July 19, 2025 • 43 mins
Episode 120 From Disney Magic to Startup Momentum: Diane Yarborough on Building Teams That Thrive Frederick Dudek (Freddy D) Copyright 2025 Prosperous Ventures, LLC
Diane Yarborough, the mastermind behind Castaway and Company, is here to share her insights on creating contagious cultures within organizations. With over 20 years of experience at Disney, Diane dives deep into how organizations can reshape their employee experiences to gain a competitive edge.
She emphasizes the importance of building cultures that not only engage employees but also promote leadership that inspires and retains talent. We discuss how the little things, like recognition and empowerment, can lead to significant cultural shifts within a company. Get ready to unpack actionable strategies for cultivating an environment where employees thrive, as we explore the essence of bringing good vibes and solid practices to the workplace.
Discover more with our detailed show notes and exclusive content by visiting: https://bit.ly/4eUsar8
Kindly Consider Supporting Our Show: Support Business Superfans
This podcast is hosted by Captivate, try it yourself for free.
The discussion with Diane Yarborough underscores the critical role of leadership in fostering a contagious culture within organizations. Drawing parallels from her tenure at Disney, she illustrates how effective leadership can empower employees, creating an environment where they feel valued and motivated. Diane articulates the three-legged stool concept that focuses on balancing employee satisfaction, guest experience, and business growth.
The episode takes a serious tone, as she highlights the pitfalls organizations face when they neglect the well-being of their employees, asserting that a toxic culture can lead to high turnover and loss of talent. By sharing her experiences and insights, Diane equips listeners with actionable strategies to enhance their workplace culture, illustrating how small changes can lead to significant positive impacts on employee retention and organizational success.
Takeaways:
- Diane Yarborough emphasizes the importance of creating contagious cultures that drive employee engagement and satisfaction, which ultimately leads to business success.
- The conversation underlines that effective leadership involves empowering employees and fostering an environment where they can make decisions and feel valued.
- Recognition plays a crucial role in employee morale; recognizing team members publicly can elevate their performance and encourage a positive workplace vibe.
- Diane shares insights from her Disney experience, highlighting how a strong focus on employee well-being leads to exceptional customer interactions and loyalty.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Castaway and Company
- Disney
- Disney World
- Disney Cruise Line
- Margaritaville
- Disney stores
- Virgin Voyages
Mentioned in this episode:
Ninja Prospecting
This episode is brought to you by Ninja Prospecting, the outreach team that make cold connections feel warm and real. If you're tired of spammy dms and generic LinkedIn...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(01:45):
Hey, superfan superstarFreddie D. Here in this episode 120,
we're joined by DianeYarborough, the visionary behind
Castaway and Company and apowerhouse in the world of culture
driven leadership. With over20 years of Disney experience under
her belt, Diane now helpsorganizations rethink, re, recruit
(02:06):
and retrain, transformingemployee experience into a true competitive
edge. She's on a mission tobuild contagious cultures and contagious
leaders, all while guidingteams to unlock performance, purpose
and profit. Whether she'sworking with executives or leading
Dream Discovery workshopsacross the country, Diane is all
(02:29):
about helping people andorganizations thrive. Get ready for
an energized conversation onhow to design a culture that lasts
from the inside out. Welcome,Diane, to the Business Superfans
podcast. We're excited to haveyou here and get into a deep dive
of what it is about yourcontagious culture that you talk
(02:50):
about.
Wonderful. I'm glad to behere. Can't wait to tell you all
about it.
So, Diane, let's go back atthe beginning and what's the backstory
of how did Castaway andCompany come about? And you have
on your website that one ofthe things that you do is create
contagious cultures indifferent companies. So let's get
into that.
(03:12):
Absolutely. Castaway andCompany was founded probably 12 years
ago. Officially. I had workedfor corporate America and spent a
good chunk of 20 years atDisney World and Disney in Orlando.
My teeth were chopped onbusiness and leadership through that
Disney culture and the workthat we were doing in Orlando to
(03:33):
bring Disney through theresort era when we were growing immensely
in their guest space. I had anumber of roles or positions that
we call them in the realworld. My roles at Disney ran from
operations to human resourcesto training and development to campus
(03:54):
recruiting leadership. Ifinally left the company in 2006
as a team leader in theircampus recruiting office. I sprung
board into a new city, newtown in Charlotte, N.C. started to
find out what working in thereal world learned very quickly that
not everybody does what I wasused to doing at Disney. And so I
(04:18):
automatically saw a vastdifference between the culture that
I grew up in and the corporatecultures that I was now working within
and faced a lot of disparitiesand anomalies in what I was used
to seeing and the successesthat we found in running one of the
largest single side employersin the country with at my point,
(04:41):
65,000 cast members, which hasgrown substantially. The way we were
able to do that and theecosystem that we created at Disney,
I did not find anywhere else.So I realized I needed to do it myself.
I found that organizationswere probably 20 years behind where
we were in reference to theiremployee and personnel structures,
(05:05):
their processes, theirinitiatives, and specifically employee
related processes. Soperformance management, talent development,
employee engagement, andreally just resource utilization.
And the focus that we reallyput on our cast as much as we put
on our guest and our business.So we refer to it as a three legged
(05:29):
stool. But if you don't havethe focus on all three equally, there
will be some challenges. So Irealized coming out of Disney, coming
into corporate America, thatit was going to take me a really
long time to convince someleaders who are working with some
of the roles that I wasworking with, some of our senior
(05:49):
executives who had planted andtrying to reshape culture. I was
not in the right roles toenable myself to come up to the right
levels. After a couple yearsand a couple organizations where
I kept seeing the sameproblems over and over again, I decided
I needed to go out on my own,maybe work with some other organizations
(06:11):
who would be willing to bemore nimble, maybe organizations
who were open to change andhad such a passion as well for the
employee experience, successin passion for that type of culture.
So Castaway started because ofsome work I did at Disney Cruise
(06:36):
Line. After being an HRmanager for the start of the Disney
ships. Magic and wonderful. Iwas on Castaway Cay for six months,
opening up our private island,hiring all the local crew.
It's a wonderful story becausereally at the end of the day, the
(06:56):
crew is the interactionbetween all your customers. So that's
the front line. And one of thethings that I think businesses overlook
is they don't put enoughemphasis on really taking care of
the front line. The peoplethat are engaging with the customers,
the people are engaging withthe suppliers, the people that are
(07:19):
engaging with thedistributors, the people engaging
with complementary businesses.And really the brand is its people.
At the end of the day, logo isone thing that's wonderful. The letterhead
looks cool. But at the end ofthe day, the brand is the people.
The interaction, thecommunication, that energy. Because
(07:40):
you can't fake it. You've gota situation where an organization
is running flat. That tonalitycomes across, it even comes across
in emails because you can lookat the choice of words that people
utilize. And I've gone toDisney in Orlando, I've been to Disney
in California, and I've beenin Disney in Paris. And one of the
(08:02):
things that I noticed is thatit was exactly the same. The energy
was the same, the people werethe same, even though they were multicultural
people. But the bottom linewas the experience was pretty much
the same.
Right. And that takestraining, but you have to be able
to. For me, I think aboutestablishing the culture. So when
(08:25):
I think about shapingcontagious cultures, those are cultures
that people want to emulate,and those are cultures that people
gravitate to. And I think Iwas spoiled. Not everybody got to
spend 20 years in a culturelike that. And it's just our language.
It's how we speak, it's whatwe do. But it's very intentional.
(08:48):
That culture is veryintentional. And there's many millions
of organizations and peopleout there telling you what Disney
does and how they do it. Andevery ex Disney cast member is out
there talking about it becauseit is something that organizations
still stumble with. For us, itwas so basic that we just knew how
(09:11):
to invest in our people theright way. We knew how to interview
and hire the right people. Wewould know how to recognize potential.
And to your point, I can'ttrain attitude. I can't train that.
So attitude is something thatwe look for right away in our casting
offices and all the way downthe line. But it's also, for me,
(09:33):
it's the entire life cycle ofthe total experience. And it's not
just hiring and training. It'srecognition of rewards. And to your
point, it's communication. Howdo we speak to our cast? And how
do you speak about our cast?And then all the way to the very
end. So how are we handling itwhen we have poor performers? How
(09:54):
are we off boarding our cast?How are we handling sunsetting someone's
retirement or behaviorproblems? So it all of you, all the
people who are listening, I'msure, have a number of situations
in their work life that causethem some concern. And it might be
personnel related. Um, butI'll be the first to say that it's
(10:16):
a leadership issue, probably,and it has to do with your culture.
