How to build a Better Culture (even without formal metrics) with Brett Hoogeveen | Episode 90

Speaker 2: Great parks and healthy landscapes are the products of strong leadership. This show is dedicated to helping you become that leader. This is the Parks and Restoration podcast. We're on a mission to help you leave a legacy of healthy ecosystems, quality parks, and future generations of people who care about the natural world. Find show notes, links, and other information on our website, parksandrestoration.com. And now, let's get to today's episode. Hello everyone. And welcome to the parks and restoration podcast. This is a live meetup with Brett Hogeveen, one of the founders of better culture. am stoked to have this conversation. am currently in the middle of a better cultures mindset leadership program, and it has been absolutely phenomenal on the, Zoom call with us today is Telly van Ricky. She's the facilitator of that. ⁓ it's been a fantastic program and I just, had to reach out to the guys at better culture to have this conversation. ⁓ Brett is the co-founder of better culture and mindset LLC. ⁓ he is a, certified speaking professional, a keynote speaker, TEDx speaker, and the host of the better culture podcast, which is, ⁓ quickly become one of my favorite podcasts. ⁓ subscribe to it. And I've listened to, think every single episode you've published. So, ⁓ Brett, welcome to the show. Absolutely. So, ⁓ I'm gonna, we're just going to jump right into it. So better culture, it's all built around, ⁓ culture, obviously hence the name and making it better. ⁓ so why culture? Like, why, why is culture so important? And, and why is, why did you make this your thing now?

Speaker 1: Yeah, so excited to be here. Thanks, Chris. Yeah, there's a long story and a short story. I'll give you the short story. ⁓ The short story is, man, culture is just so undervalued and underappreciated. People talk about it a lot, but what I find is a lot of people really don't adequately connect the dots, Chris, between culture in a workplace and two things that are crazy important, okay? And those two things are the success of your enterprise or business. So that would be number one, right? And I don't care if you're a for-profit organization, a nonprofit, a government agency, whatever you're setting out to do, if you have an amazing culture and people that love being there, working, doing what you do, you're gonna achieve those goals more effectively, okay? Be more profitable. So that's number one. Number two gets big time short shrift, which is we all have a limited number of days here on earth. ⁓ And when you like your job, when you're engaged, when you appreciate the people you work with, your quality of life for employees, for managers, for everybody involved, heck, customers, goes up, right? So we can help build better businesses and we can help every single human that touches that business live a better life if we can build a great culture. And so that's why I care about culture and what we try to do at Better Culture to make that happen.

Speaker 2: Yeah. So, ⁓ what is your, ⁓ lack of a better term, empirical evidence that, ⁓ better culture does result in better business outcomes.

Speaker 1: So you can go two paths on this, all right? Chris, the empirical proof is that there are a lot of studies and I won't presume to start to quote them specifically, but there's a lot of data out there that's linked to, and most of the studies, they look at like one data piece, right? So increases in employee engagement lead to increases in productivity, for instance, right? And that makes sense. Gallup puts out data every single year talking about employees who are actively engaged, engaged, disengaged and then. actively disengaged. And what an actively disengaged employee means is that employee is actively working against their own company. Like they actively don't wanna do what they're supposed to do. They actively don't like seeing their company succeed. And it's pretty obvious if you have those employees hanging around, it's gonna undermine productivity, right? And the data shows that. I could show you data that links employee engagement and cultural health to increases in safety compliance. and decreases in injury rates, decreases in liability insurance costs, decreases in employee lawsuits for safety related things, things that tie directly to dollars and cents that show up on a P &L as either expenses or other things. And if you can lower those, obviously it makes your business more profitable, right? And I could go on and on, mean, decreases in ⁓ call-in rates, decreases in. ⁓ in employee unwanted turnover decreases in all sorts of things that hit the P and L that, that, that data clearly, clearly shows. Right. So that's the nerdy way. The, the obvious way that I typically answer that question is I don't need data to answer that question. Let's just do a thought experiment. Okay. And I think you'll like this Chris, but here's the deal. You're building a team that needs to get something done. You can either have a team that's that is jazzed about what they do. They enjoy working together. They feel pride in your company. They feel connected to your mission. They like you as a manager. They have good relationships among one another. Or I'll give you the opposite team that has all the same skill sets, capabilities, but they don't like their job. They don't like one another. They don't like their manager. ⁓ They don't trust the company. They don't have pride in the organization, but they have the same resumes. Which team would you like? And if you think if you're not sure which one will deliver better results than I can.

Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. You probably ought not to listen to this show. Yeah. No, you're and you're absolutely right. And it translates into, like you said, not just profit on the on the P and L, but it translates for a lot of us in mission driven line of work, like for nonprofits and government entities and the parks and conservation folks that listen to the show. people that are engaged are going to deliver on that mission better. and they're going to have a better time doing it and it's going to be more sustainable in the long run.

Speaker 1: I'll give you an example, Chris, from one of my early organizations I worked at that had an amazing culture. In my first week or so of being there, I was getting a tour of the facilities, right? And so this is, I'm gonna make a very, very, very loose connection to, know, parks and rec, things like that. ⁓ This VP was walking us around, showing us, and just during ⁓ his tour, he noticed that there was a dandelion that had popped up near the edge of the sidewalk, and on these beautiful grounds, And just, didn't stop talking just mid-stride. He just leaned down, plucked it from the ground, kept walking, kept on with the tour, dropped it in a waste can. But as a point of that employee onboarding in this organization with a great culture, they said, look, we care about the details here, right? We attend to the small things. And ⁓ if you have an employee or a team or a mission to have, to create great outdoor experiences for your community and to have clean, safe environments, obviously, if you have somebody that's excited about the work that they do, they're gonna do a better job creating that environment for your community.

Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah. And I've seen this. the parallel with that in my line of work is the parks person that goes out there and there's, you know, there's always the Doritos bag that got away from somebody's car and it's blowing across or, you know, somebody left their, their can of monster energy drink, ⁓ you know, on the side of the skate park, they'd stop and pick it up. and when, when the culture is such that you have that trust among teammates and you've, you've built that, that just feeling of belonging. in this organization, that's the, doesn't have to be a standard that you write down. It just happens. Right. And, ⁓ that that's why I'm absolutely, ⁓ 100 % bought in that the ecosystem that you create within your organization is the number one thing that you, that you focus on, especially if you're in any, in any sort of leadership role, which takes me to my next question then. So, all right. So we're going to agree culture is important. Where does one even start? Because the common discussion around work and professionalism is outcomes, right? And it's the P &L and it's the productivity and you came here to do a job, you didn't come here to deal with this fluffy stuff. Where do you even start?

Speaker 1: So I think that the answer to that question, Chris, depends on what role that person is in, right? So if you're an executive and you're responsible for an organization, essentially, you might start somewhere different than if you're an individual contributor who just wants to have a healthier team, right? And so depending on sort of where you sit or what your goals are, I can give a better answer. So I'm gonna flip that back to you. For who? Who do you want me to? Give me a theoretical person here.

Speaker 2: Yeah. So let's have a conversation around both. ⁓ let's, so let's start, let's start at the top and work down. ⁓ so executive level, ⁓ department head, ⁓ CEO type division lead, whatever, ⁓ person in charge of, of people and outcomes. Where, where does that person start? Sure.

Speaker 1: So if you're responsible for a sizable employee base ⁓ or organization or just big department, what you wanna do first is you want to figure out ⁓ what's the culture you wanna have and what's the culture that you do have. And there will always be a gap. You could go into the best, most healthy organization in the entire world. And if I asked a really good executive, what's the culture you'd love to have and what's the culture you do have, there's gonna be a gap. It might be a small gap, it might be a huge gap, but there's gonna be a gap. And that gap is where we focus, right? The name of my company is Better Culture. And although that's a pretty simple, obvious sort of name, it was very intentionally chosen because the goal shouldn't be with culture stuff. A lot of times people treat it like it's a fixed thing, like, well, this is our culture. That's the best organizations and the best teams aren't really focused on what their culture is. They're focused on how can we make it better, right? And so I focus on that gap. And in my language, what I want that executive who cares about this culture stuff, what I want them to have is a strategic plan for continuous culture improvement. Now that sounds really fancy and complicated, but all that means is you have some vision, again, for where you wanna be and where you are, and then we break that vision down into a few chunks that are affecting team culture, performance, employee experience, those things, and we say, great, what are like two or three areas that if we made those processes better, if we tightened up some things, that it would logically lead to a predictable improvement in culture, employee experience, right? And that could be, I've got one other executive who's a pain to work with and everyone's afraid of him. ⁓ okay, well, maybe let's work on that. See if they're open to give them some feedback, set them up with a coach. It could be your onboarding process. It could be your HR. It could be your pay structure, your valuations. It could be anything, right? Identify what those things are, pick a couple. and put a plan in place to make them better, right? And that's what it looks like to have a strategic plan for continuous culture improvement is on some regular cadence, annual is fine, identify a few things, put a plan in place, make them better, repeat the process.

Speaker 2: So, ⁓ so many, so many different avenues I want to take here to dig deeper into that. ⁓ okay. So that that's for executives. Let's go ahead and we'll keep on the thread that we started with. now for the, ⁓ the, frontline employee, the individual contributor, ⁓ the rank and file folks, ⁓ where, where do they begin? Because they, I have said this repeatedly, you don't have to have the title to be a leader. A leader can be anyone inside of an organization and the leader is not a manager. Those shoes are very, very different things. ⁓ anyone within an organization can bring leadership to the organization. So, ⁓ and, and, ⁓ impact and culture is certainly going to be a product of bringing that leadership. What do, what's your recommendations for those that don't, that don't sit at the top of an org chart or don't have the high ranking title.

Speaker 1: Yeah, well, what you really, I if, we kind of skipped over manager level and I don't know if we want to go back to that or not, but I'm gonna skip down to individual contributor. And really, if you're an individual contributor, then I'm just going to assume you don't just by status or by your role or your title or position, you don't really have the ability to change processes necessarily. Now you could recommend, you could bring ideas, but you can't really change the systems then. that you work within, the only thing you can change is you. It's like how you show up, right? And so if you wanna be on a healthier team, improve your workplace culture, and this applies to every level, executive, mid-level, frontline, but the biggest way to make a difference is to examine how do I show up? What kind of a teammate am I? What kind of a role model am I? And at Better Culture, we have this 20 tenants process and program where it's 20 employee, like, attitudes and behaviors of a star employee. And what I would do if I got dropped onto a team and I wanted to make it better as an individual contributor, I would try to live those types of things, ⁓ assume positive intent, know how to have friendly disagreement and friction, ⁓ be tolerant of diverse viewpoints, ⁓ make good friends and relationships, be kind, be helpful. I these aren't complicated things, but be that kind of person and try to encourage and elicit those types of things from others, right? ⁓ On frontline teams, ⁓ a term that I like, instead of talking about core values, which really represents usually a larger organization has decided core values, anybody in the world can decide what they want their team norms to be. And what team norms are is just the way your team shows up every day. And those can be formal, they can be informal, you can write them down, you can not. But that's what I'm trying to influence is what are the norms on my team? And how can I make those healthier, stronger consistently over time through my? influence. So that would be my, I'm not sure if that's a, I said a lot there, but I think realistically there's certain things you can control and certain things you can't when you're in an individual contributor role.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and, and you're spot on in that. ⁓ so one of the ways I've heard culture defined is just what are the norms? You know, it's, it's, the norms of whatever the organization or the team or whatever it's what gets tolerated. ⁓ you know, what doesn't, what are the, the, just, you know, what's, what's normal and.

