October 1, 2025 • 35 mins
Chris Dyer is a globally recognized expert on company culture and remote work. As a former CEO, his companies were named “Best Places to Work” 15 times and appeared five times on Inc. Magazine’s list of fastest-growing companies. Today, Chris is a top-ranked leadership speaker, consultant, and bestselling author of The Power of Company Culture and Remote Work. He’s been featured on numerous global leadership lists, including the LeadersHum Power List and Inspiring Workplaces’ Top 101 Influencers in Employee Engagement.
Chris helps organizations build high-performing cultures that drive productivity, engagement, and profitability. Through his keynote talks and 7 Pillar Strategy, he delivers practical, experience-based insights that leave lasting impact. Known for his candor, humor, and actionable advice, Chris has transformed how leaders approach culture and performance.
Beyond the stage, Chris is a passionate hiker, music lover, and family man. He believes that thriving at work and in life go hand in hand—and he’s on a mission to help companies create environments where everyone can succeed.
During the show we discussed:
- Define company culture and why it matters today.
- Apply the 7 Pillars of Company Culture to drive results.
- Increase transparency to transform team performance.
- Share team and cross-team goals for better alignment.
- Review goals in meetings and plan solutions when off-track.
- Ask regularly how the team can get 1% better.
- Use a weekly one-question survey with follow-up and updates.
- Clarify what makes your company and team members unique.
Resources:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to the Business Credit and Financing Show.
Each week, we talk about the growth strategies
that matter most to entrepreneurs.
Listen in as we discuss the secrets to
getting credit and money to start and grow
your business.
And enjoy as we talk with seasoned business
owners, coaches, and industry leaders on a variety
(00:22):
of topics from advertising and marketing to the
nuts and bolts of running a highly successful
business.
And now, to introduce the host of our
show, financial expert and award-winning author, Ty
Crandall.
Hello, and thanks for joining us today.
Listen, culture is the strategy you should really
be knowing about.
And what I'm talking to you about today
(00:43):
is really how to define a culture within
your company that helps you build the successful
business that you've always wanted to build.
So what we're gonna do today is we're
actually gonna get inside the mind of a
workplace transformation expert to get you all the
details you need to know.
I mean, this could be a game changer
for you, your team members, and your company.
So with us today is Chris Dyer.
Now, Chris is actually a globally recognized expert
(01:04):
on company culture and remote work.
So as a former CEO, his companies were
named best place to work 15 times and
appeared five times on Inc.
Magazine's list of fastest growing companies.
Now, today, Chris is a top-ranked leadership
speaker, a consultant, and also a best-selling
author of The Power of Company Culture and
Remote Work.
He's actually been featured in numerous global leadership
(01:26):
lists, including the Leaders' Home Power List and
Inspiring Workplaces, top 101 influencers in employee engagement
as well.
Now, Chris actually helps organizations build high-performance
cultures that drive productivity, engagement, and profitability.
And through his keynote talks and seven-pillar
strategy, he delivers practical, experienced-based insights that
(01:50):
leave lasting impact.
So known for his candor, his humor, and
actionable advice, Chris has transformed how leaders approach
culture and performance.
Beyond the stage, Chris is actually a passionate
hiker, music lover, and family man.
He believes that thriving at work and in
life go hand-in-hand, and he's on
a mission to help companies create environments where
everyone can succeed.
(02:11):
Chris, what's up, man?
Thanks for joining us today.
Hey, thanks for the nice intro there.
Yeah, well, I know it's very early in
California, so I appreciate that you have your
coffee and you're ready to go.
I'm ready to go.
I'll get a few sips in every time
you talk, so.
So company culture, I think so many people,
it means so many different things to so
many people.
So from your perspective, how do you define
(02:32):
company culture?
It's pretty simple.
Culture is the way we get things done.
It is the norms.
It is that feeling of, I have a
good example.
Like I've gone into companies and you pop
up to the third floor and you can
see people talking and there's a good vibe
going on and everything seems cool.
And then they're like, okay, but your meeting's
on the fourth floor.
(02:53):
And then you go up to the fourth
floor and suddenly it places quiet and everyone's
computer monitors are turned so you can't see
it.
And you can feel the difference on that
floor, right?
So same company, one floor apart, what's the
difference?
And it's that those leaders and the way
those people act and the way in which
they think, are they safe?
(03:14):
Are they collaborative?
Are they doing those things?
Are they not?
And so ultimately, how we get things done,
how do we operate in meetings, all of
those like little things, that's the culture, right?
And then there's, what should the culture be?
We can talk about that, but like, do
you let people make decisions without checking with
you as the boss?
(03:34):
Do you, how much leeway do you give
them?
Like all those kinds of things, like that's
culture.
It's not the bean bag.
It's not if you're buying lunch.
It's not if you have an open door
policy, like that's not culture.
It's what actually really happens every single day
as those decisions are made.
I love these examples.
And now we've entered this world where we
have remote workers, right?
It's actually more predominant now than we've ever
(03:55):
had before after COVID.
So why do you think culture is so
even more important now when we've seen this
dichotomy of like work, working in an office
and then also working at home?
Yeah, and so how you approach culture might
be a little bit different if you have
hybrid or remote teams, or if that's sometimes
the thing or all the thing, or maybe
you're always in the office and there's gonna
(04:16):
be a slightly different approach there.
But the importance of culture does not change
based on your flexibility sort of set up.
I'll tell you that for about eight years,
I put all of my focus every single
day in being involved in every part of
the business as the owner, and we did
(04:37):
okay.
We were fine.
No one ever wrote an article about us.
We never had record-breaking crazy growth, but
we were fine, okay?
And then we had a big recession in
09, and I really realized that we had
to make a big shift.
And finally, the shift that I landed on
was that I needed to focus on our
culture.
That was a decision I made, and I
(04:58):
didn't know if I was right or wrong,
but ultimately what I did is I stopped
focusing on the different parts of the business.
I was no longer getting myself involved in
all those big sales meetings.
I wasn't involved in all the marketing meetings.
I could be involved in those things if
they needed help, but instead, I spent my
time as the owner figuring out how I
(05:20):
could make the culture better.
And I said, you know, I'm gonna do
this for a month.
Let's see what happens.
And that was so good that I was
like, I'm gonna do this for a year,
and let's see what happens.
Until I sold that business at the end
of 2021, I never went back.
And then we had record-breaking years, year
after year after year, Inc.
5000, fastest growing company five times.
(05:42):
All the good things that ever happened to
our organization happened after I stopped trying to
be in the business, right, and allow my
people to do the job that I hired
them for.
Yes, I was there as a resource.
Yes, I was still a part of Conversey.
It wasn't like I was never in the
sales meeting, but I wasn't in it because
I was there to try to like tell
them what to do.
(06:03):
I instead tried to figure out how I
could make, how do I make their lives
easier?
