SEL in EDU
SELinEDU Podcast is stories and insights from outstanding teachers, administrators, leaders, and students on all things Social Emotional Learning in education. These 30-40-minute podcasts are perfect for a commute, a nice cup of coffee, or a self-care walk.
SEL in EDU
071: From Piano Bars to Classrooms: Lessons on Engagement with Gregory Offner, Jr.
What happens when a childhood music student becomes a world-traveling dueling piano performer? Join us as we chat with Gregory Offner, the dynamic founder and CEO of the Global Performance Institute. Greg's journey is anything but ordinary, and his insights into transforming the staff experience are just as compelling. From a serendipitous moment at a Philadelphia piano bar to captivating audiences worldwide, Greg shares how his passion for music and motivational speaking can uplift spirits and inspire positive change in workplaces and beyond.
We're unpacking the fascinating parallels between engaging a piano bar crowd and engaging students and staff. Greg introduces us to audience archetypes—keepers, leapers, and sleepers—illuminating how various engagement levels can affect moods and productivity. By seeing the workplace and classroom as stages for meaningful experiences, Greg underscores the importance of authenticity and connection. Leaders and educators alike have the power to create environments where people feel valued and part of something bigger.
Finally, we delve into how music and shared experiences can foster growth and create lasting impacts. Greg talks about the power of collaboration and community, encouraging us all to become the best versions of ourselves while helping others do the same. With the "Encore" keynote and "Tip Jar Culture" framework, Greg offers strategies for reigniting purpose and commitment. Listen in to discover how crafting experiences people want to relive can transform personal and professional lives.
EPISODE RESOURCES:
- Connect with Greg via his website, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
- Read his book, The Tip Jar Culture and check out his speaker reel.
Welcome to SEL in EDU, the podcast where we explore how educators bring social, emotional learning to life by sharing stories, strategies and sparks of inspiration. I'm your host, Dr Krista Lay, owner of Resonance Education. Thank you for joining us on this SEL journey on this SEL journey.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Lissette Jacobson, host of the Black, brown and Bilingue podcast, a part of the Education Podcast Network. Just like the show you're listening to now, shows on the network are individually owned and opinions expressed may not reflect others. Find other interesting education podcasts at edupodcastnetworkcom.
Speaker 1:Hello SEL and EDU family. I hope you're doing well today. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of season four. My guest today is Gregory Offner. Greg is the founder and CEO of Global Performance Institute, an award-winning keynote speaker and the author of a brand new book, which I finished last week, called the Tip Jar Culture how to Re-engage and Reignite your Workforce. Greg is passionate about transforming the employee experience, or, as he likes to say, taking the irk out of work, and his clients include everything from Fortune 100 corporations to local chapters of associations.
Speaker 1:I met Craig on a plane flight home from Chicago a number of months ago and it was very interesting because the last guest we were talking about being introverts I normally put my headphones on, snuggle in and mind my own business for flights, but for some reason I don't remember what it was Maybe our joy at there being an empty middle seat. But we started chit-chatting for a little bit and I was interested to learn he had spent 15 years touring the world as a professional dueling piano performer. So, greg, welcome to SEL and EDU. I can't wait for the listening audience, to meet you and to learn from you.
Speaker 3:I'm so pumped to be here, Krista. Thanks for the invitation.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you need to tell us more about the dueling pianos. I know you probably talk about this all the time, but I know there's curiosity. When did you start that? Where have you been?
Speaker 3:And the joys that come your favorite part of it? I've been everywhere, man. Isn't part of it? I've been everywhere, man. Isn't that a song? I've been everywhere, man. So I've got to tour the world because of this thing that at a young age I thought made me a dork Getting pulled out of school to go to the private piano lesson, which was actually this itty bitty room off the kitchen in our elementary school, with Mrs Salerno, my piano teacher, and learning Bach and Beethoven and all these dead artists that I couldn't have cared less about. If you had asked me then, would I be on stage in front of hundreds and thousands of people, in some cases playing the piano? I would have said no. And yet here we are. This thing that I loathed doing as a child has become the thing that I love and get to do as an adult.
