O’Brien McMahon is the SVP at Lockton and host of the long-running People Business podcast. Over the course of 225+ episodes, O'Brien has curated a "degree" in human behavior by interviewing the world’s leading experts on leadership and achievement.
In this conversation, O'Brien and Aaron dive into the mechanics of human excellence. They explore why "natural talent" is a myth, how to build leadership capacity through intentional "reps," and the specific ways CPOs can architect a culture that encourages growth.
You Will Learn:
- Why leadership isn't a personality trait, but a skill built through thousands of intentional "reps."
- How to use feedback loops to ensure your practice is actually leading to mastery rather than reinforcing bad habits.
- How to use O'Brien’s "Dinner Party Strategy" to facilitate psychological safety and vulnerability within your team.
Answered on this Episode
- How can leaders move past the "daunting" feeling of building new skills to find empowerment?
- What is the "Model & Encourage" loop, and how does it drive cultural change?
- Why is "layering" small habits more effective than massive organizational culture overhauls?
- How does the way we were raised—like sitting at the "adult table"—impact our professional "natural" abilities?
Advice From O’Brien
1. Be the "Dinner Party" Host for Your Culture: A great host doesn't just provide food; they facilitate connection. If you want a culture of vulnerability, you must highlight it when you see it.
- Actionable Tip: When a team member admits a mistake or shares a "learning moment," don't just move past it. Lean in and say, "I really appreciate you sharing that; it helps us all grow. Has anyone else had a similar experience?" This reinforces the behavior you want to see.
2. Treat Everything as a Skill: We often look at great leaders and think they were "born that way." In reality, they likely started amassing "reps" years ago. If you can teach a human being how to sleep, you can teach them to lead.
- Actionable Tip: Identify one "soft skill" you feel you lack. Instead of viewing it as a character flaw, schedule three 15-minute "reps" this week to practice that specific behavior (e.g., asking open-ended questions in a 1:1).
3 . Practice with the Lights On: Reps alone aren’t enough - you need feedback. Shooting a basketball in the dark won't make you a pro because you can’t see where the ball is landing.
Actionable Tip: After a high-stakes meeting, ask a trusted peer: "What is one thing I did that helped the conversation, and one thing that hindered it?" This "turns the lights on" for your leadership reps.
Find him on LinkedIn: O'Brien McMahon
Transcript:
00;00;01;09 - 00;00;26;01
Aaron
How do we create a new world of work? One where companies succeed because of their leadership, not despite it. I'm Aaron Levy, the founder of Raise The Bar and over the last decade, I've been immersing myself in this question in this podcast, raising the bar on leadership. We talk to people, leaders, founders and culture experts about how they've created a people first culture in the workplace, the challenges, the hurdles, the wins and the failures.
Join me in this movement towards creating the new world of work we want to see. Today we're joined by O'Brien McMahon, the SVP at Lockton, where he helps organizations design top rewards strategies, benefits, compensation and retirement that align with companies culture and business goals. He's also the host of long running People Business podcast, where he explores the human side of work with leaders and experts across various industries.
O'Brien happens to also be one of my close friends. We meet frequently over breakfast in coffee or tea to talk about the latest book or reading the trends in human behavior and just all things human development and behavior. And so this conversation is one of those where we get to jam on what drives people, what drives people to take action consistently.
00;01;14;05 - 00;01;37;17
Aaron
What does mastery and excellence look like and how do you get there? And also, how does that translate to the business workplace into culture and how you create the culture you want to see? It was a really fun time to record with O'Brien. And I think you'll you'll see that fun come through. Enjoy. O'Brien. It's, it's fun to have you officially on the podcast in the, in the green room beforehand.
I was I wasn't sure that you hadn't been on, but it's indeed been the case. You've not been on this podcast. So, so excited to have you on and have one of our many conversations, this one actually be recorded.
00;01;49;27 - 00;01;59;22
O'Brien
I've been harboring so much resentment for not being invited on the show over the years. Every time we get together, it's just been in the back of my head that Sobhi won't invite me on his podcast. No, I'm.
Thrilled to be here. Always enjoy talking and I'm sure we'll have some fun.
00;02;05;28 - 00;02;29;28
Aaron
Yeah. And so you also have a, a podcast that touches on things, people space and people development and human development. I guess I'm really curious. The arc of your career. How did you like you? You're an insurance broker, but I don't think that does your work justice. I'm curious how you got from the work in insurance that you do.
And decided to kind of, like, take a it's still in your work, but create a different path in creating your own podcast and the people business and how that came about.
Sure. So, a couple pieces to tease apart there. So the first one is what do I do for a day job, which is, as you mentioned, I'm a benefits broker, total rewards consultant. So helping companies with their comp, their benefits, their retirement plans, all that good stuff. And I enjoy the work. I enjoy, the people I do it with.
00;03;02;26 - 00;03;33;15
O'Brien
I enjoy the clients I work with. I will say like setting deductibles and co-insurance levels is not my, the the the reason I was put on this earth. And so I think as a lot of people do, we get into jobs, we get into careers, and we think about like, well, is this it? Is this where I'm going to spend my time and very few of us find a job that hits on everything right out of the gate that we love and is like the most fulfilling thing that we ever do.
