 Hello, how are you doing? Gordo the Texer here, and welcome to another exciting and thrilling and off-the-edge hibachi talk show. So I'm here by myself, not really, but I'm here by myself with no co-host because Andrew the security guy is off-securing. But I have the ever-so-lovely Heather Patterson here, chief happiness officer, I love that term, chief happiness officer. Happy your talent development. Happy your talent development. We're going to talk about happiness in the workforce. That's right. Why do I need to be happy in the workforce? I love the look already. We're going to have a fun day because you've got an old foot and then you've got someone who's a hell of a lot younger. So grab yourself a chair, pull up a lightabation and sit down. We don't have any solo cups or anything today because I've been running around doing meetings all day to have chess to pull Angus around with me or anything like that. So it's just going to be you and I. Okay. So it's going to be a show. Yes. And so people can go about and look at that one. But let's just reacquaint people a little background on yourself. Who you are, where you're from, what you're doing. Yeah, sure. Heather Patterson. I'm a chief happiness officer. I have a firm called Happier Talent Development so I primarily work with business leaders and their teams and helping them be more effective, more productive, get along better. Be happier. Be happier. At work. At work. Yeah. Like why should I care? I'm going to be a curmudgeon today. Okay. Look at that look. Okay. Bring it on. Bring it on. I'm going to be a curmudgeon. I haven't worked for over 60 years and I can tell you right now at no time in my 60 years of working has someone came in to say, are you happy in your work today? Yeah. That's really too bad. I'm sorry to hear that. Why do I care? Why do I care? I mean, I'm always happy. I'm just that by nature. But why do I care about being happy? What's the upside? What's the upside? I get this question a lot. Right? Being this title in this business happier and a happiness officer people are sometimes skeptical and I absolutely, absolutely understand the concern. What is this all about? So it's about, well, it's a third of your life, a third of your life. So half of your waking hours, you're at work. And this idea of being happy means that you're going to be healthier, that you're going to have better relationships, that you're going to be working towards something that matters, that you know matters. You're going to have more purpose. So you're going to be more fulfilled. So it's better for the business. But aren't I being fulfilled by getting a paycheck? No. Money is fleeting. It only goes so far. Oh, contrastable to me. I mean, I like my cash. Oh, sure. Sure. I like when the check comes in. Sure. Absolutely. And so it's not that, oh, like, don't pay the employees. Just make sure that they're happy. They're happy. Yeah. Oh, I like that. It's not like that at all. But it needs to, it goes further than. It only goes so far. All right. I'll give you that. We just keep making money. We'll just keep spending money. So we need it to be fair, first of all, fair and, you know, relative to the value that we're bringing. Absolutely. It allows us to live a lifestyle that, you know, helps us achieve other things that we want to reach for. Maybe it's education or experiences or family, that sort of thing. Is it because we're in a different type of businesses that we were in the industrial age, per se, when I was, when you were manufacturing, you stood on an assembly line and you did what you did every day and you worked 35 years for that company as a union person, then you retired and that was it. Yeah. Well, the world of work has certainly changed. Okay. Yeah. Totally. And I think the way that we look at our lives has changed, too. That we are more as a human race sort of recognizing we have this one life and we ought to use it wisely and we recognize that a third of it is at work and then it's not like the separate part, it's part of our whole life. So my comment on this is third of our life, and you're going to love this, unless of course you're a millennial because the third of your life is Starbucks. I'm on the couch. I know. And then the other third of your life is talking about whether or not you're going to get a job. So now we're down to the remaining third of your life where she spends sleeping and then you're telling me you're going to be a millionaire every time you're married. So I mean, this is what I deal with a lot. So I look at your, but I do, I do. And I'm trying to get this on like, how do I get motivation and understanding that you do have to work hard and it might not be happy all the time. Oh, sure. Well, how do you get that or how do you give it? How do I instill that in them? And instill it. Whoever them are. And them could be a 60-year-old. Right. So how do I install that in them? So I get asked the millennial question a lot. And I tend to say, hey, let's back up a little bit and recognize that, yes, these generalizations, we do this a lot, you know, just as humans, we like to typecast and box people in. And profile. And profile. We do. Like, you know, I'm not supposed to know anything about tech. Right. I'm too damn old for that. Right. You're too old. Yeah. Right. I could be sued if I said that to you at work, right? You're protected. You could sue me. Well, there's another problem. There's another problem. Is that a