546: People Problems Solved with Carol Ring

0:00 David: Welcome to The Selling Show where we unpack, repack, and break down exactly how CEOs, founders, and senior executives sell their ideas, point of view, and personal brand to the people who matter most. This is your host, David Newman, and you are in the right place if you wanna build market eminence, amplify your influence, and attract high-value prospects, investors, partners, talent, and media opportunities with less chasing and more confidence. Let's go. Sales organizations, sales leaders, mid-market CEOs, they never have people problems.

0:46 Nah, that's not even a thing. Oh, no, wait, actually, it is a thing, and you are very lucky because my next guest is the awesome and amazing Carol Ring, who has a new book called People Problems Solved. She is a leadership coach. She is a culture expert. Carol, welcome to the show. Carol: Hi, David. I'm excited to spend the next few moments with you talking about people problems. David: And like I said in my half-joking intro, "Oh, people problems? No." Although every leader spends probably 90% of their time on people problems.

1:30 So I know you go into this in the beginning of the book, but just set the, set the stage for us, set the landscape. What, what kind of problems are you seeing? What kind of problems are kind of prevalent in the kind of mid-market organizations that you're working with? What's, uh … Let's put the patient on the table. Carol: Well, I think these are very challenging times for, uh, leaders. Uh, you know, we've got AI coming into the workplace. Companies are still trying to figure out what to do with the return to office. Do we have people work remotely? Do we have them come back in? Do they come in partly? Do they come in all the time? Uh, there's a … Many industries have talent shortages, so there's the war on talent, trying to attract the best people into your organization.

2:20 S- so, you know, just on the people side of things, there's a lot going on, let alone what's going on just trying to, you know, deliver better results overall. David: Yes, absolutely. Now, you have done something which I think is hugely admirable and hugely valuable because every leader, every mid-market CEO is saying, "Oh, my gosh. I can't find good people. I can't keep good people. I'm not even sure what the definition of a good person is," and you've built a model. You've built a, uh, a model and a lens through which people can do a little bit of self-assessment and see where they are organizationally on some of these metrics.

3:05 So walk us through kind of the three big areas, and then we can drill a little bit further into each one. Carol: Sure. Um, most leaders are out there fussing with employee engagement, and I happen to believe that employee engagement is just the tip of the iceberg. It's a very, uh, individual metric, uh, symptom, and that what they're really looking for is, uh, their w- purpose-powered performance is what we call it. And as you said, we've got three key levers, which is what I believe people, uh, and leaders are really looking for, which they're looking for passionate productivity. They're looking for better clarity around their workplace culture, and they're also looking to make a better financial impact with the resources that they have, whether it's a bottom line or if you're a not-for-profit.

3:56 You know, you're trying to squeeze every single dollar out David: So Carol, walk us through, walk us through what areas… I love that, by the way. So I think in the book it's, uh, you talk about passionate productivity, culture, clarity, and then financial impact. Um, there are three big areas, like if we were to draw this on a napkin, there are three big areas that you work on in your, uh, coaching and consulting, uh, work with leaders and mid-market CEOs. Define those three areas and just give us a little bit of a flavor of what each one is about. Carol: Right. So if you want to achieve those business results that we were just talking a- about, the first, uh, area is direction, and this is where we wanna move the organization from just being a, a financial instrument into one that's actually making, uh, uh, has financial impact.

4:53 And what I mean by that is we quite often hear this from the B Corp, uh, philosophy, which is moving from being the best in the world to being the best for the world, and I think that's an important direction for leaders to be taking. The second one is a framework. When we talk about workplace culture, it's very nebulous in most people's minds. It's, you know, it's that fuzzy thing that's out there, and I don't really know how to measure it, and so, you know, maybe we just won't touch it. I… For sure I don't think there's an ROI in it. Yeah, I hear that all the time from my clients- Yeah … whe- when we s- when we're talking. And, uh, the framework, we have a framework behind it that w- actually measures culture.

