Steve Dion on Leadership, Culture & the Future of Work

Steve Dion on Leadership, Culture & the Future of Work

[00:00:00] Steve Dion: Welcome to be customer led where we’ll explore how leading experts in customer and employee experience are navigating organizations through their own journey to be customer led and the actions and behaviors, employees, and businesses exhibit to get there. And now you, our host and bill Staco.

[00:00:32] Bill Staikos: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another week of B customer led. I’ve got another special guest for you all this week. Steve Dion is founder and CEO of Dion leadership. Now Steve works with a lot of CEOs at, at big complex brands. So is got a lot of really interesting perspective and I love sort of, Dion leadership’s focus.

[00:00:50] They’re dedicated to creating. Conditions where your employees start every day excited and every, and end every day accomplished. Now, Steve, if you’re fam, if you’re familiar with Steve Dion, he’s out there a lot in social media, writing a lot around culture, leadership, future of work, and Steve and I connected, and I love his perspective on stuff.

[00:01:10] And that’s why I had to have Steve in the show. Steve walk gonna be customer led, so excited to have here.

[00:01:15] Steve Dion: Thanks bill. I’m looking forward to our conversation.

[00:01:18] Bill Staikos: And it’s gonna be a lot of fun. So, the story arc for a, a lot of, what we’re gonna talk today, about for our listeners is just leadership development and the impact on that and the future of work.

[00:01:27] I mean, we’re gonna get into a couple other things as well, but before we get started, Steve, can you just share your journey with our listeners? Go back as, as far back as you’d like. You have not only working for, brands out there in, in very, very, executive HR roles, but also you’ve been doing a lot of consulting and working with so many different brands out there as well.

[00:01:47] I I’d love to hear about how you’ve kind of, your path and how you’ve gotten to, to, to where you are today.

[00:01:52] Steve Dion: Sure. Happy to share, share my story. So I grew up in Michigan and as I was thinking about this question, my path really started back in high school when, at the time, trying to find.

[00:02:02] connection with other people and meaning and purpose. I found myself getting into student government and service clubs and just understanding the power of community and, and, and leadership at that point. So naturally when I got into college, it drew me to be a RA, do some other things in student government.

[00:02:20] Steve Dion: Was president of my residence hall. And so just this, this passion around seeing people coming together was always yeah. Of interest to me, diverse people trying to meet on some common items. So academically in my career, I remember taking a class in organizational behavior and I vividly remember going, I don’t wanna put this book down.

[00:02:40] Like this.is fascinating. That’s awesome. why do organizations, how do people and organizations coexist? So that led me to get a degree. A master’s degree in HR, cuz that’s really, the way organizations kind of put it functionally. And I found myself then working for about 25 years in corporate America, crafting different leadership and OD programs and, and I selected organizations to work for kind of intentionally because of their.

[00:03:03] People management systems mm-hmm and, started at a fortune four 50, then went to a, or a fortune 50, then went to a four 50. Then at some point I was, great to be able to be a chief HR officer, try to practice this stuff myself in the CSU. Mm-hmm what I found, I guess, through those processes is I saw.

[00:03:20] So many different leaders operating in very different ways. Yeah. And one leader could create a culture that was so different than another culture in the same building, or just down the hall. It always fascinated me about why that was and how could we, do some things differently over the course of, of my career.

[00:03:39] I really studied that. And had a chance, even back in the day, like at Baxter healthcare corporation back almost 30 years ago, we had a diversity department of six people. Wow. Back before, it was a really big deal. And I was able to kind of work on programs around social justice back then because they thought it was important.

[00:03:56] And I thought we had a great business. And at one point I had the opportunity to work with, and America bring five different companies and five different countries together to create. A region and again, about community, about understanding people, purpose, mission, vision, just wanted to get to the point where I could go have a bigger imprint of that.

[00:04:16] So after the last organization, I was in became a top 100 company to work for. I said, I wanna go do this with other organizations. So about 15 years ago, I decided to inch off, had a partner for about 10 years. And just decide after that, I had a way of doing this and I really wanted to kind of do this on my own.