Speaker 1: And Chris, ⁓ if I can elaborate real quick. So on that front, I do a lot of workshops, a lot of processes where I talk with people. And sometimes it's even people who are in leadership roles. And they will, after we go through a topic, we discuss some things, they will genuinely say to me something like, yeah, man, I wish our organization would would do that. As if like, wait, why are you here? The reason that you're here is so you can go do that, you know, like don't sit on your hands and say, ⁓ know. I really wish we would make more of a focus on that. Like, that's why your company sent you to this leadership training. So you could be that kind of a leader that made this happen, you know, ⁓ and individual contributors, managers, have way more power than they think. You know, I wish our meetings had more energy. You think you could do something about that? Like that would be so easy for anybody to change, right? So if you figure out what that norm is that you would like to see, probably you have more of an ability to impact that than you think.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's exactly what I mean by anybody can be a leader is that anyone has a particular influence. know, I mean, one of the, one of the books behind me here is the seven habits and, and he, know, Stephen Covey talks about the circle of control versus circle of influence. And, know, and so for these, these frontline employees, you have a certain circle of control that you can operate in. And that's one of those is how you show up every day. So one of the tenants that I teach is, is you bring the weather. So when you show up to a workplace. You are bringing some sort of weather with you. And, and as long as you're, you're cognizant of that, you don't always have to be walking in all sunshine and rainbows every day because not everybody's going to be able to do that. You know, in fact, I just had this very situation yesterday. ⁓ you know, got, got some things going on that's, that's, that's, know, stressing me and the family out. And, I knew I, I wasn't coming to work as my best self. And so I went to my team in my office and I said, Hey guys, Uh, I'm not at a hundred percent. I recognize that I'm not, and I just want you to know, I'm not trying to be a jerk. Uh, if I ever come across that way, it's just, you know, there's some things dragging me down and that's all it is. Like it's just, it's recognizing and bringing some attentionality to it. And, and knowing that you have the ability and the responsibility to show up as the employee that you would want to work with. I think that was something that was taught in the mindset mindset course. I'm like, That is just, that's brilliant.

Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever heard the phrase you bring the weather, but I like it. Yeah, great. Yeah.

Speaker 2: ⁓ and so like, just do that. Just to show up as the employee you would, you would want to work around. Okay. We skipped over middle management. What's, what's recommendation there.

Speaker 1: So, and again, this can apply at every level, but specifically for middle managers, I'm just gonna tell you what you, the concept, and then I'm gonna give you a little homework assignment if you're interested. But the concept is you better have an answer to the question of what does it mean to be a leader? Okay? And we talk a lot about mindset at Better Culture because a lot of managers, they get put in that role to manage processes, to manage workflows, to manage outcomes, manage, you know, and ultimately to manage people. But 99 % of their time, they're really just focused on the stuff that has to get done. And what they miss unintentionally a lot of times is what could be considered a big distinction between management and leadership, right? And when I ask people what, okay, so you manage a team of nine people, like what? how do you, what's your job as a leader? know, what, do you think of your role? What does it mean to be a leader for you? And most people don't know how to answer that question. You know, they start to tell me about what their team does or what their department does. And I say, ⁓ respectfully, I don't think that's a very good answer. I think you're missing a lot of opportunities to build your people and build your teams. And as we get into a conversation, I will introduce them to the seven principles of leadership that we teach at Better Culture, which say, I think are good answer to what does it mean to be a leader? So if anyone listening is curious, just Google better culture, seven principles, you'll find an article that I think answers pretty well. What does it mean to be a leader in our language? There's other answers, but in our language, it means it's my job as a leader to always be looking for opportunities to build pride. It means it's my job to help people feel appreciated. It means it's my job to help people be successful at work and in life. Life. It's my job to protect the right of good employees to work with other good employees. Not perfect, but good. It's my job to deal effectively with conflict, not to duck it, not to create it, just deal effectively with it. It's my job to help make work more enjoyable for my people. It's my job to make decisions effectively and communicate around decisions so people feel like they know what's going on. Those are the kinds of things that like, yeah, you're managing your function every day, but if you don't have that top of mind, if you don't have that mindset, You miss so many opportunities to lead when all you're doing is focused on managing. So that would be my biggest piece of advice for managers is get a little bit more clarity on what you could be doing and accomplishing as a leader aside from just managing the functions of your team.

Speaker 2: And, and so much of that fall, like all of those tenants of leadership when, and I'm sure you've probably done this too. So you go and you do a workshop or you do a talk or something. And oftentimes I will ask people, okay, what, what makes a great culture or, ⁓ on the flip side, what makes a, you know, what doesn't make a good culture? What, what is it that he roads culture? And oftentimes, ⁓ almost unanimously, ⁓ I will get. trust and communication being kept in the loop. ⁓ People hate not knowing what's going on. And so that comes back to that communication and expectations and keeping people in the loop. ⁓ Trust often falls back on this whole tenet of employees should have the right to work with other good employees. And so then that brings in this whole conflict management. Patrick Lentoni is one of my favorite ⁓ leadership thinkers and authors and, know, he talks about the five dysfunctions of a team. And that's one of them is that unwillingness to have the uncomfortable conversations. ⁓ and, so, so much of that goes back to this is what people recognize erodes culture. So how there it is right there until he's holding it. Yes. Yup. It's one of the books right behind me here. Here's the things that we know he wrote it. So what's the opposite of that and how do I get intentional about it? I just, I love that. I like that's why I'm. I geek out so much about this, this mindset, mindset program is, it's just been so fantastic because it brings that stuff. Like everything I hear in these talks, these workshops that I do, I'm like, ⁓ this is addressing it head on, you know? ⁓ I just, I love that. ⁓ so how you talk about doing like the strategic plan of like, what's the culture I want to oftentimes what ⁓ the pushback I get when I, when I started talking about culture is like, how do you, how do you measure it? Like, like, how do you, how do you put metrics on it? You know, and if, if you're going to, you're, trying to build a team and you're going to try to hold a team accountable to, building a culture. Like, how do you put measurable metrics? Because we know what, what, what gets measured gets done. Right. And, ⁓ how, do you, how do you put. metrics on it or do you, guess maybe is the better question. What's your on that?

Speaker 1: Yeah, do you guys at your parks department at the agency, do you guys do a culture survey and employee engagement survey?

