August 11, 2025 • 31 mins
In this episode, Tom speaks with Tania Benade-Meyer, founder of Unstructured, about the power of unstructured data, the shift from SLAs to XLAs, and what it takes to be an “enlightened leader” in 2025.
From Starbucks’ gluten-free perception problem to Gen Z’s naturally inclusive leadership style, Tania shares research-driven insights into how perception, trust, and consistent action are reshaping the modern workplace—and driving better Digital Employee Experience (DEX). Along the way, you’ll get a masterclass in what great 21st-century leadership looks like: how social listening can predict human behavior, why XLAs reveal more than traditional metrics, and the tell-tale signs of harmful leadership—where words and actions don’t align.
Connect with Tania Benade-Meyer: LinkedIn | Unstructured.co
Get the latest edition of the Gartner Magic Quadrant here (https://nexthink.com/gartner-magic-quadrant-dex)
Book your tickets for Nexthink Experience (Boston or London) here: https://nexthink.com/experience
From Starbucks’ gluten-free perception problem to Gen Z’s naturally inclusive leadership style, Tania shares research-driven insights into how perception, trust, and consistent action are reshaping the modern workplace—and driving better Digital Employee Experience (DEX). Along the way, you’ll get a masterclass in what great 21st-century leadership looks like: how social listening can predict human behavior, why XLAs reveal more than traditional metrics, and the tell-tale signs of harmful leadership—where words and actions don’t align.
Connect with Tania Benade-Meyer: LinkedIn | Unstructured.co
Get the latest edition of the Gartner Magic Quadrant here (https://nexthink.com/gartner-magic-quadrant-dex)
Book your tickets for Nexthink Experience (Boston or London) here: https://nexthink.com/experience
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome it, change Makers to the deck Show with Tim
Flower and Tom McGrath. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hello change maker as welcome back to the deck Show.
I'm Tom McGrath flying solo this week because Tim Flower
is flying solo on his Harley Davidson. If you can
believe that, listeners, he has taken the most amazing motorcycle trip.
He does it every single year across North America. And
we'll have to get a load down from his trip
(00:31):
on his trip from Tim once he's back with us
next week. In the meantime, I have an absolutely wonderful
and really really original guest to talk to today. She's
Tanya Bernarde Meyer. She's Tanya. I've taken a quote from
your LinkedIn right, and it got me thinking an expert
(00:51):
because you have so you wear so many different hats,
So this was this was my best way of I
thought of everything I saw of defining you from our
from our prior conversation, you're an expert instructured and unstructured data.
Would you say that that calls it pretty well?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yes, one hundred per thing. I would say that is accurate.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Oh, I'd like to think I'm an expert, but I
think there's many experts are fully can tick that box.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I'd be an expert to Tarya, you know, come with
a podcast you know, be awfully awfully unfortunate. If you are, No,
you definitely are. We've had We've had a good prior conversation,
as I say, and I think there's an irony to
it as well. Right, like an expert instructed and unstructured data,
you could we're obviously you know, the deck show is
obviously sponsored by next Thing, and you could describe next
(01:35):
Thing because as an expert in structured and unstructured data,
as I understand those terms, right, and maybe maybe for
my benefits, certainly for some listeners benefits, maybe we could
begin with a definition of these terms first of all
time and maybe a broader introduction in who you are
and what you do.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Sure, so I'm the found of constructed We spatialize in
unstructured data.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Very evident in the.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Name, and it started with social listening. So social listening
is going online and looking tweets, posts, videos, comments, anything
that is not a number, essentially, and that is how
you would define structure on structured data as well. Unstructured
(02:21):
data is in a nice form. It can be interpreted.
You can't put a number to it, you can't count
it you want summit, you can't divide where structured data
is exactly that you can do mathematics with it. So
that's the kind of like the BES way to do it.
Now you can structure unstructured data. You can count how
many tweets, what's the engagement on it. So there's some
(02:41):
structured data and it's essentially taking words that people say,
creating categories are whatever you want to get out of it,
So having hypothesis and testing it and then putting it
in a structured form so you can analyze it and
putting a dashboard. And I think that is what I
like about unstructured data is you can have a set
up tweets, post comments, videos, and depending on the question
(03:04):
I ask, I will get a completely different answer. And
so structured data is very flexible, fluid the painting on
how you look at it or how you define the question,
you can get a different answer.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
It sounds a little bit like a contrast you may
have become familiarized with in recent months, as we'll get
to shortly, which is the distinction between the SLA and
the XLA. Tanya are you familiar with these terms? And
because because the next thing, of course, it was known
for many things. One of the things it was known
(03:38):
for was the innovation around sentiment analysis in users, right,
not just looking at the structured data at the endpoint,
but actually figuring out the thoughts and feelings and the
feedback of individual users, both in spontaneous and in a
structured way with campaigns right exactly.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
It's really interesting because I think the whole world, even
in leadership, we're starting to see a change in the
METRICI that people are using. So there's SLAS, which was
exactly that numbers and even sees that scores if we
think of that as kind of a sla but it's
a number that we assigned to a feeling, and as humans,
(04:18):
it almost feels unnatural to say, are you feeling out
of a scale of team, It's not natural to think
about emotions in that way. So sentiment and analytics, if
you're asking people to use words to express it, there
are perhaps on a scale of one thousand different emotions
that people can place them. So the nu once and
(04:40):
the depth of information that you can get from just
people writing a sentence versus people choosing a number when
you're doing a survey and ask for feedback. That is
what makes XLAS is a concept so much more powerful,
and we're seeing that chift in leadership where previously as
leaders and still in most cases this is the case,
leaders are measured on metrics.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
You can manage what you measure.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
And it's really funny because everyone says, oh, we need
to move away from management and do leadership, but yes,
we still using metrics to measure people. And so when
we start moving towards experiences to measure people, that is
not something that you can put a number on. That
is like you have to constantly listen to what people
are saying and infer from that whether it's good or bad,
(05:25):
and use your intuition, previous experience and create a brand
new framework of how do we actually interpret what people
are saying and what does it mean for my business?
