Lis Russo: How Aligning Organizational Systems with Basic Human Needs Reinvigorates Disengaged Employees

As a part of my series about how leaders can create a “fantastic work culture”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lis Russo.

Lis is a Culture Strategy Leader at Gensler, a global architecture and design firm. She co-founded Gensler’s Culture Strategy consulting practice in New York City and works with Fortune 100 companies on organizational culture strategy, culture activation, innovation capability building, and employee experience strategy.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Ever since I was a child, I’ve been fascinated by human behavior and what drives it. In college, I studied a variety of things: architecture, design, sociology, psychology, communication, user research… I never thought all my interests could come together in one career, but they seem to all be pieces to the puzzle of work culture. My professional path started with workplace strategy and change management, which then led to focusing on employee experience, innovation capability building, and culture strategy work. I had amazing advocates along the way and was always empowered to follow my curiosities — and that led me here.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

One story that comes to mind is when we set up a batting net inside a hotel atrium for one of our client’s global meetings. One of their culture principles was “Create a Safety Net to Swing for the Fences” which focused on encouraging people to take chances, reducing the fear of failure, and reframing failures as critical steps on the way to success. In order to activate this culture principle, we had their executive leaders literally step up to the plate, get vulnerable, and tell a story about a time they failed, then “swing for the fences” and hit a tee-ball into the batting net. It was so fun because it seemed to tap into people’s inner child, and connecting with that inner child is super important for creativity and building resilience around failure. It also created playfulness around sharing failures and meaningful learnings on people’s leadership journeys, thus helping to destigmatize the idea of failure for a larger group of employees. Infusing playfulness into the day-to-day has a much larger positive impact than many people realize, and it’s a largely untapped strategy.

Are you working on any exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?

We’ve recently developed Gensler’s Culture of Innovation Diagnostic: a survey that assesses if a company is creating a work experience that enables creativity and innovation. The results of the diagnostic allow us to pinpoint specific areas in an organization that may be inhibiting people’s ability to tap into their innate creative potential and be innovative. Usually, we see businesses putting the onus on individual employees to innovate — they’ll say things like “fail fast” and “take risks,” but they don’t realize that outside of those words of encouragement, they’ve created a work environment that actively suppresses innovation in ways they may not be aware of. The Diagnostic helps people because it looks at the culture in which people are working and identifies opportunities for a company to create a better work experience — one that better enables the conditions for creativity and innovation (i.e., authenticity, autonomy, curiosity, imagination, thrill, and hope).

We’ve run Gensler’s Culture of Innovation Diagnostic with clients and also surveyed a representative sample of the U.S. to better understand the “state of the state” of innovation across the country. The results are really compelling and seem to strike a chord with a lot of folks. For example, we’re seeing that there are serious disconnects between leadership and staff in their experiences at work related to things like decision-making, risk-taking, and the ability to spend time developing new ideas. We’re also finding that cultures of innovation are associated with high employee engagement and commitment, so not only is it better for people, but it also pays off to create a culture that enables creativity and innovation. If a company can better understand the culture they’re generating and identify the specific things that are creating an unproductive or repressive environment, they can then begin to evolve their organizational systems and implement interventions that create a more engaging and constructive work environment for their employees.

Ok, let’s jump to the main part of our interview. According to this study cited in Forbes, more than half of the US workforce is unhappy. Why do you think that number is so high?

