Adam Grant, the youngest professor ever at the prestigious Wharton School from the University of Pennsylvania, USA, and honored, for seven consecutive years, with the prize of excellence, he holds a doctorate in organizational psychology and is an advisor to companies such as Apple, Google, Pixar or Goldman Sachs. “Originals – How Nonconformists Are Changing the World” or “Think Better – The Power of Knowing What We Don’t Know” are some of the books he has published. He was one of EDP’s guest speakers at the conference We choose the earthin Madrid.
You came to tell us about a bright future, is that really true?
I hope so, but it all depends on us. The truth is that the world is evolving very quickly. We used to think of intelligence as the ability to think and learn. But in a rapidly changing world, we also need to be able to rethink and unlearn quickly. Many of the solutions we adopted yesterday will no longer be effective tomorrow, so we need to develop a new mindset around skills, question the way we’ve always done things, let go of our old best practices and look for better ones. practices.
How do you see the discussion around Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
It’s the technology that has impacted the world the most and fastest, and it’s likely to change us more than any other transformation we’ve seen in human history. But I think from what we’ve learned so far, AI doesn’t replace human skills, it augments them. There are fascinating studies on this that show that if you’re a knowledge worker and you’re trying to write something – a journalist, for example – if you start using ChatGPT you’ll not only be more productive, you’ll write more. The AI tool does the drafting and background for you, and you can spend your energy developing ideas and creativity. And editing, that’s what people are best at. We will make great progress in this area in the coming years.
Do you think the pandemic has changed the way people view organizations? Or is it over and we’re all back on the same page?
It’s a bit of both. With the pandemic, business leaders realized they need to care about the mental and emotional well-being of their teams, not just their performance. My fear is if we forget about covid that will go away too. The truth is that this was a very healthy change that helped them understand that they wouldn’t get quality work from teams that were exhausted and worried about their quality of life. One of the changes that seems to be here to stay is hybrid work. We realize that we don’t all need to be physically in the same room at the same time for the work to appear done. What we’re seeing in most of the industrialized world is that companies are very happy with remote work a few days a week, and that kind of flexibility is here to stay.
Nor all companies seem to agree. I remember Elon Musk’s ultimatum at Tesla.
Yes I remember. But in the US market, which I know best, more than half of companies have implemented hybrid working, with three days in the office and two days away. And in the future, more and more jobs could be filled remotely as technologies continue to evolve and improve. The biggest benefit of remote work is that people commute an average of an hour a day and spend more than half of that time doing additional work. Which is good for the company. They use the rest to exercise more and have more time for friends and family, which is good for people. Everyone wins.
“With covid, leaders understood that they had to take care of the mental and emotional well-being of the teams. I fear this will disappear once the pandemic is forgotten.”
Nowadays it is very difficult to hire and keep people. Does that make it harder to keep teams together?
many like the team building and similar exercises, but it turns out that this is not the best way to promote team cohesion. It is even better to have very clear objectives and equally well-defined functions. When people know the common goals we want to achieve and the unique contribution they can make, they feel part of the team, but at the same time they can stand out and have a different responsibility that everyone depends on. That seems to unite the teams the most, the existence of an important, articulated mission, where everyone is indispensable for us to realize it.
And what’s the best way to keep employees happy so they don’t keep changing jobs?
It’s hard to buy satisfaction and loyalty. If you pay your employees poorly, you will lose them, but giving them a small raise will not make them stay. People tend to leave if they feel that their work is unappreciated, that the environment is toxic, or that bosses are abusive. You don’t need to know much, people just want to be treated well, to be appreciated and to have their work appreciated.
Are there many abusive bosses?
More than we’d like. A study conducted over the past two years showed that the most determinant of the so-called “silent quit” or those who quit during covid was the existence of a toxic work culture. Abusive bosses are one of the main features of these cultures.
There is a lot of talk about culture in an organization. Is it a concept that still rings true?
Naturally. A company cannot function without its own culture. And culture means shared values and practices. We know empirically that when you create a culture where people agree on core values, they care and create a set of routines to implement them. This results in a high level of satisfaction, making it easier to attract and retain new talent. And you get more cohesion and coordination because they are all aligned. It is true that it is more difficult to keep culture alive in this modern world of hybrid work. That’s the challenge, but I think company culture is more important than ever today. Precisely because it has become more fragile because we are all scattered and far away.
Young people today are very different, with different goals and aspirations. How do you integrate them into the corporate culture?
First, by asking them what their goals are and showing them what kind of behavior we expect them to do to help them get there. There was an interesting experience in one of the covid summers. A multinational company hired interns in 13 countries and it was randomly decided that some of them would hold four 30-minute meetings during the summer. These were the ones who were more satisfied, had better results in the evaluation and were more likely to be hired at the end of the internship. What were those four meetings for? For an informal meeting with an executive director, with no prior agenda, where they could ask questions, openly express their expectations and bond with someone who acted as a mentor. And that is easy for most companies to do. Take your younger employees and let them spend quality time with the seniors, but let the juniors decide how that time is spent.
Are companies ready to change?
Some are, some are not. Those who are not will eventually become obsolete.
*The journalist traveled to Madrid at the invitation of EDP
Source: DN
