Craig Forman (00:03.554)
And the only thing I'd say is just think about what is, if there's one big message that you want to come across across the entire conversation, this is more for just sit in the background for you. I always want to make sure that your main theme or what you want to get into the world comes across. So think about that. I'm going to put on my Do Not Disturb.
Craig Forman (00:56.611)
Okay, before we start, just to make sure, say your last name for me, I want to make sure I get it right.
Smiley (01:01.709)
Puzzwalski, Puzzwalski, Puzzwalski.
Craig Forman (01:09.73)
You ready?
Smiley Puzwalski, welcome to Culture Conversations, how are you?
Smiley (01:16.845)
I'm well Craig, thanks so much for having me, it's great to be here.
Craig Forman (01:19.524)
100 percent. I, you know, thinking about people to have on this podcast and back over my journey. And like I've said, I've reached out to people that I can talk with that have something relevant to say and they're out doing the work. You're top of the list. So I'm just really excited that we finally have this opportunity. We've had so many good conversations, but to do this together and to capture it forever is an honor. So, yeah, yeah.
I always start. Let's just let's just go in big and I like to ask my guests where should we begin? So when it comes to workplace, when it comes to culture, when it comes to how we can do it better, what do you think? What's top mind for you and how do we kick this off?
Smiley (01:59.115)
Yeah, I think, you know, when I think of the big picture shifts happening today at work and frankly, just in the world that we live in, I see people being left behind. I see people left out. I see people lonely. I see people disconnected, disengaged. And what I want to kind of be my kind of banner message or banner mantra or kind of calling at least at the current moment is don't forget your people.
And don't forget the power of being a good friend or spending more time with people or listening to people and remembering that the people that show up every day at your office or on Zoom or on Teams are real human beings going through real problems and real struggles with real aspirations and goals and dreams and purposes. And not to forget that as we go deeper and deeper into kind of.
AI being part of how we work, how we live, and these are incredible tools that can make us do our work better, perhaps more efficiently. We can't forget our people. And I see that happening almost every single day with almost every single client, company, organization, regardless of what sector they're in, that people feel a little bit left out. They feel like they're not being considered or heard or seen. And I think it's actually...
Not just like important on the fringes. I think it's actually the essence of what it means to thrive today in 2024, 2025 is to put your people first and to have that be enough. I think that we're always kind of having that as like an add on or like if we get to it or if we have an extra budget or at the annual event or when we do the offsite or we do the retreat or the manager training, kind of these.
ancillary projects, but we don't lead with that every single day on Monday morning.
Craig Forman (04:02.63)
Yeah. Well, you know, I love how you phrase that. Here's what comes to mind for me. And I guess the first question is, is I feel like sometimes some of our biggest challenges we found ourselves in because there's also something very enticing. And what I mean by that is in this case, this new world of the flexibility, ability to work remote, all the things that we like.
And that we've enjoyed them. I think we see it same with teens and social media, this ability to be connected on these things that are really enticing. Yet in the long run, we see these problems, these like long slow burn problems that build that we kind of slowly walk down the path. And I feel like in organizations, what we're seeing is even recently we're seeing more and more data that shows productivity is going up, but connections going down. And I guess when you're talking, I guess the first thing that comes to mind is, and I want to talk about both sides of that, the organization's role, but.
Also, are we sort of individually playing into it because we want a piece of it and we're slowly missing the bigger picture of this deepening disconnect as we're enjoying the benefit of the flexibility of the remote. And I always think about that. What's the role of the organization? What's the role that we all own in that journey?
Smiley (05:13.765)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's really important to kind of have a perspective that's not an either or it's it's not a this is good, this is bad. I think like we're so put into these kind of binary choices in all aspects of life these days, but in kind of the social media world we live in, or you got to have a take or you're like, what's your take on remote work? Right. And I think a lot of CEOs and organizations are, are put in those boxes of like, are you a hybrid? Are you pro hybrid? Are you pro in person?
