[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:00:00]
Pat Sweet:
This is the engineering and leadership podcast with pat sweet episode 45.

[00:00:05]
Welcome to the engineering and leadership podcast. The show dedicated to helping engineering leaders thrive today. I speak with Ralph Specht on why companies need soul and how to breathe life into your organization. Using the Soul System.

[00:00:30]
Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. I of course, and pat sweet. And once again, today, we've got a great episode for you. I'll be speaking with Ralph Specht on why companies should have soul. And I think we've probably all felt at times like some organizations have grown too big or too profit driven or not people focused enough.

[00:01:00]
And how. That feels to be in that kind of an environment. Well, Ralph shows it doesn't have to be that way. And in fact, that having soul isn't just great for the people within a business, but great for the business itself. So very excited to get to that. But first I wanted to thank everyone who came out to the webinars that I've hosted over the last couple of weeks.

[00:01:23]
If you didn't get a chance to come out to any of them, do check out the show notes, engineering and leadership.com/episode 45. And I'll be putting links to the replays so that you can go back and check those out. And one things that I wanted to touch on, I think I maybe mentioned it last week, but if I didn't, I wanted to ask just a small favor.

[00:01:45]
I'm about to launch the next iteration of my productivity course for engineering managers. And it's going to be coming out later in February. But before I do that, before I launch, I have a couple of questions that I would love to ask you. So if you have a spare minute or two, and you don't mind helping me out.

[00:02:02]
you can go to there's. There's just a short survey@engineeringandleadership.com slash productivity course help that's engineering and leadership.com/productivity course help. And it's just a two question survey. And if you could fill that out, that would help me an awful lot. Okay. Onto the main content.

[00:02:21] Guest Introduction

[00:02:21]
Pat Sweet:
I think we've all felt at one time or another, that we're living inside a bit of a Dilbert cartoon as though the company we work for didn't care much about us or about the world around us. So long as targets were hit. And if you've had that experience, you know, it can make for a pretty terrible working.

[00:02:52]
My guest today wants to make organizations like that. A thing of the past Ralph Specht is just about releases, new book, building corporate soul: powering culture and success with the soul system. And in the book, he spells out how companies can regain their soul and makes a very strong case for why soul is not only good in and of itself and for accompanies people, but good for corporate performance.

[00:03:18]
Mr. Specht has been called a visionary business leader by fast company press and was a founding partner of the startup spark 44, a global marketing communications powerhouse. He consulted for more than 20 years with global companies and brands such as Deutsche bank credit, Suisse, general motors, Nestle Coca-Cola, Puma and PWC with McCann Erickson.

[00:03:42]
Here's my conversation with Ralph.

[00:03:45] Interview

[00:03:45]
Pat Sweet:
Mr. Ralf Specht, welcome to the Engineering & Leadership Podcast. It's a pleasure to have you here today.

[00:03:50]
Ralf Specht:
Pat, it's my pleasure to be on your show.

[00:03:53]
Pat Sweet:
I'm really excited about the theme for today. And I think it's something a lot of us,feel in inside ourselves, but maybe have never put these thoughts into words and that's the importance of soul within an organization. And you're on a mission right now - I'm going to get to,the book that you're about to release, but,ultimately, your mission is to make soulless companies a thing of the past. And I think if you could achieve this mission, we'll all be thanking you, but maybe we want to, maybe we want to start with w what do you mean when you talk about soul in the context of a, of an organization or a corporation?l

[00:04:30]
Ralf Specht:
Soul is an intangible, right? You can't really grab it with your hands. You can grab it with your emotions. You feel it, or you don't. And very often, companies where they have a great corporate soul, people know it because it's just there and it's just the sense of what we're doing here is the right, thing, we're doing it in the right way. And the people that are around me as, as my colleagues, we're all on the same mission on the same bus actually. And, that, is something very unique. So when, when I started to think about soul in the corporate sense, it was a very special moment because, I was a co-founder of, a startup called Spark 44, which was a joint venture with Jaguar and Land Rover for their global marketing operations.

[00:05:24]
And, we started in 2011 and I stepped down as CEO in 2019, pretty much just before Christmas, 2019. So when that happened, my former colleagues reached out to me, which obviously you would expect there's no surprise there, but there's a surprise because what they said to me, what they wrote me was something that was far beyond what you would normally expect in a farewell message and like "sad to see you go", yeah, that's what you hope you get to get at least. But, when I looked at all these messages during those days, I felt there was something deeper. There was something with much more meaning in those, because all those messages expressed a sense of
this is something special,
this has been something special
where [there was] a bit of concern, because I was the last founder was, leaving the company, whether that corporate culture could remain because whatever we joined, we clearly saw from the get-go that there was something different going on here compared to the other places where we had been at those had been great organizations that people have been before. So I actually thought. what's the legacy that we leave behind with this company?

