May 3, 2023 • 37 mins
Welcome to the latest episode of my podcast, where we dive deep into the nitty-gritty of workplace culture with the one and only Richard Sheridan! He's the co-founder and CEO of Menlo Innovations, a software company that's famous for its unique and quirky approach to work culture. If you've ever wondered how to make your workplace more productive, fun, and downright delightful, you won't want to miss this episode. So sit back, relax, and get ready to hear Richard's insights on everything from team building to office design, all with his signature wit and charm. This is one podcast you won't want to miss!
Thanks for listening. Grab the book the podcast is based on at https://mybook.to/culturesecrets . Check out my website www.chelliephillips.com for more great content. Follow me on LinkedIn.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chellie Phillips (00:04):
If workplace culture is your jam, you're in
the right place. Check out thisepisode of culture secrets, the
podcast dedicated to creatingworkplaces for both employees
and the company's thrive.
Welcome to the culture secretpodcast. I'm your host Chellie
Phillips and this week I'mexcited to introduce you to
Richard Sheridan Rich is anentrepreneur, business leader
(00:27):
and author and is best known asthe co founder and CEO and chief
storyteller of Menloinnovations, a software and IT
consulting firm that has earnednumerous awards and press
coverage for his innovative andpositive workplace culture. He's
also the author of Chief Joyofficer and joy Inc. How he
built a workplace people lovewhich I highly recommend you add
(00:48):
to your reading list I learnedabout rich from another guest
you've met on my podcast, KevinMunroe, several years back,
Kevin had a book club, and wegathered virtually and chatted
about books that made an impact.
Kevin even got rich to sit inwith the group and talk about
his book, that book club madequite an impact. Not only did I
begin thinking moreintentionally about gratitude,
thanks to Kevin's influence, butit opened my eyes to how we view
(01:09):
work. Thanks to my introductionto rich and his work rich shared
how he'd become disillusioned inthe middle of his career. He had
an all consuming thought thatthings can be much better, much,
much better. He wanted to know,why couldn't a workplace be
filled with camaraderie, humanenergy, creativity and
productivity. He ultimately cofounded Menlo innovations in
2001, using a unique customapproach to custom software
(01:32):
creation that over 3000 people ayear travel from around the
world to see how they do it.
He's proven that a positive andengaging leadership style can
build a culture that is actuallygood for business rich and his
message of joyful leadershiphave been featured in Forbes,
Bloomberg, US News and WorldReport. NPR is onpoint podcast,
NPR is all thing considered, andthe Harvard Business Review. And
(01:56):
now he's here today on theculture secrets podcast,
welcome, Rich. The first thing Iwanted to talk kind of bring you
out was when did you realizethat culture is a key element to
the success of an organization?
You know, I think for me, it wasa career path journey where as I
went from, you know, directcontributor as a programmer,
(02:17):
back in my early days writingsoftware, as I rose up the
management ranks, every time Imoved up the career ladder, I
thought, Oh, here's my chance, Ican get things right now I don't
have to do all the same stupidthings my boss did. And then I'd
get up to that perch, andeverything looked different from
there, suddenly, everythinglooked a little more difficult.
(02:37):
Suddenly, everything was morecomplicated than I thought it
was. And so it may be I had evena little bit of empathy for the
person I was calling stupid lastweek, now that I'm up at the
same level and get a differentperspective along the way. I
think my eternal optimist said,Richard, it's got to be a better
way of doing this stuff, right.
(02:59):
And so I was drawn to authorsand books, and I appreciate that
you're writing a book, I'vewritten two of them. And I know
how impactful the right kind ofbooks can be to change the
world. The books I was drawn toare books, like Peter Drucker's
books on management, PeterSinger, his book, The Fifth
Discipline on the art andpractice building a learning
organization, Tom Peters books,you know, all the excellent
(03:21):
books that he wrote along theway, I could start to see this
pattern. Because a lot of thosebooks would basically do
storytelling about othercompanies that had amazing
results. And you could start tosee the pattern of oh, it's
about the people, the teamwork,the collaboration between those
people, I don't know if the wordculture back in the 80s. And 90s
(03:44):
was actually really a thing backthen maybe it was, it was
clearly yearning, for creatingan atmosphere of camaraderie of
human energy of collaborationwith the people who work for me,
I've had moments like that everynow and then. And when they
happen, they're magical. And thequestion I kept having was, how
do you get to that point andkeep it there? And I think
(04:08):
roundabout? Well, 1997, I gotpromoted to kind of a big
leadership position, I was now aVP of r&d for a public company.
And
Richard Sheridan (04:19):
my first stupid instinct at that time was
just to work harder, just tryharder, just do more, you know,
be more of a hero than you were,you know, last year. And all I
found out was I just got tireddoing that. And then route about
9099, after a couple of years asVP and just running as hard as I
could trying to heroically movethis organization forward.
(04:42):
Because now if anything wasgoing wrong in the part of the
company I was working for, itwas on my plate, and I was never
inclined to say, Oh, if we onlyhad better people, I could get
them like No, you're the leader.
You should be able to do thiskind of a moment happened at a
click moment, literally where Isay So I read a book and I saw a
video and I met a guy. Think guyis now my co founder here at
(05:03):
Menlo. He was I brought him inas a consultant. The book was
the differently organized soccerteams. Jeff's intrigued by it.
But the video is really whatcaptured me. It was on an
industrial design firm inCalifornia called IDEO. And
Nightline had done this 30minute segment on them to watch
them as a team, do a fictitiousproject to redesign the shopping
(05:27):
cart and just five days thestandard wire basket shopping
cart five days, you can actuallystill watch this video, you can
just go on to YouTube and andGoogle, Ted Koppel, Nightline,
the deep dive IDEO and if youjust do that you can watch 310
minute segments of this. I'm noteven sure I quite realize that
(05:48):
what I was watching was aculture. I mean, I came I'm not
sure the word hit me yet. Butwhat I saw was what I wanted. I
saw this teamwork, thiscollaboration, the diversity of
the thinkers, the energy, theinnovation, the new creativity,
creative ideas, and everything.
(06:10):
And I wanted that I want todance. So I mean, it just like
it just my heart was just achingfor that compared to what I've
had sort of the previous almost20 years of my career. And
again, you know, I describe myfirst 20 years of career as my
personal trough ofdisillusionment. But it wasn't
horrible. Every day, it was justthat when things happen, and
(06:34):
they seemed to like clicking,you know, and everything was
working, couldn't sustain it. Itmay be was personality based
maybe it's partly mypersonality. Maybe it was my
mood of the day where it was theright combination of people,
right combination of projects orsomething. But I kept thinking
there's got to be a better wayto make this all work together.
(06:54):
Right, like all the time, like,in without heroic effort for me
like that I couldn't I couldstep away for a week's vacation
and not come back and have itall broken in pieces on the
floor. Like what happened? Didyou guys let this happen? That
guy was telling you about JamesScoble, who is now my co founder
was consultant and he started,what we realized was we were
(07:16):
reading a lot of the same books,he was going into an MBA program
at night. He was a consultant, Ibrought him to help me do some
technical things with my team.
But he kept throwing out thesereally weird ideas. And I kept
saying, yes, and then we watchedthe video together. And he saw
what I saw. And he wanted tohelp me move my team into that
(07:36):
direction. And over a two yearperiod, we did it. We created
this amazingly energized teamthat was sustainable, didn't
require heroic efforts. For me,it, it was working, it was a
process. It was teamwork, it wascollaboration, it was trust in
(07:58):
it was amazing. And then it wasall taken away. In an instant
2001, the internet bubble burst,and it all disappeared in an
instant, literally, I lost myjob, but they couldn't take away
what I had learned in those twoyears. And what I learned was,
you can be intentional aboutyour culture. And one way to do
(08:19):
that is set very clearexpectations for the people who
work for you. And those clearexpectations. Aren't the typical
bang your fist on the table typeexpectations, the expectations
that we communicated was how areyou guys going to behave with
each other as peers? What willyour relationships be like? What
are our expectations for how youtreat another human being, and
(08:41):
we crafted this in and one ofthe things I learned along the
way through this is and I didn'tcome to articulate this until
just the last few years, maybefive or six years ago that if
you're going to create anintentional culture, and I'll
just use my word andintentionally joyful culture.
