72. Never Lose an Employee Again

Intro:

Jeff Hunt:

Welcome to the Human Capital Podcast. I'm Jeff Hunt. Imagine the thrill of finding the perfect candidate for a job opening. Someone who brings excitement and promise to your team. You extend an offer and they accept and it feels like a major triumph in your career. But then within the first 100 days, they're gone, leaving you bewildered and disappointed.

This scenario is all too common, where hiring top talent is incredibly tough, but retaining them is actually the holy grail. Employee turnover exacts a heavy toll. Beyond the emotional letdown, it also drains resources. Studies reveal that the cost of replacing an employee can be two to three times their annual salary.

Today we're going to talk about the hope that lives in the midst of the retention challenge. Fostering employee retention not only reduces turnover costs, but it also can nurture a thriving workplace culture. Organizations with high retention rates experience improved productivity, customer satisfaction, and employee morale.

Today, I am thrilled to welcome Joey Coleman to the show. Joey helps companies keep their customers and employees, and he's a best selling author, keynote speaker, Workshop Leader and Consultant. Joey helps businesses design creative ways to engage their customers and employees, especially in the crucial first 100 days of the relationship life cycle.

Joey has an eclectic background where he has defended alleged criminals, sold custom research to Fortune 500 executives, raced along the Great Wall, juggled in front of the Taj Mahal, worked in the White House, and traveled 51 countries and counting. He's a professional speaker who's given thousands of speeches all over the world.

I've read two of Joey's books, including the number two wall street journal, bestselling book, never lose a customer again. And today we're going to talk about his newest book. Never lose an employee again. The simple path to remarkable retention. Welcome, Joey. Thanks for coming on the show.

Joey Coleman:

Oh, Jeff. Thanks so much for having me on the show. I so appreciate it. Thanks also for that lovely frame setting in the introduction. I'm super excited for our conversation and I want to also acknowledge and appreciate the folks who are kind enough to be listening in to our conversation. I've been looking forward to this one for a while and I'm excited to dive in.

Topic 1. Who or what inspired you the most along your career? (02:59)

Jeff Hunt:

Absolutely. You know, I mentioned that I read your first book, which we're not going to spend as much time today, but I definitely want to promote that to our listening audience, never lose a customer again. It's exceptionally good. And today we get to talk about this book, never lose an employee again. But before we do.

I just want to hear a little bit about your career journey. How did you end up where you are today?

Joey Coleman:

Oh, it has been an eclectic journey and path for sure, Jeff. You know, what my career has basically come down to is I never left a job, thankfully, because I hated the job. I left the job because I found something else that I enjoyed doing more.

And that has led me to study government international relations in college, go straight to law school where I studied international law, national security law and litigation. I had the pleasure of working at the Secret Service. I worked for the CIA. I worked in the White House Office of Counsel to the President.

I did business consulting. I was a criminal defense lawyer. I worked at an ad agency. I started an ad agency and ran that. I ran a division of a promotional products company. I taught at the postgraduate level. When I describe all of this, most people are like, Oh my God, first of all, how old are you? And how many lives have you lived?

Second of all, can you not hold a job? What is actually happening here? And the secret, or at least what I've realized looking back, it wasn't as obvious at the time, but in hindsight, I've come to realize that every job I've ever had to succeed in that role, you had to be a student of the human condition.

You had to know a lot about and be willing to explore a lot about it. Why humans do the things they do. And that's what led me on my professional path to where I've arrived today.

Jeff Hunt:

That's so inspirational. And I love that you've had so many different experiences because there's a lot of listeners out there that may be in a career. They've been at it for a long time, might even be unfulfilled, and maybe that's the inspiration for them to make a move.

Joey Coleman:

Yeah, I have a personal policy, Jeff, that if, in any job I've had, if I woke up in the morning and dreaded, hated, loathed the idea of going to work, and I woke up for 14 consecutive mornings of that, two weeks of thinking that, I would put in my notice.

Because life is too short, right? Now you're going to have bad days. We've all had bad days. I love doing what I'm doing today. There are days I wake up and I'm like, Oh my gosh, what is today going to be like, right? I'm not as excited about it. Or I know something's on the agenda that has to be done and I just need to slog through and get it done.

But if you've gone two consecutive weeks, including the weekends of feeling that way, if you wake up on Saturday and you're dreading Monday already, you wake up on Sunday and you can't wait to avoid Monday, if at all possible. Do yourself a favor. Do your employer a favor. Do your coworkers a favor. Put in your resignation and go find something better to do, something that lights you up, something that's more enjoyable, something that's more in alignment with what you're hoping to get out of your life.

Jeff Hunt:

And remember, you're a volunteer in your position, right?

Joey Coleman:

Absolutely. And, and here's the interesting thing. We live at a really remarkable time in human history. In fact, I would posit that we have never had the amount of opportunity as employees. That we have right now, because even 30 years ago, as a general rule, if you applied for a job, you were applying for a job with a company whose headquarters were within 30 miles of your house.

Now you can apply with it for a job with any company in the world as long as they're willing to let you work remotely and increasingly most companies are. So the scope of possibility, not only in terms of companies, industries, careers, job types, experiences you're going to have, geographies you might work in, has expanded the aperture to a point of view now where literally the world is your oyster.

There's any number of jobs that you could consider globally and any number of employers globally that would be thrilled to have you on their team.

Topic 2. Inspiration behind “Never Lose an Employee Again” (07:13)

Jeff Hunt:

What inspired you to write this book?

Joey Coleman:

What really inspired me to write this book, Jeff, is. I had been in the customer experience space for about 20 years, but I had been in that space for about all of five minutes when I realized that you can't have a great customer experience without having remarkable employees to deliver on that experience.

