Enabling Employee Voices: How to Foster Engagement & Safety in the Workplace and Strategies for Amplifying Women & Minority Voices - Elad Sherf-Assoc. Prof, UNC Kenan Flager Business School

Prof. Elad Sherf, discusses strategies for fostering engagement, safety, and equitability in the workplace. He  shares his research & insights on how to build a culture that encourages employee feedback, amplifies underrepresented voices, and measures success in a way that is fair and equitable.  We discuss,

 Creating a Culture of Safety & Enabling Employee Voices : Speak Up or Not?

• The distinction between speaking up and staying silent
• Challenges of speaking up in the workplace, particularly for women and underrepresented minorities
• Strategies for encouraging critical engagement, empowering employees to speak up in critical situations, and fostering a culture of safety and trust in the workplace.

Engaging Employees Through Feedback and Fairness

• The importance of fairness in employee engagement, and  strategies for soliciting and implementing feedback that empowers employees to feel heard and valued.
• Rebalancing workloads, building a culture of fairness, and promoting equity in decision-making and opportunities for growth.

Framing the Right Questions: Strategies for Effective Communication

• Tips for framing questions in a way that encourages open and honest communication, and helps employees feel more comfortable sharing their ideas and concerns.

Speaking Up in Meetings: Amplifying Women and Minority Voices

• Challenges that women and underrepresented minorities face in being heard in meetings, and  strategies for amplifying their voices and promoting more inclusive decision-making.

 Amplifying Underrepresented Voices: Building Equitable Teams and Access to Critical Projects

• Strategies for promoting diversity and inclusion in access to critical projects and opportunities for career advancement.

Elad Sherf is a Sarah Graham Kenan Scholar Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His work has been published in leading management and psychology journals including Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, and highlighted  in Harvard Business Review.
Elad Sherf :
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work, on his research papers andactually following him on
LinkedIn, and there's a lot ofintersection, especially for
organizations and for managersto see how they can not.

(01:06):
Improve the engagement withintheir own organizations and
build trust, but also fororganizations to look at it from
a broader scope.
And as you follow thisinterview, you will learn more
from that.
So a lot.
Thank you for being here

Elad (01:19):
today.
Oh, thank you for inviting me.
I'm so excited to be here.

Sirisha (01:22):
how did you actually get to doing this organization
behavior and the research areathat you focus on?
What excites you?

Elad (01:29):
Oh, the, there's so many things.
I think the genesis of some ofthese ideas go way back to so
I'm originally from Israel,that's where I grew up.
And in Israel there's amandatory army service.
And I spent about four years inthe Israeli Air Force.
And then, Many months in reserveduty and my role ended up being
actually training commanders andteam leaders and course leaders

(01:50):
and teaching people how toteach.
So a lot of these issues that Istill study today from
motivation to fairness tofeedback to how to get ideas
originated there.
And I go back to thoseexperiences a lot.
I.
Sidetracked.
I became a lawyer for a fewyears but I was always
interested in these types ofquestions about people and I

(02:11):
think that we spent so much timeat work and I'm really
passionate about understandinghow we can make that better.
Then I ended up pursuing a PhDand started going into more
these focused areas that we'regonna talk about some of them
today.
But I keep finding new thingsthat get me excited every day.
And now I have great PhDstudents that come up with new
ideas to get me excited.
It's always, there's somethingon their horizon.

Sirisha (02:33):
What an interesting segue.
I would never think of.
Mandatory military service andorganization behavior and team
and training.
but obviously.
these soldiers need training andthey need a structure around it.
So it's fascinating thatprobably a lot of it mimics any
corporate culture, right?
Because there are rules andpolicies and guidelines that
everybody has to follow

Elad (02:49):
If you are a commander and there are people who are, feel
slighted or are not motivated,or the basic human psychology
is.
I think a lot of the experiencesthere are very relevant.
Especially when we think aboutworking in small teams.
I teach here class on teamworkand groups and teams.
A lot of that is drawn from myown experiences and both as a

(03:10):
team member and then as a teamleader, and then training the
leaders of those teams.
So it's really interesting tosee those applied.

Sirisha (03:16):
Very fascinating.
I was looking at the researchthat you were doing, one of the
things that struck me was aroundthe engagement of managers and
feedback.
When we think of feedback, oftenin corporate culture, we are
thinking of performance,feedback, time that sort of
annual review that for most ofus, we actually dread the
experience because you don'twanna have that.
Yeah.
But your discussion on feedbackis very different in the sense

(03:38):
it's very nuanced around howmanagers engage with their
employees, not only to getfeedback on ideas and things,
but how the performance isgoing.
So there's a sort of fairnessand a sense of being heard, So
can you elaborate on how thatmanifests itself and what do you
see as the impact?