And you don't take a deep, hardlook at every traditional step
(09:03):
of HR, and rework every one ofthose steps. For instance,
recruiting, interviewing,selecting, onboarding,
promoting, you know, givingfeedback, maybe even firing, if
you don't look at all of thosecomponents, and rework them to
align with your culturalintentions. You'll never
(09:24):
accomplish the goal your peopleprocesses must match your
cultural intention. And so forexample, you know, one of the
odd things we do here, maybe thestrangest thing we do here that,
you know, people are just marvelat we get we get three or 4000
visitors a year come from allover the world just to see how
everything is happening behindme actually works and how it
(09:46):
fits together. We were twopeople to one computer. They
work in pairs. Everybody hereworks in pairs, and we switch
the pairs every five businessdays. So if you and I pair
together for five days, wewouldn't pair again.
They're next week, we might comeback together again later. But
we're going to keep almost likesquare dancing, we're going to
(10:06):
work together all day long at acomputer together. So you can
imagine, that's a very differentway of working, especially for
people in the software field.
You know, we usually putprogrammers in what I call
sensory deprivation chambers.
Headphones on turn the lightsdown low, be really quiet,
because they're thinking, reallydeep thoughts right now. And you
(10:27):
know, here, it's a noisyenvironment, people are
collaborating all day long,they're talking to each other
all day long. So we thought,well, you know, the standard
interview isn't gonna work,which I described as the way I
used to do, it was two peoplesitting across the table lying
to each other for a couple ofhours. That was my standard.
And then I make some bigdecision for both of us, you
know, I decide to bring you onmy team, you decide to quit
(10:50):
wherever you are, and come hereand work. And it's like, it's
all based on a fiction, right?
And so then we both hope itworks out. And often it doesn't.
Well, here, we don't ask anyquestions during the interview,
we make an audition, we pair twocandidates with one another. And
we have them work together. Andwe set very clear expectations
from the moment of firstcontact, your job is to help the
(11:10):
person sitting next to you get asecond interview, and oh, by the
way, they're competing for thesame position you are. So
imagine your brains are liketwisting in the wind, like what?
No, I want the second interview,why should I help this person
succeed? Like,we're teaching your culture from
a moment of first contact, ourexpectation are clear, we
(11:31):
believe rational and reasonableexpectation is you're here to
help another human beingsucceed. And oh, by the way,
it's going to start right herein the interview. And if you can
demonstrate good kindergartenskills, if you can play well
with others, if you can supportanother human being, you will
get invited in for the secondinterview. Again, lots of lots
(11:52):
of things to probably unpackthere. But, you know, for me, I
realized people started askingwhen I wrote joy, that one of
the famous things that justbecause it got repeated over and
over again, it was these peoplecome here from all over the
world, three or 4000 of them ayear. And I believe they're
(12:12):
coming to see what does it taketo create an intentionally
joyful culture.
And it'sthe people processes. It's the
actual work processes here. It'sno onerous fear based
management, system overloadingeverything it's not, it's an
overtime free culture. So weweren't seeing work hours. So
(12:37):
we're not and we don't, whenpeople go on vacation, we expect
them to cut themselveselectronically off from the
business, and just enjoy timewith their family or whatever.
They're doing lots of verydifferent approaches, but all
with this really focusedmindset. And what would it take
if you wanted to create thatkind of culture and enjoy the
(12:57):
results? What kind of cultureproduces one of the things you
said that really stood out? Imean, you were talking about
your partner now that youbrought in, you said that you
kept throwing out these weirdthings. And you kept saying,
Yes, I think, if you could kindof unpack that a little bit,
because I think that what is therole of the leader of the
(13:17):
organization, when you aredeveloping a culture and you're
trying to create this cultureshift that how do you get out of
your own head saying, This iswhat we need, versus Let's try
these things and see if theywere, you know, like, the, the
Russian Matryoshka Dolls thatnest in one another after
another. I think there's someelement of that in this, I got
(13:40):
really excited about some newpossibilities after I saw that
IDEO video. So part of my job asa leader was I had to elicit
because this is a publiccompany, I was one of the
executives out of many, therewere shareholders, there was a
board there was, you know,quarterly reports that we
edited, deliver to the public,all that sort of thing. So there
(14:02):
was a great businessresponsibility. And we were a
tech firm, and I was leading thetechnology part, the r&d part of
the tech firm. So the majorityof money that was being spent in
a company was being spent on myteam, they were counting the
shareholders are counting on theresults my team produced. So
there was a great responsibilityon my part, I couldn't just wave
a magic wand and say, Okay,we're gonna be joyful. Now, you
(14:23):
still got to produce results.
And so and I felt like I wasn'treally producing the results. So
I think the first element ofleadership is kind of an active
discontent.
Just not being satisfied withwhat's status quo, what's
normal, you know, or simplyaccepting, you know, it's just
(14:46):
the way I always think thingshave to be right. It's just the
way they are. So I think thatactive discontent that says,
things can be better. I thinkthat's a really big first moment
for any leaderis to say, You know what? Yeah,
of course you get to translate.
Okay, great. Things can bebetter how? And how are you
(15:07):
going to do that? Right? How areyou going to make the change.
And what I realized the nextstep was, I had to sell this
idea to my peers on the execteam, to my boss, to the board
of directors, and actually do acouple of shareholders. The next
thing I had to do, and this wasa learning moment, for me a big
(15:28):
learning moment is I had to stoptalking about what I wanted. And
I had to start speaking in thelanguage of the people I was
selling to. So in other words, Iwanted to do some technical
things with my team, I wanted tocreate code in a different way,
my boss really didn't care aboutthat, he wanted to see results
(15:48):
for the corporation. And so Ihad this translate my vision,
into something that aligned withwhat he would support. And so
that was kind of my next bigmoment was, when you go to
create a culturaltransformation, you have to turn
into salesperson, you have tocommunicate its value. You have
(16:10):
to communicate why this mattersto others, what results you're
going to produce for them. As aas a result of whatever culture
transformation you're going togo through, then the delightful
part happened. And this is theMetro Chanel thing. Let's talk
about my boss and how he behavedonce I broke through the barrier
with him learn to speak hislanguage, he became my most
(16:30):
ardent supporter. And I wouldsay I wouldn't be talking with
you today. I wouldn't have readwritten two books on this idea.
I wouldn't have created Menloinnovations were it not for Bob
Niro's role in my life. Becauseas soon as I crafted the message
in a way that Bob understood,Bob did two things. One, he
(16:53):
became my biggest cheerleader.
And whenever I slowed down,whenever I doubted, self doubt,
because when you're making bigchanges, it isn't a smooth
journey. And it's not a snapyour fingers and everything
works, right tomorrow. It's along, tough, hard journey with a
lot of unknowns. And you don'tknow if you're succeeding or not
every minute of the day. And Bobwould put his gentle hand on my
(17:14):
shoulder, and he whispered in myear, you're doing the right
thing. Rich, I've got youcovered. Keep going. And I will
tell you, I really, reallyneeded that. So what I learned
in animal, but from a leadershipperspective is if you have
someone who's working for you,that's trying to lead some kind
of big change, become their heatshield, because change agents
(17:36):
are under attack, always.
