February 13, 2025 • 28 mins
In this episode, Roxanne Derhodge welcomes Michael Kerr to discuss his new book and the definition of a culture leader. They examine the evolution and implementation of workplace culture, emphasizing the role of humor in navigating the challenges of cultural transformation. The conversation explores how modeling values can bridge cross-departmental cultural differences. They reflect on the legacy of leadership and share final thoughts on the importance of maintaining a strong cultural foundation. The episode concludes with closing remarks and a brief mention of the sponsor.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Welcome to Authentic Living with Roxanne, aplace where we have conscious conversations
about things that really matter in our lives.
And now here's your host, Roxanne Durhaj.
(00:38):
Hi, everyone.
It's, Roxanne Durhoch.
Thanks for tuning in again this week.
Today, I have this is the second time, MichaelKerr.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yes.
This is the second time you're on the podcast.
It's an honor, so I didn't mess up too much the
He's doing gesticulation for anybody that can'tsee the video, and I'm like
I'm interpreting.
I'm yes.
(00:58):
I'm interpreting.
Sound.
Is it Michael Kerr?
It's Michael Kerr.
He's trying to mess me up.
Michael is a a dear, I would say, friend andcolleague, and, we're both members of the,
Canadian Association of Professional Speakers.
Michael has been at at this bid a lot longerthan me.
We're saying 1998 was the first book, butmembership probably longer than that, I would
(01:20):
assume, Mike.
And today, Mike's come on to talk a little bitmore about he's written nine books and but he
has a recent book, Small Moments, Big Outcomesabout leadership that we wanna chat about.
Beautiful cover.
Anybody can see it.
So we're gonna talk a lot about that today.
So, Mike, tell me what what made you wannawrite this book.
(01:41):
You've written eight before.
This is the ninth.
What made you want to write this particularbook?
Yeah.
It's a culmination really of years of workleading up to this book, of years of research
going into companies, interviewing leaders,CEOs, presidents of companies all over the
world.
I've spoken for, well, twenty plus years as yousay.
Well, god, I guess, close to twenty six years.
(02:04):
That's insane.
Wow.
I know.
That's crazy.
About humor in the workplace, I first was inthat space and speaking about eventually
workplace culture.
And my previous book's kind of funneled up intothis book.
So this book is my culmination, I think, of alot of research of a lot of thinking in this
area.
(02:24):
And so the book very much is geared to thisidea that leaders need to think of themselves
first and foremost as a leader and not just amanager, not just a boss, not just a
supervisor, that there is a difference thatgoes beyond semantics between being a leader
and being the manager, being a leader and beingthe boss.
But more than that, Roxanne, being a cultureleader and thinking of themselves in this day
(02:47):
and age, first and foremost, as a cultureleader.
K.
So define here obviously, I either thinkculture, and I'm gonna assume or leader.
Right?
So tell me what the definition how do youdefine a culture leader?
I define a culture leader as somebody whoobsessively thinks about culture first and
(03:08):
foremost in everything they do.
By culture, first of all, I just how I defineculture is it's your workplace mojo.
It's the feel of the place.
It's the personality of the place.
It's the unique set of rituals, traditions,values, behaviors that you and different than
your nearest competitor.
It's your number one competitive advantage, Buthere's why culture leadership matters.
(03:30):
Great cultures don't just happen.
You can't fake it.
You can't go buy your culture at IKEA.
Even if you did, you wouldn't understand theinstructions.
You'd have parts left over.
So you need to because it is your number onecompetitive advantage, because it impacts every
aspect of your organization, includingemployees' health and wellness and how well you
(03:52):
communicate and work together and collaborate,how creative and innovative you are, how you
provide customer service and outstandingcustomer experience, how happy employees are.
Because it affects all of that, being a cultureleader is simply about being intentional in
everything you do as a leader in regards toyour culture and recognizing that as a leader,
(04:14):
you have a disproportionate impact on yourculture, that everything you do and say either
adds to your workplace culture in some way ordetracts from your workplace culture.
So being intentional about your culture meanseverything from hiring with your culture in
mind so that you are hiring people who aren'tjust a match for your culture, but people who
(04:34):
can grow your culture in the direction you wantyour culture to grow.
It's about training with culture in mind.
It's about communicating relentlessly what yourcultural norms and values are.
And as a culture leader, it's about gettinginto the habit of always thinking about when
you make a decision as a leader, are youbuilding the culture that you wanna build, and
(05:00):
does this decision reflect the culture that youwant?
So always keeping your culture front and centerin the back of your mind in everything you do
say and in all of your decisions that guideyour business.
I'm gonna assume over your your tenure in doingthis kind of work you've seen, I gotta say,
(05:21):
iterations or metamorphosis around that wholeconcept.
Right?
So I'm thinking twenty, twenty five years,we've gone we've seen such shifts.
And even as, you know, as soon as the pandemic,we've really seen that the companies that are
excelling are the ones that really take thisconcept to fruition.
The ones the leaders that made the phone callsor had the one to ones or did the Zooms or did
(05:46):
the Facebook lives are the ones that really gotit.
And when you started way back when, I'm notcalling you old, but way back when, how has
that shifted, that whole concept of culturebased on what you're talking about today, which
makes it makes so much sense.
Like, you'd think that everybody would getthis, but not a lot of people still get it
today.
(06:06):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sadly, not a lot.
Certainly, way more than when I started.
When I started, I think yeah.
People talk about culture, but it was it wasvery minimal.
I think it was off the radar.
It wasn't talked about or written about allthat much.
We talked about all sorts of other things, andI think often in a very hodgepodge kind of way.
So we talked about all these these the separatetopics.
(06:29):
So culture kinda pulls everything together,right, too.
And, really, it's just been, I would say, inthe last, what are we, 2025 now in the last ten
years
Yes.
Fifteen years that you've really seen a shiftin a lot of organizations where they're
recognizing and appreciating the importance ofculture and putting a priority on that.
(06:51):
And you can see that in terms of how they spendtheir money.
You can see this in terms of even a lot ofcompanies hiring chief culture officers.
Mhmm.
Often, they have different names, but a aposition related to that, people to help
champion the culture and to drive initiativesto help educate their employees about the
culture and support their values and bring themto life.