How do I help them protect from burnout?
How do I create better engagement?
How do I fix our meetings?
How do I get rid of people that
are cancer?
How do I help people that don't have
a voice to be heard?
Like, how do I do all of these
things to help?
Basically, the way I like to put it
is like, how do I make work work
(06:23):
for everybody?
And when I did that, everything changed, right?
And so that's the shift that I would
sort of challenge anybody listening to.
It's not necessarily about doing some little program
or spending a little money here or having
a party or whatever.
No, it's about a daily routine of how
do we help our people get better?
I love the way that you lay that
out with even really good examples of what
(06:44):
you kind of worked on during that time.
Because I think that's the thing is, I
think a lot of people look at culture
differently and almost objectively of like what they
think culture means to them.
And if they were just going to own
culture, for example, for a month or for
a year, what they would actually tackle.
So this might be segue into your seven
pillars.
So how did you come up with these
(07:04):
seven pillars?
It seems like you've kind of found a
way to categorize culture and be able to
address it in these different areas.
So how did you come up with that
strategy, with that philosophy?
So it was a combination of things.
I read hundreds of books as I got
kind of fascinated by this.
I did podcast interviews with top leaders from
around the world for 10 years.
And I went to conference after conference after
(07:25):
conference and talked to highly successful people.
I would go and find the speakers who
I thought had really done a business, had
really been out there and were practitioners.
And I would ask them as many questions
as I could until they tried to escape
from me because they had to go off
and do something else.
Trying to just extract as much information as
(07:46):
I could from as many reliable sources as
possible.
And what I noticed pretty early on, and
then I continued to validate and experiment with
this, was that they were all telling me
the same thing.
Now, most people didn't tell me here's seven
things.
They would say, we really focus on this
two or three things.
These are really big questions.
And somebody else would say, we focus on
(08:06):
these two or three and there'd be some
overlap there.
But there was basically seven things that I
kept hearing over and over and over again.
And I put my words to those seven
things, but we noticed that those were the
common themes in the books, common themes in
success stories.
It kept coming up over and over and
over.
It's almost like, how did I come up
(08:27):
with, you should drink water?
I mean, it's just like the thing you
do.
How do you know you're supposed to eat
healthy if you want to be fit?
This is not like, I didn't come up
with something out of thin air.
This was like obvious things that kept coming
back, but no one had articulated it in
this way, had put all seven of these
things down.
And so once we had that, then later
(08:47):
on I began to even take it to
other organizations, do massive studies with them, with
NASA, with lots of organizations to really make
sure this was correct and it wasn't just
correct in my company or correct in what
I was hearing from the people.
But we went back and we've never had
(09:07):
it not test true.
I've never had one of the pillars like,
well, that wasn't that important for this company.
You know, it's always been that seven.
We've never discovered an eighth, right?
I'm waiting for AI to maybe give us
an eighth, but it hasn't happened yet.
It's still just the seven.
Let's dive in a little bit further.
Can you kind of give us a little
bit of sampling of these seven pillars?
(09:28):
Sure.
So the one people usually ask me like,
which one's the most important?
And the most important one is the one
that you're not good at.
It's the one that if I say these
seven and you're like, ooh, it kind of
wins to get uncomfortable when I say that
word, like that's the one you got to
go after.
That's the most important for you.
But the seven are transparency, positive leadership, listening,
(09:48):
uniqueness, measurement.
Then we have mistakes.
How do we deal with mistakes?
And I'm forgetting one.
Did I say listening?
I'm listening.
Yeah, okay.
So transparency, listening, uniqueness, measurement.
And then you also said, I think active
listening.
So the one I missed was recognition, sorry.
Recognition.
Recognition on seven.
(10:09):
And you said that these are the seven
that you always found.
You haven't found more.
You haven't found less than almost any organization
you've helped.
Right.
So give me an idea.
Like when you talk about transparency, like give
me a little bit more insight into that.
Sure.
So here are some of the things that
we did, continue to do in my next
organizations.
And that organizations around the world do really,
really good job with.
(10:29):
In fact, I learned this from Jack Stack.
I guess he's got a great book called
The Great Game of Business.
And it's essentially, how do we provide people
with as much information as we possibly can?
The way in which he did it and
the way in which we did it as
well, it works fantastic.
And this is the one I would suggest
people start with is, can you start sharing
your financial data with all of your employees?
(10:50):
Can you imagine if every single month you
gave everybody your P&L and said, this
is how we did, this is how we
made the money.
This is how we spend the money.
And what would happen to your business?
Now, a lot of people get freaked out,
but like, I don't know if I want
people to know all of that.
They're gonna start asking, we make money, they're
gonna start asking you for raises.
And if we were losing money this month,
they're gonna quit.
That stuff never happens.
(11:11):
Never, ever, ever has happened one time.
I've never, in any organization I've ever worked
with, they started showing the P&L and
they show they're making money a month and
had a line out the door asking for
raises.
So we don't have to give them the
detail.
I understand in some businesses, you may not
want them to know exactly how people are
getting paid and there may be some sensitive
stuff there.
But we just give them the summary, right?
(11:31):
And help them understand how the business works.
We even had to give people like education
on financial literacy.
I mean, there are people who didn't know
how to read a P&L.
I mean, I've hired executives that barely know
how to read a P&L if you
haven't really had any finance training.
So we had to provide training and all
of that.
But what was crazy is that people, how
we were making the money.
And so it helped them make better decisions
(11:53):
on what clients we should be trying to
pull into the organization, with clients we don't
want, right?
When they understood there are certain clients that
are more profitable than others, that really helped
the sales team, that helped the marketing team,
that helped our customer service team.
But the big shock to me was within
a year, we were 30% more profitable
after we started sharing this data.
(12:14):
And the reason for that was that people
started going back and saying, I didn't know
we spent money on that.
I didn't know we had two vendors that
were supplying that same.
Why don't we go get one vendor for
that?
Why don't we go and put all of
that volume into one vendor, get it a
volume discount?
Why are we spending that much on healthcare?
(12:35):
Like my buddy, Tom, he can give us
a better deal on healthcare premiums.
And we would, it just suddenly had all
these ideas and helped us find ways to
save money when they knew how we spent
the money.
And so they naturally want to do well
in their job, I never said, hey, we've
got to have a cost-cutting thing.
(12:56):
I never said we're going to give raises
or bonuses if we find ways to cut.
I just shared the data and they went
and did the work.
That was so powerful.
The second way that you can think about
transparency is I can't tell you how many
times I've talked to middle managers and leaders.
And I say, tell me about your, how
do you manage people?
(13:17):
How does your, how do the goals work?
And basically it's, they're the boss and they
have an employee and they know their employees'
goals and that's it.
Nobody else knows the goals.
I mean, you go up the chain and
they might have access to the goals, but
does the CEO really know what the customer
service rep number two's goals are for the
year?