In most employee situations.Have to do with culture or leadership.
Totally agree. Totally agree.And one of the quotes in my book
called Creating BusinessSuperfans is people will crawl through
broken glass for appreciationand recognition. And unfortunately,
(10:37):
we don't give it enough. Andsame thing with gratitude, expressing
gratitude. It's one of thethings I've seen and learned over
the years is it's one thing tosay, hey, Diana, I really appreciate
the effort that you did onthis particular project. Grateful
for the time that you put in.You feel terrific. But now if I turn
around and says, hey,everybody, I want to take a moment
(11:00):
to recognize Diana for hergoing above and beyond on that project.
Now you feel like a rock starbecause in front of your peers, you're
recognized. Your peers say,wow, that's pretty cool. So everybody
levels up their game becausethey want to be that person that
gets recognized. And thatwhole energy becomes contagious versus,
(11:21):
versus not doing it right. Andit's expected. And the mindset is
you're just doing your job right.
Yeah, it's definitely amindset in our leaders who want to
do that. And rewards andrecognition look different for everybody.
We know. But at the end of theday, is there a process with which
(11:41):
they do that? And then I thinkabout basic communication. What are
their mechanisms to sharethose? Sometimes public and private
is fine. But I look at theabilities for employees to have opportunities
for growth, to be contagiousas a culture employees will want
to stay. That reallyultimately, is to retain your employees,
(12:04):
to create a culture so thatemployees don't want to leave, so
that you don't have to be theemployee of choice on some award
and have some plaque hangingyour wall. You need to be a place
where employees want to comeand where they want to stay. Because
nothing's worse than losinggreat people. And I think, to your
point, just as muchrecognition people will follow a
(12:26):
good leader anywhere. If youhave great employees who honor and
value and you inspire andmotivate, those people will follow
you to the ends of the earthand will stay even through those
tough times, even throughthose challenging times, even when
they may get asked to gettheir pay cut by 15% just to keep
(12:46):
them. The leaders who havegreat leaders keep great employees.
And so that's the other pieceof what we do at Castaway, is I want
to shape great leaders, growgreat leaders, and understand what
great leadership looks like.Not just leadership. There's a million
leadership books out there. Weall should be great leaders by now.
But shaping young and aspiringleadership and then retaining our
(13:11):
leaders, not just retainingeverybody. We have to retain the
leaders that we love that aredoing their jobs. So I think about
leadership as anchor for greatculture. For sure. It's like the
captain of the ship, right?
And to emphasize the pointthat you made, Hannah, is really,
when you create a kind of aculture, I use a different term,
(13:32):
is you create super fanswithin that organization. And when
you've got super fans of yourteam, the team may be super fans
of their leader. Okay? Andthen that's transcends to everybody
they're talking to, becausethey're talking to their friends.
They're talking to family man.I love my job. What a great company.
(13:54):
And that word of mouth, youcan't buy that kind of pr.
Right.
And that carries on and on.And now you've got these people that
are championing the brand. Asa super fan.
Right.
That is completely gamechanging for that business.
Yeah. And that's where I thinkI say your culture is your brand.
(14:14):
Right. So your culture willspeak to people before they even
homework for you. Right.What's the word on the street about
your organization? What arepeople saying about you? Hopefully
it's the right stuff andhopefully you're being fairly represented
before people even want tocome learn about you. So I say recruiting
starts way before you put aposting out somewhere on. Indeed,
(14:38):
you have a reputation now thatcould break or make you. And so how
are you handling that? Right.
Yeah. The street talk. I had aguest on an earlier podcast episode
and he talked about therelationship he built with a particular
supplier. They get togetherfor lunch every now and recognize
them on their birthdays andstuff like that. When the pandemic
(15:02):
hit and everybody's goinghome, he needed 500 laptops like
immediately. And everybody wasgoing to this particular supplier
for laptops right away. Guesswho got his laptops?
The relationship. Right, his relationship.
So that was his relationship.He got his laptops before anybody
(15:22):
else.
Yeah. I always say this. Oursenior vice president of HR became
the president of Disney World.So she was well revered in the organization.
Our executives used to give aleadership series and she used to
come speak to young leaders,basically sharing her top 20 things
she would do differently. Andone of them was that she says you
(15:43):
sell and market yourself everyday and how you speak and what you
say. And you don't have to bein sales and marketing just to know
that. So that was one of myfavorite things that she said, is
it doesn't matter what roleyou're in and whatever you're trying
to do, you're always trying tosell yourself or sell something about
yourself every day tosomebody. And that is also leadership
in how are you selling, whoare you and what you're about to
(16:06):
your peers, your bosses inyour team every day. You walk into
work every day wanting to winthem over.
Yeah. It's all aboutempowering people. You look at Sir
Richard Branson, I always usethis example, but you don't see him
cleaning the windshield of hisairplanes or making sure that the
gas is topped off. He's busyplaying flight attendant, engaging
(16:28):
with the customers. Same thingon Virgin Voyages. He's not piloting
the ship. He's not making surethat the food is all prepared correctly.
He's not having blast with thecustomers. That's right. The thing
I want to really emphasize isgood leaders empower their teams
to become responsible and theycan make the decisions and they can
(16:52):
do the things that they needto do and don't have to run a mom
or dad to ask for permission.Do what they need to do and most
of the time they'll make theright decision.
And we had probably 20,000cast members that were empowered
to do that. When they wereinteracting with their guests day
by day. The managers weren'tthe ones talking to these guests
(17:13):
who traveled 500 miles, hadfour airplane flights, had three
kids hungry, screaming, tired,wanting to just get at to Disney.
Showed up at seven o' clock atnight, were exhausted and they lost
their luggage. And I, as acast member at the front desk could
do something. I was empoweredto handle that. So if I needed to
(17:33):
give them a free voucher fordinner, or if I needed to take the
little kids and make sure thatthey had free ice cream cones around
the corner, I was empowered.And that was part of our culture,
was that we, even as the lowlynon salaried cast members, were empowered
because we were. The mostimportant interaction was between
the customer and us. Themanagers couldn't handle 20 chicken
(17:56):
stations at the contemporaryfront desk. But I think empowerment
was a big one. But I alsothink to your point, I think those
leaders were role modeling.Right. So they were talking to those
customers, but they were rolemodeling to the other employees.
Correct.
What it looks like, somepeople need to see it, some people
need to hear about it. And Ithink watching it and then calling
(18:19):
it out, and I think the wordintentionality, being intentional
about the fact that we explainthat this is how you handle it. We
would have like 700 check insat one day for a busy convention
group. And our leaders wereout in the lines in the lobby talking
to the customers, making sureour guests knew we were going as
(18:39):
fast as we could. But theywent to the back hiding. They weren't
in their offices, they wereout amongst the masses where the
majority of the business wasthat day. So I watched that as a
young leader, I was payingattention. And I remember from 1992
where like 700 check ins ofbusiness was that day. Things we
(19:00):
remember as we grow in our leadership.
Sure. And the other thing thatI want to reemphasize is that you
were empowered to make, youknow, little things. One of my sayings
is the little things arereally the big things. And give kids
a free ice cream cone is alittle thing, but to that kid, that's
a monster sized thing.
(19:21):
Yes, yes.
You know, so those. That'swhere he's got good leadership is
they recognize that the littlethings are really the big things.
And those are what people will remember.
Right, right, right. And theother thing I'm working with, I try
and think about for some ofthe work I do with my current clients
and the work I do for thisMargaritaville internship I run is
(19:43):
emulating a lot of things, butone of them is emulating the customer
component and making sure thatstuff like kids used to knock their
ice cream cones off. Theycould get so excited. They get these
ice cream cones and then onthe street, so you go back and get
another one. And that'sunheard of. You don't just get a
free ice cream because youdrop something. So we emulate that.
(20:04):
And a lot of the leaders fromDisney are in Margaritaville now.
