had come to my mind as you were saying that was trust. Like there's just a in a lot of spaces there's a lack of trust that folks can get that work done and that's a failure of leadership on my part, not being able to communicate expectations. I mean, let's face it, if you make widgets, you got to be in the location to make widgets. It's hard not to do that. But if you're in a service level job, things like that, and there's a lack of trust in the workplace and you touched on it, even a lack of trust in just a few, that can run it for the many in terms of what's happening. We don't have the ability to lead, to make decisions as an organization and address the poor performers so that we don't penalize the rest of the organization. And that's I. Just again, part of that freedom, the one word you say, I make up. When there's not the freedom that exists and you have a higher performer in the organization, you try to force them to do something they just don't want to do. Because a low performer gets to hang out in that space, they're going to leave. They are going to make that decision to leave. As leaders, we better start recognizing our top performers.

Speaker 1: 17:44

Yeah, and I can tell you a little tack on to that, john, is very few businesses understand their weekly and daily KPIs that their employees contribute. Most of them think it's hours behind a desk and that is not it. So you know, like my son, he's in tech sales and he's got to have so many leads a week he's got to create so many meetings he's got and that could completely do a telecommute, be a telecommute job, but a couple of his co-workers ruined it and he's got to drive 40 minutes to an office, do the same exact thing that he would do at home, wait eight hours, go home and that type of work he could get done a lot faster. But I would challenge leaders, for your employees, if you don't have a standard work for them on a daily and weekly basis, then you're counting the wrong thing Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 18:36

I love that in terms of talking about hours behind a desk mean nothing it's. You know people were spending millions of dollars on technology to tell whether or not somebody's logged in and how long it has been between key strokes that they have, between phone calls that they've taken, and you know it's really an exercise in futility because if that's the again, if that lack of trust exists with your employees, they're going to find ways around that to make it work to their advantage. And I'm curious, so, outside of the fact that video phone calls work and things like that, we can get things done by Zoom what other role have you seen kind of technology play then in this time? Not just a work from home thing, but I'm talking about the back to your topic about engagement and keeping employees engaged. What's the role of technology that organizations are playing right now? That is good and bad.

Speaker 1: 19:31

Well, I mean, teams went from non existent to pretty much everywhere now, right. So Microsoft like reorganized our whole portfolio to go under teams. You know they've got the files, they've got the chats, they've got you know the teleconferencing all built in to one thing. But what that's done is that it's discouraged ideas because it's a completely public forum, right? So now if you respond to a thread, everybody's hearing it and you know you can't as easily. You know, go talk to someone. And I'm not saying for the high tech people, you know the people that aren't going to go in and find out what every single widget stands for and figure out the things around it. So I really don't like how that. You know, of course, microsoft's enterprise solution, but solutions like that take away the voice of the individual when it becomes harder for them to use than if they were sitting in a conference room. And I think it's probably still on the negative side. I wouldn't say that we've got some positive things. Maybe the most positive is AI blurring the background of that trash office that you're sitting in and sticking your corporate logo background behind it.

Speaker 2: 20:54

That's probably the best thing I've seen use of technology as far as yeah, keep the cats, keep the folks from seeing the cats run behind you on your shelf or whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 21:05

Yeah, or that on an apple that you set up there.

Speaker 2: 21:08

Yeah right, I've seen the memes that are out there too, though the danger of that with high tech and those that are, we'll say, less technologically savvy, who turn their cameras into kitty cats or whatever they are and they don't realize they're trying to talk in. Have you seen that video that floats around with regards to the judge who's talking and it's coming out like a cat filter or whatever it is? So there's danger that exists within that, but the fact that you know, you would say in the same sentence almost feels like an oxy moron is certainly not alliteration or alignment is that the advancement in technology may be stifling the innovation of a team, and it really.

Speaker 1: 21:47

I guarantee it is yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:50

And so I can. I can sense that I could see that even myself as I fight through some of these things, and I consider myself, while not an early adopter anyway, at least somewhere, at least, someone who will grab on to it once it starts to take hold. And you're right, ai is going to continue to do good things and make things very challenging for us, as an organization, to keep our employees engaged and to keep them.

