The simple way to inspire your team | David Burkus | TEDxReno

Summary

In "The Simple Way to Inspire Your Team" by David Burkus, delivered at TEDxReno, Burkus discusses a unique approach employed by KPMG's leadership to enhance employee morale and engagement. By refocusing the concept of purpose from a collective 'why' to an individual 'who,' they enabled employees to see the direct impact of their work. Through initiatives like the 'We Shape History' campaign and the '10,000 Stories Challenge,' KPMG inspired its workers by highlighting personal contributions to larger societal goals, resulting in improved morale and productivity. Burkus illustrates this with examples from both KPMG and a university donation call center, emphasizing that people are more inspired by connecting their work to who they help rather than why they do it.

Highlights

• KPMG shifted its focus to the 'who' in 'who is served by our work' to boost morale 📈.
• The 'We Shape History' campaign highlighted KPMG's historical contributions 🌍.
• University call center workers were more productive after meeting those helped by their work 🤝.
• The '10,000 Stories Challenge' brought personal purpose to KPMG employees' work 🏆.
• Leaders inspire by telling stories of impact, not just stating missions 🗣.

Key Takeaways

• Focusing on 'who' is more powerful than 'why' to inspire teams 🚀.
• Stories about personal impact can boost employee morale and engagement 🌟.
• KPMG's '10,000 Stories Challenge' transformed workplace culture ❤️.
• Pro-social motivation drives greater commitment and productivity 💪.
• Leaders should become 'chief storytelling officers' to inspire teams 📖.

Overview

David Burkus, in his compelling TEDx talk, shares a game-changing approach adopted by KPMG to elevate employee spirits and commitment. The main twist? It was about aligning daily work with a sense of individual purpose, shifting focus from a broad mission statement to concentrating on who specifically benefits from their efforts.

Burkus narrates how KPMG’s innovative 'We Shape History' and '10,000 Stories Challenge' initiatives not only succeeded in raising morale but also in enhancing productivity across the organization. These endeavors illustrated how personal storytelling and recognizing individual contributions can redefine organizational culture.

Drawing parallels with a university call center, Burkus underscores the potency of connecting employees directly with those they help. Such interactions foster a sense of accomplishment and dedication, demonstrating that the most powerful motivator is often a tangible connection to the people whose lives are improved by our work.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 03:00: Introduction to KPMG's Morale Problem In 2014, KPMG's leadership faced a challenge: accounting was perceived as boring, affecting morale. Senior leadership recognized that this perception was an issue.
• 03:00 - 05:00: The "We Shape History" Campaign The chapter titled 'The "We Shape History" Campaign' delves into the challenges faced by a leading accounting firm in improving employee morale and engagement among its 30,000 staff members. Initially, only about half of the employees had a favorable view of the company, indicating significant dissatisfaction within the workforce. In response, the firm attempted traditional approaches such as perks and pay increases to address the low morale, although the effectiveness of these efforts is not detailed in the provided transcript.
• 05:00 - 08:00: Understanding Purpose: "Why" vs "Who" The chapter explores the concept of understanding purpose, differentiating between 'why' and 'who'. It highlights the challenges faced in the field of accounting, particularly auditing, describing it as a monotonous and unappreciated job. The work mostly involves sifting through documents and spreadsheets in a cubicle provided by clients who are often unwelcoming and reluctant to engage. As a response to these challenges, KPMG's leadership sought innovative solutions beyond traditional methods.
• 08:00 - 12:00: The University Call Center Study This chapter discusses a case study involving a university call center and their unique approach to engagement. The university decided to center their efforts around purpose, launching a bold campaign called "We Shape History." This promotional campaign highlighted pivotal moments in world history where they were involved, including the story of President Roosevelt's Lend-Lease Act, which provided significant aid to allies during World War II.
• 12:00 - 15:00: KPMG's "10,000 Stories Challenge" The chapter discusses KPMG's '10,000 Stories Challenge,' where the company highlighted historical and impactful stories of its past work to inspire employees and reinforce its mission of serving a higher purpose. For example, KPMG played a crucial role in managing logistics and resolving financial claims leading to the release of 52 U.S hostages in Iran in 1981, and in certifying Nelson Mandela’s election in South Africa in 1994. These stories were widely circulated within the company, serving as a bold reminder of KPMG's meaningful contributions.
• 15:00 - 17:27: Conclusion: The Importance of "Who" in Purpose The chapter emphasizes the significance of understanding the 'who' in the context of purpose, especially in organizational settings. It criticizes the conventional belief that a purpose must be a grand ambition or strictly answer 'why,' suggesting instead that the impact can often depend on who is involved or affected. The discussion is set against an example of a strategic move by a group, previously explained, highlighting their innovative approach and the necessity of aligning purpose with the right people.

