Holy Shift! Moving Your Company Forward to the Future of Work with Dan Michelson

Have you ever wondered what it takes to catapult your company into the future of work? That's exactly what we're unpacking with Dan Michelson, a visionary leader who's redefining the role of HR in the modern workplace. In his transformative new book "Holy Shift," Dan unveils the game-changing strategies that propelled his high-growth company to the top echelons of Glassdoor amid the turbulence of COVID-19 and the great resignation. Through the lens of his extensive experience, we dissect the CORE elements crucial to employee engagement – Community, Opportunity, Relationships, and Experiences – and how these play a pivotal role in shaping a company's culture and workforce productivity.

Picture a workplace where every employee feels an indelible sense of belonging and opportunity for growth. I had a profound conversation with Dan about the strategic importance of these elements, not just for HR professionals but for every manager and CEO committed to nurturing a vibrant company culture. We reflected on the transformative power of genuine relationships and the daily experiences that can be the deciding factor between an employee's loyalty or departure. Dan's insights elevate the conversation from theory to practice, offering a practical toolkit that any listener can apply to foster a workplace that thrives on the collective success of its people.

And for a light-hearted finish, Dan and I riff on a musical note, sharing a chuckle over my son's drum set and the whimsical idea of a family band collaboration. This episode is more than a guide; it's an inspiration for HR leaders and managers alike to embrace the evolution of their roles and to become the conductors of change, orchestrating a workplace symphony that's harmonious with the future of work. So tune in and let's harmonize your company's culture with the rhythm of innovation and engagement.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/danmichelson/

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• 10:18 (Cont.) Holy Shift! Moving Your Company Forward to the Future of Work with Dan Michelson

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

This is the Rebel HR Podcast, the podcast about all things innovation in the people's space. I'm Kyle Rode. Let's start the show. Welcome back Rebel HR listeners Extremely excited for the conversation. Today With us we have Dan Michelson. Dan is the author of a new book with maybe the best title ever Holy Shift, moving your Company Forward to the Future of Work. It is out and available where books are sold right now. Dan, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Thanks, Kyle. I needed to come up with a title that would rival the name of your podcast. Hopefully I've hit the mark, or at least come close.

Speaker 1: 0:45

Well, thanks, yeah, all kidding aside, I get a lot of pitches for guests and I'm honored to have people that want to talk to me. When I saw the title of your book, I was like, okay, I got to learn more about this. Then, once I dug into the approach and the premise, I was really, really excited to talk to you. Thank you for spending some time with us today and can't wait to dig into the book a little bit more.

Speaker 2: 1:10

Awesome, let's roll.

Speaker 1: 1:11

All right, I think the first question that I ask many authors that we have on is really a question around what motivated you to write a book about moving your company forward and the future?

Speaker 2: 1:29

It was very personal. I really do think people misjudge work in general. They try to draw this artificial line between their personal and professional. It doesn't really exist if you really care about it and you have a passion about the work that you do For me. Kyle, and I think you have a little bit of this background, but let me just kind of maybe rip it apart a little bit.

Speaker 2: 1:54

For the last 10 years I was running a pretty high growth company. We had grown it from 50 people to 500 people. It checked literally every box in terms of financial performance, customer performance. Then, when it came to the employee side of it and I think this is hyper relevant to the audience that's listening we were one of the top 20 companies in the world on Glass Door. Think about that for a second. Let me kind of go back in time. When I first walked through the door, this company had been around for 15 years and they had I think I'm saying this, I think I got the number right about 43% employee turnover the year before. That is crazy To think of a company coming from where it was to where it ended. At least for me, in terms of my time there, that 10-year arc was pretty significant.

Speaker 2: 2:45

But during that time, covid hit Initially because we took a little bit different of a course. If you remember the timing, on March 14th of 2020, we told our employees in an all-hands meeting that not only would nobody lose their job or take a pay cup, but they'll probably all get bonuses this year. We delivered on all three of those. We said it and delivered it, even in all that chaos and confusion With that said so. Great culture, great company, yada, yada, yada.