(07:11):
So there has been a huge shift, but I thinkthere's still a long ways to go.
Absolutely.
I would think that companies are coming forwardand they want this concept.
They would have probably been companies thathave been doing bits and bites of the the work
along the way, or they maybe have gone throughsome kind of crisis in market share or there's
(07:33):
something like that when they're thinking, wow.
We seem to be generally kind of, you know,keeping the tempo with the competitors, but now
we've kind of been left behind, and we're notsure why that's happening.
So when you get called in, I I know a lot of itcomes from keynoting, but are there other times
where you get calling for consulting or justlike we're trying to kind of figure out how to
(07:55):
keep up with our competitors?
How might people come to you to kind of delveinto this whole concept of culture leadership?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And and you hit on a really good point.
That is often when companies or leaders for thefirst time start to think about their culture
when a crisis hits.
Right?
Mhmm.
Or when they have a huge change in theirorganization, and they realize sometimes much
(08:16):
to their chagrin that they don't really havethe right culture in place to deal with change,
to deal with innovation and creativity anduncertainty and all this the stuff that leaders
today have to think about.
I do get called in very often to do coaching orto to give advice and help.
I do longer full day and multi day trainingworkshops as well to help implement some of
(08:38):
these ideas to really help them put things intopractice, to help them shift their culture.
And very often, companies will contact me whenthey've introduced some new values, and they
want to make sure these values actually meansomething and they actually stick and that
people take them seriously.
I wish sometimes they would call me before theycame up with their values because sometimes I
(09:00):
would I would have some advice on the valuesthey came up with.
Like, maybe 18 values is a little bit too much.
So that is, though, why a lot of companies andleaders reach out to me.
They've got a new strategic plan or they've gotnew values in place, and so we wanna get our
employees excited about this.
We want employees to embrace our values, andand we want you to help us trends.
(09:23):
Excuse me, tran I got choked up talking aboutthis because it's so exciting to translate
those values into observable behaviors.
And and that's what great culture leaders haveto do.
Right?
We have to make sure we are translating whatthose suckers mean.
Right?
Because here's what I joke about all the time.
Here's what I joke about in my talk.
Culture is held together by the values.
(09:43):
Right?
But everybody talks about values like this.
Right?
Like, that these
So I've tried for people that won't see thevideo, I'm looking at my what is that?
It's a flower hat.
He's got a pink flower hat.
Everybody else are fixed.
If you're not watching this video, I just kindaswing with him as he's got a flower hat on his
head.
Yes.
Yes.
You know, this this playfulness, Michael Yep.
(10:04):
Which is what I love about what you since I'vemet Michael and the kind of work that he does.
You bring such a playfulness to a culture
Yes.
As as you kind of come from the external kindof world.
Do you find that sometimes you go in and somecultures are like the CEO is a little bit
they're like, they're so serious.
(10:26):
Right?
And they want their values, and they they theywant the tactical outcomes, and they want
investor buy in, or they have those quarterlymeetings with the ROIs and all that stuff that
they don't get that sometimes they have toshift a bit?
Oh, for sure.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And and you're right.
Everything that I talk about and everything inthis book, has humor throughout the book.
I'm a huge proponent, and that is one of mymain messages and themes I bring to audiences
(10:50):
is the importance of humor, of having fun.
That humor is both a driver of morecollaborative, inspiring, productive, humane
workplace cultures, but, also, humor is the endproduct of working in a positive, humane,
collaborative culture where people feel goodabout themselves, where it's easy to bring in a
good attitude to work and have a little bit offun because you feel appreciated and valued and
(11:13):
respected.
And so it's easy to bring that sense of humoralong.
But for sure, I meet leaders like that, andhere's one of my messages when it comes to
humor.
Humor is not about telling jokes.
It's not about being It's not?
Noun.
Sometimes sometimes it can be, but it's notabout being the stand up comedy of the other
comedian of the office or being the officeclown.
(11:33):
And it's not always even about being funny.
It's about being more human, more authentic,more real, being more balanced.
It's about finding the funny in your work livesthat's out there waiting to be found that
especially the things that you can't control,right, which some days is probably a 47%.
And it's especially, back to your point aboutthe stern CEOs, it's about laughing at yourself
(11:56):
more.
Is it not a truism after all, Roxanne, that themore seriously a person takes themselves, the
less seriously we tend to take that person,which is ironic because people take themselves
so bloody seriously in the hopes that everyonewill take me seriously.
And the reality is, I'm sorry, no one takes youseriously because you are taking yourself so
seriously.
(12:16):
So it's about being able to show your humanside to laugh at yourself, which as a leader
makes you more approachable.
It makes you connect with your employeesbetter.
It creates psychological safety in yourenvironment so people do ask those challenging
questions and suggest outrageous ideas andpoint out issues that need pointing out because
(12:37):
they feel safe and comfortable to do so.
We know from studies that leaders who embrace apositive sense of humor now that's important.
Right?
Not a sarcastic, cynical, biting, cutting senseof humor, but a positive sense of humor.
Leaders who think about how their use of humorwill make the people around them feel better,
that we trust those leaders more because theyseem more real, more genuine.
(13:00):
We know it's one of the most powerful stressbusters available to us.
It creates more resilient teams.
We know from studies that workplaces, thatteams that embrace a lot of fun tend to have
lower employee turnover rates, lowerabsenteeism rates.
Everything moves in the right direction.
So one of my messages too is even if addingmore humor into your workplace culture or into
(13:22):
your leadership style, even if it doesn'tgenerate all these benefits that I suggest it
will, what would you rather have?
The same level of success at work in yourbusiness and less fun or at least the same
level of success and at least enjoy the journeya little bit more.
Right?
It's it's Right.
Because you have to spend so much time there.
Right?
So you might as well you might as well havefun.
(13:43):
And I like, I ran clinics, addictions clinics,and stuff like that.
And at the end of the day, you're dealing withpeople's lives, for instance, right, over the
years.
And then you realize, like, at the end of theday, we would we'd have these little jokes, and
then you'd realize you're not making fun ofpeople.
You're just trying to alleviate the stress thatyou'd be dealing with when, say, somebody has
kind of dealt with a bad situation with afamily member or the public or the media or
(14:07):
something like that.
