#53 - Michael Abrashoff

So before we get into the Benfold itself, uh, Mike, I'd love to just get your perspective.

Again, you deal with organizations, um, all over the world.

Uh, and I'd just love to get your perspective on the state of the workforce today.

You know, we're coming out of, you know, we had COVID.

You know, everybody was, you know, f- kind of forced to work from home for a period of time.

We've got people now transitioning back into the office, you know, hybrid workforce.

You know, you've got, um, you know, technology is, is, is, you know, kind of front and center.

I just wanna give your, just love to get your perspective, is that when you talk to the average employee, you know, what's their perspective and what are the things that kind of make them either happy or not happy at their current job? Because retaining talent, you know, as you note in your book, is super important.

The cost of replacing talent is, is extremely expensive.

And I'd just love to get your perspective on, on the state, because I think if people thought, "Well, if I just pay my people more, it's gonna create, you know, happiness and, and make them stay." But I, I, I don't think that's the case.

I don't think it's necessarily money that drives them.

But again, I'd love to get your perspective on, on what you're hearing today.

So the number one question I get is how to deal with the younger generations.

And, and that's on top of all the other issues that you just brought up.

Yep.

And I'll never forget, I, I, so I interviewed every sailor individually, all 310 of them.

I got to know their name, their spouse's name, their children's name, what their goals were while they were in the Navy.

And I'll never forget, in one of the earliest interviews, an engineer came in and asked me how to do a procedureAnd I'm there thinking, "You're the engineer.

Why are you asking me how to do this?" And then it hit me.

He wanted me to tell him how to do it so that if it didn't work out, he could just say-

[laughs]

... "I was just doing what I was told to do," and not take accountability for the results.

And so I thought for a second, and I thought...

I said to him, "What, what do you think? If you owned this ship, how would you do this?" And he said, "Well, if I owned this ship, this is what I would do." And I, I said, "Do it." And he turned in flawless performance and better performance than if I told him how to do it because he owned it.

And when we talk about working with younger generations today, they don't wanna be told how to do things.