Speaker 2: 3:14

Well, time marches on, the great resignation hits and then, all of a sudden, boom, maybe because we had such a strong culture, when people left, it had a bigger impact than it would have otherwise. All of a sudden, our glass door ratings started to plummet. I was thinking, if I'm struggling with this I think everybody is Maybe this is an opportunity instead of a threat. Maybe this is a moment like a holy shift, not only how we work, but how we live as well. Maybe there needs to be a pullback on this. Let's really understand the moment and take a comprehensive view and approach moving forward. I was coming up on 10 years, as I said, with that company. It was time for me to take on new challenge and I thought this could be the one. I left the company and just spent months and months just putting thoughts down and creating a framework and doing research which we can talk about, which all led to the book and the title.

Speaker 1: 4:12

Absolutely. I appreciate you spending the time to put together the book. I know that we'll talk about this, but you've put it into a format that is intended to be extremely pragmatic, something that you can actually use as a toolkit. I think we do want to pause for a second. I think every HR professional that just heard you say you're top 20 Glassdoor is like they're like you know you had me at top 20, right, like that's that is. We spend a lot of time, you know, kind of focusing on that, and I think you know so you know, congrats, congrats on that and congrats on the book and the book release. I know that's it's. It's got to be a passion of of love, because it would never get done, right, because there's so much to put in a book together, right.

Speaker 2: 5:07

But I do want to say something to this group of people. Right, hr and the folks who work in that area tend to be very passionate and compassionate people. With that said, the last couple of years has been extraordinarily hard for that group of people. They have bore the brunt of not only, you know, change in how we work and live, but also social change, political challenges, I mean, like there's been a whole variety of things that have hit this group and have been extraordinarily difficult. With that said, you know, I think that's the moment that we're in is where HR can really take the lead, and that's really what motivated me to kind of lean in on this area and really try to be, instead of just to have provide empathy, provide a direction that people can go and leverage. So, you know, once again, because it's an HR group, there's two things they need to say.

Speaker 2: 5:59

This is not a story about hitting the peak of Glassdoor, so we did well, great, but this is also a story about the Valley, right, and you know, and you know where we were, where we got, and maybe where we ended up were not, you know, necessarily easy places to be along the way, and I think anybody who leads an HR team or is in that role in a company understands that nuance. There's nothing else I'll say, just because it appeals to the audience, is all the proceeds from this book are being donated to Feeding America. So I didn't write this book so that I can, you know, kind of pound my chest. I rolled this because I felt like I needed to and that these were things that could help people and that I really wanted to share. So this book is definitely tactical and practical. You know, these are things that you can do. You can pick up tomorrow, in 2030, ideas. You can pull from the book and instantly implement them. That's why it was written the way that it was yeah, Absolutely, and appreciate that.

Speaker 1: 6:57

you know the donation to Feeding America and you know, I think, just appreciate that kindness there. I want to talk a little bit about your approach. So I know that you conducted a significant amount of research as you were, as you were putting this book together. So walk me through how you approach that research and ultimately how you came out with kind of the distilled contents of the book.

Speaker 2: 7:26

Yeah, let me zoom out just for a second, so just to give your listeners some context. The company I was leading in healthcare which is where I was a company called Strata before I left to to go down this path I was one of the largest healthcare data companies in the world. So just to give you some context, when I talk about data, really what I mean, so it's not just here's a data point, it's really getting to the depth. So what I did, Kyle, as I went as deep as I possibly could, I teamed up with YPO, which some people may know as the largest association of CEOs on the planet. So there's 33,000 CEOs that are part of it, and I did research with the representative sample representing close to 100 countries, 97 different industries and approximately 1700 CEOs. So really big depth small companies, large companies, manufacturing tech and everywhere in between.

Speaker 2: 8:27

And what we found out is the one thing that was universal, which is pretty fascinating, is that there was a crisis, a crisis of confidence in regards to the company culture. Everybody was seeing and feeling this issue and, at the same time, they understood that they can get through it. In the short term. They knew they can manage, but in the long term they were super concerned about what that would mean to the arc of their company over time. So that was kind of the context. I did my own research, the primary research which I just referenced. I pulled in McKinsey data, McKinsey and company data, one of the largest consulting companies in the world, Gallup data, which I think everybody knows that within the HR space, and really did a meta analysis, looking at studies of studies to try to find and understand one, what mattered the most, and then two, what things correlated most directly with solving those problems.

