Everyone has a certain way that they work when they’re at their best, and if that doesn't match the way their company likes to work, there's wrong fit for the position. In this season finale of Career Compass, hosts Aly Sharp and Kevin Abbed speak with work culture strategist and author Andre Martin about right-fit job topics including how to create a people manager experience that serves you, finding psychological safety at work, and reciprocity in mentor/mentee relationships.
Everyone has a certain way that they work when they’re at their best, and if that doesn't match the way their company likes to work, there's wrong fit for the position. In this season finale of Career Compass, hosts Aly Sharp and Kevin Abbed speak with work culture strategist and author Andre Martin about right-fit job topics including how to create a people manager experience that serves you, finding psychological safety at work, and reciprocity in mentor/mentee relationships.
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Aly Sharp:
Welcome back to Season 8 of Career Compass, a podcast from SHRM and the SHRM Foundation. Career Compass prepares the future leaders today for better workplaces tomorrow.
Kevin Abbed:
Thank you for joining us for this episode. My name is Kevin Abbed.
Aly Sharp:
And my name is Aly Sharp. This season we've covered topics related to mental health and AI. To close out the season, we're excited to talk about how you're going to find the right job.
Kevin Abbed:
We are extremely excited about today's conversation, and with that, Career Compass would like to warmly welcome Andre Martin. Andre has a vast career in talent and executive team development, strategy development, and employee engagement, culture change, and succession planning. He recently published a book called Wrong Fit Right Fit, and serves as the founder of Shift Space, as well as the culture strategist in residence at Joyful.
Andre Martin:
Hey everybody. How you doing today?
Kevin Abbed:
Doing well, doing well. Can't complain here.
Andre Martin:
Good, good. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
Aly Sharp:
We're going to dive right in. So Andre, you and I have talked in the past and I was thrilled to invite you to be a guest on Career Compass. But for our listeners, can you provide a brief rundown of your career journey?
Andre Martin:
Sure. My career started as an organizational psychologist, so I am trained in that discipline originally. My career sent me to a lot of big brands and companies you might know. It started off at Disney where I was working in the guest experience. I then went to a place called the Center for Creative Leadership, which is one of the biggest non-educational executive development firms in the world. And then I had this opportunity to go to Mars Incorporated, Nike, Target, and Google as the chief talent or learning officer. Really, in my mind, the jobs have been all about how do you make big companies feel small or how do you help talent really grow as fast as the companies they're a part of. I feel super lucky coming from a small town in southern Missouri to have seen the places and been in the companies I've had the chance to be in.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah, absolutely. It sounds like you really did the thing with all the big players, the US companies that we think of when we think of large brands. What inspired you to delve into that concept of right fit in the workplace, particularly in the context of you mentioned organizational psychology?
Andre Martin:
Yeah, Kevin. It really started a long time ago. I would say in all the companies I was a part of, I had these roles that were really about employee engagement and helping everybody be a success. And in those companies, I'll tell you a really interesting thing is about 60% of the people you'd walk in and they seemed super happy, engaged, and committed. And then there was often about 30% of the people, highly intelligent, highly capable individuals who it just seemed like they were slogging through mud.
And so for a long time, I've been trying to answer this question of what is the secret to building a high-energy, high-engagement culture? And although I've read probably all the books on culture there, I wasn't sort of fully satisfied with the answer. I think it came down to my personal experiences in each of these companies. What I would tell you is working in the space of talent, the talent that would be really great in Google probably isn't the same talent that was going to be great in Target, probably wasn't the same talent that would be good at Nike, and absolutely wasn't the talent that would succeed at Mars.
And so in there I sort of realized there isn't one secret five best practices to building a great culture. It probably comes down to something different, and that was sort of the impetus for the book.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah, I love how you kind of put that it's not a one size fits all. You can't just walk in the door and say, "This is what worked here," with a bunch of people who focus in tech and feel comfortable sitting in front of a computer and not talking to people for 80 hours a week, and then going to Target where you have a completely different customer facing product where your brand is so valuable in that way. Could you share any personal experiences or professional encounters that kind of sparked your interest in that specifically?