Speaker 3:The dueling pianos and piano bar part of it started just after graduating college. I'd gone to school for music, transitioned into more of a psychology and philosophy focus as I got closer to graduation. I opted not to become a music teacher, but was always musical. I was singing and playing piano and in college actually studied percussion. So I was playing the drums a lot and a friend called me maybe six or seven months after graduation and said hey, one of our mutual friends' dads is opening a piano bar in Philly and we got a table and we're going to get comped to drinks. Do you want to come? And I was like, yes, of course I want to be there. That sounds amazing, and not just for the free drinks.
Speaker 3:This was going to be my first real time at a piano bar and so I attended and about an hour into the night our friend's dad comes up and says hey, I hear you play piano and you sing a bit, and I was maybe a cocktail or two in. So I said yeah, I'm known to sing and play the piano from time to time. He said do you want to play tonight? And my friends were like do it.
Speaker 3:So when the artist who was performing took a break, I got up, took the piano, was introduced as hey, this guy's gonna play a couple songs, hope he's good. And I did about three songs and the crowd seemed to be into it and after I went back to sit and join my friends, her dad came up to me and said do you want to start Wednesday nights? And I was like, for real. He said, yeah, I think you'd do great, and so that's how this journey began and from that opportunity sprung, the opportunity to travel the world and perform on, I think, five continents at this point, too many states and provinces to count and it feels like it just keeps getting better.
Speaker 1:Where, would you say, has been your most memorable event?
Speaker 3:That's a two part answer. One has to do with the work I do now as a keynote speaker and the other has to do with playing the piano among friends. So it's funny that we're having this conversation today, because this past weekend I was in Chicago delivering a keynote to about 2000 people, all of them in the parks and recreation space, and I had this moment just before I took the stage. The room was packed beyond I shouldn't say beyond capacity, in case the fire marshal's listening but more people than chairs. So there were folks sitting along the sides and standing in the back and this was a truly packed room of again 2,000 plus people, which is a fairly large audience, even in my profession now. And I just looked out and gave myself a mental reminder that this is something I never could have imagined doing five years ago, 10 years ago, and to just soak it in. And the crowd truly gave me back everything I gave them on stage in terms of energy and participation. It was such a phenomenal program and I can't believe I got paid for it. I had so much fun. I probably would have done it for free. I won't do it for free, but it was very emotionally and intrinsically rewarding for me.
Speaker 3:The other experience came during our honeymoon. Kim and I went to Africa for our honeymoon. We spent two weeks on the continent and visited a few countries and during a tour uh, like a riverboat tour on the Zambezi river, we took a sort of Econo line size van to get to the departure point and then on the way back, there was this group of people in the van who I hadn't we hadn't seen them on the boat, but man, they were loud, they were rowdy, they were having a heck of a good time, and so I just looked over and said you guys seem like you're celebrating something. What's the deal? And after a little bit of conversation, we were hitting it off and they invited us to meet up later for some food. So we said sure, that sounds great.
Speaker 3:We met at a restaurant and it turned out to be 10 of us, all from different walks of life, different countries on the continent, and we had this incredible conversation during dinner. And when it came out that I played piano, one of them said we know the owner and I don't know if you noticed, there's actually a piano back in the corner there. I had not noticed, and so the owner graciously allowed me to play a couple songs and then, after the second song, was no keep going. This is great. And all of a sudden, all of my table companions were coming up on stage and they were asking me to play a song that they could sing along to, and we had this impromptu concert slash karaoke experience there.
Speaker 3:And to me that is the magic of music is that, even though we didn't know who these people were a day ago and we had never imagined getting together for this experience, music proved to be this common thread by which all of us got to know each other better, got to celebrate. It brought the night alive, and I think that the thing I'm, the thing I love most about what I get to do as a keynoter, krista, is that music is a way for me to both communicate the information I'm trying to give to the audience in a novel and a fun way, but it humanizes the audience. So, rather than being focused on what's your title, what's your industry, it's about the people that are connecting and creating an experience together.
