Start With A Win - How COVID-19 Accelerated the Future of Work

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success. Are you ready? Let's do this. And coming to you from top of the 12th floor, Remax World Headquarters in Denver, Colorado, it's Adam Conto, CEO of Remax with Start With A Win, sitting in-house studio. We haven't been here in a while. I know we haven't. It's nice to see you in person, you know.

Starting point is 00:00:41 I can actually reach out and fist bump there, baby. Yeah, so it's kind of interesting, you know, the past couple years we've been through, and we're going to talk about that with our special guest today, you know, future workforces and where we're at, where we're going, things of that nature, but this is refreshing, my friend. Yeah, it is. If you're not watching this on YouTube, head over there and you can kind of see the new space, the new studio. It's awesome. Well, hey, I'm excited to announce our new guest today. Mark Sanborn is president of Sanborn Associates, Inc., an idea studio dedicated to developing leaders in business and in life. Mark is an international bestselling author and award-winning keynote leadership speaker. Mark holds a certified speaking

Starting point is 00:01:25 professional designation from the National Speakers Association and is a member of the Speaker Hall of Fame. So welcome, Mark, to the Start With Win podcast. Well, thank you, Grandmaster Funk producer, Mark. That's right. We don't confuse which Mark is which. Listen, I'm really excited. You better give us, with all these speaker designations, I'm excited to be spoken to. Oh, I know. We all love our designations.

Starting point is 00:01:49 If I looked out my window and waved, I could probably see you guys. I'm about three miles exactly due south of where you're at right now. I'm in Lone Tree, which sounds very bucolic, but we actually have more than one tree. I've never thought of it that way, and I've driven through, I drive through there every day going home. So mini tree, lots of trees. There you go. So Mark, um, a, a little bit of back story here. You knew me and I knew you back in 2003 when I was very first getting my start with Remax. We did a 32-city North American speaking tour together. I got to sit in the back of the room and watch you talk

Starting point is 00:02:30 about the Fred Factor going, oh my gosh, this guy is a really good speaker. You were president of the National Speakers Association. And I mean, just an incredible, incredible keynote speaker and such an amazing business consultant. So thanks for being here with us today, my friend. Well, my pleasure. By the way, the rest of the story is my younger son. I have two sons. My youngest son, Jackson, is a Remax realtor with the Landon Smith team here in Denver. So wow, small world and kind of circular construction, how that's all come back to connect. Indeed, my friend. So let's jump right into it, because I know you and I like to talk about business and how we can do better.

Starting point is 00:03:11 You know, we've all been seriously challenged. Well, a lot of businesses have been challenged in how they actually treat their customers and their workforce and things of that nature over the past couple of years with COVID. So you have a presentation, Leading the Future Workforce Now, which really, I mean, you talk about this concept of anxious hopefulness. So why did you name the keynote that? What's it about? And what would we see in it? I think it's a really powerful concept for managers, leaders, anyone that deals with customers, because during COVID, I used that break that scrambled everybody's eggs to do a national research project. And I wanted to find out, you know, A, how leaders did and how they could do going forward, because frankly, I think COVID wasn't just a change. I think COVID accelerated the future.

Starting point is 00:04:04 That's why I say leading the future workforce now. If you look at the positive aspects of COVID, I think everything that came out of COVID was an inevitability. It just got here sooner. It wasn't like we did a left turn or a right turn or an about face. We just had all of the things that were kind of culminating in the future show up very quickly. So when we did the research, there were a number of things that really stood out, but two of them were that first, about 57%, and this is not the surprising part of the research, 50% of Americans were more anxious about the future. And Adam, you and I both know that it's easier to sell to a felt need than to

Starting point is 00:04:46 create a need. And when you know that your customer, your team member, your colleague is anxious, anything you can do to reduce that anxiety creates real value for them. And we all scrambled to do that in terms of how we had meetings and how we were able to substitute face-to-face interactions. But what was a bit of a surprise, and a pleasant one at that, is that the younger we went, the five generations that we looked at, the more optimistic people were. 45% of Gen Z are more optimistic about the future post-COVID than they were pre-COVID. And so I say that the real work of leadership going forward is to focus on that optimistic anxiety or the anxious optimism, depending on how you want to phrase it, to reduce anxiety, but to deliver on the optimism. I think maybe for the first time in a very long time, leaders don't have to build a fire.

Starting point is 00:05:41 We talk about building a fire under people, right, To get them motivated to do better in the future. I think people are primed to do better in the future. They're primed to improve their situation both at home and at work. So if you want an agenda item as a leader, those are the two things at the top of the list to focus on. Oh, I mean, it's so powerful. And one of the words that keeps coming to my mind as you're talking about this is the word trust. And I think so many leaders lost that factor of trust amongst their employees. How does that play into this, in your opinion? Well, you're exactly right. One out of every four employees across all the generations said, my leader did not show concern for me during COVID. Now, that's a pretty high percentage.

