The Talent Forge: Shaping the Future of Training and Development with Jay Johnson

Rethinking Feedback: A New Era of Workplace Communication with John Larsen

• Jay Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 13

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Can surveys really mask deeper communication issues in the workplace? Join us as we welcome John Larsen from Vellum to shed light on this eye-opening topic. John challenges the status quo of organizational feedback mechanisms with his bold presentation, "Stop the Surveys." Discover how fostering authentic human connections can revolutionize workplace communication, and why building trust is the key to breaking the cycle of reliance on traditional surveys. Through meaningful dialogue, we explore strategies for overcoming the fear of difficult conversations to enhance team dynamics and drive real change.

Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayjohnsonccg/
Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com

Jay Johnson:

Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development. Today, I am joined by special guest John Larsen. Welcome to the show, john. Hi, jay, thanks for having me. Glad to have you. So we connected during the Disrupt HR Ann Arbor series of that. So if you're unfamiliar with Disrupt HR, go check it out, look it up online. If you're in the talent development space, you must be living under a rock if you're not aware of it, because it's a pretty cool. It's a pretty cool event 20 slides, five minutes, 20 seconds or 15, however, that maps out 15 seconds per slide and it is rapid fire. John absolutely crushed it and immediately I was super interested in learning more about what he's working on. So, John, why don't you introduce yourself to our audience? Tell them a little bit about what you're working on and how you got into the talent development space? Great Thanks.

John Larsen:

Jay. Yeah, I am super excited to be on here. Jay was speaking at Disrupt HR with me and I was blown away at what he did as well. I was presenting on stop the surveys. He's essentially saying that if we want to understand how employees are doing and facilitate better communication with their managers, we need to stop doing surveys and actually foster a real human connection. So that was the point of my presentation there.

Jay Johnson:

And that is disruptive. So we're going to get into that deep, John, but please continue.

John Larsen:

Yep, that's what it's all about. So the essence of what I'm doing right now my company is called Vellum V-E-L-L-U-M and we are really trying to equip leaders to engage their teams in more effective ways, and that's we started in the healthcare space with some highly I don't want to say dysfunctional, but highly challenged teams, and we've been branching out from there just trying to help people learn to connect more authentically in the workplace and teach leaders also how to respond to emergent needs within their team.

Jay Johnson:

That's incredible. So I've gotten to experience the Vellum software. I absolutely love it, I love the concept. But I'll tell you, when I was there and I saw your title slide come up and it was like stop the surveys. And I'm like, oh, this is going to go over real well at an HR inspired conference. Because I'm thinking about it and in any organization I've ever been, it's like, oh, we'll do a survey, we'll do a pulse survey to find out how people are feeling. We'll do a pulse survey to get our engagement scores, we'll do a pulse survey to get our net promoter scores and whether people would even advocate for us, et cetera.

Jay Johnson:

And surveys have been the tool of choice in being able to mass produce some kind of data or some kind of analytics for us to. And I'm going to say for us to review or for no one to review, because I have been in organizations where they had stockpiles of data from surveys and I'm like who looks at these? And they're like, what do you mean? Like who's analyzing this data? So I'm not calling you out. If that's your organization, don't worry, it's human, it happens to the best of us. But so, john, let's talk about that. Why stop the survey. What is wrong with the survey instrument as a tool for us to learn more about our organizations?

John Larsen:

Well, I will tell you, Jay, that I'm actually a big believer in getting data. But I have nothing against using data to see what's going on in an organization and understand it better. But I think that there is a fundamental flaw in the way we and the reasons why we get that data today. That has to be addressed. That is that usually we do surveys because communication is poor and we don't know what's actually going on. So it's a good, it's well-intentioned yes, we want to learn what's going on. But the second reason that we do them is because there's a lack of trust between the parties that we're trying to get information about. So we think, well, if I'm a manager and I go ask my employee, how am I doing as a manager? They don't really trust me, so they're not going to tell me.

Jay Johnson:

Great, john, you're doing awesome, tell me.