Speaker 1: 10:10

Absolutely so. Big data set Right, appreciate the diligence that went into it. Right, because I think it. You know, I think many of us would think well, we could probably have an idea of what, you know, what moving your company forward would take and what the future of work might look like. But you've actually done some of the deep dive. When you have this massive data set and you're trying to put this into a book or a format that somebody can go out and start to leverage as a tool, how did you start to sort through the data that you focused on and, ultimately, what led you to some of the insights? Because I know there's a couple key kind of approaches that you recommend in your book. So how did you tackle that problem and, ultimately, how did you get where you did?

Speaker 2: 11:02

Yeah, the key to velocity is simplicity, right? So if you really want to affect an organization and drive change in any company, it has to be super simple, right? It just, it just does. So. A lot of the policies that HR rolls out, or programs that HR rolls out, or applications, etc. As you know, get utilized by a very small percentage of employees and then they get optimized by even smaller set of employees. So it's super frustrating, right? Because they're well intentioned.

Speaker 2: 11:30

So what I was trying to do is to say, okay, you can hand this to your board of directors, you can hand this to your senior management team, you can hand this to anybody on the front line, you can hand this to a manager, and they would all have the same kind of context and takeaway from it. So, really, if you look at it from a company perspective, if you're an HR, you're kind of like okay, listen, what ultimately matters the most? And from an executive perspective, I can tell you, because I've been doing strategic work for a couple of decades it's, when it comes to employees, it's number one product, not in any order, but three things Number one employee productivity. Number two employee engagement. It does matter. You know, you don't only want people to be productive, but you want them to want to be there, right, and do their best work. And then, lastly, retention no surprise, you want them to stay, you know, especially your top performers, obviously, right. So the question was really simple, kyle once you understand or agree with that, which seemingly everybody does, everybody who, at least I've come across what correlates the most with those three things? Pretty simple question, right. And so what I did was try to draw correlations to those things like what does the data show you correlates the most with those three things? And so it turns out there's four things which I could walk through and I call them core. So there's four things that are core or correlate the most with the three things that matter that I just outlined, right, and those four things are an acronym core, community. Do I feel a sense of belonging? And this is a very. All of these are data driven, but they're also common sense, okay. So I interviewed every single person that came to this company I was running for a decade. Okay, I did weigh in on the interview. I just want them to meet me. And I want to meet them because I want to get that connection going. You know, before they joined versus after. You know, because it obviously matters, you know, in terms of their decision of where they come or they say where they go, and I think our acceptance rate was close to 94%. So pretty, pretty, pretty good. So from those interviews and then I did every exit interview of an employee that ever left, so this is not normal CEO behavior but from that common sense would tell you community matters, right. So people are like point, this seems like a great place, I want to be part of it.

Speaker 2: 13:48

Now community also applies in our personal life. It's very easy, kyle, to leave a neighborhood. It's really hard to leave your neighbors. It's really easy, let's say, you know you're in college. It's really easy to leave a college or a campus. It's really hard to leave your friends and it's really easy to leave a job. But it's hard to leave your colleagues, especially the ones that you've developed trusting relationships with. So it's simple to leave a job. It's hard to leave people, right. So community really matters strategically. I'm not just talking from a feel good perspective. A company needs to be a community. That's going to be the strength of it.

Speaker 2: 14:24

Second, one opportunity Do I personally feel like I have a future right. So you know there could be an exciting future about the company, but if I don't feel like I'm part of it, there's a decent chance that I'll be able to leave or consider leaving. So those two things community and opportunity are the only things that HR has any control over. They can help set the tone at that level. So think of that as level one. But what really matters is getting to level two. Level two is that individual impact right.

Speaker 2: 14:54

So R is for relationships. As you know the data pardon me, I'm sure on this one if you have trusting relationships, you're twice as likely to stay at a company. If you have toxic relationships, you're twice likely to leave. You've heard that from Gallup over and over again, because it's true. So that's an easy one not only looking at someone's trusting relationships, but also looking at their toxic relationships, because when you have challenging relationships at work, it is a cloud that's over your head 24, 7, 365 weekends. It gives you anxiety at night. It gives you anxiety. We don't often lean in on that.