And only then do we really seniorship from I'm a
leader an enlightened leader in the case of some researchers
(05:45):
we've done recently in understanding how we can drive things
forward and create change in a business and drive a
business forward, it moves away from the metrics and it
moves towards behaviors and feelings and driving actual change that
ultimately leads profits is what we're finding in our research.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
And yes, you've already kind of aggressed a foretaste of
what we'll be talking about, which is enlightened leadership in
more detail before we do, though, maybe to circle that back,
because you got a very compelling, I think illustration there
of the way these these different forms of data analysis
of a different approach to meaning, I suppose in the
(06:24):
context of leadership, but what about in the context of
research specifically, So what do you feel that as a
social listening specifically, why is that such a powerful tool
for understanding trend's behaviors and sentiment today?
Speaker 4 (06:39):
So people go to social first, that is our go to. Now.
News agencies will go on to Twitter when something is
happening and use user generated data to report our news.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
That's where we go first.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
It's rapid, it's unstructured, it's unsolicited, and it's filled with
human emotion. If you're angry because GPD didn't deliver your
parcel on time, you're going to go to social media
to complain about it. And all of this content and
words and emotions that people are putting online is telling
us about people's perceptions, and so in this case, the
(07:13):
trooth actually becomes irrelevant because the truth becomes.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Whatever your perception of the truth is.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
And it's really interesting because one research slidy that we
did was for Starbucks, and what we found is they
wanted to get more people in their stores in the afternoons, like, oh,
we don't have enough people coming to our stores in
the afternoon. How why? And what we found when we
analyzed social media conversations of people talking about Starbucks in
(07:40):
the afternoons was a lot of people didn't go to
Starbucks because they had a perception that Starbucks didn't have
glutant free options. Now, if you're with a group of
ten people, you're going out a lunch of colleagues, you're
not going to go to a place even if one
person in a group of ten is gluten free, because
there's no options for them. People try to be inclus
(08:00):
and presenting this data back to them, They were very
upset because they say, we do have gluten free options.
But what was actually happening is they didn't make it apparent.
It wasn't very apparent on the branding that they used
on the packaging or even in the stores, they didn't
talk about gluten free products, and so people's perception was
that they didn't have it and it was super easy
(08:21):
to fix put up a big sign here's all of
get and free food. But again they felt that in
the sales numbers that had a direct impact on their sales.
And this is where the merging of structure on structured
data becomes really powerful. Is when you say, this is
a perception that people have. Our hypothesis is people don't
come because of this, Let's do something about it, and
(08:43):
let's then measure the numbers to see if it has
an impact. So the two of them working together is
really where it adds value for businesses. Having them in
isolation will create silos, which we are trying to break
down every day in terms of how people work. All
people interpret things, but on structured that there's almost like
(09:03):
your first point to go to to bold that perception
of what are people saying and what are they doing
and what are they intake. So if we tilet it together,
we can say if this is what they say today,
we can see in our structured data that this is
what they do tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
So it helps us a bit more predictive in people's intent.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Incredible commendation for for the the sort of holistic approach
of dex in general time. Somewhat ironically, I think, but
very interestingly as well. And look, you have been working,
as I say, specifically with I think the Xila Institute,
right on this concept that we've I think we had
alan nance from the XIL Institute on the third ever
(09:44):
podcast we've recorded discussing this concept which you've already mentioned
of being enlightened Leader four or five years ago. So
we'll need we'll need our memories refreshed, maybe tell us
about this project and this collaboration and and what that
concept means and why it matters and the work place today.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Sure so again, using social listening data a couple of
years ago, what we did is we analyze conversations that
employees was having on class stoors, so reviews, if they
were leaving up out businesses. We looked at customer conversations
or social media to understand the experiences that they were having.
We were looking at employees talking about the digital workspace
and environment. And what we found when we analyze all
(10:22):
this data is that we found this equation which is customer,
good customers well. Good employee experience is equal to good
digital experience that employees have having the right tools and
systems to help them do a better job, and that
ultimately lead to a really good customer experience, which ultimately
lead to profits. So we had this really good equation
(10:43):
to say that all of these are equally true.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
And eventually what.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
We uncovered was that this is true, but this is not.
This doesn't just magically happen by itself. There's a trigger
point or a catalyst for all.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Of this happening.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
And what we found is that the enlightened leader, not
just any leader, but the enlightened leader is really the
catalyst to create this equation to make it happen. So
enlightened leaders are the ones who are constantly talking about experience.
They are consistent in their approach, they don't take no
for an answer, but they learn how to create the pathways.
(11:20):
And they are not the ones that's standing on a
stage and talking about how great they are and all
the change they're through, and they are the ones who's
essentially clearing the pathway for teams to create a beta
experience for employees and customers. So they're removing those barriers
and almost like pushing people from the back rather than
standing in.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
The front leading.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
So this is the kind of a change that we're
seeing in leaders where they are putting themselves alongside their
team members to help drive the change rather than leading
from the front. But they do it through consistency, and
that consistency ultimately builds trust where people go this person
is doing the right thing. They're doing it consistently. They
believe that it's the right thing, and therefore I also
(12:03):
believe that buses is the right thing to do to
help customers, to help employees have beta experiences. And that's
ultimately what the enlightened LEATA is. It's someone that people
trust to clear the pathways for them to drive forward
experience in their business, whether that's beta customer or employee experience.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
And what kind of data were you analyzing? Social data,
we assume, but what was your interpret interpretative approach and
tell us more about that.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
So we kind of took a bit of a hybrid approach.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
So we looked at LinkedIn later, so we analyze conversations
of the top one hundred CIOs in the US, and
we looked at what they were talking about online, So
what were they posting about, what were they or were
they engaging with people? What were they saying when they're
engaging who were they engaging with? And what we found
(12:53):
is that only around twenty percent of the full sample
that we looked at can really be classified as enlightened.
And these are people who were always talking about they
tease and their people and experiences that they were having,
and whereas the other eighty percent they were mostly talking
about business. Our business growth was during that the metrics
(13:15):
we've acquired this business and very much traditional in their
approach where they're focusing on the metrics in their the
iss A lads, if we can call it that, whereas
the enlightened executives were all about the experience of things
that is hard to measure, what is having a really
significant impact two people. So that was one part of
our analysis and that's where we had where we bold
(13:37):
hypothesis and had some qualitative and quantitative insights. We then
surveyed and had conversations with people that we know are enlightened.
