Cisco: How to reimagine purpose for a Silicon Valley icon

Rewilding Work with Paul Miller Episode 1: Cisco: How to re-imagine purpose for a Silicon Valley icon

[00:00:23.930] – Paul Miller

Welcome to Rewilding Work. I’m Paul Miller. I had a job once, many years ago, admittedly, but I left in an idealistic search for freedom. How could I work, enjoyably, earn a living, but be free of all the drudgery? At least that’s how I saw it. Of work. Since then, in an ironic comic twist, I seem to have spent my entire working life involved with large organizations, trying to understand how they work and to help them through technology, make work a more rewarding and empowering experience. Now we find ourselves in this post-pandemic time and work itself needs to evolve, to be reimagined. What does that mean in practice? Who’s getting this right? And what can we each learn that we can then apply in our own workplaces? Rewilding Work captures stories and examples of how senior leaders and change-makers are transforming the world of work across their organizations. We’re going to be talking to directors of HR, specialists in future of work, leaders of strategy in organizations like Adobe, Coca-Cola, Estée Lauder, and Microsoft. And in this first episode, I talked to Gianpaolo Barozzi, Senior Director of HR and Talent at Cisco, the technology and software company, and do subscribe and like right here.

[00:01:55.690] – Paul Miller

So you get alerted about each new episode. Now let’s hear from Gianpaolo.

[00:02:05.750] – Paul Miller

Ginpaolo, great to have you here. So let’s get into it. Cisco is going deeply into the subject of purpose. And I know that your chief people officer became your chief people purpose officer going beyond HR. What was the thinking behind that? In my mind, quite radical move.

[00:02:34.930] – Gianpaolo Barozzi

First of all, thank you for having me here. Yes, it was. Yes it was. And let me quote our CEO, because I love this quote. He said, it’s clear to me that our notions of corporate social responsibility, advocacy, or even the most recent notion of stakeholder capitalism simply aren’t doing enough to care for our world. And that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to connect the way in which we do business, in the way in which we provide positive impact to the world. Our purpose has been defined as powering an inclusive future for all. Which means that the way in which we are leveraging our technology and inspire our people is going to make a sustainable, positive impact in the world and on our planet. Particularly, we’re going to launch a new organization within our people policy and purpose officer that is going to be focused on purpose, strategy, and innovation. And my team will be part of it. The target is to create new model to do business in addition to the traditional one that we have based on a very specific idea or project that is going to impact the world.

[00:03:53.850] – Gianpaolo Barozzi

Strongly connected with a local social issue of the territory that we’re going to impact whether it’s going to be a city, a region, a country that are based on a wider leverage of our ecosystem and also making sure that we are enlarging our ecosystem with new partners. Strongly connected with the local communities to create business opportunity for the short-term impact for the short term but also longer-term change. A fundamental element is going to be how this purpose is going to be enabled, driven by the local community and our people community.

[00:04:34.310] – Paul Miller

What I was wondering, and there have been times in the past, you will recognize them, where organizations have had quite bold visions, missions, but somewhat tangential to the main business. So it’s been niche within the side of the business rather than the core of the business. To what extent is this going to actually affect infect Cisco?

[00:05:02.130] – Gianpaolo Barozzi

To a great extent, we are defining metrics, business metrics related to the way in which our purpose led initiatives and project are actually impacting our business and the world and the people that are around us. For example, we just published our first purpose report. We moved from the CSR environment that too often was concentrated into telling just what good things we are doing into a Purpose report that is really sharing how the purpose of our organization is turned into the way we do business and into the way we measure the impact. And so the idea is connecting metrics with initiatives and initiatives with the culture that we have in our company.

[00:05:59.080] – Paul Miller

So I love this idea of the local, the social, the impact on the planner. And I know it’s only early days because I think your chief purpose officer and people officer policy has been enrolled for a year or two. So what would be an example of a way that Cisco would be enacting this purpose within a locality? Even if you had a magic wand, what would that sort of dream scenario maybe you’ve had one already.