So they take some of thoseprocesses and some of that culture
work and have built it intosome of the language and culture
inside Margaritaville. Sonaturally, it's a language I'm used
to seeing. Same thing. I usedto work with the Disney stores and
same thing. So customers,guests, products, show. The element
(20:25):
of show is big. It's one ofour quality standards was this element
of look. People pay attentionto how things look. Cleanliness,
cobwebs, the little thingsthat you see. The Disney scoop we
used to call it was we wereall trained to pick up trash. So
basically everyone at Disneywas a custodial cast member. Anywhere
(20:47):
you go, if you see trash onproperty, it's your responsibility
to pick it up. And that'ssomething you don't see. Maybe that
mindset is not the same inother organizations. I've never seen
it in any organization I'veworked in since then.
Wow. Speaking oforganizations, can you share a story
(21:08):
of an organization that you'vestepped into in and created a contagious
culture from a toxic culturethat they were in when you walked
in and when you walked out,they were transformed.
I'm actually still working onone now. We're not completely done
yet, but there's a. And Iwouldn't say it was a toxic culture.
(21:28):
People don't know what theydon't know sometimes. And so part
of my practitioner process isto go in and assess where some of
the culture may be off. And soit's an organization here in North
Carolina and it's a smallnonprofit. So again, I'm used to
(21:49):
20s of 1000s of people andthis maybe had 15 employees tops.
But we went in, identifiedsome key low hanging fruit in basic
communications. Setting upweekly meetings so people know what's
expected of them one on onesto make sure that the leaders were
(22:12):
meeting and sharing with theirteams at least once every two weeks.
Just from what's happening.Setting up some, I think very basics.
So communications was rough.The executive director had not been
in an operations leadershipposition. They were taking the reins
back for the first time aftera while. And so it was really working
(22:38):
with that leader to establishfor her some standards of operating
business. In reference todiscussions, these are the three
things you should always havediscussions with your employees about.
Where are we on basic employeeperformance management? Yearly raises,
(22:59):
compensation structures.People were just willy nilly giving
raises when they felt likethey needed it. We just really understand
that there's a process andsome more structure so that the employees
that are there know what'sexpected of them and have an employee
policy handbook and know therules. So really had to go in and
(23:20):
set up almost the entireemployee structure or re establish
architect, re establish it. Wehad to rebuild it from all things
comp and benefits to allthings employee policy to basic communications
to leadership practices. Eventhe small companies need structured
right? It doesn't matter howbig you are, employees need clarity
(23:44):
and communication andeffective policies to make sure they
know what's expected of them.And then the managers need training
on how to then manage thoseprocesses and policies. So that's
one piece that we have seensignificant changes in all sides
and everything from how theemployees feel valued enough to be
(24:07):
communicated to and how theirstructures are in place to ensure
that they have a place and atime to communicate their concerns
with their leader. All the wayto establishing a strong, timely
compensation and performancemanagement process. Those are the
kind of fun stuff I love to doto make sure that there is a process
(24:29):
without a process. Right. Ifyou don't stand for something, you're
going to fall for anything. Sowe put in place of some things that
they had to stand for.
And so you've positioned themfor streamlining their operations.
Right?
Because now everybody'scommunicating and knows their objectives,
knows the goals of thecompany. You know, it's like a racing,
(24:50):
right? Because it's like aracing rowing team. Everybody has
one oar and getting everybodyinto the boat, everybody in synchronization
of that racing boat. Soeverybody's rowing at the exact same
time because if you're off theboat's not going any Place. It's
not even going in a circle.
(25:11):
Right.
Like this.
Right.
And so what you're doing isyou put that whole organization into
an organized setup so that therowing team can start rowing together.
And now you're working ongetting them synchronized. And once
that happens, that boat just.
Slips through the water.
Slides through the water. Exactly.
(25:33):
But, like, we had to put theoars on the boat. Like, we had to
find new oars, and so the oarsneeded to be replaced. And so it's
a great analogy because youneed to make sure the boat works
and that you need to make sureyou have the right oars, and then
you got to make sure you havethe right people in the right seat.
So it's a great analogy to a business.
Yeah. Because once you getthat operating, it flies.
(25:55):
Yeah, yeah.
And everybody's energizedbecause everybody's energizing. They
know the goal, and that's.Companies got to know where they're
heading. Otherwise, they'rejust in business. And we've both
seen them where they're inbusiness. And what's your goal? To
make money. Yeah. That's wonderful.
Here's $2.
(26:16):
Right. Exactly.
Go away. Yeah, I think that'sa great point. I don't know if a
lot of people understand whythey're in. There's this whole Simon
Sinek y thing, but makingmoney is one thing, but this is your
passion. People startedbusiness because they're passionate
about something, not justmaking money, but there's that thing
(26:37):
that they're passionate about.And I don't know if everyone really
understands that their passionneeds to then be set up in a such
that they're able to motivateand inspire the people they're hiring
to get them on their same orpassion. Because no man's an island.
You can't do it by yourself.And those of us who are out here
(26:57):
doing it with a limited staffknow that the boat works a lot better
when there's more people inthe boat with you.
And on the same page, that'sthe. Really. The bottom line is they
got to be on the same page.Like you just mentioned, they got
to be passionate about whatthe goals are of company because
that's transformative. Nowyou've got everybody going at their.
(27:21):
They know what the mission is.I've recently worked with a company,
and we grew by a milliondollars in a year because we set
up a mission, the goal.Everybody was passionate about what
they were doing, and wecreated super fans internally, and
we still had some internalissues. They don't go away just like
that. They take work and ittakes a skill. And that was some
(27:43):
areas I needed to work on todeal with some of the confrontations
or become transparent areas.Sometimes it's not as easy as you
think. You can sit down withpeople and talk about different personality
types and how people stillinteract, but they're still in their
own mind. An individual'sperception is their own reality.
Right or wrong, it is. That'sthe reality. And you got to deal
(28:03):
with it. You got to respect that.
That's what I call it,shaping. Right. We're constantly
remolding and reshapingpeople's mindset or people's thinking.
At the end of the day, peoplehave jobs. We have to work. The people
that we employ have to stilldo the things that we need them to
do. While they may not jump upand down every five minutes, we need
(28:25):
them to find some joy in itand to be content in a way that they,
again, retention. They staylonger than five minutes. And everybody
who knows how to hire andrehire, it's not easy.
The cost is enormous becauseyou onboard somebody, you spend time
training them and you do apoor job of managing them and setting
(28:46):
expectations. So they last 90days and said, this isn't for me.
I'm out of here. So now you'vegot to hire somebody else. You forget
someone's got to train them,and training them isn't doing what
they need to be doing becauseit's a snowball. You're losing productivity.
You've got onboarding costs,you've got training costs, you've
got marketing costs to attractthe people. The amount of money is
(29:09):
just ridiculous that you'rewasting. Had you just done a better
job of working with the team.
No one's thinking about thefact that employee came in for 90
days and left and is nowtalking about you.
That's back to what we talkedabout at the beginning. That's the
word on the street.
That's the PR piece. Soeveryone really should spend better
(29:29):
time hiring the right personso that in 90 days you don't have
that happen and almostanticipate the fact that in 90 days
this person could leave. Sowhat could you do on the front end
to ensure that they're theright hire? And so maybe it's going
in and doing a culture fit aspart of your interview process is
(29:50):
you go in and have them meetthe team and you see how that works.
That can be a part of theinterview process as well. I think
people think I hire I bringthem in, I train them. But what's
your interview process lookinglike and do you have the right people
interviewing them? I've beenin corporate recruiting, I've worked
with staffing firms. So it's abig deal is the acquisition of the
(30:10):
person is something I thinkpeople just leave to technology and
they hope that indeed or ziprecruiter hires and finds their right
resume. But I've read resumesfor 20 years and they are still scary.
Resumes are just still so verynot done well. We're still not doing
good resumes and people aren'tlooking at the resume enough to pull
(30:34):
the right question out to askthe right question at the interview.
So I feel like that processjust gets skimmed over because they
just want someone. They justwant someone.
We gotta fill that spot.
I'll train them, we'll figureit out. That two weeks prior to first
90 days could be so muchbetter if we focused on that first
(30:58):
part.
And you bring up an importantpoint, Dan, that I want to really
reemphasize is having the newcandidate meet with fellow team members.