And so while my career probably checks eight out of ten boxes for me, I had struggled in the beginning with like, is this what I'm going to do for the rest of my life? Am I just going to be an insurance person? And over time, after sort of thinking through that from a lot of different angles, I landed on the story that I tell myself now, which is and I believe this, which is that, every company needs employee benefits and every person out there needs their compensation.
They need their health care. They need their retirement accounts like these are critical things that we all rely on. And our compensation is the base for what we're going to provide or what we're going to create our whole lives on, right? Every any hope and dream that we have to pay for in our lives is going to come through, most likely the compensation we earned at work.
Similarly, if we get sick, our ability to navigate that is largely going to come through the benefits program that we are signed up for. And most of us get that through an employer. Retirement is how we age gracefully and get to fulfill our dreams over time. And so the work that I do really does have a material impact on people, but I like looking at it from that broad lens.
00;04;51;24 - 00;05;15;05
O'Brien
I also so that's like one piece of it, the other piece of it is that my own natural interests and inclinations are around human behavior, human psychology, organizations achievement. Like how do how do we as individuals master ourselves? And how do we as organizations structure ourselves in a way that we get to do what we want to do?
And so the way that I do my work now, while a client might hire us just to, you know, manage their benefits plan and try to keep the costs down, the way that I try to think about it is what is the how does this play into the broader people strategy? The broader business strategy? And then how do we help people on the user end, have a better experience, live a better life, achieve whatever they're trying to achieve together.
And so I've just been a little bit of a nut in that I just that's just kind of how I think about I've just like, broaden the scope of how I think about the work I'm doing in the impact of doing. And because I've broadened it now, that opens up the opportunity for a lot more and different types of conversations.
And so when the pandemic started, was trying to find a way to stay connected to my network, which is mostly human capital leaders and other business leaders. And had the idea to provide some relevant content in the form of a podcast. You know that because you were the first guest on that podcast, five and a half years ago.
00;06;22;06 - 00;06;29;29
Aaron
And then I and I waited and waited and waited and waited till I was like, all right, he maybe he's credible now. Maybe we'll have him on.
00;06;30;02 - 00;06;54;04
O'Brien
And so it was just a way to provide still topics and themes related around the things that I do professionally and the things that I'm passionate about, but help in a different medium in a different way, sort of brand myself in a different way. So I don't know if any of that makes sense, but, that's kind of just how I think about the evolution of my work and how I think about my work and approaching my work.
And then that has open doors to things like the podcast.
Yeah. And and it's seriously been five years, 4 or 5 years, five.
And a half.
00;07;05;01 - 00;07;06;21
Aaron
Private. Time flies.
00;07;06;23 - 00;07;10;11
O'Brien
Yeah. 225 ish episodes as of right now.
00;07;10;13 - 00;07;18;17
Aaron
What's been kind of like the the pleasant surprise in doing this that you, you didn't expect?
00;07;18;19 - 00;07;42;28
O'Brien
I didn't expect how selfish it was going to be. The thing that you don't really realize some podcast host talk about this not like a dirty secret or anything, but like, if I'm going to bring 225 episodes of content to people, they're not going to listen to all of those. But I am right. I'm I just by the nature of being the host, I get to sit through all that content.
I get to ask these experts any question I want to. So I get to curate for myself my own learning. And I did the math a while back. It's probably evolved since, but if you think about a college class, you know your average college class meets for whatever, 3 or 4 hours a week for 16 weeks. I've basically curated like 5 or 6 college classes for myself at this point, just purely setting up my own lectures, asking whatever questions I want.
So, you know, I've gotten my own little degree here in people business. And, and I think that has been the most pleasant surprise.
00;08;23;04 - 00;08;31;11
Aaron
Yeah. You and you, you talk about, like, every business being a people business. What do you mean by that?
00;08;31;13 - 00;08;58;13
O'Brien
Well, I in this is kind of an interesting conversation now with the emergence of AI, but I, I mean, every business is usually going to be made or not made on the backs of the people. Right? It's people having ideas. It's people working together to execute those ideas. It is so much human nature, right. That is going to lead to our success or not.
So every business has a human element, and managing that human element, one might not be the only thing you have to do. It is a critical piece of every business. And that's true if you're in business by yourself. Like if I'm in business by myself, I'm still have a people business, like I'm still a person. I still have to manage my own psychology and I'm still dealing with customers.
So I am still dealing with a human element of people who are buying whatever it is, even if I'm doing it through, through the web, you know, online, social, whatever. I'm still there are still human beings on the other end who are buying whatever I'm selling. And you have to be engaged. You have to provide something of value.
You have to communicate well. And so, yeah, every business is a people business and every person is in business in some way. Right? Everyone has to earn an income. As I said before, everybody has to get money from somewhere to fund their lives in a modern society. And so we are all in business and every business is a people business.
00;09;53;27 - 00;10;17;05
Aaron
And as you've had 220 plus episodes, on top of, your experience being a human in people, businesses and then the clients that you've worked with, what are what are some of the the things that slow down a PayPal business or what are some of the things that drive businesses forwards, just lessons that you've learned?
