Culture Do's and Don'ts: 3 Steps to Building A Great Company Culture

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We are back here on the Masterminds podcast, and today
it's going to be an awesome one because we're going
to dive in deep on how to build a badass
brand that you deserve and today, of course, we're going
to do that through culture. And there's only one guy
in the entire country of all of our masterminds, that
is the culture guru, and that's mister Rudy Mick joining

(00:22):
me today. How are you.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I am so good, it's great to be here. Thanks
for that intro.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Hey man, We're gonna dive into a topic I think
a lot of brands, you know, they talk about it,
but do they do it? Do they walk the walk?
And I think that's the question we're go I answer today,
So you guys stick around for the full podcast. We'll
be right back. My name is Paul Baron. As the

(01:06):
early pioneer in fast casual I've seen the industry evolve
from just a few operators to the most sought after
segment by consumers around the world. Now we're planning to
shape its future. Tap into decades of my expertise identifying
the emerging brands and tech winners in the space saber capital.

(01:28):
We'll be fueling the next generation of fast casual innovation.
All right, I'm back here with Rudy and we are
diving into building a badass brand with your culture concept.
And Rudy, I want to just start first, because this
is something we've talked about on the show many times,
and we always have you on different episodes that really

(01:48):
kind of dive into culture and the reason that it's
so important and why it should be the DNA of
every restaurant brand out there. But I want to kind
of hit on a few points. And we were going
back and forth on planning for the show. You had
some really good bullet points on components and there was
a few of them that I wanted to hit on.

(02:11):
One of them that you kind of led with, which
I thought was interesting and I'm gonna I'm gonna be
skipping around in kind of our an episode sheet, but
it was it was your point five, which was back
to your second point, which is you know, performance product
physical space. But the one that caught my attention was
how some leaders use win and lose strategy and they

(02:35):
use this as almost like a passive aggressive behavior to
win and they build that into culture. Now, explain to
me why a win lose strategy works or doesn't work
in building a culture.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
So win lose, win lose can work. It absolutely works.
The question is for how long and how how many
generations can that cultural model perform at the highest level.

(03:09):
So I can I'm going to lead by fear or
I could lead by inspiration, right right, But in either
case we've got definitions of excellence.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
So are you telling me that if you lead by
more inspiration versus like this win lose, this passive aggressive,
You're okay. I guess it depends on the kind of
culture you're building, because you may be trying to build
a short term culture and maybe win lose is the
way I mean. Think of it like a sales organization.
You need the best hunter killers out there selling for you.

(03:44):
Maybe a win lose is the approach, you know, versus
if you're building something like on a restaurant brand, where
you need people there that you can graduate into, you know,
district managers up to store managers. You know, it's maybe
a lifetime you know, connection to that employee.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
So yeah, and there are norms right in the world
of M and A of merger and acquisition, private equity,
right VC, we're gonna build something really fast, and we're
going to and our exit strategy is build it, dump
it right. So where there's no gray, I don't want

(04:21):
you to ask questions. Just do what I tell you,
get it done, and we exit.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
And that is that is a no nonsense culture. But
it in itself people forget. And I think you kind
of taught me this is that culture doesn't have to
always be you know, daffodils and roses. It can be
very hardline culture. It can be you know, this whole
win or lose culture that maybe some brands like, and

(04:52):
maybe they're even building a restaurant brand around this. Let
me ask you this, do you know of any restaurant
brands that are using this more aggressive kind of culture
versus kind of that harmonious, you know, Kumba yah culture.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
There are certainly resort brands, resort brands that are managing
from that model. And I would certainly certainly acknowledge that
there are restaurants out there that it is my way
or the highway. So if we back up, if we
back up just a second, a headline for the audience

(05:30):
I think is whether the culture is explicit or whether
the culture is implicit it's nobody really talks about culture.
We just talk about driving the brand and driving the
same store sales and go go go. The culture exists.