Starting point is 00:06:26 And by the way, I'm not trying to give leaders a free pass, but I think when you're trying to keep the lights on, make payroll and not go out of business, it's easy to get focused on those things. However, that ability to empathize, you know, to go beyond what we're dealing with in a crisis, which is easy, I mean, that's what preoccupies us. And to ask ourselves, you know, what can I do to show genuine concern for others?

Starting point is 00:06:51 I think that's an important trust factor because any time a team member, for that matter, a customer feels it's transactional and not relational, it diminishes the level of trust. The idea is as long as you get your needs met at my expense, you're happy. But relational exchanges, both parties get their needs met and it becomes, as much as it's overused, a true win-win. Okay. So if anybody did not write down what Mark just said, they need to go back and rewind this and listen to that. The transactional versus relational aspect of this, because that is probably one of the most important signs that we saw in business coming out of this.

Starting point is 00:07:31 And Mark, I know you travel probably more than anybody I know. I mean, you are all over the world working with different businesses and giving keynotes to huge, huge organizations. And I know you did so much virtually here. But you were kind of the master of observing businesses, not understanding this necessary change. And I would notice it every now and then because you would write an article or make a post on social media or something like that. And it wasn't just that you were in their face. You were, hey, just so you know, folks,

Starting point is 00:08:04 here's the expectation. And I love this, how subtle, and sometimes you did slap them upside the head with it. But the, you know, what happened? Why did, you know, and I agree with you, the businesses that figured it out, everybody was standing in line outside the door, six feet apart, of course, to go in there. And those that couldn't get it couldn't even get employees back. I mean, what were people missing here? Why couldn't they comprehend that? Is it because we used to do things a certain way and we still did that or what? Well, we spent so many years, Adam, coming up with planning and process, which isn't bad. Don't get

Starting point is 00:08:40 me wrong. But if somebody said to me, Mark, after the last two years, and I don't know if we're post-COVID exactly, but I sure hope we are, and they said, what was the one big idea? What's the biggest idea that you brought out of COVID? It's this, and that is that agility and experimentation beat planning and process every time. And it isn't an either or, it's an and. Sure, to the degree you can plan. And by the way, at a personal level, process works a lot better than it does at an organizational or at a national or a global level. But what I think people did is they were kind of locked into these certain mindsets. And it's ironic, we did what used to work. And when it didn't work, we did more of it, right? Instead of going, wow, maybe we should switch it up. So again, the big idea here is agility and experimentation trump planning and process. And that's really what we need going forward because, you know, I hope there's not a, you know, COVID-94, but there's another unexpected cataclysmic, you know, foundation rocking event.

Starting point is 00:09:46 It's a matter of not if, it's a matter of when. And so hopefully we can take some of the things we learned or should have learned from COVID and apply them to those situations in the future. A great statement and so point on. You talk about the changes, the transitions we made during COVID. Give me your perspective on this statement. I heard that we made 10 years of changes in three months. I mean, what do you think? How much change do you think? How much evolution do you think we made in business? In what period of time during COVID? Because I heard 10 years and three months.

Starting point is 00:10:24 And I mean, I don't second guess that. There's a lot like Zoom and all these other things that blew up on us. But what about interpersonal relationships? How does that play in there as well? Well, I wouldn't quibble with the principle. I don't know if it was nine years and three months or 11 years and seven months, but we did. And it's really the premise of leading the future workforce now. The good news is we have a really the premise of leading the future workforce now. The good news is we have a really clear picture of what the future looked like, and it's arrived early. I would quibble with one thing, and that is the reality is most businesses didn't make the change. They were confronted with a change, and they're still grappling. You know, COVID all presented us, or presented us all with the same challenges.

Starting point is 00:11:06 But what really irritates those that haven't responded well is that some companies are doing better than ever. You know, so I always say no matter what happens, there's always winners. There's yet to be anything that's happened that hasn't that has defied that law. Even in the bleakest of times, there are those people and we typically call leaders, who figure out what to do and to make the most of the situation. I think that we, a good example of what happened during COVID, and one of the established business leaders I really admire, and I won't mention this person's name to protect the guilty, sent out a newsletter that said, during COVID, you've got to over-communicate. And that couldn't be any further from the truth. During COVID, like during