Elad (03:54):
I think we can think around it in, different ways.
So one is thinking of feedbackas this idea of performance
information, Which is about moreabout me and how I'm doing and
how I'm doing as a manager.
And some of my research looks atwhy managers don't do that,
don't ask for feedback on theirown performance as, and some of
is structural elements and someof it is psychological elements.

(04:16):
The other point of it, which as.
Discussed is this, how do wegenerate ideas more broadly from
people feedback about how are wedoing as a company, what kind of
things we should be focused on,maybe what we're doing
incorrectly.
And there it's more aboutcreating a culture that allows
people to speak up and not feellike they need to silence us or

(04:36):
censor themselves.
So those two are related, butthey're a little bit distinct in
terms.
One is thinking more about am Idoing what I need to be doing?
Am I behaving in ways that the,my employees or people around me
are finding effective and fair?
And the other is more how do Icreate an or, and culture where
we can discuss new ideas, whenwe can challenge each other,

(04:59):
when we could build on eachother's ideas and not put them
down in, that respect.
A lot of my, research takes.
Point of view that we sometimestend to vilify managers a little
bit.
Every time I tell people, Istudy fairness and I'm like, oh,
let me tell you about my unfairboss and how horrible they are.
And my sense is a lot of timeswe need to understand the

(05:21):
context in which managers andjust organizations are around in
terms of the multiple prioritiesand the barriers that there is
to that.
So some of them, Are structural,what do I get rewarded for?
What is the priority in theorganization?
What kind of challenges my bossputs to me?
And some of it is psychologicalin terms of there's so much
information.
So we use shortcuts and that'snot a bad idea, but if we don't

(05:45):
wanna tend to them, they canlead us astray in our
interpersonal relationship andin our leadership.
So those are, this is the typeof way that I approach that.
and some of these questionsaround these issues.

Sirisha (05:56):
are you looking at it more from, both the aspects one
where it's more personal.
Like how am I perceived?
It sounds like that's more aperception.
A personnel thing versus how doI engage the team, because it's
all about the culture of anorganization is to keep.
People engaged, feel a sense ofpride in coming to work and
being heard?
Yeah.
They want their contributions tomatter and that the fact that

(06:18):
they're being listened to andwhether you can act on the
decision is a separate entitybecause you may not always have
the choice.
but at least acknowledging thatyou've heard it, you've tried
acting on it, or for some reasonit doesn't work.
So how do people.
and gender that, because that, Ithink is when you read all these
articles on the greatresignation the quiet, quitting,
I think it's two aspects.

(06:38):
People are facing burnoutbecause of overwork, but the
other fact is they're feelingless heard.
I think it's become moreobvious.
and they want to feel that theyhave an impact.
So what does that suggest?

Elad (06:49):
Yeah.
I completely agree with you.
So I think you, you hit the nailon the head, right?
The, a lot of my researchershighlighted these.
In most cases, when we thinkabout the way we engage with
ideas, there's these twopsychological experiences that
are really important for us tobe wanting to contribute.
So one is what we call a senseof impact.
If.

(07:10):
Give an idea, if I speak up,does someone listen?
Does it translate into someaction or is it just futile to
speak up?
The other is what we talk aboutaround psychological safety,
right?
Which is, if I speak up, will Ibeed, will I be ignored?
Will I be punished in some way?
And those two experiences arereally tied to my sense of.

(07:31):
Feeling authentic in theworkplace, feeling like I can
bring my whole self et cetera.
And part of my research has beentrying to think about how they
are.
These two aspects are related,but they're also distinct.
One of the things is that we, inone of our projects, we looked
at this idea of is we thinkabout speaking up or not as this

(07:51):
one continuum, but what weshowed is that the people can be
speaking up about certain issuesbut silencing themselves on
others, and we highlight thatthese are different.
Behaviors and we can think aboutthem uniquely.
And part of the reason is thatthey relate to these two
different predictors.
So one is speaking up is aboutthe impact, right?
The more I feel like I, I ambeing listened to and that

(08:14):
people respect my ideas, themore I'm likely to be speaking
up.
But the reasons why I mightcensor myself or might not say
something when I have somethingto.
Is more related to this idea ofsafety.
So the silence comes more fromfeeling unsafe.
Now they're always related andin one event they're the
opposite of one another.

(08:34):
But when you look across timeand across subjects we see these
relationships.
And when you think about it thatway, you can take a step back
and think, okay.
What are some of my actions as amanager or what are we doing in
this organization to promotesense of safety and to promote
sense of impact?
And when we break it down thatway, there are different things,
right?

(08:54):
So for example if the sense ofimpact is all about I'm being
listened to, it becomes reallyimportant when ideas are being
communicated or suggested to.
To acknowledge that, to get backand even if you, as you said, I,
there's nothing I can do aboutit.
There's, no budget or I don'thave the cloud from upper
management.
Explain that logic, right?

