Chapter 8
The For All Rocket Ship

Getting to Great Places to Work For All may be hard.

But it’s going to be the journey of the twenty-first century.

In this book, we’ve tried to show leaders that the For All path is viable. That in fact it is desirable.

In the first part, we laid out the business case for Great Places to Work For All. We described the contours of the new economic landscape, where social and technology changes are putting a premium on a human-centric way of doing business. We outlined our new definition of a Great Place to Work For All. We explained why maximizing human potential is central to success today, and how organizations must bring out the best of everyone through values, effective leadership, and trust in order to innovate and grow. We also showed how closing workplace gaps—plugging leaks in your culture—pays off with measurable business benefits like faster revenue growth, increased productivity, and reduced turnover.

We believe the business case is compelling. But it isn’t the whole story. So in the second part, we talked about how Great Places to Work For All are better for people and for the world. We detailed how these organizations enable us as individuals to achieve more than we thought possible and to enjoy healthier, more fulfilling lives. And how Great Places to Work For All make for a better global society through greater shared prosperity, fairness, and opportunity.

We followed those high-minded chapters by getting down to brass tacks for leaders. We shared our new research on 10,000 managers and outlined our new For All Leadership Model, painting a picture of leaders at different levels and presenting evidence that providing a great work experience for more of your team members produces better business results.

We also asked this question: who wouldn’t want to be a Level 5, For All Leader? We know many are not there yet, even at the best companies. And we wonder why.

Why haven’t more leaders taken the steps to build a workplace that is consistently great for everyone, no matter who they are or what they do for the organization? Why haven’t more recognized and seized the power of maximizing everyone’s potential? Why haven’t more learned from 20 years of data pointing to the payoff of high-trust, inclusive cultures? What’s more, why haven’t more seen a For All workplace as a moral imperative?

Could the resistance to For All lie in the lingering effects of the Industrial Revolution, which sharply divided “brains” from “brawn”? Could it relate to business school teaching that gives short shrift to the people side of organizations and promotes a stingy view of human potential? Might it be that power and privilege are so addictive that they blind us to rational choices that help our businesses?

Could Frederic Laloux be right that our organizations reflect the level of our collective consciousness, with many leaders focused too much on profit and competition? Might biases, such as sexism and racism, be so deeply ingrained that true inclusion will take our species decades or centuries more to achieve?

We think not. In fact, we believe a tipping point is at hand. The Great Workplace movement we helped launch at the end of the twentieth century now has mainstream momentum, and our new For All mission builds on it.

In recent years, for example, many business executives have made a great culture a strategic priority. We have noticed the 100 Best, for their part, getting fairer. We see more and more business leaders rejecting the argument that the pie isn’t big enough to give out pieces to all. Instead, they are starting to believe that a For All culture makes the pie bigger so that everyone can have a piece—and the pieces are bigger than in the past!

We see younger people—millennials and our own younger kids—growing up with For All values. Values like appreciating everyone’s worth, getting involved, having a voice, and caring about a better world for all human beings.

And shouldn’t we be building the world for these young people anyway?

That’s why 2030 is a big deal for us. It’s the year we expect to have everyone, throughout the entire globe, working at a Great Place to Work For All: a certified Great Place to Work For All—proven by the numbers, by the spring in the step of the people there, by the positive vibe people feel there.

By 2030, we hope the conversations about work will be very different. In 2030, people will look for organizations whose mission and culture are a great fit for them, not just look for ones that are the least boring or stressful or abusive. We hope everybody will look at an organization that they’re thinking about joining and see people that look like them, at all levels of the organization. We hope we’re not talking about diversity and inclusion in 2030 like we are today—with debates over whether widening the candidate pool to include more women and people of color amounts to “lowering the bar.”

We hope that in 2030 all organizations will bring out the best in everyone.

We know this 2030 vision is a bold one. Call it our moonshot.

In fact, we talk about our mission to build a better world through Great Places to Work For All as a rocket ship. We want to get everyone on planet Earth on the For All ship.

It’s a new kind of rocket. Consider it a cross between the Saturn rockets that zoomed to the moon and Wonder Woman’s invisible jet. On this rocket there will be no more hidden figures. No more people working hard without recognition for their efforts. No more pockets of men or women feeling demeaned or deflated yet obscured by layers of bureaucratic neglect. On this ship—made transparent by data and enlightened leaders—everyone doing their part is seen, acknowledged, and appreciated.

This For All ship will transport us to workplaces that make us feel alive and free and healthy. Workplaces that bring people together across countries and across the globe, advance our prosperity, and elevate our collective consciousness. Workplaces where our leaders find ways to connect with everyone, to develop the full human potential of all.

Will you join the pioneers on the For All Rocket Ship? It takes courage and a willingness to look in the mirror—to truly face up to your beliefs, your values, and your impact as a leader.

And yet the first steps on the journey are simple. There are five:

1.   Survey your employees about their work experience.

2.   Objectively review what they’re saying.

3.   Think about how your leadership and the leadership of others needs to change to create an environment where every employee has a better experience regardless of who they are and what they do for the organization.

4.   Get help with your leadership practices.

5.   Repeat Steps 1–4.

That formula will get you on the For All path—a path that takes you right into the For All rocket.

If you need a final bit of motivation before stepping on board, consider this: it’s going to be a fun ride. An adventure into what’s possible for human beings as they labor together. Getting to Great Places to Work For All may be hard at times. But it’s going to be the journey of the twenty-first century.