reCREATE - unleash a culture that inspires creativity: Jeremy Pietrocini at TEDxOmaha

my wife and I have two children one of

which we love we actually love both

video rights we love both equally but

it's been fun it's been fun for us as

our kids continue to grow they're

currently 10 and 13 and as they continue

to grow to just compare our lives to

them one thing that kids are really good

at is playing right having fun and it's

interesting when we examine what makes

people tick I have the opportunity to

work for Gallup and as we study the

world and what makes people come alive

it's interesting when you ask people

what they spend their time doing it

doesn't always equate to what they enjoy

most and what we know is that when you

ask people what they really enjoy they

enjoy recreation Webster's defines two

recreation again or to refresh and so

when you think about kids and just going

out to play right that's something we

all grew up saying and doing and

thinking regardless of what part of the

world that you grew up in there's a

sense of hey mom dad I'm going out to

play now for us compared to our kids

when my son was was five and learned how

to ride a bike a little different than

the bike I grew up on his head shocks

right just in case her little cracks in

the pavement but of course grandma got

him the matching helmet the gloves

everything to just look the part play

the part and we were pretty adventurous

as parents we let him actually go you

know up and down the driveway and then

down to the end of the cul-de-sac and

and kind of come back alright if you

went ventured out further than that it

meant we'd have to get on our bikes and

actually exert energy and go with him

and so for a while that was just kind of

what we let Joseph do is be on his bike

and go down and ride around but it

didn't take long before he got to the

point that he said dad can we ride

somewhere else right the scenery is kind

of like you know big looking at the Big

Ben Parliament right from national

lampoon it's kind of like that we at

some point it's in our human nature

whether we're a little kid or we're an

adult where that scenery needs to change

where life can just become the mundane

it can become the norm and so something

needs to be different and one of the

things that's really interesting for us

is when we think about who we are as

people and how we operate galip's been

able to study what people are thinking

and feeling around the world and a

recent study we did with people in the

US we know that there's about a hundred

million people that go to work on a

regular basis in the United States the

sad fact is that only thirty

son of those people about 30 roughly 30

million people would say that they're

fully engaged in their job that they

love what they do that they come alive

the other 70% are kind of riding in the

cul-de-sac we kind of feel stuck now for

me growing up as a kid I also had a bike

and would go out and ride ride my bike

with my my buddies the difference was

instead of wearing a helmet at best in

the early 80s I was wearing a headband

right

this shirt probably only came to about

here right and that was only because

most you know most of establishments had

a little sign that said no shoot no

shirt no shoes no service right but so

the shirt came about here we get on our

bikes and and we went out and we just

kind of like what you found stuff to do

right we are trying to make stuff up and

so we would we would come across random

pieces of stuff like a milk crate or a

cinder block and we'd say alright we

need to make something that we can jump

right we need to do something that would

that would be really fun and so we'd

find a board and we'd kind of make this

little makeshift thing and we'd grab our

bikes and we'd say alright now what what

is it that we're gonna do to really

create impact to really make a

difference and so my buddy Gordie it

probably wasn't wearing a shirt or shoes

right but my buddy Gordie would get on

his bike and he would ride full speed

ahead and hit that jump right and we

were all in awe and Gordie from a

standpoint of recreation or fun he was

breathing deep he was excited you know

kind of skid out and like yeah and then

I had another buddy who wanted nothing

to do with this right and he was not

only wearing a probably a shirt a

turtleneck but tough skins because his

mom made him wear those right but this

kids this gets on his bike and he's just

like I'm out of here I don't want to do

this it's a stupid and then you had guys

like me that would be like I'm stuck

right I don't want to I don't want to

tuck tail and go home I want to do this

but I'm scared to do this and so what I

would do like many of us are probably

many of us in our jobs is that get on my

bike I'd start to pedal and then I'd

coast right but I would lose so much

momentum that by the time I hit this

thing the whole thing just kind of

collapsed hopefully I didn't get hurt

right but for the most part that's what

happened and when you think about what

was missing it was this sense not just

of recreation but the sense of there was

something that inspired Gordy to just

fearless leader Aegeus Lee take off

there was something that my other buddy

wanted nothing to do with it

there was something for me that I was

just stuck in the middle and again when

you think about that stat when you think

about this the 70 some million people in

the United States and by the way I said

there's there's 30% of people right in

the US that are engaged globally that

drops to 13% this is a global academic

act that we have people that are stuck

people that are stuck either coasting or

wanting nothing to do with what it is

that they do in their day to day jobs

one of the interesting things when you

think about culture and simply simply

said it at Gallup we know that we talk

to people all the time and people have

different perspectives or definitions on

things we say culture is something that

everybody has right whether it's

something you want to change or you like

it the way it is everybody has when I

have a colleague of mine that says

culture is like a belly button right

whether you like yours or not you have

one right and so when we go into

organizations what we're basically

trying to figure out for them is what is

their culture what does that look like

how is it that you live and oftentimes

the conversation shifts because they'll

start talking about who they want to be

right and really that's brand brand is

how you're known brand is that sense of

this is what the world says about you

there's a great kind of advertiser of

our time kind of the modern-day Don

Draper

he's a guy by the name of Roy Spence and

Roy started an advertising firm called G

SDM years ago and since then they've

done ads for for Walmart Southwest

