Ramon: 00:00

Let's talk business. This is the typical line from a movie where the business tycoon directs a conversation of the whole team towards a strategy or a really serious plan. But what happens to you when you hear let's talk business? Do you feel all in, engaged or do you feel that parts of you are left out of the conversation?

Narrator: 00:27

Business artists learn how to channel their purpose, vision and talents while navigating the proper and tactics in their companies to impact the world for good. No more business as usual. I'm Ramon Estrada and this is Business is Art.

Ramon: 00:50

Today, we are going to be talking about bringing your whole self to workday. It's a tradition for many companies in the US where kids are allowed to come to their mom or dad's work and to see how his or her day has been. I see this openly motivating, right, but I don't think that it's working anymore.

Ramon: 01:14

Actually, the consulting firm Gallup just brought up in a new analysis that almost 48 percent of America's working population is actively job searching or watching for opportunities. Yes. Almost 1 out of 2 people want to leave their jobs and in just in the month of May of 2021, 3,600,000 Americans resigned. That's a new record. How did we come to this point when 1 out of 2 people hate their jobs?

Ramon: 01:54

First, let me get something straight. People don't leave companies. People leave their managers, their bosses. When the culture is not appropriate, people feel that they are not interested in giving the extra or to continue taking the time, investing their time, their lives for working someplace just for some money and what's the current managerial paradigm or how did we come to this? If we think about what work has been throughout history for the past, I don't know how many centuries, we where humans were hunters or we were gathering food in order to survive.

Ramon: 02:43

Then, when the first agricultural cultures started to find the tools and to understand the miracle of life in this planet Earth, we started to find that some seeds, if we were working and watering these parts, then food showed and we became an agricultural species and time came when we gave importance to machines. We were building machines. We were building, the steam engines and the industrial movement started. Mostly, this was 250 years ago and I really have this example of how the city of Manchester grew like 3 times in just a couple of years because in Manchester, in England, most of the industry was settled there but people were living in really shed holes. People had no access to schools, have, even small kids had to work, but that was a total change in the paradigm from the agricultural culture in which everybody was working as a family in the same place, then usually men needed to be inside a factory working long hours and even some of the small kids were doing that, but the important part here were the machines, the tools and people were just resources and actually, most of the managerial paradigm that is taught in many business schools is that managing people as resources, But the new paradigm that we are facing right now is the one of information workers.

Ramon: 04:27

People that really place their value by how much they know. So if we think about it, we have been moving from a paradigm in the industrial era where our body was the most important part, our arms, our legs, our energy, just by doing physical work, but now the most important part is our knowledge, the ideas or the, let's call it, the things that we know, how our thoughts can turn into ideas that eventually can provide services and products for our clients and of course, bringing money to the company. So in this actual paradigm, the information worker, the knowledge is the most important aspect but is this true at all? Let's think about what a person really is. One of my favorite books is Stephen Covey's The 8th Habit and for some reason, this book hasn't been like a top bestseller as the 7 habits of highly effective people, but I really love this book because it brings a concept of the whole person paradigm.

Ramon: 05:45

He's thinking and really noticing that every person is not just a piece of brain with some thoughts. We are more than that and, actually, we need to take care of ourselves in this aspect, the thinking that the whole person paradigm thinks that we are we have a body and this body allows us to live, right, when the body is no longer working with I. So the body is really important and it's part of, let's call it, the well-being right now, thinking about the physical health but also, Kobi mentions that we also have a heart, but let's call it a heart is more on the sense of the emotional part of the person in which we we really feel emotions. Right? Emotions with, with Daniel Goleman.

Ramon: 06:42

He brought up the concept of emotional intelligence. So we feel things, and if we love what we do, then eventually, of course, we will be more motivated. And, actually, part of the love that we can feel has to do with the relationships that we can have with our teammates, with our employees, with the other, stakeholders in our companies. Then there's the mind as the third element, and the mind has to do with our capacity to learn, our capacity to grow and to develop ideas, to add up several aspects, several elements that we are learning in bringing a new aspect, a new result from this combination of linking different ideas and this is the part that the knowledge worker really values. So at least in this, in this information era, in this paradigm that we are facing right now, this is what's most important, what we think, our capacity to learn and to think, but there's also a 4th which actually links the other 3, the body, the heart, and the mind, and Kobi calls it the spirit.