And then we would talk about it and somebodywould bring something up.
We'd have a good little chuckle and then thestress level to your point goes down, and then
people can kinda go off and go, I can do thisagain.
And that's so important.
And you make such a good point, Roxanne.
It's not about taking your clients, yourpatients, your customers less seriously or
lightly.
(14:27):
It's about taking yourself lightly in order tobe more professional in your job.
I've spoken a lot to funeral homes, to funeralpeople, to ER doctors and nurses and people in
these high stress jobs, and they tell me timeand time again about how they need to have a
healthy sense of humor in order to maintaintheir professionalism, in order to cope with
(14:50):
the job, with the demands of the job.
So as long as you're doing it in a safe way,respectfully behind the scenes, and sometimes
it is very black humor.
It can be gallant humor.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
That'll say
if it helps you distance yourself from thatstress and it helps you maintain your sanity
and your resilience so you can be professional,then, of course, it's something we need to
(15:11):
learn to embrace.
Now, Mike, I'm curious.
Right?
Like, when have you come across companies thatthey think they're ready?
They're like, Mike Kerr, we heard you speak,and we wanna embrace this whole concept in a
workplace.
And you have the consultation, and you go, Idon't know if we can kinda work with you.
(15:32):
Have you come across scenarios like that overkind of your time working with companies where
you give them some homework and tell them,let's talk again at a later point?
I I'm trying to think of ones where I'veactually said, no.
I don't think this is a fit.
I I know there are some examples where Ithought, okay.
This is not a long term relationship I wannapursue Right.
(15:53):
Right.
Because they're not serious about it.
They're not gonna take it seriously.
They're not ready to shift their culture inthis way.
There's just too much resistance still, toomuch Yeah.
Skepticism, I think.
Yeah.
So there there certainly are those examples.
I think most, though, I would say the majorityare open to shifting the way they do things.
And and the number one way I find that they getexcited, that they get inspired to shift things
(16:17):
is through the examples that I share.
So I hear this time and time again, especiallyfrom senior leaders where because I share so
much research and I share examples frombusinesses all over to show that this stuff
works.
So even when you do some of these these sillycrazy things, here's the end result of this
silly craziness, though.
Mhmm.
So this works.
(16:38):
And that kinda sets off a lot of light bulbs, Ithink.
When they see it in action, they get the ideathat it's relevant, that this this is something
that they maybe need to pay more attention to.
Absolutely.
I think it's a congruence between all thelevels of the organization as well.
Yeah.
Right?
And I'm gonna assume, like, most times, like,with myself, you're probably maybe at upper
(16:59):
leadership, but then looking at how from yoursenior leadership goes down to middle
management, to your leaders or managers, to thepublic.
Right?
So it's we have to have that cascadingelements.
And I've worked with some companies, and thesenior leadership team has a concept that they
wanna deliver, but they're not acting incongruence with what they want the culture to
(17:20):
be like.
And then they're wanting the the frontline,say, employees to act a certain way, but
there's that disconnect.
And working with them to say, if you're notmentally resilient and you're reactive, but
you're saying to employees that are dealingwith customers that you can't kind of lose your
cool, they need to see it demonstrated.
So that whole kind of thread through becomesreally important.
(17:43):
I'm gonna assume that when you're doing workaround your cultural leadership, that's what
you're looking for as well.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
When I was I'm putting on my flower hat againwhen when I was talking about the
because he's got a pink little
Pink flower hat on.
Yes.
Pink flower hat.
Yeah.
My point in this was that too many companiesjust treat their values like window dressing.
(18:03):
Right?
Like this superficial they put up their valueson a nice poster with the puppies and rainbows,
and they sing we are the world once a year withtheir team.
And then there's our values.
What great culture leaders do veryintentionally is they translate what those
suckers actually mean in terms of specificbehaviors, attitudes.
They turn it into fun top 10 list videosstarring their own employees, example after
(18:26):
example, stories.
They do a values blitz.
They use all these creative ways to make surepeople understand what their values are.
But then and you were just talking about this.
The second thing that's absolutely critical is,of course, modeling our values out loud, making
sure you're seen to be living your values outloud.
And I've talked to a lot of very inspiringleaders where I've gone in for interviews, and
(18:48):
very often, the CEO of a company will be out inthe parking lot picking up garbage or helping a
customer carry bags out to their car orwhatever it may be.
And they're doing that purposefully to be shownto be seen, sorry, living their values out loud
and to be sending the message no job is beneathanyone here, and this is what I expect of all
(19:12):
of our employees.
Now the other thing I do see, Roxanne, is tothat point of it cascading down throughout the
organization.
And this I find fascinating too is I've goneinto big companies very often and worked with
one department where the department isobviously miles ahead with their culture.
They've got a fun, humor filled culture.
(19:33):
They're collaborative.
They're open minded, curious, creative, all thethings you want in a great culture.
And then I speak to another department, samecompany, but a little different.
A little soul sucking, fun sucking culture inthis department over here.
And I'm sitting there thinking, holy smokes.
You work for the same company?
And it's like night and day.
(19:55):
And so I think that speaks volumes to theimportance of the senior leader in those
departments because it it probably, in thosecases, is cascading down from those different
leaders.
And one has done an exceptional job at buildinga great positive culture and the other one, not
so much.
Yeah.
And and what you can learn that crosspollination, right, potentially without calling
(20:17):
out someone to say, somebody could betransporting this over.
Maybe the leader shifts things a bitdifferently, or maybe they communicate
differently.
Or maybe they just go do little get togethersin a different way where they structure their
their meetings differently, where they check-inor they maybe have a funny story or they talk
about a success.
There's so many like, to your point, you canhave two entities within the same culture, one
(20:40):
getting a positive and one getting a negative.
But with even within the culture, I'm surethere's pockets that they can learn from each
other and have I don't know what cross I wasgonna say cross contaminators.
That's the wrong word.
Pollinators.
Cross fertilization
is is a negative term.
So that they could kind of learn from eachother and not take it personally.
I'm not leading well.
But in fact that, oh, this actually worksbetter or maybe we can use this or, like, the
(21:04):
case study kind of sharing that I'm sure thatyou do with a lot of your trainings.
Yeah.
