Why Consciousness Matters in the Workkplace

Jose Leal (00:08):

Welcome to rHatchery Live. I'm here with my partner Matt Perez. And today's guest is Edgar Hörz. Welcome, Edgar.

Edgard Hörz 00:16):

Hi.

Jose Leal (00:17):

Nice to have you. So we're, we typically talk about what's happening in the space of organizations and how we organize ourselves, and it sounds like you figured out a different way of seeing organizations and of seeing how you operate inside an organization. So tell us a little bit about yourself and how you see things.

Edgar Hörz (00:41):

Yeah, sure. So I have the background of I was working on an agency in Germany and was the Chief Digital Officer there. So, I built up the department digital team. And yeah, I was leading this, this team and it was a great team. We were successful, successful.  And, but then last year something changed. It made my thinking about, things and this is why I call it consciousness matters because I became aware of, of things where I think other people do not care about. And this, this kind of things, for example, are what, what I'm doing for, for what, what kind of people and for what kind of companies I am doing my job. So I'm using my time and my energy. And this is something which I discovered a lot of companies out there have the same issue. Cause we live in a world which is quite ego-driven. And success is defined by making a lot of money. And yeah, I discovered something, which, which is more important, important than that. And I start thinking about it and talked to a lot of people and yeah, it's, it's, I I'm not alone in this, this situation. So a lot of people are like, like waking up in, in, in terms of they become aware what they are actually doing for what are they doing the stuff they're doing. And yeah, making money does not make happy people. And people are not doing good work because they are told to do good work. People are doing good work because they are passionate about something. I like this quote. It's, it's like from the chairman of Post, ah, Hagan Samuelson.And I like it because some companies know how to treat people, know how to be aware of what is really important for people and others don't do. And I think in, in the last decades, a lot of companies simply miss to really be aware of what's going on with the people. And I think Corona was, was a game changer here because people get time to think about all the things because they're in home office. You have you are not, not in this survival mode at your job this compression I call it this, this, this, this. Yeah. Eat, sleep, work, and yeah, fear metrics. And if you have, yeah, a couple of more hours a day and you can think of things and you can, you have the chance to come to this present moment where you really can think of things and not just, just lead by the outside world. And yeah, this is why I, I, I decided to, to go my own way. And since then, it's, it's, it's, yeah, crazy, crazy things happened to me. And I met a lot of people, had a lot of conversations. And it's interesting how many companies are really struggling to hold people and they don't know why.

Jose Leal  (04:24):

So I, I wanted to to just jump to, to the topic because I, there's a, you said a couple of things that are really, I want to ask some more questions about. So the topic, why consciousness matters in the workplace. The first question for me is define consciousness. And, and what, what do you mean by awareness? I, I, yeah. Are those the same thing? What, what's, what do you mean by that?

Edgard Hörz (04:51):

Yeah, basically it's the same thing. Consciousness. You can describe consciousness in different ways in, in this context, I would say it's, it's really become aware of, of other things you are not aware before. So if you are in this survival mode, you, you, you cannot really be innovative. So people who are depressed or who are struggling or has a lot of stress, you, you cannot say, okay, come up, come up make some, some innovative ideas. It will just not work. Cause people on this stress level and, and this compression, they, they, they, they see, they don't see the things cause their awareness is like very, very low. And on the other hand, if you, if you look on, on companies who really understand how to, to build teams and build a space where they can play around where they have no fear to make mistakes where people just, just be like, like Steve Chop said hungry and foolish, right? Just go for it. Do the unimpossible things and think about the unimpossible things. And then you can, can say, okay, this team is rare really on a flow state. And flow state for me is like playing around like kids. They learn 100 times faster when, when they're really in this flow state. And this is something what, what what you see in this innovation labs or, or companies. They really understand what people need and what people how, how to make the space so people have a chance to, to do what they love.

Jose Leal (06:39):

What I want to push back on something you just said a little bit though, because you said that companies do this. You said some companies do it good and some other companies don't do it. Is it really companies or is it people?