Speaker 1: 22:13

I mean like I can use AI to generate pretty much whatever email I want now. So like, if I want it hyper productive, and I can just jump in use a generative AI Google bar, chat, gpt, whatever you know create an email limited to one paragraph, change my tone to happy, you know, do whatever I want to it, send it back, save 20 minutes, you know, from composing it. So there's stuff that that way to there's definitely. I'm not saying technology is bad, I'm just as far as a career path and as far as happy employees in general. Since COVID I haven't seen a bounce up yet.

Speaker 2: 22:51

So let's get real pragmatic, as we got to get down to the event end of our time. You have a client that you're coaching as the individual, and the communication, three or four times in a row and on your phone calls that you have with them or in person meetings that you have with them, is that you know they forced me to work 50 hours a week. I don't see any opportunity for promotion and, frankly, I'm just tired of the way that the boss treats me on a regular basis and I don't have a good teamwork. What are the first one or two steps that you advise a client to go through to help them get through that scenario?

Speaker 1: 23:27

Number one is do not talk to a coworker, even if they're their most trusted best friend, because their world is just as limited as your world. I actually like people. I sent them the Barnes Noble. I said go buy five magazines that you've never bought before. Flip through those magazines, erase your YouTube, search and watch history and see what pops up, because there could be stuff that you know is stimulating Search terms that you would never search before. And just watch a couple videos. Obviously, there's the whole podcast route. I would, you know, say go pick a couple random podcasts. I like John Lee Dumas when he's doing one every single day and it's just like inspirational to hear some of these rags, the riches. You know stories. So those are like a few things that I just say hey, do that. Another thing is like go talk to someone you haven't talked to in a long time that you really enjoy and just have them. Like re-plan your future as if you were 21 or 25 or 18 or whatever. Again, I always thought you would be good in such and such and then I know this is going to sound dumb, but redo a career assessment Like go type in your personality, how you operate, and see what it suggests that you do. And the world is so giant, even in your industry there are hundreds of options, I'm guessing. And that doesn't even counting industries, john, and there are dozens of industries. So those are a few really simple exercises that people can do to kind of open back up, get that mind more you know the neuroplasticity back and just consider options. And then I have them to do a little exercise and say, okay, now write down some dream job that you would you don't know if you would get, but that you would actually love. I want to work beside Nike designing tennis shoes. I want to sail around the world and blog the whole time and become an influencer. Just do stupid stuff. And then I have a follow up conversation after they've done one or more of those things.

Speaker 2: 25:30

Yeah, so it's rolling it back into a certain extent. Okay, that's the ideal world in terms of what I and you use. The word neuroplasticity, right, and ultimately, what again? As I was thinking about, I'm like you're rewiring your brain. See, you've done things so long the same way, you've become comfortable with what that looks like and it's just routine, and sometimes that's a good thing. More often than not, though, it's not, and I have, you know, developed this recently not me developing, probably stole it, but it doesn't matter. But you know, if you are comfortable in the space that you're in, then you should probably be uncomfortable, especially at the rate things can continue to change. You know, I mean with regards to workplace, the economy policy, all the things that we have really very little control over. What you do have control over what you're talking about are your own choices how you go out and look for things, how you go out and teach yourself, how you go out and learn a new skill you know when was the last time you did something for the first time, kind of thing and just go out there and don't try anything. Necessarily. That's unsafe, but try something that you've always wanted to do. Absolutely, john.