We've made them through our journeys. Allan knows them quite
well and we know that they display behaviors that defines
and Enlightened Leader to really get into date of how
(13:57):
do they bold their teams, how did what was their
you need to hear, what resistance to their face, and
what is the perception of what good leadership looks like.
And so it was really interesting because we could see
how we could identify what people were saying to us
in terms of how they view leadership and how they
(14:18):
drive their teams forward. It's also what we notice other
people online we're talking about, so we could really validate
our data from multiple approaches to say that we hear
what you're saying and we can see how that translates
in online conversation. So that match between talking to people
get the real world data and also what people posting
(14:39):
social media again validates how strong of a source social
media is and helping us to identify trends in human
behavior and changes over a period of time and how
that is evolving.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Interesting, really interesting, And so I guess you know, Alan
raised the Enlightened Leader with us of the first time
few years ago. How how do you think the concept
has evolved in more recent years and what are the
sort of specific qualities of behaviors are emerging at the
moment in twenty twenty five in your.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
View, So previously, I think we've just completed more research
around the journey that people have gone on and kind
of how we've gotten into their enlightened leadership. And previously,
when people were talking about experience, leadership is not something
that they mentioned at all. People don't see leaders as
the drivers behind changing experience. It's again tools and metrics.
(15:33):
It's something that is very metric focus. And recently what
we're seeing is there's been a very small group of
people that has created that consistency about talking about experience
constantly and in large organizations, they have started creating teams
where they are actively driving pilot programs, talking internally and
(15:58):
creating awareness about what a excel A.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
World looks like.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
And through that we are starting to see people become.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
More aware of it.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
So I think the journey five years ten years ago
has been educational and creating awareness, and we are actually
still on that. This is still actually a very early
days concept, even though people like I don't have been
talking about it for five years.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
It's still very.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
Unknown actually now this concept of an enlightened leader, But
because of this very core group of people, they are
the catalysts to create.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
They are gone from kind.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Of advocates of it to know ambassadors of it, and
they're kind of spreading the news and they now have
case studies and proven their pidologies of what they have
done to enforce that change in their organizations. And this
proof that they now have, this data that they have
and the stories that they can tell is now helping
to get more people on board to believe in the
(16:56):
concept and to believe that this is actually what we
need to do in order to drive change. And so
what we're seeing is still there's still lots of education
it needs to happen, but definitely this year we are
seeing people getting excited about it and large organizations are
starting to talk about it. So the awareness has increased
rapidly and now adoption is starting to take place and
(17:19):
there's less resistance and more curiosity towards it, which is
a great place to be because through this more people
is going to adopt and become less and liking leaders
for drive experience forward.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Absolutely, you know your research for yourself of course, right,
did you ever take a note When you look at
it late, think what was that?
Speaker 3 (17:38):
You know?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I have a note and it was when I was
rereading the fact. I'm quite sure what this was referring to.
But you've emphasized the shift, according to my nose, Tania,
from from leadership to readership. Yeah, okay, good, you're not
doing everybody. He's nothing. It's not my bad handwriting. Tell
us about what that means in a context of this discussion.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
So I cannot alluded to it earlier.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
But lead ship is in the traditional sense what we
have always viewed it as lead by example. I will
show you, and you've fallen. And that is shifting, especially
because we can't measure whether it looks like anymore because
it's becoming fluffy, and lots of the eighty percent of
(18:20):
people is not enlightened. They don't like blucky, they don't
like that. I can't put this on a dashboard. And
so the readership is reading people. That is actually a
core skill that a leader needs to have. They need
to be able to read the room, read the dynamic,
read someone's emotions.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
What is going to happen? How do we de escalate
the issue. How do I make an employee.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Trust me to really let the guard down and talk
to me. So one of the enlightened leaders that we
interviewed had a great analogy of what this looks like,
and he says that trust is not about what people
say in a meeting about me. It's what they say
at the in the table when they go home. And
so his goal is to when people go home instead
(19:04):
of the dinner table, say I had a great day
to day, I've had a great experience.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
I've worked today.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
And if he can enable that and get people to
have and talk about work in a positive way when
they get home, he feels like he's achieved. That is
not something that you're going to see in a boardroom
on a dashboard. And so leadership has traditionally being that
here's my data, this is what it means. But actually
leadership readership is make me sit back up, sir, take
(19:31):
that in and install what that actually means. And the
result is happening in places where.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
You might not even have insight into it.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
That's so interesting. Do you feel that there's maybe a
central change here that's creating that that that that very
kind of concept you just described, is that respecting previous
generations of work was much more hierarchical, like it was,
it was a pre given regardless of hierarchy, it has
(20:02):
to be earned, like it's a bit like social A
company is a bit like social media. There's a kind
of democracy of reputation at play and you have to
be engaged with that.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Yeah, we are, Oh, we're definitely seeing that.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
So part of our resource was looking at what gen
Z's are talking about in God's leadership and what does
the future of workplace look like and so the future
of leadership. They are going to be the future leaders.
And when we define the characteristics of an life and leader,
gen Z already taking eighty percent of those boxes. They
are already in light. They are the ones where there's
(20:37):
no hierarchy. We see lots of videos online on TikTok
CEOs where they go out or drinks with their people
and they show up on Fridays all being hungover. Like
it's that I'm in the trenches with them. I am
living the life with them. I am not at the
top of the chain, I am right there alongside them.
They don't care about hierarchies. They also don't care about
(21:00):
corporate talk. They just want to have natural conversations with
people to get stuff done. And they very much where
they take the back seat and let people lead and
so gen Z's is really interesting because they are they
are enlightened theaters. So the more they step into leadership roles,
the more we will see there's actually a salaried. Another
(21:23):
interesting thing that we observe when we analyze them was
that they if you don't give them what they ask for.
So if you don't give them, it's funny. And if
you don't give them the freedom to make to be innovative,
auto make changes, or you kill them with corporate jargon,
they will leave very easily. They have very little loyalty
(21:46):
to organizations, and they won't just leave to go to
another organization. They will leave to start their own business.
