When They Win, You Win

Employees are miserable because managers are failing…and no one is helping.

Russ Laraway, the Chief People Officer at Qualtrics, offers a simple, coherent, and complete leadership standard that measurably and predictably delivers happy, engaged employees and hardcore business results. After all, isn't that what sound leadership is supposed to do?

When They Win, You Win provides a three-part leadership standard that when employed does just that. Laraway’s L-E-R model – Leadership -> Engagement Results – is based on research showing that managers explain 70% of employee engagement and that employee engagement drives measurable top-and-bottom-line business results. When managers learn to manage for employee engagement, happy results follow – for customers, shareholders, employees, and all involved. When They Win, You Win shows organizational planners and managers, step-by-step, how to implement the model's three components:

-Direction - direction-setting anchors the team to an aligned result through the combination of two long-term elements and two short-term elements
- Coaching enables team members to achieve those results. It comes in two forms: coaching to improve what’s not working and coaching to continue what is working. The former involves giving them feedback which, no matter how hard we try, almost always induces a threat response; the latter involves telling people what they have done well so they can repeat those things.
- Career is the most overlooked element, but one critical to employee engagement. It means showing employees that you care for them not just in the job they are doing now, but in helping them as full human beings to discover their long-term vision and learn how to take relevant action right now to make tangible progress towards that vision.

About the Author

Russ Laraway has had a diverse 28 year operational management career. Before starting his first company, Pathfinders, he was a Company Commander in the Marine Corps. A graduate of The Wharton School, he worked at Google and Twitter before co-founding Candor, Inc., alongside bestselling author Kim Scott. In 2018, Laraway became the Chief People Officer of Qualtrics and ultimately took on a role helping other companies think (very) differently about the employee experience. Over that span, he has managed 700 person teams and $700M businesses facing a vast array of leadership challenges along the way.