Employee Engagement is at a critical low, and

leaders everywhere are asking how to turn the tide. In this

episode, I talk with Elizabeth "El" Lages, Chief people and

culture officer at Flexera, a global company known for its

people first approach and high performance culture El shares

practical strategies for building engagement through

clear expectations, accountability that works and

authentic connection, insights every leader can apply

immediately. If you want to know how to inspire commitment and

create a workplace where people thrive, you'll want to keep listening.

Welcome to the Courage of a Leader podcast. This is where

you hear real life stories of top leaders achieving

extraordinary results, and you get practical advice and

techniques you can immediately apply for your own success. This

is where you will get inspired and take bold, courageous

action. I'm so glad you can join us. I'm your host. Amy Riley,

now are you ready to step into the full power of your

leadership and achieve the results you care about most.

Let's ignite the courage of a leader.

El, thank you for being on the courage of a leader podcast

today. Thanks for having me. It's nice to see you again.

Yeah, it's always good to see you. We are talking about, I

think, the most critical conversation that can be had in

the workplace. Right now we are going to talk about, how do you

create high levels of engagement across teams, across an

organization? So let me start by asking you, El, how do you as

the head of culture and people at Flexera. How do you think

about or define high engagement?

So for us, high engagement has a lot of

components to it, and recognizing the importance of

regularly being in communication and creating awareness with all

of your employees is really important. So we look at it in

how we expect all of our managers and leaders to conduct

regular one on ones, right? So there's this constant line of

communication that's occurring that's an opportunity for

feedback. We look at this as part of performance, right in

that, and again, that ongoing dialog around expectation

setting, having clarity. We do quarterly check ins, we do

quarterly business reviews. We also actually leverage surveys,

right? We do engagement surveys twice a year when we do an

acquisition which we just completed, one in March, we do

separate we call them pulse surveys to newly acquired team

members, right? So we can gage and meet them where they are.

And that information helps us understand, where do we need to

focus? Where do we need to action? We just it's interesting

because we just finished our post survey from April. We are

in the process of going through the results, looking at what the

themes are, and I'll be talking to the entire company based on,

you know, what we know we're doing well, where we have

opportunities. And then we will share broadly with the company

by function, here's what's working, and here's where

there's opportunity to do better. And each function is

accountable to action something based on their survey results,

and we will be posting that as well, so it's very visible. Keep

score is a core value of ours, and so we want that

accountability for all of us. Again, we're not perfect, right?

This is constantly in motion and trying to figure out where we

have opportunity to get better and raise the bar performance

scenario that you and I have talked about is one that I'm

keenly focused on, but all of those things impact engagement

as well as regular communication points. So we do a regular all

hands with our CEO. We do ask me anything sessions with all of

our senior leadership. So we try to make sure that there are

monthly occurrences of some type of engagement happening all

across the country, around the world.

Nice. Al, you have already said so much, and one

thing I'm hearing loud and clear, and I think we

foundationally forget this, that what is engaging is to have two

way understanding that's right, right? You immediately started

talking about regular communication, regular

awareness. And listen, I am more engaged if I understand what the

heck is going on and what we're up to and what direction we're

headed and why and what. What has changed and shifted things

recently. And then I also hear you making sure that you're

understanding your leadership is understanding from the full

employee population. Where are they at? Oh, you're part of our

newly acquired members. Where are you at? How do we meet you

where you're you're at. So I just like that two way

understanding is so important. Agree Absolutely. So Al, you

mentioned that keep score is one of your company's core values.

Say more about that,

absolutely. When we think about our core

values, they're foundational, I think in terms of who we are as

a company and how we operate, and we try to ensure that our

values are instilled in everything that we do. So

whether that's part of our performance process, whether

that's part of recognition, we have a program called give,

allow, where we recognize performance, and the giveaway is

tied to someone exhibiting one of our core values. So keep

score. I mentioned right? We do? We expect accountability. We

look at metrics. We have OKRs as part of our performance and goal

conversations. Passion is a core value. You know, we're

incredibly passionate about what we do at Flexera. We have

employee resource groups, we have Flexera days, we have days

of connection. We try to have high customer impact. And we, we

expect our employees to show up, you know, passionate about who

we are, what we do, candor. This is a Jim Ryan, our Chief

Executive Officer. This is a special of his. We actually see

a lot in the survey results how much they love Jim's

transparency and his candid approach. And so people love it.