5:36 We have an assessment, of course. Uh, and, uh, it's not engagement. It's culture-oriented. But we give you that structure, that framework to actually, um, measure your culture and build an action plan for it. And then the third big area that we w- uh, work in is called alignment because even though we talk about people problems, a lot of these people problems are not people. They're alignment issues. We've got all kinds of things going on in our organizations, and they're focused on different aspects of the organization, and it's not until they become aligned that they become powerful.

6:17 So things like your- the technology that you use, policies, your actually physical workplace, all of those can contribute to your workplace culture. And so people issues aside, we need to get those lined up and all firing in the right direction. David: Let's unpack just a little bit around What, what are some of the gaps? Like when you work with a mid-market organization, uh, some of the presenting problems that the CEO or the owner or the president might, might talk about, uh, what are some of those symptomatic things that are red flags that one or more of these things are missing?

7:02 Carol: Yeah, well, one of the, uh, key items that often comes up is, "I've got this great strategic plan, but I can never seem to get any traction with it. It… And it's always so much heavy lifting to get it. People are resistant to change. It's, it's just so frustrating that I can't, uh, make progress on my strategic plan." The other thing that comes to mind is a lot of leaders have done the customer first thing. They've done lean, uh, process re-engineering, where you try to cut out all the little excess fat in your processes, and now they're trying to figure out what's next. What's the next management tool that I can, can use?

7:43 And so culture can quite often respond to that. I mean, the obvious ones are high turnover, if you've got that going on, uh, if you're struggling to attract people to come to your workplace, uh, uh, those are sort of the more tactical, uh, symptoms that, uh, CEOs might see. David: Yeah. No, that's great. Uh, and I'm sure… You know, it's funny, when people read the first 30 or 40 pages of the book, and again, the book is just totally fantastic, and it's got a fantastic title that kind of just says what it is, uh, People Problems Solved. But when you read the first 30, 40 pages, I can't think of any mid-market CEO, VP of sales, uh, leader in a large department, uh, I can't think of anyone that would not immediately recognize themselves.

8:34 Like immediately recog- oh, my God, we have that. Holy smokes. You know, she's talking about Brenda, she's talking about Bob, she's talking about these guys over here. Um, and so the, the recognition that, number one, this is a common problem. You're not alone. And number two, this is fixable. Because a lot of times people say, "Oh, well, you know, we're just dysfunctional. This is just the way it is in our industry." Uh, if you work on a loading dock, there's always gonna be fist fights. If you work on a oil rig, there's always gonna be bar brawls. It's like, well, no. No, not, not necessarily . So when you go in, and this might be a little bit, uh, tricky question to answer, but you know, that's kind of how we have some fun.

9:26 Uh, sometimes you're talking to a leader, and within the very first few minutes you realize, okay, I think I get a flavor of what's going on, and I think the person I'm talking to is part of the problem. Now, they're obviously self-aware because they're talking to you, but how do you enroll the leaders when some of the leadership things are broken How do you get the leaders to be vulnerable enough to say, "You know what? Not only does my team need to do better, I need to do better"? Carol: I think generally speaking, the clients that come and work with me, as you pointed out, are self-aware, and they're curious to find out what's really going on in the organization, what's holding it back.

10:12 And I think to some degree they are open to learning more about leadership And how to grow their leadership capabilities to begin with. I think they're already on that, on that fine line of, "Yeah, what we're doing is pretty good, and yeah, I think we could do better." And that probably includes me as well. And I think the way we, we present the, the consulting with them is as a business advisor. You know, I have worked in the corporate world, so this is not theory for me. Yeah. This, this is real-world stuff for me. So I know what they're, they faced, and the challenges that go on in trying to get that bottom line, uh, working and producing results, uh, that, that are constantly under a CEO's pressure.