Because that's how you'regoing to find out whether there's
chemistry or not. And you'regoing to get different feedback and
a different perspectivebecause it might be that these two
might be co workers. And ifthe vibe isn't there, that's a telltale
(31:23):
sign right off the bat and youcan't force it. And if that person
says they're okay, but I'm notsure, I'm not sure you need to say
okay, maybe that's not theright candidate. We need to keep
looking, work it.
Out or include some of theirpeers in the panel interview process
(31:43):
and let them interview themand ask them questions. And because
we're quick to judge peoplethese days, give them a chance to
be part of the process. Sothere's a lot of things yes, we can
do. But again, I think a lotof people rely on if there's a corporate
recruiter, is the recruiterdoing their job? Are they picking
the best candidates? It's allover the gamut from acquisition to
(32:05):
offboarding. There's a varietyof ways that we could just get smarter
and better about every step ofthe process to ensure we have a nice
long lived employee with wholoves their employee experience.
So if the company doesn't havereally great initiatives going on
for their employees, thatmight be an area that we focus on.
(32:28):
So I call it a culture scan.Part of my assessment is what part
of this process needs the mostattention right now And So sometimes
to your point, it'srecognition and rewards, sometimes
it's onboarding and training.And then a lot of times it could
be it's offboarding. We neveroff board. Right. I feel like that's
a gap right now. We spend somuch time on the onboarding, but
(32:50):
we don't take time to realizethat people don't work at a job 30
years anymore. And so theycould come back. Right. There's a
revolving door at the end. Sothose employees could come back to
you in a year. When yourstaffing levels rise, situations
change. And so how are we offboarding to make sure that we keep
(33:10):
that door open just in case onboth sides?
Sure. And that goes back tothe word on the street. It goes back
to what the word on the streetis. And because if the off boarding
is abrupt.
Right.
That's not going to be goodpr, that's not going to be a super
fan.
At the end of the day, I thinkthe big piece of all of this also
is staffing your hr or if youdon't have hr, who does this? And
(33:37):
making sure that your HRteams, if there's one HR for an entire
company, is that person reallyset up to do everything that we need
them to do successfully or isit you don't have an HR person because
maybe the leader's doing thatand that's a facet of the work I
do. Also, sometimes you justneed a fractional HR person who can
(33:58):
just help manage some of thatbecause not everybody can staff that
function and they're notstaffing it. There really should
be one HR person for every 80to 100 people. Do you have labor
resources in the HR functionenough to do everything that needs
to get done as really who elsewill do it?
(34:18):
Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Spoton. That's one of the things that
when I took over that onecompany, that's what we did is we
hired an outside HR company tocome in and help organized place.
And everybody knew what wasthe expectations, what was the compensations,
days off and all that stuff.And there's still flexibility because
you got to be flexible. Life happens.
(34:40):
Right.
And you got to beaccommodating. And there's companies
that miss that by like agalaxy that it's like, sorry, this
is the days and this is whatyou got to do and you got to stick
with it. It's like, rememberat the end of the day, I thought
we're all human beings.
Right.
And things happen and you gotto be accommodating. And that's how
(35:01):
you Create super fans. Becauseyou're going to say, wow, my aunt
Lucille was sick and they letme go visit her for the day and I
got paid for it. Anyway,that's how you create a super fan
again. It goes back. That's alittle thing that costs you small
money.
Right.
But it's you employee.
That word of mouth. Right. Andthat word of mouth in that PR will
(35:24):
do so much better for you.Right. We don't see the forest through
the trees. And I think one ofthe big things, the concept of these
short term decisions with thelong term impacts. Some people are
so short sighted in the waythey make their decisions that they
don't think about thedownstream impacts of that one decision
and how it's going toreverberate into hey, did you hear
that? They asked. Her aunt wasin the hospital, she couldn't get
(35:46):
off work. And so it goes.
That becomes toxic in acompany culture because that word
will go through that companyjust like that's faster and likewise.
Wow, they didn't let her off.This is a great company. And then
they're going to tell theirfriends and family so and so got
off and got paid to go see soand so. And then that can go either
(36:10):
way. And the better way is thepositive. Right.
What's the big deal? I thinkwe, we all get so high and mighty
sometimes with our must do,must follow, you know, task, task,
task, task, task, money,money, money, money, money. They
forget that we're human beingsthat have luckily Covid taught us,
I think a lot of that. Theycouldn't deny it. There's no way
(36:33):
around it. I rememberthinking, Gosh, it was 20 years ago.
The thought of a remoteemployee. Could you imagine? Only
the lucky people couldtelework. Now that has shifted. That
paradigm has shifted. And so Iknow everyone's still trying to figure
it out.
Yeah. Back in 95, we had ashared executive suites. I was in
(36:55):
a software space and theInternet was just popping up and
the company being in asoftware kind of forefront of everything.
They said we don't really needthe office anymore. We shut down
our executive suites and westarted working in 95, 96. I was
working remotely.
Wow, you were one of the lucky ones.
(37:17):
Yeah, it was in the earlydays. That was the early adoption
of it.
But the culture, but we hearnow, and those leaders who made that
decision realized that theycould trust that you were going to
get your work done. They hadset the culture for accountability
and leadership to say, I don'tneed to be hovering over you. Just
to make sure you're gettingyour work done when you could do
(37:40):
it from home equally.
I was running the branchoffice in Chicago, so I was already
remote because corporate wasup in Minnesota, so I was already
running a remote office. So itwas just, okay, we're going from
an office space to home space,but otherwise I was still remote.
What do they know?
Exactly. But the bottom linewas it saved them money and the work
(38:06):
still got done because thatdidn't change. We had numerous remote
offices. We had office inDetroit. Corporate was like say in
Minnesota, Chicago, westcoast. We're all over the country
with remote offices. And theytransitioned everybody to work from
home. Once the Internet andemail started going and that was
it, we would, we would fly ineverybody every 90 days for an in
(38:29):
person meeting and that was it.
Right, right. And think of themonies they're saving by closing
down the offices and notrunning the air conditioning and
not running the electrical andnot having those static costs all
the time.
So, been a great conversation.
Yeah.
As we come to the end here,how can people find you?
I have a website,castawaycompany.com you can find
(38:49):
out about what I do for otherorganizations and some of the talent
management work that we'redoing. We're getting ready to launch
a young talent network calledthe Young Professionals Network for
young folks who are comingjust out of college and into their
early rung of the ladder tomake sure that they have a community.
So we have a website. I havetwo Instagram pages, one for castaway
and one for youngprofessionals. We want to make sure
(39:12):
that our young folk who arecoming into leadership, who are being
shaped into the futureleadership roles, have a strong network
of mentors and peers. Sothat's that on the website. Instagram.
I don't have any of that otherstuff. I'm on LinkedIn, but I haven't
joined the TikTok community.I'm not sure if I'm ready for that.
That's moving too fast for meright now. I know I need to probably
learn more about it, but itstill scares me.
(39:33):
We'll make sure that's on theshow. Notes and. But the other thing
is that I believe you havesomething for our listeners.
Yes. So my new the culturescan and the employee lifecycle assessment,
I'm happy to offer to yourlisteners some free consultation.
If they just need someone totalk to about their culture or their
(39:57):
specific situation, happy tohelp give some guidance for free.
All they need to do is reachout on my website and just indicate
they heard me on your podcastand that way I'll know they're part
of the team to get thatbenefit. And we'll see if we can
help more organizations reachstronger levels of engagement and
stronger levels of culture andunderstand and help them shape some
(40:20):
of their potential mindset orinitiatives to move them in the right
direction towards great retention.
Excellent.
Perfect.
And Diana, it's been apleasure having you on the Business
Superfam podcast and wedefinitely would love to continue
the conversation on anotherday. Talk for hours on this.
Absolutely. I'd love to. Soinvite me whenever you have time.
All right. Thank you much.
(40:40):
Thank you.