(05:52):
So what we've found time and again, especially in the
world of hospitality, in the world of restaurants, is the
more explicit I can be in my culture. This is
how we treat people, this is how we treat money,
this is how we treat the physical plan, this is
how we treat our products, this is how we step

(06:14):
into the community. The more explicit I can be in
those topics. And this is what excellence is, and that
is not excellence.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Okay, all right, So when.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
The clearer I can be, the higher the performance will be.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yeah. Key, So being clear about whether that, to your point,
explicit or implicit. And I think this is where a
lot of executives because I talk to guys all the time,
you know, we consult with many brands. Most of the
time it's around marketing and product market fit. You know,
do they have the right menu for the right kind
of clientail or market It's rarely getting into the culture

(06:52):
side because I always ask that question, even though I
don't know the answer to it, but I always ask
the question of do you guys feel like you have
culture within your brand, and if you could explain what
that means, tell me, you know, sometimes I'm doing it
when we do investments.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
But yeah, so investment or performance either way? Right? If
I whatever money I invest or whatever time materials I invest,
I hopefully get in a market economy an ROI a
return on investment. Yeah sure so exactly so long until

(07:29):
until pandemic hit. I would say that I've had that
same experience that you've had, Paul about culture and brand? Right,
is what are you talking about? What brand is our logo?
Connect into exactly? Brand is our logo? Brand is our
color book? Brand is our marketing book? Well? Guess what?

(07:54):
The culture drives the brand? Performance and the logo and
the color book actually illustrate and model represent the brand
and represent the culture. But the culture itself literally is

(08:14):
how do we treat each other, whether it's explicit or not.
Is there respect here or do we treat people with disrespect?
Is the product the best possible product at any given
moment for the price point or are we constantly looking
for cheaper and less even if it's not quite the

(08:39):
spec that was original? So where is value et cetera.
There's a nuance of culture versus brand. The culture drives
the brand and finally we woke up to that a
little bit during pandemic and COVID, but post now where

(08:59):
we are are coming back, strong culture is a critical piece,
especially to find and retain the great status.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yeah. Well, and that leads to whether you're going to
win as a business. And I think that when you're
building a badass brand, you have to have one a
killer team, you know, to be able to meet the
demands of the market, but also the competition. The competition
is really the one that you have to be most
concerned about it. But here's my question to you is

(09:31):
I want to share this article with you, and this
is coming over from International Business Times, and they hit
on a topic that let me kind of zoom in
on this for you. They hit on a topic that's
pretty interesting, how to build a strong company culture in
uncertain times. So this was just published here the other day,
and you look at the economy, you look at inflation,

(09:53):
the uncertainty that we're seeming out of even our own
you know, administration. Currently, there's a lot of people that
are feeling a little bit uneasy. And when you look
at being uneasy and trying to build a culture, because
I think a lot of people they're worried. You know,
why are you messing with me with culture? I can

(10:15):
barely pay my bills. I can barely go to the
grocery store and afford to feed my family. So this
was kind of some interesting statements that I'll share with
the audience if you By the way, if you guys
are catching this on the audio version of the podcast,
jump over to YouTube right now, search saveror FM and
you'll find this show on there. Because getting these the

(10:36):
line outs that we're putting on these articles that we're
talking about, it's important for you guys to kind of
follow along. But what it states here is only a
third of employees in the US twenty three percent of
employees globally are actively engaged in the workplace. First of all,
that's low to inten to inten holy crap, that means

(10:58):
you've got eight people that could care less.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
Well it seems like it, right. So there's the case
and point for making the culture explicit. Here's how we
treat each each other, Here's how you rise in our organization.
Here's where we stand with training et cetera. One of
the things that stands out in that Uncertain Times piece
as a theme, right, is there is a long held

(11:26):
in organizational development, in organizational psychology, industrial psychology, there's a
long held strategy of Oh, there is a thing called
values conflict, profit versus people, production versus profit. Right, Oh,

(11:47):
let me get tech to get high profit. So where
we've what we've found, especially in the in the individual
independent restaurant environment as well as chain restaurants, hospitality is
instead of values conflict, how do we work with values integration?

