October 14, 2025 • 50 mins
Toxicity spreads silently, eroding morale, health, and performance. Marilyn Vetter, who transitioned from executive leadership in big pharma to leading a nonprofit, brings her wisdom on what it takes to identify toxicity and cure it. We’ll dive into what leaders must unlearn, why the C-suite often neglects its own growth, and how self-actualization and shared ownership of culture can turn workplaces into thriving ecosystems.
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Working on Purpose is broadcast live Tuesdays at 6PM ET and Music on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Working on Purpose is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Working on Purpose Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/working-on-purpose--2643411/support.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The topics and opinions express in the following show are
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(00:20):
choosing W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the
answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose
at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their
lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization
that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their
highest potential. Business can be such a force for good
in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide
(00:51):
guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we
all want Working on Purpose. Now here's your host, doctor
Elise Quartet.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Welcome back to the Working on Purpose program, which has
been brought to you with passion and pride since February
of twenty fifteen. Thanks for tuning again this week. Great
to have you. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. If
we've not met before and you don't know me, I'm
a workforce advisor, organizational psychologist, management consultant, logo therapist, speaker
and author. My team and I at gusta Now help
companies to unlive it and fortify their operations by building
(01:25):
a dynamic high performance culture, inspirational leadership and nursery managers
elevated by activating meaning and purpose. And did you know
that inspired employees actually outperform their satisfied peers by factor
of two point twenty five two one. In other words,
inspiration is pretty good for the bottom line. You can
learn more about us on how we can work together
at gustodashnow dot com or my personal site, Atliscortes dot com.
(01:48):
Getting in today's program we'd had with us Marilyn Vetter,
who is the CEO of Pheasants Forever and Coil Forever,
where her professional and personal worlds combined. Pheasants Forever and
Coil Forever is the nation's leading organization committed to conserving upland,
birds and wildlife through habitat improvement. Her professional background also
(02:09):
includes thirty years of strategic leadership, business management, and political
advocacy in the biopharmaceutical sector. We'll be talking today about
the roots of a toxic culture, the role of leadership
and culture, and creating cultures that elevate people. She joined
us today from Saint Paul, Minnesota, Marland. Welcome to Working
on Purpose.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Thank you, thank you for having me. I'm excited about
our conversation.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
I am too, I am too. I really want to
harvest and be able to share all these years of
experience that you've had being able to steward culture and
you've seen the good, bad and the ugly of course
in that time. So I want to also just give
a shout out to Hope Mueller and Jennifer Pastikas who
brought us together because I got to MC the Thriving
and twenty five conference. You were also a speaker there
(02:53):
and that's where this great idea to have you on
CAMON came to be. So thanks for all of that
great energy to bring you to us.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Absolutely, those two ladies are very inspiring and doing so
much in the workplace. And I love the fact that
you started with the statistics about inspirational work and that
it isn't just doesn't just feel good, it does good.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Right. I love that. Thank you for saying that that's great. Well,
let's hear since milisters and viewers don't know you as
I do, let's just hear a little bit about your
background before you got into what you're doing today, and
why are you so passionate about what you're doing today.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
So I have, as you said, have been in the
workforce for a little over thirty years, and my background
started it's kind of a convoluted web. I started in
broadcasting and ended up in pharmaceutical sales, and then ended
up in lobbying, and in the meantime, it's undercurrent in
my whole life. I had this very strong background and volunteering.
(03:53):
It's something that our parents established with us very very
early on, is that you should always give back and
not just take. So while I did that, I ended
up on several boards, and one of them led me
to being on the Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever board,
and I got to witness an organization that I was
incredibly passionate about as a member and then got to
(04:15):
be so much more involved in it, and I got
to see how the work that they're doing is enriching
the environment so much more than what people think it is.
Our name tends to limit people to what it thinks
we do, when honestly, what we're working on is wild
places that more people can experience.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
So when the.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Position for the CEO role came open, I thought, this
is a great opportunity for me to expose the team here,
who is an amazing team, very very passionate to what
a culture can bring them. And I've, as you said,
had good, bad and ugly. I've been in cultures where
it was warm and wonderful and I felt supported and
(04:58):
cared for and heard and valued, and then there's been
cultures where I felt like I was a widget and
a number and I didn't fit in. But there are
so many active things that we can do to enrich
a culture and build a culture that this was a
perfect opportunity for me to bring what I've learned to
a nonprofit sector that oftentimes I think we take people
(05:21):
for granted and nonprofits because they're doing work that they
love that they shouldn't have to also work in an
environment that makes them feel as important as the mission.
And that's why I was super excited to be able
to have the opportunity and honor to be part of
this team.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Oh that's amazing, Marylyn. Really appreciate that your passion really
comes through, and I love that because really passion is
a conveyance of energy. I do want to talk about
what you have been doing at the organization. We're going
to save that for the third segment when we talk
about how we actually elevate people. So we're going to
talk about the work that you've done there as well.
But first, what I want to do for this part
of our conversation is help our listeners and viewers understand
(06:00):
how they might start to recognize when a cultures, when
an organization's culture is actually going toxic. First, what's toxic
and how do we start to recognize that, ooh, we're
in that kind of a stew you know.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
I think the first hallmark of what toxic feels like
is when as a participant in that culture and an
employee in a team where you no longer feel like
you can make a difference or want to make a difference,
when you've become apathetic to the organization and feel like
it's hopeless that I can't make a change, people start
(06:35):
avoiding their own personal responsibility, and that is the death
knil of any organization. When people don't feel like they
can make a difference, they will stop making a difference.
And I think the number one way you see that
present itself is when everything goes underground. People stop being candid,
they stop feeling like it matters, so they don't bring
up their voice, they don't bring up their issues. And
(06:57):
once it goes underground, you've really lost the opportunity to
make shifts. So you have to be able to be
open and honest and candid with each other. And once
you've lost that, you know that something big has to happen,
something big has to intervene, because it really is the
(07:17):
root of all things. We're going to talk about that
probably later, about trust and when people feel like they
no longer can trust to take risks, they stop innovating,
they stop being creative, and they honestly go silent. And
when we talked a lot about quiet quitting during COVID,
I think it's because people felt like this loss of connection,
and that they did because they lost connection, felt like
(07:39):
they were no longer connected to the mission and the organization.
You have to create connectivity, whether it's remote or not,
and that an organization should should want feedback, should do surveys,
should ask for the hard things, because once you do
hard things, you all get better.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
That's gorgeous. One of the things that I know because
of the work that I get to do when I
go into organizations where I get the privilege of helping
them to steward their culture, and really what I love
doing is helping to activate the meaning purpose, which I
think is what you've also done. We'll get to that leader.
But one thing that I recognize right out of the
gate is I get the benefit as a third party
(08:20):
coming from the outside of seeing some of those hidden
or limiting beliefs that are governing the organization that are
not They're not that the people inside it, the leaders themselves,
the people that are running organization are not aware of
these beliefs. So could you talk a bit about how
limiting beliefs at either the individual level and the organizational
level create can contribute to creating toxic dynamics.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
You know, I always curiosity for me is as a
huge driver, and I think that that's in all things,
not just about learning things, but about how can we
better our team, how can we better organization, how can
we better how we deliver to our customers. And when
we start to limit and we say that this is
how work will be done, it stifles people's personal investment
(09:09):
in it. It also makes them feel incredibly marginalized. We
all have opinions, we all have ideas, and when people
can't voice those things, when they can't come up with solutions,
they stop looking for solutions, and that's when the organization loses.
I think that the most important thing that leaders can
(09:31):
do is be curious and open and vulnerable, and all
of those things do not fit in limiting organizations.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
And you know what you were speaking to there when
you direct people this is how to do the work.
And there's one particular word in MySpace, the organizational psychology
space that you're speaking to, and that's autonomy. And we
know what a strong driver autonomy is for people. I
have often been just thobsmacked that if I just say
we want to get here, however you get there, I
(10:00):
don't care, let's see what you come up with, they
well surpass what it is we're trying to get to
with their creativity. So limiting that is just I love
your earlier death. Now, okay, So now one thing that
I find interesting, and I was just working with a
company in February where they were trying to see what
was under the hood with their culture. I was surprised
(10:23):
how advanced the toxicity had gotten in the organization and
the leaders weren't recognizing it. They still couldn't see it.
So why do you think leaders often fail to recognize
toxicity when they're in the middle of it, or likely
the ones that are championing it.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
It's fascinating. Part of it is that lack of awareness.
Sometimes it's fear. People don't want to admit that there
are things that could be going better, which we absolutely
have to face that if we can't face our weaknesses,
we will never conquer our weaknesses. And I think that's
oftentimes one of the things that I see in leaders,
(11:00):
particularly mid stage leaders. You know, once you've arrived at
that executive level, a lot of times people feel like
they have conquered enough issues that they feel confident. But
when people are at mid stage or they have lots
of folks above them, they tend to be very self
limiting in about how they attached themselves to success, and
(11:21):
as leaders, we get hyper focused on metrics, and we
get so focused on metrics that we think that's the.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
Only measure of performance.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
But if our employees aren't engaged, if they don't feel
like they are part of the organization or part of
the success of the organization, then we've missed the best
opportunities to get the best out of our teams. And
you know, I think most people want to do.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
The right things, but they get so focused.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
On delivering, whether it's a quarterly earnings report or the
year in metrics, that they forget that there's so much
more to the story than that, and people start designing workarounds.
And I think the other thing that I is that
people are so averse to conflict. They will do almost
anything to avoid it. And I find it fascinating, And
(12:09):
I suppose I was probably guilty of that in my
earlier stages too, And now I actually relish those opportunities
where I'm having a one on one with someone to say,
there is an opportunity for you to be better here.