[00:06:46]
And, to me, it's not building a company from scratch and within just a few years, get to 1200 people in 19 offices, worldwide and a hundred billion plus revenue - that's not the legacy to me, at least. To me, the legacy is having been part of a group of people that have been capable of creating a corporate culture in a highly competitive, in a highly performance driven, environment that actually.

[00:07:15]
focused on the human beings because obviously as a creative business, there's nothing else. You've got a few desks set, a few computers, but what you really have is great minds, great people. And,people that can manage the creative process, across all channels and across all cultures, because it was a global setup.

[00:07:31]
when, when I contemplated about all of these messages, I thought, actually I got to there's something in here which is, is worth more than just a message on my iPhone.

[00:07:40]
So it sounds like this came as a bit of a surprise to you that it was obvious to your people, that the company that you had formed had this soul, had this essence, but it sounds like you, you didn't really expect to hear that. Was this something you had consciously tried to create or really didn't recognize until after the fact?

[00:08:01]
Ralf Specht:
No, I think we, we all recognized what we had because we felt it in very moments that were, that we lived through together. Great moments, difficult moments, all of that. But, I think the surprise, that, that hit me when I received all these messages was the importance it had for everyone and the, The ability to actually put those experiences in words.

[00:08:32]
and in some words, some, in some instances, these words were very personal, as you can imagine. And,the way people expressed what they had experienced,something that they compared to other places where they had been, and the gist of the comments basically was we haven't seen that anywhere else.

[00:08:56]
I haven't seen that anywhere else. And remember that moment when you did this and all of these things, and, as a leader, when you are doing these things, At least that's true for me. And for most of the other colleagues that I know, you do these things the way you do them, because you think that's the right way to do it. The, and this right way to do it. Something that for many people, interestingly in the industry, was a... Finally, this is a company that applies good corporate culture, good corporate citizenship, throughout its behaviors. And, that, that was probably something, many had not so good experiences before.

[00:09:35]
of course. And I think we all go through careers where some organizations we've been a part of have been great and others less so. You mentioned this comparison that your people were making, saying this was different. I've never felt like this before. I've never seen this before.

[00:09:51]
Pat Sweet:
What sorts of words and examples, really sum that up? What does working in a soulful organization feel like?

[00:09:59]
Ralf Specht:
I think the most important thing that working in a soulful organization feels like is that whatever you do and whatever an experience in that organization matches what you're being told by your leaders, where they're going. So walk the walk, right? The,there's too many examples, so that's what people often refer to. So we've heard these great words and it all sounded perfect, but then the next day, when a little problem happened here or there, and we didn't see any of the great words from the day before coming into play. and that's basically what I've tried to create with the Soul System, that you refer to in the subtitle of the book, because I believe the, your question is actually the million dollar question.

[00:10:50]
How do you recognize it if you don't have it? How do you build it? And as I just mentioned, it's about doing what you're saying, you're going to be doing. And so the model the Soul System framework has got three levels. The first level is the purpose level, which I call the shared purpose.

[00:11:11]
Ralf Specht:
And the reason I call it, the shared purpose is I've seen too many situations that I've heard from too many people and their experiences in organizations that, on the question, does your company have a purpose? they said they might say yes, but if you then say, can you tell me what it is they go yeah, let me come back to you.

[00:11:28]
One big issue with purpose is that it often is not shared and it's not shared on two levels. The first level is the leadership team, shared with them just from my perspective means they have to buy into it. If they don't support it, it ain't got to that shared That shared has a second meaning I think in this context and it means, share it with everyone in the company so that everybody's aware of it.

[00:11:59]
Ralf Specht:
And as we all know, you have to say it once you have to say twice, you have to say three times and don't get frustrated if you have to say the fourth time, because, people really have to get it. And people understand things easier when they experience it. So if you actually live your purpose or your company's purpose, that is easier for people to get it because they see it in action. So, the shared purpose is the center of the game. and I'm really, very,focused on that word shared because without shared purposes, just not as words on a PowerPoint, that's just not good enough for the game. And the,and to me, purpose very often the purpose discussion is, all going to have a purpose of all of that.

[00:12:40]
But purpose to me is only a means to an end. It's something that you need to create a better corporate culture.

[00:12:48]
Let me ask you a question here. I'm going to go out on a limb. I think. and guess that a purpose that reads something like "We will be number one in our industry and we will ensure our shareholders are happy." It doesn't cut it in terms of a powerful, shared purpose. I guess I would ask two questions:

[00:13:07]
A, would you agree? And B, how do you get past the MBA mumbo-jumbo.