problem? Yeah. I can't say this because I might get sued, but we're not going to go down that. Yeah. Even with the happiness side. Right. Let's talk about, you know, I'm going to call my lawyer in the morning. But the world is different now, you know? And the way that we work is different. And I guess, so we're leading, getting back to the, you know, how do you instill that in someone else? Right. Right. Is dial it way back. Are these generalizations? Yes. Sometimes they are helpful, but they may not always be serving you. They may not be helpful always. And so I guess the question would be, well, is this generalization helping you? And are you willing to be wrong? Oh, yeah. Are you willing to be wrong about? I'm willing every day. I mean, if you're willing to admit, you know, you learn by trial and error, not by trial and right. Right. And so that's you, Gordo. But is it everybody? Well, so, which begs the next question. So how do you, how do you, now, you're in an interesting field. How do you get someone to say, you know, I think I ought to bring you into my company? I'm an exact, I'll talk, I'll play a role. I'm so and so senior executive, my companies, you know, we're hitting our 30% margins, we're successful, you know, not everybody around the halls are smiling, but why should I give a rat's patootie because our margins are there. Why would I want to bring you into my company? So this is a hard challenge for you. How would you, how would you get them to wake up to what's going on? It typically boils down to one word. Oh, drama. Oh, drama. There's either drama internally with people and they're sort of like, I don't know what to do about this, but I know I need to address it because it's hurting productivity, it's hurting my retention of my employees. It's hurting, attracting my ability to attract top talent. I mean, that's everybody's big problem, attracting and retaining, or it's drama with the people in the organization outward to public, to the customers. And they need some resetting and training and that has nothing to do with millennials, boomers, Gen Xs or whatever. Or is there, is, is, I see your swing. So I'm like, you're going to educate me here. So is it, is it there? And before you answer the question, I got to give you one of my favorite quotes. I worked for the Hanuman administration. Mookie Hanuman was the mayor at the time. And he said one of the first times in the cabinet meeting, he sat there in the meeting and he said to everybody, save the drama for your mama. I love it. And he said that and it really sent a great message, right? He didn't want drama. Right. Just get the job done. Right. So now we did have a lot of fun. So there was a happiness factor and great on when we worked there. So I mean, come back to your saying, so where is it? Does drama, so the question is, does drama lie within this multi-generational? Or is it more in the younger ones? Or is it? I believe that everyone would be to blame. I don't think there's a finger, a single finger. So where you can point, you know, drama is usually a result. So, so my work, again, it's about results and relationships. And that's the science of happiness at work. You know, so it's all proven. Daniel Kahneman, you know, if people are really skeptical, they can go Google it. You know, it's relationships and results. So when I have this typecast in my mind and I have this closed mind about it and I'm not taking the time to get to know you and empathize with your, your background, your history, your beliefs, your value set, then chances are I'm going to have relational conflict with you. But how do you, how do you as an employee, employer, executive, whatever, got to run the company? How do you have time to do this? I mean, we're, you know, I mean, we have enough things stealing away our time to be able to get to know you, this employee, this employee. How do you do this? You prioritize it. You've got to put it in the list. It has to be the number one thing. Your people are your competitive advantage. Your people are what runs your business. So you don't have time not to do it. So that's, that's, that's the message. And if you look at any successful company now, right, right now dealing in this very volatile sort of, you know, environment with a quarter of their employees or more having millennials, they are taking the time to personally connect with their employees and they hire people who are able to do that. They're hiring leaders and coaches, not just managers who know how to do the thing better than their employees. You see, they're hiring people that have the skills to connect with the people so that they have the relationship and then can lead them so that they're able to do their work. So is this kind of like the high tech, high touch kind of thing? Is it, is it, we have to be touchy feely or, you know, can you still be stern, can you still say, you know, don't yell at them in the middle of the hallway in front of all their peers, but bring someone back into your office and say, you know, I have a little bit of a problem with this, this, this and this or, or, or you say, oh, by the way, are you happy at your work? Oh, you're not. Goodbye. Yeah. So it's a mixture. And I think stern, stern is a little bit subjective, you know, people have different styles and different approaches. I personally am a fan of this idea of radical candor and that people. What's radical candor? Okay. Radical candor is the idea of giving