Speaker 2: no, but I have, ⁓ I have cultural components, metrics built into all of our performance metrics. Sure. So every performance evaluation I do, ⁓ and every, ⁓ so I do, ⁓ quarterly or third of a year, ⁓ check-ins with my team. And, and so we'll have a conversation around, ⁓ you know, around culture. And so a lot of that, but I don't have like a. Survey, I guess, mechanism.

Speaker 1: Well, so I have a good answer and then a controversial answer, I suppose. So I'll give you the controversial one first just to be fun. I actually don't think measurements that important. I really don't. ⁓ I think intentionality on improvement is way more important than measurement, right? Like our company name isn't measure culture, it's better culture, right? And I know exactly what will make cultures better.

Speaker 2: Tell me more.

Speaker 1: Like those seven principles I just ran down, if leaders every single week, month, year are working on getting better at building pride, showing appreciation, helping people learn and grow, protecting the right, like if leaders are getting better at those things, your culture will be getting better. I know it, I've seen it over and over and over again. And the mistake a lot of organizations make is they say, well, we know it's important, we should do some work on it, but you know, we kind of have, we need to benchmark, we need to figure out the data stuff, we need, before we get started on something, we better agree what we're gonna measure. and then they just never do anything, you know? And so this obsession over measurement can be actually a challenge ⁓ because everybody knows what a good culture looks like, feels like, what kind of a boss they'd like to have, what kind of a teammate they'd like to have. I can tell you exactly what that looks like and I can tell you exactly how to help leaders and employees get better. I can. So if a client wants to measure it, great, like I love that. But. let's not treat the measurement as like a really big important part of the process. It's a fine part of the process, but measuring doesn't help you make progress. So just don't let all the energy in the room go toward measurement, measurement, measurement, data, data, data, because any energy that goes toward that is energy that's not being put in some ways toward development, toward growth, toward improvement. And so I hope that, did that sound like I was anti-measurement? Because I am not anti-measurement.

Speaker 2: Sure. The, so the, ⁓ and I agree with you, ⁓ because I have seen, and I've, I've been victim to this whole concept of, I gotta build, I gotta build the proper metrics and the proper measurement systems to know if this thing's going to work before I even try. And, I've, and I've gotten lost in that. And then you just don't end up trying the, the science guy in me though, pushes back on that of like, okay, well, if we. We know what's going to improve culture and we know that it's not something that you just do overnight. Like you mentioned earlier, it's long-term thing. It's a never ending thing. And you know, Simon Sinek's infinite game. That's another one of the books that's behind me. And this is absolutely true in ecology too of like, you don't go out and just do a little bit of ⁓ ecology, ecological management, do a prescribed burn on a prairie and then walk away and be like, ⁓ it's done forever. Like it's an ongoing, it's a never ending thing. Yes. Culture's obviously the same way. How how do you know that you're heading in the right directions? Let's say, whatever, your unit of culture is gonna go from a five to a 5.5, without some sort of measurement system in place, how do you know that it's made that incremental step that way and it didn't just go from a five to a five?

Speaker 1: So I told you I'd give you a controversial answer and then a good answer. Okay. So here's the good answer. All right. So the good answer and genuinely Chris, I'm just being a realist. ⁓ This one depends on who's the client and what are their interests and how motivated are they? How much are they intentional about driving culture? So if I'm working with somebody and they're the owner of a 200 person company and they care about culture and they wanna make it better, like they'll know. Like we can measure, we do culture surveys. We do employee engagement surveys at Better Culture. So I'm not anti-measurement by any means. It's a great process to have. But ultimately that client keeps us on board if he thinks it's working, right? Like he goes, this is great. Love you guys. We're gonna do, he never sneezed to see a survey and we might do surveys, but ultimately he's kind of doing this and going like, does this feel like it's working? And that's what he wants. Now, if I flip the whole nother direction, And I work with some, with ⁓ a large bureaucratic organization that has turnover in their leadership every 18 months. they're like, how did we even identify this vendor? how do they, like that type of organization has to be led and driven by data, right? Like, well, yeah, here's the last six surveys and here's what's happening. And you have to measure and you have to benchmark and you have to have all those things. And so I'm sorry, I'm just being a realist there for a little while. It depends on how.

Speaker 2: And that one has the potential to go forward and backwards because of the two notes.

Speaker 1: You to go to someone to get budget authority year after year and you have to prove things are working, then yeah, we better measure, right? Like we better, right? And so in that case, it's real simple. I mean, there's lots of ways to do good employee measurement. Our Better Culture Survey is amazing. It gives really robust culture score at the department level, the team level, and it boils up to one number for the whole organization where you can tell last year we were at a 72, this year we're at a 74, we're making progress, right? There's lots of ways you can do it. You just have to pick a few validated questions, administer them to your employees in a way that they will respond ⁓ accurately, which a lot of times you need to have an outside vendor to do a little bit is my opinion, because sometimes people are worried about where does the data go, and you just track it over time and see if things are getting better.

Speaker 2: And it's, I'm guessing the value in it is really in the trend data. It's not so much the, from this survey to that survey, it's, it's this series of surveys has shown a trend in the positive direction. You know, it isn't necessarily that 2025 compared to 2026. Yes, those numbers matter. But when you look at 2020, you know, 2020 to 2025, how's our overall trend? That's probably more informative than any one single year data point would be my guess.