Because the attack is that's notthe way we do things here. You
know, I was still the new kid onthe block at that company
interface systems. I'd only beenwith the company for 16 years at
that point. They were like, oh,rich, you don't know how things
(17:58):
go here. Because you've onlybeen here for 16 years. And it
was absolutely true. I was stillpretty much the new kid on the
block. I was the youngestexecutive on the team. Many of
the people had been there 2530years and I still had stuff to
learn about how the companywork. You know, that was really
key. And then I think the reallybig moment for me happened when
(18:19):
I brought my daughter into workwith me one day, the my eight
year old, that was a take yourchild that workday moment. And
she was eight, she's gonna watchher dad, the VP work. And can
you imagine more boring day thanthat? What on earth would an
eight year old see, you know? Isshe really going to be inspired
to a career run by watching herdad, the VP work right? You
(18:40):
know, she cleverly and wiselybrought her coloring books,
crayons and stickers and sat onmy test table all day. Well, I
did the work of a VP. But at theend of the day, I thought, well,
I better ask her because ifteachers can ask her tomorrow, I
said, So Sarah, what did youlearn today?
She said, what I learned and asyou're really important here,
and what she goes, what Ilearned is nobody here can make
(19:01):
a decision without asking youfirst. And she was absolutely
right. I had created a herobased organization. I was the
number one here, the way I gotinto my position was hero based
leadership. And so I had tolearn to step back from that.
And I think that's another keypoint for a leader of changes.
Let your team leader becometheir heat shield, right, I had
a heat shield microcircuit,right. I had a heat shield above
(19:24):
me, I had to build a shieldabove them. I had to give them
the latitude to try things run,as we would call. Now. Here's a
memo. One of the most commonphrases here is let's run the
experiment.
Let's try stuff. And let's notget too upset if this stuff we
tried doesn't work. And what Ilove about the word experiment
(19:46):
is it almost gives youpermission to not succeed.
Because you can later say Well,yeah, it didn't work, but it was
just an experiment. And I thinkif we sometimes there are simple
waysLanguage things we can do as
leaders to defuse the fear oftrying stuff that doesn't work
out. And for us that phrase,there's two phrases, but three
(20:08):
phrases we use here a lot. Oneis make mistakes faster. And the
real emphasis is on the wordfaster. Because nobody likes to
make mistakes. But if you makethem quickly and find them out
when they're small, you cancorrect them before they kill.
You know, number two is let'srun the experiment. So let's try
new stuff. And number three, is,it's okay to say, I don't know,
(20:31):
acknowledging that there's a tonto learn. We're not gonna know
everything, and we're gonna gorun experiments and do things we
don't know how to do. And that'sokay. And yep, mistakes are
gonna happen along the way. AndI think by setting ourselves up
with repeated language fromleaders, all the way down to
frontline, you created a spirit,attitude and energy within a
(20:54):
team.
That basically becomes thatthing Carol Dweck talked about
in her books, the growthmindset, you know, there's the
difference between the peoplesay, I can't do this, versus the
people say, I can't do this yet.
And as soon as we get to theability to add the words yet, on
the end of every sentence, whenwe say I can't play piano, yet,
(21:17):
I'm not an artist, yet, right?
It opens up a whole world ofpossibilities in the system. I
wonder what it would take. Andthen I will tell you just
recently, the last year or soI've learned an important a huge
lesson about yet. From my nowtwo, almost three year old
(21:40):
granddaughter, Colette, who wecall Coco. Two year olds try
stuff all the time, right? Sheis, she's a wild child.
She climbs stuff, he does crazythings, but she keeps trying
stuff. And as soon as like ifshe gets on a scooter, and then
she, you know gets it to work,right at the end, she'll go, I
(22:02):
did it.
And I watch her do this. And Ithought, that is an amazingly
important phrase for all humanbeings. Because there's always
stuff that we do as humans, orlike, I learned how to do that.
And if we just at the end, whenwe tried something new, and it
worked, oh God as soon as I didit, and that has actually become
(22:24):
a mantra for me in in thingsoutside of work. I bought a
pontoon boat this summer, I'venever had a boat before. And you
got to learn how to do thingswith a boat. And when I learned
how to do things, I'm like, Idid it. And it just it's like,
it's an amazing sort of releaseof that learning tension that
happens all the time whereyou're like, I don't want to do
this, I don't know how to dothat.
And it just increases yourconfidence, for trying to learn
(22:51):
new things, which is ultimatelywhat I think all leaders need
within their organizations. Ifyou're going to move an
organization forward, you'regoing to create an intentionally
positive culture, joyful culturein our world. You need people
trying stuff and celebratingthose small victories every step
of the way.
Chellie Phillips (23:07):
I love that in my in my first book that I did I
talk about inserting celebrationinto life, because we focus on
get it done, get it done, get itdone, get it done, get it done.
And then it's on to the nextthing, and you don't take that
moment to really Oh, what did Ido? What did I accomplish, and
let's celebrate it before wemove on. I have this story in
there about beating theimpossible for me, it was a half
(23:27):
marathon. I am clearly not arunner, but I did it. And it's
funny how it makes that shift inyour mind, have you beat one
thing that you call impossiblefor you that it becomes that,
oh, if I did that I can do this.
I can try this I can moveforward and that kind of thing.
So I just love that that. I lovethat. I love that I did it. I
can see her in my mind justjumping around going. I'm just
(23:48):
excited that I did it. I'mdefinitely gonna focus on that a
little bit in this
Richard Sheridan (23:55):
stillness, natural, right. And so the
question is that somehow isbecoming an adult? And can we
get back to and I will justsimply say, there's these things
that have happened just in thepast year in my life that I had
to figure out how to dosomething I'd never figured out
before. And when I switched to Idid it, the learning moments
became a joy, not a burden. Ilove that. One of the things I
(24:18):
hear a lot too is like when I'mtalking with some different
people about what is culture isthat they seem to confuse their
mission statement with whatculture is, you know, your
culture, isn't that phrase onthe wall? How do leaders make
that shift from Oh, we have aculture this is our mission.
This is what we do to reallygetting focused on what's
happening inside theorganization day to day. I love
(24:39):
my co founders definition ofthis. He says a culture is a
summation. Remember the oldsummation symbol of all of the
relationships inside yourorganization, put them all
together and that should cultureand the way I describe it is our
culture is how we choose totreat one another. Right? How
are we going to be meansspirited are we going to be
(25:00):
demanding and fear based? Andthat becomes your culture? Or
are we going to be encouragingsupportive growth mindset? Are
we going to are we going to tryand focus on the personal
professional growth of our teammembers along the way, while
we're getting work done? Youknow, I think, you know, mission
and vision and all that areimportant too, and we have those
(25:20):
things, but you accomplish thosethings. With a culture you've
created, you know, and quitefrankly, I mean, you know, if
somehow tomorrow, softwaredevelopment became, you know,
illegal, or just everybodyfigured out how to do it on
their own, they won't need usanymore, we still have our
(25:41):
culture. And we would look andsay, so what else can we do? We
could, you know, could buildplay structures for children or
something, and we'd figured outhow to do it, but we wouldn't
have the same culture here.
Yeah, so those those two are,you know, I would say there's
probably a lot of companies whocan't achieve what their mission
statement is, or what theirgoals are, because they don't
(26:01):
have the culture. But when youdo have the culture, you want
them, particularly positiveculture, you can kind of do
anything you want. You canno Part A
Chellie Phillips (26:12):
you call yourself a storyteller, and I'm
a storyteller. And so I thinkthat's a piece that gets left
out sometimes as the CEO asleaders in the organization is,
what is the role of stories andhow can it impact leadership?
And how can stories help driveyour culture and help it take
root inside and keep itspreading?
Richard Sheridan (26:32):
One of the lines in my book is if, if
culture eats strategy forbreakfast, famous Peter Drucker
line my belief is storytellingsets the table for that meal
with story is what connectsheart to mind body to spirit
concept of reality stories makeit real because like everybody
says, in life, it doesn't matterwhat you said, Celli. It matters
(26:56):
how it made me feel. And quitefrankly, a boring PowerPoint
with graphs and bars andspreadsheets and numbers. And we
won't improve revenue by 3.2%.
Net inspiring. People kind ofshrug their shoulders, they I'm
not sure how I'm involved inthat. They can't picture
themselves they can't imaginethe connect the dots point
between what the boss justtalked about what these charts
(27:19):
and graphs and goals for theyear and all that sort of thing.