Starting point is 00:11:53 any leadership time, we need to communicate better, not more. Anytime you do something more, you confuse and muddy the waters. Because then I have to figure out, well, geez, I've heard from this person seven times today. Maybe I don't even need to listen on the eighth time. Maybe I don't need to open the second email. What we need to do is make sure that what we are communicating is timely and powerful, not frequent and insignificant. And that's one of the big changes that I think leaders, one of the big mistakes and one of the great opportunities that leaders made but can go forward with. And that is don't just deluge people. Look for appropriate strategic times to give them useful, inspirational information so that whenever they get an email or a phone call from you, they go, hey, I got to pay attention. This person won't waste my time. A great point. Yeah, you're absolutely right. People, they don't want the noise anymore. You're

Starting point is 00:12:53 100% right. They want the value. So it's incredible how when you start communicating with that focused effort and the value delivery, as opposed to just trying to throw some words at them. It's so different. So, and that's actually, you know, it kind of takes me to our next question here about workplace structure and communication, because it's changed with between fully in-person to virtual to hybrid models, things of that nature. And communication, you know, obviously plays a huge part of that because you can't lead if you can't communicate. What do you see as kind of a moving forward optimal workforce pattern and layout? And how does the leadership play into that most effectively? Well, if somebody's taking notes, there are two ideas that have kind of

Starting point is 00:13:44 appeared to me, dawned on me, become clear. And the first is that most people want to do the bare essentials or minimums when we should be doing the maximum essentials. Here's the bare minimum. I get asked frequently, what should we do about a remote workforce? Well, and the answer is, like most good questions, it depends. But we're missing a bigger point. When the best time to create change is during times of change, not during times of stability. So right now, the big question is, should we make people come in all the time, part time? Should we let them work from home? Here's the message. That's the bare minimums. The maximum essentials is to address this question. Where do people work?

Starting point is 00:14:27 When do they work? Whom do they work with? And how long do they work? Because that's the big picture. That's the real issue. And if you just focus on where they work, you're missing about a fourth of the equation. Because the interesting thing is, is that working remotely longer hours, and there's a lot of research, anybody listening today can Google it, reduces productivity, even longer remote hours. And so as always, what we want to ask ourselves is how can we, and again, it's going to be experimentation. I don't have an algorithm. If I did, I'd write a book and have it out next week and make a lot of money. But what we've got to do is experiment with where they work.

Starting point is 00:15:11 And in some jobs, that's going to mean face-to-face contact. When they work, I don't care. You know, if somebody's on my team and they aren't time dependent with other members of the team, if they're producing results and they do it in the middle of the night, God bless them. I'm tickled, right? Whom they work with. And that's one of the things you ask about relationships. I think COVID was a great clarifier about who our important relationships were. Not who we were told were important relationships, but who our important relationships really were. They were the ones who not only you reached out to, but who our important relationships really were. They were the ones who not only you reached out to, but who reached out to you. I got to tell you, Adam, there were

Starting point is 00:15:51 a few times at the end of it, I thought, isn't that odd? People that I thought were really invested in me, I haven't heard from them. And people I was invested in, I made it a point to contact them. What did I learn? And then, of course, how long? They always say sales is a numbers game. You and I both know that's not true. It's a numbers and a skill game. And if you make a thousand calls a day and if you suck, you're not going to sell anything. You've got to make a lot of calls and you've got to be good at every call that you make. So I think that's the real issue. When, where, with whom, and how long. And if you start to chip away at that,

Starting point is 00:16:29 you'll have a leg up on your competition. Sounds like a relationship aspect to it there. It certainly is. Awesome. Speaking of relationships, I want to jump back in history here to what you were talking about when I first met you. And this thing is timeless in value, and that's The Fred Factor. So what was it, 2003, 2002? Is that when

Starting point is 00:16:56 you wrote The Fred Factor? Well, the book came out in 04. You've got a great memory. 04, that's right. It was the first one in the book came out, yes, sir. Okay. So for all our listeners, if you have not read The Fred Factor, it's still available for sale. Go buy it. It is probably one of the best consumer experience, customer experience relationship books you can possibly ever read. It's called The Fred Factor, How Passion in Your Work and Life Can Turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. You've converted this into an online training experience, training license opportunity for businesses. Give us a flyover of the book and how can they take the training if they want to do that or if they want to bring it into their business?

Starting point is 00:17:38 What should they look for? Sure. Well, I appreciate you asking. If anyone listening goes to fredfactor.com, there's a little video where I give a complete overview. I recorded the training program on said, who is that guy? He looks like a much younger version of Mark Sanborn. Well, it was a much younger version. It was, you know, 15, 16 years ago. So we turned it into an online program, very affordable, called Fred Factor Classic Training. And I say in the video, you know, don't get hung up on the fact I have more hair and less wrinkles. Just pay attention to the principles.