feedback and not dancing around it. Oh, okay. And, and really millennials want that. They're accustomed to it. That device that you have sitting in front of you, they're used to going, boom, answer. Like they get feedback. So would they prefer feet? Okay, this is a good, so would they prefer radical candor? Heather, I'm having a little issue with the dot, the dot me coming and saying it to you or saying, Heather, I'm having a little issue with such and such that I put it in capitals and said it to you. Oh, well, I think that's on a per person basis. Okay. But generally speaking, since we have to sometimes use general generalizations, that sort of feedback is best given face to face to face. Okay. So it's good. So that at least is on is kind of staying in the playing field. I mean, because I, the last thing in the world, the thing I hate the most is someone having a heated discussion with someone on email. Oh, that's a terrible idea. But, but drama, just drama, right? All the things and, you know, as being a former runner of large organizations that came in a while, they put everything in capitals and they were yelling at me in their emails. Like, wait, they don't know how to type in lower gaze. Right. Sure. And so we have to be willing to also know that people are these are people at work, this device, right? And, and, and they're right. They're not devices. They're not bots or machines. They're humans and they're going to make a mistake. Yeah. Well, and people really and truly, I mean, generally speaking, are not out to intentionally hurt other people and, you know, make people feel bad. But what if they're trying to pull them down because they can't because they themselves can't get to their level? So if they have, there's one of the things that I've observed over my years, someone who's a, who's a manager, middle manager side, who has an employee that's, you know, you can see that one day that employee is going to be definitely, they're rising up, rising up, but this manager does everything they can to pull them back down to their level. And I see, I still see that in this day and age and I see that, especially in union shops, in union shops, I see that tremendously. It's, you know, I have to be the smartest one in the plow. Yeah. Yeah. Did you see that? I see it and it's very unfortunate. And there have been times where I have coached my one-on-one clients, uh, or even clients that have been part of the corporate, you know, coaching agreements that I've had, where it's no longer a good fit. They have, they have outgrown the organization because the leadership is not able to expand and be open enough to go, let me give you more responsibility or authority or, you know, room to grow. Okay. So let's take a pause on that. And we're going to come back and we're going to kind of build on it. Cause I want to, I want to get an idea of, um, without stealing all your thunder from your competition competition. It's like, how do you get into the organization? How do you get that organization to go around and change it? It can be kind of fun. Great. Anyway, Heather Patterson, and I always like to see it in a squash, Heather Patterson, I love that name. So Heather Patton is in there. She's a, the, um, uh, chief happiness officer at Happier Talent Development, um, here in Hawaii. And so we'll be back in a minute and we'll find out how she actually makes this work. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Match day is no ordinary day. The pitch, hallowed ground for players and supporters alike. Excitement fields. Game plans are made with responsibility in mind. Celebrations are underway. Ready for kickoff. MLS clubs and our supporters rise to the challenge. We make responsible decisions while we cheer on our heroes and toast their success. Elevate your match day experience. If you drink, never drive. Hello, ha, how are you doing? Gordo the techs are here. I'm here with Heather Patterson, chief happiness officer. I just love it. I could have been, I could have been a chief happiness officer. I think so. I was always having fun and smiling and I enjoyed, I enjoy every day of the week. I mean, there isn't a day I don't enjoy. I mean, it's from the moment I wake up. Well, something a little creaky and cringy, but I just love it. So here you are, you're now going around town, you're getting, you're working with large firms soon, not just small, but large firms and you're getting them to, to understand what, what happiness is all about within, within the workforce. But how do you, I just, I'm still having a hard time figuring out how you get in the door and that they call you or you call them or they're doing cold calls Hi, I'm Heather Patterson. It's primarily referral based. Okay. Yeah. Or we meet it through some sort of speaking engagement that I've had or something like that where I say something and it resonates and you know, the introduction is made, but it's usually the people that are closest to them, you know, a fellow business owner or a fellow, you know, member of senior management and they have a golfing buddy or someone where they're like, oh, if only we could keep our people and they're like, oh, hey, do you know Heather? Yeah. And that's how the conversation goes. It's usually to the HR departments or is it come further from the top or is it just, you know, it's come both, you know, from, from multiple angles, you know, the primary set of my clients have been groups where they