Culture Isn’t Fluffy: The Daily Practice of Leadership with Brett Hoogeveen
Workplace culture is often misunderstood as a list of perks, casual Fridays, and free lunches. But true organizational culture isn't a fluffy concept—it's the daily heartbeat of how people treat one another, build trust, and drive results.
In this powerful episode of Becoming Bridge Builders, we sit down with leadership and cultural transformation expert Brett Hoogeveen. Brett breaks down why culture is a strategic powerhouse that directly impacts employee retention, productivity, customer satisfaction, and the bottom line.
Discover how to bridge the gap between your organization's aspirational values and its daily reality, shift from top-down directives to mutual engagement, and build a workplace where human connection fuels long-term success.
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Transcript
Welcome back to Becoming Bridge Builders, the podcast where we explore what it takes to build trust, connection and meaningful impact in every space we lead and serve.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Reverend Dr. Keith Haney.
Speaker A:Today's episode is one you don't want to miss.
Speaker A:Culture is one of those words we hear all the time, but often misunderstand, undervalue, or treat like a nice to have.
Speaker A:But what if culture isn't soft at all?
Speaker A:What if it's actually one of those most powerful strategic tools an organization can leverage?
Speaker A:Today, we're joined by someone who believes exactly that.
Speaker A:Brett Hogiven is a leadership and cultural expert, keynote speaker, podcast host, and co founder of Better Culture.
Speaker A:Brett helps organizations transform culture into a competitive advantage by building better leaders and stronger teams.
Speaker A:His passion for contagious is contagious and his message is clear.
Speaker A:When companies get culture right, everything else improves.
Speaker A:Employees, products, customers, and even the bottom line.
Speaker A:Brett, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker B:Hey Keith, thanks for having me.
Speaker A:Well, I'm looking forward to this.
Speaker A:We love talking about leadership and love talking about culture, so it's gonna be fun.
Speaker B:Awesome.
Speaker A:So I'm gonna ask you my favorite question just to kind of get you warmed up.
Speaker A:What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Speaker B:Oh, man, this is a simple one, but that doesn't mean it's not great advice.
Speaker B:This one.
Speaker B:In our curriculum at Better Culture, we actually call this the single best piece of advice that we try to give to people that want to be successful in the workplace.
Speaker B:And that is to always to the extent that you can under promise and over deliver and not to do the opposite, which would be over promising and under delivering.
Speaker B:So I guess that has to count since we call it the single best piece of advice.
Speaker B:I guess that's gotta count for that.
Speaker A:That's what I often promise people when I walk into a workshop.
Speaker A:It's like, I'm gonna give you less than you expect.
Speaker B:But like you said, try to under promise, hey, this might not be any good, but I. I'm gonna do my best, right?
Speaker A:I'm gonna do my best, right?
Speaker A:Oh wow.
Speaker A:That was way better than I expected.
Speaker A:Here's a, here's a tip.
Speaker A:So culture's often labeled as soft, but you push back on that.
Speaker A:And how do you redefine culture as a hard edged strategic advantage for organizations?
Speaker B:So we could go a long time on this topic.
Speaker A:That's okay.
Speaker B:Culture is a squishy, soft word in some people's minds, but I'd like to encourage people to really reframe that because Culture is the number one, sort of the most valuable leverage that a leader has, that an organization has to get people to want to do their job really well, right?
Speaker B:To attract and build and motivate and keep people.
Speaker B:You could try to do that with just money if you want.
Speaker B:But what works better in the long term is building the type of culture that people want to be a part of.
Speaker B:And so if things like quality matter to your business, things like customer satisfaction things, things like improved safety of operations, things like productivity, if those types of things would make your business better, then culture has a lot of value for you.
Speaker B:And the way that your employees feel about their jobs, their coworkers, their boss, their company, all of that is really what culture is.
Speaker B:And so it can sound fluffy, but what it really is is how are your employees showing up to work, how are they motivated, what drives them, and honestly, how, how good of an employee are they going to be?
Speaker B:And all of that creates a positive value for a business when you have an engaged employee, a healthy culture.
Speaker B:So it's not a squishy topic.
Speaker B:It is an essential one.
Speaker B:I love getting locked into in a room with a CFO and saying, okay, how can we pencil out what's the value of an investment in culture?
Speaker B:Because you're going to come out way ahead if you invest in it and actually do it right.
Speaker A:So I think culture is interesting to me because people think their culture is one thing, but it could be something totally different.
Speaker A:How do you help leaders recognize what the actual culture of the organization is?
Speaker B:So oftentimes I will get into conversations with people and I think we're both talking about culture.