John Larsen:

I'm doing a great job, exactly. So. It's that lack of trust that's really at the heart of the issue, and if, instead, we could build an environment where we can be authentic with each other. I mean, you think about the people that you're closest to. You can be real with them. If there's something wrong, you can talk it through because you have a real relationship founded on trust. So that's what we're aspiring to do is to transform that relationship between teammates and with their management, to be able to have real conversations and then be able to do something about the issues that they see.

Jay Johnson:

So I'm going to ask a question that I want to address in just a minute, but I don't want to forget what the question is. But what if I am afraid of having that difficult conversation? What if I don't know how to have a conversation? That you know from something that I learned in an authentic space. So I want to address that. But I want to stick here on this survey question because I think it's so important and, quite frankly, I don't hear a lot of people telling us to do less surveys.

Jay Johnson:

Now, I really, really, really appreciate what you said about. Hey, this survey is replacing some of our ability to connect. Anytime that I've done corporate organizational training or management training, it's been to get leaders to have more one-on-ones, even if they're short, even if they're not work-focused, whatever it is. But the reality is they don't have time in a lot of cases, or at least that's the barrier, that's one of the perceived barriers. I try to show them how they can have more time for that, but in reality, a lot of times I see somebody deploying a survey and saying, well, we don't have time for interviews, we don't have time for this, we don't have time for X, y and Z, and I really like what you said is you don't have trust for interviews is what I heard you say you don't have trust. Can you go a little deeper into that, because I really think that that's a fascinating concept.

John Larsen:

Yeah, I think I mean. The other point that you're getting into, jay, is the essence of many of these is the aggregation. It's okay, we don't have time, we want to do all this stuff and see everything, so we're going to aggregate it up, but the reality is people are not affected in aggregate nearly as much as they are one on one, and so it's that one on one relationship that we need to be able to build. Now you've also hit the nail on the head with the challenge of that, and that is everybody's busy, and so when we attack this problem, we said we have to find a way to do this more efficiently without it feeling like it's just efficiency gains. Right, we're trying to accelerate that time to trust. You're trying to accelerate and make it easy to see what's going on.

John Larsen:

Now, ironically, when we do it with surveys, it almost works against itself. Nobody wants to do a survey, so we do them less frequently. You do them less frequently, you get less information out of them and it doesn't really tell you as much. So we've tried to make it so easy and so authentic that it doesn't feel like a survey. It's actually just checking in. How are you doing today and trying to get at your real emotions and feelings besides just work. It isn't some professional. Are you satisfied with your job today? Oh good, I have to check this box. Who knows who's going to look at it. It should feel like your boss actually comes to you and says hey, how are you feeling? What's going on? If we can get to that and make it easy for them to do that, then we can start to build those trusted relationships.

Jay Johnson:

What you said so important to is, when we have trust, everything else actually goes faster. We did a study at one point in time where we added into a meeting Our meetings are too long, they're not good, they're not this, they're not that. And what we did was we added a 10-minute line item on the agenda, which they freaked out about at first. They're like you're adding 10 minutes to our meeting, how are you going to shorten the meeting? So I was like this is my prediction from a behavioral science standpoint add this into your meeting and we're going to test your meetings over the next 60 days and we're going to see. So they had two meetings per week. It was a Wednesday and a Friday. They added this 10 minute check-in to each of those meetings and, sure enough, by the time that we hit the 60 day mark, their meetings had reduced in time by more than 14 minutes above what the 10 minutes added was. That's 24 minutes less meeting time by adding this 10 minute check-in. It was incredible. They could not believe it. But this is that anomaly of when we have trust communication is faster. People air issues faster. They talk about mistakes faster. They talk and celebrate wins faster. They feel more empowered to speak up, we get more information, and it's a powerful, powerful mechanism. So that's part of the reason why I absolutely fell in love with what you're doing and what your message was. I'm going to admit, when I received surveys so back when I was in my Wayne State University days, and they'd send out a survey and they did. They sent it out maybe once, a quarter or anything else like that Immediately, there was three things that I thought to myself, and this is I'm talking 20 years ago, let alone the technology that we have now.