Starting point is 00:18:25 Because the premise of the book, and I learned this from a real-life postal carrier named Fred Shea, still lives in Northland, still in touch with Fred and his family on a regular basis, was that, you know, we all have ordinary moments that we can choose to make extraordinary. But the question is, how do we do that? The book has a decided business slant because I'm a business person, but it really, the principles apply to your marriage, your parenting, your friendships, all aspects of your life. And it's based around four very simple but powerful principles. One, everybody makes a difference. Nobody's neutral. You either are adding to or taking away from the lives of others. And people say, well, what if I'm neutral? There is no neutral. If I encounter someone who won't engage me, show interest, help me, I don't think they're neutral. I think they're indifferent. And that, of course, is the number

Starting point is 00:19:19 one killer of business. Number two is it's all built on relationship. And we haven't been taught, most of us, I certainly wasn't, how to build relationships. So I wanted to look at what are the simple building blocks of good relationships. The third is you can add value to everything you do. Doesn't have to cost a nickel. And this is what I talked to my son Jackson about because, you know, the real estate business has got plenty of competitors. I mean, you got the same inventory, you got the same systems and processes, but it's the man or woman who can outthink rather than outspend their competition that prevails. And then number four is how do you stay fresh? How do you reinvent yourself every day? Adam, I've been in this business, you and I've been in our respective businesses a very long time. We've reinvented ourselves a few times. The biggest challenge is

Starting point is 00:20:08 how do you stay as excited at 43, 53, 63, 73 as you were at 23? And that takes some strategy and some effort. So the course, and if you're a trainer, I finally said, you know what, I'm not real, but I'm sure not really young. I wanted more people to be able to present the material legally, not just buy the book and present it. So we made a licensing opportunity. I know for most people listening that that will be of interest, but fredfactor.com will teach you not just the four principles. You just heard the four principles, but how to do it. Awesome. FredFactor.com, everybody, make sure you check that out.

Starting point is 00:20:51 I saw my book, The Fred Factor, the other day. It's sitting on my desk at home. I love that book. It is just a phenomenal look at really the reminders of how to create good business and customer experience there. So, Mark, you knocked it out of the park with that. And Mark, I have one more question that I ask everybody on the show. And I've known you a long time. I know you are a very, very intentional person in your life. You don't screw around with the things that don't matter. And I think that's

Starting point is 00:21:21 why you're so happy, you and your amazing family. So I do have a question for you, Mark, and that is how do you start your day with a win? That's a great question because the way you start your day sets the tone for the entire day. And I say, if you screw up the beginning of the day, you have to cycle through 24 hours before you get a chance to try it again. I have a process. I believe process creates progress. People say, you know, it's all about passion. You know, passion is important, but passion without process is pretty worthless. I'm just going to give you my, how I begin my day. And there are going to be people who will disagree, but here's what I do. First of all, I get up in the morning,

Starting point is 00:22:01 odd as this sounds, I drink a full glass of water. You know, I'm kind of a motorhead, and if your engine is low on oil, it doesn't run well. Well, we need hydration. I drink a full glass of water. I go into my office, and I'm going to do something most people, psychologists, say don't do. I check email, and I do social media. Why? Because I want to clean out my to-do list. And I only get, because I'm ruthless with editing junk mail,

Starting point is 00:22:27 I only get three to five instead of three to 500, like I used to, three to five emails that require any kind of a response. So this isn't onerous. I don't sit there for an hour and do email. Then I do social media, which is much more about monitoring. I post later, but I monitor. Is anything happening in the lives of people that are important to me? I try to wish my friends a

Starting point is 00:22:50 happy birthday. And thankfully, Facebook, despite its pros and cons, lets you know when your pals have birthdays. Then I do something that for me is paramount. I don't always feel like doing it, but I always feel great after I do, and that is I exercise. I'm not a gym rat in the true sense of the word, but like you, Adam, I just think that it's hard to live a high-performance life in a low-performance body. And after I do that, because I'm a morning person, it's about 7 a.m., and the day is my oyster. I got lots of opportunity to do lots of things, but that's how I start my day. Awesome. Thank you so much, Mark. I mean, if you guys don't see a pattern here in talking to this guy, go back and rewind and listen to it again, because he's very intentional with how he treats

Starting point is 00:23:35 people, how he treats himself and how he lives his life. So Mark Sanborn, great friend, best selling author, best keynote speaker. I mean, incredible human being. Thank you so much for being on Start With A Win. We appreciate you and all that you do. Adam, I appreciate you. Thank you very much. If you're ready to create personal and business success, subscribe to this podcast and head over to wherever you get your books and order Start With A Win, the book. Thanks again for listening. For more great content, head over to startwithawin.com. And until next time, start with a win.

Start With A Win - How COVID-19 Accelerated the Future of Work

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