Speaker 1:As a former history teacher, I would often bring in music of the decades that we were talking about and we would talk about the history of different particular types of music. And, just like you said, one of the most brilliant things I think is music's ability to transcend time and culture and location and just bring people together again and create that sense of community, just like food can. And so I think when you're thinking about being at a bar, you're getting food, you're getting drink and you've got music.
Speaker 1:It's the trifecta of putting people together and having some celebration and opportunities for them to see commonality 100%.
Speaker 3:Couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1:So in your process and all of this experience you've had, you started making connections between people who were going to the piano bars and people in the workforce. And so that's piqued my interest, because, working in education, there are parallels and we know that one of the best ways to learn is through similes and metaphors. And so what connections are you seeing, or did you see that you talked about in your book, between the people in the piano bars and the workforce?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I realized that the piano bar was both a piano bar, but if I allowed it to be sort of a laboratory a learning lab, you might say and it was a place to learn about people.
Speaker 3:And I noticed that the experience we were creating for the audience yes, the piano bar was the vehicle, but what was the actual outcome?
Speaker 3:The outcome was they left in a better mood or in better spirits than when I found them that by performing and delivering an experience that ticked all of the boxes for them, we were able to create something better together than we could do or achieve on our own.
Speaker 3:And I think, whether you're talking about the big B business world or education, which is a business, no matter what discipline you're referring to, I think that's really what our goal is to create an experience for someone on the other end, on the receiving end of our service, and if we can leave them better than we found them, which is certainly the goal of education, we've done our job, piano bar, to create that experience into the world of business, and I use music as a metaphor to teach my audience the power of those strategic approaches and how they're not just the domain or the ownership of a piano bar.
Speaker 3:They are universal and I invite the audience to consider their power and also to start to implement them in their own work. If they're a leader, to implement them in how they lead others, and my promise is that if they do that, they'll not only create an experience that's better together than they could on their own. They'll create an experience that's more fulfilling and leaves their customer in a better place than when they found them. And that is the special sauce for getting repeat business, getting employees that are excited to come back next year heck, even come back tomorrow, with some of the challenges folks are having with engagement and talent retention these days.
Speaker 1:And so when I think about that and I want to transpose that philosophy and framework, Good musical term there.
Speaker 1:Learning. So if we transpose this and we say, okay, what does this mean for education? Would I be right in thinking like the customers who we're serving are students and they don't have a choice on whether they want to come back, and so we really do want to think about that experience that we're creating. We've taken away their choice and coming back, but we want to have them engaged and loving the work that they're doing and I see it very much as a ripple effect. Then how are we keeping the employees, the educators, the teachers, the paraprofessionals also feeling engaged so that they're creating the best environment for the students? And when you talked about these three different groups of people, you had the keepers, the leapers and the sleepers. I started thinking about what that means in education for the adults who are there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, before we do, let's yes, and your statement there. Because certainly, educators, educators, staff, faculty whatever your title they are the internal audience. Students may be on the receiving end of the experience of learning in the classroom, but teachers are on the other end of what it's like to work at that school or in that district, or for that principal or that superintendent. So we need to both focus on that experience the students are having and focus on the experience that the educators, staff, faculty, et cetera, are having. And so, to that end, you mentioned that there is no choice for the student but to show up, and I would argue that, while they don't have a choice on whether or not they show up physically, they absolutely have a choice on whether or not they show up psychologically and emotionally each day. That's just as important, and we see that both in students and in the workforce, because here in the US, many people's health care coverage is tied to their employment. That is, in fact, a number one reason that people who are dissatisfied with the job stay in the job. That and the need for income. So, while they may not stop showing up physically to work because they need the paycheck, they need the benefits, they definitely check out. They stop showing up emotionally, psychologically, and that is just as damaging whether you're an adult in a job or a student in a classroom. So in order for people to get the most out of their experience, it's important we understand what they want from that experience. And that sort of leads into what you brought up was what I call the three audience archetypes. So the three audience archetypes being the keeper and those are the folks who just they love what they're doing, who they're doing it with.