To what how should that impactme personally. But when you can
translate that into a storyabout what in one version of
storytelling is using it to tella story of a vision for the
future, and inspiring vision.
And when you do that kind offuturing storytelling, that
(27:42):
visioning kind of process,people can start to put
themselves in that picture theycan imagine where where am I in
that story? What contribution AmI proud of that I made? Now the
stories we tell from the pastshould be stories of both
triumph and defeat. We need tocurate both stories, because we
(28:02):
need to remind ourselves, whyare we here? How did we get
here? What was the difficultjourney that got us here? Where
did we have to overcome a bigobstacle because that's a really
important thing to remember.
Because a lot of times, youknow, like you say, you work,
you work, you work, you getsomething done. And you just go
on to the next thing, the nextthing, the next thing and you
just kind of get tired, you kindof get exhausted. Again, my co
(28:23):
founder has this beautifulmetaphor for those moments. He
says, you know, when you'reclimbing the mountain, and it's
hard, and you get up to acertain like a little sub peak
and mountains still way up here,right? Stop, Turn around, look
down. Revel in the vision in thein the scenery, revel in how
much work you expended to gethere, reflect on how far you've
(28:46):
come, and then turn around andstart climbing again. Right. And
those are the stories from thepast. Right? Because in that
moment, what are you recountingthe success that got us to where
we are today. And the difficultyof the journey along the way.
And that Bond's people together?
(29:07):
That shared sacrifices, whatbinds us together? Right that we
did this together? We did itjust identity. And I think
that's where storytelling playsa key role. And now I will tell
you here because we get upbetween three and 4000 people a
year travel from all over theworld is to come visit us and
see how all this works. Becausethey've read the books they've
(29:28):
heard about us. They want tocome see it. And what do we do
on the tours when they're herewe tell stories. And I used to
think the stories because Iwould often lead the tours
because I'm not I'm billing workand that sort of thing. So I'd
be walking people around theroom telling stories. And I used
to think the stories I wastelling were for our guests for
the visitors because that'swhere they would come in. And
(29:49):
then I noticed as I get a teamof PE no group of people nearby
a certain part of tables in thespace and I'm telling stories.
My team is listedCome in, what are they doing?
They're hearing the same storiesover and over and over again.
And then I realize to storiesare actually holding me
accountable, because I wouldnever want anybody to come up to
(30:11):
me after tour on my team andsay, Hey, rich, that company
we're describing the tour soundsamazing where it is.
So you, you darn well be bettertelling the truth, because
otherwise, they'll all be like,it's much BS. And so there's so
many facets of storytelling, butultimately, it is that most
(30:37):
human part of us where we allwant to believe Chellie that we
are like, logical, sensible,rational creatures, and we're
anything but that we areemotional, we are irrational, we
are driven by our feelings farmore than we are by our logic.
And that's just a simple truthof humans. And so if if, as
(30:58):
leaders, we're trying to getpeople to move with us, there's
no better way to do it thestory,
Chellie Phillips (31:07):
what are the roadblocks that people will
probably encounter when theystart trying to make a culture
shift? I know one of them wetalked about as the attitude of
that's the way it's always been?
Don't you know, don't break it.
It's not broken. Maybe if youcould, what are the three
biggest roadblocks that youmight encounter as you're trying
to create a culture shift insideyour organization?
Richard Sheridan (31:27):
Well, I think number one, the belief that, you
know, you can just click yourfingers, you can put up a
poster, you can do a rah rahspeech once a year, and at
someone else going to changeyour culture, culture change is,
you know, there's we have aposter here metallosis
technology changes quickly,people change slowly. And then
another poster, this is peopledon't resist change, they resist
(31:50):
being changed. And one of thereasons people resist any kind
of change is because itthreatens an existing reward
system. Right? And I'm nottalking about compensation that
is the least effective kind ofreward system. What's my job?
What's my title was my span ofauthority. Can I tell people I'm
working really hard today? Can Itell them I'm working crazy
(32:12):
overtime hours, and they can'tlive without me and all this
kind of stuff, right, whichultimately isn't healthy for an
individual, but it's still areward. I work on really crappy
projects, and I work on them allday long. And I work on through
the weekend. And it soundsawful. But there's this reward
of like, I'm the only one whocan do it. And so when you start
messing with how things work,you have to understand, you are
(32:36):
actually pulling rewards awayfrom people. And as Janine Lamar
says in her famous book,changing the way we change, if
you don't replace the existingreward that you just took away
with a reward of equal orgreater value, people will
revert to the old way of doingthings, even if it's pain
filled. And so I think that'sand then finally, the thing you
(33:01):
and I just discussed, which is,you know, somebody reads my
books, and we read your book,somebody goes to a conference,
or one of us speak, somebodyspeaks to a colleague, and they
get a brand new idea. And theygo running up to the first
person they know in theorganization who hasn't heard
what you heard, asked andthought we thought he hasn't
read what you've read. And youcould have like, this great new
idea. And they're like, well, Iwon't work here. We tried that
(33:24):
10 years ago, it didn't work,then it won't work now. And when
I arm people with the response,because I think sometimes having
a pre programmed response isreally valuable. I tell him, I
said, Look, committee, I'd saygive it. Let's try it before we
defeat it. Let's run theexperiment. Let's see what
happens. One thing with a bookthat I want to really accomplish
is that culture change does nothave to start at the CEO level.
(33:49):
It can start inside yourcubicle, whether it's you and
your co worker, whether it's youand your team, what advice would
you have for someone who mightnot be in a quote unquote,
leadership role at theorganization? If they want to
see a culture shift? How canthey get started? I know you
mentioned one thing aboutlearning to speak the language
(34:10):
of who you're trying toconvince. I love that. And I
think that kind of appliesthere, too. But what else would
you tell them to encourage themor maybe show them that culture
can culture shift can startoccurring at any level of an
organization? hardest place tostart is the easiest place to I
place to identify a beginningspot and it's in here. humbly
(34:32):
admit you have to changestart to change inside of you.
First. That eight year old whotold me you're the most
important person here. Nobodycan make a decision without you
guess who had to change. I hadto change. And I always tell
people, you don't have to changethe world because that's where
people get stuck. That's anotherplace culture change. Oh my
gosh, we're so big. We're soold. We're so bureaucratic.
(34:54):
We're so regulated. There's noway I mean, it's just I
nervous, like, I always tell youdon't have to change the world.
You just have to change yourworld. Change you be a different
person when you walk in the doorand repeat more than Hardy Good
morning, bring a positiveattitude, assume good intention
and the people around you, andthen start to change the people
(35:17):
around you. Invite them intoyour world, say, hey, you know,
we can't change anybody else.
But let let us be this, youknow, band of brothers and
sisters who can, you know, startto change our little world here.
And what's interesting thathappens is you begin to be the
change you want to see in theworld. And then people want to
(35:41):
be more like you.
Chellie Phillips (35:42):
I truly appreciate your time today. And
this has been a greatconversation. I know you're
busy. I know, people are alwaysclamoring for your time. And I
appreciate the fact that youtook some time to spend with me
today. Well, you know, I thinkmaybe that's my final bit is,
you know, I think if each of usadopted an attitude and an
energy that says, You know what,I'm gonna leave the world a
(36:03):
better place. And I found it, wefind a way to make time for
others, and to inspire otherswith our journey, which is what
you're doing is what I'm doingworking with you on this,
because somehow our conversationtoday is going to change
somebody's life in a way that weyou and I would have never
anticipated which is the joy ofbeing an author, I think. Thanks
for listening to this episode ofthe culture secrets podcast.
(36:27):
There were so many goldennuggets of advice here. I don't
think that can pick just onefrom rich. I hope you got a list
full as well too. If you havecomments or questions, please
feel free to reach out to me onLinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.