don't have a dedicated HR department. Some have, of course, some of the, you know, larger firms, of course, but where I just have direct access to the, the leadership. Well, a lot of firms now outsource their HR department, right? Because there's, there's, there's organizations that do that and the labor laws are so complex. Absolutely. And we talked, you know, we talked about like, oh, I could sue you for that for profiling me or whatever this kind of stuff is. Yeah. So, so, so that's happening. So, but what if an employee, well, what if someone who's not executive or manager wanted to somehow get you in to come in and be able to do that? Do you have a, do you have any guiding, guiding elevator pitches you can give to them? I mean, I mean, not all executives are going to listen, not all managers are going to listen, but I think a lot of employees would like to get someone like yourself to come into the organization. I've had those conversations and it's interesting. A lot of times I just say, you know, what I need from you is an introduction. We need to be getting back to that radical candor, you know, being able to speak openly about that there's an issue of drama per se or a challenge or a goal of, if you want to reframe it, a goal of being a great place to work. And I think we could use some help here. So you have to have this culture already of, hi, I'm willing to have someone else have a look at this. Have a look at this. Yeah, I have a client right now and they're just absolutely one of the most wonderful clients I've ever had because and they have me look at their technology stuff and so on. And the operation, I would say from a 90 plus percentile, all work well together and the generations are miles apart, but it's just there's somehow there's this culture that's formed through this entire long time organization that's just there. But it's getting that younger person to have, I'm saying younger because usually the new employees are younger and it's the old guys and girls that have been sitting in the management positions. I mean, that's typically what it is. It's not very often when you see the millennials at the top are Gen X's or whatever, I'm not profiling, whatever's at the top and they're hiring me. Well, in my case, it's a lot like that, but I thought it was done, but it's not typically what you would see. It's usually the senior brain in the junior. But it's getting the senior to realize that this would be a nice thing to happen. So again, it's going to be tough on that intro to get the senior. So have you got any success stories? You can talk about it. Well, I have some success stories. Without naming the companies, you know, or you can, it's up to you. Yeah. That is your call. Some of them I can name. So I'll do, I'll share a couple of examples. That'd be good to see. Yeah. One is that where I worked with the group on a corporate level, and this is probably my most ideal situation, real estate firm here in Honolulu, worked with a very senior, you know, with the senior leader, the team leader, his name is Kevin Miyama. So Keller Williams Honolulu is the company. And he was referred to me by one of his agents, you know, agent, a high producing agent who has a vested interest in the success. So a high producing agent. So he has, or she has the ear of the person at the lab. Has the ear, they have influence. And people all up and down the organization have influence. So if you're a strong, I'm going to compare, if you're a strong, hardworking and employee that really has the senior execs are aware of, then there's a good chance they might listen to a recommendation on your phone. Yeah, yeah. And so bring value. And you'll have people's attention. You've got to bring value. Bring value. Bring value. I don't care how old you are. Bring value. I don't care that you've managed to be here a whole week. And you're not the president yet. Yeah. Bring value. Oh, what a great, what a great concept. Bring value and higher up the ladder will actually be paying attention to you. Yep. OK, sorry. Absolutely. But you just, I had an epiphany here. No, I love it. Thanks. Yeah. So he says, hey, I know that retention is a goal of the company. So he's been listening. He reframes the goal to, back to the leader, I have someone that you might want to talk to. That's it. So we go in. I have my standard consultation questions where we talk about challenges and what they're doing to address those challenges, what they're sort of open to. And while I'm having this conversation, I'm also looking at, are you coachable? What sort of body language is there? Yeah, what is that like? And as a person who's been in this business for, I think, 30 years or more, Kevin has been doing this. I mean, yeah, he was a little skeptical. What is this millennial going to? He's going to be like, I am. So what's the big deal? Yeah, what are you going to teach me? And so we devised a plan. So I learned about the organization a little more. Their current habits, how the team comes together already, because I integrate. I don't introduce these big, grand workshops that the team would never be a part of in the first place. I find a solution that fits who they are and how they go about their work already. So we worked up a schedule where every other week, I was coaching with the senior leader, with Kevin and his right hand person named Kristi. And then we did monthly engagements with the staff. And those engagements were anything