Dov Baron on Why Fitting In Is Killing Innovation, Loyalty, and Belonging at Work

I mean, Dov, you challenge leaders right out of the gate with this book, and you, you're basically telling the reader, i- if your culture is built on fitting in, you're, you are crushing the humanity out of people.

And man, that, that is a [laughs] very bold way to open a book.

What, what made you to decide to go there and bring this book to the world a- and, and come out with such a strong message?

You know, it's a, it's a great question because I think we all read Good to Great.

Mm-hmm.

It was a fantastic book, Jim Collins.

Um, get the right people on the right bus in the right seats.

And when I read that, it made so much sense.

And then COVID happened.

And when COVID happened, we were all removed from inside of the company culture to working from home, and then COVID was over and people didn't wanna go back.

Mm-hmm.

And I'm like, "What is going on here? Why don't peop..." Like, we had spent billions before COVID trying to up-level, um, engagement, and it was still incredibly low, and it only got lower with all-

Yeah

...

the billions spent.

So what was going on? And what I realized was that COVID had destroyed a lot of things.

The pandemic destroyed...

I mean, there used to be a bowling club.

There used to be a, a...

You know, y- you, you played cards with in a club.

You, you went to one of the bowl...

Uh, whatever it was, you had these clubs, you had these communities, even churches.

One of my friends, who's a, a, a very f- well-known speaker, she's a member of, of the oldest gospel church in Memphis.

Hmm.

I, I mean, that's a church I would go to, and I'm not Christian.