Speaker 1: Agree completely, agree completely. And even without trend data, so yes, I agree. And even without a trend, so just running it once, getting data one time, if it's a robust enough survey that you can kind of see the whole organization and how different pockets of the organization ⁓ feel, just one time of getting that level of data is helpful at identifying where are our biggest opportunities for improvement, right? So it informs your planning, ⁓ It informs that strategic plan that I talked about for sure, right? And then you can iterate that process year after year.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. mean, listeners to this show will understand that completely. we, know trend data that, you know, the Iowa pheasant count is, you know, always looking at this is pretty common among, you know, wildlife population data. ⁓ and then also on, ⁓ ecological management strategies is your, can identify the key limiting factor and, and focus on that thing. That's going to have the biggest bang for my buck. I, if I apply resources towards this, it's going to make the biggest impact in the shortest amount of time or with the. minimal amount of resources. So, um, that's, that's kind of core to what we do is conservation people. All right. want to, I want to shift a little bit. Um, so culture oftentimes discussion around culture oftentimes stays focused on the positive stuff and you know, it's, we're going to improve and things are going to get better, but along the way, it, it's not just a, a, a perpetual, uh, uh, rising up. graph, right? You're going to have bumps. Sometimes things are just going to go completely off the rails, through a, a culture lens. When things go off the rails at an organization, let's say, you know, one things I love about the mindset leadership program, it is so people focused. Like it, it isn't process focused. isn't theory focused. isn't philosophy focused. It's so, it's so focused on the, on the people and the interactions. With people and building a culture that takes care of the people. But sometimes, you know, people are messy and let's say you've got, you've got somebody that, ⁓ it just isn't cutting it or, ⁓ is, is, is that invasive species in your ecosystem at your workplace? ⁓ through the culture lens, how do you, how do you deal with that? Because that can be very difficult for the ripple effect that they have. the coworkers around them. the managers above them and certainly the leaders within the organization that are counting on the managers to do that. How do you look at that?

Speaker 1: Yeah, well, ⁓ yeah, thanks for mentioning Better Cultures Mindset Leadership Program and the leadership programming that we do. I'm glad that you've enjoyed that ⁓ product.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I've taken a lot of leadership classes and this has got to be, it's been my favorite one so far. Just, I think maybe it's just, it's personal preference because it is so much through the lens of how I see the world. ⁓ but it is, it is a cut above a lot of the leadership programs that I've been through or just, you know, they're kind of based in theory and this and that, but like, this is, it's so practical and it is so people focused and it's, and it's ecosystem. Like it's, building this culture. but it's putting people at the center of it, which really, you know, that is culture, but, I don't know. just, it's so perfectly aligned with my values and my principles when it comes to leadership.

Speaker 1: No, I don't think it's just your personal preference. I think it is the best out there.

Speaker 2: Good. Not that either one of us are biased.

Speaker 1: Not at all. ⁓ you know, I think dealing with a toxic person, dealing with somebody that's sort of upsetting the culture in the apple cart, there's not a simple answer to that, right? It would depend on the person, on a lot of unique variables, their role there. So I can't give detailed answers to that question without a more detailed investigation ⁓ because it's not a one size fits all approach, right? There are some folks and there are some issues that it's like a one time, if that happens one time, you need to, like that person gets fired that day, you know, like, and then there's other situations where it's like, we're gonna go a long time dealing with this. We're gonna really try to work hard at it. We're gonna, you know, et cetera. And I think the most important piece of feedback that I can give, and I know this is simple. but a lot of what happens around culture is actually the amount of progress you're gonna make. I like to say the biggest variable in how much progress you make on your culture, and this would apply to the same one problem with a person, it's not how smart you are, it's not how perfect you say something or how eloquent you address something or that you use the perfect leadership concept or... The biggest variable is volume of... How often do you try to address it? How often do you try to work on it? ⁓ and so if I have somebody on my team who's causing disruption, who's hard to work with, who's toxic, who's, know, everybody's walking on eggshells. What a lot of leaders will do is they'll kind of go, ⁓ I don't want to deal with that. You know, and they kind of withdraw from it and they kind of go, ⁓ man, I should talk to her later or him later. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it doesn't. And And things just go unsaid, you know? And the person doesn't get a lot of feedback. You don't try to address it. And I just want you to imagine, like, let's imagine that maybe you just try to talk about it like once a month, you know? Like the leader says, hey, do you have a minute? Like this is, and you're just once a month addressing the issue. You're just not gonna see any change. You're just not, you know? It's status quo for a whole month and then one kind of tough conversation and then status quo for a month. Whereas if you addressed it three times a day, you're gonna get resolution much faster, right? Hey, we talked about this this morning. mean, so the person, let's say they have a bad attitude and they sit in a meeting and they lean back and just at one point they go, ⁓ or they chuckle under their breath or something, like address it, talk about it immediately after the meeting until this person is so sick of having to talk about this stuff with you that they either listen or. or a performance plan, whatever it is, the biggest mistake is just not having a high volume of work on it, of feedback on it. So that's my advice there. Does that make sense to you, Chris?

Speaker 2: No. And, and that jives with a lot of the other kind of, ⁓ feedback I've, I've heard on this is that, you know, it's, it's not just a one-time thing. isn't, you don't just bring it up at the performance evaluation time. it's, it's got to be almost in real time as much as possible. ⁓ and, and it seems like that's, that's getting more and more. It makes me think of, ⁓ can't think of the author, but radical candor. ⁓ and the whole core of that is, ⁓ You know, care personally challenged directly. Yes. And, know, and then going back to Renee Brown is clear as kind. And so if your expectation is you're not going to slouch back in the meeting and, know, and be that one. like, ⁓ you know, and like, like bringing that weather to the organization, you call it out and say, our expectations are that you're engaged in this meeting. Your, your opinion matters as does that of the people around you. And and you call it out in real time, but my God is that difficult. It is. Especially for those that hate conflict.