Probably not.
How does that help?
(13:37):
How does it help if only one other
person in the organization knows what your goals
are and is responsible for helping you achieve
them?
If we have transparency, we shift that and
everyone on your team knows everyone's goals, right?
And now everyone on the team should be
responsible for helping everyone reach their goals.
(13:58):
Isn't that better?
Isn't it only better as a team that
we talk about that as a society all
the time or better as a team, better
as a family, better as a group?
And yet we've been leaving people on an
island to reach their goals by themselves with
their boss.
So transparency shows up when we share that,
we talk about that and we talk about
our goals as a group, as a team,
as this cohesive group that moving forward in
(14:20):
the organization on how we're gonna get there.
And if it's November and I've reached my
goals as the salesperson and I'm gonna kick
it into easy street, I might wanna help
out my other sales person on my team
to help them reach their goals if I
got a little extra time at the end
of the year, right?
We find ways to help people because we
care about them.
And then we would took that and we
had made sure that each department was sharing
(14:43):
its department goals with each other.
Come to find out that like customer service
goals were in competition with sales goals.
That's not good, right?
Our sales goals and marketing goals were in
competition.
So I know I've said this probably the
longest answer you'd ever gotten on your podcast
but that's how kind of transparency shows up.
I can't help but taking a tremendous amount
of notes.
(15:03):
So I hope my quiet typing here is
not distracting everybody but this is just, it's
phenomenal points.
I love everything you're saying.
As a matter of fact, I've actually started
to add stuff to my to-do list
in this as well.
So take your time with the answers because
I think that this is really, really, really
brilliant stuff.
So transparency means a lot in the areas
of everything to do with the company.
(15:25):
Anything that you think that we shouldn't be
transparent on?
I advocate you should go as far as
you can go.
Now there are some organizations that have struggled
with sharing everybody's salaries and pay.
That has been the one area that it
gets a little hard to manage.
So if you wanna go full transparency and
(15:45):
everyone is in the same country, you can
probably do it.
It gets really hard when you have people
around the world.
It's hard to share salary data when we're
not paying someone, let's say in a different
country with wildly different cost of living and
we're not paying them the same as what
we would pay somebody who lives in Los
Angeles.
I've noticed that's where organizations get really knotted
(16:07):
up and it's really hard for them when
they almost regret going that far.
But we did it in my company because
we had everyone in the country.
And so we could share that data.
We could talk about small differences in pay
that might be based on where they live.
Somebody lives in, I got a head of
marketing in Kansas.
They're gonna cost me different than the head
(16:28):
of marketing in Los Angeles.
The different cost of living.
We could talk about those small variances in
a way that made sense and people were
happy and it was fine.
So that's the only area that I really
think, could there be, I don't know, trade
secrets, crazy confidential client data.
If you're working for like the government and
top secret stuff, sure.
(16:48):
There might be some fringe stuff over there
that you can't share with everybody.
But I think 99% of all companies
can share 98% of everything that's going
on.
I love that.
And honestly, this is something I'm gonna adopt
in our organization.
I think it makes a lot of sense.
I've always tried to struggle with how do
I get team members to take ownership of
(17:08):
those things but without making them take ownership.
And this sounds like a real good way
where they voluntarily kind of take some ownership
when they're able to just have the transparency
and see what's actually going on.
Now, if everybody on my team quits, then
I'm gonna come back and talk to you
again.
But I feel confident that, I've actually found
this, this year we've done a lot of
(17:29):
this with our one page plan, our mission,
our vision.
We review it every week.
And it's interesting because to your point, like
when we survey our team members every month,
the satisfaction and the feel that they are
getting communication from their leaders has exponentially increased
with that transparency to your point.
Which actually brings me to another point.
(17:50):
How do you do to do better listen
to those team members?
So it's one thing to give them transparency
but then another one of your pillars is
to listen.
What should we be doing as employers to
be able to better listen to our team
members and our teams?
Yeah, so the first thing we did when
we did the transparency part was to make
sure every single month we had a team
(18:10):
company-wide meeting that was.
And now a quick break to hear from
our sponsor.
Hey, it's Ty Crandall with Credit Suite.
Many of our subscribers wanna build business credit
that's linked to their EIN without a personal
guarantee or credit check.
Now, if you're looking to get no doc,
high limit business credit cards that report to
the business reporting agencies without a personal guarantee
or credit check, give us a call at
(18:31):
877-600-2487.
That's 877-600-2487.
Or schedule your free consultation online to talk
more at creditsuite.com forward slash consult.
That was the only like mandatory meeting I
held every month for the whole company.
And we share the P&L every department.
(18:51):
I mean, this is a 30 minute meeting,
that's it.
Like don't do a two hour, three hour
company-wide.
Nobody wants that, that's torture.
30 minutes, super tight.
Here's our P&L, here's how we're doing.
Every department comes in and says, here's our
goals, here's how we're doing against them.
And when we say we're having a problem,
we're not reaching our goal, we had a
(19:13):
bad month.
Here's what we're gonna do about it.
Here's what change we're gonna make.
That's all people want.
They wanna know what you're gonna do about
it.
They wanna know you've got a plan, right?
That's why they don't leave.
That's why they don't disappear when things get
rocky because they know you showed up and
you filled in the gap, right?
Now to connect that, the second part is
(19:33):
how do we hear from them what they're
concerned about?
How do we know what they want us
to address going forward?
I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate two things
that companies do right now.
First one is the annual review, the annual
survey.
Excuse me, annual survey.
I think it's stupid, I think it's dumb.
I hate it, if I didn't tell you
(19:54):
that, I hate it.
We ask people questions about their job once
a year and then we take all that
data and like try to figure out what
to do with it and then come back
to them with some solutions that we don't
really have.
So I'm a big advocate for how do
we get 1% better?
Like that should be the question we're asking
our people every day, every week, every month
(20:16):
and in every meeting.
How do we get 1% better?
Not how do we change, how do we
double our sales?
Not how do we like, because people, most
people can't think in those terms.
We have some really good strategic leaders, maybe
some very experienced people that can.
Most of our people can only really help
us in making small incremental tweaks that can
(20:38):
help or they can get behind the idea
of how do I get 1% better?
And to do that, we have to start
pulling out of them content.
So to listen, the best way that you
can try to listen to your people is
to get rid of the annual survey and
instead reverse engineer it into a weekly one
question survey.
(20:59):
Every week, one question.
So what you do, on Wednesday, you send
out the question and then you tell them
I need the results back by Friday.
And then by the following Tuesday, you need
to have sent them an email or whatever,
however you communicate.
This is what I heard, this is what
I'm gonna do about it.
(21:20):
And then you could ask your next question
on Wednesday and you actually do something with
the information.