Well, benchmarking within your ownorganization, right, and learning from your
stars, whether it's employees or teams orentire departments, looking at at the different
cultures, looking at the different numbers evenand going, hey.
How come this department has such a lowemployer turnover rate?
(21:25):
Mhmm.
And over here, not so much.
What's going on over here that we could maybelearn from and apply?
You're right on.
I mean, making sure that people aren't workingin silos where they aren't sharing information
and hogging resources and hogging ideas, makingsure you have have those open forums from
different departments where people connect.
I love this idea actually, Roxanne, that someof my clients do where they do now this is at
(21:46):
an individual level, but they rave about theimpact.
They do random coffee dates where everybody'sname goes into a random name generator
throughout the entire company, and then theymeet for a coffee.
So you meet with people, and some of them do itin groups of four.
So you go and you have coffee with people thatsometimes you've never met even if it's a big
company, or at the very least people that youdon't see on a regular basis or work with on a
(22:09):
regular basis.
And it just helps build this greater sense ofcommunity and the cross fertilization that
happens with ideas when people get talkingabout their challenges and work, and then
people, oh, you guys are doing that.
That's so cool.
I'm gonna I'm gonna tell my boss about that.
Right.
Or you could put in marketing with accountingor something together.
Right?
For sure.
(22:29):
Like, for us with familiarity.
We're gonna go for an accounting, we're gonnago sit with the person that's generally dealing
with finance.
Or if we're in marketing, we're gonna go andtalk with maybe marketing and r and d.
But to put four random people together, whatwhat I would say a gift.
Right?
Because then you're gonna be able to say, wow.
I hadn't thought about that, like, from thatperspective and just to grow an appreciation
(22:52):
for what everybody's responsibilities are atthe end of the day to the business unit or just
the overall culture.
Yeah.
And and that's how we know creativity andinnovation thrives, right, from getting
different perspectives.
I love the old saying that if you have twoexecutives or two employees that think alike,
one of them is redundant.
So if we can get more different perspectivesaround the table, that's how you get new ideas.
(23:17):
Everybody sees different things from theirvantage point depending on what their role is
in the company.
But, also, everybody has different backgrounds,different educational backgrounds, different
totally different backgrounds.
So they we all see things in a different way.
So tapping into those different perspectivesand ideas.
In fact, Steve Jobs, when he redesigned PixarStudios when he took over Pixar, that was one
(23:38):
of his major goals was in redesigning theoffice space, the the building, was to make
sure there was more synchronicity in how no.
Not that's not the word.
It's not synchronicity.
That's the word.
I knew it started with this.
There was more serendipity in terms of peoplejust running into each other randomly so that
(23:59):
this cross fertilization of ideas would happen.
Well, this is amazing.
Now in reference to the book, if you're whatshould people expect?
Where can they go to pick up a copy?
And do you have any last words for any leadersout there or people just they've been on their
frontline and they want they're liking theconcepts that we've you've introduced in the
(24:21):
book that you might want to have them somethought or something to ponder about the con
the content we talked about today.
Yeah.
For sure.
Here's the last thing I would just remindpeople of, and and you mentioned it early on,
Roxanne, that work consumes a big chunk of ourtime.
It's the single biggest use of your energy,your talents during the short thing called
(24:42):
life.
And we have and I talk about this in the book.
The re one of the reasons I call it smallmoments, big outcomes is because life is made
up of small moments.
That's all we've got.
In fact, on average in Canada, we are givenabout four thousand weeks in this thing called
life, which doesn't sound a lot when you put itinto weeks.
Right?
Because weeks go by really fast, and most of uslistening or watching this have probably used
(25:06):
up more than half of those weeks.
Right?
So work has this enormous impact in this shortjourney called life.
It affects our mental and physical health, ourhappiness, our personal lives, our
socialization, where we live very often.
It has huge impacts on our lives, and you as aleader have a disproportionate impact on all of
(25:27):
those things in terms of your employees.
You impact your employees' families' lives.
You impact your employees in substantial waysthat perhaps you're not even aware of.
So I challenge you to think about what do youwant your legacy to be as a leader?
What do you wanna build day in and day out?
And it is through the small moments.
(25:49):
That's the second reason I call it smallmoments.
It is through those small moments that make orbreak your leadership.
It is the small simple things that you do thatyour employees notice, and it is the small
things, I guarantee you, that will irritate theheck out of them and annoy them.
I challenge you to think about your legacy.
The book is available on Amazon.
(26:10):
You can get a Kindle version, the e version, orthe hard copy version through Amazon.
It is packed with relevant ideas.
It goes into different traits of leadership.
It talks about the importance of communicationin the workplace, how to run your meetings, the
importance of employee recognition andappreciation, the importance, of course, of
having fun at work, how to build a servicefirst culture, how to build a more resilient
(26:32):
culture.
It is packed with ideas, packed with a load offun.
So I I hope that if you pick up a copy of thebook, it will help you on your leadership
journey and help you leave behind a morepositive, substantial, lasting legacy.
Awesome.
Mike, it's always a pleasure.
Mike always makes me evil every time I see him.
(26:54):
And again, I love the hat.
For those that aren't seeing the hat, it wasvery pretty in pink.
And and I'm trying to take him seriously yetagain.
For me, what am I taking away?
I talk a lot of leaders knowing their mentalresilience, and Mike talks about that much
more.
Leader knowing thyself.
Who are you?
(27:15):
What is that what is that imprint?
When you're no longer in that space, what isthe legacy?
What will they say about the Michael Kurs ofthe world when he is no longer there?
For you as a leader, think, what is it that youwant people to embody or remember with your
leadership?
And I often see as leaders, making the place abetter before you leave the environment, making
(27:35):
that environment that much better so peopleremember something special about you.
So for everyone, thanks again for tuning in.
If you wanted to know how you're connected inrelationships, just go to roxie and
doravodge.com, plarge /quiz.
You'll do a really quick quiz, and we'll tellyou kind of either at home or at work where you
are in reference to relationships and some nextsteps of how to make things better.
(27:57):
So, again, Michael, thanks so much foreverybody with everybody hanging out with us.
Thanks so much for hanging out with us, andwe'll chat with you again next week.
Okay, Mike.
Thank you, Roxanne.