Speaker B:And I think you nailed this on the head because they, I'll get a minute into the conversation and realize, oh, they're talking about perks, benefits, things like, oh, we have casual Friday, or, you know, we let, we let people dress how they want, or you can work hybrid or like things that are, or, or we bring in lunch on Fridays.
Speaker B:They're, they're perks or their benefits of the job.
Speaker B:Those things are not your culture.
Speaker B:That, that has very little to do with culture.
Speaker B:What culture is, is the attitudes and the behaviors that people come to expect from each other every day, every minute of the job, every, you know, throughout.
Speaker B:That's what your culture is.
Speaker B:So it's disconnected from ping pong tables or from, you know, those kinds of things.
Speaker B:They, they might be little perks or things, but what culture is, is how do people feel about their job, about their coworkers, their boss, everything else.
Speaker B:And so When I'm talking about building a better Culture, what I'm trying to do is get people more committed to their organization, enjoying what they do every minute of every day, not once a quarter for an off site or something like that.
Speaker A:So I work a lot of times in churches, and I always think that they also misunderstand what culture is, too.
Speaker A:I'll walk in and say, oh, we're a friendly church, and they think their culture is friendliness.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And then I walk in and no one talks to me, or they talk to each other, but they don't talk to guests.
Speaker A:And I'm like, well, you may be friendly to each other, but that's.
Speaker A:Your culture is very cold and very distant.
Speaker A:So what's the biggest misconception, I would guess, I would say leaders have about workplace culture today that you deal with on a regular basis?
Speaker B:Well, I'm going to go in a direction that directly links to what you just shared.
Speaker B:And that's the difference between an aspirational culture and an actual culture.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:A lot of organizations spend good and valuable time trying to define the culture that they want to have or that they even think they have.
Speaker B:And they don't spend enough time examining, well, how is Keith greeted when he walks in the door?
Speaker B:How are we actually showing up every day?
Speaker B:And that gap, and there's almost always going to be a gap, a pretty sizable one, candidly, between the culture you'd love to have and the one that you actually have.
Speaker B:That gap is the most important thing to focus on and be aware of is, oh, if we want to have a healthier culture, we've got to talk about, again, those attitudes and behaviors that our employees, that our team members that they're showing up with every day.
Speaker B:And if I can get people to change how warm they are toward folks that walk in the door, now I'm shifting my culture.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And that has almost nothing to do with how we define it, how we explain it.
Speaker B:It's a behavioral thing, not an aspirational thing.
Speaker A:So you work at a place called Better Culture.
Speaker A:How do you help organizations move from talking about having an aspirational culture to actually embedding it into daily operations?
Speaker B:Do you want the short version or the long version?
Speaker A:No, I want the long version because I think a lot of people struggle with this.
Speaker B:So I'm going to give your listeners a lot here, but I'll give you both the.
Speaker B:I'll give you the short and the long, and then they can decide what they like.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:The short version is, if you want to build a healthier workplace culture, you need to do it both from the top down and the bottom up.
Speaker B:And what the top down means is essentially you need to change the way leaders think and the way leaders show up.
Speaker B:So what they really are trying to build, what their intention is in their mind, what they think their job is as a leader, and then give them the mindsets and the skill sets to show up in more of that way.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And that's top down culture building.
Speaker B:It's working through people who are leaders inside the system.
Speaker B:The bottom up way to build culture is to help to shift the attitudes and the behaviors that everybody shows up with at work.
Speaker B:You could call it followship, you could call it whatever you want, but actually being really focused on activating your core values or your mission in a behavioral way for all employees.
Speaker B:And many employees are just waiting for a leader to do something.
Speaker B:And that's important.
Speaker B:It's important for leaders to lead.
Speaker B:But you can make a lot of progress just from the bottom up if you're an individual contributor.
Speaker B:If you and a few people say, you know what, I think we could change the culture here.
Speaker B:Guess what?
Speaker B:You probably could if you would just get intentional on what are those attitudes and behaviors we'd like to see more of.
Speaker B:How can we model them ourselves?
Speaker B:How can we encourage them from others?
Speaker B:So that's the simple answer.
Speaker B:Top down, bottom up.
Speaker B:Are you sure you still want a more complicated one?
Speaker A:I would love a more complicated one.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:So do your listeners sometimes work in a little bit larger organizations or is it mostly smaller groups like churches?
Speaker A:My audience is very diverse, so I have people who work in, in churches, but also a lot of people who do not.
Speaker A:So it's a very broad audience.
Speaker B:So we have what we call our culture driver model at Better Culture.