Candor creates the opportunity for feedback loops. We know from

our employees they want the feedback. We assume that people

don't want to hear anything opportunistic or perceived as

criticism. But the truth is, most people, especially those

that really aspire to continue to develop professionally, want

promotions. They want to understand where they have an

opportunity to do different, to do better. So candor is a key

feedback of ours, and being really transparent about what we

can do, what we can't give back. You know, we're really

fortunate. We work in tech. Most of our team members here are,

you know, paid at a healthy level. It starts again. You

know, Jim Ryan has a lot of work that he does from a charitable

perspective. We actually, today in the UK, we have a bunch of

our teams doing a three peak charitable give back that they

do every year. So around the world, this is something that

all of our team members embrace. It's organic, by the way. We

don't force anything. We don't say you have to do X people,

just they get together, they self organize and and we love

it. There's actually been, I won't get into it, but there's a

great LinkedIn post from Jim Ryan about one of our team

members here who donated kidney to another former team member.

And it's a LinkedIn post. Jim Ryan posted it. It's a Flexera.

You know, it's who we are. We are Flexera, that's one of our

tagline so I encourage people to look at that, but that's a big

reflection of us as a company. We celebrate success. Yeah, I

talked about the giveaway for our go to market folks. We do a

first class presidents club to recognize our our top achievers

in that function and professionalism, right? Our

culture is we have clear ethics expectations. We believe our

managers are we're all accountable and also important

that we treat each other, you know, with respect and in a

professional manner.

Thank you. You're really expanding, for many of

us, what the definition, or what all can be encompassed inside of

the idea of engagement. And when you think about it, when people

are professional and treat each other with respect and there's

appropriate behavior that is engaging accountability,

celebrating successes, getting feedback, recognition. Okay, I

want to drill down onto a couple of those. But first, let me

pause here, El and tell listeners a little bit more

about you sure Elizabeth lodges, or El lodges, is the chief

people and culture officer at Flexera. Flexera is a global

company that helps organizations gain the visibility and insight

they need to optimize spend, minimize risk, achieve

sustainability goals and make data driven decisions to propel

focusing on building high performing teams and enabling a

culture rooted in candor, accountability and celebrating

success. You've already heard her say it. She leads with the

people first mindset and a keep score philosophy, driving

engagement, developing leaders and aligning performance with

purpose. We will share information to connect with El

in the show notes. I want to talk about the concept of

accountability next El. So I. Might have heard and observed

leaders recently who are afraid to hold people accountable.

They're worried that that will be disengaging, and I know you

and I are of the mindset that accountability is engaging. Yes,

tell us more about this mindset and how accountability plays out

day to day,

absolutely so when, when I think about our

core values, right? If you think about keep score and you think

about candor, right at the end of the day, accountability helps

us all understand what is expected of us. You know when is

something to be delivered? Why, the how. And I think, you know,

if we have no accountability, I don't really know how you drive

a business forward, right? The Accountability helps us all

understand what's the goal post, what are we working toward, and

when do we want to get there by so and to your earlier point,

which I know this firsthand, because we've actually heard

this from our employees. Employee people are not afraid

of being held accountable. They want to be held accountable, but

they also want to be recognized right when they do well and when

they deliver, you know, ahead of schedule or they deliver

exceptional work, they want to be rewarded and recognized fair

enough, and if they deliver something and they are

accountable, but it misses the mark, they also want to know

why, and that's that's fair and reasonable as well. So I think

accountability is just a critical part of running a

successful business and and allowing each team member to

understand, you know, what is needed and expected of them and

how they're helping drive whatever that company strategy

is forward, you know, based on the results,

yes, based on the concepts that you're sharing. L,

I'm making a little diagram over here on my piece of paper, like

it's okay to expect something big from me. Of course, if

you've got clear expectations if I've got the information that I

need about why and where and how and what my role is, and if I'm

getting good feedback along the way, right? So these are my

arrows going into that right? And we're celebrating and

acknowledging my input and the value that I brought. So expect

big things from me. Fine, if you're going to support me in

that, in all the ways that you described, yes,

yes. And I think creating a culture and an

atmosphere where people also feel like they can say, you

know, Hey, Amy, this is a really big project. That's great, but I

have this other thing that you're expecting from me as

well. So can you help prioritize which area do I need to work on?

