CEOs, let's reimagine connection at work.

Last month I participated in a panel discussion about Quiet the Quiet during the World Economic Forum's annual gathering in Davos. It is a fast-changing world for workers and I am struck that leaders, like us, are engaging in many of the right questions: the pros and cons of remote work as well as the opportunities and risks that are presented through AI and the necessity to develop better and more sustainable companies.

One question, however, is deserving of greater attention: If our workforce is changing and technology is evolving the way we conduct business, post-pandemic behaviours and standards are changing...don't our leaders have to evolve too?

There's an entire Generation of Digital Natives making their way into the work force. They grew up creating and sharing videos , not messaging or calling as they think of TikTok or YouTube their best source of data. Personally they're hyper-connected, and equally hyper-engaged.

However, in their professional lives there's a completely different picture. We're seeing dramatic reductions in employee engagement and satisfaction among the remote Gen Z and younger millennials. Fewer than four in ten younger employees who are remote or hybrid understand what's expected of them when they work More than half of Gen Z employees are ambivalent or unengaged at work. If we view employee engagement as the most important indicator for workforce productivity This has enormous implications for every company and for every company's financial performance.

What is causing this disconnect? At work, as well as in our lives everyone wants to be part of something greater than ourselves. It is our natural desire for belonging, to feel the sense of belonging that is transparent, unfiltered as well as authentic. Yet the more our workforce is digitally dispersed and AI-connected and ad-hoc, the harder it is to feel a genuine connection every day. Particularly, if we've not changed the way we interact to meet the next generation. It is still common for us to ask employees to digest dense documentation or write lengthy emails and take part in inefficient gatherings. They learn about layoffs and company priorities through comms which are so automated and scripted that they could be generated by ChatGPT. Our only insight as leaders have on this is via cookie-cutter surveys on engagement and live events that have very low turn-in rates, and the occasionally snarky chat or Q&A.

Traditional management models are failing us. It's time to change how we as leaders show up and connect with our employees. Just as we are focused on reskilling our workforce with regard to changes in population size, demographics as well as technological trends and trends, we should also improve our leadership skills, to better establish trust and build connections at large.

I've played around with a lot of this in the past several years . Here are the skills I'm learning and adopting which I think will help us show up differently and be more effective in our leadership:

 1. Realize who you are, and be yourself.

In the early days of the pandemic, I ran a global town hall from my home in Flint, Michigan -- exhausted, in my velvet pajamas with my son, who is a toddler, and my grandma shuffling between the background.

Perhaps it was my most effective communication ever.

Why? Because it was unscripted as well as messy, vulnerable and awkward. We tend to gravitate to "us versus us versus them" interactions when we work in a workplace, especially when we are under stress or challenge. It's very simple to imagine "leadership" as an unnamed machines that have no face. Making sure that you are video-first in your communication is a powerful antidote. This forces you to shed the mask and protection of writing and editing comms. One of the best ways to make it clear is to present yourself as you are.

In the end, there is a lot of instances of leaders becoming vulnerable and backfiring...but I think that in the vast majority of these instances it was because they were performing to the point of failure. You have to be willing to let that part of yourself to fail when you are in front of your team. Flaws are what makes us human. Everyone wants to see our leaders be brave -- it only inspires us to emulate them even more.

 2. Start with the "why ."

Like many leaders have had to make difficult choices over the course of the year. From executive cuts and layoffs to the reorganization and shutdown of projects in the name of efficiency. My job is to make those difficult call, not-popular decisions and implement rapid changes across the organization.

Increasingly, I see employees wanting to know the reasoning behind their decision-making processes, not just the "what" but the "why". It is a need to understand the broader competition or market context as well as the way in which trade-offs are considered and balanced, as well as the process that was used and when.

The old comms playbook suggests that when there is a piece of critical communication that requires your attention to be a little strained, start by asking the "what" and get straight to the essential actions. But I have been far more successful in getting people to make a decision when I approach my employees as the key people who are entitled to know the circumstances.

In the end, starting with "why" is a first principle for all comms at . There are of course constraints to being fully transparent (legal or PR-related, management, risk to the customer) however I've observed that most of the time that the obstacles can be described as. Perceived. People will not always agree with your choices, but it is possible to argue that if they do they are not performing your job. However, they'll accept and respect your decisions by starting with the reason behind it.

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

Yes, I recognize the irony of the chief executive of a company that produces videos telling this. However, one of my most important learnings from the past couple of months is that we waited too long and weren't intentional enough in bringing our teams together in the real world.

In January, just a few days after conducting layoffs, we organized a corporate kickoff event in NYC. We flew in employees from over 12 countries. Our employees were based in Ukraine who took trains or planes to travel there. We ditched the typical event confetti and opted for the more casual look and a low-cost budget. This was among the most energizing and needed investment decisions I've ever done.

The power is enhanced for leaders when you get on a plane and get your team together where they are. I am a dispersed executive team that spans eight locations starting from Seattle up to Switzerland. The majority of them were recruited in the last year so the team is still in its early stages, and just beginning to gel as a team. To speed up this process of gelling We started offsites in each leader's home city. We met our CFO's mom at her fireplace in Vermont. Our Head of Sales wore his apron and made us frittatas to eat breakfast. Our working sessions were held at our Chef of Product's table.

The pandemic gave us the ability to see into others' homes and personal lives . If we take advantage of that and incorporate it into our lives day-to-day activities, we have the potential to create better connected and better-performing teams.

 4. You can go from "lean back" to "lean forward" experiences.

One of the most important skills in communication is the capability to create "lean forward" experiences, instead of "lean back" broadcasts. As humans, our focus spans are shrinking (now lower than 8 seconds which is less than the length of the length of a goldfish!). Yet we still communicate primarily through one-to-many messages, whether by email, which you can read or a highly produced town hall where you relax and watch.

At we see this tax on engagement surfacing in our own statistics in which the time it takes to drop off from watching videos has been declining in the last few years. If we don't change the way we approach it, tuning out can seriously impact our capability to keep our teams in sync and efficient.

It is crucial changing our perspective and be open to trying different things. The new generation is working in the workforce that is ahead of us in their ability to create as well as capture authentic, rich information. They're ahead of us because they are free of the limitations that our generation faced throughout the decades of traditional communications methods at work.

The truth is that employees don't leave jobs; they leave managers. The CEOs are, in fact, the best managers. And in a study of more than 113,000 managers, the number one key to efficient leadership is trust. We as leaders must show ourselves how to show up with more genuine, engaging and authentic manners. I'm betting on the leaders who accept this exciting new world will be far more successful in leading the next generation of workers. They'll be better informed and motivate teams that are distributed, align people to greater productivity, and develop long-lasting relationships that produce outstanding work. They'll stop communicating but instead communicate more effectively.