The simple way to inspire your team | David Burkus | TEDxReno Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] in 2014 kpmg's leadership had a problem accounting is boring apologies to any accountants in the room but that really was the issue the senior leadership of one of the
• 00:30 - 01:00 world's premier accounting firms had been working for a while to improve morale and engagement across the nearly 30 000 employees of the firm when they started morale was in the tank only about half of employees had a favorable opinion of the firm when surveyed which is to say about half of employees had an unfavorable opinion of the place they continued to work they had tried to pull the standard levers perks pay increases more
• 01:00 - 01:30 flexibility more opportunities to advance but their initial gains had leveled off and it's easy to understand why accounting in particular auditing can be a boring and thankless job for most of the day you're staring at documents and spreadsheets you're sitting in a cubicle provided by a client who doesn't actually want you there and doesn't want to answer any more questions either and so having run out of traditional ideas kpmg's leaders decided to do
• 01:30 - 02:00 something different they decided to put purpose at the core of their engagement effort and what they did first was particularly bold they told stories they launched what they called the we shape history campaign a promotional campaign designed to tell the story of how kpmg had been involved in pivotal moments in world history so they told the story of president roosevelt's lend lease act which sent billions of dollars in aid to the allies during world war ii
• 02:00 - 02:30 and how he tapped kpmg to manage logistics they told the story of how kpmg accountants resolved conflicting financial claims which laid the groundwork for the release of 52 u.s hostages in iran in 1981. they told the story of how kpmg certified the election of nelson mandela in south africa in 1994. they told stories about how kpmg's work served a higher purpose and they hung posters everywhere to remind everyone of those stories it was bold and it worked
• 02:30 - 03:00 sort of it moved the needle a little bit what they did next was brilliant to understand why their next move was so brilliant though we need to talk about purpose see most of us think of an organization's purpose or mission as a bold and lofty ambition like helping win a world war or certify a historic election and most leaders think that to convey a purpose that truly inspires they need a compelling answer to the question why as
• 03:00 - 03:30 in why do we do what we do and this is where it gets weird because then most leaders look to their mission statement and even though mission is different than purpose but like that's a totally different talk they look at their mission statement they work to rewrite it to make it more compelling they go through rounds and rounds of editing and focus group testing and when they're heavily workshopped perfectly worded statement is complete they send it out to employees in emails that get deleted they printed on posters that
• 03:30 - 04:00 get ignored they put it on a page on the company website that no one visits because it turns out most people are less inspired by a compelling answer to why and more motivated by a clear answer to the question who as in who is served by the work that we do i mean think about yourself if i asked you to think of a time when you felt highly engaged and inspired at work you probably wouldn't mention the time your boss recited the company
• 04:00 - 04:30 mission statement verbatim instead you'd probably think of the last time you got a thank you from a client or a co-worker the last time you felt your work was important to someone else to explain this further let's switch cubicles let's move from the cubicles of auditors in an accounting firm to the cubicles of student workers at a university donation call center you thought accounting was boring and maybe you got called by one of these student workers in one of these call
• 04:30 - 05:00 centers they call in the evenings they always have a perfectly worded script it always ends in a request for a donation so you end up having to say no i don't want to donate a thousand dollars to the new stadium no i don't want to donate 500 to the new student union no i don't want to donate 20 and 5 cents to commemorate my graduation year it's like some collegiate version of green eggs and ham no i don't want to donate in a box or with a fox no i don't want to donate in a house with a mouse kid i don't want to donate here or there
• 05:00 - 05:30 kid i'm just trying to pay off my student loans and then you can call me back about donating think about the person on the other end of that line they're sitting in a windowless room they're constantly dialing people destined to hang up on them yell at them or worse it's got to be boring it's got to be thankless it's got to be draining and you can see it in the numbers annual turnover in these types of call center jobs exceeds 400
