Tyler Donahue

PHX Startup Week 2017

Engagement in a digital age: Curiosity, Kindness, Vulnerability and Inclusion.

2 ford F150’s 80 people

Introduction

Tyler Donahue, Co-Founder & Director of Experience

Venture University - alternative education

Exercise

❖ 2 min kindness mediation

❖ 3 count “YES” mantra

How do we get people emotionally connected?

Curiosity

Vulnerability

Kindness

Inclusivity

Engagement

❖ Spark curiosity

❖ Show objective kindness

❖ Expose vision (be vulnerable)

❖ Be inclusive (inclusivity)

Engagement stats

Dale Carnegie Training Center 71% of employees are not fully engaged.

Companies with engaged employees outperform those without by up to 202%

State of the American Workplace by GALLUP 70% of American workers are “not engaged” or “actively disengaged”

Curiosity

– Walt Disney

“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening

up new doors and doing new things, because were curious… and curiosity keeps us leading down

new paths.”

How do you spark curiosity in your team?

❖ Consider each person situational.

❖ Ex) An elementary school teacher needs to capture the attention of each child individually.

❖ Teddy Roosevelt was amazing at this (next slide)

❖ Formatting information

❖ Cross-team communication.

Curiosity in action

❖ How to Win Friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie❖ Teddy was known to stay up

all night reading about an incoming guest. (Teddy an I share an interest in people)

Kindness

– Mark Twain

“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”

How do you show objective kindness to your team?

❖ The letter exercise

❖ Ex) once per week pick an employee and hunt down and old friend/ colleague to write something nice about them.

❖ You would be surprised how often people think positive thoughts about people but never express them.

Kindness in action

❖ GOOD Inc.❖ GOOD corps - help

organizations understand opportunities for impact.❖ Google

❖ GOOD studio - helps brands create amazing stories.❖ Paypal❖ United Nations

Vulnerability

– Neil Gaiman, University of the Arts commencement speech

“The moment you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much

of your heart and your mind what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That’s the

moment you may be starting to get it right.”

– Howard Shultz

“The hardest think about being a leader is

demonstrating or showing vulnerability. When the

leader demonstrates vulnerability and sensibility and brings people together,

the team wins…”

How do you be vulnerable with your team?

❖ Company culture

❖ Mirror and match

❖ When your team watches you be vulnerable, they are more likely to do the same.

Inclusivity

– Zig Ziglar

“Research indicates that workers have three prime needs: interesting work, recognition for doing a

good job, and being let in on things that are going on in the company.”

How do you include your team?

❖ Inclusion not diversity.

❖ Remember “projection bias”

❖ We tend to naturally think a larger population agrees with us or understands us better that actuality.

❖ CAVEAT: Sometimes this can lead to a snail like environment - but Pixar has a solution.

The Brain Trust

❖ Ed Catmull’s (Pixar) - team work structure.

❖ removing the power structure.

❖ P2P communication.❖ Vested interest in

success.

The Chaptership “Jolt”

❖ jolt.us is a fast growing startup in San Francisco that is doing some interesting things with their employment to help align themselves w/ their employees interests.

❖ 2 year commitment.

❖ Submit personal goals w/ application.

❖ Actively help you move to your next gig after contract is up.