Andre Martin:
Well, you kind of just nailed the biggest one, Kevin, which is each of these companies is very different; different from their origin story, different in their product and service set, and different in the geographies they play in, and absolutely different in one key element, and that's how the company works every day. In all the work we've done in culture, the conversation's always about purpose and vision and values. And in fact, what really drives your engagement is how a company works on a random Monday morning in April. How do we set strategy? How do we solve problems? How do we manage conflict? How do we give feedback? How do we socialize ideas? How do we develop people? What's our relationship with time? How do we think about rest and recovery? These are the things that make up a company.
What I found in my own personal experience and also inside of the 100 plus interviews I did is that there's a certain way talent likes to work. Each of us has a certain way that we work when we're at our best. And if that doesn't match the way the company likes to work, there's wrong fit. And we know that if you have wrong fit, you spend all your creative energy just trying to be good enough, trying to fit in, and that's just never going to allow you to be brilliant.
Kevin Abbed:
When you think about culture and how now all these companies are starting to realize that no matter what industry you're in, if you're in the oil and gas industry, if you're in retail, your most important product at the end of the day is your people and the employees that are actually making this product or this vision come to fruition. I think you make a great point. It's not just the lofty large aspirations anymore; it's how are we going to get through the day to day? How are we going to make sure that we are consistent in what we're telling employees and the organization as a whole in order to function at that optimal level?
Andre Martin:
Kevin, 100%. One thing I'd say on that, you sparked an idea, is before COVID, we used to be able to get people to come to the office and be engaged just by surrounding them with perks; beautiful offices and great meals and wonderful little micro kitchens, all these things that we gave people. And now what we're finding is post-COVID, everybody is asking a different question. It's not, "Hey, how can I go to a place and have it feel like I'm on a college campus again?" It's actually, "How can I make sure that I'm spending my time away from my family, away from my community, away from my friends in a way that matters?" The only way that happens is if the way the company works, jives with how I like to work, and then you just get this great sort of utilization of creative energy, which drives innovation, drives better products, drives engagement up, and just creates this space where I feel like the time I'm spending at work is worth it.
Because here's the deal. We're going to spend 13.5 years of our adult life at work, every second, every minute, every day, every month, every year. And the most depressing part of that for many people is that that's second only to sleep. So if those hours and those days don't really matter, they're going to bleed into all the other moments we have and they're just going to make them less. And so that's really part of the cause I'm on, is to say, "Hey, we all deserve to be in a place that works for us to show off our brilliance. And if we do, the rest of our life becomes magic."
Kevin Abbed:
Well, you got my vote if you every run for office. I'll tell you that.
Aly Sharp:
So I know we are kind of talking about Wrong Fit Right Fit, throwing those terms around. Your book also highlights the significant discrepancy between companies' aspirations and the day-to-day reality of how work is actually conducted. How do you think that HR professionals can help bridge this gap to ensure clarity, consistency, and transparency in their way of working?
Andre Martin:
I love the question. Let's start with just the research. MIT along with Culture 500 did a really interesting body of research in this space. What they did was they took all the espoused values that company leaders stand up and they talk about. So they assessed all the communication of a bunch of really famous companies, and every time a leader mentioned innovation or collaboration or teamwork, they marked it down. The more times the values showed up, the higher it went in the hierarchy for that company. And then what they did is they took that hierarchy of values and they compared it against the way that employees talk about the company on employee review sites. And you can imagine what they found, a zero correlation, zero or negative correlation between how leaders talk about what the company stands for and the felt experience every day.
And so for me, I look at that and I'm like, "For all the companies I've been in, if we ever did that to an employee, I just want to apologize for it." Because in HR, what we know is we uphold 90% of the tools, processes, and programs that allow values to show up in the day-to-day environment. We own executive and leadership development. That's all the modeling that happens. We own performance, we own onboarding, we own all of these assets, recognition.
And so for me, when I think about what HR professionals can do, every time we're designing a new program, process or tool, look at it through the lens of whether or not the way that we're designing it is going to enhance the possibility that the employees that work for us are going to experience the values we say are important.