And I'm like, I'm pro connection. So I, I, I always say it's like hybrid work is not, it's not about your policy. It's it's not where you work. It's how you connect. So all too often senior leaders, because they read a wall street journal article, or they see their peers or competitors kind of saying, we're back in the office five days a week. We got to be back collaborations down, innovations down, creativity is down. We got to bring people back. Everybody back.
Craig Forman (05:45.638)
Yeah.
Smiley (06:12.099)
or you're back on Tuesday, you're back on Wednesday, you're back on Thursday, no matter what, I don't care. And then people get there. First of all, they leave the breakfast table with their daughter. They don't finish breakfast with their daughter in the morning. They go sit in traffic for 40 minutes. They finally get to their desk. Their boss isn't even there. They call the meeting, that asks them to come in. And all the colleagues that are there, their coworkers have noise canceling headphones on.
And are on teams meetings or zoom meetings all day long. Like, why did I just sit in traffic for 40 minutes? Like what, why did I not have an extra? Why did I not exactly, why did I not have an extra 20 minutes with my daughter, with my son? Why did I not get to exercise this morning or go for a run or, or meditate or whatever it is. and at the same time, that doesn't mean, okay, flexibility work from anywhere. It's all good. It's like, we have to design for human connection.
Craig Forman (06:48.296)
You brought me here to do the same thing I could have done it from home.
Smiley (07:10.369)
wherever people are. So when people come in, it has to be worth it. It has to be designed for human connection first. When people are hybrid, human connection first. When people are remote or fully remote, and we have teams that are working across time zones in different states, in different countries, we have to lead with human connection first. So it's not about kind of figuring out that policy. I think that's like the 1 .0 or the 2 .0 that actually what we're really trying to do is how do we design for human connection all the time?
But we're forced into this binary of like, are you pro in person? Are you pro flexibility? It's like, I'm pro both, you know, and I, and I actually believe based on the data, based on the research that hybrid is simply the future, but that that's not enough. That's kind of like, that's easy to say, but actually what is the future is designing for human connection all of the time and putting human connection first all of the time. And there is not one answer for that.
That is not going to be a two day, a three day. Yes, I get it. From a logistical standpoint, we do have to figure those things out. We want people when they're in person to be probably in person on the same day so that we can maximize for collaboration, for innovation, for idea sharing. I get it. But that's not enough to check that box, right? It's actually about how are we creating those deepening.
Craig Forman (08:06.986)
is not my answer.
Craig Forman (08:27.755)
Yeah.
Smiley (08:32.062)
and meaningful connections and relationships all of the time. How are we kind of creating an organizational culture across borders, across time zones, where people feel a sense of purpose and a sense that they belong and that their voice is heard and that they have that opportunity for connection. So it's a deeper thing. And I think when we don't have the quick fix, you know, we're a quick fix society, you know, and you can blame technology.
Craig Forman (08:58.732)
We want the silver bullet or the magic pixie dust.
Smiley (09:02.333)
We want this, we want to swipe right. We want to swipe right. We want, what are the three steps? And it's not three steps. It might be a different policy for different teams in the same organization based on the people that work on those teams and what they do every single day. And that is very hard because then that creates issues of, okay, well, that's not fair. Or they get to work four days, you know,
four days a week from home, but I don't and I have to go in every day because of my role, whatever it is that creates a lot of equity issues it creates, but that is where what we need to be talking about is a lot more agile, a lot more flexible, more nuanced. We're going to try this for two or three months, see what happens, see what works, see what the employee engagement data says from that experience, more trials, more experimentations. There's not one answer that fits for everyone and that's hard for people to hear.
Craig Forman (10:00.269)
It is. Wow. Couple thoughts. And I think you're I think you're spot on. And it is all of our responsibility including the organizations. Everybody in my mind is 100 percent responsible. So individually how do we take care of ourselves organization and how do we care of our people and how we asking all of ourselves what can I do to improve. You know at a high level when I heard you talking something that came to mind was when I close a survey with an organization.