Airlines every year they've got some

Super Bowl ads it that they're paid to

kind of design one of the things that

Roy has said is when you think about

bran in that sense of how you're known

it's got to be fueled or influenced by

purpose there's got to be deep meaning

behind it otherwise you're selling

something that's empty and the same is

true when you think about what then

drives that brand or that purpose fueled

brand is a sense of culture and culture

can be simply described as just how you

live because if you live differently

than the way you want to be known then

there's inconsistency there and so the

same is true and you think about culture

and you think about these cultures that

we create we're only three and ten

people are really alive and and living

from a sense of recreation which by the

those 30 million those 30 percent are

the ones that when we study research and

look at what have they done they're the

ones who bring the most creative and

innovative ideas to their companies

they're the ones who produce the most

they're the ones who sell the most

they're the ones who have the highest

customer service scores they're the ones

who are really alive and making a

difference now every one of us and our

family and friends want to live lives

like that but the question is what's

keeping us from that and I wonder how

many of us exist in cultures where we

haven't opened the door to say is it

inspired by a sense of purpose Jim

Clifton gallops chairman and CEO said

the thing that's keeping that 70 percent

from being fully alive is in most cases

their manager we know that and we

published this in a book we did years

ago called first break all the rules we

know that people join an organization

right I want to work for them there

could that be a great place to go work

but they quit their manager and so when

you think about the role that you and I

play as influencers for some of us we

are managers for some we're leaders for

some we interact with people every day

throughout the day there was actually a

study done by a gentleman named Danny

Kahneman Danny's our behavioral

economist who actually won a Nobel Prize

and one of the things that Danny said is

when you study that just the time we

have throughout any given day every one

of us has about 20,000 20,000 unique

interactions 20,000 moments in our day

we're worried in making somebody else's

life better they're somehow influencing

our lives that might be media are their

components but he said there's 20,000

moments that any every one of us has in

a day to make a difference when Jim

Clifton our CEO talks about the sense of

its these managers he actually refers to

them as managers from hell right and we

use that term regardless of you know

spiritual perspective and faith for who

you are as a person we know that if

somebody says my life is a living hell

we know that that's not good right and

if it's euphoric if they're saying it's

like that's I love it this place it's I

mean it's like that all-inclusive

vacation right it's kind of the opposite

of that and so the interesting factor is

that these managers

in many cases our holding these people

back they're not inspiring them they're

not breathing life into them in a way

that would make a difference you know

the word inspire was one that it felt

like for years it got used and almost

gonna use too much especially when you

talk about culture and then in 2007 a

unique opportunity to talk about

inspiration and when I talked about it

was actually it came from comments that

had been made about a person that person

was my mom she battled cancer for about

seven years and in 2007 November 15th

she she lost that battle and when the

the day he's kind of leading up to her

funeral we had tons of family and

interaction and one of seven kids and so

there are people around all the time but

one of the things that I kept hearing

when I was asking people about my mom is

they just said she was such an

inspiration now it's me again

inspiration was kind of like you hear a

motivational speaker right one that

probably lives in a van down by the

river right but it's kind of like this

motivational speaker comes in and they

jazz you all up and then you just go

back to everyday life but it was

interesting when these people talked

about if my mom was an inspiration they

were talking about the impact that she

not only had in their life for that

moment but had on their let their lives

for days to come they talked about how

they would go visit her in the hospital

and they'd bring flowers and candies and

things to cheer up and then her one

friend said and I got there Jeremy net

just broke down and your mom leans over

it's okay right she's kind of making her

friend laugh and she was just a sense of

inspiration and again the word was

sticking and it kind of made sense but

then it really clicked for me and

changed the way I thought about that

word for the rest of my life when I

reflected back to something my dad said

to me moments before my mom passed I'm

the oldest son in my family and my dad

said my mom was sitting in a chair and

he said when mom passes will you help me

move her to the couch so he can lay her

back and his words actually weren't just

that sense of passes that's what I

thought I heard but what he actually

said is when mom expires now I sort of

thought you know I'm kind of I'm not

afraid to talk back to my dad but I like

dad people don't expire milk expires you

know beer expired like but my dad used

that word expire and when we picked my

mom up and we

later back on the couch you actually saw

her chest cavity come in this last

breath came out of her lungs my dad

couldn't chose a more perfect word than

x-pyr the word Speier means breath or

spirit and so to think about when we

inspire someone we're actually breathing

life that weird spy organism is somebody

when you're inspired to do something or

you're to here at a sporting event

you're saying yes yes yes we do we got

spirit how about you you're saying we're

full of something we got this breath of

life in us and when something's expired

you've actually sucked the breath out of

it for too many of us we go to work in

places where people of influence do more

expiring than they do inspiring there's

more of them catching us doing something

wrong versus doing something right

there's more time spent on you need to

fix this this this and this versus

you're so much better at this than

anybody else in the world you guys there

are 20,000 moments that we each have in

our day where we need to decide will we

inspire or will we x-pyr my hope is that

you and I would awaken a generation of

leaders and managers who could grab the

70 million or across the globe grab

those 87 percent of people and inspire

them so that they can truly live and

recreate thank you