And then on that company-wide meeting, you
bring up those four or five questions that
you asked during the month and remind everybody,
this is what we heard on these, this
is what we've done, this is our progress
report, how we have improved it.
We ask things like, how am I as
(21:40):
the CEO getting in your way?
Who in the organization is killing it right
now?
Who should we be recognizing?
Like who are we not realizing is really
doing well?
What client is driving crazy?
What resources do you not have?
Like what product or what service should we
be offering our clients that we haven't thought
of?
Like you start asking them these things, right?
(22:02):
And I wouldn't start with big, giant, hard,
hard questions to start, get them warmed up,
get them going.
But you'll be shocked that once they start
seeing that they tell you something, that you
actually do something and that you don't turn
it into a, well, I wanna know who
said that and I don't like being criticized.
You're not defensive and you're not upset by
(22:22):
the answers that you are willing to take
whatever it is they say and figure out
how to make it better, right?
That routine, I had, we asked about 48
questions a year.
So we only missed about four or five
times a month, a year did we miss
a week.
And I had about a 95% response
rate because people knew that I actually read
(22:43):
the answers.
I actually did something with the information, right?
And things actually got better for them when
they, or got better for other people in
the organization based on them letting me know
what was going on.
Chris, the power of company culture and remote
work is your book, right?
Where is that at?
Is that on Amazon?
Yeah, Amazon or wherever you buy books online,
you can find both those books, yeah.
(23:03):
Okay, for those watching, literally, I mean, this
is, I don't know if you're aware of
how good this is.
Like there's so many actionable steps I've already
actually tracked here while we're doing this interview.
And I can tell you that before we
are done, I will go and get this
book as well and you should as well.
It's called The Power of Company Culture and
Remote Work.
You can get it on Amazon.
I'm actually gonna show you.
(23:24):
I'm gonna purchase this thing right now during
this interview.
And I'll actually even show it to you.
I did, and I suggest you do the
same thing because we're just like, we're not
even a fraction of the two pillars.
We just touched upon two of the pillars
and there's so much actionable info.
So I hope you're recognizing this for what
it is.
Great feedback.
I love every bit of that because that
is just so brilliant.
(23:45):
And that's the thing is I think that
we're, as leaders, we're so close to what's
going on that sometimes we just miss obvious
stuff.
We just don't know how to solve problems
or move forward.
But our team members oftentimes do, but they
stay quiet about it.
So I really love the transparency piece and
I love this one question approach well.
And then this is something that we started
to do too is to show them that
(24:05):
we're gonna take action on those items because
when they see, wait a second, my opinion
matters and then I'm putting a suggestion out
there and they're taking these suggestions, then that's
what I think gets you to that 90,
95% response rate.
So just loving every minute of this.
So that being said, uniqueness.
I thought that was interesting because when you
mentioned this uniqueness pillar, I don't know what
that means.
And I'm interested in you kind of doing
(24:27):
a deeper dive and explain that a little
bit more.
Yeah, so the uniqueness pillar kind of covers
a lot of different areas for companies.
So let's start with the obvious.
You had better be able to demonstrate, articulate
and talk about what makes your company unique
in the marketplace, right?
So that's the marketing part.
Like, can you come in and talk about
what you do?
I give the silly example in the book
(24:48):
of like, if you sold those yellow pencils
that we used in school to take tests,
like how could you possibly articulate what makes
you unique if you sold the same yellow
pencil that everyone else sold, right?
But there are ways to do it, are
ways to think about it.
It's a little exercise in the book on
how to do that.
So that's the first part.
Can we show up uniquely in the marketplace
and with a vision, with the wording, with
(25:10):
the backing and all of that.
But then we talk about how do we
think about our people as unique?
As human beings, it's sort of a cognitive
bias for us.
It's kind of a thing that we do.
We wanna think about how people are similar
to us, right?
This is how biases and different things creep
(25:31):
into the hiring process.
Cause we tend to wanna hire people like
us, hire people who we like, hire people
who like what we like, hire people that
we wanna go have a beer with after
work.
If you're a Red Sox fan, you hire
someone who's a Red Sox fan.
If you went to University of Alabama, you're
hiring people from University of Alabama.
It's really interesting how we were trying to
(25:53):
connect with other human beings.
And the ultimate way of doing is hiring
people who have a lot of the same
thought processes and experiences and things that we
have.
And the reason that ends up being bad
over time is that we lose out on
diversity of thought, okay?
So I never asked my organization to go
(26:13):
and hire in any particular way or to
hire certain kinds of people or not other
people.
We focused on how do we have diversity
of thought?
And the only way we could do that
was by getting really curious about what made
people unique and what made them different.
What did they think differently than the people
we already had?
I love to use as a great example
(26:33):
from the book, we took at every thousands
of our employees take the StrengthsFinders assessment that
you can go, Gallup's got it, so five
strengths.
If you haven't done it, go do it.
It's awesome because it kind of helps you
really figure out who you are and like
how to show up at work based on
what you're good at.
But we took all of their data and
(26:53):
we mapped it out on a giant Excel
sheet.
And what was shocking to me was how
by department, everyone in that department all had
like the same top two or three strengths,
which was really weird.
But also we had massive gaps on that
sheet where we had, I had thousands of
employees and we had a strength.
One of them was like analytical.
(27:14):
We didn't have a single employee who was
analytical as our top five.
Like we had, and we had other ones
where there was almost no data points, right?
So I had absolute crazy amounts of responsibility
and professionalism and ideation.
I had the great strengths, but like other
ones where there was nothing.
And so all I did was tell all
of my hiring, all my leaders, I said,
listen, because I always did like the final,
(27:37):
final interview for people.
I said, don't send me anybody unless they
have in their top five strengths, one of
the strengths that we're missing, that we're really
low on.
That was it.
That was my only requirement of them.
And so they had new hires fill, or
new applicants fill those out.
The kind of person that started showing up
(27:58):
to those interviews was so different.
I started hearing different ideas.
I started seeing different types of people, right?
Because now no longer was my hiring leaders
sort of connecting on these very superficial things.
They were getting more interested in what the
quality of that person could be.
And that really helped us kind of grow
(28:19):
the organization as we continue to get bigger,
to have more types of different types of
thinkers.
Because this is where organizations start to stall.
They start to do well, they start to
get big.
And then all of a sudden you just
have a whole boardroom full of people, or
a whole team full of people that all
think exactly the same.
And when prep hits the fan and you
need a great idea, and all 10 people
(28:41):
sitting in that conference room have the same
idea, you're in trouble, right?
So uniqueness really helps us figure out and
make sure we're tuned into this idea that
we need diversity of thought.
We need to think about how do we
position our companies in unique ways.
We need to celebrate what makes us unique,
celebrate our people for what makes them unique,
(29:01):
not what makes us the same.
And that is my, and I think what
I've seen the best organizations do, actual solution
to this idea of how do we provide,
how do we create an organization that is
diverse?