11:05 So I've been there, I understand it, and I think that really helps me in having conversations with them about where w- we, they need to go, not only as the leader of the organization, but as the leader of the people around them. David: All right, hang on, we gotta back up the truck here. Beep, beep, beep, beep. Do you have a copy of my new book, Market Eminence? No? Well, you can grab that. It's available in audio, paperback, and Kindle at marketeminence.com. That's right, my friends, Carol: marketeminence.com. Go check it out, and then come right back to this episode. David: Well, walk us through, I know that there are three areas in each of these categories, so there's three areas of, uh, direction that you call drivers.

11:53 There's nine drivers in the model. So there's three drivers behind getting your direction squared away. There's three drivers around framework, and there's three drivers around alignment. Just kinda walk us through what those are and how, you know, uh, sort of in, in layman's terms, what kinds of things you work on during a typical engagement around each of those. And why don't we start with direction? Carol: Yeah, sure, direction. So as you mentioned, there's three pieces to direction. The first one is societal significance, and I think this is really important in, for younger generations that are coming into the workplace, too. They wanna feel that they're making an impact.

12:35 But baby boomers are not, uh, you know, absolved from that either. They, they, they wanna feel that they're adding value to the organization. And many leaders have done the mission, vision work, but we're talking about purpose here. Why does your organization exist? And I think you'd agree that even when you're doing brand positioning, that kind of purpose statement is, is very, very powerful. So that's usually an area, a gap that we see in many, many organizations. The second piece is about, uh, actually defining the culture that you wanna have in the organization. We call that one meaningful values. So think about your strategic plan Think about what you need your people to be doing and how you need them to be, uh, behaving or acting to actually deliver that strategic plan.

13:26 So, you know, Disney, you know, they have, they have values like innovation and creativity and, and customer experience, 'cause that's what they're all about. If you look at a nuclear energy plant, it's about safety. It's about, um, uh, compliance, things like that. You don't really want somebody innovating with the nuclear maintenance schedule. Exactly. So, so you really wanna think about the culture you wanna have that will actually deliver on your strategic initiatives, and ones that you as a leader can authentically, uh, um, deliver on. Yeah. Because at this point, what you're gonna define is something that's probably aspirational and not what actually exists, although we do typically ta- tap into what's the current secret sauce that's making you successful.

14:15 David: Yeah. Carol: And then the third piece, uh, of the, the direction lever is, uh, unwavering commitment And, you know, culture can sometimes, culture transformation can sometimes be a project. And so we do all this fun work of defining our values, and we get little trinkets to put on the desks, and then it kinda fades away, and I call that fun and done. But what you really need is leadership, uh, commitment. And, uh, the story there i- one is one that's many people are probably familiar of. It comes from your hometown of Philadelphia, but the Starbucks story, when two African Americans came into the store, they were waiting for a third, the store manager decided to call the police, uh, that they were trespassing, and there was this whole uproar moment that went viral.

15:11 Starbucks could very easily have done the whole fallback thing that said, "Oh, well, that store manager wasn't, you know, performing as we would've expected her to. We've either fired her or we put her through some extra training." But Starbucks, who is very committed to their culture, that's not what they did. They stopped the train. They realized that they had an issue within the organization around r- uh, bias, or in this case, racial bias. They built training that they made available to out- to o- other organizations. It was out there on YouTube for a while for sure. And then they closed all the stores down and put everybody through, uh, that training because their commitment, uh, is to create these, uh, great neighborhoods, and they, they were committed to maintaining that culture that would support their, their purpose of creating these community, neighborhoods of, of community.

16:08 David: Yeah. Carol: So, you know, there's… And I think that's the real tipping point, right? When crisis comes, i- are you going to actually stand up for, for your culture in there? I mean, the, the flip side of that story, if you wanna hear the flip side is, is BP and the, and the Horizon Gulf rig that blew up, right? And I don't know how many millions and millions of barrels of oil went into the Gulf, and it was an environmental nightmare among everything else. And they started off… I mean, they claim to be environmentally, uh, sensitive and, and protecting the environment, but they started off by blaming the contractors on the rig, then they blamed the employees.