Aly Sharp:
I really like that. That's mainly why I was battling between going into marketing or HR back when I thought HR could fix all the problems. It really comes down to the people managers and the directors and all those folks. I guess it stems from doing a pulse check with your employees and being like, "How do you feel?" But just me being new to my career, I would fear that giving genuine feedback could reflect negatively on me if whatever company I'm working for doesn't align.
Andre Martin:
Well, Aly, here's what I would say to you, and I would say this to any professional starting off their career. The one myth that we all hold is one of the most important things that I want you to just rip out of your mindset right now, and that is that you are beholden to the manager that you have in front of you today. We know they make up 70% of your engagement, right? There's no doubt. Here's why I'd say though, is the thing that most people don't know is that you make your manager. Let me tell you how that happens. As people climb up in an organization, two things become true. The first thing is that the job they're getting ready to do is more and more complex and they're probably over their skis. Second thing is they get less and less real feedback because everybody around them wants something from them.
The thing I tell anyone starting their career is if you want a better manager, make them. Here's how you do it. Make a list of the 10 qualities that you have seen or want out of all your best managers or your ideal manager. Write them down, and then carry that in your back pocket. And every time you see your current manager do one of those things, give them that feedback. Say, "Kevin, I really appreciate the way you kicked off that meeting day with a dose of inspiration. It made me more energized, made me more excited to be in the meeting. And I just want to say thank you because it really made a difference for me." If I say that to Kevin, you know what he does at the next meeting that he leads?
Aly Sharp:
He's going to do it again.
Andre Martin:
He's going to do it again, and he's going to do it again. And this is the thing that managers are mostly starved for feedback. If you know the kind of place you want to work and you're willing to give people a compliment, you can actually shape their future behavior.
Aly Sharp:
I like the way that you're saying compliment, because even if it's something that you don't like, you can give feedback constructively. I think just the nature of giving feedback doesn't have to be negative.
Andre Martin:
No, it doesn't. It doesn't. And here's the reason. And I feel for everybody if they don't feel like they are in an environment where they can give honest and open feedback. But the thing is, we're all looking for it. I believe that most people walk into their day, walk into their role wanting to do the right thing by their company, their customer, and their team. If we can approach it that way and you can see you have a really big part to play in shaping culture. Culture is simply the aggregate of all of our collective behaviors. You behave differently, it matters. You give feedback to help someone else behave differently, it matters. And if everybody does that every day, we're working in the best place on earth.
Kevin Abbed:
Sounds like a callback to your days with Disney a little bit.
Andre Martin:
A little bit the happiest place on earth, right, Kevin?
Kevin Abbed:
Well, yeah. I kind of love how you talk about that feedback loop between manager and an employee. Again, that's another thing where you're expecting your manager to provide you feedback monthly or quarterly or annually in your reviews. But you're right. Besides, it's kind of like teaching up a little bit. There were stuff that I learned from our intern last year that I didn't know, and that I think made me a more effective people manager. That's something that I wouldn't have recognized I was doing. It's like when you have a roommate and you don't realize that you're doing stuff. If you're, I don't know, leaving something, leaving shoes under the coffee table and you're like, "Oh, I just don't even think about that." And sometimes it takes that call out to be like, "Oh, hey, now I know I'm doing this." And then it's easier to focus on it when you see him and you're like, "Oh my God, now I am recalling this and going back." That's not a shot at my roommate, big fan of him. So just want to make sure if he ever listens to this.
Andre Martin:
But you're bringing up a really important thing that I think we forget is there's always a gap between intention and impact. What I want to do in any moment, my intention is usually good. But the way it impacts the people around me might not give them what they need in the moment. And again, if we can just accept that part of what you're doing is trying to help intention match impact, you just start with assuming intention is good. And that's sometimes a big leap for people to make.
Aly Sharp:
I was going to say, that's probably the hardest thing I have to do every day.