[00:13:13]
Ralf Specht:
Yeah, first of all, I do agree. that's no surprise, really. In the book, I'm citing a number of purposes from, various companies. And my favorite example of a company that got it right in terms of, expressing their purpose and everything else that comes afterwards, plus the behaviors, is LinkedIn, and LinkedIn's purpose is not flashy at all.

[00:13:38]
Pat Sweet:
Okay.

[00:13:39]
Ralf Specht:
It's very straightforward and it's got nothing of this "We'll be number one, we'll increase market share by 20%." LinkedIn's purpose is to facilitate professional networking. Period. So if you read these four words, you know what they are about, you might not know if you're not internet literate, how the application will work, but you understand why they are, why they do exist, and what they are in business for.

[00:14:04]
And, but as I mentioned, the purpose is only the first step. So then you get to the second step, which I call the shared understanding. And it's the understanding of the corporate strategy there again, LinkedIn is terrific because, so we learned the purpose is to facilitate professional networking. The vision that LinkedIn, put down years ago is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.

[00:14:35]
Pat Sweet:
See, I was going to, I was going to comment on the purpose and I was going to say that it's not super inspiring. It's crystal clear, but the vision is incredibly inspiring. That's that makes you feel like you're making a dent in the universe.

[00:14:49]
Ralf Specht:
Absolutely. And then you get the mission which builds on it, which basically says to connect the world's professionals, to make them more productive and successful. Well, you have the vision and the mission. And if you don't get it done, You might look for something else. Because as you said, they're both very crystal clear.

[00:15:08]
And they don't leave any opportunity for doubt, right? This is what we're here for. This is where we're going, and this is how we get there. And when you get through the third element of the shared understanding, which is the values of the company and here again, I think the LinkedIn example is terrific.

[00:15:29]
They've got seven values and those seven values are a combination of inward focus and outward focus.

[00:15:35]
So as you've read from, or learn from the vision and the mission to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce and to connect the world's professionals, to make them more productive and successful, it's no surprise that the values start with members first... there you go. Relationships matter is number No surprise as well. And then it gets into what are you do you have to do. So be open, be honest and constructive, and then it gets very internal demand excellence. So there's a performance element to it. It's not just make sure that people can connect that demand, excellence everywhere, take intelligent risks and act like an owner. So these values, there are a good example, I think, for a set of values. Because when you read them or when I now talk them through, in your head, you already get a sense of how that company is supposed to be acting. And when you then get to the third level of the,of the Soul System, the shared behaviors, that's when you see actually, whether these things come to life or not.

[00:16:44]
Oh, again, the shared purpose is important, the shared understanding is important, but without the shared behaviors, it's all just nice words. And I think that is critical and LinkedIn is a perfect example. and it speaks to, Microsoft who acquired LinkedIn, a few years back that they actually allowed LinkedIn to keep it's company culture. They saw the strength in the culture. They didn't Microsoft LinkedIn. They kept LinkedIn. And that I think is in mergers and acquisitions, you very often see that not happening, but that's a good example.

[00:17:22]
so they saw this cohesive whole, that, worked was internally consistent and there was a good thing going, and they allowed that to flourish. and that's great. And that's great. and, should , note, this episode is not sponsored by LinkedIn,but it is a great example.

[00:17:36]
Pat Sweet:
There are a lot of really good,good companies that, that you cite, in what you've called the soul index, which I'm very excited to talk about in a minute. But I want to go back to, I want to go back to. the Soul System, and one of the things that really stands out to me is the word shared, we talked about shared purpose, shared understanding, shared behaviors, and I'm wondering if you could expand a little bit on, on that and the importance of all of this being shared and what you mean by that, because it strikes me as being core to everything - foundational in your in. system.

[00:18:13]
Ralf Specht:
Yes. the word shared, I think, is so important in this because. Many people will think this is very familiar to them. When you read like Glassdoor comments on companies and you look at your earlier question about, companies that don't have, soul, one comment that you very often read is, I'm not so happy about the company culture, but our team is great. A group of people, a certain team seems to have gotten it right for themselves. but when they look at the entire company, it seems like they are either an outlier or they think we're special or what have you. And that. That's not good. it's nice for them that they think they have a good team, the team culture team structure, and camaraderie, and what have you.

[00:19:02]
But actually, if you look at it from a company perspective,it feels like a pocket of excellence here where everything else is just not what you want to have. And as a leader, when you recognize that. Hopefully you do recognize it when you recognize that you've got two choices, right? You can either say, okay, we've got this great pocket here of a team.

[00:19:24]
That actually is the role model for how we want to behave as an entire company. Or you can say, guys, this is not what we're about. So let's have that conversation. Let's be clear about what we are about. And so either way, you're getting back to the notion of shared in making sure the whole company understands what it's about.