Thank
you.
Take care.
Bye bye.
Bye.
Thanks for tuning in to Authentic Living withRoxanne, creating the space for positive
healthy change.
Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist,and coach.
(28:20):
To work with Roxanne, visitroxannederhage.com/blueprint.
We'll see you next time on Authentic Livingwith Roxanne.
Welcome to Authentic Living with Roxanne, aplace where we have conscious conversations
about things that really matter in our lives.
And now here's your host, Roxanne Durhaj.
(00:38):
Hi, everyone.
It's, Roxanne Durhoch.
Thanks for tuning in again this week.
Today, I have this is the second time, MichaelKerr.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yes.
This is the second time you're on the podcast.
It's an honor, so I didn't mess up too much the
He's doing gesticulation for anybody that can'tsee the video, and I'm like
I'm interpreting.
I'm yes.
(00:58):
I'm interpreting.
Sound.
Is it Michael Kerr?
It's Michael Kerr.
He's trying to mess me up.
Michael is a a dear, I would say, friend andcolleague, and, we're both members of the,
Canadian Association of Professional Speakers.
Michael has been at at this bid a lot longerthan me.
We're saying 1998 was the first book, butmembership probably longer than that, I would
(01:20):
assume, Mike.
And today, Mike's come on to talk a little bitmore about he's written nine books and but he
has a recent book, Small Moments, Big Outcomesabout leadership that we wanna chat about.
Beautiful cover.
Anybody can see it.
So we're gonna talk a lot about that today.
So, Mike, tell me what what made you wannawrite this book.
(01:41):
You've written eight before.
This is the ninth.
What made you want to write this particularbook?
Yeah.
It's a culmination really of years of workleading up to this book, of years of research
going into companies, interviewing leaders,CEOs, presidents of companies all over the
world.
I've spoken for, well, twenty plus years as yousay.
Well, god, I guess, close to twenty six years.
(02:04):
That's insane.
Wow.
I know.
That's crazy.
About humor in the workplace, I first was inthat space and speaking about eventually
workplace culture.
And my previous book's kind of funneled up intothis book.
So this book is my culmination, I think, of alot of research of a lot of thinking in this
area.
(02:24):
And so the book very much is geared to thisidea that leaders need to think of themselves
first and foremost as a leader and not just amanager, not just a boss, not just a
supervisor, that there is a difference thatgoes beyond semantics between being a leader
and being the manager, being a leader and beingthe boss.
But more than that, Roxanne, being a cultureleader and thinking of themselves in this day
(02:47):
and age, first and foremost, as a cultureleader.
K.
So define here obviously, I either thinkculture, and I'm gonna assume or leader.
Right?
So tell me what the definition how do youdefine a culture leader?
I define a culture leader as somebody whoobsessively thinks about culture first and
(03:08):
foremost in everything they do.
By culture, first of all, I just how I defineculture is it's your workplace mojo.
It's the feel of the place.
It's the personality of the place.
It's the unique set of rituals, traditions,values, behaviors that you and different than
your nearest competitor.
It's your number one competitive advantage, Buthere's why culture leadership matters.
(03:30):
Great cultures don't just happen.
You can't fake it.
You can't go buy your culture at IKEA.
Even if you did, you wouldn't understand theinstructions.
You'd have parts left over.
So you need to because it is your number onecompetitive advantage, because it impacts every
aspect of your organization, includingemployees' health and wellness and how well you
(03:52):
communicate and work together and collaborate,how creative and innovative you are, how you
provide customer service and outstandingcustomer experience, how happy employees are.
Because it affects all of that, being a cultureleader is simply about being intentional in
everything you do as a leader in regards toyour culture and recognizing that as a leader,
(04:14):
you have a disproportionate impact on yourculture, that everything you do and say either
adds to your workplace culture in some way ordetracts from your workplace culture.
So being intentional about your culture meanseverything from hiring with your culture in
mind so that you are hiring people who aren'tjust a match for your culture, but people who
(04:34):
can grow your culture in the direction you wantyour culture to grow.
It's about training with culture in mind.
It's about communicating relentlessly what yourcultural norms and values are.
And as a culture leader, it's about gettinginto the habit of always thinking about when
you make a decision as a leader, are youbuilding the culture that you wanna build, and
(05:00):
does this decision reflect the culture that youwant?
So always keeping your culture front and centerin the back of your mind in everything you do
say and in all of your decisions that guideyour business.
I'm gonna assume over your your tenure in doingthis kind of work you've seen, I gotta say,
(05:21):
iterations or metamorphosis around that wholeconcept.
Right?
So I'm thinking twenty, twenty five years,we've gone we've seen such shifts.
And even as, you know, as soon as the pandemic,we've really seen that the companies that are
excelling are the ones that really take thisconcept to fruition.
The ones the leaders that made the phone callsor had the one to ones or did the Zooms or did
(05:46):
the Facebook lives are the ones that really gotit.
And when you started way back when, I'm notcalling you old, but way back when, how has
that shifted, that whole concept of culturebased on what you're talking about today, which
makes it makes so much sense.
Like, you'd think that everybody would getthis, but not a lot of people still get it
today.
(06:06):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sadly, not a lot.
Certainly, way more than when I started.
When I started, I think yeah.
People talk about culture, but it was it wasvery minimal.
I think it was off the radar.
It wasn't talked about or written about allthat much.
We talked about all sorts of other things, andI think often in a very hodgepodge kind of way.
So we talked about all these these the separatetopics.
(06:29):
So culture kinda pulls everything together,right, too.
And, really, it's just been, I would say, inthe last, what are we, 2025 now in the last ten
years
Yes.
Fifteen years that you've really seen a shiftin a lot of organizations where they're
recognizing and appreciating the importance ofculture and putting a priority on that.
(06:51):
And you can see that in terms of how they spendtheir money.
You can see this in terms of even a lot ofcompanies hiring chief culture officers.
Mhmm.
Often, they have different names, but a aposition related to that, people to help
champion the culture and to drive initiativesto help educate their employees about the
culture and support their values and bring themto life.
(07:11):
So there has been a huge shift, but I thinkthere's still a long ways to go.
Absolutely.
I would think that companies are coming forwardand they want this concept.