They will become your competitor. They are super entrepreneurial because
they they don't have time for corporate and so we
see more and more of that happening, where I think
there's going to be more entrepreneurs thin go before and
(22:08):
under thirty years old, and especially with AI, it's becoming
a lot easier for people. And so I think if
corporates aren't adjust to their language, the way that they
run their organizations, the way that they lead, they're going
to lose a very young workforce and they're going to
have competitores. That's very innovative, and it's leading the way
(22:28):
in terms of driving experience forward because they already have
the behaviors that just naturally enables that to happen.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Yeah, very interesting. Let's get into harmful leadership. Let's enough
of the good stuff. Let's talk about the bad stuff
that's always quite entertaining as much as anything. What does
what is ineffective or indeed harmful leadership look like in
twenty twenty five? What are the main red flags?
Speaker 4 (22:57):
I think what we are seeing is when people say
they do stuff, but they.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Don't really do it. And I think this is not
just leaders, this is anyone in an organization.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Way we want to drive change. Are we going to
change this policy? We care about experience, but yet you're
still measured on a number. You're still measured on a
profit margin or a revenue number. So what you're saying
and what you're doing doesn't map up. And with enlightened leaders,
what we're saying is what they say and what they
(23:31):
do matches exactly. And so the opposite of that is
true for ineffective leadership or harmful leadership is when we're
hearing the things but we're not seeing it. And again,
thinking about the people, the younger workforce that we have
entering now going into leadership positions, the moment they take
that very early on day out, you're going to lose thing.
(23:51):
You're going to really struggle to get them on site
and the concept of working together as a teamwork will
be very hard because they just won't buy into. So
I think it's very important for leaders if this is
something that they want people to trusting. Your words have
to match your actions or words.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I suppose there's a there's a psychological concept I can't
remember the name, but it's about that that difference between
how you see yourself and how others perceive you. Like
I think it's the idea of it shouldn't be too
much that you don't perceive that others can see too glaringly.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Obviously that's relevant in any context of life, but that
you would think particularly so among leaders. And do you
see that that kind of gap existing in the in
the ineffective leader in particular.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
Perception what I mentioned earlier, Perception is critical. One thing
we noticed when we were doing social listening research in
terms of people reducing their common footprint was when we
looked at it over a three year a three year
period looking at souchial media conversations, we notice the exact
(25:01):
same behaviors of people adopting EV vehicles as people switching
to meat free or vegetarian eating. Is there's this kind
of spike in adoption where people early on, early adopters
really want to get in on it. They want to
switch to EV cars, they want to switch to meat
re eating. But if the industry isn't ready to adopt it,
the infrastructure isn't there, there's not enough charges, there's not
(25:22):
enough good tasting vegetarian meals, it drops, and those early
adopters then, instead of becoming advocates, become detractive really fast,
and their perceptions is kind of in shape by lad
and to get them back on that curve becomes really
difficult to change their mind because they were like, I've
tried it already, it didn't work, so why would it
(25:43):
work now? And we are going to see the same
thing with AI. We're already seeing the same thing with AI.
It's the early adopts of AI. Maybe the accuracy was
five out of ten when people were using it. Now
they are after their opinion oh, it's bad quality. It
gives me wrong answers. Now it might be seven or
eight out of them, but because that perception has been
(26:04):
shaped very early on, it's actually harder to change it.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
And it's the same with leaders.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
If you lose someone's trust or if someone has formed
a perception of you as a leader, it's very.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Hard to change that.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
It takes a long time. And having to build history
or consistency, you have to be consistent in what you
do in order to rebuild that trums. People have to
see what you say is what you do consistently over
time to rebuild that trus. But if people have a
per certain perception, it takes a long clime to change that.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah, I completely agree with that. And were there any
sort of counterintuitive findings. There's always an interesting thing to
ask about if your studies anything you're expecting to encounter
and you didn't, or anything you weren't expecting to encounter
that caught you unawares.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
Yes, so, I think we always expect the loudest voices
in the room to have the biggest impact, but what
we actually found is the quiet leaders that had the
biggest impact. So they're not really out there pushing their
personal brands or shouting about themselves. It's the ones who's
kind of working in the background to get their teams
(27:16):
in line, making sure that they build that trust, building
that consistency, and they repeat that over and over and
over again to get that And those are the ones
that really is building systems that's going to last because
the ground work is done and there's a good place
to start from. So I think that is what we
expected to see. Oh, look how great people are, look
(27:37):
at how high the engagement is. But it actually wasn't
that at all. Was the people with kind of low
engagement that was having the biggest impact on what they
were achieving and driving the results internally in their business.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Okay, so I'd be surprised if this hasn't come up already.
But if somebody was a new leader stepping into a
sort of digital, very modern workplace, what's the one thing
they should stop doing and the one thing they must
do if they want to not just seem but to
be enlightened.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
So stop waiting for the structure to change in order
for you to drive change. I think people are like,
once I am in a leadership position, or one time
I'm a manager, or once I get promoted, then I'll
do this, or then I'll have the authority to do this.
What we're seeing from people who's coming through the ranks
who aren't even in a leadership position, is they already
(28:30):
doing it.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
They're not asking for permission.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
They are going out and they're saying, I want to
drive a change, and I am going to go and
do whatever it takes to do this. One of the
people that we interviewed in our research was she is
the lead at a calf enter for a mobile company,
and she started talking to people on the ground, speaking
(28:54):
to every single person every day, going and making sure
they okay all their family doing and just those relationship
with people, and eventually she started seeing patterns where she
started repeating stories to people and it both trusted the
team and it actually resulted in change in terms of
how they manage the entire team. How she evolved as
a leader, winning awards because of the changes that she
(29:18):
was able to implement by just not asking for permission.
I need to be a manager of the team to
have conversations. She did that from day one, and so
you don't have to have a formal structure to do that.
You can go and drive that change irrespective of what
a role is. So don't wait for the promotion.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Got it?