Before we wrap up, here's yourquick debrief. Every conversation
focuses on a single pillar ofthe Superfans framework. Nine road
tested steps that turn a sparkof possibility into unstoppable scalable
prosperity. The nine Pillars SStrategic Positioning and purpose
(41:05):
U Unite stakeholder synergy PPropel magnetic messaging E Elevate
every stakeholder experience RRally referrals and reputation S
Foster financial fitness AAutomate for Exponential leverage
(41:29):
N Nurture lifetime loyalty SScale and sustain prosperity each
episode concludes with ASuperfan's Success Spark, a practical
guest driven action distilledfrom today's conversation that you
can implement within 24 hours.Follow the nine episode cycle, apply
(41:51):
every spark and you'll build aproven playbook for turning stakeholders
into loyal superfans,accelerating referrals, reputation
and revenue. So here's thisepisode's Superfan Success Spark,
a Automate for ExponentialLeverage. So here's the top insight
(42:12):
Even the small companies needstructure. Employees need clarity
and communication. DianeYarborough so here's a top action
to implement the next 24hours. Document one repeatable process
in your business likeonboarding or client. Follow up and
outline three steps toautomate it using a simple tool like
(42:35):
email templates or or taskautomated software. We hope you took
away some useful knowledgefrom today's episode of the Business
Superfans Podcast. The path tosuccess relies on taking action.
So go over tobusinesssuperfans.com and get your
hands on the book. If youhaven't already, join the accelerator
(42:55):
community and take that firststep in generating a team of passionate
supporters for your business.Join us on the next episode as we
continue guiding you on yourjourney to achieve flourishing success
in business.
Hey, superfan superstarFreddie D. Here in this episode 120,
we're joined by DianeYarborough, the visionary behind
Castaway and Company and apowerhouse in the world of culture
driven leadership. With over20 years of Disney experience under
her belt, Diane now helpsorganizations rethink, re, recruit
(02:06):
and retrain, transformingemployee experience into a true competitive
edge. She's on a mission tobuild contagious cultures and contagious
leaders, all while guidingteams to unlock performance, purpose
and profit. Whether she'sworking with executives or leading
Dream Discovery workshopsacross the country, Diane is all
(02:29):
about helping people andorganizations thrive. Get ready for
an energized conversation onhow to design a culture that lasts
from the inside out. Welcome,Diane, to the Business Superfans
podcast. We're excited to haveyou here and get into a deep dive
of what it is about yourcontagious culture that you talk
(02:50):
about.
Wonderful. I'm glad to behere. Can't wait to tell you all
about it.
So, Diane, let's go back atthe beginning and what's the backstory
of how did Castaway andCompany come about? And you have
on your website that one ofthe things that you do is create
contagious cultures indifferent companies. So let's get
into that.
(03:12):
Absolutely. Castaway andCompany was founded probably 12 years
ago. Officially. I had workedfor corporate America and spent a
good chunk of 20 years atDisney World and Disney in Orlando.
My teeth were chopped onbusiness and leadership through that
Disney culture and the workthat we were doing in Orlando to
(03:33):
bring Disney through theresort era when we were growing immensely
in their guest space. I had anumber of roles or positions that
we call them in the realworld. My roles at Disney ran from
operations to human resourcesto training and development to campus
(03:54):
recruiting leadership. Ifinally left the company in 2006
as a team leader in theircampus recruiting office. I sprung
board into a new city, newtown in Charlotte, N.C. started to
find out what working in thereal world learned very quickly that
not everybody does what I wasused to doing at Disney. And so I
(04:18):
automatically saw a vastdifference between the culture that
I grew up in and the corporatecultures that I was now working within
and faced a lot of disparitiesand anomalies in what I was used
to seeing and the successesthat we found in running one of the
largest single side employersin the country with at my point,
(04:41):
65,000 cast members, which hasgrown substantially. The way we were
able to do that and theecosystem that we created at Disney,
I did not find anywhere else.So I realized I needed to do it myself.
I found that organizationswere probably 20 years behind where
we were in reference to theiremployee and personnel structures,
(05:05):
their processes, theirinitiatives, and specifically employee
related processes. Soperformance management, talent development,
employee engagement, andreally just resource utilization.
And the focus that we reallyput on our cast as much as we put
on our guest and our business.So we refer to it as a three legged
(05:29):
stool. But if you don't havethe focus on all three equally, there
will be some challenges. So Irealized coming out of Disney, coming
into corporate America, thatit was going to take me a really
long time to convince someleaders who are working with some
of the roles that I wasworking with, some of our senior
(05:49):
executives who had planted andtrying to reshape culture. I was
not in the right roles toenable myself to come up to the right
levels. After a couple yearsand a couple organizations where
I kept seeing the sameproblems over and over again, I decided
I needed to go out on my own,maybe work with some other organizations
(06:11):
who would be willing to bemore nimble, maybe organizations
who were open to change andhad such a passion as well for the
employee experience, successin passion for that type of culture.
So Castaway started because ofsome work I did at Disney Cruise
(06:36):
Line. After being an HRmanager for the start of the Disney
ships. Magic and wonderful. Iwas on Castaway Cay for six months,
opening up our private island,hiring all the local crew.
It's a wonderful story becausereally at the end of the day, the
(06:56):
crew is the interactionbetween all your customers. So that's
the front line. And one of thethings that I think businesses overlook
is they don't put enoughemphasis on really taking care of
the front line. The peoplethat are engaging with the customers,
the people are engaging withthe suppliers, the people that are
(07:19):
engaging with thedistributors, the people engaging
with complementary businesses.And really the brand is its people.
At the end of the day, logo isone thing that's wonderful. The letterhead
looks cool. But at the end ofthe day, the brand is the people.
The interaction, thecommunication, that energy. Because
(07:40):
you can't fake it. You've gota situation where an organization
is running flat. That tonalitycomes across, it even comes across
in emails because you can lookat the choice of words that people
utilize. And I've gone toDisney in Orlando, I've been to Disney
in California, and I've beenin Disney in Paris. And one of the
(08:02):
things that I noticed is thatit was exactly the same. The energy
was the same, the people werethe same, even though they were multicultural
people. But the bottom linewas the experience was pretty much
the same.
Right. And that takestraining, but you have to be able
to. For me, I think aboutestablishing the culture. So when
(08:25):
I think about shapingcontagious cultures, those are cultures
that people want to emulate,and those are cultures that people
gravitate to. And I think Iwas spoiled. Not everybody got to
spend 20 years in a culturelike that. And it's just our language.
It's how we speak, it's whatwe do. But it's very intentional.
(08:48):
That culture is veryintentional. And there's many millions
of organizations and peopleout there telling you what Disney
does and how they do it. Andevery ex Disney cast member is out
there talking about it becauseit is something that organizations
still stumble with. For us, itwas so basic that we just knew how
(09:11):
to invest in our people theright way. We knew how to interview
and hire the right people. Wewould know how to recognize potential.
And to your point, I can'ttrain attitude. I can't train that.
So attitude is something thatwe look for right away in our casting
offices and all the way downthe line. But it's also, for me,
(09:33):
it's the entire life cycle ofthe total experience. And it's not
just hiring and training. It'srecognition of rewards. And to your
point, it's communication. Howdo we speak to our cast? And how
do you speak about our cast?And then all the way to the very
end. So how are we handling itwhen we have poor performers? How
(09:54):
are we off boarding our cast?How are we handling sunsetting someone's
retirement or behaviorproblems? So it all of you, all the
people who are listening, I'msure, have a number of situations
in their work life that causethem some concern. And it might be
personnel related. Um, butI'll be the first to say that it's
(10:16):
a leadership issue, probably,and it has to do with your culture.
In most employee situations.Have to do with culture or leadership.
Totally agree. Totally agree.And one of the quotes in my book
called Creating BusinessSuperfans is people will crawl through
broken glass for appreciationand recognition. And unfortunately,
(10:37):
we don't give it enough. Andsame thing with gratitude, expressing
gratitude. It's one of thethings I've seen and learned over
the years is it's one thing tosay, hey, Diana, I really appreciate
the effort that you did onthis particular project. Grateful
for the time that you put in.You feel terrific. But now if I turn
around and says, hey,everybody, I want to take a moment
(11:00):
to recognize Diana for hergoing above and beyond on that project.
Now you feel like a rock starbecause in front of your peers, you're
recognized. Your peers say,wow, that's pretty cool. So everybody
levels up their game becausethey want to be that person that
gets recognized. And thatwhole energy becomes contagious versus,
(11:21):
versus not doing it right. Andit's expected. And the mindset is
you're just doing your job right.