(12:10):
So we must be profitable or we die. At the
same time, I've got to treat my people well and
we've got to keep training and evolving our team. Both
things are true and our products. So the question becomes
how do we maintain profitability my people and my development,

(12:32):
And that becomes the cycle of the integration as opposed
to in Uncertain Times, profit is king or queens king? Yeah, Yeah,
it's like, guess what if we over sell profit? What
if we take one point and of profit and put
it into training development? Right, and so keep maintaining with that, right.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
You're saying, But at the same time, I look at it,
you know from a business perspective, because this is something
that everybody that's probably watching us today or listening to
us or saying, Paul Rudy, I have got to make
this company successful. I can't and don't have time to
hold people's hands and help them kumbayah into a culture.

(13:21):
I need to kind of back to your point, it's
my way or the highway kind of thing. Well, is
that a first of all? Is that a culture that
can win? When you know, it's kind of like when
you go back to what I don't know if you
followed this news from Brian Armstrong, who is the CEO
of Coinbase about two years ago. Did you follow that story?

Speaker 2 (13:44):
I have a little bit.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
Okay, all right, so let me kind out for the audience.
I'll kind of bring it in. About two years ago
to maybe two and a half years ago, there was
a lot of independent political struggles inside of a business.
It was Coinbase. They're you know, they're a crypto exchange firm.
They do all kinds of stuff. So he basically came

(14:05):
out to his employees and said, listen, enough with the
politics and you're going to you know, follow this is
our structure and our culture. And if you are now
trying to do these things will kindly ask you to
leave with severance and you're out. So basically they said,
we don't care what your politics are, but you don't

(14:26):
need to bring them here and we're going to focus
on our business. So that's kind of our way or
the highway culture that was built. Now. Coinbase is one
of the most sought after companies to go to work for.
Some of the best brains and minds go there because
they think, oh, this is the kind of culture I want.
I want to know, frills, let's get it done kind

(14:49):
of thing. Do you find that when you onboard people?
How do you pick those people? Ru the other type?

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Well, bravo you, and there's a nuance. I'm going to
push back just a little bit about oh, no politics here,
high performance instead my way or the highway. I'm going
to push back a little bit and say I'm not
sure that is my way or the highway. Here's why

(15:19):
because the statement of no politics here, have whatever politics
you want, no politics in the workplace. That is a value.
I would call it a value. So it's a choice, right,
no different than a secular versus a faith based company.

(15:43):
Faith based companies are going to have faith based values
and dialogue and talk and conversation. Secular companies are going
to do something slightly different. So here's so that's first. Second,
most companies that do, in fact have values named, or

(16:04):
mission statement named, or purpose named, or even vision named.
In my experience time and again, speaking all over the world,
most companies that have those tools don't really know how
to use them. So here's the Here are a couple
of quick fixes to what you're saying. Okay, On one

(16:27):
is how do we onboard the more I can define
my culture and my brand performance from the culture. So
guess what we live our values? We talk about our values.
Money is one of our values. Profitability, fiscal awareness, right,

(16:49):
open communication, what cleanliness, sanitation, whatever those values are, we
live them, eet and breathe them. So before you fill
out this application, please know So even an online applications,
here's here's a prepage. Locked you read this, I've read it,

(17:12):
I understand, click, I agree. Here's the application done before
before we ever even onboard you or even sign you
up for an interview, here's what you're walking into, so
know it. So in that particular case, I would say, hey,
we don't talk politics in this workplace period. End of subject.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah, okay, Well, I think the point that you know
Armstrong made was to our take one of our takeaways
today in the podcast, we're going to give you guys
three and this first one I'm going to align first
because I think it hits to your point and it's
also to the point of what Coinbase did, which was
they defined and they aligned culture with their brand values.