How can we address that? When we avoid conflict, we
steiny people's growth, because if we're not honest with them,
(12:31):
how will they ever know It's called blind spots for
a reason, and if we don't address them, then everything
starts to go underground. People don't feel supported, they don't
feel like they have an honest, trustworthy leader above them,
and so I think sometimes leaders get so wrapped in
either the metrics or protecting themselves that they're afraid to
(12:54):
be vulnerable. And when we aren't vulnerable, then we're full
of bravado and and that is we're just not being
honest with ourselves. Then I really appreciate the depth of
your perspective on that. That's really really fascinating, and it
makes me also think about what happens in organizations when,
(13:15):
especially when you have a large organization, you've got lots
of different verticals, and those different verticals have things that
they're being measured for that are maybe different than their neighbors,
and it does create a sense of competition or sometimes mismatched.
There's mismatch alignment between what this party orization is doing
with this one. How do you see that playing into
(13:37):
the space of eroding a culture and what can we
do about that?
Speaker 5 (13:40):
Oh, Alice, you nailed it.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
I think the hardest thread to weave in any organization
is the horizontal one.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
It's really really easy to.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Build vertical silos, and you can create all kinds of metrics,
and then at the end of the year, you wonder, why,
well so and so is working on the same thing
that I'm working on, or they're worse, They're working on
something that's the antithesis of what I'm working on.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
And we wonder how it happened.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
So, first of all, people have to understand that sometimes
you have to slow down to speed up. That means
we have to find out what our neighbors are doing.
We have to find out what it is that they're
doing that I could benefit them and how they can
benefit me. And that takes a ton of intention and
I think people get impatient with that. So I think
breaking down those silos is super important, and there's really
(14:30):
intentional ways to do that. You create goals that require collaboration,
that are goals that are across maybe two or three teams,
so that the metrics are much larger and that they
actually impact those teams. It drives performance, which then becomes cultural,
it becomes habitual. So sometimes when you come into organization
(14:51):
and the verticals are very established, you almost have to
force it in the beginning through goal development and work
plans and really taking it down to the nth degree.
And then when people get to experience the winds, it
becomes habitual, which then impacts the culture.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Yeah, and those winds are euphoric, right when we can
create that shared sense of winning as Oh, nothing better
than a team win, right, absolutely, with that energy. Let's
take our first break. I'm your host, doctor Earles Cortez.
We've been on air with Marilyn Vetter, the CEO of
Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever, the nation's leading organization committed
(15:33):
to conserving upland birds and wildlife through habitat improvement. We've
been talking in this first segment about her experience of
recognizing their roots of toxicity in a culture. When we
come back from a break, we'll talk about the role
of leadership in culture. We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at
(16:25):
elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your
employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with
doctor Elise Cortes.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
To reach our.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send
an email to Elise A. L Se at elisecortes dot com.
Now back to working on Purpose.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Thank you for staying with us, and welcome back to
working on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor release Cortes, as
I am dedicated to helping create a world where organizations
thrive because their people thrive and they're led by inspirationial
leaders that help them find and contribute their greatness, and
we do business the better for the world. I keep
researching and writing my own books. So one of the
ladies came on is called the Great Revitalization, How activating
meaning and purpose can radically in live in your business.
(17:18):
And I wrote it to help leaders understand today's diverse
and discerning workforce. What do they want in me to
be able to give their best and stick around with you?
And then I offer twenty two best projects to help
you do that for them. You can find my books
on Amazon or my personal site at least quotes dot
com if you are just now joining us. My guest
is Marilyn Vetter. She is the CEO of Pheasants Forever
(17:38):
in Quail Forever. So now for this segment, I want
to talk specifically about the actual leadership role in culture.
There's so much we can do, and I really like
first and I want to emphasize what you've been saying
about how critical it is to be intentional about your culture.
And one thing that I have found really really interesting
and I love working with leaders, Marilyn. I love working
(17:59):
with C suite leaders, senior level leaders, and I also
recognize you mentioned something earlier about how vulnerable that it
can be to be in those roles. It's it is
a hard job to be at the top of an organization,
and I do believe they need help. And what I
also have come to understand is, you know, a culture
can only evolve to the level of wherever the leader
has evolved. So if you could speak a little bit
(18:21):
about what that looks like from your vantage point, your experience,
how do we know that you know that this is
what we're when we see the culture? How do we
know Oh, that's a reflection of where the leader is.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
So culture does it's led by leaders at the top,
but it has of course owned by everyone. But if
your leaders haven't done their own work and identified their
own strengths and weaknesses, then you're really going to topple over.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
You know.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
One of the things that I think is important for
people to understand is we can't expect people on our
teams to travel further on our on their journeys than
we've traveled on our own. And I absolutely believe that
everybody should do work, whether it's a coach or it's
a therapist, whatever that is. You need to know what
(19:11):
your drivers are that make you be your best and
let's admit it, when we're our worst. And if you
haven't figured those things out, then sometimes that outside person
as a coach, can be the absolute best way for
you to do that. You have to be able to
model what that looks like to a team, and you
(19:32):
can't model it if you don't know what your drivers are.
And you know oftentimes and you of course probably see
this all the time, is that so much of what
we experience is fear based and that people are afraid
to fail. They're afraid to be enough, and when we
work through fear, that is a terrible driver of performance
(19:53):
for anyone on the team. And when our leaders can
instead model vulnerability and curiosity, they will absolutely inspire others
to do their own work as well.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
I really appreciate that, of course, applaud that I am
a lifelong learner. Part of the reason I continue to
host this podcast Maryland after ten and a half years,
is because it helps catalyze my own ongoing learning and development.
And I personally always have two coaches that I work
with continually, so and I believe that to be affected
in today's times, that you need to do that as well.
(20:26):
Anybody that's in a leadership world must do that, even
if you're in an individual contributing role. So my question
for you then is how can we or how how
have you helped executives to, especially in the C suite
and the senior levels, realize the importance of their own
ongoing development. How do you help them get present to that.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
Actually, where I'm at right now is such a good
story about that. You know, nonprofit oftentimes don't have the
funds to invest in leadership development. And when I came
here two and a half years ago. One of the
very first things I asked, well, well, when was the
last time the leadership team was through a three sixty
and most of them had not experienced that. And when
(21:09):
you haven't had a three sixty, well, you've never been
exposed to your blind spots then, because maybe your boss
can identify it, but maybe not, and maybe they can
coach you through it and maybe not. And so the
first thing that I recommend for anyone, whether you're an
individual contributor or whether you're leading teams or you're leading
(21:30):
a company, you should have three sixty feedback routinely, at
least every eighteen to twenty four months, I believe, because
as you work on one thing that you learn and
you might then next time find out you either over
triangulated or something else has popped up and said. And
my personal favorite is Leadership Circle Profile because it doesn't
(21:53):
just measure you know, it doesn't just give you numeric ratings.
It gives people the opportunity to actually write in dialogue
and those have been some of our leader's biggest aha moments,
like I had no idea that I was showing up
to others, and that is oftentimes the best way to
(22:16):
inspire leaders that you think aren't going to make it
to transform how they work.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
It's been absolutely transformational to this leader. Steam.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I so appreciate what you're saying. In fact, I can
tell you this just to you, Maryly, not anybody else
listening right, just you, that I have over the years
worked with several senior level leaders who were of course
asked for feedback for their their leader, a very high
level leader, and of course they were scared and remiss
and didn't really want to be honest. And I really
(22:46):
helped coach them, or have helped coach them over the
years to articulate really how their leader, what they appreciate
about the leader, and how their behaviors or communication limit
their contribution or imped what we're trying to do. And
so often what I what I understand is that senior
leaders especially really miss getting crucial feedback because people are
(23:07):
afraid to give it to them, and then it's a
disservice to them, the disservice to the senior level leader
that doesn't get the benefit that real unfiltered feedback that
is designed to really help them. So I really appreciate
what you're saying and make and then, of course you've
got to make it safe. Once they give you the feedback,
you can't come after them and say, who the hell
gave me this feedback? Where are they? Aither? It was
(23:29):
so and so right.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
One of the things that I love about the fact
that you bring so much experience from the coaching perspective.
I never allow three sixty feedback to be given in
an organization without coach support.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
That's great, that's great.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
It is so hard to sometimes hear that feedback and
ways to then transform those learnings into wins. And you
have to have someone that's not emotionally invested in you
or you're certainly invested in your success, yes, but not
invested in your role. They are invested in you, and
(24:05):
that's where it sometimes just two to three coaching sessions
for every time somebody goes through. It helps them turn
those learnings into work plans and their own individual development plans.
And I honestly think it's a disservice to people to
give them feedback without a coach to help them decipher it.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
I completely agree, of course, and I also want to
recognize that you know, feedback can really really sting and
even really hurt you know, let's not overlook that. And
it's the only way to grow. I mean, if you
don't want to go through life keep repeating the same
issues and problems and setbacks over and over again. If
(24:44):
we could just somehow someone a little bit of courage
to be able to, you know, listen and be open
to that feedback, the difference it can make. What I
love the most, Maryland is when I'm working with senior
level leaders for some period of time and their spouse
reaches out to me and says, thank you. I don't
know what's going on, but things are already better at all, right,
we know because it cascades.