[00:19:48]
Where's it going? I also looked into the shared understanding. I added one more term beyond, vision, mission values. I added spirit, which to me is the intended corporate culture. if the values are clear, like on LinkedIn spaces, I'm not sure you need that much. A spirit, a description very often the values are very, theoretical and you can't connect them to, to, to the mission or the vision.

[00:20:15]
And therefore it's, it feels three things floating around in the air, but have no connection. and then you need something that, first of all, you've got to make sure they connect, but if you haven't done that, at least make sure you define what you want the corporate culture to be like.

[00:20:30]
And then, basically start on the behaviors. and, when I looked at the behaviors, they get into. Everything a company does. And it becomes very often obvious, in a number of places. Again, you look into Glassdoor and you see what is on people's minds because you see, and you can read when people say, actually in.

[00:20:52]
our place, no equal pay, for instance, a good example, but that's a big one.

[00:20:57]
you also can see what people say. If you want to, climb your career ladder internally, forget it they only hire a next level from the outside. So promotions are a critical element. how you pay people,is a critical. element performance reviews are critical, element.

[00:21:16]
Ralf Specht:
And so the whole compensation element is, is super critical. And so you have got a lot of things that, actually are happening outside, in the behaviors that very often, many leaders think, oh, that's just, it's just happening. No, it's not happening. It's a conscious thing. So you gotta take care of your compensation of your recruiting of your development.

[00:21:36]
but also, sometimes it's how you behave with partners outside the organization. So which partnerships do you,agree to, who do you want your clients to be? is there something, there's been a fascinating, thing happening at Edelman. the,PR consulting consultancy, where the, in the context of the Glasgow, COP 26 conference, the, members of the team at Edelman basically said, how can we, if we believe in these, climate,changing, predictions, how can we afford to work for clients that are actually spending a lot of time on fossil fuels?

[00:22:19]
Pat Sweet:
Oh, wow, and that became an obvious conversation. And now there is a, an open debate going on and it, among, leadership is taking it, by its horns, which is the way you should do it, because you usually want to put those, discussions, somewhere in the closet, it ain't gonna work right. publishing is a critical, elements. how do you deal with your customers? how can you create a fellowship, which obviously purpose can have a,real meaning here as well. And, yeah, it's all connected. And, leaders a look into all of these ex.

[00:22:50]
so I think it's. It goes without saying almost that a company that, that, has a shared purpose, shared understanding, shared behaviors. that'll be a good place to be as an employee, as someone who represents that organization. But one of the more interesting things I think that you argue is that having Soul is not just good for morale and engagement. It's good for business. And we mentioned the Soul Index earlier, which I think is really cool way to demonstrate this,that companies with soul outperform their peers. So I'd love it if you could explain just at a high level what the soul index is and what it shows.

[00:23:32]
Ralf Specht:
Yes. Absolutely. So when I finished writing the book, you can imagine I've talked to a lot of people, lots of interviews, lots of reading, lots of research, lots of studies, lots of surveys. I thought, it's been very interesting because the companies that have come up in my, my memory. We're all high-performance companies.

[00:23:54]
So there wasn't the company that you'd had never heard before. there were a few of those as well. There's great pockets of corporate culture in, in many companies, but there were, a lot of companies that, I came across again and again. And so I thought, I got all these studies now, so why not actually blend the studies and see what comes up?

[00:24:17]
And so I took the surveys that I had in my hands and basically, with the help of my son. who's an Excel genius, we created this, scorecard performance ranking of the , those companies and we weighted. with 75%, most strongly what employees said about the company, because, when a leader comes to me and said, we've got a great corporate soul, I'm like, thank you.

[00:24:41]
I hope you have, but let me ask your workforce, because, they will tell you whether you have it or not.

[00:24:48]
Pat Sweet:
Yeah, of course.

[00:24:49]
Ralf Specht:
If you think you have it. At least you thought I was good, but that isn't the guarantee. so three quarters of,data about employee satisfaction and engagement and, CEO approval from the employees.

[00:25:03]
Okay. And it's interesting. Again, LinkedIn is a great example. I think it's the only company on Glassdoor CEO approval where a CEO ever got a hundred percent.

[00:25:11]
Yeah. So that happened once in, I think, 2014 or so Jeff Wiener. and so that's great. And the other 25% of business performance,data. So I didn't want to get into an airy fairy feel-good kind of,element, but I wanted to make sure that, the employees have the final say if you like, and with that, an impressive ranking, came about. The top 20 companies, many well-known brands, interestingly, 60% of the top 20 tech brands, tech companies.so you've got Adobe Salesforce and Microsoft at the top of the pyramid. And, I don't think it's a surprise because, these companies, they're all founded in the late seventies, eighties and nineties.