Speaker 1: 26:42

I got this. This is a little. I don't know how good that good it is, but it works. So now, basically, every resume that gets submitted gets run through an HR scanner and the valuable thing is pulled out and then you get accepted or rejected based on the content of your resume. If you format your resume wrong, you could lose it, and so I'm actually telling people now to sandbag or over promote their resume, run it through an online ATS scanner, see what comes out and if there's a job that you don't think you're qualified for, use the keywords from the job posting to create your resume, to get to the interview and at least do an interview. And there was one job that I took. There's one whole area of the job that I didn't know and I just I put it on my resume anyway, and then I studied for three weeks before the interview and then I you know, at the interview I was actually I could talk well enough to get through the interview and turns out that thing wasn't even a big part of the job anyway, but it was. It prevented me from getting the interview or let me in, and I was extremely successful in that job and made the company a ton of money and because I knew that I could do the job. I just knew this one little thing wasn't the best. So if I like, if you need a certification, put it on there, go get the certification and then you can decide at the interview. And I love how people are afraid that they don't have the qualifications. But you can do a lot to get that resume through and then decide if you even want the job and if they want you.

Speaker 2: 28:20

Well, I like that. I mean, we're not talking about integrity here this is not what I hear with regards to what you're saying but it's recognizing the need to get into one of those roles that you might have identified as really cool, Exactly. And if there's a gap, that a piece of software can help you identify that gap and talk about that gap. You can teach yourself that gap. There are ways to learn, speed reading and all kind of different things to really teach. We don't need a four-year degree in rocket science to learn some of the things that you're talking about here. It's regarded being disciplined and training yourself in a new way of doing things. That can be pretty powerful, and the fact that you identify that as a tool that could be used means there are others that are using that tool out there and again. So the old saying is close that gap, that competitive gap, as quickly as you can. The way you do that is learning. You better learn how to do it. Or again, things are going to run right by you and you'll be sticking in that same job that you're dissatisfied with for a long time. Right back to the topic of the discussion.

Speaker 1: 29:23

As we go forward, I mean you link, then even tells you what keywords you're missing on your profile If you're trying to apply for a job. It's like you have seven of the 10. You have four of the 10. May want to consider more. It's literally telling you put these words in or you're not going to get considered for that job. So that's just. The automation on the HR side has pulled out so many qualified candidates from the process that it's just, it's nauseating nauseating to me. But you need to have your LinkedIn profile right, you need to have your resume written right, and there's a lot of people that can do that for very cheap and you can get jobs that you don't feel you're qualified for just by getting in the door.

Speaker 2: 30:04

Adam, this has been a fun conversation. You got a lot of good tips for folks to consider when they are at a space where they're dissatisfied, and the opportunity and what they can do to make changes. But, as you said right at the start, if they're going to make a change, it's them. It's that individual that's going to have to make the choice to make that change, not just in a new job change, but change as a person. Control what you can control. That's very important, but when what you can't control goes beyond what you're willing to tolerate, then it's only on you to make a change and make a difference. Right, I've enjoyed our conversation. I'll finish you the same way I do with the other guests in terms of understanding, and you know it's like you're finishing quotes or whatever you want it to be. I'm going to give you the billboard. I'm going to let you put whatever message you want to put on that billboard. You can put it in the city of Columbus, where millions are going to see it, or maybe now it's on some Reddit page or whatever it is, instead of on a billboard on Route 70. But what's the message you're sending everyone and why do you want to send that message?

Speaker 1: 31:06

Better exists. I think a lot of people don't think that they can actually go get better or that better even exists, but it does. I mean, it would just be better exists. Period White background black text.

Speaker 2: 31:21

Love that, adam. I always enjoy spending time with you and especially enjoy when you can add value back to the listeners of the podcast. I appreciate you investing the time with us today and look forward to seeing what's possible for you in the future.

Speaker 1: 31:34

Okay, oh, john, thank you so much. It is a treat to be on your podcast. You are such a brilliant interviewer and your subject matter expertise is super deep, so thank you for having me on.

Speaker 2: 31:46

Grateful Thank you, sir. And that wraps up another episode of the Uncommon Leader podcast. Thanks for tuning in today. If you found value in this episode, I encourage you to share it with your friends, colleagues or anyone else who could benefit from the insights and inspiration we've shared. Also, if you have a moment, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback not only helps us to improve, but it also helps others discover the podcast and join our growing community of Uncommon leaders. Until next time, go and grow champions.