Speaker B:And that model has five sort of pie pieces to it.
Speaker B:And when we're working strategically with a good sized organization and they come to us and they say, hey, we just did some strategic planning and culture was one of our top maybe four priorities for the next three years.
Speaker B:And, and they reach out to us, that's the perfect time.
Speaker B:And we say, great, let us help you build a strategic plan for driving continuous improvement in your culture in the way that your employees feel about their job, in those attitudes and behaviors.
Speaker B:And the way we do that is we build it around those five pillars.
Speaker B:And the five pillars, they're not.
Speaker B:They'll make immediate sense to anyone listening.
Speaker B:But the goal here, before I tell you what the five pillars are, is you have to tell Me, you have to create a plan for how you're going to go from where you are in each of these five pillars to something that's better.
Speaker B:That's, that's all it takes to drive a better, a better culture is on these five different pillars, understanding where you're at and figuring out what would be better and then making a plan to do that steadily over time.
Speaker B:So the five pillars are your executive team.
Speaker B:Number one, how much do they actually prioritize culture?
Speaker B:How much clarity do they have on culture?
Speaker B:How healthy is the that team itself?
Speaker B:How strong are those executives as individual leaders and what are they really?
Speaker B:How much are we really walking the walk at the executive team level?
Speaker B:So that's number one, strengthening that group and getting more clarity and increasing their skill sets on culture.
Speaker B:Building pillar two is your managers.
Speaker B:Managers across the organization.
Speaker B:Managers have an outside effect on employee engagement, on culture, et cetera.
Speaker B:And so if, if we ask our clients to set a goal, nobody ever reaches this if they're a decent sized company.
Speaker B:But the goal is every employee in my organization will work for a world class manager.
Speaker B:And if you can do that, at least as a goal, that gives you some direction.
Speaker B:Okay, so managers need to be upskilling.
Speaker B:The third bucket is your emerging leaders.
Speaker B:And this is only for larger systems, but you should have a plan in place that says, how are we building the next level of leadership?
Speaker B:Are we helping them grow, develop, become more influential, increase skills?
Speaker B:The fourth bucket is important.
Speaker B:And this is the everyday employee experience for all employees.
Speaker B:Are there some little wins, some things we could do, Put some paint on the wall in the break room, add a new perk or a benefit, whatever the employees are asking for.
Speaker B:Is there some easy things we can do that, that they'll notice and do a few of those things consistently over time?
Speaker B:That's the fourth bucket and then the fifth one.
Speaker B:And I always put this last because some people jump here first.
Speaker B:And that's your HR and your people processes, your policies, your, you know, your evaluation systems, your how, how you employee onboarding processes, comp and benefits.
Speaker B:You know, are we actually rewarding people for this culture stuff that we're saying is important?
Speaker B:It's all those processes and systems.
Speaker B:And if you can show me that we're getting better at at least one of those pillars, or maybe even five of those over time, then I promise you you're making major progress on your culture.
Speaker A:My guess is you jumped to the fifth one because HR is the easiest one to do, right?
Speaker B:It's the easiest one to blame or to Point to.
Speaker B:Or, you know, what often happens is an executive will just say, hey, hr, what's our plan for this?
Speaker B:And HR goes, what I didn't.
Speaker B:You think I'm fully responsible for culture?
Speaker B:That's not how this works.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And so I do list them last, not because they don't play a big role.
Speaker B:They do, but boy, they can't do it alone.
Speaker B:They need executives, they need managers, they need.
Speaker B:Everybody has a role to play, not just hr.
Speaker A:I really was intrigued by when you talk about emerging leaders because that was one of the things I think, especially in the church setting I worked in, is we didn't really have a good system in place to develop the next generation of leaders.
Speaker A:So talk to me more about kind of some examples of how you help develop a plan for emerging leaders.
Speaker B:So we don't use a specific blueprint.
Speaker B:Keith.
Speaker B:There's not like, okay, here's exactly what to do.
Speaker B:But what I typically will ask organizations is are you looking for skill development?
Speaker B:You know, are you worried about capability, specific skills in your emerging leaders?
Speaker B:Are there clear experience or skills, skill gaps that we need to close?
Speaker B:In which case, great, let's create cross training opportunities, let's send them to training, let's build some type of a roadmap where we're going to level up those skills.
Speaker B:In my world, there's also this leadership and culture skill set which isn't like, do we understand whatever business thing that we need for the organization?
Speaker B:It's am I confident that they have the skill sets to manage people, to build healthy teams, to grow cultures?