Speaker 3:In education, I think for many it's got to be a calling and not just a career or a job. But certainly for the keepers, what they do they would probably describe as a calling rather than a career. They're building or just a job. They're showing up to the leapers. They would probably describe it as a career. At the piano bar, leapers were bachelor and bachelorette parties or birthday parties or corporate events. They're probably not intending to stay for the full five or six hour show, depending on what piano bar you're at, but for the time they're there they're given their all because they want to move to the next location or the next experience of the evening in better spirits. They want to be better positioned and that's the same in the workforce. Leapers may not see what they're doing as their calling or even their ultimate destination. I think gone are the days, like our parents and grandparents, where you would spend 30 and 40 years for one employer, but rather they are where they are because they believe that the experience they can get is going to help them get to the next destination in a better position.
Speaker 3:And then we have our sleepers, and this is such an interesting category because at the piano bar the sleepers are the folks who aren't really engaging with the show. They're not singing along. I almost wonder why they're there, because sometimes they're sitting arms crossed just like staring me dead in the face, krista, daring me to entertain them. And very often they were brought there by somebody else and maybe they're on a date and somebody else suggested the piano bar, or they're part of one of those large parties.
Speaker 3:And in the workforce you could probably, when you hear the word sleeper, think of some colleague or person you've met. That was like, metaphorically, asleep at the wheel when it came to work. They were clocking in, clocking out, and in between they were checked out. But what I've learned, both at the piano bar and in the work world is that there really is no such thing as a sleeper. A sleeper is simply a leaper or a keeper who hasn't figured it piano bar. You don't just magically wake up and find yourself there, unless you're one of the innies in Severance, or maybe you're on Bourbon Street in New Orleans and you just do come to and you're like whoa, how did we get to this piano bar?
Speaker 3:But for the most part, we've gone through an interview process to get this job.
Speaker 3:We've made the decision to walk into an establishment, in some cases pay a cover charge. So when we're talking about disengagement or engagement in the workforce, people start out engaged. The problem we have to overcome as leaders is that at some point they make the decision that this experience isn't going to give me what I want. Maybe this experience doesn't even care what I want, maybe in some cases I don't even know what I want, and so they find it safer psychologically, emotionally, to just disengage. And so our job as leaders whether it's me at the piano in front of a crowd at the piano bar, teachers in front of students at a classroom, administrators, leaders in the world of education dealing with their staff and faculty our mandate is to go and engage with them, to ask questions, to show them the impact of what they're doing and find either a connection point or build a trust as much as we can in that relationship to say, look, this clearly isn't where you want to be. Let me help you get there.
Speaker 1:My favorite part, I think, besides the SEL skills that you named at the end of the book, my favorite part was that you labeled the sleepers as those having trapped potential, and I just love that phrase because I think that, with the pressures that are on educators to serve and support students, they're giving everything they have, that sometimes they're not leaving anything left for them or for significant others at home or for children or other family members, and so thinking about how to help, as they might say, find a balance or help them release that trapped potential, I found fascinating, and it's such a positive way of looking at people that you're still trying to figure out and help them figure out their value or their gifts and how to best release that into the world.
Speaker 3:And the thing they all have in common because recognize that at a piano bar it is daunting to have that conversation or build that trust with every member of the audience and in the workforce. I do believe it's incumbent of leaders to take the time that is quite literally why you're given the position of authority is to remove roadblocks and create opportunities for the people that you serve. But it can feel daunting as well with all of the other tasks and responsibilities. We have to have those individual engagements. So I would argue that en masse one thing to remember or the driving force for me with any audience and I would suggest that leaders and listeners take this with them as well the thing we all have in common as a want from any experience is to know that we are wanted, that we have a purpose for participating in this exchange of ideas at school or this exchange of effort in the workplace or this exchange of your voice, for this experience in the piano bar and it's driven by the work of an Austrian psychologist named Karl Gruss. And so Karl was fascinated by how children build social relationships, and often that is built through play. That's how we understand where we are in the hierarchy of people in our little group and how to better get what we want and give what others want in a social circumstance. Carl noticed that around 18 months of age, children come to a realization that they can change circumstances around them just simply by doing something. And I know something feels like a very nebulous word, but Carl termed this the joy at being the cause that we light up when we know we're able to be the cause of something happening in the world. It could be as simple as a smile, it could be as significant as building a company, but that's what drives all of us from that very young age through to our death, is that we are lit up by the knowledge and the opportunity to be the cause of something. And so that, I think, is the clarion call for any organization, any job are we the cause of something and do our people see that change that's happening?