Oftentimes there's a benchmark component in that survey and the leaders want to see how they compare to some sort of like organized group of organizations that's similar to them, which is important. I know at the very top they want to see what does it look like with their peers. But very quickly I say as soon as we start to look inside your organization, shut that down and only have the benchmark yourself. Meaning if I'm a look at my engineering team, how do those scores compared to our organization? How do and where I'm going with that is I can see I have to very.
intentionally pull the leadership away from looking out into the world to your point, what's the policy, what's the answer and say, look inside, what are your people saying? What are your teams saying? What are your, you know, and how do you take that information to your point and integrate it back into here's what we're hearing and let's keep building around that. And our policies really only latch onto our kind of values and how we want to approach our principles to do this. And,
Also to your point, there's no finish line in culture and there's no finish line here. There's no one, two, three. It's always on process. But to get more specific and to hone in on something I think we're going to talk about, which is community. You know, when we started building, which you're familiar with, the Culture First community, it was in late 2019 and we were going to build all these chapters in person. People wanted to, we're coming together at our event saying what we want more. And we knew we could only be so many places. So how do we do this for more people? It was like, what if we create chapters and have leads around the world? Where I'm
going with that is then COVID hit and we had a choice and I saw this a lot. We saw a lot of people in organizations and whatever what we were doing with community just trying to recreate what they were doing virtually and it wasn't working. It was boring and what we did was we leaned in and said our intention is to create deep connections to bring people together. How do we do that virtually?
Craig Forman (12:09.328)
You know, a lot of things we take for granted today, we started doing early on with like we're doing check ins. We're like, you know, we're breaking out into breakout rooms. We're really facilitating, engaging online experiences. And it worked. I mean, when I left ColdTramp with 100 chapters. So I think it's kind of what.
It's what I think you're talking about here is that, and I think organizations are still trying to do what they did before in this new world and not saying, how do we rethink the whole thing and a build for our current needs, not to just fit this thing into what we used to think. So I'll pause there.
Smiley (12:40.215)
Yeah, that's, that's so well said. I think what you're getting at is like what worked two years ago, isn't going to work today. And what works now, is it going to work in two years? It's not going to work in two months. I mean, once people had the kind of pandemic stuff figured out, it's like, okay, well now AI. Right. Now we have to kind of be completely designing for this whole new world. Right. And now we have to be paying attention to our employees fears that AI is going to take their job. Right. And, and, and how does that affect our culture? Right. So there's.
Like I think the mindset has to be one where these values are the principles as you've put them, kind of the North stars that we're designing around. But once we have an answer that works for a little while or a pilot or a trial, like that's not the answer forever. It's the answer that guides us to our next decision point. And I think that's not how people.
In many kinds of business settings are set up to make, you know, to lead, like they want that one answer. They want to kind of always have something figured out. And I think part of being a leader today, especially an HR leader, right? A culture leader is having, is not knowing, is not knowing the answer, right? Which as you, as you all know, well, and many of your listeners know, like that's kind of the foundation of psychological safety or creating psychological safety for others.
is demonstrating that you don't have all the answers and you make mistakes and you don't know and you are a lifelong learner and you're curious and you ask questions and you fail like everyone fails. That's part of human nature. That's part of life. But you talk about that. And I think that that is exactly, that is kind of a new way of thinking that people are just starting to understand. And I think.
as culture leaders, we need to kind of demonstrate what that looks like for the rest of the people, for the rest of, especially for the rest of like senior leadership and, and management and organizations, we can be the ones that lead with curiosity, that lead with questions that lead with, not knowing and, yearning to kind of try experimentation and being curious.
Craig Forman (14:36.529)
Yeah. Yeah.
Craig Forman (15:00.595)
It is, you know, I'm going to hang on the community thing for a second. I didn't think I was going to. Well, I always never know where these are going to go, but I think there's something I want to share that digs a little deeper and is very relevant. I want to share with you also, and that is.
When we first set out to build community, it was on the heels of running events. A lot of people were coming together. We felt like we could do more. The question was, how might we go bigger? What could it look like? We decided that we wanted to build the world's largest, global, world's largest community of people who believe, believe that a better world of work was possible. I'm sharing that because that's easy to say. And then we sat down at a table and we said, okay, we're going to create chapters, global. Like, do we tell them what to talk about? Do we, you know, all these questions that had to be answered.