[00:06:35.150] – Gianpaolo Barozzi

Yeah, and it’s interesting you can find some information on the internet as well. It’s called Venywhere like where you are. And the idea has been to connect with our local ecosystem in Venice to help the city to turn from the current extreme touristic location into a real working cities. What happened throughout the years is that the residential population of Venice continued to diminish in favor of airbnb or local renting apartment. And so people have been perceiving this city as a museum. And we’re helping local organization and the University of Venice to turn this trend into remaking the city, the center of the economic and vibrant innovative life that it was in the past. How leveraging the people that can work from anywhere, hence Venywhere what we did there, we partner with local organizations, with local institution, with our partners, other companies, other enterprises to reuse the places and inject a new way of thinking about the future of work. We also send 16 of our people to work and live in Venice for three months, really to live and breathe and test this scenario. So the idea is every time you are leading a purpose led initiative or a purpose led business fundamental element is your capability of experimenting.

[00:08:22.110] – Gianpaolo Barozzi

At the end of the day, you are creating a lab connected with the social activities there. And through this lab, you not only experiment to new models, but you are also providing impact. So Venywhere could be a major example.

[00:08:39.300] – Gianpaolo Barozzi

And I love that it also taps into something that I thought was one of the more I don’t know if it’s purposeful effects of the pandemic, but it’s one of the consequences of the pandemic is that there’s been a re-localization of work. And we see it around where I live in the Cotswolds in England, you see people who are now living and working here in a way that they weren’t previously. Consequently, that’s bringing money into the local economy, helping support local businesses. And I think that’s really terrific. The other thing that you’ve talked about is a focus more on teams than individuals. Now, during my management career, it’s been almost like an obsession with individual performance, individual ratings. But this focus on teams, so what’s that about?

[00:09:38.730] – Gianpaolo Barozzi

Yeah, that’s very interesting. We did five years ago around we did a major transition in HR, right. In human resources. Like you said, we traditionally focused on the two sides of the pendulum, the individual and everyone. Guidelines, rules, et cetera. But the reality is that performance, engagement, well being are all happening in teams. Right. I join a company, I leave a manager and a team because that team wasn’t able to provide me the right environment. Culture is build it through teams. So we did a couple of major changes that I would like to call out. One is, from an HR perspective, we moved from few data points that are extremely important from an interpretation perspective. My yearly performance review, right? Very impactful. Once a year, one data point to multiple data points, each of them having low interpretation power. But the trend of it, the integral of it, is going to define what we can act upon. The second element was adding intelligence to metrics. Typically, like you said, as a manager, you had metrics to manage the level below and so forth. Right. We added intelligence that is actually the level of information and knowledge that each layer needs to manage itself the better in the best way.

[00:11:15.290] – Gianpaolo Barozzi

And so, for example, we started providing intelligence to teams to allow them to really take the best decision with the local and specific information that they have. So that’s the fundamental shift.

[00:11:31.670] – Paul Miller

The other point that I wanted to pick up on is I know that you’ve hired an evolutionary biologist. Obviously, we’re very interested in the idea of organizations as living systems. An evolutionary biologist, in order to learn from animals, from nature and apply that. Why did you do that and has it produced some tangible help for you so far?

[00:12:02.280] – Gianpaolo Barozzi

Yeah. So first of all. I was so intrigued a couple of years ago when I find out about the Nature of Work. All major consulting company had just the statement organization are now living being, period. They just look at the very high level metaphor or analogy, if you want. We wanted to go deeper. We wanted to understand what we can really learn from biology, from living beings, specifically because connecting to what we said before, if you believe that your organization is composed by teams, your organization becomes a network of teams. And so we wanted to understand what we could learn from living networks on how to design our own network. And so we started, for example, with a very high level evolutionary principle. For example, mutation, right? How we can induce or enforce randomness in teams to have the team mutate through the intelligence that they have. We thought about hybridization or recombination the way in which we crossed certain department and created connection. We thought about migration as well in terms of changing teams and moving talent around. Specifically, a couple of examples I love, for example, we did some analysis on the slime moulds to understand how the super organism are actually collaborating.