Speaker 1: Right, and I just want people to understand, if listeners, if they're aware of those two, sort of a book and then a concept that you mentioned there, right, radical candor is like, it's a way to have hard conversations and to structure those and to think about what it means to be direct and to have those clear as kind is great advice, especially for managers, like don't beat around the bush thinking you're being nice, like be clear in what the issue is and the problem. Those are all great pieces of advice, but they're tactical. And what happens is people think they're being great leaders when they try to use those concepts once. Right? Okay, I'm finally ready to have that conversation and I'm gonna worry, I'm gonna be really clear, right? And then they think, okay, that's done, you know? And then like, well, we'll see how it goes for the next couple months and then we'll address it on the annual eval. And it's like, no, like you need high volume of this feedback. one, a lot of times it's uncomfortable for people like you mentioned. And so the only other piece of advice that I'll give

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 1: At Better Culture, I mentioned these leadership principles. The fourth leadership principle is that it's your job to help protect the right of good employees to work with other good employees. And if that's my job, there's somebody that's hard to work with, and it's my job to protect the right of everybody else to not have to deal with that, then I gotta deal with it regularly and relatively assertively. But the third principle says it's my job to help everybody I work with be successful at working in life. And so, In my own head, when I'm trying to address these situations, I'm not trying to get the person in trouble. I'm not trying to say I'm mad at you. What I'm saying is, principle three, I so want you to be successful here. I so want your reputation to be stellar with your colleagues. I so want you to be a ⁓ fantastic person to have in these meetings. Like, I really want that. And because I want that so badly, and because the last seven times that you've been in these meetings, it hasn't gone great, we gotta talk about it again, right? because I really want you to be successful. And eventually you decide it's a performance issue and you document it you go through all the steps eventually if they decide not to change. But I think the big variable that like with radical candor and other that doesn't get discussed often enough, Chris, is that the volume. How frequently do you coach the person? ⁓ Because that's what makes change happen or fast. And that's what saves your team from having to deal with this situation for six months.

Speaker 2: Yep. Well, and it builds some, some normalcy around having those conversations and it, and it, then you get that ripple effect. So, suddenly then culture or not suddenly, but over time, culture then becomes something that everyone plays a role in when the, when the leader or the manager is demonstrating that when an expectation is not being met, it's addressed with it's addressed right there on the spot in real time with frequency, ⁓ and, with consistency. That gives permission for everyone else around them to do the same thing. And now over time, you'll, you'll, you'll create the type of thing where they were coworkers. We'll see, you know, a particular behavior or something that, that isn't meeting expectations or, or goes against a particular expectation or a norm. Yeah. They have permission now to call that out. Like, know, Hey,

Speaker 1: Yes, with one big caveat that I wanna make sure I'm clear on. I'm not a big believer in like public feedback. I still would probably do it privately. Certainly. But I would have the meeting. I might do it in front of the group if it was the right approach. But like as I'm wrapping up the meeting and as folks are leaving the room, I say, hey Chris, you got two minutes, can you stick around after? Like we're gonna talk about it like right now and it only needs to be two minutes. like, could we, you know, I just wanna make that clear. that it's not necessarily that the second you see it in front of people, you have to address it. Depends, you know, but often times one-on-one is better. Yeah, praise the public, yes, discipline in private. So yes, I agree with that caveat.

Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. And it's going to depend on the, on the situation, obviously, you know, if it's just some small little thing of, you know, sighing in a meeting or something. But ⁓ anyway, well, I think we've beat that dead horse for long enough. I want to go, go all the way back. So, ⁓ I guess if I was a good podcaster, I would have started with this, but let's go all the way back to your origin story. and you and, and, ⁓ it was Kim that I believe started your dad that started, ⁓ Yeah, maybe it was QLI, but this, ⁓ healthcare company, private healthcare company that, was ranked as a best place to work five times over in the Omaha area. one, how, how did, and I'm sure we've talked about it. How did that structure get put in place over time? Like, you know, this is a big, big company. then what is the measurement of best place to work? Like, like how, how, what is that designation? What do they look at?

Speaker 1: So, you know, a lot of people deserve credit for building such a terrific culture at QLI. I mean, a lot of the early leaders, a lot of people have contributed to that over time. QLI has been in operation. They do amazing ⁓ transformational rehabilitation and long-term care for individuals that have been affected by catastrophic injury. So brain injury, spinal cord injury, ⁓ other types of really tough. ⁓ situations where people are trying to get back a sense of normalcy or even long-term quality of life. And they're the largest center of their kind in the whole country. Um, that's here in the Omaha area. So, uh, they do amazing things. The way that culture really came to be. Um, I, I believe those seven principles that I talked about earlier, um, that we teach at better culture. My father crafted those in 1991 when he was just a few years into building QLI. because his sort of hypothesis as a CEO of a startup nonprofit was he knew he didn't know everything that he was gonna need to know to build an amazing rehabilitation and long-term care company. He knew he needed to hire people and keep great people that did know how to do all those things. And he said, I think the biggest lever I have as an executive, as a CEO, is if I can make this the dangest place to work you've ever seen. that's gonna help me attract and build and motivate and keep those, those people like amazing therapists and fantastic, you know, physician relationships and great facilities manager and amazing CNA certified nursing assistants that are like all the stuff that we need to deliver a high quality experience for our patients. If I can just build an amazing culture, that culture will help us attract these amazing people that'll, that'll get us to these outcomes. And that was his early sort of hypothesis there was let's figure out what I need leaders to do to get us there. And there's a whole backstory to those seven principles and where they came from, but a lot of work went into those and they were carefully chosen as to what does, what do leaders and anybody can be a leader need to show up and do every day to build that world-class culture. And it turns out after being in business for about 15 years, they participated in the city of Omaha's best places to work competition for the first time and their scores were so high, Chris, that the national sponsor from Philadelphia flew in two consultants, ⁓ A, to investigate fraud because they had never seen a healthcare company with scores like that. And then B, to figure out once they realized it was true, what the heck is happening here? Because we've never seen employee engagement culture scores like this, right? ⁓ And so that was the first time they were named best place to work. then, four more times consecutively, number one best place to work. And then a whole bunch more times continue to be listed in that best place to work. ⁓ category in the city of Omaha. So I don't know if I answered all of your questions, but if you wanted to learn more about best places to work, I can do that too.