Edgard Hörz (06:59):

No, it's from upside down. I think if, if if you have management, management team which I just only see the, the numbers and only see the, the revenue and only see this, this, this, yeah. Ego-driven things I don't care about people just do your work and come on. And then we have to sell something. This is something people more and more feel that there's something really go wrong in this, these companies, because they are like so if, if you look back on, on Corona, then, then this is show up. Like there is, there is a lot of more stress for companies because they are more innocent survival mode then. And then people are depressed, get depressed, come home, this, this cycle fear of cycle of, of how, how to survive the next month. And then simply everything stops in, in their mind. And how, how, how can you really go forward? And if you look at the C level, for example, or the, the management level, if there is no change in this awareness, if they stay like 20 years ago where they can choose pick up people who, who, who want to, who, who should work there nowadays the young, the young generation, they have like the waking, I would say they, they, they are more aware, aware in the young ages. And they know what they want. They, they do not want this old school management kind of style where you have to hard work, where you have to really yeah. Destroy your life at the end because yeah, you can make a lot of money. You can have a great car, a great house, but you still have this emptiness because you are not doing what you love because you're just doing it for the money. And people are feeling it if a lot of them are really feel it inside, in, inside themselves, but they do not.

Jose Leal (09:21):

One of the things that we, we wrote in the book the book that's behind me and, and behind Ma Radical Companies.

Matt Perez (09:29):

This book and the, we told the book is called Radical Companies. You can find it at, you know Amazon.

Jose Leal (09:42):

The way we framed it was that the companies themselves have adopted this structure, this system of behavior, which is we call fiat companies or fiat system. And really fiat system is about force. It's about operating with force. So everything you've just described, the stress, the, dysfunction, the behavior that people have, the fear that people have. We, we view it as force, as as a system that we've used. We've become used to use force against each other. Yeah. And the, the best of us who, like you, I was in corporate and Matt was as well. When we were in corporate, we learned to use that force as well as we could. Cause that was success.

Matt Perez (10:42):

Oh yeah. We're very good.

Edgard Hörz (10:44):

If, if we really think about, about the education system and young people, really young, young kids it starts with this education. There are also force. You, you have to, to make great notes. You have to, and, and all the kids are like, I hate school because this of this force. So the school is not playful, not fun, not really about Right. Anything they don't really want to learn. I mean, my, my kids can can tell you all of the 600 Pokemons all the, the, the stuff they, the Pokemons can do in just no time. Cause they, they enter this flow, they, they love it. They, they, they swap it in into this. And if, if you really raise up these kids and then later in this, like I said, force thing, it's nothing else but fear. And fear is a vehicle to push people, of course. But if you think on the opposite fear is, is like something where love is missed. So fear is an absence of love. And if you can make our space for people on the workplace where they really love what they do, then the magical stuff happens. Then innovation starts, then these crazy things happens. For example, if you think about the people mafia about the guys who, who, who, who, who, who are in the pool mafia, the everybody of them was crazy, crazy backgrounds, crazy guys. And they just loved what they do. This is why Elon Musk can work 20 hours a day because he's not working. He's loving what he do. And this is what's something with what, what what the management level and, and the old school businesses and build on this pressure really don't understand. And they lose the A playoffs because the A players this is my experience like waking up and they're, Hey, what, what the hell I'm doing here? I'm not happy. I have a lot of money. I'm not happy. My wife is struggling and my, my, I don't see my kids is this really live.

Matt Perez (12:58):

One, one thing you mentioned Elon Musk, and he wrote this infamous memo to everybody that said, if your manager gets in a way, talk to anybody else at any level, it doesn't matter. And I'm reading this, I'm thinking, okay, if the management hierarchy, which you call the fiat hierarchy, because you do things, because I tell you to, it does in the way, then why do you have it? Why have a, a fiat management in place? So I'm a little bit concerned with the fact that you announce yourself with a chief marketing officer or whatever your title is because that, that is the form of force as well. I was, I was CEO of my previous company, and I was always been a CXO of some sort, not always, but, you know, for a long time. But I realized now that's a way of saying, listen to me because I have the C N D O in my title. You have to listen to me. Yeah, no, you have to listen to me.

Edgard Hörz (14:09):

Yeah. This, this is something true. And for me, I don't care about titles. I never cared about titles. Know that this is a psychological thing which attracts customers because, oh, okay. I'm talking with this sea level And I, I never cared about before. I had this experience last year in August where I become more aware of things and what I can say when I, when I look back, when, when I built my team I was always like, work, yeah. Completely different acting like, like other management. So I, I encourage them to really think different, really be playful. No stress, no, no pressure. I want totally avoided. I basically I took all the pressure, all if something goes wrong, I I took this, this. And this is, yeah, this is something which I I'm now aware of because I, I'm really thinking more of it. And yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's something me I was doing maybe intuitively, I don't know, but the feedback I got from my, my team was, was positive all the time. So I think I have something done run right. And yeah, leaving this company, this was basically the, the, the, the highest barrier for me not myself, but, but losing, losing my team. That was not a, not an easy decision, but if you really sitting there and being aware of all the going on in this world and all the going on in, in, in, in micro and micro microsystems and you're sitting there for two hours and doing nothing and say, what the hell, because I, I simply could not work for the customers we had anymore because I simply don't like some of them. I was not, I was not committed to the, to the, to the purpose. So this is something really important I think, because if you think about this golden circle of, of Siemens Sinek where he is talking about the why it's true companies like Apple and so on, they have their why and they are successful because of the why. But nowadays it's more the, the personal why which has come up for people, why I am doing this here right now. And this is really a big problem for this pressure based companies because most of them are not doing great stuff. And not, not really serving the humanity or the…