And where we landed was what if we came up with five core principles, right? And those five core principles were shared anytime somebody came together for a culture first gathering. But the reason we did that, and I think it ties back to what you spoke about, was because we knew the community would be limited if we tried to inject our point of view into everything, right? We have chapters in Pune, India, and Perth, Australia, and in Berlin.
And I know I didn't I didn't know anything about organizational culture in India, to be quite frank. And it worked and it worked because the values held and we allowed the individual groups to build what they needed to build as long as they were living up to creating a culture of belonging and acceptance, willing to learn and grow, courage to be vulnerable. Those were three of them. And where I'm going with that, which I think is really interesting, I didn't connect the dots into your talking was when leaders get so stuck in.
scared like what I can't what if we can't treat people differently? And what I think is, yes, you sort of can as long as you hold on to these core principles. Like these are non -negotiables. We don't treat people a certain way. If we don't do X, Y and Z, that's not OK. But otherwise, we give you the freedom to do your own thing in that pocket because and I think we need to adopt more of that inside of our organizations where the organization set some guiding principles. But we allow our leaders and our teams, you know, they're remote. They're in a different country. They like.
Smiley (17:01.251)
Yes.
Craig Forman (17:03.752)
you said, or across different time zones, every time we try to come up with one size fits all, we're always going to find ourselves. There is no one size fits all, but that's a hard and the model of the past, the hierarchical model of the past didn't allow for that, but that's not really how we work anymore. So, yeah, that was just really interesting when you were talking about how do we do this dynamically.
Smiley (17:24.24)
I love that. Yeah, and I wrote up a little writing about lessons learned from the work that you all did at Culture Amp with the Culture First community. And I remember one of the kind of conclusions was when you give your people more autonomy, power, and ownership, innovation and change become possible. Exactly what you're saying, right? The topics that are discussed in Dubai are gonna be different from those in Kansas City, right? And they should be.
Right. And they should be. And it's, and it's actually like, what is, what builds community is allowing people to shape community. You know, that is, that is actually how community spreads. That is the most successful community is I think they have, this distributed leadership where people feel like they are part, they, not this, they're part of the community that they're shaping the community. They're leading the community. Right. Versus kind of it all kind of being, you know,
Craig Forman (17:51.672)
should be.
Smiley (18:21.166)
dictated from one central location. And I think that's an example of, you know, the other thing that you all did is this kind of idea that it's not about culture AMP, that it was about all of these HR and culture leaders from all over the world getting exposure for their work, their projects, their thought leadership, the articles they're writing, the consulting or coaching they're doing.
the interesting thing they're doing with people ops and culture work on, at their companies, at their organizations, with their teams, like you're shifting the pendulum of it's not about the brand. It's not about the company. It's about those individuals and spotlighting them and their unique goals and dreams and work and frankly, lives and lives outside of work. And that's where the magic happens.
Craig Forman (19:10.618)
You know, the challenges inside of organizations though, Smiley, that I see quite clearly, it was very obvious to me, in building the community was that what it requires is a letting go of control.
And that, in that scenario, number one, Coltramp was, was pretty positive about it. Neither a company would, and it was this community that was kind of detached from the, from the product itself. I think the challenge is that of organizations when we talk about how do you build a workforce as more of a community is that again, we have to really deconstruct the old model because it doesn't fit very well. It's a decentralized, if you're going to do it well, it has to be decentralized. You know, a great community is many to many. And I think organizations have to grapple with.
believing and trusting and taking that leap of faith that if they give their people autonomy agency that with the right structure, it's easy to come in and try to control everything, but you'll get short term gains and you don't feel anything long term sustainably. And you're always stuck in that control situation that people aren't happy. And like all the dynamics we see today.
to make the shift organizations have to let go of control as well. So there's this two -sided situation. And I think it holds, again, the old model of command and control, which doesn't work very well. And it's getting less and less with the word output or what we're looking for.