Jay Johnson:

Who's monitoring this? And can they tell who I am by my, by my, yeah, you know, by my, whatever it is. I'm not a tech person, but could they tell who it was by the computer that I did? Since I have to sign into all your systems, I'm immediately not trusting that and I'm like you ain't getting from me. That was number one. Number two was my immediate thought was who's reading this? Who is this going to, and how are they using it to make decisions? If I put something in here, is it actually going to be evaluated? And my immediate thought process was that probably not. So why would I spend my time and energies, you know, putting in answers so they finally had made it multiple choice. And then I'm thinking to myself, like when they created this multiple choice option, I'm like none of the above, virtually every single time. So every piece, they were getting misinformation from this process.

Jay Johnson:

And you know, to hear you talk about this and this is 20 years later and, honestly, one of the first people that I hear talking about this in a humanistic way is so refreshing that I had to have this conversation.

John Larsen:

Yeah, it's funny because you talk about that anonymous thing and that is such a foundation stone for surveys. Right now. It's like if we want it to be real, it has to be anonymous, and we've felt like that's actually completely the opposite. Like if you want it to be real, then make it real, Like actually put in there who you are. With our approach right now, I would say we even go one step beyond that.

John Larsen:

Like when people respond and do a check-in within our technology, not only is it not anonymous, but they get to choose and usually they don't just share it with their manager, they share it with their whole team. They get to choose and usually they don't just share it with their manager, they share it with their whole team. So they'll do a check-in and say, hey, I'm feeling anxious today because X, Y or Z and they share it with the whole team. So in many ways it starts to feel. I feel like we're almost delivering on the promise of social media with avoiding some downfall, right, Like social media was supposed to connect us more, but because it's a thousand people you don't actually know, then it doesn't really build connection. But for us, you're sharing this with the people you do know the people you're working with today and so it builds that connection because it's not anonymous. So it really takes that and flips it on its head.

Jay Johnson:

So we're here and we're discussing surveys, which I guarantee if you're a trainer, if you're a coach, if you're an HR person, you've probably used them and that's not something to feel shame about. But let's talk a little bit about your platform and what it does, because, like I said, I've had the opportunity to log in, see what the back end of the system is, and we're even piloting this and trying it out with our team, because I was just like, wow, this is something that could be a game changer for me as a CEO not a trainer to be able to keep a better handle and continue to build relationships with my team. So give us a quick rundown. What does it look like? There's an app, there's obviously a dashboard that you can access in the PC, but give our audience just a little glimpse or insight into what would they see and how does this function.

John Larsen:

Yeah, let me break this into two pieces actually, jay. The first one I want to share an experience, to kind of bring to life what we're doing, and then I want to talk about where we went on from there. The first part of this experience was before we even built our technology, we wanted to see will people be real with each other if we give them an easy tool to do that? And so we did a pilot with a big poster board of a feelings wheel. We went into a hospital these couple of units that we were going to work with. We had this feelings wheel. We asked the nurses, when they came into their shift huddle to put a post-it note on where they were feeling that day.

John Larsen:

And this one of the units we went to. We knew that they were having some struggles there. Even as we were getting ready, one of the nurses comes walking through grumbling under her breath. This is such a waste of time. Why do we have to be here? Everyone's always late and I you could just feel the negative energy coming off of her and I was sitting there going oh great, I'm about to ask her how she's feeling today. Right, this is going to be fun.

John Larsen:

So everyone gathers. I ask them to put up their Post-its and say hey, does anybody want to share where you put your Post-it and why? That nurse raises her hand. Of course I'm sure all of your trainers are like yep, so I'm like okay, do you want to share? She says I put my post-it on, anxious. I've been feeling extreme anxiety ever since my cancer diagnosis a year ago. I don't know what to do about it. I feel it at home. I bring it with me to work. I've tried to get help. I think I need real help because I can't seem to manage it right now.

Jay Johnson:

Let me guess, john, no one in there, or most of the people in there, had no idea.