Right? So again, I think it is that expectation setting that

becomes really important, and allowing people to understand

where they need to focus is knowing that they will be held

accountable, right? There needs to be some exchange in in how

that happens

now, it takes different skills, a variety of

skills, from leaders, in order to be able to support team

members in the way that we're describing. How do you coach

leaders, support leaders so that they are there, clarifying

expectations, holding people accountable, helping their teams

prioritize.

Yeah, it's a great question, manager and

leader development, I think for all companies is so critically

important. And I think I will say, I'm going to guess, that

most companies feel like this is an area where you can never do

enough, whether it's organically external resources for us. It's

really grounded in on our practice. Again, I mentioned the

oh three that happens at every level, right? So I meet with our

CEO every week for 30 minutes, and that is the start of, you

know, he's offering me coaching and development. Well, have you

thought about this? Or I can go to him and say, I'm really

struggling with this scenario. Here's how I think I want to

handle it, and he'll use the opportunity to coach and guide

me. So it starts with that regular connection that we

talked about, that piece of engagement, but we also hold

more structured and have more formal enablement and education

that we do. So we have a new manager training that's rolled

out from my organizational excellence team. We do regular

flex talks. We call them for managers and leaders. We have a

woman who has worked with us for a while, who is the former CHRO

for McDonald's globally, and she has shared with us practices

that we talk about regularly, like the shadow of a leader. How

we show up has a big influence. We talk about skill Hill and

will. And you know, if you're having a challenge with an

employee, is it their skill? Is it the will of the desire, or is

it that they need help, right? It's too big of a hill to climb.

So we have certain foundational philosophies that we talk about.

We talk a lot about the change. Curve, because changes are

constant. And so we also help our leaders and managers

understand how change impacts all of us and how we process

change at different times, so that they're keenly aware and a

little bit more open right when we are acquiring a company, and

that has an impact to their team. So we really try to make

sure that we're regularly engaged in communicating with

our managers and our leaders and offering them opportunities for

development. We do a delegation segment. We're doing a coaching

segment in the second half of 25 so so we have a road map

specifically focused on manager and leadership development, what

we will cover throughout the course of the year, and trying

to balance that time is so precious, and, you know, and so

they hate when they get the invitation, because, like, I

don't have an hour. It's like, we try to, we're trying to learn

more about how to deliver impact and bite sized pieces. But I

think, you know, it goes back to everything that that we've been

talking about, and like you said, Amy, it's that engagement

and that regular two way dialog becomes important, and also

learning. You know, the survey results again, you know we saw

from our director level and above, you know, they're feeling

like there's a little bit too much process right now, they're

feeling a little stretched thin. We've done back to back

acquisitions that's given us the clarity to say, alright, this is

good information. How do we help them be successful? How do we

take this information and think about, you know, we're going to

incorporate days of no meetings to free people up, right so

listening to what we're being told, and we can't action

everything. And there are certain things that people want

that just are never going to happen, right? We're never going

to give 10% raises. It's not happening. But there is, there

are nuggets of information, like understanding those high level

themes, where it creates an opportunity for us to say, Okay,

we need to really listen and pay attention.

Yes, I'm so glad that you started with what, oh,

three, the one on ones, yes, one on one. Sorry, yeah, no, I knew

what you meant from our conversations. How important it

I mean, sometimes people gets really fancy about leadership,

but listen, just talk with your team members once a week, find

out what's going on. I mean, what you're because I want to

break this down into what are some things that every leader

listening can do that you don't have to be the chief culture or

people officer in order to make this kind of difference. Ask

people, ask for their feedback, right? If your company doesn't

have an employee engagement survey, fine. Gather your own

data and act on it. Recognize that when there's a change going

on, you often, as a leader, are getting that information. You've

gotta process it ahead of time. You gotta figure out how you're

gonna own it, and then make sure you're giving that space and

that time to bring people along, what conversations are they

going to need to have in order to get there?