[00:04:34] And it was really perfect timing, in doing this a couple years ago, because I had envisioned this idea of moving to sort of virtual and digital delivery of tools and resources as before COVID hit. But we were, just on the cusp of that. So that pretty us to today with, our ability to kind of do things virtually in the leadership development space and, looking forward to kind of the next iteration of this.

[00:04:55] Bill Staikos: That’s awesome. I it’s really interesting how even pre COVID, right? Like people were consuming information, right. And even learning, or new learning or, enhancing new learning. So it seems like you hit the stride at the right time. That that’s good timing. I sort of, if you think about your career and, and the richness of it.

[00:05:14] given the time that we’re in now, Steve, like how is the world of work changing from your perspective? And you get to see a lot of different companies and that might be, E even if you can share, your perspective on like, what’s good and what’s not so good.

[00:05:28] Steve Dion: Yeah. Well, how I’ve looked at this last two years is.

[00:05:31] The universe has, put us into this large scale experiment to test a new talent management operating system. People didn’t want it, they didn’t ask for it, but we were asked to figure out if we could do things in a new and different way because of, it was required. and for the most part, I think we’ve proved that test to be viable and employees know it.

[00:05:56] We’re not going back. So, I’m an optimistic person by nature. And, I think when the dust settles we’re gonna have created a better workforce because the employment relationship has shifted mm-hmm . And as I like to say, sort of the, the, the toothpaste has been squeezed out of the tube and there’s no way to sort of put it back in and organizations need to.

[00:06:17] Figure out how to make the best of this, and there have been periods in our industrial evolution where we had practices that we thought were great. And then later we learned there were better ways. I mean, women were embraced in the workforce for a lot of years, we, we produced waste and put into rivers and sewage sewers and said, okay, that’s got up.

[00:06:37] So now we’re at a point of kind of understanding the win wear, how of work. Is different and that’s, what’s under the microscope right now.

[00:06:46] Bill Staikos: I wonder like how that’s, how you see that the current situation, like where we might be in, let’s say five years, like, how is the future of work do you think going to evolve?

[00:06:54] Because coming out of financial services myself, I’m not in and that’s space anymore today, but there’s so many CEOs of big banks saying we’re all coming back to the office folks. And there’s a part of me thinking like, have someone missed a trick here? Because like, to your point, like the toothpaste is attitude and I love that.

[00:07:11] I love that analogy, but why are some maybe getting it and others not? How do you think that’s gonna impact where people go or what they do and how they do it?

[00:07:20] Steve Dion: Yeah, I was coaching a CEO yesterday who called me up and said, I’m not happy. I want to be around my people. I wanna walk around an office and I wanna see these people and I’ve worked with them.

[00:07:35] In person before and is really struggling with their own personal job satisfaction. I realize why we need to be home right now. I realize this spike and we’re we’re productive. But it’s a huge change effort for leaders of organizations and what it means for them. And it’s a huge, a huge shift. So this return to work model, I think there’s gonna be a wide array of organizations from CEOs that are change oriented that are global and digital oriented that are jumped right in just from day one and said, we can run a virtual organization and they see all these positives about it, reducing.

[00:08:11] Costs for facilities, a whole bunch of things and others that just see the, all the negative sides. Oh, well, never of creativity. We can never have culture. And I think it’s gonna be a matter of perspective and mm-hmm and in my mind, the world continues to get smaller. when airplanes change commerce, there was a point where, we could easily get on an air and then fly around the country and our consumer base and our customer base.

[00:08:35] and our employee base, got smaller. Well now with digital, it even quicker access to everything to people, the resources to economy and organizations are gonna be on one side of that or the other, we can recruit employees now from different places. but also that employee can easily go.

[00:08:54] To a different place. So it’s, it’s changed forever. Second. I’d add on top of that, which has been a phenomenon that I’m finding fascinating, it’s following this sort of wellbeing space, this quest for personal wellbeing. And maybe it’s been out there for, people in general of meditation and yoga and I wanna be you a better person.

[00:09:14] Well, employers never talked about that. people didn’t ask us to train on resilience and wellbeing. Well, now employers see it as their responsibility. To provide that for the many hours of time, people are at work and yet people are super burned out right now, Yeah. They are trying to figure out a new and better way.