00;10;17;07 - 00;10;43;19
O'Brien
Yeah. It wasn't a lesson I learned, but it just gets reinforced that something that I always knew, which is just about everything, boils down to communication. It's just like every problem that exists is a communication problem. Every time you want to motivate somebody to do something, it comes down to communication. Every time you want to organize and lead people to do something different.
Communication. Every time something breaks down between you and your business partner, you and your spouse, it's communication. So the skill of communicating effectively is just one of the most critical skills we can have as a human being. The other thing that really got reinforced through the show is the fact that really everything is a skill, like we don't think about.
I guess you can think about speaking as a skill in terms of like public speaking as a skill, but being able to like, actually sit in conversation with someone to be able to ask questions like, these are all skills and it really and not podcast related. But what solidified this thought for me was having children and we used a sleep training book, 12 hours sleep by 12 weeks old.
Recommend it to anybody.
00;11;33;03 - 00;11;35;22
Aaron
Second, that recommendation.
00;11;35;24 - 00;11;59;26
O'Brien
We use that successfully with both of our boys. And it just struck me that if you can teach a human being how to sleep, you can teach a human being just about anything. Like if sleep is a skill that can be acquired through practice and structure, then anything else can be to. And so anything that we take for granted is like, well, this is just who I am.
This is just part of my nature. It's like, know that somewhere along the line you picked up those skills, you saw it modeled, you tried something and got a good reaction and it reinforced what you were doing. You did more of it. Like, we are all we may have inclinations, but we can all build our skill sets. And so those were probably the two biggest takeaways for me.
00;12;24;02 - 00;12;47;11
Aaron
I think that the like everything is a skill is one that sounds great, but most people don't really believe, yeah. Like you're in a room and like, now people don't change. People can't. Yeah, that that person is just not good at this or they just can't, and, or I can't, and, Yeah, he was.
00;12;47;11 - 00;12;49;28
O'Brien
Born that way. Oh, he's, he's just a natural.
00;12;50;02 - 00;12;50;28
Aaron
Oh, yeah, he's a natural.
00;12;51;05 - 00;13;16;23
O'Brien
Oh, you know, whatever. It's like. Yeah. Okay. We can have an inclination, but, like, often what you don't see is the things that they were doing in their childhood that got them the reps. So if everything is a skill, the next iteration for that that I learned is the only way you build skill is by getting reps. I talked to, I interviewed two former Green Berets who now teach leadership as well.
And we were talking about how what they were both West Point grads and how West Point just has this history of putting out some of the country's best leaders, people who evolve into government or business or whatever, and how great they are as leaders. And I said, well, why? Why do you think it is like, what is it about West Point that builds these leaders?
And it it wasn't so much the curriculum, although they are taught leadership. It's that from day one you get there and you are witnessing leadership and you are expected to model leadership, even if it's originally, it's leadership over yourself, and then it's leadership over one person, and then it's leadership over maybe a group of four. But you have four years where you are just amassing a ton of reps of leadership.
00;14;05;21 - 00;14;24;17
O'Brien
And so when they come out at 22, just like any college graduate, at 22, like they've had more leadership reps than most CEOs have just because of the nature of that institution. And so that and I just have heard it from so many different fields like, well, how do you get better at this? You got to get your reps in.
And so we often look at somebody who we think of as a natural. Like I was always at a young age, good. Not always. I was at a young age, good at talking to adults, and I could have mature conversations. But I grew up, when I was seven, my parents joined a country club, and they did Sunday barbecue dinners, and we would sit around with not just a kids table, but like we would sit with other parents, and we were expected to be part of the conversation.
And so from the time I was seven to the time I was, you know, probably 16 or 17 and kind of stopped going to all those barbecues, like I just had dozens and dozens of reps every summer of having really mature conversations. And so by the time I got to college, like I could, I was more comfortable in front of, you know, senior business people or whatever, you know, a professional adults than some of my friends were.
And so now I'm natural at it.
00;15;24;24 - 00;15;51;05
Aaron
Yeah. It's, people people will sometimes tell me I'm like, oh, you're you're really patient or you're a good listener. I'm like, no, that's like, that is not a natural skill set over here. There's been a lot of reps that go into it in constant reps, and I think that's such a valuable insight into human behavior is we don't always see the reps and the work that goes into it, whether it was in their childhood or whether it was.
00;15;51;07 - 00;16;16;06
Aaron
They're like currently working on the reps and putting in the work or they've been putting in in the last three years. And, you know, the oftentimes you hear about the best athletes, like they're the best at practicing. Yeah. And I think about I'm watching a documentary on Martin Scorsese, and I've, I was a with my film background, always paid attention to these directors and was always astounded by how many films they made when they were 15, 16, 17, 18.
I remember I was into films and I, I'd like I make once in a while. I don't really put myself out there and do it. And like they're doing it over and over and over again. So by the time they're 50 or 45, they're making these masterpieces because, yeah, they built and built and built the raps well.
00;16;32;29 - 00;16;49;26
O'Brien
So I, I love watching behind the scenes stuff too. And we a week ago finally sat down with I sat down with my two boys and we watched K-pop Demon Hunters. Right. We're late, late to the game. But everybody in the world has watched that now. We watched it last week, and then I like watching all the behind the scenes stuff.
