My guest on today’s podcast is Stuart Crabb. Stuart and I met five years ago at a Wisdom 2.0 conference (notice a running theme?). At the time, he was working at Facebook and was kind enough to take a small group of us on a tour of the social media company’s Palo Alto campus.

As the Head of Global Learning, Stuart helped design and grow Facebook’s Learning and Development program. When he started at Facebook there were about 500 employees, and when he left earlier this year, there were about 15,000.  He has recently started a new venture, Oxegen Consulting, and shares a wealth of insight with us on the podcast today.

 

What does Bring Your Whole Self to Work Mean to Stuart?

Stuart understands bringing your whole self to work isn’t just good for organizational cultures, it’s actually good for individual performance. The opportunity to be the same person you are at work and still be the same person you are when you are not at work is the essence of bringing your whole self to work. Stuart says when a person is able to live and work authentically, they are able to explore the natural strengths and full dimensions of their character. If a workplace celebrates what individuals bring to the team dynamic, high performing teams will develop.

Assimilation comes at a price. The energy people expend on fitting in gets lost and misdirected. Being able to leverage energy, to have it unencumbered for the innovation process is much more productive and beneficial to the organization.

 

The Strength Evangelist

In 2009, Facebook wanted to build a positive culture. They entrusted Stuart with creating a team with strength-based performance as its core. Stuart believes progressive organizations realize the manager trumps the brand. A company should never pay someone extra to become a manager. It incents people to want to lead for the wrong reasons. None of the perks matter if your manager sucks. Focusing on the larger social community is what is important.

 

Having the Sweaty Palmed Conversations

It goes beyond performance. It’s really all about people and their emotions. Organizations must be prepared to discuss the undiscussable. Stuart says people may misinterpret this science as “Happiology,” but it’s not. You can cultivate high-engagement and positive emotions in others if you are prepared and courageous enough to tell people what they need to hear. 

 

Resources:

Oxegen Consulting

Mike Robbins Website

Mike Robbins Podcast

Mike Robbins on Facebook

Mike Robbins on Twitter

Mike Robbins Speaker Page