[00:13:39.250] – Gianpaolo Barozzi

And so we saw that there are specific selection rules, that there is specific intelligence in the further nodes of the network that we can leverage redundancy of this information. Also from ants and bees, the idea of having modular teams because they’re always working in triad. And so what can we do with the three people teams and how this kind of teams are impacting the way in which we do business? Last one which is interesting is coming from cellular networks, right? The nested intelligence in which each layer is delivering a cascade of interaction and information. Genes to proteins to metabolic network to interstellar networks. From an organizational perspective, individuals, triads, teams, team of teams, and organization as a network of networks.

[00:14:39.570] – Paul Miller

And what’s wonderful, and I’ve found this, and I’m sure you have, is that once you start to understand nature and learn more about nature is so interesting because I wasn’t schooled in all of this. And you start to learn things about the extraordinary power. And of course, that’s a system that’s been around for millions of years and consequently there’s so much information in there. Why has Cisco taken such, I think, radical, systemic, deep lying changes? Why has it made these changes at this time?

[00:15:14.730] – Gianpaolo Barozzi

Well, it’s a mix of elements. So first of all, when, if not now, we started before the Pandemic with an ever changing environment. Then the changes were exploded into really exponential speed. Then after the Pandemic, we were just trying to understand how to recover from that. And then we are into this major geo, financial, economical situation. So the best way for an organization to react is to be proactive. And the other question related to purpose is asking ourselves what can we do for the world at the end of the day. The Purpose question is, why are we here for? What do we want to do? And this connected with our conscious culture that we launched a few years ago. Conscious culture, purpose, network of teams and then, of course, understanding how trying to learn from the organizations and the network that have been here for millions of years was the final approach, if you want.

[00:16:33.170] – Paul Miller

Thank you so much. Gianpaolo, wonderful to talk to you. Could go on for ages. Thank you so much.

[00:16:40.460] – Gianpaolo Barozzi

A pleasure. Thank you.

[00:16:46.210] – Paul Miller

So, to reflect on what Gianpaolo and I talked about, I’m delighted to be joined in the studio by two expert commentators. Danielle O’Hare, who’s in charge of learning at Lucasfilm and Disney Studios, and Caroline von Koenig, who looks after wellbeing at Fidelity International. Great. So it’s lovely to be here with you both today. And so, Danielle, what are your main reflections on what Gianpaolo was talking to me about?

[00:17:30.290] – Danielle O’Hare

Yeah. Thank you, Paul. I thought it was really interesting, and I think specifically, I love this idea of aligning a business strategy to what employees really care about, what employees have been talking about forever, which is purpose. Right. Like how people feel that individually. So I really love that idea of that a company sort of taking that on and really embracing that as a company mission. That makes a lot of sense to me. I thought it was interesting that they talked about this transition, that it actually even though, of course, the Pandemic really influenced this transition that they had started prior five years ago. He said they had started thinking about shifting from the individual, this idea from individual to team. And but then it seemed like the Pandemic in some way sort of accelerated this shift, the sort of need for really feeling about having Purpose and being really connected to your team. Yeah, the Pandemic really sort of moved that forward. And the last thing I thought about was just this idea of network. He talked a lot about really looking to the natural world and being inspired and influenced by the way that networks form and behave in the natural world.

[00:18:41.340] – Danielle O’Hare

And how can we really use that as a model for how we think about our teams and the networks of our teams within the business world?

[00:18:49.390] – Paul Miller

So, Caroline, there’s an awful lot of talk, as Danielle mentioned, about purpose in the interview. Why do you feel that purpose is getting what I would call a kind of new wave of attention at the moment?