16:49 It took a long time before they took personal responsibility and, and nevermind the stock, stock price issues that went on there. The branding issue, the reputational issue that came because they didn't stand behind it, uh, was quite damaging. David: Yes, absolutely. Well, it's funny that you put, you put, um, both the success stories and the cautionary tales into, into the book because sometimes, you know, we, we can see the model to follow. We sometimes don't recognize the model not to follow, or the things where you're sort of blinded to the, um, the perhaps the very human, very gullible, very fallible, uh, human behaviors, the weaknesses.

17:41 But those, those moments, those crucible moments, if you falter in those crucible moments, it destroys everything in your reputation, sort of in the world at large. And so you might think, "Oh, that was just one comment," or, "That was just one day," or, "That was just a bad incident," but the impact of that lasts for years. Years, if not decades. Carol: Yeah, I mean, so the, you know, that's a huge external risk that leaders face, and the internal risk is that if you're not consistent, if you only follow the culture and promote the culture from time to time, and you let other things go, then after a while people go, "Oh, well there's no walking the talk here.

18:26 This is only important sometimes." Right. You know? And, uh, I guess I'll just have to try and figure out when it's important. David: Yes. Well, and it's funny that you say this. There are these transformational moments. I remember, um, oh gosh, I even forget what country it was in, but somewhere in Europe, there was this huge volcanic explosion, somewhere in Scandinavia, I think. And KLM Airlines stepped up with 24-hour customer service. They went above and beyond, rebooking. Even if your air- even if you weren't flying KLM, you could call the KLM hotline to get your traffic rerouted, and they just were the heroes of the industry.

19:08 And they actually kept that going for years, and when the, they asked the CEO, "Well, once the crisis passed, why didn't you just shut all that down?" He says, "Well, unlike a lot of airlines, you know, who, you know, customer service is all automated, and there's an impression that they don't care, uh, we figure, well, KLM is going to step up as the hero in the story. Uh, two weeks later, it would be very difficult for us to go back." "It'd be very difficult for KLM to suck again." I think he said something like that. Perhaps a little different in vocabulary. But he basically said, "Once we assumed that leadership position as being the good guys in the industry, we sort of wanted to keep it." And it was, that was sort of a alignment and a, uh, an identity shift for them that they did not wanna go back to just another European airline that sucks.

20:06 Carol: Right. Exactly. And so I think that's, you know, that's part of the exercise of defining what kind of behaviors, what kind of culture you wanna have behind the organization, and that you, you want people to be able to, to deliver on- Yeah … every day so that the customers get that, that consistent experience. And that's really the, the, the, the issue around culture is trying to figure out what are the barriers that are exist in our organization that are preventing our people from doing the, the best job that, that they possibly can? David: Right. And that actually is a great transition to, like, ne- ne- nebulous, maybe it's this, maybe it's that, maybe it's having ping pong tables and free pizza on Fridays, right?

20:56 All these nebulous definitions to having a framework where your culture is actually measurable on objective criteria. So Carol, walk us through the three drivers of framework. Carol: The first aspect of the framework piece is the actual assessment, so unvarnished discovery. It's a values-based assessment tool that we use, so there's no translation on management styles or communication styles or other tools that are out there that people sometimes use, uh, when they talk about culture. And we'll just simply ask your… We'll ask the employees to give us, out of a big list of values, give us 10 that describe the organization, and give us 10 that you'd like to have.

21:42 And I got this tool from Richard Barrett. He's a thought guru in this area. I'm certified in it, been using it for, ugh, over a decade now, at least. Used it myself, actually, in the corporate world as well. And I'll tell you, when you get those numbers back, baby , and you find out what's really going on in your organization, it's a real eye-opener, uh, for, for culture. And there's an actual measurement tool in there called cultural entropy that you can use to measure progress as you go along. So it- it's very, uh, quantitative, which- Yeah … I think a lot of leaders appreciate. You know, we have financial reports. Why not get a culture report- Yeah … with, with equal, uh, equal depth and discipline to it?