Ramon: 08:04

I would say it has mostly to do with what other teachers can call the soul or the purpose, but it's the relevance to really think that eventually we will leave this this this this earth, this planet, we will die and it's about noticing which kind of legacy we are providing to the planet, for our kids, for society. So having these four aspects together, we find that it's important to live, to live well, so in a way it's to survive but then, the rest the other 3 are no longer about survival, which I think this is key for management, thinking that the resources of a company are limited and that we need to maximize the profits because, eventually, the resources could go and, actually, competition thinking in business about competition has also to do with survival. So the other 3, it's about loving. It's about really being okay with the rest of the world. Having healthy relationships.

Ramon: 09:19

Even cooperating with others. It's about learning, about developing our mind and the 4th is really having a meaning and contributing for a larger good. So when we go back to this Gallup analysis and we see that one out of 2 people in America and let's say that this trend is not only seen in America but globally actually, 55% of the people are not engaged. I mean, these people could not care less about their company. But if we take a closer look, 74% of the employees actually are actively disengaged.

Ramon: 10:07

What does it mean? It means that they are not only not doing their part in their companies, but actually they are doing sabotage. They are probably doing something against their company because they hate how they have been treated or they are sad about some of the repercussions because, from my point of view, as a a place where I like to talk to business owners, to people that are really moving into this movement of business artists where it's not only about the money, they feel juice, most of the employees. And this cost, these actively disengaged employees, it costs to their companies 18, 18, 1 8 percent of their annual salary because they are not productive. They are losing their engagement and that's a lot.

Ramon: 11:00

That's a lot of money. Think about it. Almost 20% of the annual salary of these people goes through the drain and if we see this, imagine a company right now where we have all these changes in society and they call it the VUCA world when everything is volatile, uncertain, there's no, everything is complex and ambiguous, we need to have fully engaged people where they feel there's themselves as a whole person, where they can provide creativity, where they can innovate, when they feel open for sharing their ideas, but if the people are not happy at all, I would guess that they are not going to share the best of themselves. So think about it for a second. As a leader, as a business owner, are you really engaged or are you part of this 50% that wants to quit?

Ramon: 12:07

I have felt this in my one of my startups, actually, the most important for me where my heart was. I was mostly focused on the well-being of the company, for my employees to be okay. My idea was about bringing my big vision of democratizing finances in Mexico and I was not taking care of the business and that was another point that brought the same result. It didn't matter that I was taking care of different aspects, of my employees, of my team, but I was not taking care of the business. I was more into the art and less into the business.

Ramon: 12:50

So this is the idea of business CRT thinking that first, the company needs to survive. It's like the whole body paradigm of the body. As a person, we need to take care of ourselves, so then what? We can love, we can learn, and our work, our results can bring in a legacy, but first, the company needs to survive. But if we only take care of the survival of the company, maximizing returns, we pollute the environment, our employees are disengaged, probably we are not innovating enough and actually, this is a trend after a start up.

Ramon: 13:32

It has been seen in Silicon Valley where the start ups no longer innovate after the IPO or they reduce significantly their budget and that's how the world is right now. So my big question for you is, are you willing to bring your whole self to work day? Think of yourself as this small kid or your son, your daughter, and you are bringing him or her to work. Think of yourself like you are that small kid and that you are going to be showing what you're doing. Are you giving an example of someone that is fulfilling, that is really bringing a lot of energy and creativity to work or not?

Ramon: 14:25

If you are not, then you really need to think what's happening there, but probably quitting is not the only solution. There are many ways in which you can bring yourself to work and first is realizing that not only your mind will help you to work, you really need to develop your relationships, part of that might be with your teammates or even with your boss, you need to think of what you are doing because time is precious and no matter how you think about it, maybe from the Buddhist perspective that we have different lives, but let's think that we only live once. So what do you want to bring into the world? I would really wish for business owners, for business leaders to think about valuing all the wholeness of themselves first, showing up with presence, with openness, being aware of the repercussions, and finally thinking that their employees' minds are the most important in the company because then we are just valuing part of them and probably that's only ego.

Narrator: 15:44

Thanks for listening to Business is Art and if you like what you heard, subscribe to the show, so you'll be notified when a new episode drops. You can also check for more free resources at businessis.art or check your show notes for a link. Godspeed.