Speaker 2: Well, and, we might, we'll see. ⁓ but I just, I wanted to get that, backstory in that, you know, so one, there's the, the credibility factor, but I wanted to see how far back these, these, these tenants went and, ⁓ how, like, like, what was the foundation of building this great place to work? And did you say it was these, seven tenants that you

Speaker 1: The seven principles of leadership are really the heart of it, right? And when we set out to build better culture a decade ago, we really examined those. And we said, you know, yeah, this worked here, but, you know, do we need to broaden or shift or change to take what's built an amazing culture in one place to go help other organizations? And we actually tried that for about a year. We worked with different organizations and we did these complicated consulting projects where we said, well, you don't have to use our seven principles, but you have to have a clear answer for what does it mean to be a leader and what are your leadership principles? And those projects didn't end up great. Like we would deliver, we would spend, we would survey, we would talk, we'd figure out what their unique identity was and what, know, and we would sort of craft these principles and we'd present them and they'd go, ⁓ can you show us those seven that you showed us like before we started the project? ⁓ three projects in a row, they liked those better than what we custom built. And so we said the heck with it. Let's just stick with these seven. And it's worked in dozens of industries because ultimately what those seven principles are, Chris, is they're basically a recipe for what's the type of leader people would wanna work for. And that's just a human thing. It's not a industry thing.

Speaker 2: Sure. And this is what I find, what I really enjoy in the leadership space is finding the universality of principles, of concepts. And it feels like you guys have narrowed in on those and gotten back to the universal core is like this didn't just work at a healthcare industry. It didn't just work ⁓ at a rehab facility. This is a human thing. That this isn't just an industry thing. This is just a work thing. This is a, this is a human thing and there's that universality to it. ⁓ and I, and I love narrowing down and trying to figure out what that core thing is, you know, that's why I always go back to the ecology. Cause like, if it exists and works in the natural world, there's probably a lesson there that's going to have some sort of universality to it. That's going to work for us too. All right. ⁓ so in the, in the interest of your time here, ⁓ I'll start wrapping this up a little bit. So. Let's say, ⁓ someone is new, ⁓ or rising up into a leadership role. What would be one to three, ⁓ simple things that, that you would say, okay, of, all the things that you do start here and, and you're probably going to get yourself on a, on a pretty good path to become a successful leader.

Speaker 1: Well, I think that question of what does it mean to be a leader is a great, is a good place to start. And if you struggle with that question, again, go check out, ⁓ we have an article, what does it mean to lead? And it outlines those seven principles. That's a great place to start. But if I would dive into one of those that I think is a really good place to start because it's so human oriented and it helps set your compass as a leader for what you value and what you get good at and what you enjoy doing is I would say work on. strengthening your appreciation muscle. And what I find is like, if you're gonna lead people, you need to be able to help them feel valued, feel appreciated for the things that they do. And this is not the only part of leadership, but man, does it just get overlooked and taken for granted and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, hey, great job, everyone. Like, hold on, back up. What could you do or say that would leave someone who deserves it, by the way, going home from work on a Friday to be so excited to tell their partner, their friends, their parents, like how their week went because their boss said X or did X, like that they really deep down feel valued, feel appreciated. That is such a big part of human motivation and of culture. And we all kind of think I don't mean this literally, but a lot of people kind of think, the most creative thing you can do to tell somebody you appreciate them is like write a handwritten note. That's good. Like do that. That's good. But there's so much more out there as a person, as a human, to help let other people know that how much we value their intellect, their effort, their contributions. And if we can get better at expressing that. It builds human connection. It builds a trust. builds a lot of things. That's a great foundation for a lot of other things you can do as a leader. And a lot of times, sorry for the long answer, but I see a lot of leaders who've been put in leadership roles. And when I start talking about this, they kind of shut down. They're like, I don't know, that doesn't sound like me. And I just want to go, I'm not sure you're fit for leadership then. Like if you can't get excited about letting people know how much you appreciate them, then all the other stuff I have to teach you may not really land either.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I did a podcast episode a while back on recognition and we called it because we're good government in type. So we got to put an acronym on everything. We called it the SPF to framework for recognition and what it was, it was it's specific. So, you you recognize some specific thing, not just, Hey, great job today. No, it was, you know, Hey, I saw the way you dealt with that customer. ⁓ that was some really great customer service. He, know, as an older person, you walked him through step by step, how to do this online thing. ⁓ and then, and then personalized and that, that is tying back to like, what's important to that employee? Like, like, you know, maybe they, they are a personable type person. so recognizing them for the way they interacted with another human is really going to resonate with them versus. The person that's more task oriented, recognizing them for something that they got done or some project that they completed that's going to, you know, resonate more with them. Um, and then, uh, the F's were, um, uh, uh, frequent, uh, and fast. And so it's like, Recognize when it happens. Like, don't just wait till the end of the week and do your shout outs for the thing that happened four days ago. It's like, you see it happened. You call it out right there. Like, Hey, I just saw that thing. That was awesome. Here's why it was awesome. Uh, and then, you know, just like you said, frequent, like, like do this all the time. You preempted a little bit. My, my other question is going to follow up with this. When leaders, it's really easy to get burned out in the leadership role. You're dealing with a lot of stuff, you know? When you feel that drag a little bit in your leadership role, what's the recommendation you have for overcoming that?

Speaker 1: I know that can be challenging that, you know, leaders, I don't know if today necessarily have more on their plate than ever, but they've got a lot, right? And when you get one thing done, there's always 10 more things to work on. So it can feel overwhelming. ⁓ I think my answer to this is a little bit similar to the last one in that even though you're busy, even though it feels like you got to jump to the next project, the next fire, continue to make time, some time. for the human parts of leadership, for enjoying the people that you work with, for showing appreciation, for telling a story that builds pride, for celebrating a win, for recognizing and talking about stuff that's going on outside of people's lives. That stuff is really important to building trust and continuing momentum. And when we get busy and when we feel overwhelmed, it can feel like fluff. It can feel like, well, you I'd love to stop and celebrate that, but like, ⁓ we're still behind and we can't, you know, no, stop. ⁓ Take 2%, 3 % of your working time and do this human stuff, right? Because it'll not only be good for the team, it often will re-energize you as well. ⁓ And in a way that just jumping into the next seven projects just doesn't do.