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Got it?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
What Tony isn't or did we Yeah? Yeah, So absolutely
wonderful conversation. And I just love for different layers of relevance,
both in your entire approach to data, which feels to
which seems to resonate so deeply with the concept of
exit over concept of decks, and then this brilliant kind
of analysis of the modern leader and the relevance of
(30:05):
that also to this kind of more holistic approach to
employee experience and technology provision. It's been wonderful. Thanks for
coming on. If people want to read your research or
get in touch with you for another project, where should
we direct them.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
You can reach me via email Tanya, anstructured dot co
LinkedIn constructured page, or my personal LinkedIn page, or on
my website unstructured dot co, so multiple places where you
can get this.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
It's not hard, it's not hard, and they'll yeah, absolutely
fantast We'll have some links to the research and to
your own website in the show notes. No, thanks so
much for coming on time. Your pleasure to meet, your
pleasure to talk to you about this interesting subject.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Really been great, awesome, thanks much for having me, really
enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
To make sure that you never miss an episode, subscribe
to the show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify for the podcast player,
and if you're listening on Apple podcasts, make sure to
leave a rating of the show. Just tap the number
of stars you think the podcast deserves. If you'd like
to learn more about how next think can help me
improve your digital employee experience, head over to nextthink dot com.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Until next time,
Welcome it, change Makers to the deck Show with Tim
Flower and Tom McGrath. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hello change maker as welcome back to the deck Show.
I'm Tom McGrath flying solo this week because Tim Flower
is flying solo on his Harley Davidson. If you can
believe that, listeners, he has taken the most amazing motorcycle trip.
He does it every single year across North America. And
we'll have to get a load down from his trip
(00:31):
on his trip from Tim once he's back with us
next week. In the meantime, I have an absolutely wonderful
and really really original guest to talk to today. She's
Tanya Bernarde Meyer. She's Tanya. I've taken a quote from
your LinkedIn right, and it got me thinking an expert
(00:51):
because you have so you wear so many different hats,
So this was this was my best way of I
thought of everything I saw of defining you from our
from our prior conversation, you're an expert instructured and unstructured data.
Would you say that that calls it pretty well?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yes, one hundred per thing. I would say that is accurate.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Oh, I'd like to think I'm an expert, but I
think there's many experts are fully can tick that box.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I'd be an expert to Tarya, you know, come with
a podcast you know, be awfully awfully unfortunate. If you are, No,
you definitely are. We've had We've had a good prior conversation,
as I say, and I think there's an irony to
it as well. Right, like an expert instructed and unstructured data,
you could we're obviously you know, the deck show is
obviously sponsored by next Thing, and you could describe next
(01:35):
Thing because as an expert in structured and unstructured data,
as I understand those terms, right, and maybe maybe for
my benefits, certainly for some listeners benefits, maybe we could
begin with a definition of these terms first of all
time and maybe a broader introduction in who you are
and what you do.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Sure, so I'm the found of constructed We spatialize in
unstructured data.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Very evident in the.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Name, and it started with social listening. So social listening
is going online and looking tweets, posts, videos, comments, anything
that is not a number, essentially, and that is how
you would define structure on structured data as well. Unstructured
(02:21):
data is in a nice form. It can be interpreted.
You can't put a number to it, you can't count
it you want summit, you can't divide where structured data
is exactly that you can do mathematics with it. So
that's the kind of like the BES way to do it.
Now you can structure unstructured data. You can count how
many tweets, what's the engagement on it. So there's some
(02:41):
structured data and it's essentially taking words that people say,
creating categories are whatever you want to get out of it,
So having hypothesis and testing it and then putting it
in a structured form so you can analyze it and
putting a dashboard. And I think that is what I
like about unstructured data is you can have a set
up tweets, post comments, videos, and depending on the question
(03:04):
I ask, I will get a completely different answer. And
so structured data is very flexible, fluid the painting on
how you look at it or how you define the question,
you can get a different answer.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
It sounds a little bit like a contrast you may
have become familiarized with in recent months, as we'll get
to shortly, which is the distinction between the SLA and
the XLA. Tanya are you familiar with these terms? And
because because the next thing, of course, it was known
for many things. One of the things it was known
(03:38):
for was the innovation around sentiment analysis in users, right,
not just looking at the structured data at the endpoint,
but actually figuring out the thoughts and feelings and the
feedback of individual users, both in spontaneous and in a
structured way with campaigns right exactly.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
It's really interesting because I think the whole world, even
in leadership, we're starting to see a change in the
METRICI that people are using. So there's SLAS, which was
exactly that numbers and even sees that scores if we
think of that as kind of a sla but it's
a number that we assigned to a feeling, and as humans,
(04:18):
it almost feels unnatural to say, are you feeling out
of a scale of team, It's not natural to think
about emotions in that way. So sentiment and analytics, if
you're asking people to use words to express it, there
are perhaps on a scale of one thousand different emotions
that people can place them. So the nu once and
(04:40):
the depth of information that you can get from just
people writing a sentence versus people choosing a number when
you're doing a survey and ask for feedback. That is
what makes XLAS is a concept so much more powerful,
and we're seeing that chift in leadership where previously as
leaders and still in most cases this is the case,
leaders are measured on metrics.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
You can manage what you measure.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
And it's really funny because everyone says, oh, we need
to move away from management and do leadership, but yes,
we still using metrics to measure people. And so when
we start moving towards experiences to measure people, that is
not something that you can put a number on. That
is like you have to constantly listen to what people
are saying and infer from that whether it's good or bad,
(05:25):
and use your intuition, previous experience and create a brand
new framework of how do we actually interpret what people
are saying and what does it mean for my business?
And only then do we really seniorship from I'm a
leader an enlightened leader in the case of some researchers
(05:45):
we've done recently in understanding how we can drive things
forward and create change in a business and drive a
business forward, it moves away from the metrics and it
moves towards behaviors and feelings and driving actual change that
ultimately leads profits is what we're finding in our research.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
And yes, you've already kind of aggressed a foretaste of
what we'll be talking about, which is enlightened leadership in
more detail before we do, though, maybe to circle that back,
because you got a very compelling, I think illustration there
of the way these these different forms of data analysis
of a different approach to meaning, I suppose in the
(06:24):
context of leadership, but what about in the context of
research specifically, So what do you feel that as a
social listening specifically, why is that such a powerful tool
for understanding trend's behaviors and sentiment today?
Speaker 4 (06:39):
So people go to social first, that is our go to. Now.