Matt Perez (17:10):

They're making money.

Edgard Hörz (17:12):

Yeah. It's all about the money.

Matt Perez (17:14):

Yeah, it's all about the money. Which leads me to a lot of the things you're talking about is what we call co-management. There's, there's a term self-management out there and there's steel and there's lots of terms for it. Yeah. But the reality is that when we form a company, if the three of us form a company, we co-manage the company. There's no self, there's no company that manages itself outside of three of us that do. So we call that co-management. And what, what, what you're, I don't know if you're leading, leaving out or leading two is the other half of that coin, which is the ownership. I don't know if you took capital from outside from other people and not, but whoever is the owner is the ultimate boss. And and whoever is the owner can, they cannot tell you what to do. Take well at, at least in the US technically, technically cannot tell you what to do, but they can fire you. So you have that fear hanging you your head when they said, you should do this, you should do that. You're, they can't fire you. They can't tell you what to do, but they can fire you. Yeah. So you do it. So ownership, which which we call co-ownership is very important as well. And I, I don't know where you are in that, in that trip or in that journey.

Edgard Hörz (18:52):

Yeah, that's, that's totally, totally true. I, I would sign it because what I, what I would love to see more in the, in these companies are very low hierarchy systems where people, I mean, the best inventions in this world are made of five to seven people groups . And so why do we have to do this, this hierarchy things going on there. Just form the right people. Form the right people in terms of also in terms of their, the kind of specific energies they have or, or backgrounds. And you will, you will gain a lot of innovations. It's so, so simple, is it? And the only thing the, the management or the, the, the owner have to do in my perspective, is to really make it as playful as possible for these people so they can discover their, their inner potential, for example. But if you, if, if you see what's, what's going on in real life, it's, it's like, I don’t know, it's like firing fear of the fear things to, to the people and, and they're just like going down, going down, going down and then get ill and, and, yes.  And they never, never, never. I, I had for example, this experience is where really was in the flow and, and love stayed. I would call it love. What I do stayed with my team where we pushed out 20 times more things in, in, in, in five times, less times because it just, just go through us. But then again, this, this kind of interrupting fear things from outside came in from, from, from yeah. Different angles. And, and then you are again like stuck or your brain just stopped working. Yes. Co coherent. And this is like this like, like in this coaching business or thing, the people are, are all talking about if your brain is not coherent, not in a flow state, when when you left and right side is not not connected to another then you are in this survival mode state, and then nothing can happen because you have 1000 thoughts at the, at the top. You can came home and you struggle because you are thinking about the job for the next day. And then yeah. This, this cycle never stops.

Matt Perez (21:35):

And you bring all those bad habits to your, to your family life as well.  Again, that's unfortunately that I have that experience as well.

Edgard Hörz (21:44):

You're bringing this energy to, to your home for, for for sure. And, and then negative real. Yeah. Then real stunt. Cause because you are like a mirror, right? You to your kids, to you are not really there. You are not present to your kids. You are not present to your wife. Your wife don't understand you. And, and all, all this stuff. And if you really get aware of it and, and, and, and what I said, for example if you think about this system, how, how, how is build up because people on, on a lower level on in the company are looking up to the people who, who earn a lot of money, and they look at them and say, oh, oh, look at that. Here, here's a house. Here's, here's two cars. He's so successful and I want that and, and I want that. And then the next bling bling and they achieved it, and the next bling and what's, what's, what is an end. So in the, the end is, okay, I achieve, I have this car. And then, and then there's this, this whole like, okay. Interesting. It's, it's like Jim Kerry said, I have to become a millionaire to, to, to get the answer. That's not the answer. And this is something you, you really can see in which state people are, and they're like, if they have the next bling bling, it's, it's all fine, but they're really, they feel inside themselves. They then would never tell some someone about this, you know, feeling, but they feel inside themselves, there's something wrong. And this is what I experienced because I I, I talked to a lot of people and it's, it's crazy because it's, it's, it's like everybody's playing a, a game. Everybody's yeah, like, like, like in this word not real.