22:28 But what's really great about that tool is that it opens the door for the next piece, which is powerful conversations. Because when things like confusion show up on your, on your list, or silos or bureaucracy, the next question is, "Well, what's that really all mean? What's that about?" And so you can ask the questions. You know, when we talk about confusion, when you, when you selected confusion, how does that show up in your workplace? Yeah. And then you can really find out what's going on and what's, what's holding people back. So for example, I had a client. He had been in the job for about 18 months. He came in, and he, he, uh, clarified all the job descriptions.

23:12 He standardized some of the policies that ha- w- you know, had gotten out of whack across the various regions of the organizations. He started up a newsletter from head office to help bring more clarity. And yet when he did the culture assessment, confusion was one of the top values that everybody picked Well, he was confused himself. How could this be? I just spent all this time trying to provide clarity to my people, and they're confused? So when he actually went out and asked them about that specific, uh, experience, what he found out was that, A, he was driving too much change through the organization. It was coming down the pipe just faster than they could absorb.

23:55 The second piece was his leadership was rolling it out different speeds. So the West Coast jumped on it right away. Central, not so much, but the front line was all talking, and now they were confused because people were doing things differently. So now I'm… We're more confused. Which way are we supposed to be doing it? And thirdly, his own leadership team wasn't that skilled up in change management. They didn't actually know how to roll out change. So imagine the, uh, the way to fix that issue, having had those conversations, was very different than where you may have started be- at the beginning. And it was so powerful him, uh, to… for him, and the… when he addressed that one issue alone, the results were a- amazing going on.

24:42 Yeah. And the third piece is that a, a blueprint for action, accelerated action. Because great, you get all the data, you get all the feedback, but if you don't do anything with it, nothing's gonna change. So there has to be, uh, uh, an actual plan, an action plan, 'cause that's when change happens, is when you actually action something. David: It's like wanting to lose weight versus move more, eat less. Yeah. Unless you move more and eat less, this weight loss dream ain't gonna happen. Carol: Right. Right. It's just aspirational. David: So let's go back just for a quick second to the conversations, because I know that's probably an area where People are afraid, you know, we have regular conversations about the tactical, practical things.

25:33 So communicating projects and deadlines and updates and just the regular office communication that we all do. But having the conversation about the conversation, right? How, how do we communicate? Like your example, is someone over-communicating? Are they putting confusion and noise out into the culture? Is someone under-communicating? Are there silos? Are there turf wars? Are there politics? Are there personality conflicts that keep people or departments from communicating freely with and to each other? That sounds, uh, not that the rest sounds easy, but this part sounds particularly challenging because now we're talking about person to person, right?

26:23 Now we're talking about David has to talk to Carol, or Carol has to talk to Pete, or Pete has to talk to Jennifer about something that they're not comfortable with or that needs to be improved. When you look at that with your clients, do they naturally know how to have these conversations or what, what do they need to do to be better at these kinds of the conversation about the conversation or kind of the meta conversation? Carol: Yeah, I think there are different levels of maturity within, within leadership teams around difficult conversations, perhaps. I think what we're all trying to get to is to a common goal, however, and Some of these conversations do surface difficult areas that you have to deal with.

27:16 You know, the siloed one is, is an example of, well, y- you know, sales sits there and goes… gets pressure because the re- the revenues aren't coming in. Well, sales points the finger over at marketing to say that- Totally … they aren't, they aren't doing their job, so we're, the leads we're getting are lousy. Yeah. Marketing points the finger over at product development, because, you know, if the product was better, then customers would actually buy the product. And you get this, you know, circular conversation going on, a- a- about, you know, who's not delivering- Uh-huh … on it. And I think when we go back into these conversations and we start to uncover whether it's bureaucracy, well, maybe product development just, y- y- you know, it takes too long to get things approved in order to, to get the product upscaled.