How do we create an organization that is
equitable for people without, I think some of
these like really difficult and honestly haven't really
(29:23):
worked very well policies, well-intended policies from
some larger organizations.
How do we actually approach this in a
meaningful way that's good for everybody?
Chris, powerful, powerful stuff today.
And I like the approach of uniqueness both
as the uniqueness of the company to the
team member, but then the uniqueness of each
team member and what makes them different and
(29:44):
then putting together different people to be able
to create contrast, to be able to create
different perspectives of looking at the exact same
problem and producing solutions, every bit of that.
So we are maybe, we've only scratched the
surface on three of your seven and we're
at 30 minutes.
I mean, we're.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to the Business Credit and Financing Show.
Each week, we talk about the growth strategies
that matter most to entrepreneurs.
Listen in as we discuss the secrets to
getting credit and money to start and grow
your business.
And enjoy as we talk with seasoned business
owners, coaches, and industry leaders on a variety
(00:22):
of topics from advertising and marketing to the
nuts and bolts of running a highly successful
business.
And now, to introduce the host of our
show, financial expert and award-winning author, Ty
Crandall.
Hello, and thanks for joining us today.
Listen, culture is the strategy you should really
be knowing about.
And what I'm talking to you about today
(00:43):
is really how to define a culture within
your company that helps you build the successful
business that you've always wanted to build.
So what we're gonna do today is we're
actually gonna get inside the mind of a
workplace transformation expert to get you all the
details you need to know.
I mean, this could be a game changer
for you, your team members, and your company.
So with us today is Chris Dyer.
Now, Chris is actually a globally recognized expert
(01:04):
on company culture and remote work.
So as a former CEO, his companies were
named best place to work 15 times and
appeared five times on Inc.
Magazine's list of fastest growing companies.
Now, today, Chris is a top-ranked leadership
speaker, a consultant, and also a best-selling
author of The Power of Company Culture and
Remote Work.
He's actually been featured in numerous global leadership
(01:26):
lists, including the Leaders' Home Power List and
Inspiring Workplaces, top 101 influencers in employee engagement
as well.
Now, Chris actually helps organizations build high-performance
cultures that drive productivity, engagement, and profitability.
And through his keynote talks and seven-pillar
strategy, he delivers practical, experienced-based insights that
(01:50):
leave lasting impact.
So known for his candor, his humor, and
actionable advice, Chris has transformed how leaders approach
culture and performance.
Beyond the stage, Chris is actually a passionate
hiker, music lover, and family man.
He believes that thriving at work and in
life go hand-in-hand, and he's on
a mission to help companies create environments where
everyone can succeed.
(02:11):
Chris, what's up, man?
Thanks for joining us today.
Hey, thanks for the nice intro there.
Yeah, well, I know it's very early in
California, so I appreciate that you have your
coffee and you're ready to go.
I'm ready to go.
I'll get a few sips in every time
you talk, so.
So company culture, I think so many people,
it means so many different things to so
many people.
So from your perspective, how do you define
(02:32):
company culture?
It's pretty simple.
Culture is the way we get things done.
It is the norms.
It is that feeling of, I have a
good example.
Like I've gone into companies and you pop
up to the third floor and you can
see people talking and there's a good vibe
going on and everything seems cool.
And then they're like, okay, but your meeting's
on the fourth floor.
(02:53):
And then you go up to the fourth
floor and suddenly it places quiet and everyone's
computer monitors are turned so you can't see
it.
And you can feel the difference on that
floor, right?
So same company, one floor apart, what's the
difference?
And it's that those leaders and the way
those people act and the way in which
they think, are they safe?
(03:14):
Are they collaborative?
Are they doing those things?
Are they not?
And so ultimately, how we get things done,
how do we operate in meetings, all of
those like little things, that's the culture, right?
And then there's, what should the culture be?
We can talk about that, but like, do
you let people make decisions without checking with
you as the boss?
(03:34):
Do you, how much leeway do you give
them?
Like all those kinds of things, like that's
culture.
It's not the bean bag.
It's not if you're buying lunch.
It's not if you have an open door
policy, like that's not culture.
It's what actually really happens every single day
as those decisions are made.
I love these examples.
And now we've entered this world where we
have remote workers, right?
It's actually more predominant now than we've ever
(03:55):
had before after COVID.
So why do you think culture is so
even more important now when we've seen this
dichotomy of like work, working in an office
and then also working at home?
Yeah, and so how you approach culture might
be a little bit different if you have
hybrid or remote teams, or if that's sometimes
the thing or all the thing, or maybe
you're always in the office and there's gonna
(04:16):
be a slightly different approach there.
But the importance of culture does not change
based on your flexibility sort of set up.
I'll tell you that for about eight years,
I put all of my focus every single
day in being involved in every part of
the business as the owner, and we did
(04:37):
okay.
We were fine.
No one ever wrote an article about us.
We never had record-breaking crazy growth, but
we were fine, okay?
And then we had a big recession in
09, and I really realized that we had
to make a big shift.
And finally, the shift that I landed on
was that I needed to focus on our
culture.
That was a decision I made, and I
(04:58):
didn't know if I was right or wrong,
but ultimately what I did is I stopped
focusing on the different parts of the business.
I was no longer getting myself involved in
all those big sales meetings.
I wasn't involved in all the marketing meetings.
I could be involved in those things if
they needed help, but instead, I spent my
time as the owner figuring out how I
(05:20):
could make the culture better.
And I said, you know, I'm gonna do
this for a month.
Let's see what happens.
And that was so good that I was
like, I'm gonna do this for a year,
and let's see what happens.
Until I sold that business at the end
of 2021, I never went back.
And then we had record-breaking years, year
after year after year, Inc.
5000, fastest growing company five times.
(05:42):
All the good things that ever happened to
our organization happened after I stopped trying to
be in the business, right, and allow my
people to do the job that I hired
them for.
Yes, I was there as a resource.
Yes, I was still a part of Conversey.
It wasn't like I was never in the
sales meeting, but I wasn't in it because
I was there to try to like tell
them what to do.
(06:03):
I instead tried to figure out how I
could make, how do I make their lives
easier?
How do I help them protect from burnout?
How do I create better engagement?
How do I fix our meetings?
How do I get rid of people that
are cancer?
How do I help people that don't have
a voice to be heard?
Like, how do I do all of these
things to help?
Basically, the way I like to put it
is like, how do I make work work
(06:23):
for everybody?
And when I did that, everything changed, right?
And so that's the shift that I would
sort of challenge anybody listening to.
It's not necessarily about doing some little program
or spending a little money here or having
a party or whatever.
No, it's about a daily routine of how
do we help our people get better?
I love the way that you lay that
out with even really good examples of what
(06:44):
you kind of worked on during that time.