If you like what you heard, I'dlove it. If you'd subscribe,
drop me a rating and share thelink with a friend. I'm
currently booking for corporatetraining and workshop
(36:49):
presentations. I'd love thechance to work with you or your
company. If you're interested,please visit my website at WWW
dot Chellie phillips.com That che ll ie pH I ll ips.com. And
remember, building a valueculture is your competitive
advantage and the backbone ofany successful organization.
If workplace culture is your jam, you're in
the right place. Check out thisepisode of culture secrets, the
podcast dedicated to creatingworkplaces for both employees
and the company's thrive.
Welcome to the culture secretpodcast. I'm your host Chellie
Phillips and this week I'mexcited to introduce you to
Richard Sheridan Rich is anentrepreneur, business leader
(00:27):
and author and is best known asthe co founder and CEO and chief
storyteller of Menloinnovations, a software and IT
consulting firm that has earnednumerous awards and press
coverage for his innovative andpositive workplace culture. He's
also the author of Chief Joyofficer and joy Inc. How he
built a workplace people lovewhich I highly recommend you add
(00:48):
to your reading list I learnedabout rich from another guest
you've met on my podcast, KevinMunroe, several years back,
Kevin had a book club, and wegathered virtually and chatted
about books that made an impact.
Kevin even got rich to sit inwith the group and talk about
his book, that book club madequite an impact. Not only did I
begin thinking moreintentionally about gratitude,
thanks to Kevin's influence, butit opened my eyes to how we view
(01:09):
work. Thanks to my introductionto rich and his work rich shared
how he'd become disillusioned inthe middle of his career. He had
an all consuming thought thatthings can be much better, much,
much better. He wanted to know,why couldn't a workplace be
filled with camaraderie, humanenergy, creativity and
productivity. He ultimately cofounded Menlo innovations in
2001, using a unique customapproach to custom software
(01:32):
creation that over 3000 people ayear travel from around the
world to see how they do it.
He's proven that a positive andengaging leadership style can
build a culture that is actuallygood for business rich and his
message of joyful leadershiphave been featured in Forbes,
Bloomberg, US News and WorldReport. NPR is onpoint podcast,
NPR is all thing considered, andthe Harvard Business Review. And
(01:56):
now he's here today on theculture secrets podcast,
welcome, Rich. The first thing Iwanted to talk kind of bring you
out was when did you realizethat culture is a key element to
the success of an organization?
You know, I think for me, it wasa career path journey where as I
went from, you know, directcontributor as a programmer,
(02:17):
back in my early days writingsoftware, as I rose up the
management ranks, every time Imoved up the career ladder, I
thought, Oh, here's my chance, Ican get things right now I don't
have to do all the same stupidthings my boss did. And then I'd
get up to that perch, andeverything looked different from
there, suddenly, everythinglooked a little more difficult.
(02:37):
Suddenly, everything was morecomplicated than I thought it
was. And so it may be I had evena little bit of empathy for the
person I was calling stupid lastweek, now that I'm up at the
same level and get a differentperspective along the way. I
think my eternal optimist said,Richard, it's got to be a better
way of doing this stuff, right.
(02:59):
And so I was drawn to authorsand books, and I appreciate that
you're writing a book, I'vewritten two of them. And I know
how impactful the right kind ofbooks can be to change the
world. The books I was drawn toare books, like Peter Drucker's
books on management, PeterSinger, his book, The Fifth
Discipline on the art andpractice building a learning
organization, Tom Peters books,you know, all the excellent
(03:21):
books that he wrote along theway, I could start to see this
pattern. Because a lot of thosebooks would basically do
storytelling about othercompanies that had amazing
results. And you could start tosee the pattern of oh, it's
about the people, the teamwork,the collaboration between those
people, I don't know if the wordculture back in the 80s. And 90s
(03:44):
was actually really a thing backthen maybe it was, it was
clearly yearning, for creatingan atmosphere of camaraderie of
human energy of collaborationwith the people who work for me,
I've had moments like that everynow and then. And when they
happen, they're magical. And thequestion I kept having was, how
do you get to that point andkeep it there? And I think
(04:08):
roundabout? Well, 1997, I gotpromoted to kind of a big
leadership position, I was now aVP of r&d for a public company.
And
Richard Sheridan (04:19):
my first stupid instinct at that time was
just to work harder, just tryharder, just do more, you know,
be more of a hero than you were,you know, last year. And all I
found out was I just got tireddoing that. And then route about
9099, after a couple of years asVP and just running as hard as I
could trying to heroically movethis organization forward.
(04:42):
Because now if anything wasgoing wrong in the part of the
company I was working for, itwas on my plate, and I was never
inclined to say, Oh, if we onlyhad better people, I could get
them like No, you're the leader.
You should be able to do thiskind of a moment happened at a
click moment, literally where Isay So I read a book and I saw a
video and I met a guy. Think guyis now my co founder here at
(05:03):
Menlo. He was I brought him inas a consultant. The book was
the differently organized soccerteams. Jeff's intrigued by it.
But the video is really whatcaptured me. It was on an
industrial design firm inCalifornia called IDEO. And
Nightline had done this 30minute segment on them to watch
them as a team, do a fictitiousproject to redesign the shopping
(05:27):
cart and just five days thestandard wire basket shopping
cart five days, you can actuallystill watch this video, you can
just go on to YouTube and andGoogle, Ted Koppel, Nightline,
the deep dive IDEO and if youjust do that you can watch 310
minute segments of this. I'm noteven sure I quite realize that
(05:48):
what I was watching was aculture. I mean, I came I'm not
sure the word hit me yet. Butwhat I saw was what I wanted. I
saw this teamwork, thiscollaboration, the diversity of
the thinkers, the energy, theinnovation, the new creativity,
creative ideas, and everything.
(06:10):
And I wanted that I want todance. So I mean, it just like
it just my heart was just achingfor that compared to what I've
had sort of the previous almost20 years of my career. And
again, you know, I describe myfirst 20 years of career as my
personal trough ofdisillusionment. But it wasn't
horrible. Every day, it was justthat when things happen, and
(06:34):
they seemed to like clicking,you know, and everything was
working, couldn't sustain it. Itmay be was personality based
maybe it's partly mypersonality. Maybe it was my
mood of the day where it was theright combination of people,
right combination of projects orsomething. But I kept thinking
there's got to be a better wayto make this all work together.
(06:54):
Right, like all the time, like,in without heroic effort for me
like that I couldn't I couldstep away for a week's vacation
and not come back and have itall broken in pieces on the
floor. Like what happened? Didyou guys let this happen? That
guy was telling you about JamesScoble, who is now my co founder
was consultant and he started,what we realized was we were
(07:16):
reading a lot of the same books,he was going into an MBA program
at night. He was a consultant, Ibrought him to help me do some
technical things with my team.
But he kept throwing out thesereally weird ideas. And I kept
saying, yes, and then we watchedthe video together. And he saw
what I saw. And he wanted tohelp me move my team into that
(07:36):
direction. And over a two yearperiod, we did it. We created
this amazingly energized teamthat was sustainable, didn't
require heroic efforts. For me,it, it was working, it was a
process. It was teamwork, it wascollaboration, it was trust in
(07:58):
it was amazing. And then it wasall taken away. In an instant
2001, the internet bubble burst,and it all disappeared in an
instant, literally, I lost myjob, but they couldn't take away
what I had learned in those twoyears. And what I learned was,
you can be intentional aboutyour culture. And one way to do
(08:19):
that is set very clearexpectations for the people who
work for you. And those clearexpectations. Aren't the typical
bang your fist on the table typeexpectations, the expectations
that we communicated was how areyou guys going to behave with
each other as peers? What willyour relationships be like? What
are our expectations for how youtreat another human being, and
(08:41):
we crafted this in and one ofthe things I learned along the
way through this is and I didn'tcome to articulate this until
just the last few years, maybefive or six years ago that if
you're going to create anintentional culture, and I'll
just use my word andintentionally joyful culture.