28:06 Yeah. Uh, o- okay, well, you know, how do we have that, conversations around that? Uh, how do we bring marketing and sales together, uh, better? Are we rewarding them in a wa- matter that, that doesn't drive collaboration between the two? Yeah. Are we, are we rewarding them in a way that pits them against each other? Uh- Yeah … you know, those are the types of things that are going on in the background, to your point that, earlier, that aren't really people problems. They're process problems or policies that are going on behind the scenes that are causing these difficult, uh, collaborations, that are causing the difficult conversations.

28:47 David: Right. Carol: So let's dig down into what's really going on. David: Yes, for sure. And then final question before I move on to alignment is, uh, the action piece, the action plan. Totally love the action plan, 'cause you're talking to Mr. Do It, of course, so it all comes down to action. But sometimes a leader, mid-market CEO, sales leader, whoever it may be, they have a difficult time gaining a buy-in. They have a difficult time overcoming resistance to the old way that we used to do things or the old way that we used to not do things, is probably even more dangerous. How does a leader gain buy-in and overcome some of that resistance to change?

29:35 Carol: I think there's a couple of, uh, areas here. One is, first of all, let's not try to boil the ocean. You're gonna get lots of great ideas about things that can be improved in your organization, and, uh, trying to do 100 of them in the first 60 days is not gonna get you any traction. David: Yeah. Carol: And it's, it's, it can lead, uh, very quickly to the fad, fads thing. You know, this is the newest shiny e- object coming out of the CEO's office. David: Yeah. Carol: So you need to make it an action plan that, uh, is truly manageable, that stretches along a, a continuum. You know, y- culture is not a transformation overnight- No … but neither does it take three years.

30:20 So it's about, you know, doing the same risk analysis and prioritization that you do with any, uh, big project. Yeah. And, uh, lean into that, and move it along at a, at a good, nice consistent pace so people understand that you are serious about this. And I also think that, uh, obviously change management skills are critical. Yeah. People wanna know why you're making the change, what's in it for them, what kind of training are you gonna give them, what kind of re-rec- recognition are you gonna do after the fact to solidify the change and the behavior or the change in the process. But s- you know, small wins gain, uh, good traction.

31:02 Yes. And quite often you're, what you're changing is what the people have asked for. So quite frankly, they're already there. They wanna go down the path. You perhaps have been holding them back. David: That is such a good point, that people do not resist their own ideas. So if we've done a good job sort of harvesting some of these changes and some of these improvements, people are gonna be more, more on board than not. Holy smokes, so much value in this episode. Listen, if you are loving what you're hearing, feel free to download, subscribe, tell a friend, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to The Selling Show.

31:45 Now, back to the interview. Well, let's move on, Carol, to alignment, and, um, part of the model here is we're moving from discrete or individual to united, meaning that we're all rowing in the same direction. Talk a little bit about what that is, and then we can dig into the three specific drivers under that. But give us a picture of what's from discrete to united really mean. Carol: Yeah, I think that quite often in organizations, we make decisions that lead us, uh, through discrete places. So we might decide we're gonna introduce a new technology, but we don't really think about how that technology's gonna affect the culture of our organization.

32:28 Or we start writing policies, and we don't really think about where that's going. We hire somebody, uh, into our organization. "Oh, this person's top-notch. Th- they, they've got, they've got a great track record." When, when they come in, we find out that the things that they value don't necessarily sync up with what the organization values, and then we can't figure out why they can't deliver the way we expected them to, 'cause they were, like, they were this all-star. So there's all kinds of things going on in our organizations that don't… And they, and we don't see them as affecting the culture. They j- they, we've been running it this way for many, many years, possibly even decades, without really understanding the impact that they might be having on the culture.

33:14 So what we wanna do is try to bring a lens to it to say, "Okay, do we really have things that sh- uh, are consistent so that if we say collaboration- These other elements beyond people are actually supporting collaboration. David: Yeah. Really, really good. Well, let's dig in, let's dig into the three drivers that will get us there. Carol: So the first one is premier talent, and this is where you want to have the best talent in your organization. Everybody's looking for that, and we have lots of opportunities to bring people into the organization that will not only support the culture, but actually enhance your culture.