Andre Martin:
100% Aly. It's the hardest thing we all have to do. But the thing is, if we don't start there, then everything else creates an environment where we're not psychologically safe. As soon as you assume intention is something other than good, gaining psychological safety in any area, your life's going to get really hard.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah, that's a great point. I think back when I was still somewhat athletic and participating in sports, and I had a coach who was a Marine Corps helicopter pilot and drill sergeant. So the way that I received feedback from him was very different from the way I received feedback from other people. And for me, that was an experience I never had, but it was something that I felt like pushed me to be better. And although I can definitely see how some people would not be a fan of having a 60-year-old ex-Marine who served God knows where just in your face yelling at you for 90% of your day, but I still attribute some of the good things that I learned, not just about sports, but being a better person from him. So I definitely get it. It all depends kind of how you accept that. But as soon as you do feel psychologically unsafe, it is very, very hard to come back out of that shell.
Andre Martin:
That's right. And one of the things we talk about in the book is exactly what you brought up, Kevin. One of the strategies or buffers you can use is to just wake up every day realizing that life is the greatest classroom on earth. I've been in executive development my whole life and I've gotten to the point where I'm like, we don't actually need another development program. We need to help people realize that every day you're walking around, you have these really profound opportunities to learn. But most people don't actually learn any lessons; they just repeat the same experience again and again. And the reason is because we don't teach people how to gain deep self awareness, and we also don't give them the tools to reflect and shift key events into really profound lessons of experience that change who we are.
Those two things, if you can learn those two things early in your career, how do I get more self-aware and how do I gain the tools to do deep reflection that will take what I'm seeing every day, a part of every day, and turn them into something that makes me better, you're going to be great. You'll be finding your fantastic career, fantastic life.
Kevin Abbed:
Absolutely. So moving on, you mentioned the importance of employees being re-recruited to embrace and work within the established ways of working within a specific organization. Do you have tips for some of our student or emerging professional listeners to cultivate a culture where right fit experiences are a lot more prevalent?
Andre Martin:
Yeah, Kevin, I would start with just this. Make sure that you know when you're getting ready to take a job, you're not just taking a job. You're actually taking on an entire set of values, an entire way of working, an entire experience every day. I think sometimes we get really attracted to the title of a job. We get attracted to the perks and benefits. We get attracted to the pay. And that's what we use to make our decision. There's research out there that will tell you the things that we use to make our decision, pay, perks, title, they actually have zero correlation, very little correlation to our satisfaction long term and the things that actually keep us at a place. And so my first piece of advice is just make sure you're broadening, widening your lens on what you're paying attention to during the job search.
I think secondly is when you get to a company, don't just assimilate into their way of working. Spend time as an anthropologist. Learn and watch the people who are a success in the company. How do they show up? How do they solve problems? Manage conflict? Give feedback? Develop? Because that's going to tell you what you're going to have to do to be a success there.
I think third and more than anything is look for and find really great mentors around your craft, around the culture of the company, and around how to be a better leader. Find them early, find them often, spend as much time as you can with them.
Kevin Abbed:
Yeah, and I love the callback to mentorship. It's something that we at SHRM focus on for our students and emerging professionals. It has been a very large aspect of, I would say, my personal life, and I know Aly references her mentors all the time. There's some stuff that you don't learn in college and don't learn on the day-to-day job that is super valuable and is going to make you not just a better employee, but a better person. And I think being able to make those connections and foster those relationships is just a way to shoot you right to the top.
Andre Martin:
For sure. And I would say you're going to have a moment too when you're both going to, if you haven't already, get to be mentors yourself. One of the things that you learn over 20 or so years is that mentoring's an art. Being a good mentee and being a good mentor, it's not easy. And so understanding what that role looks like and what your job is actually as a mentor and what your role is as a mentee to make that work, those are things I would tell anyone early in their career to just search out and get really clean and clear about because that'll help you make the most out of those relationships.
Kevin Abbed:
Absolutely.
Aly Sharp:
Yeah, I think SHRM actually has a piece of how to get the most out of your mentorship. It's a fifty-fifty relationship.
Andre Martin:
It is.
Aly Sharp:
You come to the table thinking your mentor knows everything, but you also provide a unique perspective being fresh out of college and something they may not have been in for 20 years.