(09:15):
And so people don't get thatsense that, oh, I'm giving all
these ideas and they're justbeing ignored.
On the other hand, the safety isall about noticing how people
react socially.
To people who give differentideas and making the environment
safe to do that.
And we can think about trying toboth frame some of the questions

(09:37):
differently.
So there are, for exampleexperiments where they just by
changing the question of is thisproject going to succeed?
What are all the ways in whichwe imagine that we're five years
from now when the project hasfailed?
What are some of the ways thatwe did that?
And even that little change inframing creates that sense of
safety because it, it gives mealmost like a license to speak

(10:00):
about bad things.
And it could even be.
Where do we have certainconversations?
Are there certain conversationthat we wanna have in public or
there certain conversation thatI want to have one-on-one with
people because I wanna make surethat they feel safe.
So I think we can think aboutthese as related, but two
systems and think about theactions that we can take to
create that sense of, I matter,I can influence what's going on

(10:24):
and that sense of it's safe.
I'm not gonna be ridiculed.
I'm not gonna be ostracized orI'm not gonna be ignored in a
negative way.
I think if you have both ofthose have been shown to be
related to to all of thosethings that you talk about.
The engagement and the and thedesire to stay in the
organization.
One thing that we found is thatactually When people silence

(10:46):
themselves, when you censoryourself at work, that is much
more predictive of the burnoutthan just not speaking up with
ideas.
So the act of when I find myselfin a meeting or in settings and
there's something that I wannasay, but I feel that it's not
safe, and I censor myself,that's when I start getting not
only that I'm not engaged, I'mactually feeling that sense of

(11:08):
burnout and emotional exhaustionbecause I am not allowed to be
myself.
And that.
emotionally, very laborintensive for us.

Sirisha (11:18):
Yeah, so that looks two sides of the same thing, right?
There's one part which is thedisengagement, and the other
part is being the stress thatyou're constantly carrying,
whether it's manifests itself ornot.
So actually there are two thingsI kind of wanna unpack, so I'll
take them one at a time fromwhat you just discussed.
The first thing when you'retalking about, the voice part of
it, right?
For expressing myself.
When you look at from the genderperspective, from women they

(11:41):
would've probably experiencedit, is when they speak up in
meetings.
Sometimes they're not heard.
it's somebody else.
Usually, often a male colleaguemight express a similar idea and
then it's heard and acknowledgedand then it feels this
disempowering feeling.
You feel like, okay, why?
After a few times we all stop.
It's human nature will stopspeaking up and we won't say
anything.

(12:01):
So how can managers tackle that?
And I do not wanna put all theburden on managers as well.
There are peers.
There is yourself then you'redoing this.
If it's not working for you,what actions should you take?
What canalization should youhave in that meeting and how to
address it as an individual.
or maybe in a safe space outsidewith certain folks.
Yeah.
So let's tackle that and thenI'll come to the second one in a

(12:23):
bit.

Elad (12:23):
Yeah that, that's a fascinating question.
And it's certainly somethingthat happens.
And it's not only women, it'sother underrepresented
minorities.
It's both the.
The sticking time that they get.
And when they say things, theymight be ignored.
So I do think I really like how,what you're suggesting in terms
of thinking both about themanagerial responsibility of
from the top and the culturethat I'm creating, but also the

(12:45):
peers.
So there's very interestingresearch that, not mine, but
other people do interestingresearch as well.
That came out around this ideaof voice simplification, right?
If we repeat someone else'sidea, in a meeting, we are it's
more likely to get picked up andto be seen as important and to
be seen as relevant, right?
And this is a strategy that wecan use to support some of our

(13:06):
co colleagues where we feel arenot being supported or being
disregarded where we can amplifytheir voice.
So it's not only saying, oh,what I think about it.
Repeating the idea that mycolleagues Visha said I really
agree with her.
That idea was really important.
And then add to that changes theimportance that we, that people

(13:26):
ascribe and the status of peopleascribe to those speakers.
And from a manager perspective,I'm a big believer in process
and structure.
Because if we just try to useour self-control to handle these
kind of things.
they happen not because, peopledon't wake up in the morning and
say, oh, today I'm gonna ignoreall the women in my group.
It's I don't think people wakeup and go to work that way, but

(13:48):
it's something that happensunconsciously for different
reasons.
So how do we create a structurewhere, and this has to be
specific to each situation,right?
In some cases it might be wehave to go around the room and
hear everybody's opinions beforeI I say mine maybe it is a
situation where we do some sortof let's.

(14:08):
Each here, each other's ideas,and then each one of us will
present the other's ideas.
Create some process where wemake sure that everybody has an
opportunity be to be heard andthere's an opportunity for the
group or the team to reflect andprocess the ideas from a certain
person.
Right now in.
On a different tack than whenyou look at like brainstorming

(14:29):
and creative ideas, sometimesanonymizing the ideas is
actually better, right?
Because it is also reduces thissense of ownership and the
politics around that where wecan generate Some people call
this brain writing or otheraspects where we separate the
idea of the evaluation of theideas from their generation, and
in a process we can anonymizethem.