33:56 Every hiring opportunity, eh, every promotion opportunity is an opportunity to enhance your culture and move it where you want it to go, to where you wanna go. So if you're looking for more collaboration, then hire people who are good collaborators. Mm-hmm. That will get you there. For example, when I was trying to turn around a division in my corporate world, uh, we had silo empires. I had a couple of pi- people in there who, over the years, had built up their own little empires and were not willing to collaborate acro- a- across the regions. But I knew that, uh, collaboration and teamwork was key to the success of the organization, and so eventually I had to change them out because they were not in, not, not only were they not enhancing the culture, they were actually driving it o- in the opposite direction to where we needed to be.

34:53 So, you know, really assessing your, your talent and saying, who is in that top right box of doing the work, delivering the results, and doing it well, and versus the bottom box, which is not only do they not deliver results, but they don't really do it. I- I- you know, they're not, they don't show up to work in a way that we would like them to. Yeah. The most dangerous group are the group that deliver the results, but stomp over everybody- Oh, yeah … on their way to doing it, right? Um, we sometimes call those the culture vultures, but in reality, they are not bad people. They are just round pegs in square holes. So what they value isn't necessarily line up with what the organization values.

35:37 You know, if you're a real creative person and you want lots of innovation, the banking industry might not be where, a good fit for you, right? David: We're going to free you up to go find a round hole for your round peg, because the square bank is not it. Carol: Yeah. So, you know, there's a, a lot of work to be done around the talent in your organization to get them aligned with the, the behaviors that y- that you wanna have. Yeah. And as I said, every hiring opportunity is an opportunity to enhance your culture. David: For sure. Carol: The middle piece is about intense integration, and this is what I was talking to you about earlier, about policies and technology and physical workplaces.

36:18 David: Yeah. Carol: Policies, oh, my gosh, yes. We are a family-oriented organization. Ooh, but the policies all read that you must do this, thou shall do this, the consequence of doing that. I don't know, sounds like angry father talking to children. Right. Not really the family dynamic that I'm sure you were trying to get at- Yeah … when you wrote those policies. So there can be a lot of work around policies and guidelines that, uh, could better align with what you're trying to achieve. The physical workplace is another great example. I remember I was going for a board, to a board meeting at an organization, I think they were, uh, they were in con- television content and, and a lot around kids shows.

37:08 Uh, and so when you walked into that building, it was about six stories, it was on the waterfront. From the front of the building, you could see right through to the glass at the back and see the waterfront. Very open concept, lots of color, a small information desk where you checked in. You got an ambassador who walked you up to the boardroom, showed you where the washrooms were, where the water was. Um, just, just very, uh, you know, you could feel the vibe, right? You could feel the creativity going on in that kind of a building. I went back to my office, where we had a security desk and a s- you know, gates for swiping your cards. If y- if you were a visitor, you had to practically sign away your firstborn to get in.

37:52 David: Yeah. Carol: And then, you know, swipe card to get in, swipe card to get up to the elevator. You got off the floor, there were a million cubicles, wa- same color. Beige cubicles, cream walls, right? And it, so not that one was good and one was bad, but they were different. Yeah. And they just spoke to the culture of the organization. So I can tell immediately when I go into an office building What, what the vibe is gonna be like, what the culture's gonna be like as a result of the workplace, the way it's been set up- Mm-hmm … uh, for it, and the language that's on the signs and, and things like that. So there are, um, you know, then technology, right?

38:36 What- does your technology enable people? Again, our corporate organization talked about a big, uh, about innovation, a big story around innovation. We were very innovative in the services that we delivered to our customers, not so much with the internal technologies that we had to use to deliver that innovation to the customers. So innovation became kind of a two, two-sided sword for our employees. Yes, we see the innovation we're doing to customers, but not so much here for employees. So what do we mean when we talk about innovation here? Yeah. So it's those kinds of aspects that you want to… that are not people related, but that we wanna try to bring into alignment with the culture you're trying to achieve.