[00:25:53]
they have from the, get-go looked at corporate culture very differently. and it didn't surprise me a lot that they were coming out that strong. Microsoft is an interesting case, right? Because Satya Nadella turned the company around completely, both from a product portfolio standpoint, but most importantly from a culture standpoint.

[00:26:18]
Ralf Specht:
And,when you listen to him, it feels like, that,he's one of the strongest believer in the power of corporate culture. and I think what he did and what Microsoft team members did with him, because you never do it alone is very impressive.

[00:26:33]
is really very impressive. at the top of the list is, Adobe.

[00:26:36]
and that's a company that's in terms of cross cultural very often, very quiet, right? It's not like in the common vernacular that everybody does Adobe, they're doing this and that and the other, but they've got a CEO, the,Shantanu Narayen who has been on CEO post since 2007. So 14 years.

[00:26:56]
Pat Sweet:
It was quite a long tenure in a tech company. that's that's impressive.

[00:27:00]
Ralf Specht:
That's again, one of these things where you think, common sense is they're all leaving very quickly, because I've got to the same thought I was like, let's see. So I checked on the, On the top 20 companies and the, about the CEO tenure. And the average tenure that you have for CEOs, is something like six years, six and a half years of something is so there's an average, right?

[00:27:24]
top 10 companies, basically, have, had an average of 8.4. years. And when you look at that 8.4 is a bit skewed, I would say because, Mr. Bezos just stepped down. So there's the new guys just one year.

[00:27:39]
So if he would've wouldn't have stepped on that year were probably even more, you've got people here,the most extreme is Larry Ellison from Oracle.

[00:27:47]
Sure.

[00:27:48]
37 years. but you got Scott Scheff from ultimate software and that was 30 years. And you've got John Chambers at Cisco 20 years. Steve Balmer was 14 years. There is some longevity here.

[00:27:59]
Pat Sweet:
So I want to go back to Adobe because you're right. I'm an engineer. my, friends are engineers and Adobe is not for the most part, one of the companies that, people get excited about the same way you might get excited about a Google or an Apple or an Amazon.

[00:28:18]
I was interested to get your take on that because Adobe clearly has been around for a very long time. It's a ubiquitous company. They produce,some tools that, that most of us use every day. so why is that, that they're able to end up at the top of the list, but maybe aren't quite as flashy in terms of, a quote unquote exciting companies in the tech space.

[00:28:41]
I think they do something very well, which, when it happens, people like it, but I don't talk about that much when it doesn't happen. It's in the news, right? So Adobe is a company with a high level of integrity, one of the highest levels of integrity of any company. And they take great pride in their commitment to sincerity and honesty.

[00:29:04]
Ralf Specht:
So these things are very critical to their culture. They've got a strict code of ethics for all of their leadership, and they take this stuff very serious. but what they've also done. and remember, there's Adobe as a global company, right? So they're everywhere. so as a large multinational company with a, with an Indian American business exited executive leading it, there was already a sense of, cultural awareness, among, different places.

[00:29:32]
But, I think what they do extremely well is a very high, reliable level of, of care for the people who work for them. that's the holiday pay? There's medical insurance, there'll be retirement plans and education reimbursement, and they got all the stuff that you would expect.

[00:29:47]
They got also one little thing, which I thought it was, it was a great idea. because obviously in the tech space, like in, in any other company, but in that space even more, innovation is critical, right?

[00:29:59]
and they've got a program where every member of staff, who requests, it gets a chem, get a red cardboard box filled with stationary snacks and a thousand dollar prepaid credit card to explore their.

[00:30:12]
so if you want to do something and create something new, you can ask for that box, you get it. Nobody asks the question, you get it. But,as I understood, I think there's more than a thousand people. Who've already used it. And, 23 ideas on those thousand employees have actually granted further investments.

[00:30:31]
Ralf Specht:
So they're actually happy. and it's a perfect idea. I think for, giving people an opportunity to explore something that they. excited about and, make sure they're, innovation skills. I actually literate the inside the company. And if you think about it, if they have a thousand prepaid credit cards and have a thousand people who uses, that's been a million dollars in the grand scheme of things over a few years, as nothing for a company like Adobe, but if any of the 23 ideas that they brought it further investment actually.

[00:31:04]
proves to be successful.

[00:31:06]
Pat Sweet:
All you need is one. And in the meantime, you've invested in reaffirming your culture,

[00:31:12]
right? And, without knowing their values, their mission right off the top of my head. I would imagine that Adobe values, innovation and smart risk-taking and this kind of thing. And this is a way that, that it's very concrete.

[00:31:25]
it's showing its own people. We really do care about.