[00:09:31] So managers need to figure out how, and they always have had, employees’ home problems become work problems for sure. And become customer problems. For sure. Now are realizing that chain more explicitly and organizations are saying, Company. I need you to do some things before I’m willing to stay with this organization.

[00:09:51] we’ve always wanted respect and meaning and balance and enjoyment and jobs for forever. But, but now people realize that after this proof of concept, they don’t have to make that trade off. It’s not a good job. And miss my kids, even activities it’s it’s, I can do both. And there are organizations that will figure out a way.

[00:10:11] Steve Dion: Maybe it’s more. Challenging for them to figure out what that looks like. But those organizations that could do that are gonna be the ones that win.

[00:10:18] Bill Staikos: So, it, it’s funny. I was actually so bummed when my kids started going back to school. Cause I’d get to have lunch with them every day. I’m like, when am I gonna have the opportunity to do this ever?

[00:10:27] Right. And I’ve got school aged children. And now that they’re back at school, I’m gonna fully employee. It’s not just sort of the work it’s, it’s the home and changes there as well, that are starting to impact. And I can see like days, I don’t see my kids pretty cranky actually. That does show up like your employee behavior is your customer’s experience to your point.

[00:10:46] Right? Absolutely. I’m curious, like if, if you think about, I mean, with the leadership model has fundamentally changed, right? Like you don’t have the, sort of the, tell it alls anymore, and now you gotta, you have people who need to be listening, be empathetic, et cetera. What was your advice to that CEO in terms of.

[00:11:00] Their view of their own need to be back in the office. Like cuz the CEO is like, let’s just say there’s 5,000 people in the company. The CEO is only one, 5,000 th of the culture of that company. Whether they think that or not at the end of the day, right? What was your counsel to them? And I’d love to ask you as well.

[00:11:17] Steve, if, for listeners who, who may have a boss that’s I want everybody back in the office and everyone else around them saying this is nuts. Can’t happen. How do you ma like how, how do like team members manage that?

[00:11:29] Steve Dion: Yeah, well, we’re seeing it still regularly. There are or many organizations and we work a lot in large healthcare organizations where you need to be in, in a physical space to do what you do.

[00:11:39] That’s a whole different piece, manufacturing as well. But the support staff folks don’t always have to be there. And many leaders are hiding behind. This is, this is my view of this. They’re hiding behind this idea that. Equity drives fundamental balance in an organization. And so I can’t treat two people unfairly.

[00:12:02] It will become anarchy. And I think employees see that and are okay in understanding I want this, another employee wants that we can figure out a way that we can each get our own needs met. I work half time. You work full time. I work from home, you don’t and each job requires different things. So I think leaders need to get over.

[00:12:21] Over that. So to answer your question about my coaching for this, CEO, we spent some time talking about his day and what his day used to look like, where would he walk down the hall? Did he pop into meetings? Did he, overhear interactions that had him feel like the business was.

[00:12:38] Working better. Mm-hmm and we envisioned ways in which he could do that over zoom and teams, you’ve access to everybody else’s calendar. If you would’ve walked in a conference room, when you saw, a great meeting going on, walking in and saying, Hey, I wanna say, hi, what are you guys up to zoom on a meeting?

[00:12:55] He was like, yeah, never thought of that. So I think, figure out ways to use this technology. we only know. Yeah. Like so much of it. And I think we’ll be able to integrate screen based systems to, to help and feel better. And then the other part was, think about the business metrics that you’re trying to drive and, yes, you need to get your personal satisfaction, Matt, but how do you have a problem, use data to show that and listen to your employees.

[00:13:21] Start co-creating. What 2023 is going to look like around when we’re in the office and this idea of, we allow flexibility, but it’s still on the CEO’s terms. Flexibility is I let you be home Monday and Friday. Well, that’s not true flexibility. Yeah. So what’s flexibility gonna look like. And how do we co-create that?

[00:13:43] Bill Staikos: Yeah. In, in a, in a past life, a lot of what we were grappling with as a company was this concept of employee choice. And how do you create parameters and guidelines that are broad enough to give employees, empower employees, to make decisions about when they’re coming to the office and how they’re showing up, et cetera.

