CEOs, let's reimagine connection in the workplace.

Over the course of the past month, I participated in a panel discussion about Quiet to Quit during the World Economic Forum's annual conference in Davos. The workforce is changing rapidly and I'm amazed by the fact that leaders are involved in many pertinent issues, such as the benefits and drawbacks of working remotely and the potential and threats that come by AI in addition to the need to build more sustainable and inclusive organizations.

One question, however, is worthy to be given more consideration: if the workforce of our generation is evolving technologically and post-pandemic behavior and expectations are changing...don't our leaders also need to evolve as well?

The new generation of natives who are digital entering the work workforce. They were raised creating and sharing videos , not calling, texting or texting, and they believe that TikTok or YouTube their best source for data. They are, personally speaking, hyper-connected and extremely active.

However, in their professional lives, it's a distinct story. There are significant decreases of engagement as well as employee satisfaction in remote Gen Z and younger millennials. Only 4 percent of employees younger than 40 who are remote or hybrid understand what's expected of employees when working as a team, and over half of Gen Z employees are ambivalent or aren't engaged in their workplace. In the event that we take the measure of employees' engagement the leading indicator of productivity within the workplace and overall productivity, it has significant impact on every business and for every company's profit.

Why is this happening? At work, as well as in everyday life we are prone to want to belong to an entity that is larger than we are. We have an innate need to belong to larger things, and have a feeling of belonging that is real, transparent, and unfiltered. authentic. However, the more our society becomes increasingly digitally dispersed as well as AI-enabled, ad-hoc and unstructured, the harder it becomes to experience true connection every day. Particularly, if we've not changed our methods of working to adapt to the changing needs of our workforce. It's still typical for us to ask employees to read through a lot of documentation, write lengthy emails, and to attend dull gatherings. The employees learn about layoffs and their company's goals from the communications which are so automated and scripted that they can be made through ChatGPT. All we as management have is from survey-type surveys that are cookie-cutter about engagement, live events with low tune-in and high drop-off rates, and the occasional funny chat or Q&A.

The old model of management is not working for us. It's time to change how we , as leaders conduct ourselves and interact with our employees. In the same way that we're committed on retraining our workforce to meet the evolving demographic, population and technological advancements, we also need to reskill ourselves as leaders, in order to establish confidence and establish connections on the highest level.

I've tried a lot of this over the last many years . Here are the skills I'm mastering and adopting which I think will help us be more in the moment and lead more effectively:

     1. Realize who you are, and be yourself.

As the disease was raging, I participated in the largest town hall in the world at my home at Flint, Michigan -- sleepy and exhausted in my pajamas made of Velour. My toddler son and my grandmother moved around the backdrop.

This could have been the most successful communication in my life.

Why? Because it was not scripted in addition to being unintentional, awkward, and messy. It is easy to get drawn into "us versus us versus them" interactions when we work within an organization, specifically when under pressure or are faced with the challenge of overcoming. It's quite easy to think of "leadership" as a unidentified, faceless machine. The use of video and visuals in communicating is a potent repellent. This helps you to remove the barriers and safeguard yourself from written and edited communication. The best way to overcome this issue is to present yourself as the person you really are.

At the end of the day, there are a number of occasions of leaders being vulnerable and backfiring...but I'd say that in the majority instances this was due to doing their job to the point of failure. You have to be willing to let that part of yourself fail while you are in front of your team. Every person has flaws and that makes us humans. We all wish to see leaders who are brave -and it makes us desire to follow their example more.

     2. Begin by asking the "why . "

Like many managers, I've had to make difficult choices in the last year. The cuts to executive positions and layoffs to the reorganization and shutdown of projects in the name of efficiency. It's my responsibility to make the difficult decisions, which are not popular and implement swiftly throughout the organization.

Most of the time, I see people seeking to be transparent in their choices. It's not only about"the "what" but also the "why". It's important to understand the bigger marketplace or the competitive environment that's being considered and balanced, in addition to the method of the person who participated and when.

The conventional comms strategy suggests that in the event of a crucial communication issue with limited time start with the "what" then get straight to the essential actions. However, I've been more successful in getting people to embrace a difficult choice when I view my staff as essential participants who need to be aware of the facts.

In the end, beginning with "why" is a first principle for all comms at . Naturally, there are constraints to being fully transparent (legal and PR, as well as management, risk to customers) But, I've found that most of the apparent barriers to transparency are just that. Perceived. People may not agree with your choices, and it is possible to claim that they are not performing the role you're required to be performing. However, they'll be able to accept and appreciate your choices only if you explain the reasoning behind your decision.

     3. Take the initiative to meet in person so that you can get to know each other better.

Yes, I can see the irony of the CEO of a video-based company telling that. However, one of the most important lessons over the last few months has been that we were unfocused and slow enough when it came to connecting our teams in a regular basis.

The month of January, one week after announcement of layoffs, we held a company kickoff in NYC. It was attended by staff from more than 12 countries. The event had participants from Ukraine who traveled by train or flights to reach us. It was not a typical one with celebration confetti and we decided to have simple, unpretentious decor and a low-cost budget. It was one of the most enjoyable and essential decisions I've ever made.

This is especially true for the leader when you book an airplane and bring your group together no matter wherever they are. I am a distributed executive team that spans eight cities, ranging from Seattle from Seattle up to Switzerland. A lot of us were recruited during this past year but remain relatively untried, while we're just beginning to get to know each other as a group. In order to speed up the process of creating a cohesive team, we have begun by hosting offsites in the leaders' home town. The mother of our CFO joined us around her fireplace in Vermont. The Head of Sales was wearing his Apron. He prepared frittatas for us to eat breakfast. The group worked around our table, which was the Chef of Product's.

The epidemic provided us with the ability to see into of our lives and homes- if we lean into this, and incorporate it into our daily activities it is possible to create stronger, more connected and better-performing teams.

     4. You can switch Between "lean back" to "lean forward" encounters.

One of the most crucial capabilities in communications will soon be the ability to create "lean forward" events rather than "lean back" broadcasts. We humans have attention spans are getting shorter (now less than 8 seconds, which is less than the length of the time it takes to catch a goldfish!). Yet we still communicate primarily through one-to-many messages, whether by email, which you can browse through, or an incredible town hall where you relax and observe.

We can see this tax on engagement being evident in our own data, where the average time to drop off from watching a video has decreased in the last couple of years. If we don't change our strategy, the possibility of losing people to tune out is likely to severely limit our ability to keep our teams focused and efficient.

It's crucial to shift our perspective and openness to innovative ideas. New generation members are working within the workplace that is way ahead of us with their capacity to develop and collect authentic and rich information. They're ahead of the curve because they are free of the restrictions that we experienced throughout the past in traditional communications at work.

The company claims that employees never leave jobs; they allow managers to go. Actually CEOs are among the best managers, and according to an investigation that involved over 113,000 executive The most important element that makes a good management is the trust of their workers. As leaders, we must teach that our employees how to express their personalities in more authentic, engaging and trustworthy ways. I'm betting on the executives who are open to this new world will be better at overseeing the future generations of employees. They'll be more informed and be more involved in teams scattered all over the world in order to align their employees for more efficient results, as well as build long-lasting relationships that produce outstanding work. They'll cease communicating rather than more effectively.

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