Yeah, it's definitely amindset in our leaders who want to
do that. And rewards andrecognition look different for everybody.
We know. But at the end of theday, is there a process with which
(11:41):
they do that? And then I thinkabout basic communication. What are
their mechanisms to sharethose? Sometimes public and private
is fine. But I look at theabilities for employees to have opportunities
for growth, to be contagiousas a culture employees will want
to stay. That reallyultimately, is to retain your employees,
(12:04):
to create a culture so thatemployees don't want to leave, so
that you don't have to be theemployee of choice on some award
and have some plaque hangingyour wall. You need to be a place
where employees want to comeand where they want to stay. Because
nothing's worse than losinggreat people. And I think, to your
point, just as muchrecognition people will follow a
(12:26):
good leader anywhere. If youhave great employees who honor and
value and you inspire andmotivate, those people will follow
you to the ends of the earthand will stay even through those
tough times, even throughthose challenging times, even when
they may get asked to gettheir pay cut by 15% just to keep
(12:46):
them. The leaders who havegreat leaders keep great employees.
And so that's the other pieceof what we do at Castaway, is I want
to shape great leaders, growgreat leaders, and understand what
great leadership looks like.Not just leadership. There's a million
leadership books out there. Weall should be great leaders by now.
But shaping young and aspiringleadership and then retaining our
(13:11):
leaders, not just retainingeverybody. We have to retain the
leaders that we love that aredoing their jobs. So I think about
leadership as anchor for greatculture. For sure. It's like the
captain of the ship, right?
And to emphasize the pointthat you made, Hannah, is really,
when you create a kind of aculture, I use a different term,
(13:32):
is you create super fanswithin that organization. And when
you've got super fans of yourteam, the team may be super fans
of their leader. Okay? Andthen that's transcends to everybody
they're talking to, becausethey're talking to their friends.
They're talking to family man.I love my job. What a great company.
(13:54):
And that word of mouth, youcan't buy that kind of pr.
Right.
And that carries on and on.And now you've got these people that
are championing the brand. Asa super fan.
Right.
That is completely gamechanging for that business.
Yeah. And that's where I thinkI say your culture is your brand.
(14:14):
Right. So your culture willspeak to people before they even
homework for you. Right.What's the word on the street about
your organization? What arepeople saying about you? Hopefully
it's the right stuff andhopefully you're being fairly represented
before people even want tocome learn about you. So I say recruiting
starts way before you put aposting out somewhere on. Indeed,
(14:38):
you have a reputation now thatcould break or make you. And so how
are you handling that? Right.
Yeah. The street talk. I had aguest on an earlier podcast episode
and he talked about therelationship he built with a particular
supplier. They get togetherfor lunch every now and recognize
them on their birthdays andstuff like that. When the pandemic
(15:02):
hit and everybody's goinghome, he needed 500 laptops like
immediately. And everybody wasgoing to this particular supplier
for laptops right away. Guesswho got his laptops?
The relationship. Right, his relationship.
So that was his relationship.He got his laptops before anybody
(15:22):
else.
Yeah. I always say this. Oursenior vice president of HR became
the president of Disney World.So she was well revered in the organization.
Our executives used to give aleadership series and she used to
come speak to young leaders,basically sharing her top 20 things
she would do differently. Andone of them was that she says you
(15:43):
sell and market yourself everyday and how you speak and what you
say. And you don't have to bein sales and marketing just to know
that. So that was one of myfavorite things that she said, is
it doesn't matter what roleyou're in and whatever you're trying
to do, you're always trying tosell yourself or sell something about
yourself every day tosomebody. And that is also leadership
in how are you selling, whoare you and what you're about to
(16:06):
your peers, your bosses inyour team every day. You walk into
work every day wanting to winthem over.
Yeah. It's all aboutempowering people. You look at Sir
Richard Branson, I always usethis example, but you don't see him
cleaning the windshield of hisairplanes or making sure that the
gas is topped off. He's busyplaying flight attendant, engaging
(16:28):
with the customers. Same thingon Virgin Voyages. He's not piloting
the ship. He's not making surethat the food is all prepared correctly.
He's not having blast with thecustomers. That's right. The thing
I want to really emphasize isgood leaders empower their teams
to become responsible and theycan make the decisions and they can
(16:52):
do the things that they needto do and don't have to run a mom
or dad to ask for permission.Do what they need to do and most
of the time they'll make theright decision.
And we had probably 20,000cast members that were empowered
to do that. When they wereinteracting with their guests day
by day. The managers weren'tthe ones talking to these guests
(17:13):
who traveled 500 miles, hadfour airplane flights, had three
kids hungry, screaming, tired,wanting to just get at to Disney.
Showed up at seven o' clock atnight, were exhausted and they lost
their luggage. And I, as acast member at the front desk could
do something. I was empoweredto handle that. So if I needed to
(17:33):
give them a free voucher fordinner, or if I needed to take the
little kids and make sure thatthey had free ice cream cones around
the corner, I was empowered.And that was part of our culture,
was that we, even as the lowlynon salaried cast members, were empowered
because we were. The mostimportant interaction was between
the customer and us. Themanagers couldn't handle 20 chicken
(17:56):
stations at the contemporaryfront desk. But I think empowerment
was a big one. But I alsothink to your point, I think those
leaders were role modeling.Right. So they were talking to those
customers, but they were rolemodeling to the other employees.
Correct.
What it looks like, somepeople need to see it, some people
need to hear about it. And Ithink watching it and then calling
(18:19):
it out, and I think the wordintentionality, being intentional
about the fact that we explainthat this is how you handle it. We
would have like 700 check insat one day for a busy convention
group. And our leaders wereout in the lines in the lobby talking
to the customers, making sureour guests knew we were going as
(18:39):
fast as we could. But theywent to the back hiding. They weren't
in their offices, they wereout amongst the masses where the
majority of the business wasthat day. So I watched that as a
young leader, I was payingattention. And I remember from 1992
where like 700 check ins ofbusiness was that day. Things we
(19:00):
remember as we grow in our leadership.
Sure. And the other thing thatI want to reemphasize is that you
were empowered to make, youknow, little things. One of my sayings
is the little things arereally the big things. And give kids
a free ice cream cone is alittle thing, but to that kid, that's
a monster sized thing.
(19:21):
Yes, yes.
You know, so those. That'swhere he's got good leadership is
they recognize that the littlethings are really the big things.
And those are what people will remember.
Right, right, right. And theother thing I'm working with, I try
and think about for some ofthe work I do with my current clients
and the work I do for thisMargaritaville internship I run is
(19:43):
emulating a lot of things, butone of them is emulating the customer
component and making sure thatstuff like kids used to knock their
ice cream cones off. Theycould get so excited. They get these
ice cream cones and then onthe street, so you go back and get
another one. And that'sunheard of. You don't just get a
free ice cream because youdrop something. So we emulate that.
(20:04):
And a lot of the leaders fromDisney are in Margaritaville now.
So they take some of thoseprocesses and some of that culture
work and have built it intosome of the language and culture
inside Margaritaville. Sonaturally, it's a language I'm used
to seeing. Same thing. I usedto work with the Disney stores and
same thing. So customers,guests, products, show. The element
(20:25):
of show is big. It's one ofour quality standards was this element
of look. People pay attentionto how things look. Cleanliness,
cobwebs, the little thingsthat you see. The Disney scoop we
used to call it was we wereall trained to pick up trash. So
basically everyone at Disneywas a custodial cast member. Anywhere
(20:47):
you go, if you see trash onproperty, it's your responsibility
to pick it up. And that'ssomething you don't see. Maybe that
mindset is not the same inother organizations. I've never seen
it in any organization I'veworked in since then.
Wow. Speaking oforganizations, can you share a story
(21:08):
of an organization that you'vestepped into in and created a contagious
culture from a toxic culturethat they were in when you walked
in and when you walked out,they were transformed.
I'm actually still working onone now. We're not completely done
yet, but there's a. And Iwouldn't say it was a toxic culture.
(21:28):
People don't know what theydon't know sometimes. And so part
of my practitioner process isto go in and assess where some of
the culture may be off. And soit's an organization here in North
Carolina and it's a smallnonprofit. So again, I'm used to
(21:49):
20s of 1000s of people andthis maybe had 15 employees tops.