[00:14:03] But. But good enough where we, we were able to create those spaces where the personal human connections were also happening. And they’re still grad I’ve since left, but they’re still kind of grappling with a lot of these issues as many companies are, but you’re right to your point is that’s not an employee.

[00:14:20] If you give your employees a choice of how they can, how they can do this, that’s very different than you dictating. Hey, we’re not just doing Mondays or Fridays, whether you like it or not. It’s really obvious to say companies need leadership development, pro grams in place kind of more than ever right now.

[00:14:35] But, but what are you seeing or hearing in terms of what, like the big needs are. Whether that’s seniority by seniority level, whether that’s new leaders versus leaders with a lot of tenure, et cetera, like where are you seeing the biggest need and for our listeners who haven’t maybe been thinking, been thinking about this much?

[00:14:53] Like what, what guidance would you give them in terms of maybe directionally where to start looking?

[00:14:58] Steve Dion: Sure. Great question. totally in my space. So I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Yeah. A few things. One is building trust based systems; as you mentioned just a minute ago, trust is important, but a different and a higher level of trust and having people and teams build and understand trust where they haven’t been in person is really important.

[00:15:18] So at the senior level, we’re seeing organizations request a lot of executive team. Offsite team build kind of a reset button on what does our team look like? We were so sort of triage mode that we’ve lost some trust and understanding and have more silos built and we need to break those down. we also seeing a huge uptick in leadership development programs.

[00:15:42] For the explicit purpose of retention, previously it was, we need to develop people to then take on the next level role at this point. It’s I wanna put this group of people through a program for 6, 9, 6 months to a year so that they don’t leave. And that they’re engaged and they’re retained. If we build skill and confidence and they’re ready for the next job, that’s almost a byproduct where it used to not be that way.

[00:16:05] We have leadership development or, individual coaching programs where organizations have said, we’re taking the 10 people. We don’t wanna lose the most. They’re already high potential. People probably wouldn’t have had a leadership coach before, but we’re going to give them a retention package to get through this next year because we know how important it is.

[00:16:23] And using coaching to help somebody kind of unpack that stress, how they fit in their burnout. It’s not so much skill acquisition, but that presence in the moment to get them through. So their ROI for leadership development programs is, does this person, are they still here, here from now? So I think that’s a huge, huge, big shift.

[00:16:43] A second one, or next one is, is yeah, that the direct manager is really the secret weapon in this. In this work, working with the first line person who then works with an employee and, understanding that we need to equip those first line managers with skills to help navigate things that aren’t in policy books anymore.

[00:17:06] Flexibility things work from home things, new expectations and employees ask manager. Can I do this? They can’t just go, go down the hall and ask HR. I, I don’t know. So this last year we spent a lot of time actually with two university professors, Dr. Ellen ERs Kasick and Dr. Leslie hammer, who spent decades studying work life balance issues.

[00:17:26] And they identified that there’s a 50% gap between. A manager’s view on how they show work life supportive behaviors and what their employees rate them on. If they actually do wow. Support, work, life, family behaviors, and furthermore, then we identified, they identified through all this research, these four specific behaviors.

[00:17:49] That if a manager does it actually, increases retention, improves employee engagement and even improves health outcomes. They had a national Institute health grant to study this. So we took these four behaviors and we’ve turned it into an e-learning course mm-hmm and trying to help organizations realize that, this idea and, and, and the four step model is really to mapped with your employee to respond, to rethink and model.

[00:18:12] So in this case, we’re saying that the frontline leader, you connect in a different way than you used to connect. it used to be like, this is your job. This is your work. Do what you need to do? Here’s our policy. I’m a good guy. You’re a good guy. Go to work. The connection needs to be different.

[00:18:26] It needs to be more meaningful. What’s going on at home. I need to know more about your life so we can help navigate these things. So it’s teaching connection and then respond. It’s like, how do you respond to these? These issues of work life needs that are things you’ve never had before. And, in the past, people wouldn’t respond at all, possibly as a manager, they’re like, I’ll get back to you.