Speaker 5 (25:03):
You are so right.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
I had a gentleman on one of my previous teams
that his wife reached out to me and said, I'm
guessing he's a better colleague, but I can tell you
he's a hell of a lot better husband than he
was before. And the other thing that's really important, too,
is when teams can do these things together. Yes, it
helps bring them together. You're building and even just it's
(25:27):
build a common vernacular. You're building common tools throughout the
organization that people can resonate with, and it helps them
build accountability partners internally of if you've been through this
and I'm going through this, how what did you learn
from it? It's an extraordinary tool. It's I'm not going
to lie, it's a big investment, but it's the best
(25:48):
investment we've made.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
I completely agree. And I'll tell you an advantage point of,
you know, being on the serving part of those kinds
of deals. It's incredibly fulfilling to be able to see it,
To watch a team literally grow together, watch their molecules
change and elevate together. It is amazing some of the
best things that I get to do in my work.
For sure. We're still talking about the role of leadership
(26:13):
and culture. So now what I want to get to
is what happens when a leader defers the idea of
steward and culture just to HR's responsibility.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
Oh that's such a cop out, it is, is it all?
Speaker 3 (26:31):
You know?
Speaker 5 (26:31):
People do it all the time.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
And I'm so glad you asked the question because HR
might help mold what that looks like and how it's
done inside an organization. But they don't own what the
culture is. We all own what the culture is. So
maybe I'll give you an idea of how we tackled it.
First of all, I think there's lots of tools that
(26:53):
are used by HR for us to help as an
organization build that. That's engagement and surveys amongst our teams.
That then helps those leaders figure out how they're doing
on their team and how they can improve themselves. That
then tells them that HR can't own this. They might
(27:14):
own the results, but as leaders, we have to own
the work of how we transform those cultures. So whether
it's through surveys, whether it's through a culture working group,
which we defined after we got our most recent survey
results and they were really great and powerful, but they
showed us gaps that we had, and well, if HR
(27:36):
just says well, I'm going to create a solution, they
might get the wrong solution. So you have to have
people involved in all layers of the organization in that
process of not only identifying the gaps, but what are
those solutions. And they've come forward with incredible solutions that
we probably wouldn't have thought off because a lot of
people said, well, I don't get enough time and money
(27:58):
invested in my career. So people thought right away all
this is going to get expensive, and what they really
asked for was internal mentors, share leaders and career ladders.
Those are not expensive things for us to invest in.
But it isn't what they asked for. But HR can't
be the only one that owns it. They just happened
to maybe they own the center of this spoke, but
(28:21):
the rest of us have to be the spolks on
the wheel.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
I got to say two things to that beautiful share, Marylynd.
One is I fundamentally believe to my core so I
set this question up intentionally, is that culture has to
be driven by the top leadership, and so HR is
your partner and collaborator, but they are certainly not the
one that's running in the culture train. They can help
(28:45):
that along. But I like what you said, give tools
and such to be able to support it and steward it.
The second thing I want to say to what you
just shared there is how critical it is that I
love that you're doing this at your organization, that when
you do do a survey, an engagement survey or whatever,
that you share those results back to the people who
gave you the information. So many organizations, right, so many
organizations don't want to do that because it's they don't
(29:09):
like the vulnerability of that that, oh there's things in
here that people don't like. I don't want to share this,
but when you share it, one you reflect that to
the organization. We listened to you, we hurt you, here's
what we got from you. And then when you share
that back, the team ought to go, oh, yeah, that's
what we said. They heard us, and then I love
the idea and I want to celebrate that you're involving
(29:30):
your team to be able to address the gaps. Then
they own it. They're part of it, right and to
your point, they'll have ideas that maybe don't cost any
money at all, and it would take you further to
address those gaps and whatever you came up with in
the leadership circle.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
And you know, one of the things that we did
actually going forward was we designed a workforce health metric
that is a combination of turnover and our engagement results
that we report to our board on every scorecard that
we give them, and we hold ourselves as executives in
(30:06):
the organization accountable as part of our own review process
and our bonus process of if we're going to be
committed to growing and building this culture, we all have
to be part of that and if nothing else, that
will always remind people of what their role is in this.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
I don't really want to let you go at the
end of sor just so you know, we could keep
this going for quite some time. The last question I
want to I want to serve up for this part
of our conversation about the role of leadership and culture.
I'm sure from your thirty plus years of experience that
you have some kind of a story or an example
that you can share of how leadership transformation unlocked or
(30:49):
elevated cultural change in the direction in which if they
were trying to get to.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
I actually do and it's from this team. And we've
hit on some of the high points. So this team
had not had an opportunity to work on themselves and
work on the organization. So by having them have the
opportunity for three sixty for them to work on themselves,
then build this common nomenclature that they get to work with.
(31:16):
Now we get to work on teams, and then we
get to work on bigger things like culture and focus.
Speaker 5 (31:23):
And so we undertook.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
So then we went all right, So our mission and
our vision we reiterated, are they still the same?
Speaker 5 (31:31):
Yes, we are.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Our mission, what we do, our vision, how does that
look our strategic plan, what does that look like?
Speaker 5 (31:38):
How did we get that work done?
Speaker 4 (31:40):
And then we agreed we all got together on our
one big thing when we call it our OBT, which
I'm going to read to you, that we committed to
together achieve and celebrate ambitious mission outcomes by investing in
cross functional relationships, bold gold setting, and a collaborative culture.
And they all created that together.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
M oh I am totally with you on that. In fact,
I want to comment more on that, but I want
to go. Let's het our last breakuse I really celebrate
and also applaud and do something similar when I'm working
with other teams. So let's let our listeners and viewers
take that in and celebrate that for themselves and consider
how they might do that in their own teams. What
(32:22):
we take our second break, I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes.
We've been on here with Maryland's Marilyn Vetter, who's the
CEO of Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever. We've been talking
a bit about the role of leadership in culture. When
we come back, we're going to talk about building cultures
that elevate people the way she's done at your organization today,
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing and meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at
(33:18):
elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your
employees working on purpose. This is Working on Purpose with
doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to
open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Alise
A Lise at eliscortes dot com. Now back to working
(33:42):
on Purpose.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to Working
on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes, and as you
know by now, this program is dedicated to empowering and
inspiring you along your journey to realize more of your potential.
If you want to learn more about how we can
work together and learn about the Gusto Now Academy for
Leaders and individuals on various journeys alike. Make your way
to gustodashnow dot com and then go to the training
tab and there you will find the academy. If you
(34:10):
are just now joining us. My guest is Marilyn Vetter.
She is the CEO of Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever.
So the idea of creating that objective together like that,
I think is really powerful. In fact, what I do.
One of the offerings that we do at Gusto Now
is it's a visioneering. It's it's a joint visioneering sort
of exercise where we take representatives from all of your
(34:34):
stakeholder communities and really align them along your your your purpose, mission,
vision and value. So you're enrolling them in that whole
thing together. So all of your leaders have already gone
through this, and now you do this with your full
stakeholder community and then learn, of course, are what is theirs?
And now you create a shared sense of mutual purpose
together everybody's grown in the same direction. Energize like that,
(34:56):
and I call it your parliament of purpose and the reason.
And we call that exercise creating your Parliament of purposes.
Because I'm wildly obsessed with owls. And you know, when
we talk about a group of owls, you know where
I'm going with this. You would be one person who knows.
So listeners and viewers if you don't know, you know,
you think about what do we call different groups of birds?
(35:16):
And we have a you know, a flock of geese,
we have a murder of crows, all these kinds of names.
But how we talk about a group of owls? Is
there a parliament? A parliament of owls? And I like
the idea of having this, you know, sort of wisdom group.
That's that's all, you know, nestled around your purpose, mission,
vision and values and firing on all engines. So I
wanted to celebrate what you said and take it maybe
(35:39):
one step further. Thoughts reactions.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Well, first of all, I love that I love that
you've used that word. You know, for me, I love
parliament as well. It's it's like any government institution. It's
this wide array of voices that come to consensus at
the end of the day, and everybody gets.
Speaker 5 (35:59):
To own the consensus. And it can be an ugly process.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
That's okay, that's an okay process to go through because
once you've survived it.
Speaker 5 (36:10):
What you will.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
Produce will be extraordinary and you will have so much
better buy in, and people will remember the good and
the bad and how they got there, and the journey
will be remarkable and it will be much more enduring.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
Because of it.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Yes, beautifully said. Okay, So for this last segment here,
I want to talk about how listeners and viewers can
leverage your experience of really building a culture that elevates people.
I think that people talk a lot about culture, but
I really don't think for a many organizations or leaders
really understand how to steward it really well. So I
want to start with the idea first of how what
(36:49):
you say is how culture has to be owned by everybody.
I completely agree with that and your experience. What does
that actually look like in practice?
Speaker 4 (37:00):
I think it's listening first. So I'll give you a
good example. One of the things that when you're a
nonprofit that is at the recip receiving end of grants
that in the past few years we've had lots of
federal freezes on dollars and that makes those employees feel
(37:20):
super vulnerable.
Speaker 5 (37:22):
And we could have said, well.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
That's that's that's the job that you have and because
it's a federal grant funded position, that's the risk you take.