Smiley (20:26.379)
Yeah, and you can tie that back to what we were talking about before with the flexibility piece, right? Like I think that a lot of the desire that some organizations and leaders have around return to work and, you know, always being in one location is that they feel that if I can't see you working, that you're not working, right?
And, and that you're going to take advantage of me. Right. And, and I, it's like, it's almost like this, this surveillance thing. when all of the data shows that people actually, when a lot of the time they're at the office, they're also online shopping or scrolling on Tinder or on Instagram or, or chit chatting. And sometimes to chatting is really important for connection, but sometimes it's just frankly wasting time and they're going to get six coffees a day. They're not actually working like.
Craig Forman (21:15.548)
Yep.
Smiley (21:19.593)
People are going to not work if they're going to not people that don't work, don't work period wherever they are. Right.
Craig Forman (21:25.404)
Quiet quitting was happening inside of organizations and outside of organizations.
Smiley (21:27.785)
Always believe me. I used to work in the federal government. There were people that had been quiet quitting for 30 years. I, they had a career. They had mastered the art of quiet quitting. Like at four, they were at, they, they were like at, at the elevator, like getting ready to leave their desk from about four 8 PM to four 58 PM. They're just like that last 57 minutes. They're just like, I got to, you know, wrapping up here for the day, wrapping up for the week, you know,
Craig Forman (21:32.38)
They had a career, a career quite quitting.
With a pension.
Craig Forman (21:48.413)
Heheheheh
Smiley (21:56.424)
just wait until they like sit in there looking at the clock. But the point being like, we know people that aren't getting their work done. Like we don't need them. We don't need to be watching them every single day. We know people that are not contributing to the community. We don't, you know what I mean? So it's like these fears, we know this.
Craig Forman (22:12.829)
I know, right? We know this. We know this. We have all the tools and data now to like have a real conversation about productivity without having to watch over you. Hey, let's, you know, you brought up AI, which it's almost like it has to be discussed in every conversation now, but particularly like, look, I have a lot of conversations with AI with.
Smiley (22:20.168)
Exactly. Yeah.
Craig Forman (22:30.205)
HR leaders, but you think a lot about connection, loneliness, and all of these things. What are you thinking? Like what's, and I imagine there's probably different sides, but like, I'd love to just step back from somebody that's thinking about the world the way you've been thinking about it. How are you processing? What are you thinking about when it comes to AI or on connection, the power it holds and the dangers or what makes you nervous?
Smiley (22:52.456)
Yeah, like I am not someone that resists new technological advances and tools. I believe that, you know, these things are coming, they're here. Resisting them is not actually that useful. Yeah. Well, I mean, that sounds dark, but it's just more like it's not useful and it's more about how and why. So what I really believe is that these tools do have incredible potential for us to do.
Craig Forman (23:06.333)
futile.
Hehehehehe
Smiley (23:22.055)
less work that we don't want to do, increase efficiency, but, and this is the huge caveat, only if we're reinvesting that time and energy back into our people and the work that they want to be doing and them as individuals. So if you are using AI as a tool to increase efficiency, but you're not investing in your people,
Craig Forman (23:26.205)
Mm -hmm.
Smiley (23:48.613)
they're going to leave or become obsolete and you're going to have a very miserable, disengaged, disconnected workforce. But if you're using AI to say, hey, we could get rid of these processes that take people a long time that they don't really want to be doing anyway and allow them to put back their time towards work that they care about or frankly, their own lives and the quality of their life and their families and their communities and their colleagues, then I think that's a net positive.
And can increase productivity, increase profit and give value back to our people. So that's a huge caveat. And I guess maybe that's an optimistic take. There are some people that are like, no, these tools are going to be so advanced that most people aren't going to have a job and the computers are going to run the world and only the very smartest few are going to be needed in that economy. I don't believe that.
When I talk to people in organizations, it's not about, yes, we just started using this AI, this AI tool. It's about people have to know how to use them and we have to know how to apply them for our specific work at every little junction. So it's like that saying, which I've heard go around now, it's not like AI is going to replace you, but someone that knows how to use that AI tool for this specific work at this specific junction with these specific applications might replace you.