[00:19:03.410] – Caroline von Koenig

I think there’s two main reasons. One of them is a little bit of a hangover from Pandemic. People were free of distractions and really time to think of what really matters to them. So purpose has really been on the forefront of their mind, their own individual purpose, but then automatically also in their career, what does really matter to them there? And I think the other second reason is really because there’s such a strong business case. So it quotes some of the Harvard Business Review data and what they say if there’s a company that has a very clearly articulated purpose, that actually 52% of those sort of part and purpose driven companies experienced 10% growth compared to 42% of non-purpose driven companies. So I think it’s that combination of the individual factor and really wanting to work for someone that knows what their purpose is, where you know the impact that you’re having and having reevaluated, but also the businesses really realizing having a strong purpose and articulating that is what they need to drive business growth.

[00:20:10.690] – Paul Miller

And at Fidelity, is purpose becoming more important in your organization, would you say? And if so, kind of in what ways?

[00:20:20.310] – Caroline von Koenig

Absolutely. I think it’s always been quite important for us. Our purpose is working together to build better financial futures. And we have sort of two core values about integrity and trust, and they’re underpinned by four action orientated behaviors. So being bold, being brave, being curious and compassionate. But we realized we really need to bring a way to bring that to our employees as well. So we recently launched our employee value proposition, Feel Fidelity, to reflect about what does it really mean to work for Fidelity to feel part of Fidelity. So it’s about feeling curious about your career, feeling valued as an individual, feeling part of the progress we’re making together and be proud of the impact that you make. So we’re really communicating that more with our employees and reflecting what does it really mean to feel like to work at Fidelity? So yes, absolutely.

[00:21:12.630] – Paul Miller

Danielle, when I think of Lucasfilm and ILM, Disney, obviously sort of purposes is more overtly obvious in your organizations, but has a deeper sense of purpose started to come about inside your organization as well at Lucasfilm, and how has that manifested itself, would you say?

[00:21:40.750] – Danielle O’Hare

Yeah, it’s interesting. I mean, hearing Caroline speak, I think there are a lot of similar themes. And this whole idea from an employee’s perspective, it’s about bringing your whole self to work so that you’re there, you’re sharing everything about yourself, you’re feeling like you’re in a safe and trusted environment, and of course that sets you up to do your best work. So from that perspective, there’s a real emphasis on it from an employee perspective. But then we think about how purpose shows up just in the work that we do. And of course, in my world, in the entertainment industry, we’re all about telling stories that are going to open people’s minds or inspire them to do something new in their life, to take on a new challenge. And so often we do talk about sort of connecting those two pieces, the broader purpose of what we’re doing as a company and how do we really connect that back to employees. And I think a lot of that happens through transparency between the strategy that we’ve set for our company and sharing that with employees. Again, like what Caroline was saying, really getting employees invested in being a part of that.

[00:22:50.860] – Danielle O’Hare

Right. It’s really helping to make connections between the contributions that you are making on a day to day basis and really seeing how that’s showing up in what we end up creating and putting out there into the world. So we have this idea, for example, obviously we tell stories, that’s what we do. But we also talk about the fact that everyone in our company has a role to play in the storytelling, in the stories that we make, so that it doesn’t matter what role you have. You might work in finance, you might work in legal, you might be a writer, you might be a designer, everyone is. All those roles need to come together in order to create what ultimately ends up on the screen. So that’s one way we’re sort of connecting your personal purpose to this broader company purpose.

[00:23:38.950] – Paul Miller

Caroline, the other thing that Gianpaolo spoke about was this shift from a kind of fixational focus on the individual to a focus and attention on the team. And in your role in terms of wellbeing, health, mindfulness inside organizations, do you think this shift from the individual to the team can help with that subject of wellbeing?