But that doesn't feel good, right They know that that
is the choice. So that means they either have to
leave the organization for stability, or we need to find
a way to give them that sense of stability. In
my mind, if you ask someone if they live and
(37:48):
work in a good culture, they're going to say, what
does that look like? It means like I matter, they
care about me. So when our team came to us
said this is untenable. It is really hard for we
want to stay here, but we feel vulnerable. So we said,
all right, well, let us put our thinking hats on,
and our team came up with creating a PTO exchange,
(38:09):
and so people can donate their PTO to the exchange,
they can write a check to the exchange, they can
do whatever that is that transitions those into dollars for
the people that would be at the other end of
a furlough. And so we started it in January, which
meant we didn't have a lot in there. Well, then
once we saw that there were going to be federal freezes,
(38:31):
people just started dumping in their PTO. For those of
us haven't been around a long time. We wrote checks
and so every leader in the organization found ways to
contribute to that PTO exchange, so that when we had
one hundred and thirty people that were impacted, some for
a couple of days, some for a couple of months,
we funded every single one of their hours team And
(38:55):
those are examples. Your words show that you actually are
going to act on them. Your intention has to marry
the impact, and so that's how cultures are built, and
that's how they're measured, is whether or not.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
You walk the talk completely agree. You know, it's one
thing to say we stand for the step. It's quite
another to make the hard decisions choices and behave to
support them in that way. That is so beautiful what
you shared about the share PTO that has loves me
to tears. It's so beautiful. Talk about feeling like you
matter someplace, well, you know, definitely. So what I want
(39:34):
to do is really for pretty much the remainder of
our conversation is just let our listeners and viewers into
the great work you and your team have been doing.
So I know you run a group of six hundred
people in your organizations and you've been there for two
and a half years. So talk us through. You know,
when you came in, you know, what did you see,
What did you recognize that you wanted to work on,
(39:56):
which you wanted to address, and some of the things
the early decisions and steps that you took to steward
your role as the CEO.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
Okay, well, first of all, I came into an organization
that the longer I'm here, the happier that I am,
and the amazing amount of work that they do, but
how they care about each other, and that really is remarkable.
But one of the all organizations have room for growth
and improvement. And we talked about this earlier. Those verticals
(40:26):
that were established were established with good intentions, but because
they were so entrenched, it was really hard for people
that worked in conservation operations to think about, like the
marketing team for instance, like how does my work impact them?
So we started to think about how can we be
intentional about driving collaboration, so work plans, it's it's included
(40:49):
in everybody's work plan of.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
How do I work with others?
Speaker 4 (40:53):
We hired and promoted someone internally to be a director
of internal communications. People know what everyone else is doing
when you know what your colleagues are doing, then you
get to celebrate it for one, but you also get
to think like maybe I could do that in my region,
or how could I amplify those works. And then the
(41:14):
other thing that we really did is we've always had
awards in the organization and there have not been as
many team awards as we have now, and so we
are awarding and recognizing It's not big financial dollars, but
team recognition of collaboration that is celebrated is really profound
(41:35):
and how it changes people. And we make sure that
our board is aware of all of those things so
that they get the internal communication newsletter that goes out
all the time that recognizes those moments of collaboration. They
got to see the videos that we cut of the
folks that won all of those awards, so that it
is witnessed from the organization from the very top to
(41:56):
all the way through all of the ranks.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Oh that's so ecat Okay, So a couple of things
I have to say to that. So I have a
dear friend and colleague in the UK named Paul Skinner,
and I met it back in twenty eighteen. He wrote
a book called collaborative advantage, and it's the whole notion
of turning competitive advantage on its head. And so we
were saying before about how silos can compete, and now
(42:19):
you're talking about how do you get your team, your
various teams with different interests to collaborate. I just think
that's just delightful, and you celebrate them for that, so
just makes me happy. I also know, and I can't
let you off the show without talking about this, Marylyn,
but I know that you also spent some time working
with your purpose, mission, vision and values with your team,
(42:41):
So tell us how you did that.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
We should never assume that our mission and our vision
are exactly the same as they were when this organization
forty started forty three years ago. So we started there
is our north stars. It's still our north star, and
thankfully it was, which is wonderful. It's a serendipity when
that happens. And the vision really of how that presents
(43:07):
itself to the world does look the same as well.
But our strategic plan changed, and more importantly, how we
used and built and shared our strategic plan changed. So
in the past, the strategic plan was built by the
executive team and it was run past the board, and
the board obviously endorsed it. And the interesting thing is
(43:29):
that the strategic plan didn't really change a lot. It
changed somewhat, But what we did was that we brought
it was almost sixty people that got to be part
of that strategic planning process. So we broke it up
into small chunks, so we had four priorities, and then
there were objectives under each priority. We broke each one
(43:50):
of those objectives into teams so that we had managers
and directors and people at all levels that got to
be part of it. So the wonderful thing is that
it it didn't change wildly. It changed substantially, but not wildly,
but it increases the buy in tremendously. So then you know,
obviously you go through the normal process of the board
(44:10):
and all of that, and once the board endorsed it,
then we said, let's take this a step further. Our
organization is different or a nonprofit, but it's also a
membership organization. We have one hundred and sixty five thousand members,
seven hundred and fifty chapters across the United States and Canada,
and so we said we need them to know what
we're working on. So that can be part of that
(44:31):
because they're volunteers in our work. So we did podcasts,
we did blogs on it, we published it in our journals,
we put it on our website so that everybody knows
what that looks like. And it increased buy in by them,
and now they feel like they're not just a member,
they're part of that, and that that whole communication of
(44:53):
what we are clearly doing gave so much clarity to
everyone on our team and everyone around us and just
dramatically increase the buy in. And it has just been
this common drum beat. And I think the fun part
is that so we named it Building Forever, and that
has been this tether that has kept us really folk
(45:15):
hyper focused on collaboration.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
Well, and that's totally the spirit of the problem and purpose.
That's exactly the whole spirit of that. And I think
that it seems like you would be terribly remiss if
you hadn't taken this step of involving your members. But
I don't know that every organization that occurs for them
or that that's where they go. So one thing I
also want to put out for our listeners and viewers too,
and get your perspective on. This is what's beautiful about
(45:40):
the world of purpose. Purpose is one it's always about
serving beyond yourself, right, It's there's a self trendscence in it.
So whatever it is, whatever you're up to in your organization,
you're serving somebody outside of yourself. And because of the
world is changing, sometimes you do need to slightly amend
your purpose to be able to to that, to aim
(46:00):
to that kind of thing. So in your case, you
didn't have to do that. But what is powerful that
I want to weave in here in addition to what
we've been talking about, is we can actually measure the
experience of purpose and organizations to make sure that it
is being lived in our organization. And there's actually there's
three simple measures to be able to do that. Just
curious if that was part of what you were doing
(46:23):
or if you have been able to measure the experience
of how purposes lived in your organization.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
I suppose it's probably measured in a couple of different ways.
Certainly that when we do our engagement survey, we ask
about that. We are actually going through the process right
now with some of our team of did we get
it right? Were we overly ambitious or not, and it's
been really fun to see the results that have come
back from that and really giving them that constant voice
(46:55):
within it. And one of the things that I think
that has shifted in the organization that for many years
we at the end of the year, we would tell
you what we did MM and we're transitioning to an
organization that says.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
We're going to tell you, We're telling you what we're
going to do.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
It increases not only accountability, but a buy in and
like we need you to be with us in this journey.
And so while I don't know that we've necessarily undertaken
an assessment, I think that's actually really wise.
Speaker 5 (47:25):
I will tell you that just.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
Rhetorically, I've gotten lots and lots of comments from people
throughout the organization of how excited they were to feel
like they were part of it.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
M that's so delightful. It's just there's just three simple
questions that we could ask, but I have to do
with the extent to which people feel like the leaders
are walking to talk of the purpose, that their colleagues
are living, the purpose of the organization, that they feel
personally aligned to the purpose. You ask those three questions,
it tells you where to where to where to address things.
Speaker 4 (47:55):
And we've done that with our employees that probably where
we had the messes. We haven't done it with our members.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Beautiful, I like that idea so exciting. Well, it happens
so fast, Marlin. We're at the end of the show here,
and you know that this shows is white people around
the world that are trying to get better at becoming
leaders and selves, student their own organization, or even just
plugging more deeply into the world of work.
Speaker 4 (48:16):
What would you like to leave them with that each
of us has an impact on culture. I think it's
too easy to think that you can.
Speaker 5 (48:24):
Give up on a culture. And cultures are built.
Speaker 4 (48:27):
Yes they are led from the top, but they are
built from the inside out. And the hallmark of an
exceptional team, of a high performing team is the team
of people that cares as much about each other's success
as they do their own. So own that be the
leader in your own team, whether you lead that team
or not. To reach out and to make sure that
(48:50):
your colleagues feel like you're as invested in them as
you are as yourself, and that will impact your team.
People will want to be on your team. They will
want to they want to amplify your work. They're going
to want to create create your work. They're going to
ask what you're doing. That is how if you aren't
at the top but want to change your culture, that's
(49:12):
how you change your culture. You start doing it from
the roots of the organization and it will change. I've
seen it happen. I've seen it in other organizations, and
it's slower for sure, but it makes a meaningful difference,
and at the end of the day, you for sure
will know better about your place in that organization by
(49:32):
doing so.
Speaker 3 (49:33):
What a powerful and beautiful way to close, Marilyn. I
am so grateful to know you and to share with
my listeners and viewers around the world. You've really made
a beautiful contribution to this Thank you so much for
being on working on purpose.
Speaker 5 (49:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (49:45):
I really appreciate you being here, and I absolutely love
the fact that you're spreading this message to others who
really need to hear it.
Speaker 3 (49:53):
Thank you. I'm with that's exactly what we're about. So
listeners and viewers, you're going to want to learn more
about Marilyn Vetter and follow her work or connect with her.
Highly suggest you find her on LinkedIn. She's pretty easy
to find. Just type in her name. It's Marilyn standard
spelling Vetter be e t tdr Marilyn Vetter on LinkedIn.