[00:31:28]
Ralf Specht:
Yes. And the, so it's great for the thousand people and even greater for the 23, but I believe it's also great for everybody else inside the company because you see it and you hear it and you might have a colleague who's just,coming around with a red box. So it's this red box as simple as itself.

[00:31:49]
Is something that I believe is critical. So you have to give it to some start to so that people can recognize it, right? This is not just another email, which as well, we've wired you a thousand thousand dollars. It's actually something you hand over.

[00:32:04]
and when you look into the, the Adobe, compare it to, to their peers and the tech, world, or we already talked a bit about.

[00:32:13]
Ralf Specht:
Microsoft, the, Yeah. When you look at the CEO score, CX CEO X, acceptance. Shantanu Adobe is at 94, even Satya Nadella with Microsoft is only at 83. And,the, Tim cook at apple is at 80. Adela and cook or in the news all the time, whereas Adobe and Shantanu and RI hardly ever notice unless there's a big,business, decision that needs to be communicated. And you look for instance at Amazon and, with the change from Jeff Bezos to any.

[00:32:49]
He's at 74 at the same study. So not bad for early in the, in his CEO, career, but you see how the different, how the difference already comes across here.

[00:33:02]
so you mentioned Amazon, and this is a company that, that really stood out to me as one of the, uh, top 10 on your soul index. I think they're number eight if I'm not mistaken. And,it was a curious case to me. I wanted to ask you about it because Amazon, I don't think anyone can deny the business performance of the organization.

[00:33:23]
they are. Ubiquitous. They're an enormous company. They employ a million people worldwide. Amazon's a big deal. this should come as a surprise to no one. What was surprising to me was that, that they qualified as an example of a company with corporate soul. Quite a bit of bad press in recent years.

[00:33:46]
Pat Sweet:
And, I don't think you'd have to dig through the New York times archives very far before you found something about some sort of tension between Amazon and its workers. And I just wanted to explore this a little bit with you because. W what we see from outside the organization as reported through the press is obviously not the full story.

[00:34:07]
but it's clear to me that there's something more going on within the organization. that is good. That is good. performance doesn't come out of nowhere. So how do you reconcile what we hear in the news with the performance and the fact that. There, there is something right going on within the walls of Amazon.

[00:34:25]
Amazon.

[00:34:26]
Ralf Specht:
first and foremost is a very customer centric organization and a very strong data centric organization. And, I think the one thing that both of them and I would probably agree on is data don't lie. The numbers don't lie. And, when I just mentioned the CEO approval scores from like a 74 for Andy Jassy compared to the, or was it 94.

[00:34:48]
Chicago, Merrick and Ryan, and to cook with 1800, the same studies in terms of the culture score. For Adobe, give a 4.9 out of five. So pretty much as good as it gets. and for Microsoft a 4.6, and Amazon's got a 4.5, and Apple's got a 4.3, and in our, in our minds build on. Public perceptions and news.

[00:35:15]
probably everybody would say, apple and Microsoft is much stronger. and those cultural scores as the sole index scores are based on employee feedback. it might either be that those, employees that, every now and then create B. Use about,their issues. not part of these, surveys, I don't know.

[00:35:34]
but there seems to be a strong, high number of people inside the organization that actually, feel that the company a. It does what it says it wants to do. And that would be, is good for them. I haven't worked with Amazon. I haven't worked for Amazon side. I've got no personal experience there, but when you simply look at the data and not from Amazon, they basically from independent sources, They're getting a lot of things, a lot of things.

[00:36:02]
Ralf Specht:
Right.And,it is interesting how public perception and, corporate reality sometimes, I'm up to say.

[00:36:09]
Pat Sweet:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Ralph, this has been a wonderful chat have really enjoyed this. And you've given, some really thought provoking, examples and stories. And I really liked the soul system and how you've encapsulated all this. this is all described in an upcoming book, what winds.

[00:36:31]
Ralf Specht:
It's a wonderful day. It's 2 22 22,

[00:36:34]
Pat Sweet:
Ah, beautiful. Easy to remember.

[00:36:36]
Ralf Specht:
February five, two.

[00:36:38]
Pat Sweet:
Uh,

[00:36:38]
Ralf Specht:
can wistful.

[00:36:39]
Pat Sweet:
so it's called a building corporate soul power and culture and success with the sole system. obviously you'll be covering, everything we've talked about here today, but who, who should be looking to pick up a copy of this book? Who's this, intended for?

[00:36:53]
Well, it's a rich for book for every leader or everybody who is becoming an engineer. And, one of the guys that I have the luck to be able to have a conversation with actually gave me the, the headline quote for the book. And I think that headline quote summarizes very well, for whom. This book is it's Adrian hallmark, the chairman and CEO of Bentley Motors.