(14:49):
Now it all doesn't always workin realtime meetings, but the
more we can create these processmechanisms and change them
around, the more we can ensurethat.
Whether it's women or minority,or just people who are more
introverted or any type ofdiverse diversity that we have
in our team to make sure thatthey all have an opportunity to
be To be heard, and then it goesback to the manager to ask

(15:11):
yourself and to get feedbackafter the appointment, or after
the meeting.
Bob Sutton has this one of hiswrite-ups, he talks about the c
e o, that every time, like youwere saying, Was there was a
woman and every time they gotinterrupted or their idea was
just ignored.
And just by going after themeeting for them to tell him
that he then changed hisapproach.

(15:32):
He wasn't doing it consciously.
He was trying to be the best,but there's a lot of things
going on in the meeting that youneed to follow.
And then he changed the processof how he does the meeting.
Eliminate that.
I think people are a lot oftimes open to that.
It's a hard feedback to hear,but it's a conversation that we
wanna be in a situation where wecan have with our employees

(15:52):
whenever they feel like that.
Because again, it relates tothat engagement, it relates to
that sense of futility andeverything that we talked about
earlier that you highlighted.

Sirisha (16:02):
exactly.
Because when you think about it,people are not conscious of what
they call the unconscious bias,right?
that's the term being used.
Yeah.
But we are not familiar withwhat we are ignoring or not
doing.
So someone has to speak up.
So it may not even be the personwho's being not heard, but maybe
their peers notice it and have aconversation with somebody.
And the older method works,right?
You have plants in the room whowill remember to call on that

(16:23):
person or give them theiramplification because the
strategies worked for a reason.
So we should use the samestrategies to amplify it.
And

Elad (16:31):
it's okay to have someone that, that's their role in this
meeting, right?
Make sure that every ideas getlisten.
Attention gets amplified andthat we are crediting it to
write and we can rotate thatrole within our meeting.
Or find some mechanism thatworks for you in your context
and doesn't fill forced, right?
If it's fill forced, then it'snot gonna have the effect.
But I, if you come from agenuine approach to that then it

(16:54):
works.
And I, it's unconscious bias,but for me it's even broader.
when we think about managers andwe think about even us as
employees, we have so manythings on our mind every day,
right?
And just dealing with the taskthemselves are not important.
So some of my research around wementioned earlier around
feedback seeking, going out andproactively ask, oh, how did I

(17:15):
do in that meeting?
And what I found is that helpspeople get to fairness, right?
To have their employees feellike they're fairly treated, not
necessarily because the act ofasking itself matters, but
because you learn specificinformation about how that
person likes to be treated,right?
Someone might be like to becalled on when they didn't speak

(17:35):
a lot in a meeting, but forsomeone else, that might be a
horrible kind of situation andthey'd rather you come to them
later, right?
But, At the outset, I might justbecause it's easier, I'm gonna
say, oh, I like to be called onin the meeting, so I'll call on
them.
And that might be so withoutknowing that I can't treat them
in a way that will be felt bythem at fair.

(17:56):
And that's where having thoseconversations regularly and
those check-ins becomes reallyimportant.

Sirisha (18:01):
So two things that stuck with me when you were
talking about anonymizing, likefor ideas, right?
So one of the things I would dowhen.
Do manage people and employeesin groups is I would ask
everyone to give their ideas,like at the end of the year, for
the next year, ask them to sendin inputs, but with a clear
intention that they could nottalk to another person.
if they were only allowed tosend me the ideas and they were

(18:22):
just anonymized on a PowerPointslide, and we would review and
see as a team what we were goingto deal with.
So in some ways, everyone hasequal weightage on what they're,
and What agenda was a veryinteresting way that when
someone had an idea, and ifsomeone else thought it was also
something they wanted to work,they would end up working
together.
Yeah.
With not, I didn't have toengage.
They would then we would suggestwho else can they work with?

(18:42):
So it creates sort of acollaboration that people have
that space to come forth andsay, okay, I will work on this
stuff.

Elad (18:49):
Yeah.
I love that.
there's an example i u used insome of my classes that I read
about a company where theyalways has these meetings about,
next year's budget.
And every head of departmentcame from their own, and trying
to argue for their owndepartment.
And what they did is they said,okay, this year, you are
assigned to one of yourcolleagues from a different
department and they have to makethe argument for the budget for

(19:10):
you.
So they have to work together tounderstand the perspective of
this other person before andthat helped them also.
Oh, if I'm fighting for my ownbudget on this issue, this is
actually important for ourbusiness from a different
perspective.
So that, that's why I reallylike this idea of a process that
helps manage that type ofsituation because it's not all

(19:31):
in the meeting, right?
We're creating a structure thatallows these interactions to
emerge more naturally, and Ithink that is more effective in
the long term.