Matt Perez (23:40):

They put a mask.

Edgard Hörz (23:41):

Yeah. They put a mask on and, and go for it. Yeah.

Matt Perez (23:44):

Yeah. And so what, what, yeah. That, that has, that has stressed as well. The, the idea that you have to behave a certain way and wear certain clothes and, you know, not cross your legs or cross your legs or whatever it is. It is, that's a lot of stress of your life. And not only, I mean, it's bad for men, men, it's worse for women, and it's worse for people, not discolor.

Edgard Hörz (24:16):

And this is, this is, I love this, this, this quote of Jim Carey also too, because he said depression is deep rest people are, they, they don't can, they cannot hold this mask anymore. Yeah. Ah, so this mask of the top seller, the mask of the top top guy at the company because they're just, just break down and, and, and yeah. Have to deep rest themselves because they are their, their heart is telling them, okay, now, now, now it stops. Now, now, now the body is telling you stop. And yeah, it is just crazy because we are like people are following those who are, seems to have everything, but the truth is a lot of them are really not happy.

Jose Leal (25:08):

So you've, you've done a really good job of describing sort of the problem, if you will. And, and it's very consistent with the way we see it as well. What, what is the thing that you're hoping to do? What's, what's, what's the passion project that you are, you have that's going to keep force at bay and that you're not going to create yet another fiat company to do more of the same?

Edgard Hörz (25:39):

No, definitely not. But what I, what I am doing is right now, for example, for, for myself, is I think this concept of, of companies, which is right now out there will, will just break down. I think it's, it's, it's really because of these interconnected possibilities that we have. I think there is like more a network of specialized people who are from themselves, like individual player, and they will, they will use or there will be a part of this network or this, this company network, but there is no like overhead people on the top. And I think this is, this is kind of the future. And we see it more and more coming from the startup scenes. They have people around the world, 40 people around the world never met each other, but the company is just driving crazy in this technology area. And yeah, this, this, this really disruptive thing, and my, my opinion on this old school pressure-based companies will simply die. Mm. Because the people will leave. It's, it's just a matter of time.

Jose Leal (27:02):

So you see, you see the work in primarily in creating new small organizations that are designed to be what you're describing of some place to live out and work in, in passion and love. Rather than in fear.

Edgard Hörz (27:19):

Definitely. Yeah. And if you, if you look at really big companies out there, I mean, the people that don't know each other, the people that just know the 20, 20 people near them and that it then, then it's like and. And they never have contacted other people. So well,

Jose Leal (27:37):

They might recognize 20 people, but they probably don't even really know those 20 people. Right. Really know them. There's a difference between knowing somebody's name and really connecting, right?

Edgard Hörz (27:51):

Right. Yeah. This is, this is something which, which actually if, if you have constellations where people are in big companies or smaller companies, and they, they're stuck, they're bounded to other people, they cannot leave. So this is, this is a pressure too, because there are people out there that they simply are not like magnets. They cannot work together. And why, why do you have to, to work with these people in a, in a big room, sitting there and, and have this stress of this, of this Yeah. People fighting each other for nothing. Why not really make some, some smaller, smaller groups of, of specialized people who really love what they do?

Jose Leal (28:35):

Well, one of the things that I, in my experience, there was people that I had in my career that I loved to work with. I, I respected them. I loved them. I cared for their opinions and how they, they drove

Edgard Hörz (28:49):

Trust.

Jose Leal (28:50):

And, and trust. Right, exactly. And then there are people that this is your boss, and you're like, what? Yeah, that's my boss. No way. I have no respect for this person. I don't trust this person. Yeah. And in many cases, I've been, you know, the, the, the lack of trust was very well founded. And so that the, that is again, another example of force. We're forced to work with people because it makes rational sense for the business, not because we get a choice in how we cooperate or how we work together.

Edgard Hörz (29:30):

Exactly.

Jose Leal (29:30):

It's, it's simply this matter of a, a fiat dictation. You have to work together. You're now part of that team. Good luck.