Andre Martin:
That's right. That's exactly right, Aly. I couldn't agree more.
Aly Sharp:
We're going to pause for just a second. For those of you listening to this podcast who are seeking professional development credit, this program is valid for 0.5 PDCs for the SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP. The code to redeem your PDCs is 25SRZRJ. Please note that this code will expire April 23, 2025. Again, that code is 25SRZRJ.
Kevin Abbed:
And if you're looking for networking and learning opportunities this summer, join us at the SHRM Annual Conference and Expo in Chicago. This year we'll be joined by Jason Sudeikis, AKA Ted Lasso, Kelly Clarkson, and Jay Leno. Student members also get mock interviews, special programming, and can attend in person for just $495. You can explore the rest of the programming at annual.SHRM.org.
Aly Sharp:
Jumping back in, given your extensive experience in founding and leading a culture and executive development studio aimed at improving workplace engagement and productivity, could you share specific examples or a case study where your interventions resulted in a significant positive outcome for an organization?
Andre Martin:
Sure. I've had over 18 years of experience or 20 almost in this space now. So there's a lot, but there's a couple I'll point to. The first one is way back with Mars Incorporated. They ran a program, we ran a program that was really exceptional called Make the Difference. I had the opportunity to build a biannual sort of process that asked every associate at Mars to find someone else that was doing a great thing and nominate them for what's called a Make the Difference Award. It could be someone who was entry level, manager, leader in the company.
What was really special about this process was two things. One is as soon as you nominated them, we reached out and captured their story. This wasn't about just simply getting an award; it was about being able to capture the essence of the story and what they did. Then Mars took the process further and we built this enormous worldwide storytelling competition. Anyone that was nominated told their story in front of the leaders of their local unit, and then the region. And then about 200 individuals from across Mars, the 200 top ideas that we thought could scale and teach someone the better practice would come to DC with their families and tell those stories to the Mars family and to the key executives at Mars.
What was really interesting is as a result of those stories, two things happened. One is the engagement was unbelievable. Everyone knew that their story had a chance of being told to 70 plus thousand people around the world. Secondly is we oriented everyone towards catching someone doing a great thing. So instead of critiquing them, you were looking for the best and the brightest new ideas.
I think the last thing for me that was really important about that process and why I brought it up is that it was able to then show everybody in the company the better practice. So it told us all what great looked like. So then the next time around we would be doing work that might be noticed, might be seen, or might someday be a Make the Difference Award itself.
Aly Sharp:
We have that on our marketing team. I don't remember if we had these meetings quarterly or monthly, but each time there was an award given, it correlated to one of our guiding principles at SHRM. We all are aware of what they are, but they also sent around the definition and collected responses and nominations. And then after the awardee was selected, they still sent out all the nominations to other people just so that they were also aware that their hard work was being noticed.
Andre Martin:
Yeah, and it's really important. I think these days we're so busy. We're so stressed. We've got our head down in productivity so often that I will tell you a practice of gratitude and a really strong recognition process that isn't about the award, but is about making sure everyone can see what great looks like, it's inspiration. It's fuel. It is the driver of engagement that makes me want to go out and do the harder, better, more important thing the next day. So I just hope more and more companies do that kind of thing with care and realize that any investment of time or money is going to come back to you exponentially. I mean, we could claim at some point through some probably creative math, but could claim 300 some million dollars or more every two years in value created as a result of these innovations. So it's a productivity push as much as it is engagement or commitment.
Kevin Abbed:
Oh, for sure. And just thinking about incentivizing good work, because everyone wants to be seen and be heard, and all it takes is for you to hear one person's story and be like, "I want to get that award." It increases people's competitive juices. This is the second time I'll reference my stellar high school athletic career. I promise I don't do this all the time. It's just been a lot of connections have been going off in my head. After every game, we would give out a giant sledgehammer and nails. The player of the game will get the hammer. And then if you did a key thing throughout the game, you would get a nail. And these are these little 10 cent Home Depot nails that you can buy by the bucket. But I have never in my life wanted something that bad. And it's something that it doesn't matter, and I'm sure I'm recording this from my parents' house today, actually, but I'm sure I still have a couple of them in my nightstand up in my childhood bedroom because that's something that I was driving for and I was working to do better. And I think when you put it in that perspective that this is for the greater good, I think that helps people.