It all roots back to the fact that we are simply not biologically programmed to live this way. Many work experiences do not make it easy for people to be mentally and physically healthy. For example:

• The human brain isn’t wired for laser focus for 8 consecutive hours, from 9am-5pm, 5 days a week. It’s exhausting and can result in a bunch of dysfunctional brain patterns, affecting things like self-control, decision-making ability, and the willingness to help others.
• We were hunter-gatherers for about 97% of human history, but now most people’s lives are vastly different from the hunter-gatherer days, so a lot of the brain patterns that were historically beneficial for survival have now become “bad for business”. For example, there’s a theory that explains that traits associated with ADHD were actually better for hunter-gathers.
• The physical body can also suffer if ignored. Human bodies atrophy from sitting in a stationary position for most of our days, causing chronic pain. Plus, focusing on visuals at a short distance for hours (e.g. looking at computer screens, phones, books) causes visual strain, headaches, and damages our eyesight.
• Personal connection with others is necessary for happy humans; however, some work cultures inadvertently create barriers that inhibit genuine connection. People crave authenticity and psychological safety (i.e., members of a team being able to speak up and express their ideas without fear of negative consequences) at work.
• A lot of people are experiencing toxic work cultures, and data shows that it harms mental health. (Not only is toxic culture bad for people, but it’s also bad for business. According to analysis of employee data published in the MIT Sloan Management Review, toxic corporate culture was “by far the strongest predictor” of attrition.)

Our work experiences don’t have to be this way, though. We can tackle a lot of these issues and instead create work environments that not only meet basic human needs, but also create cultures for people to thrive. In order to start transforming culture, you need to look at what’s shaping an organization’s culture. In order to uncover the elements that influence culture, my team developed Gensler’s Work Culture Indicator — a framework that outlines the six organizational components that shape one’s experience of their company culture. If businesses proactively create their cultures by analyzing their organizational components and designing for the different factors that influence one’s work experience, they can create a work experience that leads to happier and more productive employees.

Based on your experience or research, how do you think an unhappy workforce will impact a) company productivity b) company profitability c) and employee health and wellbeing?

Unhappy employees impact all of these things tremendously.

1. Company productivity: Humans, like most of nature, are programmed to take the path of least resistance; it makes sense for the brain to be wired this way, as its goal is to conserve energy and make the most of its resources. When people are unhappy, this principle becomes especially clear. Unhappy employees tend to be pretty disengaged, which results in exerting the minimum effort. Companies try to create rules and consequences in an effort to solve this issue, but humans are creative and will still find ways to get around these rules and keep taking the path of least resistance. Companies can either try and fight against a programmed feature of biology or they can try and solve the root cause of the issue and then reap the benefits of happy employees.
2. Company profitability: Unhappy employees impact profitability because of obvious reasons like not putting in as much effort and creating less quality work, but there’s a bigger picture here too. Measuring productivity and profitability is an interesting challenge because companies often fool themselves into believing they have the full equation. Sure, you can look at the hard numbers and analyze revenue generation, operating costs, and net profit, but there are additional factors that impact how profitable a company can actually be that aren’t always considered; you might be able to look at the current picture, but it’s harder to measure whether a company is reaching its full potential. Some of the factors to consider are how engaged and supported your workforce is. For example, our research shows that there is an association between highly engaged and committed employees and employees that experience the cultural conditions for innovation — things like having autonomy, support for experimentation, and resources to explore new concepts. A company has the potential to become more profitable if employees are enabled to be creative and innovative, as they’ll actively think of ideas for new products, services, or business opportunities. Unhappy and disengaged employees tend to report less access to conditions for innovation, so they’re not as likely to be generating new ideas or solutions that could increase profit.
3. Employee health and wellbeing: If people spend most of their days unhappy, it creates chronic stress. People who are chronically stressed are much more susceptible to a variety of chronic health issues. (A quick Google search for the health issues associated with chronic stress will have you thinking you’ve got one foot in the grave — don’t say I didn’t warn you!)

An unhappy workforce is not only bad for the people that are part of it, but it’s also bad for business. There’s really no good reason for toxic cultures to exist; it’s usually either the company doesn’t want to put the effort in to change it or they believe the business is operating effectively as-is, but they’re unknowingly looking at an incomplete equation and not considering whether they’re actually reaching their full potential.

Can you share 5 things that managers and executives should be doing to improve their company work culture? Can you give a personal story or example for each?