Speaker 3:I love working with educators because it is, I think, more obvious than in many other professions what you can be the cause of when you are fully engaged and fully present in the work.
Speaker 3:You're literally changing the world by getting people excited about the discipline of learning, by giving them knowledge and access to new ideas and new skills, but because we can, as I call it, get stuck in the request slips and the minutiae of the administrative tasks and the to-do lists and the lesson plans and the grading and the checklists and the standardized testing.
Speaker 3:It can feel daunting, it can feel like, oh, the kids are here, but really I got to get them to do the tests because I'm getting graded on that or I'm getting observed by the principal, and so we lose sight of the main thing. And so my ask, or my invitation for audiences during the keynote is to remember that the main thing is being the cause of something, and it's up to us as individuals to decide what something we want to devote our life, our time, our efforts to. But it's up to the leaders to continually remind those they lead to, continually show them what that cause and effect relationship is, because by the work that they do, I like this approach because it feels different than people saying remember your why and I've been reading feedback and people talking about we know our why as educators.
Speaker 1:But it does get the feeling of the impact that we're making, does get lost in all of the minutiae, as you said, because we're being graded and scored and evaluated on test scores and that's tied to money and so on the day-to-day basis it gets very overwhelming. I know that when I'm doing professional learning workshops and for the last 15 years we've asked teachers what is your greatest hope for your students? And it isn't about the academic scores on a test. It is the love of learning, feeling valued, feeling a sense of belonging, feeling connected, feeling success, and we want that for our educators and for the adults as well. And so I really liked looping it back to where you said are they not the internal audience?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think academic scores and I'm by no means the expert in this, what I'm about to say but I think academic scores are lagging indicators and I think we need to focus a little more on the leading indicator, which is the sparkle in their eyes, the questions that they're asking, or take a signal from the questions they're not asking. That to me feels like this first step in recentering, at least in the world of education, around not just your why but your what. It's funny, as you said that, remember your why, yeah, remember your why, but the why leads to a what. Listeners, I'm not going in a circle here. I promise this makes sense. What happens when you do what you do well, I think, is that cause. That's the thing that we want to see. What happens when you do what you do well as a teacher and again I'm making a leap here because I'm not an expert in the field of education but it's not better standardized test scores, it's not happier principles from observations, it's kids seeing you in the grocery store or at a ball game five years later and go in this. Krista, dr Krista, I want to tell you how much I appreciated being in your class. My mom was an educator for 40 years across a variety of grade levels, and I remember being a young kid and running into some to me as a kid, a random adult in the grocery store who would stop my mom and call her Mrs Offner and say you had me in kindergarten such and such, and this is a full grown human and they remember her.
Speaker 3:I think the beauty of working in education is that those experiences are liable to happen far more often than for the person who works in accounting at some law firm or the person who's the operations manager at some hospital.
Speaker 3:You never, as a patient, know the impact of that operations manager and perhaps as a client of that firm or organization, you don't really know what the accountant is doing. And the travesty is that often the accountant and the operations manager don't know, either they don't know the impact that their work is having on that patient or that client or, if they do, they've forgotten it. It's gotten buried in all those request slips. And my hope for people that read my book, that experience, my program that I get to impact, is that they put that at the center of what they're looking to do each day as they create an experience and I think everything this conversation is an experience. You meet somebody on the way into 7-Eleven. That's an experience, even though it's a little bitty one. We have an opportunity to make that experience great, and it doesn't take great strides or great actions to do that. It can be something as simple as holding the door, smiling at someone and saying good morning. You have no idea if that is the kindest word they're going to hear all week.