(17:57):
Bing okay. So that was like claire, verify the purpose
and the mission, which he did in his letter. If
you guys want to go up out there on the web,
just search Brian Armstrong Letter to Employees. You'll see it.
And he also did something that I thought was interesting,
which he created consistency in practice, which is kind of
a secondary thing that you should be playing into. And

(18:20):
the statement that kind of comes into this that made
me kind of go in this direction for this takeaway.
When you think about consistency and practice, first of all,
ensure being this consistent you know, performance and how you
treat people, the product itself, the physical space, whatever it
might be in your business, that has to say very

(18:42):
consistent and the practice needs to be consistence in itself.
And he was hitting on that very point. And then
his last thing that I thought was interesting was he
defined it by creating processes around it. So it's like, hey,
we're going to define our mission and our goals based
on this, and here are some processes that can help

(19:02):
you achieve it. And it kind of gave it. It was
very simple. You know, take some time off, make sure
you have personal time, uh, make sure that you have
achievable goals that are reachable within you know, because we
want this to be fulfilling, you know, for as a
as an employee here as part of our culture, but
their mission driven culture is now maybe a draw to

(19:25):
that business, you know, for new employees. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
So what happens is that definitive culture draws like a
magnet like people. And earlier you were talking about twenty
percent or thirty percent of the population at most is twenty.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Three percent worth right? No, it was twenty three percent
saying that they agreed that they had they would contribute
to a company culture. So almost seventy five percent of
people more that could care less, you know.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
On exactly, and that's that's international median average as well.
About engagement twenty three percent or exactly engagement thirty four
percent engagement in the United States. That's all right, so
step one by there as well. But it but so

(20:23):
two or three headlines, right, not ego on our part,
but just data of If the median net profit in
the industry is three percent EBITA and values based culture
driven brands are running in the twenties, there's something to.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
Pay attention to that's not going to work if.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
The if well right is I'd much rather have a
company working in twenty two, twenty four to twenty five
percent EBITA than three percent, thank you, definitely, yeah, and
even more so part of that is with that engagement number,
the industry still has well over one hundred percent turnover perannum,

(21:10):
and those values based companies culture driven, our culturally driven
brands are running in twenty twenty two percent turnover, eighty
percent retention. Right, So those are just a couple data
points that now take the pill. Do I actually believe

(21:31):
that staff team will perform at a high level? This
is almost back to the coinbase of Hey, wait, if
we have a value for every touch point of the
brand profitability, cleanliness, sanitation, safety, communication, training, growth, community, sustainability,

(21:55):
et cetera, then we can start asking the staff themselves, Hey,
what's the issue? What value supply? Right? What are the
behaviors that are that will support that value? And the
more values the better, And all of a sudden the
answer is do that.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
Okay, explain go ahead, Okay, I'm just you're seeing some
things that I think matter here in the sense of
trying for because some some operators are they're already struggling
with you know, how do we get this done? How
do we build this? And we'll hit on this in
a in a second, but you you had a couple
of points. This was your item six that it said
most companies with defined purpose and mission and values don't

(22:40):
really know how to use them as tools. So explain
that a little bit further, because well, I've got a
mission and a value already, Like, hey, here's my core value,
here's my mission in the company. Right, Why wouldn't people
see that as a tool.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Well, isn't that interesting, right? I mean it's it's like,
uh so the in mick Lingo we call it having
values as nouns. They sit there passively, Oh, these are values, right,
And we think of our staff as little kids or

(23:19):
ignorant or they don't care as much as we do. However,
I make the case that people would love to have
a job that they actually care about and are inspired by. Right.
So here's how it works, and it's really a three
step process for us. One one is the values themselves

(23:42):
literally or verbs. So the action we communicate by X,
we train by we are profitable period into or we
are fiscally healthy, whatever it might be. But the point
is three steps. Number one one, what is the issue
facing us? What is the issue for me as a server?