Speaker B:And if that's what we're going for, then we can build an emerging leaders program.
Speaker B:We can help an organization create a mentorship program or model.
Speaker B:You can enroll folks in Better Cultures Virtual Leadership Academy.
Speaker B:There are a lot of things we can do to start to build some of those skills.
Speaker B:Your enemy.
Speaker B:There is really time every time a year goes by or two years go by and you're not doing something intentional to build that next level of leadership, you're just following a little bit further behind.
Speaker B:And so I would say the emerging leaders bucket is the one that goes neglected, unfortunately, most often.
Speaker B:And then people look up down the road when they find out, you know, half of their executive team is getting ready to retire and they go, oh, what do we do about that?
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:And so that's that tip that I don't know, gets overlooked some and it's understandable why it does.
Speaker B:But, but if you want to be really robust in your planning, don't overlook it.
Speaker A:And if you have to replace older leadership with outside, it's going to cost you a lot more.
Speaker B:Going to cost you more.
Speaker B:And to the degree that you really value culture, internal promotions are really valuable for maintaining.
Speaker B:If you have a unique culture in your organization, it's hard to bring outside folks in and sort of dunk them in.
Speaker B:Well, here's how we work here.
Speaker B:Here's how we need you to lead here.
Speaker B:You know, internal promotions are especially valuable for culture focused organizations.
Speaker A:When you said that reminded me of the Cracker Barrel disaster.
Speaker A:When you, when you decide to change the entire.
Speaker A:What would make Cracker Barrel?
Speaker A:Cracker Barrel.
Speaker A:And then you, you get the pushback because you ruined the culture of Cracker Barrel.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, I got.
Speaker B:Now you're getting me off on a tangent, but I got a little bit of inside scoop on that from someone who had an acquaintance that worked in company that I had a chance to talk to.
Speaker B:And they had a lot of leadership trying to do smart things, trying to do reasonable things, but ultimately they were a bit insensitive both to the internal culture and to the customer facing culture.
Speaker B:The customer facing culture is what got all the attention in the media.
Speaker B:They changed the logos and they changed the feel and some of the way they were doing stuff.
Speaker B:But on the inside, employees were noticing too.
Speaker B:I mean, they were making changes to, you know, their homemade biscuits weren't actually being made, you know, from scratch every day.
Speaker B:How hard is this to make these from scratch?
Speaker B:Like, why are we, why are we trying to streamline these back end operations and you know, they don't taste as good and you know, it was creating some internal backlash that didn't even get as reported as some of the customer facing stuff.
Speaker B:So I agree.
Speaker A:Yeah, I love it.
Speaker A:Besides the fact that building better culture starts with leadership first.
Speaker A:And even the five pillars you talked about, each of those pillars needs leadership to either take the lead on that or do something.
Speaker A:But why you say that's the starting point for real cultural transformation is leadership.
Speaker B:That's what leadership is.
Speaker B:Leadership is influence.
Speaker B:Leadership is saying, I know where I want this organization or my team to go and then using my influence to get us there.
Speaker B:And it's really hard.
Speaker B:Even with really well meaning people.
Speaker B:If leadership isn't on board with where we're trying to go, it's hard for anybody else to make a significant shift or change.
Speaker B:I can show up every day and be the world's best teammates.
Speaker B:Okay, this is theoretical, but be the world's best teammate.
Speaker B:You know, bring the right attitude, the Right.
Speaker B:Energy, et cetera.
Speaker B:And that will make an impact on the people that, that I get to interact with every single day.
Speaker B:You know, hopefully I can be a bright spot in their day.
Speaker B:I can help them feel appreciated.
Speaker B:I can help build a sense of pride.
Speaker B:I can navigate conflict effectively to the degree that I can control it.
Speaker B:But if I'm not a leader, my influence is limited to just who I interact with.
Speaker B:And you're never going to see sustained change in an organization if it doesn't come through leadership.
Speaker A:I like what you talked about.
Speaker A:I want to go back a little bit more because when you talk about those pillars, if the leadership or the cultural change starts at the employee level and maybe gets up to management, but doesn't get to the top, the executive level, how much of a cultural transformation or how limited will that change truly be if it's not brought in by the entire organization?
Speaker B:So we used to have this graphic.
Speaker B:I've been doing the work that I do for almost 20 years and at the very start I worked with my father and we hired like basically we didn't really hire this.
Speaker B:We tried to do it in like an old version of Microsoft Word or something.
Speaker B:And it was the worst graphic we've ever created at better culture.
Speaker B:But the idea was good.
Speaker B:And here's what it was.