And so what the woman who voices, Rumi's singing voice, who's the main character's singing voice? She actually wrote a lot of the songs that were there, too. I think she had three Billboard 100 hits at the same time off that album, and I've been watching a lot of interviews with her, and she spent ten years in the, like, trainee K-pop system, learning several different languages, several different types of dance, songwriting, singing different instruments like she was put through this gantlet for a decade and then did a bunch of professional stuff and then just was an overnight success, you know, with this album that nobody had heard of her before, but she'd been putting in
all of this time and energy over the course of her career. And so I think about this principle, and I find it both empowering and incredibly daunting when you realize that it's just reps and we can all do this because on the one hand, it's empowering and you're like, man, I could do anything. This is great. Like I could go out and build any skill I want to build.
This is so empowering. But on the other hand, you're like, oh my God, that's so much work, and I'm going to stink. And I have to be a terrible beginner and it's going to take so long. And if this person did this thing for like ten years before they were successful, like, God, I don't know if I can do that.
And so I think I feel myself battling that and I'm a pretty achievement oriented person. So I know other people are feeling that too. And I think that that's just part of the process in anything. And I think when you when you really do read about successful people, you find that they are battling those feelings as well, like, oh, this is daunting.
00;18;33;14 - 00;18;54;22
O'Brien
This is a lot of work, but they just don't let it stop them. And so I think for anybody who wants to go do anything, lean into the empowerment side of that and just do whatever you got to do, get a body, have an accountability partner, you know, what's it called, a habit stack. You know, whatever you got to do to get there, to make it habit.
But just like, don't be don't be overwhelmed by the work that it takes and the rep that it takes to be successful.
00;19;01;20 - 00;19;20;15
Aaron
Yeah. One of the one of the bigger blind spots I see with, reps is that not all reps are created equal, unfortunately. So if you're not willing to kind of like learn from the rep, right. You can just like keep doing the same old thing in sales, let's say. Right. Like I'm just I've had a thousand sales meetings.
But if you've not like taken insights or feedback or adapted from each one, or if you've not cross-referenced it against some sort of process that you're trying to follow it through, the reps don't add up as much. They still add up because you still have all that information. You're, you know, you're still getting all that. But I would just say, as we're talking about this, one thing that I've learned in the in the experience of human behavior is also making sure you're identifying, like ways to learn from those reps and ways to get get feedback, whether it's in the middle of the rap or after the rep.
I think the analogy I like to use is like, if you just shoot in a basketball in the dark, you're not going to get a bunch of information. But if you as you turn the light on, you're gonna be like, oh, okay, I'm missing it constantly this way. I'm missing it constantly that way. And and to your point, it's just because you want to achieve something greater doesn't mean that that greater like that the steps along the way aren't useful, or that the where you are six weeks from where from now will be a much better place.
Yeah. It's not ten years from now. Yeah. If you keep at it, it's going to keep getting better and better and better. And also, we're talking about your reference as someone who's, three Billboard top one hundreds, right. Like, so they're at the peak, or they're pretty darn close to the peak. And yeah, that takes time.
00;20;37;01 - 00;21;01;13
O'Brien
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. And the quality of the reps matters. You know, I think about it to, I have a friend and, I was talking I don't remember exactly what we were talking about. I wish I did, but I was telling her about how I was thinking about the future and sort of how I was evolving myself in my work.
And something about this topic, like how I was leaning in and getting better and was kind of engaging here. It was going to work this way and then that way. And she just looked at me kind of funny and shook her head, and she said, you know, my brain does not work that way. So, like, I don't think that that thought would ever cross my mind.
And we laughed. But I think about that a lot because I do tend to be a pretty introspective person. I very naturally am like, okay, how do I get better at this? How do I get better at this? I've, I've that it's been reinforced for me enough over enough period of time that if I put the reps in, things will get better.
And now I like that and I crave that. But a lot of people are not there. It's like going to the gym. If you go to the gym for five years and then you get up again and you go to the gym tomorrow, it'll feel good. You'll get a runner's high or whatever it is. You know, you get those endorphins if you've never been to the gym and you get up tomorrow and go to the gym, it's just going to suck.
Like you haven't built up enough stamina and enough practice and enough like dopamine pathways to have it pay off that first time you go. And so people who are starting to lean in and make these changes, I think it can feel really hard too. And so I always encourage people, like anytime you're thinking about making a change like this, it's like, just pick the smallest incremental adjustment that you can make.
Like, you know, if I just went for a walk, it would be better than what I'm doing today. It's like, great, just go for the walk then. And just like, keep going for the walk. And then you eventually you get to a point where you're like, you know, it'd be even better than this is if I did like 100 burpees a week
Okay, great. Now, just like find a time to fit that and like eventually over five years now you're going to the gym every day and you've got a pretty good routine and you're you're fit, you've lost a bunch of weight, but it's like, we want it now, but we try to change everything and then it just sucks. And then we're and then we feel bad and then we stop versus just taking it slowly and building it just like one little iteration at a time.