(24:05):
What is the issue for me as a manager as
a cook? Name the position mean me and the c
suite could be what's the issue the real issue, not
the symptom? What values apply? Name them and the more
the better? And then question three, what are the behaviors

(24:26):
that would model that that value in action? Do that?

Speaker 1 (24:31):
What if you're what if you're you're lining these things
out as a you know, as a business owner, you
think you understand it right, and you write them down
everything you know, You've got your values, your behaviors you
know to kind of result in this. But let's say
you're a year in and you realize that that's not
necessarily either doable or maybe it's not even the real

(24:55):
values or even mission of the company, and you have
to change it because now you've been building a culture
based on that. What if it's wrong? How do you
fix something like that where you've got a culture? Is
it just a hey? Culture changes, culture shifts with time?
How how do you address that?

Speaker 2 (25:13):
Well? What a great what a great question? First tap
into Restaurant Masterminds podcast because we're constantly talking.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
About this, about this topic. Yeah, right, exactly how do
you fix this stuff after you broke it? After a
little bit?

Speaker 2 (25:31):
So here's here's in in all seriousness, I love your
your question and appreciate it, and I think values are
not quite so simple as we make them right, single
word values? Well, wait, what's the behavior I actually want
to see in a value? So our our guide post,

(25:53):
here's a free tip to the audience, present tense, collective eye.
So we our present tense, have the value actually be
the verb? Right, fiscal, we are fiscally healthy, we communicate
with or treating each other with, so that the value

(26:15):
is actually the verb. Put it in, put it in
present tents, and does it touch every guest point, every
touch point of the brand. So there might be seven
or eight even nine values or so there might be more,
there might be less, but that would be one piece.

(26:36):
Here's the bigger headline. If you do purpose or mission correctly.
In my experience, in our experience doing this thousands of
times in well over seven countries, you know, and all
over the US, a well written mission and purpose will

(26:57):
last for fifty years, maybe longer. There you go. The
values may well last for twenty thirty years at least
a generation, right.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
If you've got good ones. I think that's the key. So,
you know, kind of the takeaway is spend the time,
really think there's through because I think you're Your point
that we've hit on before, you know with this is
that people sometimes I think just they push this. So
I mean I look at it as kind of a list.
It's just a list of here's all the things, like

(27:30):
a mind map, you know, in the essence of building one.
But you know, really spend some time. Do you use
mentors to hey, bank this, let me kind of throw
this idea out at you. What would you recommend to
operators so that they get it right. Because a lot
of these are e merging brands, they're building these things
right now, they're building a culture structure, right now, so,

(27:52):
what would be like the step.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
In emerging in emerging brands.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
To a brand new independent, you know, brand new exactly one.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
In in that initial startup phase. Right, whether I'm by myself,
or I've got my partners, or I've got an investment
group with me, whatever the whatever that process might be.
I think it's a really powerful process to actually treat this,

(28:20):
invest in it like a retreat. Expect this to maybe
take literally two or three days or the equivalent, over
a period of.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
Time, really working it through, really.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
Working it, and when you think you're done, what really
is the next level deeper? Because ninety percent of the
time I throw that number up quickly, but it's I
easily eighty to ninety percent of the time. As I
watch people do this, they'll settle, and they'll hit the edge,

(28:58):
but not the bull's eye of what the actual value is.
Right on the surface, it seems simple. And then and
then they end up writing four or five paragraphs for
each value they create, right, instead, keep going deeper? How
does it show up? And then more so, how do
those values integrate rather than conflict?

Speaker 1 (29:22):
Yeah, for sure, how do we're going to We're going
to pause there for a second, and you know, just
so everybody kind of knows, you know, this is you know,
when we get into these longer forms like this, sometimes
we'll cut these out in a couple of videos. But
on our next segment here, we're going to really dive
into getting into understanding one. Is culture really that important

(29:43):
if you're being a big brand. So stay tuned right here.
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you there. All right, we're back here on rest of
our masterminds and we're diving in deep. As you guys know,
it has been a good conversation around culture. If you're

(31:33):
a brand new to this show, welcome in because that's
something that you know. Obviously, we want to get everybody
really understanding what we're doing here. Which is giving away
free education from leaders like Rudy who has spent how
many decades have you worked on culture? I mean, my gosh,
you've been around the industry. How long have you been

(31:53):
doing well?