Here are 5 things that leaders can do to improve their company culture:

1. ROLE OF THE MANAGER: Evaluate your company’s criteria for the role of a manager or a people leader. Generally, people are promoted into managerial positions because they’re good at their practice, NOT because they’re good at managing people and projects. Imagine if, for any other position, companies promoted and hired people based on their ability to do only half of the job — sounds illogical, right? So why do companies do that with managers? Evaluate your criteria for the manager role and integrate people-management skills into the job requirements. Then, when doing performance evaluations, make sure their people-management skills are part of the conversation. Which leads me to my next point…

2. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION: Implement 360 reviews (i.e., a performance management system in which feedback is gathered from an employee’s subordinates, peers, and supervisor). In doing this, it’s critically important to create a system that allows people to be comfortable sharing honest feedback and ensure there are mechanisms to fight against retribution or any negative outcomes that might come from sharing candid or constructive feedback. If you don’t know where to begin, simply asking the question, “If given the choice, would you work with this person again?” will give you an initial read on someone’s performance. Then, it’s incredibly important to make sure these performance evaluations are considered when making promotion considerations. If a toxic leader is continuously rewarded for their bad behavior, people will see that their input doesn’t actually matter and will stop giving constructive feedback.

3. REWARDS & RECOGNITION: Most companies don’t reward or recognize people nearly enough. Employees are human, which means being recognized for one’s hard work can be motivating and fulfilling; plus, it helps with positive reinforcement of desired behaviors. In order to make it more of a habit, implement tools and systems that encourage people to regularly reward and recognize others. For example, one of the clients we worked with knew the importance of regularly recognizing their team members, but bureaucratic processes and a general lack of time discouraged managers from doing so. To help make it easier for managers, we worked with our client to create a You Did It! Kit: a set of pre-approved ways to reward and recognize team members. What made this kit special is that it included rewards that targeted both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and it also provided different ways to be recognized based on the individual’s unique personality (e.g., options for recognizing people publicly vs. meaningful ways to shine a light on someone’s efforts without putting them in the spotlight in front of everyone if that makes them uncomfortable). About a year after its implementation, we heard stories from another business unit that this kit helped managers reward and recognize their team members more often which led to increased engagement and employees feeling appreciated for their hard work.

4. PERSONAL CONNECTION: Make time to connect with one another as human beings. At its core, an organization is a social structure, and as such, the quality and efficiency of outcomes is fueled by how well people cooperate with each other. High-functioning teams have certain attributes such as deeper trust among individuals, psychological safety, and higher engagement; these attributes simply cannot be developed in a vacuum devoid of any opportunities for personal relationship-building, so make the space for authentic human connection at work. Make sure your connection-building efforts don’t require people to give up their own personal time, and instead, find ways to integrate relationship-building into everyday work-life. To avoid awkwardness, it can help if there’s some facilitation around it so that people are more encouraged to break down uncomfortable barriers and connect more deeply with others.

5. AUTONOMY: Assess whether you’re creating space for your team members to have autonomy (micromanagers, I’m looking at you). Lack of autonomy is one of the most common problems we see, and it stems from a lack of trust in employees and overly authoritative leadership styles, which end up creating a toxic culture. According to a theory about human motivation called Self-Determination Theory, people need to feel like these three basic needs are being met in order to be motivated and grow: the need to build competence or capability in skill areas that are important to them, the need for relatedness or connection with others, and (you guessed it) the need for autonomy or a sense of control over their lives. Without autonomy, people are less motivated, less engaged, and simply “check the boxes” to make sure they save themselves headaches at work. According to our Culture of Innovation research, people who are most engaged and most committed to their jobs also report a lot more autonomy at work (i.e., they have the autonomy to act on a new idea, empowerment to experiment with new ideas, and the ability to spend part of their work time exploring new ideas or initiatives).