Speaker 1:I was just talking to a mentor of mine earlier today and we were sharing that making a memorable experience doesn't have to be setting up a room full of balloons and confetti and streamers and having a party. It's in the subtle actions of kindness and authenticity and letting somebody know that you were thinking of them or that they matter, that you're happy they showed up, that they're there today, and so when you talk about how do you create this experience and it transcends that individual moment and becomes that lasting memory for people. And I hadn't thought of it in the perspective that you had with the teachers, because oftentimes teachers will say I'm watering a seed and I don't always see what it blooms into, and so sometimes when students move up through grade levels or buildings, you don't know unless they come back. What recommendations do you have that can help build that bridge to reignite and re-engage educators as that internal audience?
Speaker 3:My keynote is the jumping off point. It is a spark. It is an invitation to think about the problem differently. Not that we have a problem with engagement, but we have a problem with the decision to disengage. It's okay if we can agree. That's the premise, that the problem isn't engagement. The problem is we decide to disengage. Why is that decision happening? As we said earlier, the experience isn't living up to expectations. Okay, well, what did they expect? As simple as it is, this is really the first step.
Speaker 3:There's often a disconnect between what I expect if I'm your employee, maybe what I share with you, that I expect, because often that lack of trust in the relationship leads to me not sharing what I really expect. I'm sharing what I think you'd like to hear. I'm going to say. And so we start off quite literally on the wrong foot. As if you've asked for an apple but really want an orange, and so I deliver you the apple and then you take a bite or two and I'm like was something wrong with it? No, it's delicious. Quite literally on the wrong foot. As if you've asked for an apple but really want an orange, and so I deliver you the apple and then you take a bite or two and I'm like was something wrong with it? No, it's delicious, as simple as it is. I think that the reason that I've built the first principle as take a sip and if you read the book you understand it's not so much really about a sip of a drink but what happens when we share a drink coffee, water, wine, whiskey, doesn't matter what it is or even a moment with someone else, is that we build a relationship, we have an exchange of ideas. And so this is the first step in addressing the experience, because now we can start to be honest about what we want from each other, from the experience that we're creating together, about what we want from each other, from the experience that we're creating together.
Speaker 3:Then the second step is to evaluate how much, if any, collaboration and contribution am I, the employee, or I, the student, getting to bring to that experience just keeping in the world of education? Because when we feel uninvited to participate, we lose the opportunity to be the cause, and this is that fundamental driving factor across all archetypes whether you're a keeper, leaper or a sleeper, we all want to be the cause, to be able to contribute. Collaboration comes from that contribution, and when it is the three-hour college lecture. Is anybody surprised that after the first or second day of class the auditorium's kind of empty? This is not an opportunity to contribute or collaborate, and so we naturally start to disengage when we realize I don't need this, I can get it right from the book and I can save myself three hours. And that's what employees and even students start to do If they feel like class isn't an opportunity for contribution and collaboration, but really it's just a lecture, it's a talking point. Then they start to find the least path of resistance towards the grade because they are conditioned to see the grade as the outcome. And it's our opportunity in the world of education. I think it's our obligation, especially now, to reframe the purpose of school, of that classroom experience. It's not the grade, it goes far.
Speaker 3:People have stopped asking me what my GPA was in college. Nobody cares, I'm 43. They don't ask about that. But the love of learning, the ability to synthesize information, that's truly the outcome. And I mean I could go on Again. I'm not an expert in the field of education, but I don't believe the grades are the outcome. It's that love of learning that we're trying to foster, that sparkle in the eye that I talked about earlier, and so that comes from the second principle fill out a slip at the piano bar. That's how we encourage collaboration and contribution. And then that leads to the third principle or the outcome. And then that leads to the third principle or the outcome.