Right. So that it's kind of a little bit like we, it's always people first and it's, it has to be people first. I guess it comes back to if we are designing and implementing AI with people in mind, then I think incredible things can happen. But if we're forgetting our people and just looking at the bottom line and Ooh, efficiency, Ooh, we can reduce head count by 20 % and get most of the impact. And maybe the work's not that good, but okay. There's a couple typos and.
maybe a little bit potential for, you know, to, to, to lose our, we cut corners and lose our customer customer data and privacy, but that's okay. That's a big, that might, that's all that there's only a one in 45 chance that that'll happen. If it happens, we'll probably lose our entire business and credibility, but it's okay. Right. Like if people think like that, they're going to be screwed. But if we put our people first, there's a lot of potential. So I might be optimistic in that philosophy, but, you know, basically, you know, if I were to extend it to.
Craig Forman (25:59.741)
Yeah.
Smiley (26:07.585)
to really how I feel if we do not consider people in the future of work and the future of AI, I'm not sure what's left.
Craig Forman (26:17.501)
I mean, if you play it out honestly, and I saw an article the other day, like you could go all the way up to do we need CEOs anymore? Like at a certain point, you know, so to your point, what's left if you really play it out, how many people need to be involved in an organization? Now, I'll tell you something smiling. I for a long time have said that that AI, you know, is not going to replace you like a lawyer that uses AI will replace a lawyer. I had heard that probably seven or eight months ago. I did go to a conference the other day and I heard Laszlo.
Smiley (26:25.792)
Right.
Smiley (26:39.424)
Yes.
Craig Forman (26:44.893)
Laszlo Bach and a gentleman from Stanford talking about AI. And one of them said, I can't remember who it was, but they kind of said they were done saying that. They're like, jobs will change. Organizations will shift and jobs. And I kind of thought, you know, as much as I want to hold on to the.
But it wasn't all doom. It was just there's going to be a transformation and there's going to be new jobs that come and jobs will shift. And I'll tell you, here's what I see already happening, because we're talking about the company that exists. And you say, well, the downsize by 20 percent. There's also the company that's coming that realizes we don't have to be as big. I think we're going to see smaller organizations. I was just in a conversation recently with a with a biotech company that's doing drug research.
And they're valued at like $1 .7 billion. They just did a big funding raise. They have 150 people. The numbers they're putting up look like a company used to be 700, 800 people. And they're based on the whole premises AI supporting the rapid development of drugs. And I think that to me was like, here's a company coming up.
Smiley (27:33.245)
Wow.
Craig Forman (27:42.4)
The numbers just looked very different than what we're used to seeing. They're focused on AI. I think we're going to see more of that. But where I'm going with that is this is going to be the question for organizations and it always is. Are you just going to say we're more efficient and that's just bottom line for our people, for our investors, for our stakeholders? Are you going to say, look how efficient we are for those 150 people that are here? This is how we take care of them and this is how we reinvest in our people. And that's going to be the question is, are organizations going to stay greedy or are they going to see the value of investing in their people as part of that new efficiency? And that's where I'll
Smiley (28:04.285)
Yes.
Craig Forman (28:12.353)
always, you know, organizations aren't human. And I if the humans aren't there to make sure we're doing it the right way, the organization will take take take. So I think that's where I call on humans that we have to set the guardrails because if not, I know what the organizations want to do.
Smiley (28:26.299)
And not just for our people and our people in organizations, because I mean, this is a culture conversation, but for the people that we serve, for our customers, for our clients, for like, like just because this is an AI application that can make money doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing to do. And frankly, that conversation is actually what's going to determine whether humanity will.
Craig Forman (28:36.735)
Yes.
Craig Forman (28:48.863)
Yeah.
Smiley (28:54.299)
will survive, thrive, or frankly have major, major, major challenges. And just because something can make money and do it with less people faster doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. And I think we need more people in positions of power that have that. And I talk to a lot of companies now where it's like they're doing AI ethics training for all their people, which I think is really powerful.
Craig Forman (28:59.647)
Yeah.