Speaker B:It was like this trickle down leadership graphic.
Speaker B:And if you, you were like, figure out how much influence you have.
Speaker B:And it was three levels and the top level, you could have either amazing leadership, neutral leadership, or the, or terrible leadership.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:And then you would go down one level under that and you could have mid level management that was either fantastic leadership, neutral or negative.
Speaker B:And then every combination thereunder of what showed up on the lower team level.
Speaker B:So if you just happened to be on a team in a company that had outstanding senior leadership and an amazing mid level leadership, you basically worked in operational nirvana.
Speaker B:You know, you were like, hey, I don't know how this happened, but it's amazing here, right?
Speaker B:And if you obviously had terrible senior and terrible mid level, you were in like you did not like where you worked.
Speaker B:But the interesting thing was this.
Speaker B:If you would look at really kind of poor senior level leadership, but a great mid level manager, that team, that under that mid level manager, it was almost like there's a force field where it's like, actually it's really good here.
Speaker B:But what we used to say is that manager is a saint and they're probably not going to live real long because they're creating that force field around their team.
Speaker B:They're Trying to run interference, they're trying to make it positive.
Speaker B:But that's really hard for a mid level leader who, for a frontline leader to do when what's coming toward them all the time is toxic, is pressure oriented, et cetera.
Speaker B:So one leader can make a big difference for their team.
Speaker B:But boy, it's hard work.
Speaker A:So if you're the upper, and I'm assuming for that one you just described where the management is excellent and you're just kind of being the bubble to protect the other employees, I'm assuming probably down the road, upper management gets promotion going.
Speaker A:Man, I came from this great company and look at all the success we had.
Speaker A:And he got a new company.
Speaker A:And if it wasn't because you led the culture, you have no idea how to replicate that somewhere else.
Speaker A:I'm guessing you would be not the best employee.
Speaker B:I could see that if you're an upper.
Speaker B:So here's what I see most often in that regard.
Speaker B:Let's imagine a senior leadership team of like six people, okay.
Speaker B:And one of them's a CEO, and then there's a bunch of VPs.
Speaker B:What does happen a lot is one or two of those senior executives really leads the culture.
Speaker B:It's probably the CEO, but it might be one or two of the others.
Speaker B:And, and the, and the other executives, they kind of coast, they, they like, they're happy to go along with it.
Speaker B:This is great, et cetera.
Speaker B:And they often think they're good leaders, but they're not actually the ones creating the culture.
Speaker B:They're just kind of part of the leadership team and they don't realize how much skill, how much effort somebody else and the rest of the company is doing.
Speaker B:So you wouldn't have that amazing culture without an executive at that top level.
Speaker B:That's helping drive it.
Speaker B:You could be kind of good, but you wouldn't be amazing.
Speaker B:And so what can happen is one of those senior execs, if they leave or they go somewhere else and they think they're a pretty good leader.
Speaker B:Oh yeah, I was, you know, best place to work and this and that.
Speaker B:All of a sudden they get somewhere else and they're like, shoot, what do I actually do to create that?
Speaker B:You know, they were good at enjoying the ride, but they don't maybe quite understand the amount of work and intentionality it took to build it.
Speaker A:I love, I love it.
Speaker A:So let's talk a little bit more about teams.
Speaker A:So strong teams are at the heart of great cultures.
Speaker A:What separates high performing teams from dysfunctional ones?
Speaker B:Well, excuse me on that Note, you know, this is an area that we've been really diving into recently at Better Culture.
Speaker B:We even have a new product that we have rolled out that helps organizations and team leaders build healthier teams and organizations build healthier teams.
Speaker B:For about six months we were trying to research, really, we use a metaphor of bricks and mortar and we say, look, if you want to build an amazing building that's going to last for a long time, and let's say we're, we're building it out of masonry.
Speaker B:All right, you need good bricks and you need good mortar, right?
Speaker B:If you just stack up the bricks, the wind can blow them over or something can knock it down.
Speaker B:But if you put great mortar and they to stick them together, then you're going to get a high performing structure that's going to last well on a team, your individuals are the bricks, you know, well, I have a, I have a degree in this or I have X certification or I have this skill or this experience.
Speaker B:The mortar between your people is the team dynamics, it's the trust, the communication, et cetera.
Speaker B:For about six months we tried to examine what the mortar was on great teams.
Speaker B:And we came up with after a long time, A list of 20 attitudes and behaviors that we think across industries, across everything, pretty well describe what a great team does.
Speaker B:And we call those our 20 tenets of culture at Better Culture.
Speaker A:I love it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Is that going to be a book sometime?
