Leading the Way Podcast: Michael Bush, CEO Great Place to Work
If you ever wondered how to get on the Great Place to Work list, you’ll want to hear what their CEO, Michael Bush has to say in this week’s episode of Leading the Way. Michael shares with us the inside scoop of what it takes for an organization, and their leadership, to make this elite list of thriving enterprises, and it all starts with an employee survey.
Michael explains why knowing what your employees are thinking, and their level of trust, is key to the success of any organization. In a world that is beginning to revolve around data, Michael shares their data-driven discoveries and his unique perspective on the understanding that how an organization treats people directly impacts the bottom line. Michael explains what prevents companies from changing, despite what the compelling data proves, and what leaders need to know during a crisis or time of change.
With in-depth discussions on the employee experience, innovation and culture this is an eye-opening interview that will get you thinking!
Key Soundbites
- On culture – “People want to be at a place where they enjoy the people that they work with. They want to be at a place where they feel like the people they work with care about them and they want to care about others. When you care about people that you work with, you go the extra mile. You have a sense of pride, and it affects that quality of your work, the intensity of your work.”
- On leadership – “Employees want to be respected by their leaders, want to be listened to, and want to be spoke to a certain way. They want ideas to be fully considered. Those are signs of respect. They also want leaders to speak in an honest and fair way. People want to feel that they’re being treated fairly by their leader.”
- On innovation - “You can’t buy the commitment and unlocking the creativity inside of people, which gets innovation going. It’s about innovation by all. Innovation can’t be in the hands of a few people. Innovation can’t be the responsibility of the top management. They can’t innovate fast enough now. It’s just not possible. The entire workforce has to focus on innovation. We call that innovation by all and the way to get innovation by all is having for-all leaders.”
- On inclusion– “We chose to use ‘maximizing potential’ and to say ‘for all’ so that everyone is included. When you create that kind of culture, everybody feels involved and included, as they absolutely should be. And then you can work on things like representation, because if you don’t have a place that’s inclusive, when you change the representation, people aren’t going to stay.”
- On agility and collaboration - “Trust drives agility and collaboration. If people don’t believe that the people they work with are competent and are capable and are trustworthy, and if they don’t care about the people they work with, they don’t care about their ideas either. You can’t collaborate without caring, without listening and feeling that you’re listening to. The foundation for collaboration and agility, the data’s pretty clear, is trust.”
About Leading the Way
Leading the Way is a weekly radio show and podcast series that highlights influential business leaders and leading people practices from i4cp. Co-hosted by Emmy award-winning television anchor and radio host, Scott Murray, and i4cp’s Angel Carlton, the show features interviews with respected business leaders from the world of business, sports, entertainment, healthcare and philanthropy.
The show airs live every Sunday at 4 pm CT on KLIF 570 in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, the global audience is invited to listen live on www.klif.com and the weekly podcast debuts on iTunes or Google Play and the i4cp website the following week.