It’s very nice to suggest ideas, but it seems like we have to “change the culture regarding work culture”. What can we do as a society to make a broader change in the US workforce’s work culture?

We should all go to therapy. Just kidding (kind of).

Two things come to mind for what we could do as a society to make broader change: get more comfortable asking “why?” and actively partake in more self-reflection.

• There are a lot of cultural norms and features of the work experience that exist purely because of inertia — it’s a certain way because it’s just always been that way. If we all got more comfortable asking “why?” and questioning the underlying reasons for things, we’d uncover many opportunities for working better together and improving work culture.
• To build on that, leaders should also get into the habit of asking “why?” of ourselves and question the reasons behind how we individually behave. If we all more consistently reflected on why we do the things we do, how we impact others, and whether our actions beget the desired outcomes from those around us, it would allow us to better understand our individual responsibility in creating healthy relationships at work. Leaders are hugely influential in shaping work culture, so a lot of the responsibility is on us for creating supportive and constructive work cultures.

How would you describe your leadership or management style? Can you give us a few examples?

I asked a couple of team members, and here’s what they said:

• I lead with candor and authenticity, and I make sure to build my team members’ capabilities; I give feedback directly while also ensuring that team members feel supported by me throughout the process. Another example of this is I purposely think out loud so people can learn from my thought process (they not only learn the “what”, but also the “why” and “how”). I teach by being collaborative and doing things together before giving team members the space to take things further.
• I’m brave, confident, and bold with ideas; I don’t shy away from rattling the status quo every now and then.
• I’m a network builder; I help team members by getting to know their core interests and then connecting them with the right people to help them reach their goals. I’m an advocate for my team and aim to empower them.

I personally think authenticity and empathy are what drive a lot of my behaviors. I’m not afraid to show up as I truly am, and I’ve seen that that creates an environment that empowers other people to feel comfortable doing the same. I also care about my team members and want to better understand their thought processes, and that curiosity and interest in others helps me to connect and collaborate better.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Absolutely, but I can’t just pick one. There are two people that were instrumental in my success: Amanda Ramos and Susan Juvet. Amanda and Susan were both previously directors for our Innovation Consulting team here at Gensler and co-founded the New York Culture Strategy practice with me.

Amanda truly embodied servant leadership. She was such a huge advocate for me and created the environment for me to step into my potential, explore my curiosities and interests, and develop progressive ideas for Gensler. We used to have team retreats where she’d ask our team to bring things we’re interested in working on, dream clients, and service areas we’d like to develop, and it allowed us to co-create our team’s vision for the future. It really instilled a sense of ownership among all of us and ignited our passion in the work. Her unyielding enthusiasm helped us all achieve our goals, and we couldn’t have created this practice without her.

Susan is one of the most badass women I’ve ever met in the corporate world. She is ambitious, emotionally intelligent, down-to-earth, and inspirational in so many ways. She’s also the best manager I’ve ever experienced. Her way of creating an engaging and fulfilling team culture is unparalleled, and her ability to truly know her team members, connect on a deeply personal level, and understand how to motivate and support her teammates is truly a gift. I view her as a big sister, and I couldn’t have gotten through some of my most challenging times without her.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

By being part of a team that helps companies in understanding their work culture and employee experience, uncovering how they’re inadvertently creating ineffective or destructive cultures, and making their work culture more enjoyable, constructive, and engaging. Creating a happier, healthier employee experience is super fulfilling and helps to bring goodness to the world!

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It shines a light on how a lot of people live their lives. Honestly, I still struggle with this a lot, but it really helps to be reminded to not make decisions based on fear, and instead, make decisions based on what amazing things could be possible.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

If there could be a movement that made greed shameful, taboo, and one of the most vilified human behaviors, I think that would completely change the world. Along with that, if I could inspire a movement that truly made people believe that working together instead of against each other could bring about the best outcomes for most people, that would be a game-changer.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you continued success!