Speaker B:You know, it may be a book.
Speaker B:We've turned it into a product right now.
Speaker B:So basically, if any organization, small company is great for small companies.
Speaker B:In fact, the church that I go to is using this with their nine team members.
Speaker B:I let the pastor use it for free and he's running it.
Speaker B:It's an easy way for him to have something regularly that they're using to build healthier teams and cultures.
Speaker B:Because what we did is we, you can use it separate from this.
Speaker B:But what we did is we automated it as a year long campaign that lets employees rate themselves on all 20, pick a couple they want to work on and then we send videos and we do.
Speaker B:We make it easy over the course of a whole year to give little nudges from the bottom up to all employees to say, hey look, oh, here's one of Better Culture's 20 tenants.
Speaker B:Let me watch that video.
Speaker B:Maybe we should discuss that with our team this week, et cetera.
Speaker B:So we almost put Culture building on autopilot by just injecting little doses of these 20 tenants over the course of a year.
Speaker A:I'm a big proponent that habits help to transform organizations.
Speaker A:What are some common team building habits that you would recommend teams practice on a regular basis?
Speaker B:Team building habits.
Speaker B:I think doing something that creates personal connection on a regular cadence is a good thing to do.
Speaker B:That doesn't have to be, you know, it doesn't have to be a team building event.
Speaker B:It can be go to dinner or have just make some time for an in office potluck or it can be do a family event.
Speaker B:It can be a team building, it can be an exercise, an activity, it can be work related things.
Speaker B:But I think when people get to know each other on a personal level, that creates an immense amount of trust and it can really increase people's enjoyment at work.
Speaker B:So I'm a big believer in making sure that we regularly, if we're not having some fun at our team meetings on a regular basis and we're not, you know, checking in on Monday mornings, how was the weekend?
Speaker B:What'd you do?
Speaker B:Like, I think it's important to infuse those kinds of things to build a healthy culture.
Speaker A:I would also say communication is an important part of building and shaping culture.
Speaker A:Where do organizations typically fall short when it comes to effective communication?
Speaker B:That's a really hard one.
Speaker B:It sounds like you know this really well in the employee engagement world.
Speaker B:If you look at culture surveys.
Speaker B:When organizations ask their employees what are we doing well at, what do we need to work on?
Speaker B:Communication is something that employees will consistently say like, hey, we'd like better communication.
Speaker B:We'd like to know why decisions are being made.
Speaker B:We'd like to have more of our voice heard.
Speaker B:We'd like, you know, and I have good clients who've taken that data, worked on it for a whole year, said we're going to work so hard to improve communication, put a ton of effort into it, and they barely move that score.
Speaker B:You know, it's hard to convince people or it's hard to do effective communication because even when you do it, there's two sides to communication.
Speaker B:I can be the world's best communicator, but if I'm doing it via email and people are only opening 7% of the emails I'm sending, well then that wasn't very effective communication, was it?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So same thing in a team meeting.
Speaker B:About 50% of the time people are listening to you when you're talking.
Speaker B:If you're not doing something to actively keep their interest, people's minds drift.
Speaker B:They're.
Speaker B:They might look like they're listening, but they're not.
Speaker B:So communication's a tough one.
Speaker B:That's a whole topic of its own.
Speaker A:I know that's one thing I run across a lot in the church, is that communication is not.
Speaker B:It's so hard.
Speaker A:We think we've said it.
Speaker A:We think people know and then people misunderstand.
Speaker A:So it's very, very common.
Speaker A:I thought you had the magic bullet for communication.
Speaker B:For me, if I had that magic bullet, I promise you, I would be.
Speaker B:I would have led with that.
Speaker A:There you go.
Speaker A:So share me an example.
Speaker A:Give me an example of a company that transformed this culture successfully that you worked with.
Speaker B:Well, I have one, just easy one that's top of mind.
Speaker B:I'm in the Omaha, Nebraska area and the organization, my company has been very heavily connected and to what's called the best places to work competition.
Speaker B:Every.
Speaker B:It does happen every year.
Speaker B:But the reason I do the work that I do is my dad started a company over 30 years ago that repeatedly won that best places to work thing in Omaha.
Speaker B:Five years in a row, they were the number one best place to work.
Speaker B:And other people started asking, how do you do that?
Speaker B:And so we now, today we work with a lot of organizations that want to be better places to work and maybe even be a best place to work.
Speaker B:So just this last year, one of our clients that we've been working with for five years was named the number one best place to work in the city of Omaha.
Speaker B:And that's a company called Nebraska Cancer Specialists.