00;23;03;08 - 00;23;36;23
Aaron
Yeah, one layer time. And what's interesting is we're talking about what we both geek out on whenever we get breakfast or lunch or hang out, which is, you know, inevitably it rounds back to human behavior. And I had a feeling it might just get here. I guess one of the things I'm wondering from your experience with clients and also your experience talking to people at the forefront of, human behavior in the workplace is not we just talked about, like, all of the work that goes into one individual getting a little bit better.
How does that how do you translate that? Or how do you see clients or friends or, you know, people at the forefront who you're talking to? Translate that into a workplace culture?
That is the, that is the moneymaking question. Right? I think the best thing you can do is model the way I think the second best thing you can do is talk the way, if that makes sense. And I'll unpack that in a second. And I think the third best thing you can do then is encourage the way.
00;24;14;03 - 00;24;32;23
O'Brien
And so what that means is you have to model it because people have a B.S. factor. And if you're asking them to do something that you're not doing yourself, or you're giving them a standard that you're not holding for yourself, you're just never going to be successful. So I think you have to model the way. You don't have to do everything, but you have to model the way.
You have to hold a standard for yourself. The next one, then, is I see people in business shy away from communication, and I went back to like, everything is about communication and I see leaders and I be curious your take on this because you're the you're the leadership guy. Like I just see some leaders who are like, well, we're not going to communicate that yet because it's not fully baked.
And, you know, I you know, I don't know that they need to hear that. And I'm just a person of like, if you have a culture that you want to create, you have to communicate what that culture is. You have to overcommunicate culture to the point that people are sick of hearing about it, at least to the point that you're sick of saying it.
But I just over and over again, the strongest cultures that I've seen talk about their culture. It's not just left up to chance. It's not just, well, this is just how we behave. It's like, no, no, no, this is what it means to work here. It's like Seth Godin's people like us do things like this. Like you have to say that people like us, you know, people at ABC company do things like this.
People who work at Raise The Bar, do things like this, like people who are in this yoga studio do things like this. Like you have to actively communicate what the culture is. And then the third piece of that is you have to then encourage and like.
Reinforce that culture when you see it in other people. So you you have to make it okay and safe for them to be the thing you want them to be. I found this, so a good example of this is with dinner parties. This is a total tangent, but I found this with Dennis. Go here. There is a skill to hosting a dinner party where especially the ones that I love to do, I have a lot of friends from disparate groups, so they may not all know each other.
00;26;27;07 - 00;26;54;08
O'Brien
And so you bring all those people together to a dinner party and the host, who knows everyone, has this great opportunity where somebody will somebody will say something that's maybe a little bit vulnerable, and you could just let it go and let the conversation flow. But what you can also do is you can then as the host, lean in and say, oh, that's that's such a great insight, or wow, that's such a great story.
Thank you for sharing that. That reminds me of something you did, Sally, or something you did, Joe. Like, can you tell that thing, that experience that you had and now you're one, you're reinforcing that this person just did something good by being vulnerable. And then you're you're empowering somebody else, or you're asking somebody else to step in and match that vulnerability.
Or even if you're doing, oh, that reminds me when I did this embarrassing thing, have you guys ever had that happen? Right. And now you're creating this safe space. It goes back to really just psychological safety, but you're creating a psychologically safe environment where now people can lean into the type of behaviors that you want them to have.
I want a dinner party where people can come in and be vulnerable and just like, really get to know human beings across the table. So I encourage that in the office. I want to be somebody who encourages a growth mindset. And so anytime somebody comes in with a new idea, I want to encourage that idea, reinforce that new ideas are welcome here.
And like, bring somebody else in to see that new idea and spur an idea of their own. So I think, I mean, I guess ultimately it's just psychological safety, but I think there is a skill to like facilitating that culture within the people as well.
00;28;09;22 - 00;28;34;14
Aaron
Yeah. It does. It does take a skill. It does take an awareness. I think, I've noticed as a CEO of now, not a very large company at all, but, one of the things in your write, in your model talk, it encourages like encourages is easy if it's top of mind. Right. Like, I know the important psychological safety when I see someone being vulnerable or when I like, you know, do your best in those moments, you can't guarantee it, but you can do your best to cultivate it.
I think the part that you mentioned that gets that misses a lot is the talk about it is the, is the communicating it out. And it's, it goes personally because you have assumptions of what people see or know or think already. So do I really need to say that again? Do I really need to communicate this?
This is like or and you don't realize that like the dots may connect in your head, but it didn't connect in somebody else's head.
00;29;01;15 - 00;29;23;27
O'Brien
Yeah. Well, so I studied, media in college. I was a mass communication major. And one of the things that we studied is advertising. And people generally the statistics, at least then. And I'm sure it's worse now with all the messages we see. But you had to show somebody in. Advertisement three times before they even recognized that they saw it.
And so you may have gone out and said this great speech, but people won't even remember that. They heard you say it until you've said it at least 3 to 5 times. And then it's like, oh yeah, no, he did say that thing, but they probably won't even remember what it was. Right. And so you have to say your messages 710, 15, 20 times before people are able to actually recall it for themselves.
00;29;46;13 - 00;30;07;05
Aaron
Which I think is so important for anybody at any like any executive, any leader listening to this, even if you're not their coach, the champion of the culture. Right. It's like, why the hell does that person not do what I'm asking them to do? It's like, well, because that's not how human beings work. And like, it takes a while to absorb messages and you might need to repeat yourself again.