Speaker 2: 15:29

Last one is experiences. Am I getting okay? There might be this big opportunity at the company level and maybe there's a next job for me somewhere down the road. But on an everyday basis am I getting tangible experiences that are helping me grow? So we often look at training programs versus experience programs. We don't get tactical and practical when it comes to what someone's going to be experiencing day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year, and that zoom out if you look at it.

Speaker 2: 15:59

Core Community Opportunities, relations and Experiences is a very simple model that gives one the company, community and opportunity those two things to focus on and then the manager level relationships and experiences something to manage, because we all know that someone's experience at your company is 30% driven by the company and 70% driven by the manager. That's just a fact. When you think about your experience, some of it is around culture, which is community and relationships that part of the matrix and some of it is just about me in my own individual career, and that's opportunity and that's experiences. So you've got to be able to manage into these four boxes and that's really what I wrote about in the book is I kind of divided into three sections? So one this is basic, problem solving 101. But one in order to solve a problem which is this is the biggest and fastest change in how we work and live in human history. So it's a pretty big problem, pretty complicated place to be if you're an HR, because you're at the tip of the spear, so to speak.

Speaker 2: 17:06

So the three sections of the book are one, seeing the shift. So you've got to understand what's changed and I isolated it down to three big changes. Second thing is you've got to shift your mindset, so you're going to have to think differently in the future than you did in the past. Right, like you and I were talking a little bit about before, best practices aren't necessarily best practices anymore. Except you're saying this is a best practice in HR according to what and when? I mean, the world has changed significantly. So we're writing a new book, right, of best practices. It's not going to be the old one, and that's cool when you're an HR, because you get to be at that point, that tipping point. And then, lastly, is making shift, happens what I call it, and I'm saying shift with an F just to be clear. And that's really what this playbook is. It's like. Let me, let me give you this outline core and let me give you five ideas in each one of these areas that you can action tomorrow with your team.

Speaker 1: 18:04

Absolutely. And I think you know I mean from my standpoint I haven't done the research of, you know, 1700 CEOs and 50 countries, 100 industries and so on and so forth. But yeah, that is common sense and I've said this for years where it's like, you know, if you want people to stay, it's fairly simple make it a great place to work and make sure they have friends there, and then it's a hell of a lot harder for them to leave, right, because they have some level of connectivity. Or, you know, honestly, it's kind of like magnetism, right, like you don't want to pull away from the magnets because you've got this group of people pulling you in. But I love how you framed it and I want to maybe reiterate that to the group here.

Speaker 1: 18:49

So, you know, I think a lot of times in human resources, we sit here and we maybe have, maybe, are a little bit egoic and think we've got to try to solve all these things. Right, you know it's an HR problem, so HR has to try to solve it all. But the reality is we can only control so much, right, we can control the environment, we can control the community and, you know, building that type of community that people want to stay in that neighborhood that people don't want to move out of because they love their neighbors right. We can make sure that there's appropriate opportunities by making sure we've got the right systems and right org structures and that you know we don't have blockers blocking people's success, that we take care of. You know those sorts of issues, but that's about it, right.

Speaker 1: 19:38

I love how you know you focused on that. Like so much of this is on the manager, and that's where I think a lot of us really beat our head against the wall is like well, we can only do so much because a lot of this falls into the lap of the managers. And so I want to talk a little bit about how you recommend we approach that problem. And I know that this book is really written with an intention for us to essentially give it to someone else as a playbook as well. So how do you recommend that we approach that HR conundrum?

Speaker 2: 20:10

Well, one, I think. You just have to acknowledge it. So, like you know, I think there's a mindset shift that needs to take place, plain and simple, and that's kind of what I outlined in the second chapter, and I really talk about five mindset shifts that are necessary. And this is if you're going to solve the problem. That's where you start, kyle, to your point, you got to start with how you think about the problem, first and foremost, and I'll just do an analog that's more personal, because I think that those resonate and make more sense. Anyways, so, if you, you know I believe you have kids, kyle. How many kids do you? I do have three, you have three, all right, so son's daughters, both two daughters and a son.