John Larsen:

There were people that had worked with her for three years that did not know that she had cancer. So it's like we're all right in front of each other and we have no idea what's actually going on in our lives, you know. So people might be sitting there, like the chief nursing officer said before she shared that I was getting ready to pull her aside. Tell her she needed an attitude adjustment, right and then, she's like what are we doing? I'm like I got to help this lady Shifted that mindset immediately, didn't it?

John Larsen:

Yeah, 180 degrees. So that's what we're trying to achieve now. As we achieved that very quickly. All of the managers said this is amazing, like I actually know what's going on with my team now, but actually I don't know how to respond. Like she said one of them another I'll be, I'll try and be fast with these experiences but one of them said I had my, my steady Eddie, on night shift. He just does everything, no questions asked, ever. A week after we started using vellum, he put in that he was grieving. He was feeling grief and I'm like what's going on? He's like, well, I just had a loved one pass away and she's like I would have had no idea without vellum but and she's like I would have had no idea without them. But now he tells me he's grieving. I don't know how to respond to that.

Jay Johnson:

So what? We back to my question there. Yeah, okay, yes exactly.

John Larsen:

So what we did is we said let's take there are there's trusted content that tells people how to respond in emotional situations like this. Let's take that content and let's put it into an AI coaching engine so they don't have to go out and read an article, but it's going to say hey, you have a teammate that's grieving from this. Here are three sentences that might help you know what to say to them, and so it takes that content and summarizes it, teaches the leader right there in the moment.

John Larsen:

Hey, just express your concern, offer this. You know, just some basic principles, but directly applied when they need it.

Jay Johnson:

That is brilliant. So it's interesting when I was, when I was doing work with, I'm going to say, a very large automotive manufacturer, we ended up having to curate kids. This was a little while ago, but we ended up having to curate handwritten or you know resources from the web or here, there, wherever else, to be able to help, and it was. You could search them by the title and then came up this article. But you've actually developed an AI coaching that grabs these trusted resources and then provide some context to ask.

John Larsen:

Yes, what essentially summarizes the resources, using the context. So it says, okay, looking, it's this type of employee, this type of manager, this is the resources you want to use responding to this, so it'll actually be like a direct response. Some people even say, hey, can I just like copy and paste that and we're like you're missing the point here right.

John Larsen:

Human connection Don't copy and paste, go talk. We're like you're missing the point here, right? Human connection, don't copy and paste, go talk to them. You can use these sentences, but go talk to them in real life.

Jay Johnson:

John, where were you three years ago? Yeah, no, I love this, so and one of the other things just kind of like down a rabbit hole, of course, because I'm really good at that, but in the idea that you took that emotion wheel into the space, you essentially use design thinking principles to see is this going to be a viable solution? And you got your answer. You got like immediate results and such a powerful, powerful story, because I know there are a lot of managers out there who really do give a shit. They care, they want to be that support level, but they don't know how to get there, they don't know how to ask, and it's daunting because I can't just go up and go John, do you have anything personal in your life that you'd like to share with the rest of the? You know? So like creating that space within the Vellum platform, and that's why you have the emotion wheel in the Vellum platform, so that way people can actually visually find something, see where it fits with them, be able to comment on it, choose to share it, choose not to share it. So they still control and have autonomy and agency, but that makes so much sense.

Jay Johnson:

I love that story and that example because, wow, like how would it have impacted that very upset, very anxious person had the boss gone down the road of going? You need an attitude adjustment. You're not fitting within the culture. You're doing this and then I mean I can. I mean we've all seen what a reaction to that can be.

John Larsen:

So powerful. The other thing I'd say, jay, that you're touching on here, is there is so much it is so hard to achieve behavior change. Yes, to really get people to act in different ways. It's never simple To really get people to act in different ways. It's never simple Like as we've implemented Vellum. We have these aha moments, but it's still such an uphill battle to say, well, how do we really weave this into their culture and the way they work and the way they talk, like even the way we roll it out. You know, we thought, well, this is easy, just give them the app. They all use it.