Speaker 3:And for the longest time in my professional career as a piano performer, I didn't realize, I had no idea that the outcome was the people and the experience. I thought the outcome was the tip. I played your song. That's your outcome. You fill my tip jar up. That's my outcome. What I've learned is that is like the grade. Getting the tip jar full is like a report card full of A's or a 4.0 GPA. It's nice in the moment, but you go a little bit past that and nobody cares, nobody asks anymore. Krista, I could not tell you the biggest tipping night that I had in my piano bar career. I legitimately don't remember. I've tried, but what I can tell you are some of the outcomes. One particular outcome a piano bar in Toronto that I worked at regularly for a long time. A couple had their first date there while I was performing and then several months later, maybe even a year later I don't recall how long it was but he asked me to help with the proposal. I've gotten to be part of so many proposals. I've gotten invited to play at weddings because of the experience they had at the piano bar. That's why I've created the Encore Experience. That's the title of my newest keynote and my next book.
Speaker 3:The purpose of our performance isn't to fill up the tip chart. It's to deliver an experience so good. People want to return. They want it again. I'm fond of saying wanting more is fine, but wanting it again is even better. That should be our mission Not to leave people wanting more, but to leave.
Speaker 3:People want the experience again and when we do that as teachers, the kids are excited to show up the next day. They can't wait to come back again for class because they're excited about what's going to happen, how they'll be able to contribute to the conversation. That's our goal for students. It's that they want to show up again. That's our goal for employees is that they want to show up again when we deliver an experience at work and I'm not talking about couches and higher-end coffee in the teacher's lounge or bring your pet to work day, like those are all window dressing on the real issue, which is doing the work, the actual act of doing the job or, as a student, the actual act of being in class? Is that the type of experience people want to have? Again, that's what I argue we should be creating each day. So when we create those experiences, people lean in. They don't just say I want more, they say I want this again.
Speaker 1:And as you're talking about these three principles, I'm thinking so much of where these SEL skills fit in with. We're going to sit down and communicate with each other. That take a sip. Let's find my strengths, your strengths, let's talk about what we have in common and set a foundation. And then the filling out a slip. I kept in my mind thinking about that sense of agency having a voice, having a choice, being able to take responsibility for those choices and getting to be involved, and involved not, like you said, for a grade, but involved for the impact, for the aha moments that come with collaborating with somebody and coming to a new solution or having clarity around a learning that you didn't have before. And so this idea of shifting what the outcome is to really thinking about what's the impact, that was another piece that really resonated with me, because, yeah, going in and getting a cup of coffee might be good, but that's not what's going to make me want to come back again. It's the connectedness and the chance to be involved that I think is critical.
Speaker 3:We habituate to things. What we don't habituate to is that experience of being the cause and the impact that we make in others, and that is why impact is so instrumental to our satisfaction with work and our satisfaction with experiences. We want an experience that's going to impact us positively, and one of the best ways that I've discovered through my work at the Piano Bar and my research in writing this book and the keynotes that I deliver, is to allow others to be the cause of that experience. That doesn't mean that they're the only cause, it doesn't mean they're the star of the show, but it means it's a group effort, it's a collaboration. We are better when we come together to do this thing, and what would the outcome we achieve is better than any of us could achieve on our own. That's the power and the magic of what we got to do at the piano bar.
Speaker 3:I can play all of those songs sitting in my living room. Nobody cares, nobody cares. But all of a sudden you put an audience in front of me and now there's applause and there's smiles and there's sparkles in the eyes. Similarly, you can put a group of people in a bar and maybe somebody will put a song on the jukebox or mega touch or whatever that gets folks to a couple of folks to hum along or sing along. But the piano bar is the only establishment I've encountered in my 43 years on this earth where the audience gets to choose every song and by the end of the night, their arm and arm swaying side to side as we sing Piano man. It creates a community and that is what I think we're all in need of, especially right now, on January 29th, as we record this. We're all searching for that feeling of community, that opportunity to be the cause changing something out in the world around us for the better, and that's what I believe work, especially work in the field of education, offers us the opportunity to do.