Last week, if you missed the live show, you can
(50:14):
always catch it via recorded podcast. See you then for
another nourishing and elevating conversation together. Let's lean in and
learn together how to make workplaces that work for everyone
and find ways to do business in a way that
betters the world that's working.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to
tune into Working on Purpose, featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortez,
each week on W four C. Why Together, We'll create
a world where business operates conscientiously. Leadership inspires and passion performance,
and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning
and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's Work on Purpose.
The topics and opinions express in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No
liability explicit or implies shall be extended to W FOURCY
Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments
should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for
(00:20):
choosing W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the
answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose
at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their
lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization
that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their
highest potential. Business can be such a force for good
in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide
(00:51):
guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we
all want Working on Purpose. Now here's your host, doctor
Elise Quartet.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Welcome back to the Working on Purpose program, which has
been brought to you with passion and pride since February
of twenty fifteen. Thanks for tuning again this week. Great
to have you. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. If
we've not met before and you don't know me, I'm
a workforce advisor, organizational psychologist, management consultant, logo therapist, speaker
and author. My team and I at gusta Now help
companies to unlive it and fortify their operations by building
(01:25):
a dynamic high performance culture, inspirational leadership and nursery managers
elevated by activating meaning and purpose. And did you know
that inspired employees actually outperform their satisfied peers by factor
of two point twenty five two one. In other words,
inspiration is pretty good for the bottom line. You can
learn more about us on how we can work together
at gustodashnow dot com or my personal site, Atliscortes dot com.
(01:48):
Getting in today's program we'd had with us Marilyn Vetter,
who is the CEO of Pheasants Forever and Coil Forever,
where her professional and personal worlds combined. Pheasants Forever and
Coil Forever is the nation's leading organization committed to conserving upland,
birds and wildlife through habitat improvement. Her professional background also
(02:09):
includes thirty years of strategic leadership, business management, and political
advocacy in the biopharmaceutical sector. We'll be talking today about
the roots of a toxic culture, the role of leadership
and culture, and creating cultures that elevate people. She joined
us today from Saint Paul, Minnesota, Marland. Welcome to Working
on Purpose.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Thank you, thank you for having me. I'm excited about
our conversation.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
I am too, I am too. I really want to
harvest and be able to share all these years of
experience that you've had being able to steward culture and
you've seen the good, bad and the ugly of course
in that time. So I want to also just give
a shout out to Hope Mueller and Jennifer Pastikas who
brought us together because I got to MC the Thriving
and twenty five conference. You were also a speaker there
(02:53):
and that's where this great idea to have you on
CAMON came to be. So thanks for all of that
great energy to bring you to us.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Absolutely, those two ladies are very inspiring and doing so
much in the workplace. And I love the fact that
you started with the statistics about inspirational work and that
it isn't just doesn't just feel good, it does good.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Right. I love that. Thank you for saying that that's great. Well,
let's hear since milisters and viewers don't know you as
I do, let's just hear a little bit about your
background before you got into what you're doing today, and
why are you so passionate about what you're doing today.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
So I have, as you said, have been in the
workforce for a little over thirty years, and my background
started it's kind of a convoluted web. I started in
broadcasting and ended up in pharmaceutical sales, and then ended
up in lobbying, and in the meantime, it's undercurrent in
my whole life. I had this very strong background and volunteering.
(03:53):
It's something that our parents established with us very very
early on, is that you should always give back and
not just take. So while I did that, I ended
up on several boards, and one of them led me
to being on the Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever board,
and I got to witness an organization that I was
incredibly passionate about as a member and then got to
(04:15):
be so much more involved in it, and I got
to see how the work that they're doing is enriching
the environment so much more than what people think it is.
Our name tends to limit people to what it thinks
we do, when honestly, what we're working on is wild
places that more people can experience.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
So when the.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Position for the CEO role came open, I thought, this
is a great opportunity for me to expose the team here,
who is an amazing team, very very passionate to what
a culture can bring them. And I've, as you said,
had good, bad and ugly. I've been in cultures where
it was warm and wonderful and I felt supported and
(04:58):
cared for and heard and valued, and then there's been
cultures where I felt like I was a widget and
a number and I didn't fit in. But there are
so many active things that we can do to enrich
a culture and build a culture that this was a
perfect opportunity for me to bring what I've learned to
a nonprofit sector that oftentimes I think we take people
(05:21):
for granted and nonprofits because they're doing work that they
love that they shouldn't have to also work in an
environment that makes them feel as important as the mission.
And that's why I was super excited to be able
to have the opportunity and honor to be part of
this team.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Oh that's amazing, Marylyn. Really appreciate that your passion really
comes through, and I love that because really passion is
a conveyance of energy. I do want to talk about
what you have been doing at the organization. We're going
to save that for the third segment when we talk
about how we actually elevate people. So we're going to
talk about the work that you've done there as well.
But first, what I want to do for this part
of our conversation is help our listeners and viewers understand
(06:00):
how they might start to recognize when a cultures, when
an organization's culture is actually going toxic. First, what's toxic
and how do we start to recognize that, ooh, we're
in that kind of a stew you know.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
I think the first hallmark of what toxic feels like
is when as a participant in that culture and an
employee in a team where you no longer feel like
you can make a difference or want to make a difference,
when you've become apathetic to the organization and feel like
it's hopeless that I can't make a change, people start
(06:35):
avoiding their own personal responsibility, and that is the death
knil of any organization. When people don't feel like they
can make a difference, they will stop making a difference.
And I think the number one way you see that
present itself is when everything goes underground. People stop being candid,
they stop feeling like it matters, so they don't bring
up their voice, they don't bring up their issues. And
(06:57):
once it goes underground, you've really lost the opportunity to
make shifts. So you have to be able to be
open and honest and candid with each other. And once
you've lost that, you know that something big has to happen,
something big has to intervene, because it really is the
(07:17):
root of all things. We're going to talk about that
probably later, about trust and when people feel like they
no longer can trust to take risks, they stop innovating,
they stop being creative, and they honestly go silent. And
when we talked a lot about quiet quitting during COVID,
I think it's because people felt like this loss of connection,
and that they did because they lost connection, felt like
(07:39):
they were no longer connected to the mission and the organization.
You have to create connectivity, whether it's remote or not,
and that an organization should should want feedback, should do surveys,
should ask for the hard things, because once you do
hard things, you all get better.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
That's gorgeous. One of the things that I know because
of the work that I get to do when I
go into organizations where I get the privilege of helping
them to steward their culture, and really what I love
doing is helping to activate the meaning purpose, which I
think is what you've also done. We'll get to that leader.
But one thing that I recognize right out of the
gate is I get the benefit as a third party
(08:20):
coming from the outside of seeing some of those hidden
or limiting beliefs that are governing the organization that are
not They're not that the people inside it, the leaders themselves,
the people that are running organization are not aware of
these beliefs. So could you talk a bit about how
limiting beliefs at either the individual level and the organizational
level create can contribute to creating toxic dynamics.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
You know, I always curiosity for me is as a
huge driver, and I think that that's in all things,
not just about learning things, but about how can we
better our team, how can we better organization, how can
we better how we deliver to our customers. And when
we start to limit and we say that this is
how work will be done, it stifles people's personal investment
(09:09):
in it. It also makes them feel incredibly marginalized. We
all have opinions, we all have ideas, and when people
can't voice those things, when they can't come up with solutions,
they stop looking for solutions, and that's when the organization loses.
I think that the most important thing that leaders can
(09:31):
do is be curious and open and vulnerable, and all
of those things do not fit in limiting organizations.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
And you know what you were speaking to there when
you direct people this is how to do the work.
And there's one particular word in MySpace, the organizational psychology
space that you're speaking to, and that's autonomy. And we
know what a strong driver autonomy is for people. I
have often been just thobsmacked that if I just say
we want to get here, however you get there, I
(10:00):
don't care, let's see what you come up with, they
well surpass what it is we're trying to get to
with their creativity. So limiting that is just I love
your earlier death. Now, okay, So now one thing that
I find interesting, and I was just working with a
company in February where they were trying to see what
was under the hood with their culture. I was surprised
(10:23):
how advanced the toxicity had gotten in the organization and
the leaders weren't recognizing it. They still couldn't see it.
So why do you think leaders often fail to recognize
toxicity when they're in the middle of it, or likely
the ones that are championing it.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
It's fascinating. Part of it is that lack of awareness.
Sometimes it's fear. People don't want to admit that there
are things that could be going better, which we absolutely
have to face that if we can't face our weaknesses,
we will never conquer our weaknesses. And I think that's
oftentimes one of the things that I see in leaders,
(11:00):
particularly mid stage leaders. You know, once you've arrived at
that executive level, a lot of times people feel like
they have conquered enough issues that they feel confident. But
when people are at mid stage or they have lots
of folks above them, they tend to be very self
limiting in about how they attached themselves to success, and
(11:21):
as leaders, we get hyper focused on metrics, and we
get so focused on metrics that we think that's the.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
Only measure of performance.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
But if our employees aren't engaged, if they don't feel
like they are part of the organization or part of
the success of the organization, then we've missed the best
opportunities to get the best out of our teams. And
you know, I think most people want to do.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
The right things, but they get so focused.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
On delivering, whether it's a quarterly earnings report or the
year in metrics, that they forget that there's so much
more to the story than that, and people start designing workarounds.
And I think the other thing that I is that
people are so averse to conflict. They will do almost
anything to avoid it. And I find it fascinating, And
(12:09):
I suppose I was probably guilty of that in my
earlier stages too, And now I actually relish those opportunities
where I'm having a one on one with someone to say,
there is an opportunity for you to be better here.