News agencies will go on to Twitter when something is
happening and use user generated data to report our news.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
That's where we go first.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
It's rapid, it's unstructured, it's unsolicited, and it's filled with
human emotion. If you're angry because GPD didn't deliver your
parcel on time, you're going to go to social media
to complain about it. And all of this content and
words and emotions that people are putting online is telling
us about people's perceptions, and so in this case, the
(07:13):
trooth actually becomes irrelevant because the truth becomes.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Whatever your perception of the truth is.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
And it's really interesting because one research slidy that we
did was for Starbucks, and what we found is they
wanted to get more people in their stores in the afternoons, like, oh,
we don't have enough people coming to our stores in
the afternoon. How why? And what we found when we
analyzed social media conversations of people talking about Starbucks in
(07:40):
the afternoons was a lot of people didn't go to
Starbucks because they had a perception that Starbucks didn't have
glutant free options. Now, if you're with a group of
ten people, you're going out a lunch of colleagues, you're
not going to go to a place even if one
person in a group of ten is gluten free, because
there's no options for them. People try to be inclus
(08:00):
and presenting this data back to them, They were very
upset because they say, we do have gluten free options.
But what was actually happening is they didn't make it apparent.
It wasn't very apparent on the branding that they used
on the packaging or even in the stores, they didn't
talk about gluten free products, and so people's perception was
that they didn't have it and it was super easy
(08:21):
to fix put up a big sign here's all of
get and free food. But again they felt that in
the sales numbers that had a direct impact on their sales.
And this is where the merging of structure on structured
data becomes really powerful. Is when you say, this is
a perception that people have. Our hypothesis is people don't
come because of this, Let's do something about it, and
(08:43):
let's then measure the numbers to see if it has
an impact. So the two of them working together is
really where it adds value for businesses. Having them in
isolation will create silos, which we are trying to break
down every day in terms of how people work. All
people interpret things, but on structured that there's almost like
(09:03):
your first point to go to to bold that perception
of what are people saying and what are they doing
and what are they intake. So if we tilet it together,
we can say if this is what they say today,
we can see in our structured data that this is
what they do tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
So it helps us a bit more predictive in people's intent.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Incredible commendation for for the the sort of holistic approach
of dex in general time. Somewhat ironically, I think, but
very interestingly as well. And look, you have been working,
as I say, specifically with I think the Xila Institute,
right on this concept that we've I think we had
alan nance from the XIL Institute on the third ever
(09:44):
podcast we've recorded discussing this concept which you've already mentioned
of being enlightened Leader four or five years ago. So
we'll need we'll need our memories refreshed, maybe tell us
about this project and this collaboration and and what that
concept means and why it matters and the work place today.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Sure so again, using social listening data a couple of
years ago, what we did is we analyze conversations that
employees was having on class stoors, so reviews, if they
were leaving up out businesses. We looked at customer conversations
or social media to understand the experiences that they were having.
We were looking at employees talking about the digital workspace
and environment. And what we found when we analyze all
(10:22):
this data is that we found this equation which is customer,
good customers well. Good employee experience is equal to good
digital experience that employees have having the right tools and
systems to help them do a better job, and that
ultimately lead to a really good customer experience, which ultimately
lead to profits. So we had this really good equation
(10:43):
to say that all of these are equally true.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
And eventually what.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
We uncovered was that this is true, but this is not.
This doesn't just magically happen by itself. There's a trigger
point or a catalyst for all.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Of this happening.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
And what we found is that the enlightened leader, not
just any leader, but the enlightened leader is really the
catalyst to create this equation to make it happen. So
enlightened leaders are the ones who are constantly talking about experience.
They are consistent in their approach, they don't take no
for an answer, but they learn how to create the pathways.
(11:20):
And they are not the ones that's standing on a
stage and talking about how great they are and all
the change they're through, and they are the ones who's
essentially clearing the pathway for teams to create a beta
experience for employees and customers. So they're removing those barriers
and almost like pushing people from the back rather than
standing in.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
The front leading.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
So this is the kind of a change that we're
seeing in leaders where they are putting themselves alongside their
team members to help drive the change rather than leading
from the front. But they do it through consistency, and
that consistency ultimately builds trust where people go this person
is doing the right thing. They're doing it consistently. They
believe that it's the right thing, and therefore I also
(12:03):
believe that buses is the right thing to do to
help customers, to help employees have beta experiences. And that's
ultimately what the enlightened LEATA is. It's someone that people
trust to clear the pathways for them to drive forward
experience in their business, whether that's beta customer or employee experience.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
And what kind of data were you analyzing? Social data,
we assume, but what was your interpret interpretative approach and
tell us more about that.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
So we kind of took a bit of a hybrid approach.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
So we looked at LinkedIn later, so we analyze conversations
of the top one hundred CIOs in the US, and
we looked at what they were talking about online, So
what were they posting about, what were they or were
they engaging with people? What were they saying when they're
engaging who were they engaging with? And what we found
(12:53):
is that only around twenty percent of the full sample
that we looked at can really be classified as enlightened.
And these are people who were always talking about they
tease and their people and experiences that they were having,
and whereas the other eighty percent they were mostly talking
about business. Our business growth was during that the metrics
(13:15):
we've acquired this business and very much traditional in their
approach where they're focusing on the metrics in their the
iss A lads, if we can call it that, whereas
the enlightened executives were all about the experience of things
that is hard to measure, what is having a really
significant impact two people. So that was one part of
our analysis and that's where we had where we bold
(13:37):
hypothesis and had some qualitative and quantitative insights. We then
surveyed and had conversations with people that we know are enlightened.
We've made them through our journeys. Allan knows them quite
well and we know that they display behaviors that defines
and Enlightened Leader to really get into date of how
(13:57):
do they bold their teams, how did what was their
you need to hear, what resistance to their face, and
what is the perception of what good leadership looks like.
And so it was really interesting because we could see
how we could identify what people were saying to us
in terms of how they view leadership and how they
(14:18):
drive their teams forward. It's also what we notice other
people online we're talking about, so we could really validate
our data from multiple approaches to say that we hear
what you're saying and we can see how that translates
in online conversation. So that match between talking to people
get the real world data and also what people posting
(14:39):
social media again validates how strong of a source social
media is and helping us to identify trends in human
behavior and changes over a period of time and how
that is evolving.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Interesting, really interesting, And so I guess you know, Alan
raised the Enlightened Leader with us of the first time
few years ago. How how do you think the concept
has evolved in more recent years and what are the
sort of specific qualities of behaviors are emerging at the
moment in twenty twenty five in your.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
View, So previously, I think we've just completed more research
around the journey that people have gone on and kind
of how we've gotten into their enlightened leadership. And previously,
when people were talking about experience, leadership is not something
that they mentioned at all. People don't see leaders as
the drivers behind changing experience. It's again tools and metrics.