• 05:30 - 06:00 you do the math on that that means that in any given year the entire staff quits every three months in fact when adam grant and a team of researchers were looking for ways to improve morale at a call center at their university one of the first things they noticed was a sign in one student's cubicle it read doing a good job here is like wetting your pants in a dark suit you get a warm feeling
• 06:00 - 06:30 but no one else notices the researchers wanted them to feel noticed obviously not for wedding themselves they wondered if they could get the student workers to notice the difference they were making and if that would have a positive effect on them so they took the break time that these workers received and they used it to run an experiment some of the workers during one of the breaks got to meet with a student who had received scholarship funds raised by
• 06:30 - 07:00 that call center and they got to hear how receiving those funds had made a positive impact on them they got to meet their answer to the question who is served by the work that we do and when the researchers followed up a month later that little meeting had a big impact on the workers the workers who got to meet someone who directly benefited from the work they were doing they worked twice as hard they made double the number of calls per hour they spent double the number of minutes on the phone their weekly
• 07:00 - 07:30 revenue went from an average of four hundred dollars to more than two thousand dollars in donations i mean it's impossible to overstate how big this effect is these workers they didn't get any additional perks or benefits they didn't get any additional training they certainly didn't get asked to memorize and internalize the university's mission statement instead they got a five-minute chat with someone whose life was made better by the work they were doing the researchers argued that these workers were inspired by a sense of pro-social motivation
• 07:30 - 08:00 the desire to protect and promote the well-being of others and that word pro-social that points to what's wrong with most organizations attempts at talking purpose when you're talking about growth or shareholder value or disruption or even sustainability it becomes awfully hard to tell specific stories about specific people whose life is made better by the work that you're doing but pro-social purpose is what we want from our work
• 08:00 - 08:30 and it's what powered the second step of kpmg's purpose initiative after the promotional campaign after the corporate propaganda of the we shape history campaign the leaders launched what they called the 10 000 stories challenge in essence they said to their people you've heard how we've made a difference in the past now you tell us how you're making a difference right now they set up an online application that not only captured individual answers but let people design their own version of the poster like the one from the we
• 08:30 - 09:00 shape history campaign and the answers started rolling in answers like i combat terrorism because i help banks prevent money laundering they can go toward terrorist groups or i help farmers grow because i support the farm credit system that keeps family farms in business or i restore neighborhoods because i audit community development programs that revitalize low-income communities they wanted 10 000 stories they got 42
• 09:00 - 09:30 000 stories and in time they also got massive increases in morale and engagement across the whole company but it's important to emphasize why they got such a profound response they got 42 000 stories because they stopped talking about purpose as a collective why and started talking about it as an individual who they didn't give every employee a uniform answer to the question why do we do what we do they helped each employee find a specific answer to the question
• 09:30 - 10:00 who is served by the work that we do and just like in the call center research that switch made all the difference in the world so what does this mean for you well if you're in a leadership role it means part of your job is to become chief storytelling officer always ready to tell the story of the client or co-worker or community member whose life is made better by the work your team does and if you're not in a leadership role you can still motivate yourself and
• 10:00 - 10:30 other people by capturing every instance that you come across every time you hear about someone who's served by the work that you're doing every thank you that you get capture it save it for when you or anyone else needs a powerful story about how the work that we're doing matters because in the end that's what we all want from our work isn't it people want to do work that matters and they want to work for leaders who tell them they matter and the most powerful way to tell them
• 10:30 - 11:00 isn't to tell them some grandiose answer to why do we do what we do in fact it isn't to tell them anything at all it's to help them find the answer to the question who so let me ask you do you know who is served by the work that you do thank you [Applause]
• 11:00 - 11:30 you