Because I think that's the thing is, I
think a lot of people look at culture
differently and almost objectively of like what they
think culture means to them.
And if they were just going to own
culture, for example, for a month or for
a year, what they would actually tackle.
So this might be segue into your seven
pillars.
So how did you come up with these
(07:04):
seven pillars?
It seems like you've kind of found a
way to categorize culture and be able to
address it in these different areas.
So how did you come up with that
strategy, with that philosophy?
So it was a combination of things.
I read hundreds of books as I got
kind of fascinated by this.
I did podcast interviews with top leaders from
around the world for 10 years.
And I went to conference after conference after
(07:25):
conference and talked to highly successful people.
I would go and find the speakers who
I thought had really done a business, had
really been out there and were practitioners.
And I would ask them as many questions
as I could until they tried to escape
from me because they had to go off
and do something else.
Trying to just extract as much information as
(07:46):
I could from as many reliable sources as
possible.
And what I noticed pretty early on, and
then I continued to validate and experiment with
this, was that they were all telling me
the same thing.
Now, most people didn't tell me here's seven
things.
They would say, we really focus on this
two or three things.
These are really big questions.
And somebody else would say, we focus on
(08:06):
these two or three and there'd be some
overlap there.
But there was basically seven things that I
kept hearing over and over and over again.
And I put my words to those seven
things, but we noticed that those were the
common themes in the books, common themes in
success stories.
It kept coming up over and over and
over.
It's almost like, how did I come up
(08:27):
with, you should drink water?
I mean, it's just like the thing you
do.
How do you know you're supposed to eat
healthy if you want to be fit?
This is not like, I didn't come up
with something out of thin air.
This was like obvious things that kept coming
back, but no one had articulated it in
this way, had put all seven of these
things down.
And so once we had that, then later
(08:47):
on I began to even take it to
other organizations, do massive studies with them, with
NASA, with lots of organizations to really make
sure this was correct and it wasn't just
correct in my company or correct in what
I was hearing from the people.
But we went back and we've never had
(09:07):
it not test true.
I've never had one of the pillars like,
well, that wasn't that important for this company.
You know, it's always been that seven.
We've never discovered an eighth, right?
I'm waiting for AI to maybe give us
an eighth, but it hasn't happened yet.
It's still just the seven.
Let's dive in a little bit further.
Can you kind of give us a little
bit of sampling of these seven pillars?
(09:28):
Sure.
So the one people usually ask me like,
which one's the most important?
And the most important one is the one
that you're not good at.
It's the one that if I say these
seven and you're like, ooh, it kind of
wins to get uncomfortable when I say that
word, like that's the one you got to
go after.
That's the most important for you.
But the seven are transparency, positive leadership, listening,
(09:48):
uniqueness, measurement.
Then we have mistakes.
How do we deal with mistakes?
And I'm forgetting one.
Did I say listening?
I'm listening.
Yeah, okay.
So transparency, listening, uniqueness, measurement.
And then you also said, I think active
listening.
So the one I missed was recognition, sorry.
Recognition.
Recognition on seven.
(10:09):
And you said that these are the seven
that you always found.
You haven't found more.
You haven't found less than almost any organization
you've helped.
Right.
So give me an idea.
Like when you talk about transparency, like give
me a little bit more insight into that.
Sure.
So here are some of the things that
we did, continue to do in my next
organizations.
And that organizations around the world do really,
really good job with.
(10:29):
In fact, I learned this from Jack Stack.
I guess he's got a great book called
The Great Game of Business.
And it's essentially, how do we provide people
with as much information as we possibly can?
The way in which he did it and
the way in which we did it as
well, it works fantastic.
And this is the one I would suggest
people start with is, can you start sharing
your financial data with all of your employees?
(10:50):
Can you imagine if every single month you
gave everybody your P&L and said, this
is how we did, this is how we
made the money.
This is how we spend the money.
And what would happen to your business?
Now, a lot of people get freaked out,
but like, I don't know if I want
people to know all of that.
They're gonna start asking, we make money, they're
gonna start asking you for raises.
And if we were losing money this month,
they're gonna quit.
That stuff never happens.
(11:11):
Never, ever, ever has happened one time.
I've never, in any organization I've ever worked
with, they started showing the P&L and
they show they're making money a month and
had a line out the door asking for
raises.
So we don't have to give them the
detail.
I understand in some businesses, you may not
want them to know exactly how people are
getting paid and there may be some sensitive
stuff there.
But we just give them the summary, right?
(11:31):
And help them understand how the business works.
We even had to give people like education
on financial literacy.
I mean, there are people who didn't know
how to read a P&L.
I mean, I've hired executives that barely know
how to read a P&L if you
haven't really had any finance training.
So we had to provide training and all
of that.
But what was crazy is that people, how
we were making the money.
And so it helped them make better decisions
(11:53):
on what clients we should be trying to
pull into the organization, with clients we don't
want, right?
When they understood there are certain clients that
are more profitable than others, that really helped
the sales team, that helped the marketing team,
that helped our customer service team.
But the big shock to me was within
a year, we were 30% more profitable
after we started sharing this data.
(12:14):
And the reason for that was that people
started going back and saying, I didn't know
we spent money on that.
I didn't know we had two vendors that
were supplying that same.
Why don't we go get one vendor for
that?
Why don't we go and put all of
that volume into one vendor, get it a
volume discount?
Why are we spending that much on healthcare?
(12:35):
Like my buddy, Tom, he can give us
a better deal on healthcare premiums.
And we would, it just suddenly had all
these ideas and helped us find ways to
save money when they knew how we spent
the money.
And so they naturally want to do well
in their job, I never said, hey, we've
got to have a cost-cutting thing.
(12:56):
I never said we're going to give raises
or bonuses if we find ways to cut.
I just shared the data and they went
and did the work.
That was so powerful.
The second way that you can think about
transparency is I can't tell you how many
times I've talked to middle managers and leaders.
And I say, tell me about your, how
do you manage people?
(13:17):
How does your, how do the goals work?
And basically it's, they're the boss and they
have an employee and they know their employees'
goals and that's it.
Nobody else knows the goals.
I mean, you go up the chain and
they might have access to the goals, but
does the CEO really know what the customer
service rep number two's goals are for the
year?
Probably not.
How does that help?
(13:37):
How does it help if only one other
person in the organization knows what your goals
are and is responsible for helping you achieve
them?
If we have transparency, we shift that and
everyone on your team knows everyone's goals, right?
And now everyone on the team should be
responsible for helping everyone reach their goals.
(13:58):
Isn't that better?
Isn't it only better as a team that
we talk about that as a society all
the time or better as a team, better
as a family, better as a group?
And yet we've been leaving people on an
island to reach their goals by themselves with
their boss.
So transparency shows up when we share that,
we talk about that and we talk about
our goals as a group, as a team,
as this cohesive group that moving forward in
(14:20):
the organization on how we're gonna get there.