00;30;07;05 - 00;30;32;02
Aaron
And then you get frustrated by having to repeat yourself. But like, that's part of the process. And it's something I talked to a bunch executives all the time, which is like, okay, this isn't going well. But I've tried this, this and this is what it's probably not your VP's fault. More than likely it's your fault if something is not happening at the business level that you want to have happening, who's the person or team that is responsible?
00;30;32;04 - 00;30;54;14
Aaron
Oh, it's our executive team. Yeah. Okay. So go ahead. Blame your VP, blame your director, do whatever you want. But at the end of the day, it's it's really on you to make it happen, which is either replace your VP or coach them up or make sure they understand what they're you're trying to have them do. And it's, yeah, it's it's very, very hard.
And I think definitely people teams which I've seen some do more of this, but I would love like it's the, it's the wish I have for the strategic people leaders. That are listening to this. As I wish you were able to get a internal comms person or, put some get some time on internal communications or internal marketing because we spend a lot of energy externally advertising, marketing, selling the business.
We don't spend as much time marketing, selling what we're do, like the culture. Yeah. And that takes, as you said, you know, saying it multiple times and also probably saying in a different format and presenting in ways that people hear it in the like, why should I care about this message when there's 20 other slacks and emails and whatnot coming, coming my way?
00;31;44;03 - 00;31;56;11
O'Brien
Well, so you've tapped into something else too. I've had a number of internal communications people on the podcast, and they're always fun conversations and I talk to.
Everyone literally like every HR leader that I've talked to this year, whether they're a client or not, has said something to the effect of our communications aren't working. People don't understand. They're not following along. They don't know where to go. They don't see the value. It's like some version of our communications aren't working. And when you look at how companies are communicating largely we are communicating the same way that we were communicating 20 years ago.
We are just doing it in a fancier format. So we're worried about making the email look nicer. We're not thinking about a different way to get that message to the person. And so relooking at what mediums we're using is can be really powerful right now. Are you using short form video or using long form video? Are you, using audio or using podcasts or little snippets?
Are you, using memes? Are you using humor? These are all the things that we all like when we doom scroll on our phones, right? They're the things that keep us engaged, and yet we're not doing them in the workplace. Like the idea of adding humor to a business email or putting a meme on an open enrollment.
You know, communication is like, well, we can't do that here. But it's like, but that's what you like, and it's what all your people like, too. So, yeah, I think updating our communications not just to look nicer or have better words, but to actually rethink about the mediums we're using, I think it's something almost every company needs right now.
00;33;36;00 - 00;33;54;17
Aaron
Yeah. And it actually, it makes me smile because those are some of the favorite internal messages that we have. Right? It's like when when there is a Jif or a meme or a combination, and then somebody else builds on it and it becomes then more memorable and more people see it, because there's, you know, there's a little Seinfeld, you know, dancing or something.
You know, there's there's always something that you can find if you take a moment to convey the idea and not your words. But in a in a jiff. Yeah.
00;34;02;22 - 00;34;03;19
O'Brien
Yeah, you're the other thing.
The other thing along those lines, too, is like, we are in a personality culture right now, right? Like we we follow online personalities. You see CEOs becoming personalities and thought leaders, and they're all they're out there with their platforms now. We're a personality society in a lot of ways that can translate internally to I'd a client who I was having this conversation with, and I didn't even know she did this, but she came back a year later and she had launched her own set of regular video, short form videos on benefits.
And they were they were benefits bites was what she called them. And she would do some speaking herself. She would interview either like a vendor partner or she would interview, an internal employee or something like that. They weren't more than like three minutes long at the longest, but it was her on camera. And what she found was that no matter what office she went to, people would be like, oh, benefits by its benefits, by its benefits, bites.
00;35;04;28 - 00;35;27;13
O'Brien
And they knew that she was the benefits person. And so then they started coming to her with their benefits questions, which is what she had been wanting them to do all along. Right? Like she was like, oh, these people aren't paying attention to the benefits stuff. But as soon as they had a person like a human being that was now like the corporate benefits person, they had that personality and they they wanted that personality.
And so it it resonated really well. Like if you're the internal comms person or you're the marketing person or you're whatever, you can be that personality inside the confines of your corporation and actually create a nice following and viewership of the people of the target market that you want, which is your employees. And so it it's a little weird because a lot of us don't like to put ourselves out there, like to be here on video with you now, like it's comfortable for me now.
But it was not at the beginning to put yourself out there. But if you can get through that hurdle and do it in a way that feels authentic, you can create an like a personality for yourself within your business.
00;36;08;09 - 00;36;29;19
Aaron
I think that's so interesting and neat and, and actually comes up to, to a question I'm curious about, which is benefits, total rewards. It is the like as an employee. It's the non sexy thing. You don't really think about. You only think about when you need it or when it goes wrong and and you.
00;36;29;19 - 00;36;32;01
O'Brien
Think about how much more money you want to be making or how.