But we went in, identifiedsome key low hanging fruit in basic
communications. Setting upweekly meetings so people know what's
expected of them one on onesto make sure that the leaders were
(22:12):
meeting and sharing with theirteams at least once every two weeks.
Just from what's happening.Setting up some, I think very basics.
So communications was rough.The executive director had not been
in an operations leadershipposition. They were taking the reins
back for the first time aftera while. And so it was really working
(22:38):
with that leader to establishfor her some standards of operating
business. In reference todiscussions, these are the three
things you should always havediscussions with your employees about.
Where are we on basic employeeperformance management? Yearly raises,
(22:59):
compensation structures.People were just willy nilly giving
raises when they felt likethey needed it. We just really understand
that there's a process andsome more structure so that the employees
that are there know what'sexpected of them and have an employee
policy handbook and know therules. So really had to go in and
(23:20):
set up almost the entireemployee structure or re establish
architect, re establish it. Wehad to rebuild it from all things
comp and benefits to allthings employee policy to basic communications
to leadership practices. Eventhe small companies need structured
right? It doesn't matter howbig you are, employees need clarity
(23:44):
and communication andeffective policies to make sure they
know what's expected of them.And then the managers need training
on how to then manage thoseprocesses and policies. So that's
one piece that we have seensignificant changes in all sides
and everything from how theemployees feel valued enough to be
(24:07):
communicated to and how theirstructures are in place to ensure
that they have a place and atime to communicate their concerns
with their leader. All the wayto establishing a strong, timely
compensation and performancemanagement process. Those are the
kind of fun stuff I love to doto make sure that there is a process
(24:29):
without a process. Right. Ifyou don't stand for something, you're
going to fall for anything. Sowe put in place of some things that
they had to stand for.
And so you've positioned themfor streamlining their operations.
Right?
Because now everybody'scommunicating and knows their objectives,
knows the goals of thecompany. You know, it's like a racing,
(24:50):
right? Because it's like aracing rowing team. Everybody has
one oar and getting everybodyinto the boat, everybody in synchronization
of that racing boat. Soeverybody's rowing at the exact same
time because if you're off theboat's not going any Place. It's
not even going in a circle.
(25:11):
Right.
Like this.
Right.
And so what you're doing isyou put that whole organization into
an organized setup so that therowing team can start rowing together.
And now you're working ongetting them synchronized. And once
that happens, that boat just.
Slips through the water.
Slides through the water. Exactly.
(25:33):
But, like, we had to put theoars on the boat. Like, we had to
find new oars, and so the oarsneeded to be replaced. And so it's
a great analogy because youneed to make sure the boat works
and that you need to make sureyou have the right oars, and then
you got to make sure you havethe right people in the right seat.
So it's a great analogy to a business.
Yeah. Because once you getthat operating, it flies.
(25:55):
Yeah, yeah.
And everybody's energizedbecause everybody's energizing. They
know the goal, and that's.Companies got to know where they're
heading. Otherwise, they'rejust in business. And we've both
seen them where they're inbusiness. And what's your goal? To
make money. Yeah. That's wonderful.
Here's $2.
(26:16):
Right. Exactly.
Go away. Yeah, I think that'sa great point. I don't know if a
lot of people understand whythey're in. There's this whole Simon
Sinek y thing, but makingmoney is one thing, but this is your
passion. People startedbusiness because they're passionate
about something, not justmaking money, but there's that thing
(26:37):
that they're passionate about.And I don't know if everyone really
understands that their passionneeds to then be set up in a such
that they're able to motivateand inspire the people they're hiring
to get them on their same orpassion. Because no man's an island.
You can't do it by yourself.And those of us who are out here
(26:57):
doing it with a limited staffknow that the boat works a lot better
when there's more people inthe boat with you.
And on the same page, that'sthe. Really. The bottom line is they
got to be on the same page.Like you just mentioned, they got
to be passionate about whatthe goals are of company because
that's transformative. Nowyou've got everybody going at their.
(27:21):
They know what the mission is.I've recently worked with a company,
and we grew by a milliondollars in a year because we set
up a mission, the goal.Everybody was passionate about what
they were doing, and wecreated super fans internally, and
we still had some internalissues. They don't go away just like
that. They take work and ittakes a skill. And that was some
(27:43):
areas I needed to work on todeal with some of the confrontations
or become transparent areas.Sometimes it's not as easy as you
think. You can sit down withpeople and talk about different personality
types and how people stillinteract, but they're still in their
own mind. An individual'sperception is their own reality.
Right or wrong, it is. That'sthe reality. And you got to deal
(28:03):
with it. You got to respect that.
That's what I call it,shaping. Right. We're constantly
remolding and reshapingpeople's mindset or people's thinking.
At the end of the day, peoplehave jobs. We have to work. The people
that we employ have to stilldo the things that we need them to
do. While they may not jump upand down every five minutes, we need
(28:25):
them to find some joy in itand to be content in a way that they,
again, retention. They staylonger than five minutes. And everybody
who knows how to hire andrehire, it's not easy.
The cost is enormous becauseyou onboard somebody, you spend time
training them and you do apoor job of managing them and setting
(28:46):
expectations. So they last 90days and said, this isn't for me.
I'm out of here. So now you'vegot to hire somebody else. You forget
someone's got to train them,and training them isn't doing what
they need to be doing becauseit's a snowball. You're losing productivity.
You've got onboarding costs,you've got training costs, you've
got marketing costs to attractthe people. The amount of money is
(29:09):
just ridiculous that you'rewasting. Had you just done a better
job of working with the team.
No one's thinking about thefact that employee came in for 90
days and left and is nowtalking about you.
That's back to what we talkedabout at the beginning. That's the
word on the street.
That's the PR piece. Soeveryone really should spend better
(29:29):
time hiring the right personso that in 90 days you don't have
that happen and almostanticipate the fact that in 90 days
this person could leave. Sowhat could you do on the front end
to ensure that they're theright hire? And so maybe it's going
in and doing a culture fit aspart of your interview process is
(29:50):
you go in and have them meetthe team and you see how that works.
That can be a part of theinterview process as well. I think
people think I hire I bringthem in, I train them. But what's
your interview process lookinglike and do you have the right people
interviewing them? I've beenin corporate recruiting, I've worked
with staffing firms. So it's abig deal is the acquisition of the
(30:10):
person is something I thinkpeople just leave to technology and
they hope that indeed or ziprecruiter hires and finds their right
resume. But I've read resumesfor 20 years and they are still scary.
Resumes are just still so verynot done well. We're still not doing
good resumes and people aren'tlooking at the resume enough to pull
(30:34):
the right question out to askthe right question at the interview.
So I feel like that processjust gets skimmed over because they
just want someone. They justwant someone.
We gotta fill that spot.
I'll train them, we'll figureit out. That two weeks prior to first
90 days could be so muchbetter if we focused on that first
(30:58):
part.
And you bring up an importantpoint, Dan, that I want to really
reemphasize is having the newcandidate meet with fellow team members.
Because that's how you'regoing to find out whether there's
chemistry or not. And you'regoing to get different feedback and
a different perspectivebecause it might be that these two
might be co workers. And ifthe vibe isn't there, that's a telltale
(31:23):
sign right off the bat and youcan't force it. And if that person
says they're okay, but I'm notsure, I'm not sure you need to say
okay, maybe that's not theright candidate. We need to keep
looking, work it.
Out or include some of theirpeers in the panel interview process
(31:43):
and let them interview themand ask them questions. And because
we're quick to judge peoplethese days, give them a chance to
be part of the process. Sothere's a lot of things yes, we can
do. But again, I think a lotof people rely on if there's a corporate
recruiter, is the recruiterdoing their job? Are they picking
the best candidates? It's allover the gamut from acquisition to
(32:05):
offboarding. There's a varietyof ways that we could just get smarter
and better about every step ofthe process to ensure we have a nice
long lived employee with wholoves their employee experience.
So if the company doesn't havereally great initiatives going on
for their employees, thatmight be an area that we focus on.