How can we address that? When we avoid conflict, we
steiny people's growth, because if we're not honest with them,
(12:31):
how will they ever know It's called blind spots for
a reason, and if we don't address them, then everything
starts to go underground. People don't feel supported, they don't
feel like they have an honest, trustworthy leader above them,
and so I think sometimes leaders get so wrapped in
either the metrics or protecting themselves that they're afraid to
(12:54):
be vulnerable. And when we aren't vulnerable, then we're full
of bravado and and that is we're just not being
honest with ourselves. Then I really appreciate the depth of
your perspective on that. That's really really fascinating, and it
makes me also think about what happens in organizations when,
(13:15):
especially when you have a large organization, you've got lots
of different verticals, and those different verticals have things that
they're being measured for that are maybe different than their neighbors,
and it does create a sense of competition or sometimes mismatched.
There's mismatch alignment between what this party orization is doing
with this one. How do you see that playing into
(13:37):
the space of eroding a culture and what can we
do about that?
Speaker 5 (13:40):
Oh, Alice, you nailed it.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
I think the hardest thread to weave in any organization
is the horizontal one.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
It's really really easy to.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Build vertical silos, and you can create all kinds of metrics,
and then at the end of the year, you wonder, why,
well so and so is working on the same thing
that I'm working on, or they're worse, They're working on
something that's the antithesis of what I'm working on.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
And we wonder how it happened.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
So, first of all, people have to understand that sometimes
you have to slow down to speed up. That means
we have to find out what our neighbors are doing.
We have to find out what it is that they're
doing that I could benefit them and how they can
benefit me. And that takes a ton of intention and
I think people get impatient with that. So I think
breaking down those silos is super important, and there's really
(14:30):
intentional ways to do that. You create goals that require collaboration,
that are goals that are across maybe two or three teams,
so that the metrics are much larger and that they
actually impact those teams. It drives performance, which then becomes cultural,
it becomes habitual. So sometimes when you come into organization
(14:51):
and the verticals are very established, you almost have to
force it in the beginning through goal development and work
plans and really taking it down to the nth degree.
And then when people get to experience the winds, it
becomes habitual, which then impacts the culture.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Yeah, and those winds are euphoric, right when we can
create that shared sense of winning as Oh, nothing better
than a team win, right, absolutely, with that energy. Let's
take our first break. I'm your host, doctor Earles Cortez.
We've been on air with Marilyn Vetter, the CEO of
Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever, the nation's leading organization committed
(15:33):
to conserving upland birds and wildlife through habitat improvement. We've
been talking in this first segment about her experience of
recognizing their roots of toxicity in a culture. When we
come back from a break, we'll talk about the role
of leadership in culture. We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at
(16:25):
elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your
employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with
doctor Elise Cortes.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
To reach our.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send
an email to Elise A. L Se at elisecortes dot com.
Now back to working on Purpose.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Thank you for staying with us, and welcome back to
working on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor release Cortes, as
I am dedicated to helping create a world where organizations
thrive because their people thrive and they're led by inspirationial
leaders that help them find and contribute their greatness, and
we do business the better for the world. I keep
researching and writing my own books. So one of the
ladies came on is called the Great Revitalization, How activating
meaning and purpose can radically in live in your business.
(17:18):
And I wrote it to help leaders understand today's diverse
and discerning workforce. What do they want in me to
be able to give their best and stick around with you?
And then I offer twenty two best projects to help
you do that for them. You can find my books
on Amazon or my personal site at least quotes dot
com if you are just now joining us. My guest
is Marilyn Vetter. She is the CEO of Pheasants Forever
(17:38):
in Quail Forever. So now for this segment, I want
to talk specifically about the actual leadership role in culture.
There's so much we can do, and I really like
first and I want to emphasize what you've been saying
about how critical it is to be intentional about your culture.
And one thing that I have found really really interesting
and I love working with leaders, Marilyn. I love working
(17:59):
with C suite leaders, senior level leaders, and I also
recognize you mentioned something earlier about how vulnerable that it
can be to be in those roles. It's it is
a hard job to be at the top of an organization,
and I do believe they need help. And what I
also have come to understand is, you know, a culture
can only evolve to the level of wherever the leader
has evolved. So if you could speak a little bit
(18:21):
about what that looks like from your vantage point, your experience,
how do we know that you know that this is
what we're when we see the culture? How do we
know Oh, that's a reflection of where the leader is.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
So culture does it's led by leaders at the top,
but it has of course owned by everyone. But if
your leaders haven't done their own work and identified their
own strengths and weaknesses, then you're really going to topple over.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
You know.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
One of the things that I think is important for
people to understand is we can't expect people on our
teams to travel further on our on their journeys than
we've traveled on our own. And I absolutely believe that
everybody should do work, whether it's a coach or it's
a therapist, whatever that is. You need to know what
(19:11):
your drivers are that make you be your best and
let's admit it, when we're our worst. And if you
haven't figured those things out, then sometimes that outside person
as a coach, can be the absolute best way for
you to do that. You have to be able to
model what that looks like to a team, and you
(19:32):
can't model it if you don't know what your drivers are.
And you know oftentimes and you of course probably see
this all the time, is that so much of what
we experience is fear based and that people are afraid
to fail. They're afraid to be enough, and when we
work through fear, that is a terrible driver of performance
(19:53):
for anyone on the team. And when our leaders can
instead model vulnerability and curiosity, they will absolutely inspire others
to do their own work as well.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
I really appreciate that, of course, applaud that I am
a lifelong learner. Part of the reason I continue to
host this podcast Maryland after ten and a half years,
is because it helps catalyze my own ongoing learning and development.
And I personally always have two coaches that I work
with continually, so and I believe that to be affected
in today's times, that you need to do that as well.
(20:26):
Anybody that's in a leadership world must do that, even
if you're in an individual contributing role. So my question
for you then is how can we or how how
have you helped executives to, especially in the C suite
and the senior levels, realize the importance of their own
ongoing development. How do you help them get present to that.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
Actually, where I'm at right now is such a good
story about that. You know, nonprofit oftentimes don't have the
funds to invest in leadership development. And when I came
here two and a half years ago. One of the
very first things I asked, well, well, when was the
last time the leadership team was through a three sixty
and most of them had not experienced that. And when
(21:09):
you haven't had a three sixty, well, you've never been
exposed to your blind spots then, because maybe your boss
can identify it, but maybe not, and maybe they can
coach you through it and maybe not. And so the
first thing that I recommend for anyone, whether you're an
individual contributor or whether you're leading teams or you're leading
(21:30):
a company, you should have three sixty feedback routinely, at
least every eighteen to twenty four months, I believe, because
as you work on one thing that you learn and
you might then next time find out you either over
triangulated or something else has popped up and said. And
my personal favorite is Leadership Circle Profile because it doesn't
(21:53):
just measure you know, it doesn't just give you numeric ratings.
It gives people the opportunity to actually write in dialogue
and those have been some of our leader's biggest aha moments,
like I had no idea that I was showing up
to others, and that is oftentimes the best way to
(22:16):
inspire leaders that you think aren't going to make it
to transform how they work.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
It's been absolutely transformational to this leader. Steam.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I so appreciate what you're saying. In fact, I can
tell you this just to you, Maryly, not anybody else
listening right, just you, that I have over the years
worked with several senior level leaders who were of course
asked for feedback for their their leader, a very high
level leader, and of course they were scared and remiss
and didn't really want to be honest. And I really
(22:46):
helped coach them, or have helped coach them over the
years to articulate really how their leader, what they appreciate
about the leader, and how their behaviors or communication limit
their contribution or imped what we're trying to do. And
so often what I what I understand is that senior
leaders especially really miss getting crucial feedback because people are
(23:07):
afraid to give it to them, and then it's a
disservice to them, the disservice to the senior level leader
that doesn't get the benefit that real unfiltered feedback that
is designed to really help them. So I really appreciate
what you're saying and make and then, of course you've
got to make it safe. Once they give you the feedback,
you can't come after them and say, who the hell
gave me this feedback? Where are they? Aither? It was
(23:29):
so and so right.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
One of the things that I love about the fact
that you bring so much experience from the coaching perspective.
I never allow three sixty feedback to be given in
an organization without coach support.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
That's great, that's great.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
It is so hard to sometimes hear that feedback and
ways to then transform those learnings into wins. And you
have to have someone that's not emotionally invested in you
or you're certainly invested in your success, yes, but not
invested in your role. They are invested in you, and
(24:05):
that's where it sometimes just two to three coaching sessions
for every time somebody goes through. It helps them turn
those learnings into work plans and their own individual development plans.
And I honestly think it's a disservice to people to
give them feedback without a coach to help them decipher it.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
I completely agree, of course, and I also want to
recognize that you know, feedback can really really sting and
even really hurt you know, let's not overlook that. And
it's the only way to grow. I mean, if you
don't want to go through life keep repeating the same
issues and problems and setbacks over and over again. If
(24:44):
we could just somehow someone a little bit of courage
to be able to, you know, listen and be open
to that feedback, the difference it can make. What I
love the most, Maryland is when I'm working with senior
level leaders for some period of time and their spouse
reaches out to me and says, thank you. I don't
know what's going on, but things are already better at all, right,
we know because it cascades.
Speaker 5 (25:03):
You are so right.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
I had a gentleman on one of my previous teams
that his wife reached out to me and said, I'm
guessing he's a better colleague, but I can tell you
he's a hell of a lot better husband than he
was before. And the other thing that's really important, too,
is when teams can do these things together. Yes, it
helps bring them together. You're building and even just it's
(25:27):
build a common vernacular. You're building common tools throughout the
organization that people can resonate with, and it helps them
build accountability partners internally of if you've been through this
and I'm going through this, how what did you learn
from it? It's an extraordinary tool. It's I'm not going
to lie, it's a big investment, but it's the best
(25:48):
investment we've made.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
I completely agree. And I'll tell you an advantage point of,
you know, being on the serving part of those kinds
of deals. It's incredibly fulfilling to be able to see it,
To watch a team literally grow together, watch their molecules
change and elevate together. It is amazing some of the
best things that I get to do in my work.