They would have probably been companies thathave been doing bits and bites of the the work
along the way, or they maybe have gone throughsome kind of crisis in market share or there's
(07:33):
something like that when they're thinking, wow.
We seem to be generally kind of, you know,keeping the tempo with the competitors, but now
we've kind of been left behind, and we're notsure why that's happening.
So when you get called in, I I know a lot of itcomes from keynoting, but are there other times
where you get calling for consulting or justlike we're trying to kind of figure out how to
(07:55):
keep up with our competitors?
How might people come to you to kind of delveinto this whole concept of culture leadership?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And and you hit on a really good point.
That is often when companies or leaders for thefirst time start to think about their culture
when a crisis hits.
Right?
Mhmm.
Or when they have a huge change in theirorganization, and they realize sometimes much
(08:16):
to their chagrin that they don't really havethe right culture in place to deal with change,
to deal with innovation and creativity anduncertainty and all this the stuff that leaders
today have to think about.
I do get called in very often to do coaching orto to give advice and help.
I do longer full day and multi day trainingworkshops as well to help implement some of
(08:38):
these ideas to really help them put things intopractice, to help them shift their culture.
And very often, companies will contact me whenthey've introduced some new values, and they
want to make sure these values actually meansomething and they actually stick and that
people take them seriously.
I wish sometimes they would call me before theycame up with their values because sometimes I
(09:00):
would I would have some advice on the valuesthey came up with.
Like, maybe 18 values is a little bit too much.
So that is, though, why a lot of companies andleaders reach out to me.
They've got a new strategic plan or they've gotnew values in place, and so we wanna get our
employees excited about this.
We want employees to embrace our values, andand we want you to help us trends.
(09:23):
Excuse me, tran I got choked up talking aboutthis because it's so exciting to translate
those values into observable behaviors.
And and that's what great culture leaders haveto do.
Right?
We have to make sure we are translating whatthose suckers mean.
Right?
Because here's what I joke about all the time.
Here's what I joke about in my talk.
Culture is held together by the values.
(09:43):
Right?
But everybody talks about values like this.
Right?
Like, that these
So I've tried for people that won't see thevideo, I'm looking at my what is that?
It's a flower hat.
He's got a pink flower hat.
Everybody else are fixed.
If you're not watching this video, I just kindaswing with him as he's got a flower hat on his
head.
Yes.
Yes.
You know, this this playfulness, Michael Yep.
(10:04):
Which is what I love about what you since I'vemet Michael and the kind of work that he does.
You bring such a playfulness to a culture
Yes.
As as you kind of come from the external kindof world.
Do you find that sometimes you go in and somecultures are like the CEO is a little bit
they're like, they're so serious.
(10:26):
Right?
And they want their values, and they they theywant the tactical outcomes, and they want
investor buy in, or they have those quarterlymeetings with the ROIs and all that stuff that
they don't get that sometimes they have toshift a bit?
Oh, for sure.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And and you're right.
Everything that I talk about and everything inthis book, has humor throughout the book.
I'm a huge proponent, and that is one of mymain messages and themes I bring to audiences
(10:50):
is the importance of humor, of having fun.
That humor is both a driver of morecollaborative, inspiring, productive, humane
workplace cultures, but, also, humor is the endproduct of working in a positive, humane,
collaborative culture where people feel goodabout themselves, where it's easy to bring in a
good attitude to work and have a little bit offun because you feel appreciated and valued and
(11:13):
respected.
And so it's easy to bring that sense of humoralong.
But for sure, I meet leaders like that, andhere's one of my messages when it comes to
humor.
Humor is not about telling jokes.
It's not about being It's not?
Noun.
Sometimes sometimes it can be, but it's notabout being the stand up comedy of the other
comedian of the office or being the officeclown.
(11:33):
And it's not always even about being funny.
It's about being more human, more authentic,more real, being more balanced.
It's about finding the funny in your work livesthat's out there waiting to be found that
especially the things that you can't control,right, which some days is probably a 47%.
And it's especially, back to your point aboutthe stern CEOs, it's about laughing at yourself
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more.
Is it not a truism after all, Roxanne, that themore seriously a person takes themselves, the
less seriously we tend to take that person,which is ironic because people take themselves
so bloody seriously in the hopes that everyonewill take me seriously.
And the reality is, I'm sorry, no one takes youseriously because you are taking yourself so
seriously.
(12:16):
So it's about being able to show your humanside to laugh at yourself, which as a leader
makes you more approachable.
It makes you connect with your employeesbetter.
It creates psychological safety in yourenvironment so people do ask those challenging
questions and suggest outrageous ideas andpoint out issues that need pointing out because
(12:37):
they feel safe and comfortable to do so.
We know from studies that leaders who embrace apositive sense of humor now that's important.
Right?
Not a sarcastic, cynical, biting, cutting senseof humor, but a positive sense of humor.
Leaders who think about how their use of humorwill make the people around them feel better,
that we trust those leaders more because theyseem more real, more genuine.
(13:00):
We know it's one of the most powerful stressbusters available to us.
It creates more resilient teams.
We know from studies that workplaces, thatteams that embrace a lot of fun tend to have
lower employee turnover rates, lowerabsenteeism rates.
Everything moves in the right direction.
So one of my messages too is even if addingmore humor into your workplace culture or into
(13:22):
your leadership style, even if it doesn'tgenerate all these benefits that I suggest it
will, what would you rather have?
The same level of success at work in yourbusiness and less fun or at least the same
level of success and at least enjoy the journeya little bit more.
Right?
It's it's Right.
Because you have to spend so much time there.
Right?
So you might as well you might as well havefun.
(13:43):
And I like, I ran clinics, addictions clinics,and stuff like that.
And at the end of the day, you're dealing withpeople's lives, for instance, right, over the
years.
And then you realize, like, at the end of theday, we would we'd have these little jokes, and
then you'd realize you're not making fun ofpeople.
You're just trying to alleviate the stress thatyou'd be dealing with when, say, somebody has
kind of dealt with a bad situation with afamily member or the public or the media or
(14:07):
something like that.
And then we would talk about it and somebodywould bring something up.
We'd have a good little chuckle and then thestress level to your point goes down, and then
people can kinda go off and go, I can do thisagain.
And that's so important.