Speaker 2 (31:55):
Nick is now in our forty seventh year.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
My god, So listen, if you're going to need somebody
to help you build culture, this is the guy right here.
We're talking to him right now.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
So that's the point. I think a lot of times
when brands are starting up building a badass brand, you know,
they start with brand, They start with logo, theme, the look,
the feel. Maybe they have a handful of employees that
they think are there, you know, they're cool kids that
are going to help them take this brand to the

(32:28):
next level. And then all of a sudden things start breaking,
you know, and things start you know, hey, getting from
one to two units, as you and I have said,
that's almost impossible, you know, to get done. But here's
the thing that I want to address, and that is
how to build a company culture that employees will love.
And this was the article that I wanted to share everyone,

(32:50):
and it was from inc and they hit on a
couple of points here that I want to focus in
on I'll zoom in on this for you guys. If
you're watching on YouTube, that way you'll get a chance
to see everything. But this was five thousand founders that
basically shared all this information and the first thing they
went to was collaboration. So you and I talk about
this a lot. I'm going to go through the points

(33:11):
that I want you to talk about each of these.
But building collaborative start at the beginning, so you know,
building during the onboarding process, which I thought was interesting.
So getting that hire of the person really mapped out
for you. And then this consistency thing what we talked
about before hits home again around where this can go.

(33:33):
So getting the right people, consistency and obviously the component
of being collaborative, which was the breakdown. So I'm going
to stop showing that, but I wanted to get your
opinion on first of all, the collaborative. The collaborative moment
of building culture is because many people would say, listen, Paul,

(33:54):
I don't want to ask my employees how I should
build my company. Why should I? I asked them? They
don't know. They didn't put money or blood and sweat
and tears and three divorces into this thing they put,
you know, usually a job application and forty hours a week.

(34:15):
So how do you compare collaboration when you're looking at
that kind of table.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
Well, so I love the observation. And again, culture is
equally present, whether it's collaborative or it is a hierarchy
from the top down. I'm the founder, You're not do it,

(34:44):
do it or do it or don't do it? There
is culture there, right is that is a culture? What
Here's what I've found. And I've had this happen at
least ten times in my career out of thousands, but
at least ten. I can immediately think of the CEO
or the founder. We company's maybe been in business for

(35:07):
a year, maybe they've been in business nine years, maybe
as long as fifteen or sixteen years, and they decide, oh,
let's get explicit with the culture. So we'll build what
we call a mission team to create, collaboratively, create, co
create with the founder or the CEO.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
Why if they don't agree, well, that's is we treat.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Well, this is the point we treat. We teach them
how to have conflict in a lovely, safe way. And
where I was headed was at least ten times that
I am probably more, but I can think of a
handful of these guys are people you and I both know. Paul, Yeah,

(35:58):
that they grabbed me. We're about a third of a
way through the retreat collaborative work, and they're going you know,
I took I wrote down what I think this ought
to be. I wait, great, perfect, hold on to it,
don't throw it away, hold on to it. My bed
is by the time we're done, you're going to rip

(36:20):
up your own draft because your team is going to
take it even further than you could imagine.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
That's a big statement right there. That's a huge statement
that I think a lot of operators need to hear sometimes.
And this is something that I consult with a lot
of founders. I'm like, listen, and this is why we
always love to find brands that have co founders, you know,
because you need that alternative viewpoint to ground you in

(36:47):
many cases, because you can get off on these tangents
so easily. You know, you're easily influenced because of conferences
or you listen to this speaker or podcast, and then
you don't have anybody that's of high quality, even if
it's an employees or a co founder to bounce that
off of and to your point, I know, even with
me in our own media company, I thrive on giving

