Chief executives, let's consider connections at the work place.

In the last month, I participated in a panel discussion about Quiet Quitting at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos. It is a rapid change in the workforce it seems to me that leaders, like us have been asking plenty of pertinent questions. what are the advantages and disadvantages of working remotely , the dangers and opportunities presented by AI and the necessity to develop better and more sustainable companies.

One question, however, merits more focus If the Generation X workforce is evolving and technology is evolving as well as post-pandemic behaviours as well as expectations changing...don't we as leaders have to evolve as well?

There's a whole generation of Digital Natives that are entering the working world. They were taught to create videos and sharing them instead of making calls or texts as they are able to think of TikTok or YouTube the best sources of information. In their personal lives, they're in touch as well as extremely involved.

But in the workplace, it's quite different. There are notable reductions in the level of engagement and satisfaction in employees who work remotely Z and younger generation millennials. Just four percent of the young people who work from home or in hybrid environments understand what's expected of them working, as well as over half of Gen Z employees are ambivalent or unengaged at work. If we view employee engagement as a leading indicator of productivity in the workplace and in productivity, it can have a significant impact on every business and every business's profits.

What's causing this disconnection? In work, as well as in life, we all want to be part of some bigger picture than we are. It is an intense desire for belonging and to have an authentic identity that is clear that is unfiltered, authentic and authentic. The more of our workforce becomes digitally distributed and AI-enabled and ad-hoc more difficult it becomes to experience a sense of connection all the time. Particularly, if, as of yet, we've not changed the way we interact to better meet the demands of the next generation. We still ask our employees to comprehend a myriad of papers, compose long emails, and take part in boring meeting. People learn about layoffs and company priorities through comms made up of scripts and automated ones that could have come from ChatGPT. Our only insight as executives have is through surveys of engagement that are cookie-cutter or live events which have extremely poor turn-in rate, as well as those snarky chats and Q&A.

The outdated model of management is failing us. It's time to adapt how we , as leaders, act and communicate with our employees. As we focus on reskilling our workforce to meet the demands changing population sizes, demographics and technology trends and also, we need to enhance our leadership capabilities so that we can build trust and connections on a large scale.

I've played around with a lot of this in the past several years . These are the techniques I'm learning and implementing, that I believe can assist us in presenting differently and become more efficient in our leadership

     1. Find out who you are and live your life as you want to.

In the early days of the outbreak I held an international town hall from my parents' home in Flint, Michigan -- worn out, and in my velvet pajamas as my toddler son and my grandmother, who was shuffled across the backdrop.

Perhaps it was my most successful communication of all time.

Why? because it wasn't scripted, vulnerable, and messy. We tend to gravitate to "us versus them" conversations when working in a workplace, especially in times of stress or challenge. It's easy to think of "leadership" as nameless machinery that doesn't have a face. Always being video-first when communicating can be a potent deterrent. It helps remove the veil, and shield yourself from writing and editing communication. One of the best ways to stand out is to present yourself as you are.

In the end, there certain instances of individuals who were vulnerable which ended up backfiring...but I would say that, in the majority of these instances, the issue was that it was too performative. It is important to be willing your vulnerability as a part of you that is raw to make mistakes when you are in front of your coworkers. Everyone has flaws and that makes us human. All of us want to see our leaders be courageous. The result is that we are inspired to strive to emulate them.

     2. Start by asking "why . "

Much like many executives, leaders faced difficult decisions over the course of the year. The choices range from executive cuts and layoffs to restructuring and closing down projects to increase efficiency. My responsibility is to make the hard, unpopular decision-making and to implement swift changes within the entire organization.

In my experience, more often than not, people wanting to understand the rationale behind their decisionsand not only"the "what" but also"the "why". It is important to understand the bigger market or the competitive environment that's considered and balanced, in addition to the details of who was involved and when.

The classic communications strategy suggests that when there is an important issue in communication that is time-bound, begin by asking "what" before getting right to the core and the essential steps. But, I've had more success at getting my team to accept a tough choice when I present my employees as the key people who must be informed about the current situation.

In the end, the beginning of a conversation by asking "why" is a fundamental rule in all communications . Naturally, there are restrictions to being completely transparent (legal or PR-related risks to customers) but I've found that in the vast majority of instances, the perceived obstacles to transparency are simply the result of. Perceived. People will not always agree with your choices, but you could say that if they don't then you're probably not doing the job you're supposed to do. They will nevertheless recognize and appreciate your choices by starting with the why.

     3. Invest in in-person or in-person meetings, and make it individual.

Yes, I recognize that it's ironic for being the chief executive officer of a film business stating that. However, one of my biggest lessons in the past few months has been that we waited for too long, and we didn't plan enough to bring our teams on a daily basis.

In the month of January, one week after conducting layoffs, we held a corporate kickoff event in NYC. Our employees flew in from more than 12 different countries. The employees we had were located in Ukraine and took trains or planes to reach to the airport. We ditched the typical event celebration confetti and chose to opt for a simple environment on a shoestring. This was among the most exciting and beneficial options I've had.

It is more effective when, as leaders, you travel and visit your employees wherever they may be. I'm a dispersed executive team spread across eight cities that span from Seattle all the way to Switzerland. They were hired in the past year and are still new and only starting to form a bond as a group. In order to speed up the process of gelling the group, we started organizing offsites in the houses of the cities of each leader's home. Our CFO's mother was a guest near her home in Vermont. Our Sales Head wore his apron. We were served frittatas by him to enjoy breakfast. We held working sessions in the Chef of Product's table.

The illness gave us the unintentional opportunity to peek into others' homes and private lives -- if we take advantage of that and incorporate the information into our daily working lives, we be able to build stronger, more cohesive teams.

     4. Go from "lean back" to "lean forward" experience.

A crucial communication skill is the capability to design "lean forward" activities, and which is not "lean back" broadcasts. We humans are apathetic and our attention spans are becoming shorter (now less than eight seconds and less than the length of how long that it takes to catch a fish!). But we continue to send out one-to-many messages via email, whether that you read, or through a well constructed town hall that lets you sit and watch.

When we consider the impact of this on engagement, it is reflected in our own statistics, where the average time to end a session of watching a video has decreased during the past few years. If we don't change our approach, tune-out is going to seriously hamper our ability to ensure that our teams remain aligned and efficient.

It is crucial to shift our mindset and openness to new things. Generation X is in the workforce and are far ahead of us with their capability to design and collect authentic and rich data. They're ahead of us because they're not subject to the limitations that were imposed for years in traditional communications methods at work.

The truth is that employees don't quit their work. They quit bosses. The truth is that CEOs are the ultimate manager, and according to an study of more than 113,000 managers one of the key elements for being an effective leader is the trust of their staff. Leaders must demonstrate to us how to conduct ourselves in a more genuine, engaging and authentic methods. I'm betting that executives who are open to the changing world will have more success managing the future generation of workers. They'll be more informed and will engage teams that are distributed and ensure that they are aligned to achieve better results and develop strong connections that result in outstanding results. They'll cease communicating and instead communicate more effectively.

This post was first seen on here