So yeah, I think you nailed it at a very

baseline. It is that one on one every week. It is ensuring that

you are giving feedback. It is asking them, where are they how

are they right? Do they have clarity of expectation? And it's

being, you know, really engaged and present on a regular basis,

and not assuming that they know what you mean, not assuming that

someone automatically is reading your mind, that you expect them

to deliver this by Friday, when you just said, Hey, can you get

that done? Yeah, so, so I think at just a baseline level, it

really and it doesn't have to be fancy, it doesn't like I said,

it doesn't have to bring in external consultants. At a very

fundamental level, it's that one on one, and even having a one on

one at a skip level, so you understand that another level of

what's happening, and it's it's the clarity of expectations,

it's candid feedback, and it's really using that in a manner

that creates opportunity for dialog and conversation.

I'm thinking, as you're talking El, about how

powerful your organizational values are, that there is that

permission, that invitation for everybody to keep score, to be

candid with one another, right? So when you're a leader and

you're rolling something out, and you put those expectations

on a dashboard very visibly, and that's all out there. And I know

as your team member, I'm expected to do A, B and C by x

date, right? Then we're just keeping score. This is how we

drive things forward, right? And then when I'm falling behind, we

could talk about why that is. Is what's getting in my way?

Yes, yes, exactly. I think for us, the

core values, you know, most companies have some level of

values, and they are genuinely, authentically like part of how

we roll. And like how we roll are essentially our core values.

That's how we think about it. And they really do show up in

how we operate our business. And I think, you know, one of the

most impactful aspects of it is it does start with your chief

leaders, right? Like, you know, our chief executive officer, he

lives these and it's that shadow of a leader notion, right? So

every employee at every level sees that. They see that. I I

hope they're seeing it in me, right? So, so I think as we're

all showing up, and that's what really makes it stick and become

part of of who you are as a company, and, you know, part of

your culture,

yeah, shadow of a leader, the responsibility for

all of us it is. They're watching you every moment, not

just when you're being fully intentional about it, but every

time you walk into a room, every time you join that Zoom or that

teams meeting, how are you showing up? They are watching.

So I want to ask you one final question. L So let's say that

there is a listener out there, and they're like, Huh? I don't

know that I have been engaging my team in this way, right? I

haven't fully been holding them accountable. I don't know that I

have been making the expectations completely clear.

Where would you suggest that they start?

It's a great question. We actually went

through this exercise when I stepped into this role, I think

was about eight years ago. Jim and I have followed which much

of our philosophy comes from. It's called Manager Tools, and

they actually have podcasts, and it really is at the front of it,

you meet with your team or your team member, and you say, hey, I

want to make sure we have a better connection, and I want to

do a better job of making sure I'm clear with you. So here's

what I'd love to do. I want to start implementing 30 minutes

every week where we sit down. We can spend 10 minutes talking

about whatever you want. We'll spend 10 minutes talking about,

you know, what may be relevant to the business, and 10 minutes

on if you know, if there are other projects, initiatives, or

perhaps a career discussion, right? So we're going to spend

that 30 minutes together, and then I'm going to be clear with

you going forward on what I think the key things for us to

be working on, so that you know what I need from you to be

successful. And I'm also opening that door so that you know this

is a safe space. Please ask me questions. If I'm giving you

something that's unreasonable, let's talk about why, and you

just start

there. I like it. I like it. Al, I was wondering

whether you would start with the suggest that folks start with

the Oh threes. But I like also how you broke that down. If

that's a new practice for a leader, your oh three also has

three components, right?

Connect person,

connect about the work, and then connect about

career and development or or their interests. That's right.

So that can give folks that are not in a regular practice of

having those kinds of conversations a process and a

flow to

follow. That's right? One thing I will add to

that is those one on ones or threes, as we call them, they

create the pathway right, to build rapport, to establish

trust, and that's when you can get to a point of more easily

giving feedback, right? And by the way, over 95% of feedback is

positive, right? It's saying you did that really well. Let me be

specific. When you did this, it created that, and that was an

excellent end result, but it creates that trust where you can

also then give someone opportunistic or constructive

feedback to say there are opportunities, maybe you could

have done it this way and had a different outcome, and help

people with professional growth and development, but it's it's

those one on ones that start to create that foundation.

I agree, I love, that the connection that you're

creating and the positive feedback that you give gives

that permission for you to have what might be tougher

conversations, right? A really candid conversation, yes, El,

thank you for everything that you shared with us on the

podcast today. So delighted to spend this time with you.

Thank you so great to see you again, and I'm

pleasure to be here. So thank you for

having me. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the

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this episode's topic, please reach out to me through the

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