Speaker 1: 20:49

side note for the listeners that can't see this one of them just ran up and gave me a kiss on the cheek, so that's, that's how I knew is making a making the assumption.

Speaker 2: 20:58

All right, so we can get really personal. So, kyle, let's just say your daughter was struggling in school and you went to go talk to the principal and you said to the principal hey, listen, my daughter is really, really struggling in one of her classes. And the teacher turned to you and said oh, kyle, listen, this is a great school, or the top rated schools, and you know in the area and that teacher, just so you know, is the highest rated teacher at the entire school. And so, yeah, you would say that's not helpful.

Speaker 2: 21:36

That's like saying our company's great and our team is great, like that's the equivalent of saying those things and we won all these awards and look, you know what a wonderful place to work, right? You would say. Or they would say hey, we need to go talk to the teacher. And if the teacher, if you were to sit down with the teacher in this case I'm doing an analog here of talking to HR and now talking to the manager right? So in this case, the teacher is the manager. But if you were to go talk to the teacher and the teacher would say, hey, listen, I got to tell you your kids wonderful, they're terrific. But of the 29 students in our class, though, the only one who's really not making it work, you would say what in the world are you talking about? Do something. I mean, you're there to help, you know.

Speaker 2: 22:25

And so the challenge that we have is we have to realize that that person, any person, that kid, that person who's a colleague of yours at your company, their experience in your company is them, in the circle of people around them, and it turns out we all know these stats, but the only person who has a bigger influence on your mental health than your significant other is your manager. That's what the data will show you. So you have got to really think about this. So, anyways, so let's zoom out and think of, like, what the mindset shifts are Like. One is we've got to stop thinking of cultures a tactic. It's something that HR can implement alone and maybe try something and put up three things and it's going to make a difference. Nope, culture has to be a strategy and the leadership team needs to be engaged. So HR needs to be the partner, not the sole promoter when it comes to culture. So if you don't have the leadership team at the table, you can be able to make that pivot. The second one is we've got to stop thinking of, like, this tactic of just bringing people quote back to work. Right, so that's a real controversial one, and I can tell you you know, based on doing a lot of research on this that the answer is going to be very different for different companies and different industries and different parts of the world, and the answer, or the future, is already here. It's just not evenly distributed. It's going to be different and that's okay. So, whatever you're going to do, you got to make that thing work.

Speaker 2: 23:59

But bringing back, well, guess what. You can have a really crappy culture where people are there five days a week, or a really great one. You can have a really crappy culture where everyone's remote, or a real great one. So that alone is not the point. You do need to bring people together, right? That really makes a difference. Now, however, you do that. You know there's a lot of what I outlined.

Speaker 2: 24:21

The book is about how to bring people together. It's not just physically, it's also just bringing them together, you know, in terms of their objectives and their connections and everything that goes with it. The last one that I'll highlight there's five in the book, but the last one that I'll talk about because I think it's so relevant to this group is we've got to shift from managing to coaching and really understanding what coaching means. So you know, it's kind of going back to your. Let's go to your son this time. Let's say your son's playing for a team and the coach is, you know, whatever. It's the end of the year and you sit down with the coach and the coach says to your son you know, then I got to tell you in the third game of the year, in the second half, I really wish you would have blocked that guy out, it would have made a huge difference. You would sit there and go. Why do you tell them right there in that right? Or if the coaches said, hey, great job, great job, great job all the time, if you are the coach of tiger woods or any professional player, they would say you're useless, right? So we've got something about.

Speaker 2: 25:29

Evaluation is a mindset when it comes to managing and switch from coaching and cotton to conversation, you know, and that kind of collaborative mindset versus the computational mindset. That is the biggest shit that needs to take place. So if, if you're thinking about from HR perspective, how do you get manners? Because everyone complains about frontline managers and managers does not do it. What, guess what? It's really hard. It's really hard when you've been an individual performer and you just start. You know we all make the same stakes. They're totally predictable About not delegating everything else, like everything you you know is going to happen. Guess what it's going to happen. You know so if you're not leaning in guiding people, in giving them time to be nurtured and grow, you're only going to be frustrated and you'll take this linear kind of perspective and very simplistic mindset of blaming People when they just haven't made the mistakes that you've made and learned lessons that you've learned yet. So, anyways, that's some of the stuff, at least, that I would highlight.