Sirisha (19:40):
Exactly.
And the other part of yourdiscussion where you were
talking about solicitingemployees feedback in just one
part, you were talking about innavigating meetings, but I think
the sense of fairness alsoapplies slightly differently is
when you're talking aboutequitability of work.
Like assignment of work.
Yes.
So the tendency is when you havehigh performers is to give them

(20:00):
more opportunities, which is agood thing in a lot of ways
gives them a potential toadvance.
On the flip side, they can alsofeel like they are getting all
the load, and the perception canbe two ways.
One is, okay, I'm gettingoverloaded and for someone who
wants to be on the same path,who is getting there, but is not
like at the top tier right nowhow do you make sure that they

(20:20):
are getting opportunities aswell?
Because I think one of the otherthings I've seen, and also from
looking at research and justtalking to a lot of
professionals and academics aswell as the challenges access,
especially when you go back togender and minority and stuff.
If you don't get on that firstrung or the second rung and you
don't.
someone else is gonna beclimbing.

(20:41):
Yeah.
So you always have to getaccess.
So how do you make sure thatyou're giving that fair
equitability of assignment ofcritical projects, right?
It's not just the workdistribution, but the important
stuff to be given actions on.

Elad (20:55):
Correct.
And I think, to echo that thereare, there is actually a
research and pretty convincingevidence that part of what
happens is that, in terms ofgender bias and the lack of
promotion of women to hire racesthat they get less challenging
assignments.
And I think your question talksto a broader tension, right?
There's always a tension betweenkind of the performance right

(21:16):
now and the development goals,right?
And that's as a manager, I haveto say, okay what do I need to
get done?
But also, who do I develop andhow do I develop them?
And different people have thesedifferent desires for
development.
And I've seen that in some of myresearch both ways.
Like people say, oh, I kept GIgiving this person because I

(21:37):
trusted them the most.
I didn't even think about it.
But they became so frustratedcause they felt that they're
doing so much more work than theothers.
And I'm like, yeah, but you'reso good.
And on the other hand is interms of not being aware that
someone is not getting theopportunities that they want.
So in talking about, this issomething that I as personally

(21:58):
as a, when I was in the army,one of my one of my uh, Soldiers
that was running a course withme, that's the feedback that I
got, that they felt that certainopportunities only go to certain
people.
And I was not even aware ofthat.
And I'm like, I was so happy tohear that cuz now I can do
something about it.
But it wasn't every time I madethe choice based on the task at
hand, and I wasn't aware ofthat.

(22:19):
So I, and my point with all ofthis long answer is, we need to,
you have to think strategically,right?
What am I willing to do thesesacrifices in the short term for
the long term, right?
Because it might be someone new,it might take more, it might,
may take more of my time.
right?
So what, that's one aspect.
The other is having thatconversation within the team and

(22:42):
with the individuals, right?
How are we thinking about.
Fairness not only forindividuals, but also as an
aggregate, right?
So th this idea of thinkingabout micro fairness and macro
fairness, right?
How are we, there are rules thatwe can use, for example, that
people, regardless of, yourcurrent abilities and
performance, et cetera, Knowwhat Dges more than X times this

(23:04):
unique assignment or whateverthe, this, the specific is, and
that's a what we call like amacro fairness rule where we
think about the distributionregardless of the individual
attributes, right?
Versus thinking about, okay, whois deserving, who needs it and
who has the bandwidth, which ismore of an individual decision.
So again, going back to settinga process is how do we.

(23:28):
I think if you don't measurethese types of things and you
don't have a system to make surethat you are thinking through
some of these elements, that'swhere it gets.
Hidden away because I'm, if I'mjust gonna sign the task every
time based on what's going onright now, without seeing that
broader view, I'm just gonna gowith what is the priority right

(23:49):
now.
And with the, a lot of times Irule the best performer cause
that's the shortest route.
But if we have a system thatsays, okay, every time I make a
decision, I need to look at thisbroader distribution.
then it doesn't mean that youhave to change your decision,
but it means that you're atleast considering that.
And then you can alsocommunicate that with the
employee as part of thosecheck-ins and feedback
conversation is I know you, youalso need this development.

(24:12):
This is the reason why I'm doingit right now.
And that puts an accountabilityon you to say you can't return
go back to the same explanationagain and again.
In the end, it would becomeJust, it wouldn't seem authentic
anymore.
So that creates anaccountability review of okay, I
know that next time this is whatwe need to do and put you on
that path.
And I think it also goes tolike, how do we even define what

(24:35):
the best performer is, right?
And trying to think about whatis our.
What is the criteria that we useand what are some of the
assumptions that we have underthis criteria?
So a lot of the criteria likeperformance indicators, et
cetera, we use, we take them forgranted without thinking about
whether themselves, they mightbe.
Biased in some way, right?