[00:18:45] And then they never do well. now we need to respond, respond quickly and do something to rethink is about, managers have control. Of rethinking things within their work area. maybe I could have these two people swap this work it’s within the policy constructs, but I need to own doing those things.

[00:19:01] It’s a burden on me, but it’s better for the organization. Yeah. And then the modeling is so important, being healthy, showing your health yourself, saying I’m taking my time off. I’m not sending emails after hours or, I’m not gonna work for three hours during the day. Cuz I wanna see my kids cuz they’re home and I’m okay with that.

[00:19:19] And you should be too. So I’m gonna work at night tonight. You guys. Don’t look at my emails, see ’em in the morning. Like just be open and model. Yeah. What you expect of other people. So I think if we start doing more of those things, we’re gonna have better workforce that

[00:19:31] Bill Staikos: I love. wow. That’s so simple and so easy.

[00:19:33] Like, it sounds easy to put into, into practice, right? I think, do you find that. Do you find the frontline managers are still having a hard time, even with the simplicity of that framework, cuz it’s very, very different than, let’s just say you’ve got a team of two or three, you’re a relatively new manager a year or two under your belt.

[00:19:49] Are they still trying to navigate through all this stuff? Like, like I, I wish they read a quote today. being a manager is easy. It’s like riding a bike, but the bike’s on fire. You’re on fire and everything else around yous on fire. , that’s a good way to put it. How are you finding people respond to, to that kind of framework and really they they’re having to relearn right.

[00:20:11] Essentially. Cause they cause their own leaders didn’t follow that. And that they learn from them. So there’s this really big relearning thing going on. And how are you finding people respond to that in this environment?

[00:20:22] Steve Dion: It’s gonna take a while. And, and it’s an added level of responsibility to ask a manager who first line managers, sometimes I like, I didn’t ask to be a manager and now here I am guiding the direction of the people’s life and satisfaction.

[00:20:36] So it’s a big ask of people. So developing them to feel comfortable and it is important, with the work we do in healthcare, we’re doing a lot of programs with nurse managers. I mean, trying to imagine right now, working with nurse leaders to help figure out who’s got COVID who doesn’t, how, how do we fill our already increasing hospital beds and ask you to work more hours?

[00:20:56] I mean, it’s a super big chance. As they get more reps with this and they realize that if they can, co-create the, some of this work through listening through empathy, this idea of this, again, connect, respond, rethink it and model it. I think it’s gonna go a long way, but it’s a big ask and it’s gonna take some time.

[00:21:14] Bill Staikos: And I guess, I guess as leaders, more senior leaders, even CEOs need to give their organization. And those first line managers, the space and the time to do that too, which not many companies have. Right. So, that I think

[00:21:27] Steve Dion: is also a big shift. I think saying we, we can’t policy ourself out of this situation, there’s it?

[00:21:33] It there’s, no, you can’t write it all down in a book that says, this is the order of these things, or click on our company internal portal and it’ll give you all the answers. It’s it’s individualistic and it comes through each. Leader doing good work, understanding the company’s mission, understanding the purpose, understanding the customers we serve, whether that’s, patients or it’s another business that you need to provide parts so they can make a car, whatever that is.

[00:22:04] It’s, kind, seeing the chain in there and having each person realize eyes like we can figure out we can help you figure out how to have a life that’s worth the life that you want. When you look back. At your work life and the organization can meet their customer demands.

[00:22:20] Bill Staikos: So this is a good segue, Steve, into talking about Dion leadership.

[00:22:24] I’d love to just, if you can share with our listeners a little bit, how you work with clients, do you have a specific way or approach or like, tell us a little bit about that before we get into a, some of our final few questions. I’m just curious to learn more about your

[00:22:37] Steve Dion: approach. Yeah, thanks for asking bill.

[00:22:39] So, as you mentioned up front, we are very passionate about helping organizations create stronger workplaces and cultures. So we love to partner with organizations and not create a single event. We, I like to use leadership development tools and applications as culture building. Activities. So we have a team of about 60, I believe, extraordinary coaches and consultants and facilitators that have all worked in corporate jobs, but understand leadership, understand emotional intelligence, understand, all the practical approaches to this.