John Larsen:

And then we learned, no, any employee at a hospital is going to just throw away, like they don't want to install any new app, so that's going to be gone right away. But if the manager really goes to them and says you know what, I want this to be a team where we can talk to each other and where we're real with what we're feeling. And I'm going to be more real with you. I want you to be more real with me. We've got I've got 50 people that report to me, which is normal at a hospital, which is stunning. But I've got 50 people yes, stunning. So the only way I know to do that is with this app I found. So I'm going to do a check in each day and I hope you'll'll do a check-in too and share and we can all see as a team how we're doing. So we're trying to really help them, even in the way they roll it out. It's not about the app, it's about us as people, right. So achieving that behavior change is definitely an uphill battle.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, I just had a commercial flash through my head, john, of I'm a behavioral scientist, my name is Jay Johnson and I endorse this message.

Jay Johnson:

Behavioral change is hard, you know, and that's the thing, and it feels like it shouldn't be, but the reality is, and this is one thing I've learned and this is one of the reasons that I do like your approach If you make it easy, people will do it.

Jay Johnson:

If it's too hard, if it's too cumbersome, if it's too complex, the motivation drive and the sort of resilience of shifting a behavior or changing a behavior if it's hard, people aren't going to do it. If there's too much friction, they won't. So creating the conditions for somebody to be successful right out of the gate, to be able to have impact out of the gate, to engage in something and see the results right away, is such a powerful motivator for those types of behavioral change. Now, as you've put this into play, I'm sure that there's been a lot of resistance because of exactly that oh, another app or this, or I have to do this or whatever else like that. Fast forward those same people a week later and, if they've actually engaged in that, what's the reaction? What's the response once they sort of get into this and see huh, okay, what's the thought on that?

John Larsen:

Yeah, it's. It's so exciting to see when they actually adopt it and when they start to have those realizations, like as a team, we can see what's going on with each other. I did one rollout with a hospice provider and it was fun because I had rolled it out with the management team first so they could check in with each other before they roll it out to the rest of their team. And you know, I got up and kind of started to introduce it and then the manager, the leader who was implementing it stood up and said can I just say something? I love this. And she just started to talk about when she had had this experience. That really was a transformation moment for her. And then one of her managers raised her hand and said actually, can I share too? Like, this is what happened to me. And so when they share those things, it's no longer hey, this is some outsider that's coming to try and get us to do something. It's hey, I'm real, I really want to connect with you and I'm excited about this. So very different response.

Jay Johnson:

I kind of figured that that was going to be the case. And here's the really interesting thing that we have found in some of our different research A simple check-in and a follow-up from a manager on issues such as these can reduce burnout by nearly 30 or 40% inside of an organization. Inside of an organization, if the person feels valued, feels seen, feels heard and is allowed to essentially communicate what they're actually going through or those experiences, it has a tremendous impact on culture and the biggest barriers that I ever see. And, by the way, so audience, I have no affiliation. I make zero money off of vellum. I am just. I really, really was like wow, this is, this is something that is long overdue and a really powerful platform, and part of the reason I loved it was because I have worked with managers for the past 20 years and, like I said, more often than not they care but they don't know how to show it. Sometimes they're put between this place of I have to be the manager and I also. You know, now you're telling me I should be sort of friends or colloquial.

Jay Johnson:

Where's the line? How do we draw this? How do we allow somebody to be authentic? How do we not show favoritism? How do we ensure, how do I not open myself up to an HR violation? How do I stop myself from getting into a conversation I have no idea how to handle, and this literally helps overcome every single one of those barriers, every single one of them.

Jay Johnson:

Nope, we're going to provide you with resources to respond. Nope, we're going to create a safe space that the person gets to choose whether or not they engage or whether or not they want to share. This gives a safe space for you to be able to have a conversation in the event that somebody needs a conversation. So I can't speak highly enough about that, John. Tell me more and tell our audience more. I'm cautious on time here, but as we start to look at sort of like an organizational implementation, right, you've got the individual that maybe came in, didn't like it at first, starts to love it. What about from an organizational standpoint? What's the response been from those individuals that are either getting empowered with how to have these conversations? How has leadership looked at some of the impact that this tool is creating?