[00:37:19]
Ralf Specht:
And he said, building corporate soul shows how 21st century leaders can transform their companies into inspired communities.

[00:37:28]
And I think that captures it. It very well. What, accompany with soul is all about, it's an inspired community. It's. A company with a strong culture. And as we all know, a strong cultures lead to more motivation, strong cultures are a critical resource , for,for leaders.

[00:37:49]
and happier employees usually go. Go the extra mile more often than not, they deliver better products, better services, happier customers. And all of that comes together for the company. It means better margins. So it's a win-win for them.

[00:38:08]
Pat Sweet:
Absolutely. Yeah, no, it's a very compelling case,for everyone involved. you can pre-order the book if I understand things correctly now. So I'll,be putting a link to that in the show notes for anyone who's interested. again, Mr.

[00:38:20]
Specht, thank you very much for joining me today. This was an absolute delight.

[00:38:25]
Ralf Specht:
My pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.

[00:38:27] Post Interview

[00:38:27]
Pat Sweet:
Thank you once again, Ralph, just brilliant ideas, really interesting conversation. I really, appreciated routes perspective and the history and experience that he brings to this whole idea of corporate culture. Very, very cool stuff. Very much looking forward to picking up my own copy of the book, which again, that there's going to be a link to that in the show notes. So do check that out. A few things that I wanted to double back on that really stood out to me during that conversation and right off the top is the word shared. And this is something that came up. Quite a bit during our conversation, this shared understanding of what the company or the organization is about its mission, its vision, its goals.

[00:39:17]
And I really want to emphasize that for leaders who may be listening to this today, you may have brilliant ideas and you may have a very clear vision for your team or your organization, but as long as those ideas and plan. Stay inside your head. They're not doing the rest of the world much good. It's super, super important to share it actively, but then also for the team to really embrace and adopt those ideas as well.

[00:39:49]
So, so to really share in that vision. So I was really glad to hear Ralph put things in the terms that he did. I think it made a lot of. The next thing I wanted to highlight is just how well tech companies performed in his soul index system, which I think is a really, really cool way to illustrate his ideas.

[00:40:12]
And I think that's fascinating. I think that's good news for engineers and people who work in white collar innovation driven industries. I think it's really exciting to know that, that we exist in a world where those companies that are pushing the envelope with respect to the products and services they produce and deliver are also pushing the envelope when it comes to culture.

[00:40:34]
And I think if any companies are doing well, that are culturally very strong, that that will be incentive for other companies to follow suit. So that's very exciting news to me. The final thing I wanted to touch on is this idea that in order to understand an organization's values, all you have to do is follow the money.

[00:40:54]
And I thought that was really, really interesting. And Ralph highlighted this that if you look at who gets promoted and why, if you look at what gets invested in and why you start to understand what a company. Whether or not, they articulate that value in a chart somewhere is kind of, besides the point.

[00:41:14]
What's more interesting to me is you don't really need to have a brainstorming session with the executives to understand an organization's values. You can already see what an organization values through following the money. Now, whether it's. An organization values the right things through their money is another question.

[00:41:34]
And this may be something that you want to look at in your own organization is what do we reward? What do we invest in? What do we pat people on the back for, and then ask yourself, are these the right things to be rewarding? And that could drive a conversation internally about, you know, what values do you want to really emphasize and reward?

[00:41:57]
So again, Ralph, thank you so much for your wisdom and your time, your experience. I do encourage everyone to go check out the show notes for links to the book and to Ralph's website. And to leave your comments, you can always scroll to the bottom of the show notes and leave your comments. I love hearing from you guys.

[00:42:14]
So, so please do take a moment to do that as well. Next up we've got the engineering and leadership matters.

[00:42:21] Post Interview

[00:42:21]
Pat Sweet:
Thank you once again, Ralph, just brilliant ideas, really interesting conversation. I really, appreciated routes perspective and the history and experience that he brings to this whole idea of corporate culture. Very, very cool stuff. Very much looking forward to picking up my own copy of the book, which again, that there's going to be a link to that in the show notes. So do check that out. A few things that I wanted to double back on that really stood out to me during that conversation and right off the top is the word shared. And this is something that came up. Quite a bit during our conversation, this shared understanding of what the company or the organization is about its mission, its vision, its goals.

[00:43:05]
And I really want to emphasize that for leaders who may be listening to this today, you may have brilliant ideas and you may have a very clear vision for your team or your organization, but as long as those ideas and plan. Stay inside your head. They're not doing the rest of the world much good. It's super, super important to share it actively, but then also for the team to really embrace and adopt those ideas as well.