And you don't take a deep, hardlook at every traditional step
(09:03):
of HR, and rework every one ofthose steps. For instance,
recruiting, interviewing,selecting, onboarding,
promoting, you know, givingfeedback, maybe even firing, if
you don't look at all of thosecomponents, and rework them to
align with your culturalintentions. You'll never
(09:24):
accomplish the goal your peopleprocesses must match your
cultural intention. And so forexample, you know, one of the
odd things we do here, maybe thestrangest thing we do here that,
you know, people are just marvelat we get we get three or 4000
visitors a year come from allover the world just to see how
everything is happening behindme actually works and how it
(09:46):
fits together. We were twopeople to one computer. They
work in pairs. Everybody hereworks in pairs, and we switch
the pairs every five businessdays. So if you and I pair
together for five days, wewouldn't pair again.
They're next week, we might comeback together again later. But
we're going to keep almost likesquare dancing, we're going to
(10:06):
work together all day long at acomputer together. So you can
imagine, that's a very differentway of working, especially for
people in the software field.
You know, we usually putprogrammers in what I call
sensory deprivation chambers.
Headphones on turn the lightsdown low, be really quiet,
because they're thinking, reallydeep thoughts right now. And you
(10:27):
know, here, it's a noisyenvironment, people are
collaborating all day long,they're talking to each other
all day long. So we thought,well, you know, the standard
interview isn't gonna work,which I described as the way I
used to do, it was two peoplesitting across the table lying
to each other for a couple ofhours. That was my standard.
And then I make some bigdecision for both of us, you
know, I decide to bring you onmy team, you decide to quit
(10:50):
wherever you are, and come hereand work. And it's like, it's
all based on a fiction, right?
And so then we both hope itworks out. And often it doesn't.
Well, here, we don't ask anyquestions during the interview,
we make an audition, we pair twocandidates with one another. And
we have them work together. Andwe set very clear expectations
from the moment of firstcontact, your job is to help the
(11:10):
person sitting next to you get asecond interview, and oh, by the
way, they're competing for thesame position you are. So
imagine your brains are liketwisting in the wind, like what?
No, I want the second interview,why should I help this person
succeed? Like,we're teaching your culture from
a moment of first contact, ourexpectation are clear, we
(11:31):
believe rational and reasonableexpectation is you're here to
help another human beingsucceed. And oh, by the way,
it's going to start right herein the interview. And if you can
demonstrate good kindergartenskills, if you can play well
with others, if you can supportanother human being, you will
get invited in for the secondinterview. Again, lots of lots
(11:52):
of things to probably unpackthere. But, you know, for me, I
realized people started askingwhen I wrote joy, that one of
the famous things that justbecause it got repeated over and
over again, it was these peoplecome here from all over the
world, three or 4000 of them ayear. And I believe they're
(12:12):
coming to see what does it taketo create an intentionally
joyful culture.
And it'sthe people processes. It's the
actual work processes here. It'sno onerous fear based
management, system overloadingeverything it's not, it's an
overtime free culture. So weweren't seeing work hours. So
(12:37):
we're not and we don't, whenpeople go on vacation, we expect
them to cut themselveselectronically off from the
business, and just enjoy timewith their family or whatever.
They're doing lots of verydifferent approaches, but all
with this really focusedmindset. And what would it take
if you wanted to create thatkind of culture and enjoy the
(12:57):
results? What kind of cultureproduces one of the things you
said that really stood out? Imean, you were talking about
your partner now that youbrought in, you said that you
kept throwing out these weirdthings. And you kept saying,
Yes, I think, if you could kindof unpack that a little bit,
because I think that what is therole of the leader of the
(13:17):
organization, when you aredeveloping a culture and you're
trying to create this cultureshift that how do you get out of
your own head saying, This iswhat we need, versus Let's try
these things and see if theywere, you know, like, the, the
Russian Matryoshka Dolls thatnest in one another after
another. I think there's someelement of that in this, I got
(13:40):
really excited about some newpossibilities after I saw that
IDEO video. So part of my job asa leader was I had to elicit
because this is a publiccompany, I was one of the
executives out of many, therewere shareholders, there was a
board there was, you know,quarterly reports that we
edited, deliver to the public,all that sort of thing. So there
(14:02):
was a great businessresponsibility. And we were a
tech firm, and I was leading thetechnology part, the r&d part of
the tech firm. So the majorityof money that was being spent in
a company was being spent on myteam, they were counting the
shareholders are counting on theresults my team produced. So
there was a great responsibilityon my part, I couldn't just wave
a magic wand and say, Okay,we're gonna be joyful. Now, you
(14:23):
still got to produce results.
And so and I felt like I wasn'treally producing the results. So
I think the first element ofleadership is kind of an active
discontent.
Just not being satisfied withwhat's status quo, what's
normal, you know, or simplyaccepting, you know, it's just
(14:46):
the way I always think thingshave to be right. It's just the
way they are. So I think thatactive discontent that says,
things can be better. I thinkthat's a really big first moment
for any leaderis to say, You know what? Yeah,
of course you get to translate.
Okay, great. Things can bebetter how? And how are you
(15:07):
going to do that? Right? How areyou going to make the change.
And what I realized the nextstep was, I had to sell this
idea to my peers on the execteam, to my boss, to the board
of directors, and actually do acouple of shareholders. The next
thing I had to do, and this wasa learning moment, for me a big
(15:28):
learning moment is I had to stoptalking about what I wanted. And
I had to start speaking in thelanguage of the people I was
selling to. So in other words, Iwanted to do some technical
things with my team, I wanted tocreate code in a different way,
my boss really didn't care aboutthat, he wanted to see results
(15:48):
for the corporation. And so Ihad this translate my vision,
into something that aligned withwhat he would support. And so
that was kind of my next bigmoment was, when you go to
create a culturaltransformation, you have to turn
into salesperson, you have tocommunicate its value. You have
(16:10):
to communicate why this mattersto others, what results you're
going to produce for them. As aas a result of whatever culture
transformation you're going togo through, then the delightful
part happened. And this is theMetro Chanel thing. Let's talk
about my boss and how he behavedonce I broke through the barrier
with him learn to speak hislanguage, he became my most
(16:30):
ardent supporter. And I wouldsay I wouldn't be talking with
you today. I wouldn't have readwritten two books on this idea.
I wouldn't have created Menloinnovations were it not for Bob
Niro's role in my life. Becauseas soon as I crafted the message
in a way that Bob understood,Bob did two things. One, he
(16:53):
became my biggest cheerleader.
And whenever I slowed down,whenever I doubted, self doubt,
because when you're making bigchanges, it isn't a smooth
journey. And it's not a snapyour fingers and everything
works, right tomorrow. It's along, tough, hard journey with a
lot of unknowns. And you don'tknow if you're succeeding or not
every minute of the day. And Bobwould put his gentle hand on my
(17:14):
shoulder, and he whispered in myear, you're doing the right
thing. Rich, I've got youcovered. Keep going. And I will
tell you, I really, reallyneeded that. So what I learned
in animal, but from a leadershipperspective is if you have
someone who's working for you,that's trying to lead some kind
of big change, become their heatshield, because change agents
(17:36):
are under attack, always.
Because the attack is that's notthe way we do things here. You
know, I was still the new kid onthe block at that company
interface systems. I'd only beenwith the company for 16 years at
that point. They were like, oh,rich, you don't know how things
(17:58):
go here. Because you've onlybeen here for 16 years. And it
was absolutely true. I was stillpretty much the new kid on the
block. I was the youngestexecutive on the team. Many of
the people had been there 2530years and I still had stuff to
learn about how the companywork. You know, that was really
key. And then I think the reallybig moment for me happened when
(18:19):
I brought my daughter into workwith me one day, the my eight
year old, that was a take yourchild that workday moment. And
she was eight, she's gonna watchher dad, the VP work. And can
you imagine more boring day thanthat? What on earth would an
eight year old see, you know? Isshe really going to be inspired
to a career run by watching herdad, the VP work right? You
(18:40):
know, she cleverly and wiselybrought her coloring books,
crayons and stickers and sat onmy test table all day. Well, I
did the work of a VP. But at theend of the day, I thought, well,
I better ask her because ifteachers can ask her tomorrow, I
said, So Sarah, what did youlearn today?