Speaker 1: 26:32

Absolutely. I think you know it's, it's, you know this, this concept of coaching I think is is is a critical one, and we actually just had an episode of a couple weeks back about this that you know, a lot of times we use the word coaching, but what we really mean is performance management or performance evaluation, and it's, it's different, right, it's distinctly, totally different to be a coach versus a, versus a deliverer of an performance evaluation. That is a surprise.

Speaker 2: 27:00

So I write about this in the book, about how we have performance evaluations and the annual process completely wrong, right. And in our company we broke them up all into separate parts and pieces so that they wouldn't be muddled together. So the way that the construct has been for multiple decades and some companies have gotten away from it is I'm going to, we're going to sit down, we're going to talk about three things. We talk about your performance until where your future. We're going to talk about your compensation. What guess what's going to happen? That conversation, the entire thing, is going to be like waiting for the compensation, part of it, right, like, of course it's going to be. You know so. You're never really talking about growth in a plan for methodical way. You're really not talking about performance in in a coaching type of manner, the, the, the valuation, seen strictly as what it, what it is in that case, which is this is tied to your compensation, right? And then the growth plan is going to be talk about how do I get promoted? It's not going to be really talking about growth of that individual. You know it's going to be talk about what, what's that next job period? You know it's not really about development. You know.

Speaker 2: 28:07

So you know, one of the big things I talk about in the book is we've got to go away from training programs to experience programs, giving people tangible experiences on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. Tangible experiences like, if I'm in development, being on a sales call, if I'm in sales, I'm spending time with customers, hearing feedback about the product, you know, from bugs perspective or an issue perspective. You know, getting contextual, having someone who's a potential high performer, a manager, sit down on the executive team meeting so be a seat at the table. Maybe they present or share something for five minutes, maybe there's a supply on the wall Doesn't have to be when something controversial or go or confidential is being discussed. But you know, giving people like a seat at the table or a, you know let's quote Hamilton you being in the room where it happens, right Is is an experience that you always remember, you know. So we really have to think about experiences that help people grow, not just training.

Speaker 1: 29:15

I love that side note. I use that in a in a webinar when we're talking about see the table. I just room where it happens and so, yeah, we're on the same page, awesome. Well, this is just been an amazing conversation. I want to shift gears. I'm fascinated to hear your responses to the rebel HR flash round. Are you ready? Sure, let's go. All right. Question number one where does HR need to rebel?

Speaker 2: 29:40

I think there's an opportunity to you know, like when you have a catalyst, you have an opportunity to drive change. It's the easiest thing. You need that burning platform. This is the best time to be an HR right, because the platform is burning. You know the way work which was done in the past is not the way it's going to be done in the future. Flexibility is a good thing. It can be further defined.

Speaker 2: 30:03

You know this individual experience that we've shifted to versus collective experiences, like be highly leveraged, and you know this idea of you know Of HR being a true partner strategically to the rest of the company, super appealing To, to folks who work in HR. Just got to think about how to reframe that. So I think you know the rebel yell is working. I know you're in the music, so nice, we're going to go, billy. I don't know the rebel yell should be loud. I mean, there's a, there's a chance to really change things and Do it in a meaningful way that isn't self serving and I think and I'll say this to people on this on this call, is it?

Speaker 2: 30:43

Sometimes it can come across that so that way, when HR is, let's say, complaining that they're not getting the resources, or you know they're not being included like listen. You know earn it, earn that seat. You know Learn the strategic levers that a manager or a director, vp or a Executive needs to help grow the company and be part of that growth pattern. Because the great thing about your job is if you help people grow, the company will grow. You know so in, if people don't grow, the company won't grow. And so, like you are the growth engine for the company. You maybe didn't think about that way, but you are. You are, you hold the keys.