00;36;32;01 - 00;36;47;03
Aaron
Much more money. Yeah, you don't think about the cost of that until you like leaving. Like, oh my God, I got all those things and now I don't get it at this place. And then you ask for it and, and then, you know, it's it takes work, right? I have to, like, open a roll again or we're doing a different broker.
I have to give him my doctor's name or a doctor's. I have to do all these things, or I have to, you know, update my for, like, all the things that are good for you and everything you described at the start of this conversation, it takes work to get people to actually take action on those. And so I'm curious about what have you seen in your work or what have you seen from clients who've been innovative?
Kind of like this benefits by Twitter things you've seen that helps people, close the gap between, hey, this is what this is what we're going after. And now here's what you get. And how do you actually engage with it? Employee to employee.
00;37;24;02 - 00;37;52;07
O'Brien
Yeah. So along those lines, there are vendors that are out there now that are making this easier. And I think if we think about what we're really talking about is customer experience right. Or user experience. So what is the person interfacing with and how many steps and how confusing are those steps. And so they're like, I'll give a shout out to an app, health joy.
There's another one healthy, which is E health E both of those are app based aggregators where you can put all of your benefits information. You can you can put, your policy information, your HR policy information. You can put your ancillary benefits stuff in there. And now they're both of them have AI capabilities. Health. Joy does some other stuff.
Healthy is purely AI health. Joy has some, human interface behind it as well as AI, but both are places where people can, on their phone, access anything in their benefits that they would need. They get direct access to a nurse. They get direct access to a doctor. They can schedule appointments through those apps if they have back pain.
00;38;41;01 - 00;39;02;19
O'Brien
If they go into the app with the AI and they have back pain, it'll direct them to point solutions that you've put in place for musculoskeletal issues. It'll or it'll get them to the right doctor or the right ortho. If they need to have surgery. It'll also prompt them automatically for how to file a leave claim.
So there's like there's technology out there. That's event. That's advancing that will make this a lot easier for people. And I think just keeping an ear to the ground. Working with your broker on what the latest round of technology looks like, because it is it's changing quickly. There are companies emerging all the time. And even like health Joy two years ago could not do half of what it's doing today.
Healthy did not exist 2 or 3 years ago. And so this stuff is changing rapidly. So it's just making sure that you're working with somebody who, like I said, has their ear to the ground and is bringing some of these new ideas because the technology is out there to to sort of aggregate everything into one place. And that in and of itself, I think is a best practice.
We've created these benefits packages that, you know, medical, dental, life, disability, your pet insurance, your voluntary benefits, your, legal assistance, your ID theft. There's like, there's just so much out there. And what we found sort of pre-pandemic into the pandemic was like, we wanted to meet everybody where they were. And so we added, added, add it added, added, and then it just got too confusing.
00;40;10;21 - 00;40;38;25
O'Brien
And everybody was paralyzed by all these great things that we did. And so now what you're seeing is not necessarily taking away, but we're seeing like organizing it all. You talk about human behavior in psychology. If I have ten options and I just see the ten options in on ten different websites, and I have to go manage those ten options on my own, that is incredibly daunting if I have ten options, but they're all nested within one app and I can do everything in that one place.
Now it becomes one thing, and it's much easier for my brain to process the one thing than it is the ten things. And so there's like almost a little bit of a psychological trick that you can do now with these aggregators. Another good example of that is like lifestyle savings accounts. So if you have stipends for a bunch of different things, I have a couple clients who have like a stipend for their, employees home office setups.
They have a stipend. If you have a baby, they have a stipend for 2 or 3 other things, and they're like, I don't know, there's just, like, money being added to people's paychecks. They're not getting any credit for it. So now you can do a lifestyle savings account where you can give one stipend, but within that account, you can pick what they're allowed to, use that money for.
00;41;22;24 - 00;41;43;29
O'Brien
And so you can have it for parental stuff. You can have it for fitness stuff, you can have it for home office stuff. But now we're just going to give you like one set of money, and now you're actually aggregating it all into one place. So it's easier for people to process. And whereas before you were just like putting it into their paycheck, now you can actually get credit for it because when they go to use it, it's like, oh yeah, this is that extra benefit.
It's not just like money that's in your paycheck. So there, there are there are ways to start to aggregate this down that psychologically create the ease of experience and the value that companies have been looking for for a long time.
00;41;59;18 - 00;42;17;02
Aaron
Oh yeah. That's because it is a lot. Right. And there are a lot of things. And also companies aren't able to give as much as they were. Right. Like during the pandemic right out, you know, right, right after when people realized, oh, we're saving on these costs so we can put more into this stuff and also have a better bottom line.
And then, right, kind of like the world economy's changed.
00;42;19;20 - 00;42;20;25
O'Brien
And then everyone got back up.
00;42;20;25 - 00;42;45;03
Aaron
Yeah, everything caught back up. And they don't have as much money to spend on everything. So how do you make sure it's working for the people that are, that are needing it? I guess, one of the things that I'm, I would love to because you talk to so many, people, people what's what's the trend, in the people space that you're most excited about or even in the human development tastes like what's something or something you've read?
Because we we talk about our favorite books all the time. But what's something that you are personally just excited about? A trend you're excited about?