She said, what I learned and asyou're really important here,
and what she goes, what Ilearned is nobody here can make
(19:01):
a decision without asking youfirst. And she was absolutely
right. I had created a herobased organization. I was the
number one here, the way I gotinto my position was hero based
leadership. And so I had tolearn to step back from that.
And I think that's another keypoint for a leader of changes.
Let your team leader becometheir heat shield, right, I had
a heat shield microcircuit,right. I had a heat shield above
(19:24):
me, I had to build a shieldabove them. I had to give them
the latitude to try things run,as we would call. Now. Here's a
memo. One of the most commonphrases here is let's run the
experiment.
Let's try stuff. And let's notget too upset if this stuff we
tried doesn't work. And what Ilove about the word experiment
(19:46):
is it almost gives youpermission to not succeed.
Because you can later say Well,yeah, it didn't work, but it was
just an experiment. And I thinkif we sometimes there are simple
waysLanguage things we can do as
leaders to defuse the fear oftrying stuff that doesn't work
out. And for us that phrase,there's two phrases, but three
(20:08):
phrases we use here a lot. Oneis make mistakes faster. And the
real emphasis is on the wordfaster. Because nobody likes to
make mistakes. But if you makethem quickly and find them out
when they're small, you cancorrect them before they kill.
You know, number two is let'srun the experiment. So let's try
new stuff. And number three, is,it's okay to say, I don't know,
(20:31):
acknowledging that there's a tonto learn. We're not gonna know
everything, and we're gonna gorun experiments and do things we
don't know how to do. And that'sokay. And yep, mistakes are
gonna happen along the way. AndI think by setting ourselves up
with repeated language fromleaders, all the way down to
frontline, you created a spirit,attitude and energy within a
(20:54):
team.
That basically becomes thatthing Carol Dweck talked about
in her books, the growthmindset, you know, there's the
difference between the peoplesay, I can't do this, versus the
people say, I can't do this yet.
And as soon as we get to theability to add the words yet, on
the end of every sentence, whenwe say I can't play piano, yet,
(21:17):
I'm not an artist, yet, right?
It opens up a whole world ofpossibilities in the system. I
wonder what it would take. Andthen I will tell you just
recently, the last year or soI've learned an important a huge
lesson about yet. From my nowtwo, almost three year old
(21:40):
granddaughter, Colette, who wecall Coco. Two year olds try
stuff all the time, right? Sheis, she's a wild child.
She climbs stuff, he does crazythings, but she keeps trying
stuff. And as soon as like ifshe gets on a scooter, and then
she, you know gets it to work,right at the end, she'll go, I
(22:02):
did it.
And I watch her do this. And Ithought, that is an amazingly
important phrase for all humanbeings. Because there's always
stuff that we do as humans, orlike, I learned how to do that.
And if we just at the end, whenwe tried something new, and it
worked, oh God as soon as I didit, and that has actually become
(22:24):
a mantra for me in in thingsoutside of work. I bought a
pontoon boat this summer, I'venever had a boat before. And you
got to learn how to do thingswith a boat. And when I learned
how to do things, I'm like, Idid it. And it just it's like,
it's an amazing sort of releaseof that learning tension that
happens all the time whereyou're like, I don't want to do
this, I don't know how to dothat.
And it just increases yourconfidence, for trying to learn
(22:51):
new things, which is ultimatelywhat I think all leaders need
within their organizations. Ifyou're going to move an
organization forward, you'regoing to create an intentionally
positive culture, joyful culturein our world. You need people
trying stuff and celebratingthose small victories every step
of the way.
Chellie Phillips (23:07):
I love that in my in my first book that I did I
talk about inserting celebrationinto life, because we focus on
get it done, get it done, get itdone, get it done, get it done.
And then it's on to the nextthing, and you don't take that
moment to really Oh, what did Ido? What did I accomplish, and
let's celebrate it before wemove on. I have this story in
there about beating theimpossible for me, it was a half
(23:27):
marathon. I am clearly not arunner, but I did it. And it's
funny how it makes that shift inyour mind, have you beat one
thing that you call impossiblefor you that it becomes that,
oh, if I did that I can do this.
I can try this I can moveforward and that kind of thing.
So I just love that that. I lovethat. I love that I did it. I
can see her in my mind justjumping around going. I'm just
(23:48):
excited that I did it. I'mdefinitely gonna focus on that a
little bit in this
Richard Sheridan (23:55):
stillness, natural, right. And so the
question is that somehow isbecoming an adult? And can we
get back to and I will justsimply say, there's these things
that have happened just in thepast year in my life that I had
to figure out how to dosomething I'd never figured out
before. And when I switched to Idid it, the learning moments
became a joy, not a burden. Ilove that. One of the things I
(24:18):
hear a lot too is like when I'mtalking with some different
people about what is culture isthat they seem to confuse their
mission statement with whatculture is, you know, your
culture, isn't that phrase onthe wall? How do leaders make
that shift from Oh, we have aculture this is our mission.
This is what we do to reallygetting focused on what's
happening inside theorganization day to day. I love
(24:39):
my co founders definition ofthis. He says a culture is a
summation. Remember the oldsummation symbol of all of the
relationships inside yourorganization, put them all
together and that should cultureand the way I describe it is our
culture is how we choose totreat one another. Right? How
are we going to be meansspirited are we going to be
(25:00):
demanding and fear based? Andthat becomes your culture? Or
are we going to be encouragingsupportive growth mindset? Are
we going to are we going to tryand focus on the personal
professional growth of our teammembers along the way, while
we're getting work done? Youknow, I think, you know, mission
and vision and all that areimportant too, and we have those
(25:20):
things, but you accomplish thosethings. With a culture you've
created, you know, and quitefrankly, I mean, you know, if
somehow tomorrow, softwaredevelopment became, you know,
illegal, or just everybodyfigured out how to do it on
their own, they won't need usanymore, we still have our
(25:41):
culture. And we would look andsay, so what else can we do? We
could, you know, could buildplay structures for children or
something, and we'd figured outhow to do it, but we wouldn't
have the same culture here.
Yeah, so those those two are,you know, I would say there's
probably a lot of companies whocan't achieve what their mission
statement is, or what theirgoals are, because they don't
(26:01):
have the culture. But when youdo have the culture, you want
them, particularly positiveculture, you can kind of do
anything you want. You canno Part A
Chellie Phillips (26:12):
you call yourself a storyteller, and I'm
a storyteller. And so I thinkthat's a piece that gets left
out sometimes as the CEO asleaders in the organization is,
what is the role of stories andhow can it impact leadership?
And how can stories help driveyour culture and help it take
root inside and keep itspreading?
Richard Sheridan (26:32):
One of the lines in my book is if, if
culture eats strategy forbreakfast, famous Peter Drucker
line my belief is storytellingsets the table for that meal
with story is what connectsheart to mind body to spirit
concept of reality stories makeit real because like everybody
says, in life, it doesn't matterwhat you said, Celli. It matters
(26:56):
how it made me feel. And quitefrankly, a boring PowerPoint
with graphs and bars andspreadsheets and numbers. And we
won't improve revenue by 3.2%.
Net inspiring. People kind ofshrug their shoulders, they I'm
not sure how I'm involved inthat. They can't picture
themselves they can't imaginethe connect the dots point
between what the boss justtalked about what these charts
(27:19):
and graphs and goals for theyear and all that sort of thing.
To what how should that impactme personally. But when you can
translate that into a storyabout what in one version of
storytelling is using it to tella story of a vision for the
future, and inspiring vision.