(24:55):
As an example, if you arelooking at doctors and there's
an importance of like, how manypatients do I see in kind of the
billable hours, right?
And that's a criteria a lot oftimes that is used to
incentivize and promote, etcetera.
But if we think about adifferent criteria whether
patients are coming back withthe same sickness or how much
they're feel listened to and arefalling out or the medication,

(25:19):
that's a different criteria.
And when you look at somethinglike that, men tend to do the
more billable hour stuff.
Women doctors tend to do themore.
Actual empathic listening andthe outcomes are better, but if
we're not using the rightcriteria, we might be missing
that.
And it's not that all men arelike, it's always on averages,
right?
There's always But on, onaverage, it means that if we're

(25:39):
just using that bias criteria,the criteria itself is not
morally invalid.
But it's not the only criteriathat we can use.
Thinking very carefully abouthow, challenging the criteria
that we have and thinkingthrough, is there some sort of
reason why it goes in thisdirection or why I believe this
is the person that is the highperformer, am I taking a

(26:01):
holistic picture on that, etcetera, that can help with over
time addressing some of theseissues.

Sirisha (26:06):
So first of all, you need a structure and a process.
Yeah.
To whatever you're doing so thatit's easy to do it one time and
forget the next time.
We all have the best intentionsevery time.
it's like time out when you'redoing it, when you have a kid
and you you don't follow throughevery time.
Yeah.
what is the metric you'remeasuring?
you have to define what isimportant to you.
And what your focus is.
Are you looking at only certainmetrics that are maybe driving
revenue?
You're looking at D Nni, genderequity and making sure that all

(26:28):
of them are balanced so that youget the right outcomes from that
as well.

Elad (26:33):
Yeah, and I think even when we think about that
performance metric, why is thisthe performance metric that we
use?
When is the last time that wefought more broadly?
Whether it helps us with thegoals that we have, and we have
all kinds of metrics like that,that are focused on
incentivizing the behavior atthe very micro level and tied to
some financial performance inthe short term.

(26:54):
But if we take a step back andlook upstream, we might have
defined it very differently.
So I think it's worth looking atsome of these things.
It's hard and it's a lot of workto do it.
And you're already overburdenedwith the, the fires that you
have to put out.
But putting some sort of a, andagain, a structure, when we say,
once every quarter.
We e examine and ask ourselvesthese questions and see what the

(27:18):
current data tells us andwhether it, on the aggregate it
produces some of thesedisparities that we can't
explain just on on its own orthat we don't want.
If we assume that, the, thereshouldn't be differences just
based on, gender or race or anyother criteria and what is in
our system that might becreating that.

(27:38):
people are making those decisionindividual decisions within that
system and within the incentivesthat they have.
So we need to make it easier forthem to make that decisions in a
way that wouldn't aggregate inthose ways that we don't want
them to at the broad level andover time.

Sirisha (27:55):
Very true.
I think the other part of whatyou were saying is when you were
asking for that equitability ofwork, right?
Actually the interesting thing Ifound out from my own work
experience, actually the firsttime it happened to me, I was
completely shocked becausesomeone wanted to provide me
feedback.
And I was like, in the, in myhead and I'm thinking, oh no, I
don't wanna hear this.
Yeah.
But actually, What they ended uptelling me was so eye-opening

(28:16):
that I used it for the rest ofmy corporate life.
I actually, last week was mylast day at corporate life.
I just of quit my job.
Oh, congrats.
Thank you.
So what the person mentioned inmy team was I have, like 15%
bandwidth and that was like, Ihad never even thought about it,
and so it became some sort of ahabit of mine to when I had
discussions, like when you saidabout, reassigning roles.

(28:39):
It's an opportunity for everymanager, especially when you
have a rec open or someone hasmoved, to relook at your group
and see what the distribution isand ask people what they want to
do, whether they want tocontinue in doing the same
thing, whether they wanna trysomething else within the group.
Yeah.
Or where do they see theircarrier progression going and
asking them how much bandwidththey have, because you'll be
surprised by the answers youget.

(29:00):
And once it becomes a constantdialogue, they come back and
say, okay, I have this much timebecause they also want to do
something.
It's not like people don't wantto try new stuff, so they're
gonna come and tell you only60%, when it doesn't peak or I
have 95% then it becomes muchmore I feel like fairer or at
least better to have a honestconversation.
A base of trust essentiallybuilt.

(29:21):
Yeah, because

Elad (29:22):
and people fair, right?
And if we don't ask, we defaultto our own assumptions and we
think that they will think likewe do, but people have different
preferences and as a result ofthat, they will see different
decisions As fair, right?
And one person who likes to justget the same types of projects
all the time and they don't haveany desire to try new clients or

(29:45):
try new skills and others thatreally want to have that
diversity and we can make bothof them happy.
In, in, in some cases, right?
There's always trade-offs, butin some cases, if we don't ask
we don't know, right?
And a lot of times we justbecause we're overburdened, we
don't stop and ask, wait.
Is this what you want?
are these your goals?