(37:09):
our team more input because now sometimes I don't agree
with it, sure, okay, but a lot of times I
kind of go, wait a minute, that's wow, that's a
good idea, And I didn't think of it that way,
you know exactly. It's like you can't think of everything well.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
And so what ends up happening is this becomes if
it was if we were cooking. Imagine a metaphor of
cooking at just a marvelous piere or just a beautiful
dish of something and I'm putting in some seasoning and
I'm putting.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
In some agree Sometimes it's just a little bit.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
We're tasting together and going a little bit less, a
little bit more. What if oh my god, and somebody
oftentimes the person that is the least verbos is the
motor and right counter culture to the United States.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
They'll usually drop the gem, don't they exactly?

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Boom right? Oh m G O MG right. And I
will tell you in all ten of those cases that
I named so so uh euphemistically and so quickly. The
every time the CEO founder looks at me, grins and

(38:27):
tears the paper up. It goes Okay, they eat, and
then and then here's where they and then here's now
all of a sudden, the same way the founder can
talk about their fireside chat, their their fire you know,
their campfire story of what how, what inspired them to

(38:49):
start the company in the first place, the same thing
happens now with forty people, fifty people, one hundred people
that start talking about none don't know the founder didn't create.
Is we created.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
As a collaboration and now I think, yeah, I think
it hits on all your points. Is that collaborative you know?
Note that then starts to set in stone the consistency
because now you have collaborators that are out there kind
of driving that consistency home.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
You will and then go back clear to to Bill
Armstrong's story, right, the coin based story, Brian, Brian, excuse me,
I'm sorry, to Brian's story of the team themselves will say,
you know, this performance is outside the brand. You need
to go and the team themselves is holding accountability in

(39:43):
a place and this is showing up in qsr's fast
casual family dining, fine Dining.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
Which goes back to the whole point of collaboration, you
start to create that bond and you have now you
have culture by almost luck osmosis, You've you've created culture
out of collaboration, which is really cool. Last point before
we get away from you guys today, and that is
this is the This is the big kicker, because we

(40:12):
always have to have a contrarian point of view. All right,
and I showed you this article. I want to share
it with our audience, and that is this article right here,
And this one came in from Fast Company. It says
why leaders shouldn't focus on creating corporate culture and what
they should be building instead. So the point they hit
on was a couple. First of all, leaders often preach

(40:34):
about the importance of building a healthy company culture. But
instead of trying to intentionally architect particular corporate culture, I
believe leaders should focus on building a sense of community.
It takes a much broader and longer perspective looking to
ensure that members feel safe blah blah blah, but deeper connections,
you know, which really start to elaborate into people's lives.

(40:57):
So there you go. So it's it's an anti culture concept.
It's an anti culture concept except except it is culture.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Accept everybody out there. It is culture, right, So think
of the folks, Paul, that live down where you live. Right,
Oh my god. I love the ocean, I love sailing,
I love motorcycles, I love rock and roll, whatever it is,
I love this community celebrates it and supports that game.

(41:36):
Right where I live up in the high country of Colorado,
it's cold and there's snow, and there's rights like, oh
my god. Right, there are like minds, like values and community.
I would make the case is the epitome of culture
because I'm surrounded by neighbors. Hopefully we're not Hopefully we're

(41:58):
smiling and saying good morning to each other.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
Yeah. Well, I think the point of that is once
that you get a community origin sometimes back to your
point is you can often because this is this is
a side step from this that we have learned, even
from our own experience in building businesses, because we have
membership businesses, all sorts of things that build can they're

(42:21):
designed to build community. We have a YouTube channel has
one point three million subscribers, so you're going to build
community out of that automatically. And one thing that I
have noticed from a community is that we do this
and I hope you guys listening to our podcast today
will do this is poll your community often, you know,