And when you do that kind offuturing storytelling, that
(27:42):
visioning kind of process,people can start to put
themselves in that picture theycan imagine where where am I in
that story? What contribution AmI proud of that I made? Now the
stories we tell from the pastshould be stories of both
triumph and defeat. We need tocurate both stories, because we
(28:02):
need to remind ourselves, whyare we here? How did we get
here? What was the difficultjourney that got us here? Where
did we have to overcome a bigobstacle because that's a really
important thing to remember.
Because a lot of times, youknow, like you say, you work,
you work, you work, you getsomething done. And you just go
on to the next thing, the nextthing, the next thing and you
just kind of get tired, you kindof get exhausted. Again, my co
(28:23):
founder has this beautifulmetaphor for those moments. He
says, you know, when you'reclimbing the mountain, and it's
hard, and you get up to acertain like a little sub peak
and mountains still way up here,right? Stop, Turn around, look
down. Revel in the vision in thein the scenery, revel in how
much work you expended to gethere, reflect on how far you've
(28:46):
come, and then turn around andstart climbing again. Right. And
those are the stories from thepast. Right? Because in that
moment, what are you recountingthe success that got us to where
we are today. And the difficultyof the journey along the way.
And that Bond's people together?
(29:07):
That shared sacrifices, whatbinds us together? Right that we
did this together? We did itjust identity. And I think
that's where storytelling playsa key role. And now I will tell
you here because we get upbetween three and 4000 people a
year travel from all over theworld is to come visit us and
see how all this works. Becausethey've read the books they've
(29:28):
heard about us. They want tocome see it. And what do we do
on the tours when they're herewe tell stories. And I used to
think the stories because Iwould often lead the tours
because I'm not I'm billing workand that sort of thing. So I'd
be walking people around theroom telling stories. And I used
to think the stories I wastelling were for our guests for
the visitors because that'swhere they would come in. And
(29:49):
then I noticed as I get a teamof PE no group of people nearby
a certain part of tables in thespace and I'm telling stories.
My team is listedCome in, what are they doing?
They're hearing the same storiesover and over and over again.
And then I realize to storiesare actually holding me
accountable, because I wouldnever want anybody to come up to
(30:11):
me after tour on my team andsay, Hey, rich, that company
we're describing the tour soundsamazing where it is.
So you, you darn well be bettertelling the truth, because
otherwise, they'll all be like,it's much BS. And so there's so
many facets of storytelling, butultimately, it is that most
(30:37):
human part of us where we allwant to believe Chellie that we
are like, logical, sensible,rational creatures, and we're
anything but that we areemotional, we are irrational, we
are driven by our feelings farmore than we are by our logic.
And that's just a simple truthof humans. And so if if, as
(30:58):
leaders, we're trying to getpeople to move with us, there's
no better way to do it thestory,
Chellie Phillips (31:07):
what are the roadblocks that people will
probably encounter when theystart trying to make a culture
shift? I know one of them wetalked about as the attitude of
that's the way it's always been?
Don't you know, don't break it.
It's not broken. Maybe if youcould, what are the three
biggest roadblocks that youmight encounter as you're trying
to create a culture shift insideyour organization?
Richard Sheridan (31:27):
Well, I think number one, the belief that, you
know, you can just click yourfingers, you can put up a
poster, you can do a rah rahspeech once a year, and at
someone else going to changeyour culture, culture change is,
you know, there's we have aposter here metallosis
technology changes quickly,people change slowly. And then
another poster, this is peopledon't resist change, they resist
(31:50):
being changed. And one of thereasons people resist any kind
of change is because itthreatens an existing reward
system. Right? And I'm nottalking about compensation that
is the least effective kind ofreward system. What's my job?
What's my title was my span ofauthority. Can I tell people I'm
working really hard today? Can Itell them I'm working crazy
(32:12):
overtime hours, and they can'tlive without me and all this
kind of stuff, right, whichultimately isn't healthy for an
individual, but it's still areward. I work on really crappy
projects, and I work on them allday long. And I work on through
the weekend. And it soundsawful. But there's this reward
of like, I'm the only one whocan do it. And so when you start
messing with how things work,you have to understand, you are
(32:36):
actually pulling rewards awayfrom people. And as Janine Lamar
says in her famous book,changing the way we change, if
you don't replace the existingreward that you just took away
with a reward of equal orgreater value, people will
revert to the old way of doingthings, even if it's pain
filled. And so I think that'sand then finally, the thing you
(33:01):
and I just discussed, which is,you know, somebody reads my
books, and we read your book,somebody goes to a conference,
or one of us speak, somebodyspeaks to a colleague, and they
get a brand new idea. And theygo running up to the first
person they know in theorganization who hasn't heard
what you heard, asked andthought we thought he hasn't
read what you've read. And youcould have like, this great new
idea. And they're like, well, Iwon't work here. We tried that
(33:24):
10 years ago, it didn't work,then it won't work now. And when
I arm people with the response,because I think sometimes having
a pre programmed response isreally valuable. I tell him, I
said, Look, committee, I'd saygive it. Let's try it before we
defeat it. Let's run theexperiment. Let's see what
happens. One thing with a bookthat I want to really accomplish
is that culture change does nothave to start at the CEO level.
(33:49):
It can start inside yourcubicle, whether it's you and
your co worker, whether it's youand your team, what advice would
you have for someone who mightnot be in a quote unquote,
leadership role at theorganization? If they want to
see a culture shift? How canthey get started? I know you
mentioned one thing aboutlearning to speak the language
(34:10):
of who you're trying toconvince. I love that. And I
think that kind of appliesthere, too. But what else would
you tell them to encourage themor maybe show them that culture
can culture shift can startoccurring at any level of an
organization? hardest place tostart is the easiest place to I
place to identify a beginningspot and it's in here. humbly
(34:32):
admit you have to changestart to change inside of you.
First. That eight year old whotold me you're the most
important person here. Nobodycan make a decision without you
guess who had to change. I hadto change. And I always tell
people, you don't have to changethe world because that's where
people get stuck. That's anotherplace culture change. Oh my
gosh, we're so big. We're soold. We're so bureaucratic.
(34:54):
We're so regulated. There's noway I mean, it's just I
nervous, like, I always tell youdon't have to change the world.
You just have to change yourworld. Change you be a different
person when you walk in the doorand repeat more than Hardy Good
morning, bring a positiveattitude, assume good intention
and the people around you, andthen start to change the people
(35:17):
around you. Invite them intoyour world, say, hey, you know,
we can't change anybody else.
But let let us be this, youknow, band of brothers and
sisters who can, you know, startto change our little world here.
And what's interesting thathappens is you begin to be the
change you want to see in theworld. And then people want to
(35:41):
be more like you.
Chellie Phillips (35:42):
I truly appreciate your time today. And
this has been a greatconversation. I know you're
busy. I know, people are alwaysclamoring for your time. And I
appreciate the fact that youtook some time to spend with me
today. Well, you know, I thinkmaybe that's my final bit is,
you know, I think if each of usadopted an attitude and an
energy that says, You know what,I'm gonna leave the world a
(36:03):
better place. And I found it, wefind a way to make time for
others, and to inspire otherswith our journey, which is what
you're doing is what I'm doingworking with you on this,
because somehow our conversationtoday is going to change
somebody's life in a way that weyou and I would have never
anticipated which is the joy ofbeing an author, I think. Thanks
for listening to this episode ofthe culture secrets podcast.
(36:27):
There were so many goldennuggets of advice here. I don't
think that can pick just onefrom rich. I hope you got a list
full as well too. If you havecomments or questions, please
feel free to reach out to me onLinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.
If you like what you heard, I'dlove it. If you'd subscribe,
drop me a rating and share thelink with a friend. I'm
currently booking for corporatetraining and workshop
(36:49):
presentations. I'd love thechance to work with you or your
company. If you're interested,please visit my website at WWW
dot Chellie phillips.com That che ll ie pH I ll ips.com. And
remember, building a valueculture is your competitive
advantage and the backbone ofany successful organization.
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.
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
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!