For sure. We're still talking about the role of leadership
(26:13):
and culture. So now what I want to get to
is what happens when a leader defers the idea of
steward and culture just to HR's responsibility.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
Oh that's such a cop out, it is, is it all?
Speaker 3 (26:31):
You know?
Speaker 5 (26:31):
People do it all the time.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
And I'm so glad you asked the question because HR
might help mold what that looks like and how it's
done inside an organization. But they don't own what the
culture is. We all own what the culture is. So
maybe I'll give you an idea of how we tackled it.
First of all, I think there's lots of tools that
(26:53):
are used by HR for us to help as an
organization build that. That's engagement and surveys amongst our teams.
That then helps those leaders figure out how they're doing
on their team and how they can improve themselves. That
then tells them that HR can't own this. They might
(27:14):
own the results, but as leaders, we have to own
the work of how we transform those cultures. So whether
it's through surveys, whether it's through a culture working group,
which we defined after we got our most recent survey
results and they were really great and powerful, but they
showed us gaps that we had, and well, if HR
(27:36):
just says well, I'm going to create a solution, they
might get the wrong solution. So you have to have
people involved in all layers of the organization in that
process of not only identifying the gaps, but what are
those solutions. And they've come forward with incredible solutions that
we probably wouldn't have thought off because a lot of
people said, well, I don't get enough time and money
(27:58):
invested in my career. So people thought right away all
this is going to get expensive, and what they really
asked for was internal mentors, share leaders and career ladders.
Those are not expensive things for us to invest in.
But it isn't what they asked for. But HR can't
be the only one that owns it. They just happened
to maybe they own the center of this spoke, but
(28:21):
the rest of us have to be the spolks on
the wheel.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
I got to say two things to that beautiful share, Marylynd.
One is I fundamentally believe to my core so I
set this question up intentionally, is that culture has to
be driven by the top leadership, and so HR is
your partner and collaborator, but they are certainly not the
one that's running in the culture train. They can help
(28:45):
that along. But I like what you said, give tools
and such to be able to support it and steward it.
The second thing I want to say to what you
just shared there is how critical it is that I
love that you're doing this at your organization, that when
you do do a survey, an engagement survey or whatever,
that you share those results back to the people who
gave you the information. So many organizations, right, so many
organizations don't want to do that because it's they don't
(29:09):
like the vulnerability of that that, oh there's things in
here that people don't like. I don't want to share this,
but when you share it, one you reflect that to
the organization. We listened to you, we hurt you, here's
what we got from you. And then when you share
that back, the team ought to go, oh, yeah, that's
what we said. They heard us, and then I love
the idea and I want to celebrate that you're involving
(29:30):
your team to be able to address the gaps. Then
they own it. They're part of it, right and to
your point, they'll have ideas that maybe don't cost any
money at all, and it would take you further to
address those gaps and whatever you came up with in
the leadership circle.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
And you know, one of the things that we did
actually going forward was we designed a workforce health metric
that is a combination of turnover and our engagement results
that we report to our board on every scorecard that
we give them, and we hold ourselves as executives in
(30:06):
the organization accountable as part of our own review process
and our bonus process of if we're going to be
committed to growing and building this culture, we all have
to be part of that and if nothing else, that
will always remind people of what their role is in this.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
I don't really want to let you go at the
end of sor just so you know, we could keep
this going for quite some time. The last question I
want to I want to serve up for this part
of our conversation about the role of leadership and culture.
I'm sure from your thirty plus years of experience that
you have some kind of a story or an example
that you can share of how leadership transformation unlocked or
(30:49):
elevated cultural change in the direction in which if they
were trying to get to.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
I actually do and it's from this team. And we've
hit on some of the high points. So this team
had not had an opportunity to work on themselves and
work on the organization. So by having them have the
opportunity for three sixty for them to work on themselves,
then build this common nomenclature that they get to work with.
(31:16):
Now we get to work on teams, and then we
get to work on bigger things like culture and focus.
Speaker 5 (31:23):
And so we undertook.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
So then we went all right, So our mission and
our vision we reiterated, are they still the same?
Speaker 5 (31:31):
Yes, we are.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Our mission, what we do, our vision, how does that
look our strategic plan, what does that look like?
Speaker 5 (31:38):
How did we get that work done?
Speaker 4 (31:40):
And then we agreed we all got together on our
one big thing when we call it our OBT, which
I'm going to read to you, that we committed to
together achieve and celebrate ambitious mission outcomes by investing in
cross functional relationships, bold gold setting, and a collaborative culture.
And they all created that together.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
M oh I am totally with you on that. In fact,
I want to comment more on that, but I want
to go. Let's het our last breakuse I really celebrate
and also applaud and do something similar when I'm working
with other teams. So let's let our listeners and viewers
take that in and celebrate that for themselves and consider
how they might do that in their own teams. What
(32:22):
we take our second break, I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes.
We've been on here with Maryland's Marilyn Vetter, who's the
CEO of Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever. We've been talking
a bit about the role of leadership in culture. When
we come back, we're going to talk about building cultures
that elevate people the way she's done at your organization today,
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing and meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at
(33:18):
elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your
employees working on purpose. This is Working on Purpose with
doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to
open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Alise
A Lise at eliscortes dot com. Now back to working
(33:42):
on Purpose.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to Working
on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes, and as you
know by now, this program is dedicated to empowering and
inspiring you along your journey to realize more of your potential.
If you want to learn more about how we can
work together and learn about the Gusto Now Academy for
Leaders and individuals on various journeys alike. Make your way
to gustodashnow dot com and then go to the training
tab and there you will find the academy. If you
(34:10):
are just now joining us. My guest is Marilyn Vetter.
She is the CEO of Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever.
So the idea of creating that objective together like that,
I think is really powerful. In fact, what I do.
One of the offerings that we do at Gusto Now
is it's a visioneering. It's it's a joint visioneering sort
of exercise where we take representatives from all of your
(34:34):
stakeholder communities and really align them along your your your purpose, mission,
vision and value. So you're enrolling them in that whole
thing together. So all of your leaders have already gone
through this, and now you do this with your full
stakeholder community and then learn, of course, are what is theirs?
And now you create a shared sense of mutual purpose
together everybody's grown in the same direction. Energize like that,
(34:56):
and I call it your parliament of purpose and the reason.
And we call that exercise creating your Parliament of purposes.
Because I'm wildly obsessed with owls. And you know, when
we talk about a group of owls, you know where
I'm going with this. You would be one person who knows.
So listeners and viewers if you don't know, you know,
you think about what do we call different groups of birds?
(35:16):
And we have a you know, a flock of geese,
we have a murder of crows, all these kinds of names.
But how we talk about a group of owls? Is
there a parliament? A parliament of owls? And I like
the idea of having this, you know, sort of wisdom group.
That's that's all, you know, nestled around your purpose, mission,
vision and values and firing on all engines. So I
wanted to celebrate what you said and take it maybe
(35:39):
one step further. Thoughts reactions.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Well, first of all, I love that I love that
you've used that word. You know, for me, I love
parliament as well. It's it's like any government institution. It's
this wide array of voices that come to consensus at
the end of the day, and everybody gets.
Speaker 5 (35:59):
To own the consensus. And it can be an ugly process.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
That's okay, that's an okay process to go through because
once you've survived it.
Speaker 5 (36:10):
What you will.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
Produce will be extraordinary and you will have so much
better buy in, and people will remember the good and
the bad and how they got there, and the journey
will be remarkable and it will be much more enduring.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
Because of it.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Yes, beautifully said. Okay, So for this last segment here,
I want to talk about how listeners and viewers can
leverage your experience of really building a culture that elevates people.
I think that people talk a lot about culture, but
I really don't think for a many organizations or leaders
really understand how to steward it really well. So I
want to start with the idea first of how what
(36:49):
you say is how culture has to be owned by everybody.
I completely agree with that and your experience. What does
that actually look like in practice?
Speaker 4 (37:00):
I think it's listening first. So I'll give you a
good example. One of the things that when you're a
nonprofit that is at the recip receiving end of grants
that in the past few years we've had lots of
federal freezes on dollars and that makes those employees feel
(37:20):
super vulnerable.
Speaker 5 (37:22):
And we could have said, well.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
That's that's that's the job that you have and because
it's a federal grant funded position, that's the risk you take.
But that doesn't feel good, right They know that that
is the choice. So that means they either have to
leave the organization for stability, or we need to find
a way to give them that sense of stability. In
my mind, if you ask someone if they live and
(37:48):
work in a good culture, they're going to say, what
does that look like? It means like I matter, they
care about me. So when our team came to us
said this is untenable. It is really hard for we
want to stay here, but we feel vulnerable. So we said,
all right, well, let us put our thinking hats on,
and our team came up with creating a PTO exchange,
(38:09):
and so people can donate their PTO to the exchange,
they can write a check to the exchange, they can
do whatever that is that transitions those into dollars for
the people that would be at the other end of
a furlough. And so we started it in January, which
meant we didn't have a lot in there. Well, then
once we saw that there were going to be federal freezes,
(38:31):
people just started dumping in their PTO. For those of
us haven't been around a long time. We wrote checks
and so every leader in the organization found ways to
contribute to that PTO exchange, so that when we had
one hundred and thirty people that were impacted, some for
a couple of days, some for a couple of months,
we funded every single one of their hours team And
(38:55):
those are examples. Your words show that you actually are
going to act on them. Your intention has to marry
the impact, and so that's how cultures are built, and
that's how they're measured, is whether or not.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
You walk the talk completely agree. You know, it's one
thing to say we stand for the step. It's quite
another to make the hard decisions choices and behave to
support them in that way. That is so beautiful what
you shared about the share PTO that has loves me
to tears. It's so beautiful. Talk about feeling like you
matter someplace, well, you know, definitely. So what I want
(39:34):
to do is really for pretty much the remainder of
our conversation is just let our listeners and viewers into
the great work you and your team have been doing.