John Larsen:

Yeah, I would tell you that we have seen a difference across organizations, that there's almost a threshold, like we had one organization that the trust was so low that nobody was willing to get in and start doing it. So you do have to have a certain level of relationship and trust within your organization to get them start doing it. Then, if they're at that level, then it can increase wherever they're at, and we actually saw some that were super high already and they still improved. Oh yeah, some that were very low but improved dramatically. Oh yeah, vellum. And that's why I'm here like I want. I want to get that out there, but I I also want to zoom out a little bit because it may not some of your listeners might not be looking to use something like vellum, but I think there's a couple of things that we're doing that I hope they'll take away anyway.

John Larsen:

Number one is real human, like being human, being authentic and building connection.

John Larsen:

Whatever you're doing in your work, I think if you start to do that, you'll feel better about yourself, you'll have a better impact in the world and everyone will be better off.

John Larsen:

So that's one thing that I take as very fundamental to. What we're trying to do is more specific but may have broader application with your user base is with regards to learning and teaching and education. What we're trying to do is, say, get it to them in the most relevant way when they need it the most bite size that you can do and really saying, okay, how do we do that? How do we get in front of the people when they need it in the way that they do need it? And I think that technology is starting to bring all sorts of opportunities to do that. Now, how that's all going to play out, I have no idea, but if we look for that as some of those guiding principles that we want to apply, I think we'll all be well served, both the teachers and the learners. So those are things that I hope will apply across the board to your user base.

Jay Johnson:

You beat me to the punch, my friend, because I was going to say all right, let's get into core philosophy. Say we don't have the technology, say we don't have things like that, and I think that you spot. You hit the nail right on the head. One of the things one of my favorite authors, daniel Coyle, talks a lot about culture, the culture code, et cetera, and that personal connection is the fastest way to shift your culture. It is literally if you want a different culture, it has to start with that sort of connection and trust building culture. It has to start with that sort of connection and trust building. And to your point, I thought it was so brilliantly stated If there's no trust on a team, it doesn't matter what the bells, whistles, gadgets, it doesn't matter what you try to do, everything's going to start in a place of I don't trust it, I don't believe it, I'm not going to put anything in there because it's going to be used against me. And here's where I would say that I think some leaders end up failing to fix that type of a culture is that they look at it and immediately they say I don't understand. That's ridiculous. Blah, blah, blah.

Jay Johnson:

One of the things that Jocko Willink talks about is when he gets a criticism or when he gets that kind of feedback, he takes two steps back, reviews it and says what's true about this and what am I here to learn? Because if somebody has that perception, that means other people have that perception. But that's a tough pill to swallow. As a leader of like, did I create a culture of non-trust? What are the policies? What are the procedures? Is it one of my managers so digging into some of that space? But I think that your point's well taken. When you have a high performance team, adding in this type of opportunity will only exponentially increase that high performance culture. When you have a low performance culture, adding something in, do it with caution because, while it can help, you really need to do the work before you start adding in something like this. I think that's a great takeaway as well. So, john, how would the audience get in touch with you if they wanted to learn more about you, or about Vellum, or about surveys, for that matter?

John Larsen:

Yeah, I would love to talk with anyone. You can first of all go to our website. It's vellum. team, so V-E-L-L-U-M dot team. That's where you can get more information and you can reach out to me directly at john@ vellum. team. So love to chat with anybody, even if it's not directly about Vellum, but just some of the principles that we're applying. I'd be happy to connect and share more.

Jay Johnson:

This has been such an insightful conversation, john, I really appreciate you taking the time to be on here. I think that our audience will most certainly appreciate a different perspective on the old, dreaded survey instrument and how we really can forge a new pathway on that. So thank you for taking the time to be here with me.

John Larsen:

So appreciate it, jay. It was great to talk with you, thanks.

Jay Johnson:

And thank you, audience, for tuning into this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of talent development.

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Jay Johnson, CEO and Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements

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