Speaker 1: 31:24

That's funny, you say that and, and, yeah, my, actually my strap plan literally across the top and big letters is grow, right, like, like, it's, like that is that is one of our strategies as well. But you know, I think I agree with everything you said. I think it a lot of this comes back to it's the growth mindset versus the scarcity mindset, right, it's. It's turning something that's Maybe, if something we perceive as a threat, into something that's actually an opportunity, right, and If I couldn't agree more, like like, this is the time for HR to elevate ourselves as a profession and step up and show our organizations what we can do. And there is a burning platform. It's on fire, right, and we're in it. So we might as well figure out how to, how to turn this into something for the betterment of organizations, right, so could agree more. Question number two who should we be listening to?

Speaker 2: 32:16

All right. So I'm going to say two, because I wrote a book, so hopefully you know you'll read it. So I have to say that the whole goal was for people to read it. So I'll say you know, listen to Kyle, listen to this podcast, hopefully read the book. I'll say that. And then the second one is going to be surprising to you, Kyle. So I'll say Taylor Swift, and the reason why I would say that is once musical reference.

Speaker 2: 32:41

Two is I do think she's an iconic business leader of this generation and I do think she has earned that respect, and the one thing that she's done extremely well is build a community around her product or her company, however you want to refer to it, and those people feel accepted and respected.

Speaker 2: 33:01

As you know, as one of her quote consumers or customers, she really honors her audience in a very authentic way. It has built an incredible amount of authenticity as a leader, because that's what she is, and she's been a rebel. She has turned that industry upside down and figured out a way to monetize music in a way that nobody ever has been close to figuring out, and she has built a set of really, really, really strong leaders around her. Her company is significant, and the people who've been with her have been with her forever. So you know there's a lot to be learned. You know, sometimes we look at the same things and the same people and therefore find the same conclusions. In order to think differently and truly be a rebel, you have to think outside the box, which is outside of the HR box, outside of the conventional corporation box, and I really sincerely believe that Taylor Swift has broke conventions in a way that's to be admired.

Speaker 1: 34:08

Yeah, absolutely, you know, I actually I really like that song, anti-hero, I'm the problem, it's me right Like totally.

Speaker 2: 34:18

I say that all the time because it's true.

Speaker 1: 34:22

But yeah, I think there's a lot to be said for authenticity. And yeah, I mean, if you're, you know, trying to drive change, build a community, hey, you know there. There that's a great, great example. Yeah, that's the first. That's the first Taylor Swift that we've gotten to the response to that question. So congratulations, dan. All right, so we've been talking about this book. I will call it out Once again. The book name is Holy Shift Moving your Company Forward to the Future of Work. All proceeds go to Feeding America. So it is not only a great, great book, but also a great cause. Dan, where can people connect with you and reach out to you and learn more and get their hands on the book?

Speaker 2: 35:01

Yeah, so they can reach me directly at danadincommoncom. So the company's website is wwwincommoncom. The book is at theholyshiftbookcom. But I would also have a question for you, kyle. So maybe on the outro of this, because people don't know this, but the video isn't seen. But I can see Kyle right now, but he has a killer drum set behind him, so I don't. When you ask who people should be listening to, I would add you to the list. So I challenge you to come up with an interesting take on Holy Shift. Then you put into a song and add as a riff on the exit of this book, right there you go.

Speaker 2: 35:47

There's the link, I'll read it down for you. You can't just ask questions, you got to answer questions. You can't just talk about music, you got to make it, buddy.

Speaker 1: 35:56

All right, I like it. I like you, Dan, I like you. That's not actually so. The drums are for my 12-year-old son, but I'll have him back me up and I'll play lead. How about that?

Speaker 2: 36:07

That's even better. That is even better.

Speaker 1: 36:09

Dan, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for putting this book out there and for investing the time, energy and passion into putting this book together. So, again, it helped a lot of people, so thank you so much, thanks.

Speaker 2: 36:23

Yeah, it's a pleasure and I appreciate the work you're doing.

Speaker 1: 36:27

Thank you, we'll talk soon. Take care, no animals were harmed during the filming of this podcast.

Speaker 2: 36:59

Maybe,