So I know you run a group of six hundred
people in your organizations and you've been there for two
and a half years. So talk us through. You know,
when you came in, you know, what did you see,
What did you recognize that you wanted to work on,
(39:56):
which you wanted to address, and some of the things
the early decisions and steps that you took to steward
your role as the CEO.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
Okay, well, first of all, I came into an organization
that the longer I'm here, the happier that I am,
and the amazing amount of work that they do, but
how they care about each other, and that really is remarkable.
But one of the all organizations have room for growth
and improvement. And we talked about this earlier. Those verticals
(40:26):
that were established were established with good intentions, but because
they were so entrenched, it was really hard for people
that worked in conservation operations to think about, like the
marketing team for instance, like how does my work impact them?
So we started to think about how can we be
intentional about driving collaboration, so work plans, it's it's included
(40:49):
in everybody's work plan of.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
How do I work with others?
Speaker 4 (40:53):
We hired and promoted someone internally to be a director
of internal communications. People know what everyone else is doing
when you know what your colleagues are doing, then you
get to celebrate it for one, but you also get
to think like maybe I could do that in my region,
or how could I amplify those works. And then the
(41:14):
other thing that we really did is we've always had
awards in the organization and there have not been as
many team awards as we have now, and so we
are awarding and recognizing It's not big financial dollars, but
team recognition of collaboration that is celebrated is really profound
(41:35):
and how it changes people. And we make sure that
our board is aware of all of those things so
that they get the internal communication newsletter that goes out
all the time that recognizes those moments of collaboration. They
got to see the videos that we cut of the
folks that won all of those awards, so that it
is witnessed from the organization from the very top to
(41:56):
all the way through all of the ranks.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Oh that's so ecat Okay, So a couple of things
I have to say to that. So I have a
dear friend and colleague in the UK named Paul Skinner,
and I met it back in twenty eighteen. He wrote
a book called collaborative advantage, and it's the whole notion
of turning competitive advantage on its head. And so we
were saying before about how silos can compete, and now
(42:19):
you're talking about how do you get your team, your
various teams with different interests to collaborate. I just think
that's just delightful, and you celebrate them for that, so
just makes me happy. I also know, and I can't
let you off the show without talking about this, Marylyn,
but I know that you also spent some time working
with your purpose, mission, vision and values with your team,
(42:41):
So tell us how you did that.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
We should never assume that our mission and our vision
are exactly the same as they were when this organization
forty started forty three years ago. So we started there
is our north stars. It's still our north star, and
thankfully it was, which is wonderful. It's a serendipity when
that happens. And the vision really of how that presents
(43:07):
itself to the world does look the same as well.
But our strategic plan changed, and more importantly, how we
used and built and shared our strategic plan changed. So
in the past, the strategic plan was built by the
executive team and it was run past the board, and
the board obviously endorsed it. And the interesting thing is
(43:29):
that the strategic plan didn't really change a lot. It
changed somewhat, But what we did was that we brought
it was almost sixty people that got to be part
of that strategic planning process. So we broke it up
into small chunks, so we had four priorities, and then
there were objectives under each priority. We broke each one
(43:50):
of those objectives into teams so that we had managers
and directors and people at all levels that got to
be part of it. So the wonderful thing is that
it it didn't change wildly. It changed substantially, but not wildly,
but it increases the buy in tremendously. So then you know,
obviously you go through the normal process of the board
(44:10):
and all of that, and once the board endorsed it,
then we said, let's take this a step further. Our
organization is different or a nonprofit, but it's also a
membership organization. We have one hundred and sixty five thousand members,
seven hundred and fifty chapters across the United States and Canada,
and so we said we need them to know what
we're working on. So that can be part of that
(44:31):
because they're volunteers in our work. So we did podcasts,
we did blogs on it, we published it in our journals,
we put it on our website so that everybody knows
what that looks like. And it increased buy in by them,
and now they feel like they're not just a member,
they're part of that, and that that whole communication of
(44:53):
what we are clearly doing gave so much clarity to
everyone on our team and everyone around us and just
dramatically increase the buy in. And it has just been
this common drum beat. And I think the fun part
is that so we named it Building Forever, and that
has been this tether that has kept us really folk
(45:15):
hyper focused on collaboration.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
Well, and that's totally the spirit of the problem and purpose.
That's exactly the whole spirit of that. And I think
that it seems like you would be terribly remiss if
you hadn't taken this step of involving your members. But
I don't know that every organization that occurs for them
or that that's where they go. So one thing I
also want to put out for our listeners and viewers too,
and get your perspective on. This is what's beautiful about
(45:40):
the world of purpose. Purpose is one it's always about
serving beyond yourself, right, It's there's a self trendscence in it.
So whatever it is, whatever you're up to in your organization,
you're serving somebody outside of yourself. And because of the
world is changing, sometimes you do need to slightly amend
your purpose to be able to to that, to aim
(46:00):
to that kind of thing. So in your case, you
didn't have to do that. But what is powerful that
I want to weave in here in addition to what
we've been talking about, is we can actually measure the
experience of purpose and organizations to make sure that it
is being lived in our organization. And there's actually there's
three simple measures to be able to do that. Just
curious if that was part of what you were doing
(46:23):
or if you have been able to measure the experience
of how purposes lived in your organization.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
I suppose it's probably measured in a couple of different ways.
Certainly that when we do our engagement survey, we ask
about that. We are actually going through the process right
now with some of our team of did we get
it right? Were we overly ambitious or not, and it's
been really fun to see the results that have come
back from that and really giving them that constant voice
(46:55):
within it. And one of the things that I think
that has shifted in the organization that for many years
we at the end of the year, we would tell
you what we did MM and we're transitioning to an
organization that says.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
We're going to tell you, We're telling you what we're
going to do.
Speaker 4 (47:12):
It increases not only accountability, but a buy in and
like we need you to be with us in this journey.
And so while I don't know that we've necessarily undertaken
an assessment, I think that's actually really wise.
Speaker 5 (47:25):
I will tell you that just.
Speaker 4 (47:27):
Rhetorically, I've gotten lots and lots of comments from people
throughout the organization of how excited they were to feel
like they were part of it.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
M that's so delightful. It's just there's just three simple
questions that we could ask, but I have to do
with the extent to which people feel like the leaders
are walking to talk of the purpose, that their colleagues
are living, the purpose of the organization, that they feel
personally aligned to the purpose. You ask those three questions,
it tells you where to where to where to address things.
Speaker 4 (47:55):
And we've done that with our employees that probably where
we had the messes. We haven't done it with our members.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Beautiful, I like that idea so exciting. Well, it happens
so fast, Marlin. We're at the end of the show here,
and you know that this shows is white people around
the world that are trying to get better at becoming
leaders and selves, student their own organization, or even just
plugging more deeply into the world of work.
Speaker 4 (48:16):
What would you like to leave them with that each
of us has an impact on culture. I think it's
too easy to think that you can.
Speaker 5 (48:24):
Give up on a culture. And cultures are built.
Speaker 4 (48:27):
Yes they are led from the top, but they are
built from the inside out. And the hallmark of an
exceptional team, of a high performing team is the team
of people that cares as much about each other's success
as they do their own. So own that be the
leader in your own team, whether you lead that team
or not. To reach out and to make sure that
(48:50):
your colleagues feel like you're as invested in them as
you are as yourself, and that will impact your team.
People will want to be on your team. They will
want to they want to amplify your work. They're going
to want to create create your work. They're going to
ask what you're doing. That is how if you aren't
at the top but want to change your culture, that's
(49:12):
how you change your culture. You start doing it from
the roots of the organization and it will change. I've
seen it happen. I've seen it in other organizations, and
it's slower for sure, but it makes a meaningful difference,
and at the end of the day, you for sure
will know better about your place in that organization by
(49:32):
doing so.
Speaker 3 (49:33):
What a powerful and beautiful way to close, Marilyn. I
am so grateful to know you and to share with
my listeners and viewers around the world. You've really made
a beautiful contribution to this Thank you so much for
being on working on purpose.
Speaker 5 (49:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (49:45):
I really appreciate you being here, and I absolutely love
the fact that you're spreading this message to others who
really need to hear it.
Speaker 3 (49:53):
Thank you. I'm with that's exactly what we're about. So
listeners and viewers, you're going to want to learn more
about Marilyn Vetter and follow her work or connect with her.
Highly suggest you find her on LinkedIn. She's pretty easy
to find. Just type in her name. It's Marilyn standard
spelling Vetter be e t tdr Marilyn Vetter on LinkedIn.
Last week, if you missed the live show, you can
(50:14):
always catch it via recorded podcast. See you then for
another nourishing and elevating conversation together. Let's lean in and
learn together how to make workplaces that work for everyone
and find ways to do business in a way that
betters the world that's working.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to
tune into Working on Purpose, featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortez,
each week on W four C. Why Together, We'll create
a world where business operates conscientiously. Leadership inspires and passion performance,
and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning
and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's Work on Purpose.
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