Andre Martin:
It does, Kevin. The thing we often miss is that there's an importance of the public nature of that. Whether it's the global storytelling competition at Mars, or you're meeting as a team giving those awards out, it's a social science phenomenon called BIRGing. It's called basking in reflected glory. So purely by doing that as a team, doing that in proximity to each other, not only does the person who gets the nail or the hammer feel really good, but everyone else basks in that reflected glory, and it raises our entire confidence of our team. And that's, again, a practice we see from sports that I just haven't seen us value as much as we maybe should in corporations.
Aly Sharp:
Now I don't think that hammer thing would work on a team of girls, but that's okay.
Andre Martin:
Maybe not. Maybe not, but there's got to be something else.
Aly Sharp:
It's the thought that counts.
Kevin Abbed:
Well, this conversation has been awesome. I think especially myself, I've gained a lot, and I think our listeners will as well. So before we let you go, last question I just want to ask, do you have any parting words of wisdom for emerging professionals who might be searching for ways to improve their company culture or their own engagement?
Andre Martin:
I'll start maybe in a couple places we've already talked about, but it's just good to summarize points already made. The first one is, you can never self-reflect enough. Just because a choice you've made makes sense in the moment, doesn't mean it's going to make sense to you a month from now, three months from now, or a year from now. We are constantly growing as humans. Our companies are constantly changing. So just every quarter, take a step back, open your eyes really wide, take a deep breath and ask yourself, "What am I solving for right now? What am I solving for three to five years in the future? Who is my ideal leader? What's the kind of company I want to work for, and who are the people I want to work with?" And then just sort of look around and see if your current situation works for you. If not, there's ways to make it better.
I always encourage people to stay put if you can, because the last thing I would say is don't underestimate the cost of transitions. Every time you move companies, it's a big thing that we underestimate the importance of. Because every time you move, three things are happening. One is you're setting back your reputational capital to zero. You're now surrounding yourself with a brand new group of strangers. Secondly is you're setting back your social network at work to zero. You got to build all those relationships again. And third is you're having to learn a brand new way of working and a brand new way of talking about work. Those things take years to cultivate.
And so see if you can make the place that you're at work. And if not, then move. But if you're moving every one or two years, just know instead of being great at your craft, HR, being a podcast, or whatever it might be, you're actually becoming great at transitions, and that's probably not what any of us are searching to be in the world.
Aly Sharp:
Yeah. I'm worried about my social network when we travel to Chicago, and I decided that I would move 40 minutes away from our office, which means I now have to fly solo when I'm used to flying with just showing up to the gate and being like, "Oh, half the company's here. Perfect."
Andre Martin:
That's right.
Aly Sharp:
And now I'm like, "Guys, I don't know when to book my travel because no one's going to be with me."
Andre Martin:
Right. It's a big deal. I mean, those moments matter. And especially if we're in remote or hybrid workplaces, we have fewer and fewer of them. So the times we're together, you have to maximize that. Not to learn content, but to really gain that psychological safety and trust we need to be there for each other in hard times.
Kevin Abbed:
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much. It was a phenomenal conversation. I think our listeners are really going to gain a lot from this episode.
Andre Martin:
I hope so. It was a pleasure to be with you both, and enjoy the end of the eclipse.
Aly Sharp:
With that, we're going to bring this episode of Career Compass to a close. Thank you all for joining us, and we hope you stay with us to next season when we discuss more topics like this episode.
Kevin Abbed:
For more exclusive content, resources, and tools to help you succeed in your career, consider joining SHRM as a student member. You can visit us at SHRM.org/students to learn more.
Aly Sharp:
Lastly, if you're looking for more work and career related podcasts, check out All Things Work in Honest HR at SHRM.org/podcasts. Thank you again for listening, and we'll catch you on the next season of Career Compass.