Smiley (29:24.122)
because it's kind of like, I was talking to a major financial services company recently, like they decided, hey, we're not gonna do AI generated images for our marketing, for any of our marketing and brand, like no fake people basically, or fake videos, because they can do that. They could say, well, we need this person, they don't have to cast, they don't have to do this commercial shoot, they don't, you know, for any photo, they can be like exactly what they want, they could just draw it up.
But the precedent that that sets, it's like, what are they about then? Like, do they have integrity in the brand? Like, you know, this is a company that has hundreds of billions of dollars of people's, you know, wealth and assets and their families' wealth and money, their children's future college tuition or...
you know, what does that mean if they're kind of just pressing buttons and it's not about actual people? So I thought that was a really interesting kind of line in the sand and having AI ethics training available for everyone, not just people that are kind of day -to -day working on AI applications, but for folks across the entire organization. So I think we'll see more of that.
Craig Forman (30:24.223)
Yeah.
Craig Forman (30:36.319)
Yeah. Here's my optimistic side of it all. And that is almost sometimes break. You know, we're still trying to fit into a mold that we've always thought about. That's changing. One is I'm hoping we've reached a tipping point where all of a sudden there becomes a premium or a value on connection that we go when we seek it in a world that's so much not that we start to see new things pop up. We start to see how our shopping centers evolve and restaurants are changing based around kids. So we're seeking connection that there's a value in it. And the other thing is, is maybe.
This idea that all of our connection comes from the workplace needs to shift. Maybe we.
you know, maybe we have we rethink co -working spaces and like we do have we need a certain level to do the job, but maybe we're putting too much on organizations that we can find our connections in other places and feel fulfilled. And I'm not saying that organizations don't have to support with work together. We should be doing that. But maybe we've for so many years because we spent so many times so much time physically in locations. Maybe we're going to rethink where we get our connection. And this is my this is when I get optimistic of like maybe we're going to do better and we're going to rethink it, which probably we need some of that too.
Smiley (31:37.751)
Yeah, I think that's a powerful reframe. Like you're seeing that a lot. You know, a friend of mine who you may have met actually Simone Solstoff wrote this book about the good enough job and you know, which kind of pushes back on, I think the subtitle is reclaiming life from work. And in the same way that, you know, maybe 10, 15 years ago, frankly, when I started at in corporate speaking, corporate consulting,
In the culture space, it was all about purpose at work, right? Meaning at work, which all of the data shows that, you know, if you look at Gallup's engagement stuff and employees who derive personal meaning from their work are more engaged, right? Three times more engaged, right? More likely to stay with their organizations. The biggest factor that determines retention is purpose, employee purpose. but he's kind of saying, look, like maybe it's time and the pandemic has shown and some of these major shifts that's shown like.
Maybe it's just work and people should get paid and be treated well, obviously. Yeah, they got to get the job done, but give them purpose outside of work, like let them go home at four, 30 or five or whatever it is. Obviously the time zone is going to shift things and then find value in their hobbies, in their family, in their communities, in creativity and art, in artistic pursuits that it doesn't have to be. We as a culture are so, especially in the United States, right?
Craig Forman (32:40.803)
and get along with each other to get the job done. I mean, this is collaboration.
Smiley (33:04.501)
so defined by our work as identity, right? and you could take that and continue it off to the conversation around like workplace connection. It's like, well, why, why not just give people more time so they can connect with their communities and friends. And again, as we started the conversation saying, I always say it's a yes. And it's a yes. And it's not an either or, it's people spend a good amount of their time working.
for better or for worse. I wish they spent less, but either because of economic necessity or because they enjoy their work, people are going to spend a lot of time at the office or a lot of time on Zoom or Teams or working regardless of where they are. I want that time to be connected. And I think organizations do too. It shouldn't be the be all end all. It shouldn't be like if you have workplace connection, you don't need it in your marriage with your kids, in your community with your friends. Ideally, you would have both.
Craig Forman (33:57.699)
Yeah
Smiley (34:02.099)
So it's again, it's all about a yes and, and non -binary thinking.