[00:24:10.430] – Caroline von Koenig

Absolutely. I also say wellbeing is a team sport because you are a part of a wider team. But again, if you want to back that up by some studies, McKinsey did a very interesting survey in April 2022 and they surveyed about 15,000 employees and thousand HR decision makers in over 15 countries. And what they actually sort of really look at the disconnect between employers’ efforts and the rising employee mental health and wellbeing challenges and what really came out. That the biggest impact for predicting burn out symptoms are very much when there is a toxic workplace culture. And for me, the opposite of a toxic workplace culture is very much a psychological safe workplace environment. And that’s only something you can create as a team that takes several individuals to create that. So I think very often when we’re trying to solve the wellbeing challenges at the workplace, we’re responding to symptoms or we’re offering resilience building programs or mindfulness you just mentioned there. But it’s actually about so much more. It’s about sort of manager training and really, what can we do to create that psychological safe environment, what you said. So everyone does feel like they can bring their whole selves to work and don’t have to wear a mask.

[00:25:25.650] – Caroline von Koenig

So I think that’s very much aligned and very important.

[00:25:30.170] – Paul Miller

That’s great. And Danielle, just to kind of end so is there a way that this sort of Reimagined rewilded story has been brought into more of a story within Lucasfilm? Have you applied your wonderful story making and storytelling techniques to this? And if so, how?

[00:25:52.850] – Danielle O’Hare

Wow. Well, I love this idea as I talked in the beginning about networks and really looking to the natural world for inspiration there I do think there is. We’re talking about teams and I do think something really interesting has happened through this sort of working for home moment, where even the concept of teams even sort of shifted in a lot of ways, kind of blown up in some ways, right. Because it used to be very clear and specific. It’s like you’d go into an office and you’d work with the people you worked with, all of a sudden, everyone’s on a screen. In my case, I’m sure in Caroline’s as well, we’re working with teams all over the world, and even just how those teams are shaped and formed would feel really different now because they’re sort of obviously we know that many things have been neutralized because we’re all sort of on screens and working together in really different ways. But when I think to how we’ve been inspired by this idea of rewilding, I mean, certainly this idea that Gianpaolo talked about with these modular teams of three, that was a really interesting concept to me.

[00:26:56.890] – Danielle O’Hare

So we’ve certainly been thinking about how teams are working differently now. But I really like that idea of thinking about the really kind of key team of three and everyone playing a really specific and important role and how when you bring all three together, you can do amazing things. That’s a really interesting idea that I’d actually like to explore more.

[00:27:15.740] – Paul Miller

Yeah. And then just sort of thinking that I sort of think that often in stories and myths, there’s often like a group of three, there’s like two people, they’re in with each other, three adds another interesting yeah, they’re three musketeers. Thank you so much for coming into the studio, Danielle and Caroline. It’s been an absolute pleasure and I could go on, but won’t, so thank you so much.

[00:27:42.310] – Caroline von Koenig

Thank you for having us.

[00:27:43.780] – Danielle O’Hare

Thank you so much.

[00:27:49.350] – Paul Miller

I love that we’ve been banging on about purpose for 40 years or more, and it’s a word that has been thrown back at companies to show the mismatch between what they say their purpose is and what actually happens in reality. So here are my three Cs to plant based on what we heard today from Gianpaolo and our expert pundits. Number one, you can’t fake purpose. You never could, actually. But today, if you really dive deeper into purpose in your organization, you can flip the switch and harness the true power of purpose. It’s more like when a person finds their true purpose, what in Indian yogic language is called your dharma. As in your path, things just fall into alignment. Getting that at a company level is a way of harnessing energy, dynamism and understanding. Patagonia, the clothing company, has that, and now its CEO is giving away the ownership of the company to the planner. In effect, time to get real and deep about your true purpose in work. Number two, the era of the separate individual is drawing to a close and the era of the connected team is here. No individual can achieve much alone, or if they can, they do so with one hand tie behind their back.

[00:29:15.830] – Paul Miller

So we are all connected and we achieve most via groups and teams. And the third seed to plant is that nature as a teacher has intelligence and that is freely available to any organization to draw on and learn from. We are nature. So the patterns in nature are essential to understand and embed. Doing this ought to be much easier and certainly much more natural than applying a mechanistic approach. Do subscribe and like right here so you get alerted to each new episode of Rewilding work and see you next time.