from workshops and learning about concepts like accountability and communication to team building, more team building oriented workshops, where they were learning about who each other were outside of work, what their interests are, their hobbies, the things that were important to them. And they got to share and just spend time getting to know each other. So was the goal holding onto your most productive employees and at the same time, having your most productive employees bring in new potential? Well, the goal for them was retention of administrative staff. So it wasn't designed to recruit agents. That's a whole nother strategy that I don't really have the qualifications, but to have an administrative team that was cohesive, was communicating so that they could then support the agents. The agents are their customers, right? And so they needed to be able to communicate well with each other, but also outwardly too. Some pretty demanding. And yeah, the agents need to understand that they're not the only star in the sky. Right. No, you need your support team to have that administrative aspect be able to flourish. So you were building an understanding of expectation, but at the same time, with that tying to it, a relationship factor, this is my interpretation, and at the same time, making it enjoyable. Yes, so we had fun together. We introduced systems. So for example, and now every single meeting that Kevin has, it's his personal note-taking system, but the concept that I introduced to him was this idea of who, what, and when. Real simple, right? Who agreed to what and when does it do by? And he refers back to that who, what, when with each person that he's meeting with every time. So that the little things that we say, oh yeah, I'm going to do that in the meeting. Or yeah, you go ahead and take care of that. Those things get addressed, and they don't drop. So that makes me, so it's constant feedback, something that is now something should be happening all the time, because again, I'll go back to this, my career growing up. I got the job done. I didn't expect any kind of feedback, unless it was wrong, unless it was good news. No news was good news. Yeah, no news was good news. Are we now, our society in such a way, our workplace such a way that there needs to be constant feedback? I would say so, yes. I absolutely support that idea. That is the nature of our world, right? I mean, we get notifications that say, like, this thing is broken, and we're going to do an update. It happens all around us. Why wouldn't it happen at work? Or you can kind of, it happens in our lives, right? Yeah. When my lovely bride thanks me for cleaning the condo, I go, oh, that was kind of nicer. Yeah. You know, I did it, but there was a nice feedback, and it had on the back, and it was nice. And a tip on that is people need, the research shows, that people need five points of praise for every one negative. Okay, five, I was seven to one, my day. I thought it was seven out of boys to make up for one old shit. Oh, yeah. But anyway, okay. Five to one. Five points of praise for... For every one piece of negative. Okay, what are the five points of praise? Well, things like, thanks for cleaning the condo. Oh, okay, so there's no, like, you know, oh, I gotta bring out my little, my cliff notes and go like these five. Oh, no, no, but just, you know, five for every one. Okay, so five points of praise. So here's a good message for those that are watching. Yeah, really practical take away. Yeah, practical giveaways, right, you know, five points of praise. And I think it's the same with life, right? Yes, take this and do it at home, too. As soon as your Johnny doesn't get their homework done, okay. Hey, come on, you can't get the homework done. Give me a break. But then when they do get it, say, wow, you got your homework done, they, oh, by the way, you did that. And, but you gotta do five to one. Five to one. Five out of boys to one OS. Okay, that's a good, that's a good take home. Okay, so we're winding up down. We got like a little less than a minute. So you got any one message or get us your website and so that you would like to get out there. Between all of us, non-millennials, millennials, Gen Xs that we're not profiling. Sure, sure. So being happy at work, it's a journey, it's a process. And what matters is that you start and I play, but it's also real, start with a smile. You can literally just change your face. Do that a little more and it will spread. It will spread and how to find me is on my website, you can go to heatherpatterson.com and find me there. I do weekly YouTube videos so that people have free takeaways every week. They're all there. And it's for all levels. There's points for execs and points for the line level. It's free 99. Free 99. Perfect, right. Okay, well Heather, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you. We're gonna do this quarterly. What you said last night, we're gonna do, your smile is just magnet, it's a magnet anyway. Thank you. So we're gonna, I do an accusive flirting with the female guest. Oh. And I like it. Anyway, so it's great to have you on the show. We'll have you back in another quarter and we'll talk about how things are progressing and maybe have another success story. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, welcome to, welcome here to HeBotchyTalk. Thank you guys for joining us. And like we say at the end of every show, one, two, three. How you doing?