(15:33):
It's something that is very metric focus. And recently what
we're seeing is there's been a very small group of
people that has created that consistency about talking about experience
constantly and in large organizations, they have started creating teams
where they are actively driving pilot programs, talking internally and
(15:58):
creating awareness about what a excel A.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
World looks like.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
And through that we are starting to see people become.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
More aware of it.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
So I think the journey five years ten years ago
has been educational and creating awareness, and we are actually
still on that. This is still actually a very early
days concept, even though people like I don't have been
talking about it for five years.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
It's still very.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
Unknown actually now this concept of an enlightened leader, But
because of this very core group of people, they are
the catalysts to create.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
They are gone from kind.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Of advocates of it to know ambassadors of it, and
they're kind of spreading the news and they now have
case studies and proven their pidologies of what they have
done to enforce that change in their organizations. And this
proof that they now have, this data that they have
and the stories that they can tell is now helping
to get more people on board to believe in the
(16:56):
concept and to believe that this is actually what we
need to do in order to drive change. And so
what we're seeing is still there's still lots of education
it needs to happen, but definitely this year we are
seeing people getting excited about it and large organizations are
starting to talk about it. So the awareness has increased
rapidly and now adoption is starting to take place and
(17:19):
there's less resistance and more curiosity towards it, which is
a great place to be because through this more people
is going to adopt and become less and liking leaders
for drive experience forward.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Absolutely, you know your research for yourself of course, right,
did you ever take a note When you look at
it late, think what was that?
Speaker 3 (17:38):
You know?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I have a note and it was when I was
rereading the fact. I'm quite sure what this was referring to.
But you've emphasized the shift, according to my nose, Tania,
from from leadership to readership. Yeah, okay, good, you're not
doing everybody. He's nothing. It's not my bad handwriting. Tell
us about what that means in a context of this discussion.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
So I cannot alluded to it earlier.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
But lead ship is in the traditional sense what we
have always viewed it as lead by example. I will
show you, and you've fallen. And that is shifting, especially
because we can't measure whether it looks like anymore because
it's becoming fluffy, and lots of the eighty percent of
(18:20):
people is not enlightened. They don't like blucky, they don't
like that. I can't put this on a dashboard. And
so the readership is reading people. That is actually a
core skill that a leader needs to have. They need
to be able to read the room, read the dynamic,
read someone's emotions.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
What is going to happen? How do we de escalate
the issue. How do I make an employee.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
Trust me to really let the guard down and talk
to me. So one of the enlightened leaders that we
interviewed had a great analogy of what this looks like,
and he says that trust is not about what people
say in a meeting about me. It's what they say
at the in the table when they go home. And
so his goal is to when people go home instead
(19:04):
of the dinner table, say I had a great day
to day, I've had a great experience.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
I've worked today.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
And if he can enable that and get people to
have and talk about work in a positive way when
they get home, he feels like he's achieved. That is
not something that you're going to see in a boardroom
on a dashboard. And so leadership has traditionally being that
here's my data, this is what it means. But actually
leadership readership is make me sit back up, sir, take
(19:31):
that in and install what that actually means. And the
result is happening in places where.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
You might not even have insight into it.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
That's so interesting. Do you feel that there's maybe a
central change here that's creating that that that that very
kind of concept you just described, is that respecting previous
generations of work was much more hierarchical, like it was,
it was a pre given regardless of hierarchy, it has
(20:02):
to be earned, like it's a bit like social A
company is a bit like social media. There's a kind
of democracy of reputation at play and you have to
be engaged with that.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Yeah, we are, Oh, we're definitely seeing that.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
So part of our resource was looking at what gen
Z's are talking about in God's leadership and what does
the future of workplace look like and so the future
of leadership. They are going to be the future leaders.
And when we define the characteristics of an life and leader,
gen Z already taking eighty percent of those boxes. They
are already in light. They are the ones where there's
(20:37):
no hierarchy. We see lots of videos online on TikTok
CEOs where they go out or drinks with their people
and they show up on Fridays all being hungover. Like
it's that I'm in the trenches with them. I am
living the life with them. I am not at the
top of the chain, I am right there alongside them.
They don't care about hierarchies. They also don't care about
(21:00):
corporate talk. They just want to have natural conversations with
people to get stuff done. And they very much where
they take the back seat and let people lead and
so gen Z's is really interesting because they are they
are enlightened theaters. So the more they step into leadership roles,
the more we will see there's actually a salaried. Another
(21:23):
interesting thing that we observe when we analyze them was
that they if you don't give them what they ask for.
So if you don't give them, it's funny. And if
you don't give them the freedom to make to be innovative,
auto make changes, or you kill them with corporate jargon,
they will leave very easily. They have very little loyalty
(21:46):
to organizations, and they won't just leave to go to
another organization. They will leave to start their own business.
They will become your competitor. They are super entrepreneurial because
they they don't have time for corporate and so we
see more and more of that happening, where I think
there's going to be more entrepreneurs thin go before and
(22:08):
under thirty years old, and especially with AI, it's becoming
a lot easier for people. And so I think if
corporates aren't adjust to their language, the way that they
run their organizations, the way that they lead, they're going
to lose a very young workforce and they're going to
have competitores. That's very innovative, and it's leading the way
(22:28):
in terms of driving experience forward because they already have
the behaviors that just naturally enables that to happen.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Yeah, very interesting. Let's get into harmful leadership. Let's enough
of the good stuff. Let's talk about the bad stuff
that's always quite entertaining as much as anything. What does
what is ineffective or indeed harmful leadership look like in
twenty twenty five? What are the main red flags?