And you make such a good point, Roxanne.
It's not about taking your clients, yourpatients, your customers less seriously or
lightly.
(14:27):
It's about taking yourself lightly in order tobe more professional in your job.
I've spoken a lot to funeral homes, to funeralpeople, to ER doctors and nurses and people in
these high stress jobs, and they tell me timeand time again about how they need to have a
healthy sense of humor in order to maintaintheir professionalism, in order to cope with
(14:50):
the job, with the demands of the job.
So as long as you're doing it in a safe way,respectfully behind the scenes, and sometimes
it is very black humor.
It can be gallant humor.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
That'll say
if it helps you distance yourself from thatstress and it helps you maintain your sanity
and your resilience so you can be professional,then, of course, it's something we need to
(15:11):
learn to embrace.
Now, Mike, I'm curious.
Right?
Like, when have you come across companies thatthey think they're ready?
They're like, Mike Kerr, we heard you speak,and we wanna embrace this whole concept in a
workplace.
And you have the consultation, and you go, Idon't know if we can kinda work with you.
(15:32):
Have you come across scenarios like that overkind of your time working with companies where
you give them some homework and tell them,let's talk again at a later point?
I I'm trying to think of ones where I'veactually said, no.
I don't think this is a fit.
I I know there are some examples where Ithought, okay.
This is not a long term relationship I wannapursue Right.
(15:53):
Right.
Because they're not serious about it.
They're not gonna take it seriously.
They're not ready to shift their culture inthis way.
There's just too much resistance still, toomuch Yeah.
Skepticism, I think.
Yeah.
So there there certainly are those examples.
I think most, though, I would say the majorityare open to shifting the way they do things.
And and the number one way I find that they getexcited, that they get inspired to shift things
(16:17):
is through the examples that I share.
So I hear this time and time again, especiallyfrom senior leaders where because I share so
much research and I share examples frombusinesses all over to show that this stuff
works.
So even when you do some of these these sillycrazy things, here's the end result of this
silly craziness, though.
Mhmm.
So this works.
(16:38):
And that kinda sets off a lot of light bulbs, Ithink.
When they see it in action, they get the ideathat it's relevant, that this this is something
that they maybe need to pay more attention to.
Absolutely.
I think it's a congruence between all thelevels of the organization as well.
Yeah.
Right?
And I'm gonna assume, like, most times, like,with myself, you're probably maybe at upper
(16:59):
leadership, but then looking at how from yoursenior leadership goes down to middle
management, to your leaders or managers, to thepublic.
Right?
So it's we have to have that cascadingelements.
And I've worked with some companies, and thesenior leadership team has a concept that they
wanna deliver, but they're not acting incongruence with what they want the culture to
(17:20):
be like.
And then they're wanting the the frontline,say, employees to act a certain way, but
there's that disconnect.
And working with them to say, if you're notmentally resilient and you're reactive, but
you're saying to employees that are dealingwith customers that you can't kind of lose your
cool, they need to see it demonstrated.
So that whole kind of thread through becomesreally important.
(17:43):
I'm gonna assume that when you're doing workaround your cultural leadership, that's what
you're looking for as well.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
When I was I'm putting on my flower hat againwhen when I was talking about the
because he's got a pink little
Pink flower hat on.
Yes.
Pink flower hat.
Yeah.
My point in this was that too many companiesjust treat their values like window dressing.
(18:03):
Right?
Like this superficial they put up their valueson a nice poster with the puppies and rainbows,
and they sing we are the world once a year withtheir team.
And then there's our values.
What great culture leaders do veryintentionally is they translate what those
suckers actually mean in terms of specificbehaviors, attitudes.
They turn it into fun top 10 list videosstarring their own employees, example after
(18:26):
example, stories.
They do a values blitz.
They use all these creative ways to make surepeople understand what their values are.
But then and you were just talking about this.
The second thing that's absolutely critical is,of course, modeling our values out loud, making
sure you're seen to be living your values outloud.
And I've talked to a lot of very inspiringleaders where I've gone in for interviews, and
(18:48):
very often, the CEO of a company will be out inthe parking lot picking up garbage or helping a
customer carry bags out to their car orwhatever it may be.
And they're doing that purposefully to be shownto be seen, sorry, living their values out loud
and to be sending the message no job is beneathanyone here, and this is what I expect of all
(19:12):
of our employees.
Now the other thing I do see, Roxanne, is tothat point of it cascading down throughout the
organization.
And this I find fascinating too is I've goneinto big companies very often and worked with
one department where the department isobviously miles ahead with their culture.
They've got a fun, humor filled culture.
(19:33):
They're collaborative.
They're open minded, curious, creative, all thethings you want in a great culture.
And then I speak to another department, samecompany, but a little different.
A little soul sucking, fun sucking culture inthis department over here.
And I'm sitting there thinking, holy smokes.
You work for the same company?
And it's like night and day.
(19:55):
And so I think that speaks volumes to theimportance of the senior leader in those
departments because it it probably, in thosecases, is cascading down from those different
leaders.
And one has done an exceptional job at buildinga great positive culture and the other one, not
so much.
Yeah.
And and what you can learn that crosspollination, right, potentially without calling
(20:17):
out someone to say, somebody could betransporting this over.
Maybe the leader shifts things a bitdifferently, or maybe they communicate
differently.
Or maybe they just go do little get togethersin a different way where they structure their
their meetings differently, where they check-inor they maybe have a funny story or they talk
about a success.
There's so many like, to your point, you canhave two entities within the same culture, one
(20:40):
getting a positive and one getting a negative.
But with even within the culture, I'm surethere's pockets that they can learn from each
other and have I don't know what cross I wasgonna say cross contaminators.
That's the wrong word.
Pollinators.
Cross fertilization
is is a negative term.
So that they could kind of learn from eachother and not take it personally.
I'm not leading well.
But in fact that, oh, this actually worksbetter or maybe we can use this or, like, the
(21:04):
case study kind of sharing that I'm sure thatyou do with a lot of your trainings.
Yeah.
Well, benchmarking within your ownorganization, right, and learning from your
stars, whether it's employees or teams orentire departments, looking at at the different
cultures, looking at the different numbers evenand going, hey.
How come this department has such a lowemployer turnover rate?