Speaker 2: Yeah. No, that's, that's sage advice. I mean, and that gets to the core of what we are as a species. I mean, we are a social species. The only reason humans existed this long on this earth is because of our ability to work together. And so that need to have other humans around you to feel like they have your back and you have theirs like that. That is, that is a primitive need that we are hardwired for. And we often forget that. we, we think that sending emails or texts or communicating through our devices is, is, is going to meet that need, but it doesn't. And, and it has to be that, that in-person stuff. I think you're, you're spot on there. any parting thoughts, any questions I didn't ask that, that you wish I did.

Speaker 1: I think you did a very thorough job. think we had a fun conversation. I hope people leave just realizing the transformative power of working on a great team for a great company and that it's really worth creating. It's worth building, it's worth protecting both for the agency, for the organization and for the people. ⁓ This is a win-win and we all have the ability to make whatever team we're a part of better, right? So just lean into that and do it, make it happen.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Life is too short to dread going to work every day. That's just, that's just all there is to that. ⁓ so how would someone find you or connect, ⁓ either with you directly or a better culture.

Speaker 1: Yeah, so betterculture.com is a great spot to go. If you download it, we have got a bunch of free resources on the Insights tab. If you like the stuff that I talked about, we have a blog. We've got a bunch of downloadable things. If you want to get better at appreciation, look for that one. If you want to get better at team building, look for that one. There's a whole bunch of great resources you can download. The other thing that I would love, love, love is if people would check out our Better Culture podcast that you mentioned earlier. We put a lot of effort into that to really put good stuff regularly out into the world. And so that's another great place to find us and follow me.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And it is great. listened to a lot of podcasts and I really do enjoy that one. I've subscribed to it. And I, like I said, I listened to every episode and I like these little, these little flash fast blasts that you do like just these little tidbits of, of insight. I'm like, Oh, that's, that's pretty easy. You you can, you can digest that in the, in the commute to work.

Speaker 1: Well, Chris, it's really hard for us. We're a training company and we've got a mountain of content and stuff we want to teach. And like our podcast is conversational. It's like this, you and like we just can't help ourselves about every third episode. We're like, we just got to teach them. We got to shorten sweet, you know, get a fast blast out there and people do seem to like them. So we kind of bounce back and forth between more of a conversational format. And I know this is just 10 minutes of like, here's something useful. So.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's good. I it. encourage everybody to do that. And then you guys have a conference on the books on the calendar. Tell me more about that.

Speaker 1: So if you're interested in this leadership and culture stuff, I genuinely don't think you can find a better way to spend two days of your time. ⁓ It's not a cheap conference to attend, but our mindset leadership program, otherwise known as Better Culture Live, is on September 23rd and 24th of 2026 in the Omaha, Bellevue, Nebraska area. We ran out a whole conference center. We capped it out 100 people. ⁓ but it's just two days of learning directly from all three of the founders of Better Culture. And we just, we give as much content and information as we possibly can in two days about what it takes to build a world-class company and team. ⁓ And it's a great, great program. So if you want to look at that, you can go to betterculture.com forward slash MLP ⁓ mindset leadership program, and it'll take you right to that landing page too. ⁓ Early bird and you know, there's some, early discounts out there depending on what time you check the page.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I would love to go. I'm not sure that I will, ⁓ that just sounds like a couple of days that just be brain breaking for me. just to geek out on culture stuff for two days is pretty great. then I've mentioned a couple of times here, we've been talking the mindset leadership program, this virtual or hybrid series that you've got going, Telly is on the... Call with us here. ⁓ she's been facilitating that through the greater Burlington partnership here locally where I'm at. ⁓ that's just been an absolute fantastic program. If somebody wanted to get involved in that, how would they go about doing that?

Speaker 1: So ⁓ we have a digitally available leadership program. We call it our On-Demand Mindset Leadership Program. we have partners like you guys, people that are using that program in communities all across the Midwest, primarily across the country. ⁓ There's several ways to think about that. Sometimes people take that program inside a company, right? Inside an organization. If you want to use it with your company, talk to us, reach out to us, fill out a form. We'd love to visit with you about it. ⁓ Maybe you're part of a community that offers it in a community and you could join that program through a local chamber or other partner. ⁓ You can also just buy an individual license that is just for you if you just want to go through the video program by yourself and not be a part of a cohort. ⁓ You can find that info on our website if you poke around under the leadership development options. Just go to that leadership development tab, drop down ⁓ and look for the four organizations tab is actually the best spot to go to find info about that. But reach out, drop me an email, Brett at betterculture.com. Happy to get you to the right resource.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And yeah, I'm getting no commission from this, but I got to say, man, that has been awesome. So anybody listening, like, if, if, like, if you got together with, with your, your, your city, ⁓ and you brought in like the city leadership or, ⁓ your, your County and you brought in County leadership, or even if you're one of the bigger parks departments or, ⁓ the, the DNR leadership or whatever it is, ⁓ I could see this being an incredible program to ⁓ to build a cohort around your leadership team at whatever level that is and bring that into your organization and then deploy it out. ⁓ I could see massive impacts with that and the more people that are in more organizations that I could get to sign up for that, the happier I will be because ⁓ this just is some fantastic.

Speaker 1: mean, Chris, so we're on a mission at Better Culture to make the world a better place to work. And that program is one of the major ways that we're doing that, getting folks like Telly to grab it and to make it available inside of a community or to an organization and say, hey, this would help us move the needle on culture. Like it helps, it helps you guys win. And it helps us achieve our mission of really making a dent in, in, in making that world, the whole world a better place to work.

Speaker 2: Brett, thanks so much. And, ⁓ if you ever want to, ⁓ have a follow-up conversation or something like that, hesitate to reach out to me and, happy to have carry on the conversation or do anything I can to help move your mission forward, ⁓ as much as possible. Cause as I've said, this, this is incredible stuff and impactful for sure.

Speaker 1: Well, I've so appreciated the opportunity to talk to you guys and your group and I appreciate what you guys are doing too. You're making a big difference out there and so thanks for having me.

Speaker 2: Ready to take your leadership to the next level? Join the next level leadership community at ParksandRestoration.com. You'll get practical leadership insights and exclusive invitations to live meetups and trainings. Be part of the movement we're creating. Join the next level leadership community at ParksandRestoration.com.