[00:43:36]
So, so to really share in that vision. So I was really glad to hear Ralph put things in the terms that he did. I think it made a lot of. The next thing I wanted to highlight is just how well tech companies performed in his soul index system, which I think is a really, really cool way to illustrate his ideas.

[00:43:59]
And I think that's fascinating. I think that's good news for engineers and people who work in white collar innovation driven industries. I think it's really exciting to know that, that we exist in a world where those companies that are pushing the envelope with respect to the products and services they produce and deliver are also pushing the envelope when it comes to culture.

[00:44:21]
And I think if any companies are doing well, that are culturally very strong, that that will be incentive for other companies to follow suit. So that's very exciting news to me. The final thing I wanted to touch on is this idea that in order to understand an organization's values, all you have to do is follow the money.

[00:44:41]
And I thought that was really, really interesting. And Ralph highlighted this that if you look at who gets promoted and why, if you look at what gets invested in and why you start to understand what a company. Whether or not, they articulate that value in a chart somewhere is kind of, besides the point.

[00:45:01]
What's more interesting to me is you don't really need to have a brainstorming session with the executives to understand an organization's values. You can already see what an organization values through following the money. Now, whether it's. An organization values the right things through their money is another question.

[00:45:21]
And this may be something that you want to look at in your own organization is what do we reward? What do we invest in? What do we pat people on the back for, and then ask yourself, are these the right things to be rewarding? And that could drive a conversation internally about, you know, what values do you want to really emphasize and reward?

[00:45:44]
So again, Ralph, thank you so much for your wisdom and your time, your experience. I do encourage everyone to go check out the show notes for links to the book and to Ralph's website. And to leave your comments, you can always scroll to the bottom of the show notes and leave your comments. I love hearing from you guys.

[00:46:01]
So, so please do take a moment to do that as well. Next up we've got the engineering and leadership matters.

[00:46:09] Mailbag

[00:46:09]
Pat Sweet:
Well, my friends, you know how this works. This is the part of the show where I read your messages and answer your questions. I promise to read everything you send me. And I promise to read my favorites right here in the pod. Dr. Timothy Ferris on LinkedIn offered a great suggestion in response to a post I made about the importance of actually taking meeting minutes.

[00:46:38]
I know it's a super boring topic, but really, really important. And the idea that I'd put forward was about bringing someone else along to take minutes. If you're chairing a meeting, it's a good opportunity to bring even a co-op student or someone who's new to the team or the organization to be exposed to.

[00:46:55]
content and meetings and people that they might not otherwise get a chance to be exposed to. And that frees you up to chair the meeting as the other person records minutes in any way Dr. Ferris offered,another way, to approach this, to achieve that same end. And what he said is a method I've seen, used and use.

[00:47:17]
Pat Sweet:
Is to place the agenda items on separate PowerPoint slides and during the meeting display those slides and meeting members can see the growing minutes because you can actually record your notes against the minutes on the slides in vivo, which is. 'cause then minutes can be distributed within minutes of the meetings and that's a mouthful, but it's true.

[00:47:38]
minutes can be agreed to at the end of the meeting and not have to start the subsequent meeting by reviewing the previous meetings minutes, at which point, things are kind of cold and foggy and the result of. Minutes are clearer. They're distributed faster. They're distributed to the right people. And this can help a lot in terms of advancing a project, which you want to advance quickly.

[00:48:03]
Pat Sweet:
So, Dr. Ferris, I really do appreciate that. I liked that idea. I like that idea of sharing the record, keeping with the team, and of course, most meetings have those slides anyway. So to use those as a. Tool to capture the results of the meeting and not just to present information to the participants, I think is, is really cool.

[00:48:24]
So I appreciate that. Thanks again to everyone who reached out. If you would like to chat with me or leave a comment, please do find me on LinkedIn or leave a comment in the episode. Show.

[00:48:35] Outroduction

[00:48:35]
Pat Sweet:
That is all the time we have for the show today, I will be back next week with brand new episode, which will feature it Dolores Hershman on why the very best leaders have crystal clear message.

[00:48:54]
Don't forget. I could really use your help with this upcoming productivity course for engineering managers, just go to engineering and leadership.com/productivity course help. And I'd really appreciate that. Thank you so much. If you enjoyed the show, please do hit subscribe and please leave an honest review to let me know what you thought was most interesting from today's.

[00:49:14]
For more information and links to the resources mentioned today. Again, just go to the show notes@engineeringandleadership.com slash episode 45 until next time, this is pat sweet reminding you that if you're going to be anything, be excellent.

[00:49:29]
You've been listening to the engineering and leadership podcast with pat sweet, to learn more about the engineering leadership project, including other podcasts articles, free resources, courses, consulting, and much, much more. Just go to engineering and leadership.com. That's engineering and leadership.com.