Speaker B:We just launched a case study on them.
Speaker B:So it's okay if I talk about them, but it was a five year journey and they started out in a pretty decent spot, but they worked hard, continuously over four or five years to get to that spot.
Speaker A:Well, that's a great place to have.
Speaker A:Be the best place to work, especially when you're dealing with such weighty issues.
Speaker A:So, yeah.
Speaker B:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker B:It makes such a difference.
Speaker B:I mean, my focus is internal on employees.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Because I know if we can build the best place for employees to work, then customers will get the best care.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:People will get the best outcomes.
Speaker B:And even in tough environments like that where you would think, boy, it must be depressing to come to work, that's not the case.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:We're trying to figure out how can we help people live their best life, make the most progress possible, and if we can create.
Speaker B:Make that an uplifting environment, it's good for everybody, including, by the way, clinical outcomes.
Speaker A:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker A:I thought you're gonna say University of Nebraska.
Speaker A:I was gonna.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, I could say go big red on here if that's helpful to you.
Speaker A:So let's talk about one of the things, like, how does healthy culture directly impact things like retention, productivity, and profitability?
Speaker B:So I'd like to flip that upside down.
Speaker B:So I think it's obvious, right?
Speaker B:How does it.
Speaker B:How does it impact it?
Speaker B:Well, it.
Speaker B:It impacts it because people like their job.
Speaker B:They're gonna do more of their job.
Speaker B:They're going to, you know, put more energy into their job.
Speaker B:But sometimes I like to flip this upside down and I. I ask people if people are skeptical of, you know, I'm not sure culture has a real roi.
Speaker B:I'll say, okay, great.
Speaker B:Here's the deal.
Speaker B:You get to pick either one of these two teams.
Speaker B:You take one, I'll take the other one in my company.
Speaker B:Okay, on one side, we've got Team A, where the employees.
Speaker B:There's a really healthy culture, and that means employees love coming to work.
Speaker B:They trust each other.
Speaker B:They communicate easily and openly.
Speaker B:They're positive.
Speaker B:There's regular laughter.
Speaker B:Like, people are always willing to put forth some discretionary effort when the company needs it because they like their job and they feel like they're treated well.
Speaker B:On the other hand, there's Team B.
Speaker B:And Team B is just as.
Speaker B:They have the same bricks, they have the same skill level as Team A, but.
Speaker B:But they don't like work.
Speaker B:They're always complaining, they're negative.
Speaker B:They're cynical.
Speaker B:They always say, thank God it's Friday.
Speaker B:Can't wait to get out of here.
Speaker B:They don't like their boss.
Speaker B:They don't really care about the mission of the company.
Speaker B:Now, which team would you like to have?
Speaker B:Would you like Team A or Team B?
Speaker A:They both have the.
Speaker B:They have the same skill level, but one has a healthy culture, the other has a really dysfunctional culture.
Speaker B:And I've never once.
Speaker B:Keith, which team do you want, by the way?
Speaker B:You want Team A or B?
Speaker A:I'll definitely take A. I've been on Team B.
Speaker A:That wasn't fun at all.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Well, you're right.
Speaker B:But I've had conversations with people, like, and they're genuinely skeptical.
Speaker B:They're like, I don't know if culture has an roi.
Speaker B:It's blah, blah, blah.
Speaker B:And I'll just say, okay, pick which one do you want?
Speaker B:And they'll say, well, obviously Team A. I'll say, that's what.
Speaker B:That's what we're talking about.
Speaker B:Do you want that or do you want something less than that?
Speaker B:That's what a healthy culture does.
Speaker B:So that's right.
Speaker A:Unless Team B pays a lot more.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Yeah, Right.
Speaker A:But even that's not worth it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, if you could show me that over a long period of time, Team B is twice as productive, I'll listen.
Speaker B:But that's not reality.
Speaker B:Team B will not be more productive.
Speaker B:Team A will be.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:So what advice do you give to leaders who are trying to rebuild trust or in a broken or damaged culture?
Speaker B:You have to be careful with trust, because when you try to rebuild it, if you damage it again.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, you're just.
Speaker B:It's hard to recover from that.
Speaker B:You kind of get one shot at rebuilding trust.
Speaker B:And so you better.
Speaker B:You better be sincere about it when you try to rebuild it.
Speaker B:My favorite approach is by doing it through appreciation, noticing, recognizing, appreciating people, and really becoming what I call a PR agent for my great team members.
Speaker B:Really just looking for opportunities to notice people, going above and beyond living our core values, you know, serving a customer, treating colleagues well, and just really dramatically ratcheting up my amount of appreciation for those types of things and doing it in a genuine way.