(30:06):
Cause these were my goals when Iwas in your position.
Maybe you have different goalsand having those conversations
can really help and they don'thave to be every day.
But once in a while, as yousaid, when there's some sort of
an opportunity or some sort of asystem or a structure where we
do this every period, but havingthat insight really changes your
decisions and I, in my research,just like your experience right

(30:29):
here.
I, I've heard people talk about,oh, That experience with the,
what the employee came and toldme that I was treating them
unfairly, even though I didn'tknow about it, changed the way I
interacted with employees goingforward.
So that conversation can reallybe really eye-opening just
because.
we are in our own head all thetime, And if we don't take the

(30:52):
time to try and get theperspective of others, it's we
can get stuck there and justassume that it's the best way
when it might not be foreverybody.
Yeah.

Sirisha (31:03):
Very true.
And I think the other part thatwe forget is, managers get
training Yeah.
As they become managers.
And it's not always.
it doesn't cover every scenarioand every person is different.
So you have to learn on the job.
You have to get feedback.
Yeah.
And you have to be willing tochange.
Not always change as needed.

(31:24):
No.
But figure out what is the rightapproach at that point.

Elad (31:28):
Yeah.
it's, as we said earlier, right?
It's okay not to change, butthen communicate it to the
employee.
I heard you, I understand whereyou're coming from.
This is what I'm facing and whyI made that decision.
And we, there's a lot ofresearch.
People are okay with an outcomethat is undesirable to them as
long as they feel that the,there was this fair process that
they were listened to, that theywere actually considered, that

(31:50):
they had an opportunity toinfluence it there.
People know that.
They can't always get what theywant.
But if you don't engage'em in aprocess, that's when they get
really upset.

Sirisha (32:01):
Very true.
And I wanted to touch on thislast topic before we Yep.
Get to closing on this.
So you talked about silence andyou talked about the
admissibility of risk, right?
And I like how you, the questionwas phrased.
It's really directed at how wefeel today, but the outcome of
the actions we are taking.
In a sense, right?
Yeah.
How as a collective can we makethis project less risk averse?

(32:25):
So what are the risks everythingthat can go wrong, put it on the
table now because then it's morefree space for everyone to be
open about what is my worst casescenario, because there is a
hesitancy.
When I was reading that part ofit, I was thinking of
whistleblowers, right?
Obviously it must reach a reallybad situation for them to become
a whistleblower and reallybecome like a, usually it's a
safety risk or an ethical riskwhen it's gotten that bad.

(32:47):
But in small situations, whenyou're leading teams, you want
that product or that project tobe successful.
Obviously there's a lot ofimpact driven, so how can people
put all their feelings of whythis thing is not going to work
there.
Yeah.
So that they can fix it.
Yeah.

Elad (33:02):
I completely agree.
And this is a the, it's a knownexercise where you come to, your
team and say, okay, if you wereour competitor, how would you
put us out of business?
And suddenly all theseweaknesses that everybody knows
but don't wanna surface becauseit's an undiscussable.
It can come out because itbecome, the framing makes it
safe.
Suddenly, I'm not challengingwhat's going on.

(33:23):
I'm part of this exercise and italso just, Changes our
perspective, which is importantfor generation of creative
ideas.
So there's a powerful force toframing questions and creating
situations or times where we askthose type of questions from a
different manner rather thantake it as an opposite.

(33:43):
What would you do to tank thisproject, or what are all the
reasons if we are five yearsfrom now that we will fail?
Or if you were the competitor,what would you do?
And we, there are a lot ofexample of that, right?
The The US Army has theseexercises where they have blue
team versus red team.
And because the people from thered team are also in the Army,
they know all the weaknesses,but then they utilize that to

(34:07):
highlight these weaknesses andthen, They can be fixed.
It's just like a company askinghackers to come out and try to
break their systems.
it's the same thing we can dowith any of our ideas and with
any of our projects, but we needto create a environment where
that is not only allowed, butactually encouraged.

Sirisha (34:27):
So does any of your research, do you work with
companies and actually givethem, like training

Elad (34:32):
Yeah we've done so first I wanna do more we're all, we're
looking for opportunities tocollaborate.
We've done some what we call, weare really interested in doing
field experiments where we trydifferent elements and we see
how that works.
We've worked with some companiesto try.
and generate, a system wherepeople are like, increase those
sense of impact and that senseof safety and try to find a way

(34:54):
in which we they communicateeven e either by a structural
element or just by changing thecommunications with the
employees.
And we've had some interestingresults there.
Always open to, to do more.
I think, of a lot of my researchtries to get at the experiences
that employees have in their owncompanies.
But working from the top andtrying to find ways to structure

(35:18):
different elements that I wouldbe really excited to do and
think about.
But haven't done yet very opento collaborating on elements
like that.

Sirisha (35:27):
Yeah, if I come across any of it, we'll definitely let
you know because I think thereis so much to be done here and
though this interview iswrapping up, I think we could
probably unwrap a lot more in,in another session.