(32:28):
So I call it a culture scan.Part of my assessment is what part
of this process needs the mostattention right now And So sometimes
to your point, it'srecognition and rewards, sometimes
it's onboarding and training.And then a lot of times it could
be it's offboarding. We neveroff board. Right. I feel like that's
a gap right now. We spend somuch time on the onboarding, but
(32:50):
we don't take time to realizethat people don't work at a job 30
years anymore. And so theycould come back. Right. There's a
revolving door at the end. Sothose employees could come back to
you in a year. When yourstaffing levels rise, situations
change. And so how are we offboarding to make sure that we keep
(33:10):
that door open just in case onboth sides?
Sure. And that goes back tothe word on the street. It goes back
to what the word on the streetis. And because if the off boarding
is abrupt.
Right.
That's not going to be goodpr, that's not going to be a super
fan.
At the end of the day, I thinkthe big piece of all of this also
is staffing your hr or if youdon't have hr, who does this? And
(33:37):
making sure that your HRteams, if there's one HR for an entire
company, is that person reallyset up to do everything that we need
them to do successfully or isit you don't have an HR person because
maybe the leader's doing thatand that's a facet of the work I
do. Also, sometimes you justneed a fractional HR person who can
(33:58):
just help manage some of thatbecause not everybody can staff that
function and they're notstaffing it. There really should
be one HR person for every 80to 100 people. Do you have labor
resources in the HR functionenough to do everything that needs
to get done as really who elsewill do it?
(34:18):
Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Spoton. That's one of the things that
when I took over that onecompany, that's what we did is we
hired an outside HR company tocome in and help organized place.
And everybody knew what wasthe expectations, what was the compensations,
days off and all that stuff.And there's still flexibility because
you got to be flexible. Life happens.
(34:40):
Right.
And you got to beaccommodating. And there's companies
that miss that by like agalaxy that it's like, sorry, this
is the days and this is whatyou got to do and you got to stick
with it. It's like, rememberat the end of the day, I thought
we're all human beings.
Right.
And things happen and you gotto be accommodating. And that's how
(35:01):
you Create super fans. Becauseyou're going to say, wow, my aunt
Lucille was sick and they letme go visit her for the day and I
got paid for it. Anyway,that's how you create a super fan
again. It goes back. That's alittle thing that costs you small
money.
Right.
But it's you employee.
That word of mouth. Right. Andthat word of mouth in that PR will
(35:24):
do so much better for you.Right. We don't see the forest through
the trees. And I think one ofthe big things, the concept of these
short term decisions with thelong term impacts. Some people are
so short sighted in the waythey make their decisions that they
don't think about thedownstream impacts of that one decision
and how it's going toreverberate into hey, did you hear
that? They asked. Her aunt wasin the hospital, she couldn't get
(35:46):
off work. And so it goes.
That becomes toxic in acompany culture because that word
will go through that companyjust like that's faster and likewise.
Wow, they didn't let her off.This is a great company. And then
they're going to tell theirfriends and family so and so got
off and got paid to go see soand so. And then that can go either
(36:10):
way. And the better way is thepositive. Right.
What's the big deal? I thinkwe, we all get so high and mighty
sometimes with our must do,must follow, you know, task, task,
task, task, task, money,money, money, money, money. They
forget that we're human beingsthat have luckily Covid taught us,
I think a lot of that. Theycouldn't deny it. There's no way
(36:33):
around it. I rememberthinking, Gosh, it was 20 years ago.
The thought of a remoteemployee. Could you imagine? Only
the lucky people couldtelework. Now that has shifted. That
paradigm has shifted. And so Iknow everyone's still trying to figure
it out.
Yeah. Back in 95, we had ashared executive suites. I was in
(36:55):
a software space and theInternet was just popping up and
the company being in asoftware kind of forefront of everything.
They said we don't really needthe office anymore. We shut down
our executive suites and westarted working in 95, 96. I was
working remotely.
Wow, you were one of the lucky ones.
(37:17):
Yeah, it was in the earlydays. That was the early adoption
of it.
But the culture, but we hearnow, and those leaders who made that
decision realized that theycould trust that you were going to
get your work done. They hadset the culture for accountability
and leadership to say, I don'tneed to be hovering over you. Just
to make sure you're gettingyour work done when you could do
(37:40):
it from home equally.
I was running the branchoffice in Chicago, so I was already
remote because corporate wasup in Minnesota, so I was already
running a remote office. So itwas just, okay, we're going from
an office space to home space,but otherwise I was still remote.
What do they know?
Exactly. But the bottom linewas it saved them money and the work
(38:06):
still got done because thatdidn't change. We had numerous remote
offices. We had office inDetroit. Corporate was like say in
Minnesota, Chicago, westcoast. We're all over the country
with remote offices. And theytransitioned everybody to work from
home. Once the Internet andemail started going and that was
it, we would, we would fly ineverybody every 90 days for an in
(38:29):
person meeting and that was it.
Right, right. And think of themonies they're saving by closing
down the offices and notrunning the air conditioning and
not running the electrical andnot having those static costs all
the time.
So, been a great conversation.
Yeah.
As we come to the end here,how can people find you?
I have a website,castawaycompany.com you can find
(38:49):
out about what I do for otherorganizations and some of the talent
management work that we'redoing. We're getting ready to launch
a young talent network calledthe Young Professionals Network for
young folks who are comingjust out of college and into their
early rung of the ladder tomake sure that they have a community.
So we have a website. I havetwo Instagram pages, one for castaway
and one for youngprofessionals. We want to make sure
(39:12):
that our young folk who arecoming into leadership, who are being
shaped into the futureleadership roles, have a strong network
of mentors and peers. Sothat's that on the website. Instagram.
I don't have any of that otherstuff. I'm on LinkedIn, but I haven't
joined the TikTok community.I'm not sure if I'm ready for that.
That's moving too fast for meright now. I know I need to probably
learn more about it, but itstill scares me.
(39:33):
We'll make sure that's on theshow. Notes and. But the other thing
is that I believe you havesomething for our listeners.
Yes. So my new the culturescan and the employee lifecycle assessment,
I'm happy to offer to yourlisteners some free consultation.
If they just need someone totalk to about their culture or their
(39:57):
specific situation, happy tohelp give some guidance for free.
All they need to do is reachout on my website and just indicate
they heard me on your podcastand that way I'll know they're part
of the team to get thatbenefit. And we'll see if we can
help more organizations reachstronger levels of engagement and
stronger levels of culture andunderstand and help them shape some
(40:20):
of their potential mindset orinitiatives to move them in the right
direction towards great retention.
Excellent.
Perfect.
And Diana, it's been apleasure having you on the Business
Superfam podcast and wedefinitely would love to continue
the conversation on anotherday. Talk for hours on this.
Absolutely. I'd love to. Soinvite me whenever you have time.
All right. Thank you much.
(40:40):
Thank you.
Before we wrap up, here's yourquick debrief. Every conversation
focuses on a single pillar ofthe Superfans framework. Nine road
tested steps that turn a sparkof possibility into unstoppable scalable
prosperity. The nine Pillars SStrategic Positioning and purpose
(41:05):
U Unite stakeholder synergy PPropel magnetic messaging E Elevate
every stakeholder experience RRally referrals and reputation S
Foster financial fitness AAutomate for Exponential leverage
(41:29):
N Nurture lifetime loyalty SScale and sustain prosperity each
episode concludes with ASuperfan's Success Spark, a practical
guest driven action distilledfrom today's conversation that you
can implement within 24 hours.Follow the nine episode cycle, apply
(41:51):
every spark and you'll build aproven playbook for turning stakeholders
into loyal superfans,accelerating referrals, reputation
and revenue. So here's thisepisode's Superfan Success Spark,
a Automate for ExponentialLeverage. So here's the top insight
(42:12):
Even the small companies needstructure. Employees need clarity
and communication. DianeYarborough so here's a top action
to implement the next 24hours. Document one repeatable process
in your business likeonboarding or client. Follow up and
outline three steps toautomate it using a simple tool like
(42:35):
email templates or or taskautomated software. We hope you took
away some useful knowledgefrom today's episode of the Business
Superfans Podcast. The path tosuccess relies on taking action.
So go over tobusinesssuperfans.com and get your
hands on the book. If youhaven't already, join the accelerator
(42:55):
community and take that firststep in generating a team of passionate
supporters for your business.Join us on the next episode as we
continue guiding you on yourjourney to achieve flourishing success
in business.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.