And if it's November and I've reached my
goals as the salesperson and I'm gonna kick
it into easy street, I might wanna help
out my other sales person on my team
to help them reach their goals if I
got a little extra time at the end
of the year, right?
We find ways to help people because we
care about them.
And then we would took that and we
had made sure that each department was sharing
(14:43):
its department goals with each other.
Come to find out that like customer service
goals were in competition with sales goals.
That's not good, right?
Our sales goals and marketing goals were in
competition.
So I know I've said this probably the
longest answer you'd ever gotten on your podcast
but that's how kind of transparency shows up.
I can't help but taking a tremendous amount
of notes.
(15:03):
So I hope my quiet typing here is
not distracting everybody but this is just, it's
phenomenal points.
I love everything you're saying.
As a matter of fact, I've actually started
to add stuff to my to-do list
in this as well.
So take your time with the answers because
I think that this is really, really, really
brilliant stuff.
So transparency means a lot in the areas
of everything to do with the company.
(15:25):
Anything that you think that we shouldn't be
transparent on?
I advocate you should go as far as
you can go.
Now there are some organizations that have struggled
with sharing everybody's salaries and pay.
That has been the one area that it
gets a little hard to manage.
So if you wanna go full transparency and
(15:45):
everyone is in the same country, you can
probably do it.
It gets really hard when you have people
around the world.
It's hard to share salary data when we're
not paying someone, let's say in a different
country with wildly different cost of living and
we're not paying them the same as what
we would pay somebody who lives in Los
Angeles.
I've noticed that's where organizations get really knotted
(16:07):
up and it's really hard for them when
they almost regret going that far.
But we did it in my company because
we had everyone in the country.
And so we could share that data.
We could talk about small differences in pay
that might be based on where they live.
Somebody lives in, I got a head of
marketing in Kansas.
They're gonna cost me different than the head
(16:28):
of marketing in Los Angeles.
The different cost of living.
We could talk about those small variances in
a way that made sense and people were
happy and it was fine.
So that's the only area that I really
think, could there be, I don't know, trade
secrets, crazy confidential client data.
If you're working for like the government and
top secret stuff, sure.
(16:48):
There might be some fringe stuff over there
that you can't share with everybody.
But I think 99% of all companies
can share 98% of everything that's going
on.
I love that.
And honestly, this is something I'm gonna adopt
in our organization.
I think it makes a lot of sense.
I've always tried to struggle with how do
I get team members to take ownership of
(17:08):
those things but without making them take ownership.
And this sounds like a real good way
where they voluntarily kind of take some ownership
when they're able to just have the transparency
and see what's actually going on.
Now, if everybody on my team quits, then
I'm gonna come back and talk to you
again.
But I feel confident that, I've actually found
this, this year we've done a lot of
(17:29):
this with our one page plan, our mission,
our vision.
We review it every week.
And it's interesting because to your point, like
when we survey our team members every month,
the satisfaction and the feel that they are
getting communication from their leaders has exponentially increased
with that transparency to your point.
Which actually brings me to another point.
(17:50):
How do you do to do better listen
to those team members?
So it's one thing to give them transparency
but then another one of your pillars is
to listen.
What should we be doing as employers to
be able to better listen to our team
members and our teams?
Yeah, so the first thing we did when
we did the transparency part was to make
sure every single month we had a team
(18:10):
company-wide meeting that was.
And now a quick break to hear from
our sponsor.
Hey, it's Ty Crandall with Credit Suite.
Many of our subscribers wanna build business credit
that's linked to their EIN without a personal
guarantee or credit check.
Now, if you're looking to get no doc,
high limit business credit cards that report to
the business reporting agencies without a personal guarantee
or credit check, give us a call at
(18:31):
877-600-2487.
That's 877-600-2487.
Or schedule your free consultation online to talk
more at creditsuite.com forward slash consult.
That was the only like mandatory meeting I
held every month for the whole company.
And we share the P&L every department.
(18:51):
I mean, this is a 30 minute meeting,
that's it.
Like don't do a two hour, three hour
company-wide.
Nobody wants that, that's torture.
30 minutes, super tight.
Here's our P&L, here's how we're doing.
Every department comes in and says, here's our
goals, here's how we're doing against them.
And when we say we're having a problem,
we're not reaching our goal, we had a
(19:13):
bad month.
Here's what we're gonna do about it.
Here's what change we're gonna make.
That's all people want.
They wanna know what you're gonna do about
it.
They wanna know you've got a plan, right?
That's why they don't leave.
That's why they don't disappear when things get
rocky because they know you showed up and
you filled in the gap, right?
Now to connect that, the second part is
(19:33):
how do we hear from them what they're
concerned about?
How do we know what they want us
to address going forward?
I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate two things
that companies do right now.
First one is the annual review, the annual
survey.
Excuse me, annual survey.
I think it's stupid, I think it's dumb.
I hate it, if I didn't tell you
(19:54):
that, I hate it.
We ask people questions about their job once
a year and then we take all that
data and like try to figure out what
to do with it and then come back
to them with some solutions that we don't
really have.
So I'm a big advocate for how do
we get 1% better?
Like that should be the question we're asking
our people every day, every week, every month
(20:16):
and in every meeting.
How do we get 1% better?
Not how do we change, how do we
double our sales?
Not how do we like, because people, most
people can't think in those terms.
We have some really good strategic leaders, maybe
some very experienced people that can.
Most of our people can only really help
us in making small incremental tweaks that can
(20:38):
help or they can get behind the idea
of how do I get 1% better?
And to do that, we have to start
pulling out of them content.
So to listen, the best way that you
can try to listen to your people is
to get rid of the annual survey and
instead reverse engineer it into a weekly one
question survey.
(20:59):
Every week, one question.
So what you do, on Wednesday, you send
out the question and then you tell them
I need the results back by Friday.
And then by the following Tuesday, you need
to have sent them an email or whatever,
however you communicate.
This is what I heard, this is what
I'm gonna do about it.
(21:20):
And then you could ask your next question
on Wednesday and you actually do something with
the information.
And then on that company-wide meeting, you
bring up those four or five questions that
you asked during the month and remind everybody,
this is what we heard on these, this
is what we've done, this is our progress
report, how we have improved it.
We ask things like, how am I as
(21:40):
the CEO getting in your way?
Who in the organization is killing it right
now?
Who should we be recognizing?
Like who are we not realizing is really
doing well?
What client is driving crazy?
What resources do you not have?
Like what product or what service should we
be offering our clients that we haven't thought
of?
Like you start asking them these things, right?
(22:02):
And I wouldn't start with big, giant, hard,
hard questions to start, get them warmed up,
get them going.
But you'll be shocked that once they start
seeing that they tell you something, that you
actually do something and that you don't turn
it into a, well, I wanna know who
said that and I don't like being criticized.