00;42;57;03 - 00;43;22;21
O'Brien
I don't know that I have a good answer for that. Here's what I see right now. Here's what I would be excited about. So I just I do a quarterly newsletter. We're on quarter two. So I started this summer, but the, the piece I just wrote for the for the newsletter now was based on a conversation I had at this event.
And I was sitting next to this chief people officer and we were talking about benefits. And she just says at all cost if if somebody could figure out how to get this cost down, that's, that's all we care about. All we care about is cost. And everybody, all the other chief people officers are nodding their heads at the table.
And I just kind of lean forward with a smirk on my face and said, with all due respect, that's not it. And she was like, what do you mean? And everybody was like, what do you mean? Like, these costs are crazy. And I was like, no, no, no, I'm not saying the costs aren't crazy. I'm not saying costs aren't a huge issue.
00;43;57;21 - 00;44;27;20
O'Brien
But if we're playing cards like Cost is King, but disruption is the ace like disruption will trump cost when it comes to how companies are making decisions. And so what I see happen is people want to do different things. They want to try different things, but anything new is a change for employees. And change is scary and disruptive.
00;44;27;22 - 00;45;01;26
O'Brien
And most companies are making decisions trying to keep the employees in as much status quo as possible. And that's not a bad thing. I'm not like I'm not criticizing them, but I think there is a ton of opportunity on the other side of that. If we are willing to lean into a little bit of discomfort. So the things that I would be most excited about would be teams that are really challenging themselves on communications, teams that are really challenging themselves on the user experience, like the things that we've already been talking about.
Those are things that I'm that I'm probably most excited about. But what I would really be excited about is getting around the table next this next planning cycle with our clients and starting to talk about disruption, tolerance, and really having them lean in to figure out ways that we can positively disrupt the way things are going right now.
00;45;26;21 - 00;45;50;20
Aaron
We're going to have to have a, another conversation after after this, this, this benefit cycle that you go through after this, cycle with your clients to see what kind of disruption comes out of that. This was, as expected, a blast. Just to kind of get the jam and talk with you. And, this is very much like our, our monthly or quarterly breakfasts that we do, but this one was just recorded.
00;45;50;20 - 00;45;53;05
O'Brien
So I ask you a lot more questions in those.
00;45;53;05 - 00;45;57;22
Aaron
So, yeah, but we get to jam just like this.
00;45;57;25 - 00;46;03;17
O'Brien
Let me ask you before, before we sign off, what is the trend that you are most excited about? I'm curious about your take on that question.
00;46;03;20 - 00;46;48;02
Aaron
Yeah. I'm most excited about what? I anticipate the trend with AI to be, which, there's a lot of disruption, there's a lot of mess, and there will continue to be a lot of messiness with AI and how it's used properly, improperly, how it's biased and and it it will. My hope is that it automates and makes things efficient so that we're more reliant on the people skills and we're more reliant on the things that I can't do, which is have a tough conversation, which is, create a space of psychological safety, which is like the human skills, that drive humans to work better together.
00;46;48;02 - 00;47;10;12
Aaron
And so I'm excited for, hopefully not so distant future where there is just a stronger emphasis on what you said, like communication, because it's it's even more glaring. Right? Like, you can look back at last 100 years of the workplace and say like, oh, yeah, and a synopsis like communication is quite important. And I think this will heighten people's perception of that need.
Like, oh yeah, shit. Like communication is really important. Like coding and Excel skills and all that other stuff. And modeling is, is a is a nice to have because we don't we can just so anybody can plug that in. They don't need to know how to code to code anymore. Yeah. But you need to know how to like, give a piece of tough feedback, hold someone accountable to something they said they would do that they're not doing.
And so, yeah, that that gets me, a little bit excited.
00;47;39;00 - 00;48;07;04
O'Brien
I love it. Yeah. I, the AI conversations are obviously an interesting one. I'm solidifying some thoughts now. I mean, who knows if I'll be right or not, but I, I it feels a little bit like this is tech 1.0, and I feel like the whether whether it's an actual bubble or not, like economically, it feels like there's a little bit of a bubble happening now where there's a bunch of excitement, but like, nobody knows what this is going to look like yet.
It's like if you had to go to like 1998 and be like, what's the internet going to look like in 2020? Nobody would predict that what it is today. I think that's probably the same position we're in now, but it's like you got to be in the mess. You got to be in the soup to get where we need to go.
And so we're just all kind of living in this soup right now.
00;48;24;25 - 00;48;44;00
Aaron
Yeah, a lot of false starts, a lot of figuring stuff out, a lot of confusion, and a lot of good things and bad things. So it'll be it'll be an interesting journey. Yeah. This was this was really fun. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for sharing your insights and perspective. And, I'm glad we finally had John.
00;48;44;02 - 00;48;59;12
O'Brien
Yeah, I appreciate the invite. Hope it was interesting. And, I mean, I love engaging in these conversations. So if anybody, heard anything that you want to keep the conversation going on, you can find me on LinkedIn. And, would love to chat.
00;48;59;14 - 00;50;16;29
Aaron
Raising The Bar On Leadership produced by the bot. We help organizations level up by empowering their managers with skills and training to be better leaders and people who can get in touch with us and raise bar. Thank you for listening.
