Burnout And Retention: Money Can’t Buy You Love

Starting March 2021, when the vaccine came into use for the general population, Dr. G and I had 200 conversations with 200 leaders. Our mission: understand what leaders are doing well and where they are stumbling around the issue of employee burnout and retention in The Great Resignation. 

Deborah Gilboa, MD is a world-renowned resilience expert, and I am not a dullard when it comes to teaching leaders how to implement Business Improv® techniques for personal, professional and culture development. Our 200 conversations with 200 leaders in six months gave us a solid database, and what we found is encouraging. (This is the third article in a three-part series.)

Bob Kulhan: Finding workable solutions must be top of mind, and one of the biggest challenges is honoring where, when, and how people are working, and then coordinating all the players. Everyone’s where, when, and how could be very different (e.g., multiple time zones, children, pets, stresses, etc.).

Dr. Deborah Gilboa: To get to solutions, we must encourage people to do a better job defining problems and identifying strengths. People have been working on this challenge for months. It would be foolish to not honor their expertise and learn from the solutions they’ve already found. The “where, when and how” people are currently working needs to be understood. Find out what people have been doing, then find out what people want to be doing.

This is not about becoming a democracy. We’re gathering information from our own employees – experts on our work. By finding out where our people are before we decide where they should be, we’re honoring the experience, the institutional knowledge and the solutions that have already been found. When we ask first before we announce policy, before we make decisions, we’re increasing how successful we can be. Also, it takes some burden off the leader to know everything. You as a business leader, or you as a team, you don’t have to have all the answers.

Kulhan: Correct. Leaders do not have to have all the right answers all the time – we must find the right answers because, in the end, leaders will bear the responsibility for the decision.

Dr. G: Yes, and you’ll have much more success if you first give your people the opportunity to be heard. Everybody keeps saying that empathy is really going to strengthen employees. However, you can’t have empathy for someone if you never give them the opportunity to express their feelings.

Kulhan: This means leaders should be vulnerable, be curious, be driven to finding the best answers, and ultimately, be adaptable. Because we could do assessments – wants, needs, strengths, weaknesses, etc. – and get a detailed understanding of where our team is right now and then boom, something new, unpredictable just happened and the team is out of whack.

So, for me, in creating this boundaryless culture, it’s developing the understanding that you will need to change. You will need to pivot. It is not about setting something in granite for everybody in the future to follow. It is about making micro and macro adjustments to rules and guidelines to find the best for your team in the short term to get to the long-term solution. Don’t write your plan in stone. It might look great right now, but you will likely need to get the chisel out and etch a rewrite of your plan in the future. Flexibility and adaptability are essential.

Dr. G: Absolutely. When leaders set out to make a plan, they’ll be far more successful if they first ask employees where they’re at, and only then add the variables of the outcome they want, the needs of the business and the desires of the client.

That might involve asking how they want to be communicated with, when they want to be communicated with, and what sort of deadlines are necessary.

And once we know what needs we have to meet then we can adjust to these answers using the company mission. Use the purpose you’ve created as the filter that you pass it all through before you announce a new policy or initiative. Communicating a clear vision around mission and purpose is a great way to encourage collaboration. Like in improv, we’re looking for those collaborative opportunities to say “Yes”.

Kulhan: That’s so important. That creates that win-win. Look, it is rare that everyone will get everything they want. It is about give-and-take (another improv gem). The goal is for the things you get to be both the things that you need and some of the things you want and then exercise flexibility.

Dr. G: Business leaders are a lot like parents. We often listen to requests, and we’re already shaking our head no before the person has really opened their mouth, because no is easier. But it does not serve your mission or your team to do that.

Kulhan: A fast “no” is also more dangerous.

Dr. G: It is, I agree. “No” doesn’t move anything forward, as you know. “No” ends the scene.

Kulhan: Yes, and when delivered regularly, “No” teaches others not to come to you with ideas. Regular “No’s” teach people to stop communicating.

Dr. G: In the last article we said, “You’ve got to ask questions – be open to learning – which is really scary”. Then evaluate what you heard, what you learned, and then report it transparently. You don’t need to report everything to everyone. But within reason, report transparently. Because transparent information is a fabulous way to build trust, and the lack of transparent information degrades trust quickly.

Kulhan: Trust is imperative to retention. People want to feel trusted and want to feel they can trust others in return.

Dr. G: Exactly. Dan Pink’s work on internal motivation is important, here. He learned that beyond achieving the base salary that you decided was necessary for you, money isn’t a great motivator in the work environment. He talks about three things that motivate people at work, and those are being able to master competency, autonomy, and purpose. So those are the things that give people a reason to stay at this job.

Kulhan: It is always about the people. It’s that old adage, “people don’t quit companies, they quit people.”

Dr. G: Precisely. I’ve heard a lot from business leaders this year that they can’t win the money game. That no matter what they pay their people, they can always find somebody who’s willing to pay them more because of the staffing crisis.

Kulhan: Money – that’s extrinsic motivation – versus what we’re talking about: intrinsic motivation. What pulls people toward each other? What makes people want to spend extra time on a job, or with a person, for a person, as opposed to working because they feel like they’re obligated? And the extrinsic motivation is valid, but it’s-

Dr. G: Short term.

Kulhan: Yeah, it’s replaceable. When push comes to shove, employees can find it (money) somewhere else. However, it is much harder to replace trust and respect. The secret sauce is creating a combination of the extrinsic motivation (incentives, bonuses, sexy stuff) with intrinsic motivation (psychological safety, relationships, empathetic connection).

Dr. G: Right. Mentoring opportunities for mastery, and more communication and respect to deliver the autonomy. For purpose… help them clearly see how their work makes a difference. Be sure that the job each person has at your company isn’t like any job they can get anywhere else. To your point, if people leave not because of companies or jobs, but because of people, then they stay for the exact same reason. So, building connections, building purpose, building opportunities has to be a part of the strategy.

Kulhan: Creating an environment – onsite, virtual, hybrid – in which employees feel valued and valuable.

Dr. G: And drawing them to your purpose. Whether you make widgets or end world hunger, purpose matters. Define the purpose of your company beyond money if you want people to stay for a reason beyond money.

Kulhan: It goes back to clear communication. You must disseminate your message.

Dr. G: So much of what we’ve heard from our 200 conversations is about communication and people not feeling like they understand how to trust, and believe, and communicate with the other people in their work. Tackling this issue can tie employees securely to your business.

Dr. Gilboa and I had 200 conversations with 200 leaders since March 2021. Some business leaders said, “we just have to get past this” and some said “cornhole or a virtual cocktail hour will do the trick.” However, savvy business leaders said we must find a way to use this experience to be ready for whatever is coming next. If you think this is the only disruption of people that you’ll deal with in this decade, Dr. G and I would challenge that assumption. And if you think there’s nothing you can do to be ready, we’d challenge that as well! Set the roadmap:

1.    Recognize current challenges and look past quick-fix trends

2.    Ask your people what they need and what solutions they’ve already found. Respect their expertise.

3.    Use your mission to keep your team on track toward the company goals.

In this way, you’ll be ready for the next disruption, and the one after that as well.

The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.