(42:42):
get input from them and just ask questions. You know,
we create polls that we get thousands and thousands and
thousands of people that fill out an answer and give
us kind of a line. Now, granted a lot of
these people could be not invested in your business at all,
but the point is you're getting a new mindset, you know,
collective mind, so to speak, the hive mind as it were,

(43:04):
when you can get that input along with the It's
just like your customer. Your customer is your hive mind
for a restaurant business. So obviously you're probably using some
sort of pulling software, you know, guest satisfaction software, like
an Ovation or something like that. And you know, Zach
and I have talked about this a lot. Is getting
that hive mind data then blending it with your operational

(43:29):
mind data, yes, and seeing where those two things meet.
And that is an intriguing concept of that. It's like,
what's what's the old statement? My dad said this to me, says,
you know, I know the man you are, but I
want to see the man you will be. And I

(43:53):
think that's what it is about brand.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
Well, I love what you just said, and that what
is the vision for or the community of which were apart? Right?

Speaker 1 (44:02):
Exactly?

Speaker 2 (44:03):
Yeah, And how lovely is that? So that's terrific? And
how much better could each of us be right within this,
within this environment? And if we do that, how do
we collectively take the whole further? How cool would that? Well? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (44:23):
And I think if you if you start to mention,
and we've had this come up on a couple of
the Fast Casual Nation podcast. Is when we're exploring stuff
with founders, they'll mention something and they'll they'll kind of
in a side step, say, you know, we came up
with this menu, IREM this particular thing, and it came
out of our community, our customers. And I'm like, now

(44:46):
I'm going to ask and dive a little deeper about
that because they're saying those things and I don't really
recognize that as a huge asset, but in reality, it
is the asset. You know, it's the customer that's telling you, Hey,
I would really like to see this. Would you make
that happen for me?

Speaker 2 (45:04):
Exactly? And also and also if the culture accentuates that
community accentuates all those aspects of the values that we honor,
the experience that you want to create in this community.
All of a sudden, now trial goes up, frequency goes up,

(45:27):
retention goes up, engagement goes up, Loyalty is beyond measure right,
and the money shows up in buckets and out of
out of engagement and that community thriving together. And again

(45:48):
it can happen at any level of our industry QSR
to fine dining.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yeah, And I think that's the point right there that
everybody has to understand, is that you have to open
your brand up a little bit and hopefully that's going
to help you create a little bit of the spoken
the wheel that you're building, which is that which will
become your culture. And I think a lot of people
to your point, Rudy, that you and I have talked
about this before, a lot of people don't realize that

(46:17):
the culture that they're building is eventually going to be
a line item on that P and L you know,
because of the value that you've created, you know, for
that brand. So anyway, lots to cover here. We are
going to cover more topics like this in the future
for sure. As always, if you guys have not visited

(46:37):
saver dot fm. This is where you need to be.
Just jump over to saver dot fm and you'll, of
course catch a chance on all of our podcast as
well as some of our other things that are happening.
And let me kind of show you something, guys, let
me share this screen with you so you guys can
catch up on all the things that are happening over

(46:57):
on saver. So, first of all, we have a program
called Fast Casual front Runners. If you're a brand new
brand and you want to make it into an investment
package or even a consulting package from us here at
saber fm, then all you have to do is fill
out that note right there on becoming a front runner.
And the way it works is we're going to go

(47:18):
make a video about your business and we're going to
put it up on our YouTube channel and we're going
to drive maybe tens of thousands of customers your way.
So get onto Fast Casual front Runners. If you're not
following us over on the YouTube channel, guess what, bro
We crast two hundred and five thousand subscribers, one point

(47:39):
two million viewers right here on saver fm. Guys, this
is the place to be and it's probably the number
one place out there in terms of education for the
restaurant industry. So thank you so much for coming in
on that, Rudy. As always, man, I love to dive
in deep with you. It's good to see you. We'll
catch right here on Restaurant Masterminds,

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Culture Do's and Don'ts: 3 Steps to Building A Great Company Culture

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