[00:23:13] And then we become kind of an adjunct arm to some of these larger, more sophist, candid organizations where they might do some things internally. We do some things, but it’s all towards this common end, whether it’s coaching. It’s team development. It’s executive assessment. Sometimes it’s now it’s organizational development systems kind of working through new, mission, vision, values, culture opportunities.

[00:23:36] And how we grow is with organizations that continue to say, I love what you’re doing and you’re helping us be better. And I here, here’s the next big project. So,

[00:23:44] Bill Staikos: so Steve, one of the things, that I love about the show is I get to talk to experts like you on a weekly basis. And like, I learn a ton.

[00:23:50] I think the listeners are learn a ton, Steve, who are thought leaders that you look up to in this space as well. are there people that you look to for insight? certainly you provided a lot of insight learning on the show. And where can our listeners even go to kind of even broaden their sort of, open the aperture a little bit more, even on this?

[00:24:09] Like, who do you go to like for like, wow, they’re, they’re doing some really cool stuff in this

[00:24:13] Steve Dion: space. Well, this is probably one that’s already pretty popular, but I have to say I’m just a big Brene brown fan. And she’s been doing. This worked for a while, even before we’ve been talking about some of these items, discussions about vulnerability, about hard, about courage, emotions, how all that plays out in messy organizations.

[00:24:33] Her two podcasts are great. I, I find the guest that she brings on to be riveting and yeah, so that’s a place I go a lot. And I think you could almost go back to some of the earlier her earlier work and it has different meaning even today. Mm, that’s

[00:24:49] Bill Staikos: awesome. Steve, I, I wanna ask you a question just cuz I, I, we ask all guests this question, where do you go for inspiration?

[00:24:55] You

[00:24:55] Steve Dion: know, what inspires me, this, this may sound silly, but when I’m driving to and from work, I look at these other people in cars and I think, with our mission state commitment, being that we want everybody to start every day excited and end every day accomplished. I think there’s all these people out there.

[00:25:13] Going to work. Are they starting excited or are they going, oh my God. Get me through this day. And are they coming home going? I just, I can’t wait to get home, get a drink, or are they coming home going? I gotta be present. I can’t wait to share all the cool things I did. And I feel like, I’m living out my purpose and that really drives me every day to just think about kind of that commute and all these people out there, struggling with work and how can we make better organizations?

[00:25:39] Bill Staikos: I love that. I really do you. I think so. I I’ve just, even since a kid. Being the Greek. We, my parents owned a diner and I would, I would observe a lot. And I love thinking about people’s stories and their journeys and how they, what they do when they go home, what they do when they go to work. And how does that all manifest?

[00:25:58] so I think a lot about that too. I’m not commuting anymore, like, like you’re driving to the office, but, it’s, I’m still fascinat. When I see people on the street where I’m not shopping, et cetera, Steve, this has been a great, great conversation. I truly appreciate you coming to the show. Where can our listeners find you if they wanna learn more?

[00:26:11] Steve Dion: Thanks bill. I enjoyed it as well. Well, they can find us on our website, Dion leadership.com and we do have our own webinar series that we invite guests in kind of a webinar format, have a lot of white papers that we’ve been writing. Blogs thought leadership pieces so they can find those there. And then the training product that I mentioned for this connect respond, rethink and model, we have created a brand and a landing page showing some of the, the content there and that is work life aligned.com.

[00:26:44] Cool. And I also invite listeners just to email me directly, I’m happy to have a conversation. I’m super passionate about this space. it’s steve@dionleadership.com. Give me a holler and I’d be happy to see if I can help you. Awesome,

[00:26:55] Bill Staikos: Steve, thanks again for coming to the show. Great stuff. I love the framework, that you’re working with and hopefully, listeners, start to think about and apply it more in their day to day and even reach out.

[00:27:04] All right, everybody. We’re another great show. We’re out. Talk to you

[00:27:08] soon, everyone. Thanks for listening to be customer led with bill Staco. We are grateful to our audience for the gift. To their time, be sure to visit us@becustomerled.com for more episodes. Leave us feedback on how we’re doing or tell us what you wanna hear more about until next time we’re out.