(21:25):
Mhmm.
And over here, not so much.
What's going on over here that we could maybelearn from and apply?
You're right on.
I mean, making sure that people aren't workingin silos where they aren't sharing information
and hogging resources and hogging ideas, makingsure you have have those open forums from
different departments where people connect.
I love this idea actually, Roxanne, that someof my clients do where they do now this is at
(21:46):
an individual level, but they rave about theimpact.
They do random coffee dates where everybody'sname goes into a random name generator
throughout the entire company, and then theymeet for a coffee.
So you meet with people, and some of them do itin groups of four.
So you go and you have coffee with people thatsometimes you've never met even if it's a big
company, or at the very least people that youdon't see on a regular basis or work with on a
(22:09):
regular basis.
And it just helps build this greater sense ofcommunity and the cross fertilization that
happens with ideas when people get talkingabout their challenges and work, and then
people, oh, you guys are doing that.
That's so cool.
I'm gonna I'm gonna tell my boss about that.
Right.
Or you could put in marketing with accountingor something together.
Right?
For sure.
(22:29):
Like, for us with familiarity.
We're gonna go for an accounting, we're gonnago sit with the person that's generally dealing
with finance.
Or if we're in marketing, we're gonna go andtalk with maybe marketing and r and d.
But to put four random people together, whatwhat I would say a gift.
Right?
Because then you're gonna be able to say, wow.
I hadn't thought about that, like, from thatperspective and just to grow an appreciation
(22:52):
for what everybody's responsibilities are atthe end of the day to the business unit or just
the overall culture.
Yeah.
And and that's how we know creativity andinnovation thrives, right, from getting
different perspectives.
I love the old saying that if you have twoexecutives or two employees that think alike,
one of them is redundant.
So if we can get more different perspectivesaround the table, that's how you get new ideas.
(23:17):
Everybody sees different things from theirvantage point depending on what their role is
in the company.
But, also, everybody has different backgrounds,different educational backgrounds, different
totally different backgrounds.
So they we all see things in a different way.
So tapping into those different perspectivesand ideas.
In fact, Steve Jobs, when he redesigned PixarStudios when he took over Pixar, that was one
(23:38):
of his major goals was in redesigning theoffice space, the the building, was to make
sure there was more synchronicity in how no.
Not that's not the word.
It's not synchronicity.
That's the word.
I knew it started with this.
There was more serendipity in terms of peoplejust running into each other randomly so that
(23:59):
this cross fertilization of ideas would happen.
Well, this is amazing.
Now in reference to the book, if you're whatshould people expect?
Where can they go to pick up a copy?
And do you have any last words for any leadersout there or people just they've been on their
frontline and they want they're liking theconcepts that we've you've introduced in the
(24:21):
book that you might want to have them somethought or something to ponder about the con
the content we talked about today.
Yeah.
For sure.
Here's the last thing I would just remindpeople of, and and you mentioned it early on,
Roxanne, that work consumes a big chunk of ourtime.
It's the single biggest use of your energy,your talents during the short thing called
(24:42):
life.
And we have and I talk about this in the book.
The re one of the reasons I call it smallmoments, big outcomes is because life is made
up of small moments.
That's all we've got.
In fact, on average in Canada, we are givenabout four thousand weeks in this thing called
life, which doesn't sound a lot when you put itinto weeks.
Right?
Because weeks go by really fast, and most of uslistening or watching this have probably used
(25:06):
up more than half of those weeks.
Right?
So work has this enormous impact in this shortjourney called life.
It affects our mental and physical health, ourhappiness, our personal lives, our
socialization, where we live very often.
It has huge impacts on our lives, and you as aleader have a disproportionate impact on all of
(25:27):
those things in terms of your employees.
You impact your employees' families' lives.
You impact your employees in substantial waysthat perhaps you're not even aware of.
So I challenge you to think about what do youwant your legacy to be as a leader?
What do you wanna build day in and day out?
And it is through the small moments.
(25:49):
That's the second reason I call it smallmoments.
It is through those small moments that make orbreak your leadership.
It is the small simple things that you do thatyour employees notice, and it is the small
things, I guarantee you, that will irritate theheck out of them and annoy them.
I challenge you to think about your legacy.
The book is available on Amazon.
(26:10):
You can get a Kindle version, the e version, orthe hard copy version through Amazon.
It is packed with relevant ideas.
It goes into different traits of leadership.
It talks about the importance of communicationin the workplace, how to run your meetings, the
importance of employee recognition andappreciation, the importance, of course, of
having fun at work, how to build a servicefirst culture, how to build a more resilient
(26:32):
culture.
It is packed with ideas, packed with a load offun.
So I I hope that if you pick up a copy of thebook, it will help you on your leadership
journey and help you leave behind a morepositive, substantial, lasting legacy.
Awesome.
Mike, it's always a pleasure.
Mike always makes me evil every time I see him.
(26:54):
And again, I love the hat.
For those that aren't seeing the hat, it wasvery pretty in pink.
And and I'm trying to take him seriously yetagain.
For me, what am I taking away?
I talk a lot of leaders knowing their mentalresilience, and Mike talks about that much
more.
Leader knowing thyself.
Who are you?
(27:15):
What is that what is that imprint?
When you're no longer in that space, what isthe legacy?
What will they say about the Michael Kurs ofthe world when he is no longer there?
For you as a leader, think, what is it that youwant people to embody or remember with your
leadership?
And I often see as leaders, making the place abetter before you leave the environment, making
(27:35):
that environment that much better so peopleremember something special about you.
So for everyone, thanks again for tuning in.
If you wanted to know how you're connected inrelationships, just go to roxie and
doravodge.com, plarge /quiz.
You'll do a really quick quiz, and we'll tellyou kind of either at home or at work where you
are in reference to relationships and some nextsteps of how to make things better.
(27:57):
So, again, Michael, thanks so much foreverybody with everybody hanging out with us.
Thanks so much for hanging out with us, andwe'll chat with you again next week.
Okay, Mike.
Thank you, Roxanne.
Thank
you.
Take care.
Bye bye.
Bye.
Thanks for tuning in to Authentic Living withRoxanne, creating the space for positive
healthy change.
Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist,and coach.
(28:20):
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