Speaker 1:So when you said piano man, I had that song and sweet Caroline in my head and you probably get those two every time you play. There's just something with everybody going all together in a group. So two questions for you as we work on wrapping up here. You said you have a keynote that you work on that's related to the tip charge culture, and I heard you say you have a new keynote coming out. Could you talk just a little bit about it's called Encore, a little bit about how that one's different from the first.
Speaker 3:The Encore experience is taking. It's built on lessons that I've learned delivering the Tip Jar Culture keynote to audiences over the last four, five but four years now. And the Tip Jar Culture is really designed for leaders, for folks in the human resources profession, and teachers are leaders especially there's principals and supervisors and like leaders in title, but teachers are leaders of that classroom. So most often when I run into folks in the education sector, I'm asked to deliver the keynote to Tip Jar Culture.
Speaker 3:What I was hearing from audience members was that they loved the experience of the Tip Jar Culture but the content within it, since it's about how to create an organizational culture or a classroom culture that inspires people to lean in and want to participate and do more.
Speaker 3:That, while that was great for them to hear, they wanted something that their whole organization could hear, even folks who don't have direct reports or even dotted line reports. They wanted something for everybody to get them reinvigorated and recommitted to the purpose and the possibility of what they can achieve by working together, and so that's why I built the Encore experience as a keynote. It is very much going to draw on some of the themes that you'll hear and experience in the Tip Jar Culture keynote, or if you read the book, but it's positioned and it has some additional stories and strategies for everyone, regardless of where you're at. So while I might get brought in to do a PD day or do a school board or school principals conference and deliver the tip jar culture, I might get brought in to talk to the student body or the whole district about the Encore experience.
Speaker 1:And I can't help but think personally, as somebody who offers professional learning on a year-to-year contract, like when I leave, I want people excited that, hey, Krista's coming back in two weeks, hey, we get to do something again together, and so that is again why this resonates with me. I wanted my students to leave class and be like I can't wait to come back here again tomorrow. And so, as people are listening to this and we're going to put all of the resources, the links to your website in the episode highlights and episode resources, what is a way that would be best for people to get ahold of you? Do you mind just voicing that for those who are listening?
Speaker 3:Sure, you can connect with me on any of the major most of the major socials at Gregory Offner Jr At Gregory Offner Jr and you can find my website, gregoryoffnercom, and there's a little button there you can click to email me. Or, if you're interested in learning more about my speaking engagements, you can click the button that says book me or book Greg or something like that. I don't know, but it's there and you should check it out and you should definitely get in touch, because I would love to hear what your listeners take away from this, what resonated with them and that helps me both improve the quality of my messaging but the quality of the experience that other people have.
Speaker 1:Thank you. And one last question, because I don't think I told you this, but music is our overarching theme for season four. So my last question for people is what is on your playlist right now that you've been listening to?
Speaker 3:All right, I have to have a caveat to that, which is I am the father of a four-year-old and a two-year-old, so right now it is predominantly the Barbie movie soundtrack, encanto, the Wicked movie soundtrack, and all of those are lovely soundtracks, but if you take like just Greg the human being, you're probably going to find some Ben Folds, some Green Day, some Kendrick Lamar.
Speaker 1:All good stuff, Thank you. I was just talking to our last guest that we had on. He mentioned green day as well and they really transcended. My kids are in their twenties or early twenties right now and they were so excited when they found green day and they're like mom, have you heard? I'm like, yeah, I was a teenager when they came out, so it's neat again to see the music transcending. So thank you for everything that you do, not only in entertaining and providing that collaborative experience for people when they're out looking to have a good time and to connect with people, but also to take those learning lessons into the workplace to help people become the best version of themselves and to really connect and have that experience with others. So, Greg, thank you for your time.
Speaker 3:Krista, it's been a real pleasure being here and chatting with you today.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you again for tuning in to this episode of SEL. In EDU. At Residence Education, we equip educators with knowledge, skills and resources to design learning experiences that foster students' academic, social and emotional growth. We believe that every small action to foster connections and growth creates ripples shaping the future.