You're not defensive and you're not upset by
(22:22):
the answers that you are willing to take
whatever it is they say and figure out
how to make it better, right?
That routine, I had, we asked about 48
questions a year.
So we only missed about four or five
times a month, a year did we miss
a week.
And I had about a 95% response
rate because people knew that I actually read
(22:43):
the answers.
I actually did something with the information, right?
And things actually got better for them when
they, or got better for other people in
the organization based on them letting me know
what was going on.
Chris, the power of company culture and remote
work is your book, right?
Where is that at?
Is that on Amazon?
Yeah, Amazon or wherever you buy books online,
you can find both those books, yeah.
(23:03):
Okay, for those watching, literally, I mean, this
is, I don't know if you're aware of
how good this is.
Like there's so many actionable steps I've already
actually tracked here while we're doing this interview.
And I can tell you that before we
are done, I will go and get this
book as well and you should as well.
It's called The Power of Company Culture and
Remote Work.
You can get it on Amazon.
I'm actually gonna show you.
(23:24):
I'm gonna purchase this thing right now during
this interview.
And I'll actually even show it to you.
I did, and I suggest you do the
same thing because we're just like, we're not
even a fraction of the two pillars.
We just touched upon two of the pillars
and there's so much actionable info.
So I hope you're recognizing this for what
it is.
Great feedback.
I love every bit of that because that
is just so brilliant.
(23:45):
And that's the thing is I think that
we're, as leaders, we're so close to what's
going on that sometimes we just miss obvious
stuff.
We just don't know how to solve problems
or move forward.
But our team members oftentimes do, but they
stay quiet about it.
So I really love the transparency piece and
I love this one question approach well.
And then this is something that we started
to do too is to show them that
(24:05):
we're gonna take action on those items because
when they see, wait a second, my opinion
matters and then I'm putting a suggestion out
there and they're taking these suggestions, then that's
what I think gets you to that 90,
95% response rate.
So just loving every minute of this.
So that being said, uniqueness.
I thought that was interesting because when you
mentioned this uniqueness pillar, I don't know what
that means.
And I'm interested in you kind of doing
(24:27):
a deeper dive and explain that a little
bit more.
Yeah, so the uniqueness pillar kind of covers
a lot of different areas for companies.
So let's start with the obvious.
You had better be able to demonstrate, articulate
and talk about what makes your company unique
in the marketplace, right?
So that's the marketing part.
Like, can you come in and talk about
what you do?
I give the silly example in the book
(24:48):
of like, if you sold those yellow pencils
that we used in school to take tests,
like how could you possibly articulate what makes
you unique if you sold the same yellow
pencil that everyone else sold, right?
But there are ways to do it, are
ways to think about it.
It's a little exercise in the book on
how to do that.
So that's the first part.
Can we show up uniquely in the marketplace
and with a vision, with the wording, with
(25:10):
the backing and all of that.
But then we talk about how do we
think about our people as unique?
As human beings, it's sort of a cognitive
bias for us.
It's kind of a thing that we do.
We wanna think about how people are similar
to us, right?
This is how biases and different things creep
(25:31):
into the hiring process.
Cause we tend to wanna hire people like
us, hire people who we like, hire people
who like what we like, hire people that
we wanna go have a beer with after
work.
If you're a Red Sox fan, you hire
someone who's a Red Sox fan.
If you went to University of Alabama, you're
hiring people from University of Alabama.
It's really interesting how we were trying to
(25:53):
connect with other human beings.
And the ultimate way of doing is hiring
people who have a lot of the same
thought processes and experiences and things that we
have.
And the reason that ends up being bad
over time is that we lose out on
diversity of thought, okay?
So I never asked my organization to go
(26:13):
and hire in any particular way or to
hire certain kinds of people or not other
people.
We focused on how do we have diversity
of thought?
And the only way we could do that
was by getting really curious about what made
people unique and what made them different.
What did they think differently than the people
we already had?
I love to use as a great example
(26:33):
from the book, we took at every thousands
of our employees take the StrengthsFinders assessment that
you can go, Gallup's got it, so five
strengths.
If you haven't done it, go do it.
It's awesome because it kind of helps you
really figure out who you are and like
how to show up at work based on
what you're good at.
But we took all of their data and
(26:53):
we mapped it out on a giant Excel
sheet.
And what was shocking to me was how
by department, everyone in that department all had
like the same top two or three strengths,
which was really weird.
But also we had massive gaps on that
sheet where we had, I had thousands of
employees and we had a strength.
One of them was like analytical.
(27:14):
We didn't have a single employee who was
analytical as our top five.
Like we had, and we had other ones
where there was almost no data points, right?
So I had absolute crazy amounts of responsibility
and professionalism and ideation.
I had the great strengths, but like other
ones where there was nothing.
And so all I did was tell all
of my hiring, all my leaders, I said,
listen, because I always did like the final,
(27:37):
final interview for people.
I said, don't send me anybody unless they
have in their top five strengths, one of
the strengths that we're missing, that we're really
low on.
That was it.
That was my only requirement of them.
And so they had new hires fill, or
new applicants fill those out.
The kind of person that started showing up
(27:58):
to those interviews was so different.
I started hearing different ideas.
I started seeing different types of people, right?
Because now no longer was my hiring leaders
sort of connecting on these very superficial things.
They were getting more interested in what the
quality of that person could be.
And that really helped us kind of grow
(28:19):
the organization as we continue to get bigger,
to have more types of different types of
thinkers.
Because this is where organizations start to stall.
They start to do well, they start to
get big.
And then all of a sudden you just
have a whole boardroom full of people, or
a whole team full of people that all
think exactly the same.
And when prep hits the fan and you
need a great idea, and all 10 people
(28:41):
sitting in that conference room have the same
idea, you're in trouble, right?
So uniqueness really helps us figure out and
make sure we're tuned into this idea that
we need diversity of thought.
We need to think about how do we
position our companies in unique ways.
We need to celebrate what makes us unique,
celebrate our people for what makes them unique,
(29:01):
not what makes us the same.
And that is my, and I think what
I've seen the best organizations do, actual solution
to this idea of how do we provide,
how do we create an organization that is
diverse?
How do we create an organization that is
equitable for people without, I think some of
these like really difficult and honestly haven't really
(29:23):
worked very well policies, well-intended policies from
some larger organizations.
How do we actually approach this in a
meaningful way that's good for everybody?
Chris, powerful, powerful stuff today.
And I like the approach of uniqueness both
as the uniqueness of the company to the
team member, but then the uniqueness of each
team member and what makes them different and
(29:44):
then putting together different people to be able
to create contrast, to be able to create
different perspectives of looking at the exact same
problem and producing solutions, every bit of that.
So we are maybe, we've only scratched the
surface on three of your seven and we're
at 30 minutes.
I mean, we're.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.