Speaker B:I think that's one of the best ways to build trust is to for people to notice that or to see that you're noticing them and their efforts and that you genuinely appreciate them.
Speaker B:I think those positive comments, appreciation, recognition, I think that's one of the best ways that there is to build relationships, and that's really what trust is.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:So I'm going to ask you my other favorite question as we wrap this up.
Speaker A:And what do you want your legacy to be?
Speaker B:Oh, man.
Speaker B:Personally, my father created a lot of the content and philosophies that we teach at Better Culture, and he put those into motion at an organization in Omaha that's called qli that became the best place to work over and over again.
Speaker B:I would love, love, love my legacy if I was able to take that and expand it across the region, across the country, across the world, to really make the world a better place to work, to teach other organizations that, hey, you can have your cake and eat it too.
Speaker B:You can build a phenomenal, profitable business and have you, both you and your employees, loving coming to work every day.
Speaker B:I would love my legacy to be just helping to spread that message and make an impact.
Speaker A:That's great.
Speaker A:So we also have a new thing in the show, and that's.
Speaker A:Pick a surprise question.
Speaker A:Pick a number between one and ten.
Speaker A:For your surprise question.
Speaker B:I would like question number nine, please.
Speaker A:Number nine.
Speaker A:If you had to teach a class on one topic, what would you teach?
Speaker B:If I could teach A class on one topic.
Speaker A:Just one topic.
Speaker B:Okay, I'm going to go off script here.
Speaker B:Obviously I could teach lots of classes on leadership and culture, but if I could only teach one.
Speaker B:I'm also kind of a personal finance nerd.
Speaker B:I really like teaching people about the time value of money, about how to think about building wealth, about using resources to build both a stable foundation for life and a life that you're in charge of.
Speaker B:And so I think I would teach some type of a course, you know, sort of a Dave Ramsey like course where I would help people be more successful and more intentional with money.
Speaker A:Would you be nicer than Dave?
Speaker A:Because Dave sometimes kind of mean.
Speaker B:I. I mean, he's likably mean, right?
Speaker B:He's funny when he's whipping people into shape.
Speaker B:So I don't know.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:Maybe.
Speaker A:So, Brett, where can people connect with you and learn more about better culture?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So a couple things.
Speaker B:Number one, you can go to betterculture.com we have a lot of free resources on our Insights tab.
Speaker B:I'd love to share a resource.
Speaker B:I assume this I'm going to put actually a resource based on this conversation.
Speaker B:If people are interested in a tool they could use with their own team.
Speaker B:So a team building, an individual skill development tool.
Speaker B:We have what we call our culture Kickstarter pack.
Speaker B:And it gives a sample of those 20 tenants that I mentioned.
Speaker B:It gives you team building exercises, videos you can watch, like stuff you could do with your team 100% for free.
Speaker B:And if people want that, they can go to betterculture.com bridge builders.
Speaker B:How does that sound?
Speaker A:All right, sounds cool.
Speaker A:Thank you, Brad.
Speaker A:That was great.
Speaker A:So anything you like to close with as we wrap up this conversation?
Speaker A:To kind of summarize our discussion,.
Speaker B:I just want people to understand that culture has a tremendous amount of power, both from a business perspective.
Speaker B:Whatever it is you're trying to accomplish, that could be a calling, it could be a faith based objective, it could be a business objective, it could be a for profit, a non.
Speaker B:Building a healthier culture will get you to that goal number one.
Speaker B:Number two, I promise you it'll also help you enjoy the journey along the way.
Speaker B:If you can build the type of culture that just makes every day a little bit brighter.
Speaker B:And we all have a limited number of days here on earth.
Speaker B:And I think why not try to build the most successful organizations we can and enjoy that path, that journey along the way.
Speaker A:Well, Brett, thanks so much.
Speaker A:What a powerful conversation.
Speaker A:If there's one takeaway from today, it is that culture isn't accidental, it's intentional.
Speaker A:And when we lead with purpose, clarity and care, we don't just create better workplaces, we build bridges that impact lives.
Speaker A:If you found today's episode to be meaningful to you, be sure to subscribe, share with someone in your network, and leave a review.
Speaker A:It helps us to reach more listeners and more leaders.
Speaker A:We want to make a difference.
Speaker A:And if you want to learn more about Brett and the work he's done at Better Culture, be sure to check the links in the show notes below.
Speaker A:And also take advantage of that free offer Brett has given us.
Speaker A:Until next time, keep building bridges wherever you are.