Craig Forman (34:05.507)
Well, some of us go work for ourselves and find ourselves lonely and start podcasts so they can connect with others and have conversations. Look, the truth is there's and there's five other things we could discuss, but I knew this would happen. And just this this this topic is rich. And I'll say that more than other conversations I have, I feel like you and I will regroup along the way because this is just the tip of the iceberg. And we are just beginning this journey. I would.
Smiley (34:26.162)
Yeah, we could do a second. We could do. We'll do a second podcast, Craig. We didn't even get into some other stuff.
Craig Forman (34:31.593)
Over time, I think we should because I think this is going to go on and this conversation will be different in a year. And it's just a conversation. You know, you were just you were discussing this a while back, but I feel like it's really entered a new phase now and we're going to see in the next few years what what's next around this. But there's definitely so many issues and problems broader than the workplace with when it comes to connection and loneliness. So this is our time. I mean, I just always appreciate the conversations that we have. Look, I want to ask. I always ask at the end.
Any books, movies, TED Talks, current or previous that you think are really important that have inspired you and that you'd want to share with others?
Smiley (35:11.73)
Yeah, I just started reading Super Communicators by Charles Duhigg, which is a really, have you read it yet? It just came out a couple.
Craig Forman (35:18.792)
He's he was the he's New York Times or yes I did.
Smiley (35:21.649)
He's a journalist. He wrote The Power of Habit. He's written for The New Yorker. Incredible writer. And he puts into stories and frankly frameworks a lot of things that I think people like you and I, kind of people people, right? You're a people scientist. I wouldn't call myself a people scientist, but I'd call myself a people person. Stuff that we feel and we intuitively do.
Craig Forman (35:27.24)
I started listening to it. It's brilliant.
Smiley (35:48.272)
but I didn't have maybe the language around it, just around like the science of connection and what it's like to how to connect to people and in a conversation and knowing what type of conversation you're having and getting to someone's truth. Very, very, yes. And I think it's a really useful book both for people like us that love connection and champion it, but also for people that struggle with it.
Craig Forman (35:52.616)
Yes.
Craig Forman (35:59.786)
He has really powerful frameworks. I'd recommend that too, right? Think about what kind of conversation are you going into?
Smiley (36:14.928)
right for people that kind of that might not be their comfort zone. So it's, it's, I'm finding it really interesting. And I always love books that take a topic where I think I know a lot about, and you give me a whole new perspective on it, make me rethink it. So that's, that's one that comes to mind right away.
Craig Forman (36:15.081)
Yes.
Craig Forman (36:24.521)
great.
Craig Forman (36:32.073)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Craig Forman (36:36.489)
That's great. That's a great one. I think I remember getting turned on to it and starting to listen to it and saw I think you posted about it. I was like, we're listening to the same thing. So that's a reading or listening. So, Smiley, how can people get in touch with you? What should they know about you and your work and how can they get in touch?
Smiley (36:51.983)
Yeah, the best place to find my work is my website, smilypuszwalski .com. I'm also pretty active on LinkedIn, Adam Smileypuszwalski. I just came out with a very beautiful 70 page toolkit called the Workplace Belong Toolkit. It is a free download, so you can get that at my website. Just to help people kind of, it's really like a practical tool guide. There's a story about Craig and.
his colleagues at Culture Amp and Culture First Community in there. It's really kind of just meant to be an action -based guide to helping people build a culture belonging connection at work. Yeah, those and sign up for my newsletter.
Craig Forman (37:31.531)
Yeah. Highly recommended. Aside from my story, which is great, but when I took a look at it, it's beautiful. And it's also, if you're interested in this topic, it gets right to the point. It has good example stories and things you can do because I think that, you know, action is critical. And if you're not sure, like, like Adam said, it's free download. So my friend, once again, our journey continues. I'm so grateful that you're a part of my community and you bring me connection. So thank you again for doing this. And I'm just really grateful to have you in my life.
Smiley (38:01.455)
Appreciate you, Craig.
Craig Forman (38:03.755)
All right, thanks.
Smiley (38:04.975)
Thank you.