Elad (35:38):
I'd be happy to come back at another time.

Sirisha (35:41):
Definitely.
Yeah.
So this is a question I askevery guest.
What advice would you give your21 year old self?

Elad (35:47):
The advice is to aspire wider and deeper.
So wider because, you never knowwhere opportunities are gonna
come from and I've had both inmy professional experiences and
in my research experience, it'sI stumbled into things, right?
And you can't stumble intowithout exploring a lot of

(36:08):
things, but then once you findsomething it's also go to this
deeper, right?
A lot of times hear, oh, followyour passion or whatever, but
there's some research to suggestthat actually passion follows
performance.
You start something, you getgood at that, and then you get
excited about that and you getexcited about the nuance.
And that's how I found myself inthe research niche that I'm in.

(36:30):
I got an opportunity for myadvisor to work on a project.
And then when that got well, Ijust got interested in it and
slowly I built my expertise.
So I think trying a lot ofthings and then when some things
hit, try to go deeper and learnfrom those experience.
And I haven't always done that,but when I opened myself up to,
both of those are good thingshappened..

Sirisha (36:52):
It's also it's, I'm taking some risks.
to me, it reminds me of pickingup an instrument, maybe like a
violin or a violi.
Yeah.
It's very hard when you do it,but when you get good at it is
when you start to actuallyenjoy.
Yeah.
Playing it exactly.
And what is the one word youwould use to describe yourself?

Elad (37:06):
I think I would use curiosity.
That's what drives me today.
As a scientist, as a scholar, Ihope that's how I conduct
myself.
Just trying to understand theworld and be curious about it
and be curious about people andtheir experience.
One word is hard, but that's theword I would choose right now.

Sirisha (37:21):
And that fits perfectly what you said about being wider
on it.
As well Yeah.
So your research is veryfascinating because I look at it
both from what I do and from mypodcasting stuff, but also from
my corporate life.
How as organizations beingeither as a person reporting
into a manager or from aleader's standpoint trying to
work, engage with employees.
So I think there's so much asyou continue to do more work,

(37:44):
what that looks.
I think there's probably a lotof ramifications towards recent
retention and quite quitting allof these conversations that are
happening about gender equitythat, we could talk again, as I
said Yeah,

Elad (37:55):
we probably can do it in an hour podcast, just on that
uh, Yes, exactly.
So my, my PhD student now isreally interested in gender, in
a workplace.
So we're doing a lot of thingsaround that.
Some interesting stuff comingup.
It's still work in progress, butI'll be happy to come back at
some point and talk about all ofthat.

Sirisha (38:10):
Excellent.
So how can someone get in touchwith you?

Elad (38:12):
So either I'm on LinkedIn.
My, account is open or onENSherf.info, that's my website.
And there's a contact and all ofthe links to every possible
place where I'm at.
But LinkedIn is the socialnetwork that I usually hang out
on less than some of the otherones.

Sirisha (38:29):
so for those of you listening, especially if you are
management, because there's alot of today's discussion was to
managers as well, is how do youengage with employees and ask
them.
a lot of it was around dialogueand having conversations, but to
everything Elad said, you need astructure or a process so that
it's not one shot thing.
So think about how you wannastructure it.
Yes, you can wait for theorganization and the culture of

(38:51):
the organization, but you as anindividual can drive this and
engaging with your employees andexplaining when something cannot
be done a certain way.
I think keeping that dialogue,that crossbridge open, just
engages trust, a set of opennessand a sense of fairness also, so
that people can express theirvoice.
And I think as he talked, whenyou're dealing with this part of
silence.
Is about how you frame yourquestion.

(39:13):
I liked how you said about, howwould our competition put us out
of business?
That's one way of looking at itso that you address the risks so
you can execute well.
And then the last part I wantedto talk was just making sure
when you're assigning workprojects, critical stuff, that
you look at it from the lens ofequitability and making sure
everyone's given a fair shake atit.

(39:33):
So yeah, if you have theseexamples, please share them.
Elad's doing research.
So maybe he'd like to hear fromyou too.
So yeah, that was an awesomereach out to him,

Elad (39:40):
summary of our conversation.
That's impressive Yeah.
Yeah.

Sirisha (39:44):
So totally reach out to him and I have a feeling we
might actually ping on this inthe future again, so thank you
for listening.

Elad (39:51):
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
It was a pleasure.
And I look forward to listeningto your podcast in the future.
It's now on my feed.

Sirisha (39:57):
This is an indie podcast, and if you really enjoy
the content, you can help mewith production by supporting
me.
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Thank you for doing.
And don't forget to share thisepisode and put in this reviews

(40:19):
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What was your key takeaway?
That's really what I wanna know.
I wanna know how this isimpacting you, and what's
infetissimal changes you'reseeing in your life.
You can always reach me throughInstagram by sending me a DM at
Women Carrier and Life.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
See you next.