39:24 David: And when I, when I was reading what you wrote about intense integration, and even listening to you just now, the phrase that came to my mind is everything counts. Carol: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, it's the feeling when you come in the building. It's the activities that are going on. It's, it- it's how, how easy or difficult it is to do your job. And so when you think about all the things that touches you during the course of a day, it's all adding up and compounding into the entire employee experience. Well- And customer experience, by the way Oh, for sure … David: customer experience, by the way, too. They can totally feel it. I totally agree with you, right.

40:04 It's, it's, it's right up there for everyone to see and feel and experience. Um, let's talk about the last one, under alignment. Carol: This is really where the rubber meets the road, so what you're saying and what you're actually doing. Because how employees get rewarded really drives their behaviors. So I, I ran a call center organization as part of our, our, our business unit, and typically we talk about customer first all the time. We want you to resolve that customer's issue the first time on the first call. That's the kind of experience we wanna deliver for our customers.

40:47 However, we reward them on their average handle time. So how fast? You know, we want you done in 121 seconds. So now the c- the employee's very confused. Am I supposed to try to solve the problem, or do I wanna get my bonus check? Do I… Which w- You're really p- putting me in a difficult spot here. And so that's just not aligned with what you're trying to drive. No. So let's change that recognition, that reward and recognition piece, so that you drive, uh, the right behaviors that will ultimately drive the right culture and drive the, the right business results. So that's an example of recognition. Yes. The other piece around recognition that a lot of people miss is they make tr- recognition transactional.

41:34 Employee of the month, service awards. They don't really tie it to the behaviors that are going on, and employees see it as transactional. Yeah. It doesn't really show up in a very meaningful way, as opposed to the opportunity to reinforce great, uh, work by employees by saying, "Hey, Susan, I just wanna thank you for the excellent way you solved that customer's issue last month. It was, um, it, it was really a, a dedication to customer service, and that's what we're looking for, and we wanna recognize and reward you for that specific action that you took there." So when you tie your rewards and your recognitions to behaviors, you know, that's the carrot, not the stick kind of, uh- Yes mantra.

42:26 David: Amazing. Well, I've got two final questions as we're landing the plane here. The final, final question is, where can people get in touch and stay in touch with more Carol Ring brilliance? But before we get there, zooming out to everything we just talked about, the entire sort of people problem solved framework, if folks were to take one key concept from our conversation around leadership, culture, their own personal leadership effectiveness, what would you hope that one overarching takeaway concept should be? Carol: I, my personal mission on this earth is to bring more joy into the world, and I've chosen the workplace as my, my sort of niche of trying to bring joy into the workplace.

43:15 The saddest thing for me is to see people just be passive passengers just going through their workday day by day. I think we have an obligation as leaders to bring more joy into people's lives. And, and the way we are, are, do our business, it, it doesn't have to be a choice between business results and joyful workplaces. The two go hand-in-hand together, and I would really, uh, hope that leaders would take away that they can do both very successfully, and in fact, one will feed the other. David: I totally love that. Well, if people want to take the next step to making that happen in their company as a mid-market CEO, as an organizational leader, where can people go to get connected to more Carol Ring brilliance?

44:09 Where can they get the book, websites? What links should go in the show notes? Carol: So the website is carolring.ca. It's that simple, carolring.ca. Same thing on LinkedIn. I'm @CarolRing on, on LinkedIn. You can c- I would welcome people to connect with me on LinkedIn. The book is available on Amazon, uh, in many marketplaces. It is actually an international bestseller, and so you can just, just Google, uh, or search on Amazon for People Problem Solved. David: And wherever fine books and e-books are sold. That's how we say it. Wherever fine books and e-books are sold.

44:53 Well, Carol Ring, you are a rock star. I appreciate you. Thank you for sharing your brilliance with us. Carol: Thank you, David. It's been fun. David: Wraps up another episode of The Selling Show. Hey, tell you what, if you like us, rate us and review us on Apple Podcasts, subscribe, tell a friend, go grab the notes and downloads and extras at thesellingshow.com. See you next time.