Speaker 4 (22:57):
I think what we are seeing is when people say
they do stuff, but they.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Don't really do it. And I think this is not
just leaders, this is anyone in an organization.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Way we want to drive change. Are we going to
change this policy? We care about experience, but yet you're
still measured on a number. You're still measured on a
profit margin or a revenue number. So what you're saying
and what you're doing doesn't map up. And with enlightened leaders,
what we're saying is what they say and what they
(23:31):
do matches exactly. And so the opposite of that is
true for ineffective leadership or harmful leadership is when we're
hearing the things but we're not seeing it. And again,
thinking about the people, the younger workforce that we have
entering now going into leadership positions, the moment they take
that very early on day out, you're going to lose thing.
(23:51):
You're going to really struggle to get them on site
and the concept of working together as a teamwork will
be very hard because they just won't buy into. So
I think it's very important for leaders if this is
something that they want people to trusting. Your words have
to match your actions or words.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I suppose there's a there's a psychological concept I can't
remember the name, but it's about that that difference between
how you see yourself and how others perceive you. Like
I think it's the idea of it shouldn't be too
much that you don't perceive that others can see too glaringly.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Obviously that's relevant in any context of life, but that
you would think particularly so among leaders. And do you
see that that kind of gap existing in the in
the ineffective leader in particular.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
Perception what I mentioned earlier, Perception is critical. One thing
we noticed when we were doing social listening research in
terms of people reducing their common footprint was when we
looked at it over a three year a three year
period looking at souchial media conversations, we notice the exact
(25:01):
same behaviors of people adopting EV vehicles as people switching
to meat free or vegetarian eating. Is there's this kind
of spike in adoption where people early on, early adopters
really want to get in on it. They want to
switch to EV cars, they want to switch to meat
re eating. But if the industry isn't ready to adopt it,
the infrastructure isn't there, there's not enough charges, there's not
(25:22):
enough good tasting vegetarian meals, it drops, and those early
adopters then, instead of becoming advocates, become detractive really fast,
and their perceptions is kind of in shape by lad
and to get them back on that curve becomes really
difficult to change their mind because they were like, I've
tried it already, it didn't work, so why would it
(25:43):
work now? And we are going to see the same
thing with AI. We're already seeing the same thing with AI.
It's the early adopts of AI. Maybe the accuracy was
five out of ten when people were using it. Now
they are after their opinion oh, it's bad quality. It
gives me wrong answers. Now it might be seven or
eight out of them, but because that perception has been
(26:04):
shaped very early on, it's actually harder to change it.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
And it's the same with leaders.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
If you lose someone's trust or if someone has formed
a perception of you as a leader, it's very.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Hard to change that.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
It takes a long time. And having to build history
or consistency, you have to be consistent in what you
do in order to rebuild that trums. People have to
see what you say is what you do consistently over
time to rebuild that trus. But if people have a
per certain perception, it takes a long clime to change that.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah, I completely agree with that. And were there any
sort of counterintuitive findings. There's always an interesting thing to
ask about if your studies anything you're expecting to encounter
and you didn't, or anything you weren't expecting to encounter
that caught you unawares.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
Yes, so, I think we always expect the loudest voices
in the room to have the biggest impact, but what
we actually found is the quiet leaders that had the
biggest impact. So they're not really out there pushing their
personal brands or shouting about themselves. It's the ones who's
kind of working in the background to get their teams
(27:16):
in line, making sure that they build that trust, building
that consistency, and they repeat that over and over and
over again to get that And those are the ones
that really is building systems that's going to last because
the ground work is done and there's a good place
to start from. So I think that is what we
expected to see. Oh, look how great people are, look
(27:37):
at how high the engagement is. But it actually wasn't
that at all. Was the people with kind of low
engagement that was having the biggest impact on what they
were achieving and driving the results internally in their business.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Okay, so I'd be surprised if this hasn't come up already.
But if somebody was a new leader stepping into a
sort of digital, very modern workplace, what's the one thing
they should stop doing and the one thing they must
do if they want to not just seem but to
be enlightened.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
So stop waiting for the structure to change in order
for you to drive change. I think people are like,
once I am in a leadership position, or one time
I'm a manager, or once I get promoted, then I'll
do this, or then I'll have the authority to do this.
What we're seeing from people who's coming through the ranks
who aren't even in a leadership position, is they already
(28:30):
doing it.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
They're not asking for permission.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
They are going out and they're saying, I want to
drive a change, and I am going to go and
do whatever it takes to do this. One of the
people that we interviewed in our research was she is
the lead at a calf enter for a mobile company,
and she started talking to people on the ground, speaking
(28:54):
to every single person every day, going and making sure
they okay all their family doing and just those relationship
with people, and eventually she started seeing patterns where she
started repeating stories to people and it both trusted the
team and it actually resulted in change in terms of
how they manage the entire team. How she evolved as
a leader, winning awards because of the changes that she
(29:18):
was able to implement by just not asking for permission.
I need to be a manager of the team to
have conversations. She did that from day one, and so
you don't have to have a formal structure to do that.
You can go and drive that change irrespective of what
a role is. So don't wait for the promotion.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Got it?
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Got it?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
What Tony isn't or did we Yeah? Yeah, So absolutely
wonderful conversation. And I just love for different layers of relevance,
both in your entire approach to data, which feels to
which seems to resonate so deeply with the concept of
exit over concept of decks, and then this brilliant kind
of analysis of the modern leader and the relevance of
(30:05):
that also to this kind of more holistic approach to
employee experience and technology provision. It's been wonderful. Thanks for
coming on. If people want to read your research or
get in touch with you for another project, where should
we direct them.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
You can reach me via email Tanya, anstructured dot co
LinkedIn constructured page, or my personal LinkedIn page, or on
my website unstructured dot co, so multiple places where you
can get this.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
It's not hard, it's not hard, and they'll yeah, absolutely
fantast We'll have some links to the research and to
your own website in the show notes. No, thanks so
much for coming on time. Your pleasure to meet, your
pleasure to talk to you about this interesting subject.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Really been great, awesome, thanks much for having me, really
enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
To make sure that you never miss an episode, subscribe
to the show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify for the podcast player,
and if you're listening on Apple podcasts, make sure to
leave a rating of the show. Just tap the number
of stars you think the podcast deserves. If you'd like
to learn more about how next think can help me
improve your digital employee experience, head over to nextthink dot com.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Until next time,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.