With worker engagement and motivation flagging—what Gallup has termed “the great detachment”—many leaders are looking for new strategies to hold their teams together.
For Vijay Pendakur, author of the upcoming book The Alchemy of Talent, the secret has to do with preparing teams to navigate a dizzying rate of change with a combination of trust, connection, and belonging. We reached out to Pendakur, a former senior strategist at Salesforce and the former chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer of Dropbox, to discuss tactics for building change-ready organizations. Here are excerpts from our conversation, edited for length and clarity:
What’s the connection between our current state of worker disengagement and change management?
People leaders these days often say, ‘The workforce seems so tired. We’ve invested so much in our employee experience and engagement is low compared to what it used to be.’ And this shows up in the data from organizations like Gallup and Gartner. We are seeing a level of languishing in the workforce, and part of what’s going on here is disruption fatigue. People are overwhelmed by the number of changes they’ve had to accommodate in the last four years alone. On a neuroscience level, we experience change first and foremost in our nervous system as a threat. We have to work through a fight, flight, freeze response frequently when we are not in control of something.
We know from case studies of not only organizations that have continued to thrive even in the face of disruption, but also individual teams that continue to outperform in the face of disruption, that trust—or psychological safety— is essential. Psychological safety essentially represents secure attachment to your team leader and the place you work. And when it drops, people’s performance drops, their trust in their leader drops. It helps people get unstuck when they’re having that fight, flight, freeze response.
What are some tactics leaders can use to increase trust, even in moments of conflict?
If you do the work of increasing belonging, connection and trust, you will get challenged. I offer a model called ‘Inquire and Affirm,’ which is a curiosity-centering model that lowers the velocity of the interaction. There’s four steps in the model:
First, take a breath. You’re giving me that feedback in public, and I start to feel some biofeedback symptoms like sweaty palms, maybe a little sheen on the forehead, dry mouth, increased heart rate. You have to know your body, but when those things kick in, take a deep breath and slow down your body before you say anything.
Then, say something, but lead with curiosity: ‘Michelle, I hear you’re frustrated with the way I led that meeting last week. Can you tell me more about what you think went wrong.’ Now, half of what you’re doing there is giving yourself time to get it together, but also you’re honoring the person stepping into the courage to actually give their team leader feedback.
The third step is to actually listen. When we’re arguing with a spouse, a friend, a coworker, often what happens after you ask a question is that they start talking, and you’re getting ready to clap back—you’re not listening to them. And the reason that we actually don’t listen is because we think we have to win in the moment. If you can take off the pressure of needing to gain ground in the argument, you can sit there and just listen.
The fourth step is about affirming the person’s choice to step into the courage. It’s not about affirming the content of the feedback. There’s this misconception around conflict management that you have to agree. As a team leader, you do not have to agree with the feedback being given to you. I listened to Michelle, and I can say, ‘Michelle, first of all, I want to thank you for giving me this feedback. This is exactly the kind of behavior I want from my team. I need some time to think about what you’re sharing. Can I come back to you later today or tomorrow morning with a more thoughtful response?’
Read a full transcript of our conversation here, including a discussion of “productive friction” in innovation and resilience.
Read our recent briefing on the book The Problem with Change by Ashley Goodall for more on how to best accompany colleagues through changes to work.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect Pendakur’s title. He is a former senior strategist at Dropbox, not a current senior strategist.