Edgard Hörz (29:40):

Yeah. Jump on this team. Go for it. Exactly. Then, then, then, then this psychologic starts where you think I discovered in, in our agency is head of lot of talks with other people too. And when you really think of it, the, the people are spending, I don't know, 20%, 30% of the time somehow making this, this psychological in between Okay, interesting. Why, where, where's, where's this joy? Where's the love? Where, where is this stuff? And, this, the thing is, you can connect with ideas in these compressed, compressed, and depressed situations. And this is like, you can have it, but the ideas are okay. They are, yeah, nice to have ideas, but real in innovation. You, will never get real innovation in, in pressure moments.

Jose Leal (30:35):

So I, I want to ask this more clearly because maybe I wasn't very clear. Do you think it's possible to change the current organizations or that they will only die?

Edgard Hörz (30:48):

You can definitely change the organization if it's top-down, if, if the if the C level really becomes aware of all these things, what I'm talking about and to do so, it's like you cannot tell people and C level people, you cannot tell them what to do because they are just don't see it. They will never see because they, they are themselves on a low level of, of like frequency, like conscious level. And they're like in this, this fear mode, maybe the same because the numbers are not right. And they are, they're emitting this, this fear to the people. And they just don't see the possibilities, don't see the solutions. If they become calm, clarity, if they really see through all these things in, in, in, in a total view, micro and microsystem then I think they can act in the right way and build up the company from the ground up. So, so they have to be disruptive and they have to really do the work. And it is a lot of work because people do not like change, never like <laugh>. So the brain doesn't like change. The brain is, is operating in the, lowest mode energy mode can have. And everything is, is yeah, every change is difficult. But those who will not do this is my personal opinion, will simply die. It's no like, a matter of time.

Matt Perez (32:27):

You know, it's funny, I I used to think exactly like, like you that you can grow a company that is <inaudible> and it's okay. But you, once it's big, then the, the whole bureaucracy and everything is, is too set to, too set in place to undo. And last week we talked to Andrew Tilling, and Andrew takes a very different approach. Rather than going to the top, he goes to the middle. So he shows the salespeople how they can make more money, and of course, his children by saying, Jimmy, more playful and, and help each other and supposed to compete with each other. We can collaborate. And lo and behold, there's, there's proven that me in, in the pudding they make more money because they're more creative and, and support each other and things like that. And I imagine I, we didn't talk about this, but I imagine they can go to other departments and, and change each department at a time if the manager, if the boss is accepted. Yeah. And maybe you should change enough of these departments. You can change the top, and things will, will happen. But I used to think the same way. It has to start from the top down. And that's the only way that makes a difference.

Edgard Hörz (34:00):

I think if, if, if the top, if the top is really ego-driven and, and on this old school path of delegation and stress and pressure I think you, you, you can have at the middle or, or downwards, you, you can have people who are more aware, they have fun, for example. But there will come times where it's not going great to the company. And then, then you really feel start feeling okay this is something strange happening on the top right now because of the pressure. They, delegate the pressure wards, and then the, the world stuff stopped making fun. Yeah, it, it could be it, it could be that, that people are management themselves like this, but I think the, the real solution is, is top down.

Matt Perez (34:55):

All right. So we're, we're is it about time or.

Jose Leal (34:59):

It's about time. I was just going to say one thing because oh, Edgard said bullshit 27 times I counted. No, I'm just kidding. I, I don't, I didn't count, but it was probably about that number and I agree with you 100% . And the other thing is in English, at least we say that shit runs downhill  So yeah, if you don't start at the top, it's pretty hard to stop the shit. Because it keeps coming down. So maybe that's not the best place to stop, but <laugh>, but it's a very clear understanding of the state of where we are in our organizations today. Yeah. And people like you who have woken up to understand that recognize very clearly that we cannot keep doing what we're doing in the organizations that we're in, however,

Matt Perez (35:58):

Woken up and do something about it.

Matt Perez (36:00):

And do something about it.

Jose Leal (36:03):

Yeah. So thank you, Edgar. Thanks for, for waking up number one number two for doing something about it, and number three for joining us today and, and talking about and understanding awareness of, of what it means to be in an organization. So we've got Matt.

Matt Perez (36:26):

Oh yeah. So next week, next week we'll have Daniel Hammond, and he said the human contract and topic is top-down solutions. Should there be limits? I'm not sure what that means, but we'll figure it out,

Jose Leal (36:42):

We’ll figure it out. And it sounds like we're back to the topic of top-down. So that seems to be a, a big topic. Again, Edgard, thank you very much and we'll follow up with you and continue the conversation.

Matt Perez (37:01):

Actually, eventually, talk to Edgar in about six months to see how things are going.

Jose Leal (37:07):

Yeah, that would be great. Sure. Okay. Good luck everyone. Thank you.