The challenge I ran into is in most organizations, customer experience and employee experience. are completely different worlds. The people who work on CX don't ever even think about EX usually. The people who work on EX are like, CX is a different department. So there's not a lot of overlap. And probably about, oh, I'd say it's about four years ago now, I started thinking more about how can I use the same type of message around take care of your customers.

Towards take care of your employees and I started doing the research and I talked to my agent and my publisher for my books and they liked the idea and we started working on it and then COVID hit and I got to tell you, Jeff, that as soon as COVID was starting and this is like February 2020, March of 2020, early days, I called my publisher and I was like, we need to delay the publication date and the reason we need to delay it is I believe in my gut That the world of work is about to change in a way that we have is, that is unprecedented in human history.

And I believe, and I believe that it did. I don't believe there's been a single event in human history that has changed the workplace as much as the COVID 19 pandemic did. Some people say to me, well, Joey, what about the industrial revolution? Folks, there are plenty of places I can go to in the world where the industrial revolution still hasn't arrived.

That's right. Everybody during COVID was forced to come to this reality of we can still work if we're not in the same room as our coworkers. And that revelation, that pulling back the curtain, I think has changed the planet forever.

Topic 3. Creating a culture of care for employees to thrive as a business (09:14)

Jeff Hunt:

No doubt. So I want to get into this book and just a little backstory. I used to be a part of a CEO book club that was run by Xavier Lederer, who's an executive coach.

And who coaches CEOs and together, we were studying your first book, how to never lose a customer. And it's a fantastic read. And I got through that book and then I read this book and I, in some ways thought you wrote these books in reverse order, which, you know, because if we truly take care of our employees, if we truly create meaningful and memorable cultures and experiences.

They will almost always take care of the customer. And I'm just wondering what your thoughts are about that.

Joey Coleman:

I think you're spot on, Jeff. I think I wasn't smart enough to write this second book first, right? But what you hit the nail on the head with is if given the choice between taking care of our customers or taking care of our employees.

I'm going to choose taking care of the employees nine times out of ten and every day of the week, including Sunday, right? It's one of those things where if we get the experience for our people right, the ability for that experience to transfer to our customers is a lot easier than if we're trying to say, well, this is how we treat our customers.

Good luck, team. That there needs to be contextualization. There needs to be experience. There needs to be frameworks that they have experienced themselves before we ask them to deliver those type of experiences to others.

Jeff Hunt:

Exactly, you know, owners will often say. I wish my employees cared as much about my company as I do, but you have a quote in your book that reads your employees wish you cared as much about them as you do about the business, and I'm wondering if you can explain what you mean by that.

Joey Coleman:

Yeah, well, let me start by saying, Jeff, that I empathize with how difficult it is to be a business owner or a business leader. I've been doing it for 20 plus years now. I get it. And your people don't necessarily know how much you care. I have to work with leaders on all seven continents, right? I get how much they worry about their team, how much they worry about making payroll, how much they try to make sure they have the right resources.

The problem is, if we go back to kind of a kindergarten model of show and tell, I think many leaders overemphasize that tell and don't do enough showing. They don't do enough proof points, evidence, uh, you know, talismans, artifacts that give evidence to the employee that they matter, that they are valued, that they are appreciated.

I understand that making payroll. Every time payrolls do is a huge accomplishment that the leader is keeping an eye on, but your employees want more than a paycheck and increasingly in our society, your employees not only want work where they can get paid, but they won't work where they can feel fulfilled.

They won't work where they can feel they're making a contribution. They feel they won't work where they will feel valued. And appreciated and that they matter. And I get this adds a layer of complexity to the workplace. But this is the marketplace today. This is workers today. And it's not changing anytime soon.

Jeff Hunt:

I'm just thinking about what you said, and so many leaders and managers and supervisors get bogged down by the tactical, the urgent, the day to day fires that they're putting out. And what you're describing, Joey, requires a level of intentionality. It requires thinking things through in advance. It requires establishing things consistently so that we do kind of create.

These types of experiences. Another thing that you said in your book is that you basically broke it down to three reasons that employees don't care as much as you, as you do, and it's Lack of understanding, lack of demonstrated appreciation, and lack of connection. Would you say those three elements are unpacked in your first 100 days phases that you've described in the book?

Joey Coleman:

I would say they certainly have the potential to be unpacked. But here's the interesting thing, Jeff. I think most leaders... Aren't designing their new employee onboarding or their employee experiences to address these core issues, these core issues of how is a new hire feeling connected? How is a new hire feeling appreciated and valued?

How is a new hire being informed about how we actually make money? There's so few businesses that sit down with a new hire and say. Let me tell you how we go from finding someone in the marketplace that wants our product or service. To the point of them being a raving fan, writing reviews, singing our praise, referring business.

We don't give them the full picture. We only give them the little silo that they end up touching. Well, if we're not going to give somebody the full story, how can we expect them to appreciate either the complexity of the tasks before us, Or the significance of their getting their part right, so as to honor the effort that has come before them, and not destroy the efforts that are going to happen after them as they hand off to someone else in the organization.

Jeff Hunt:

It's like expecting that we don't explain how the machine works, and then we want them to operate it.

Joey Coleman:

Exactly. And I understand we're moving quickly. I understand there's a big pressure to produce. There's a big pressure to be productive and to get things done. I get that. I have yet to find a scenario where pumping the brakes and slowing down, where explaining what's happening before it happens, isn't going to be in everyone's best interest.

One of the things I do as a leader, Jeff, is when anybody on my team makes a mistake, The first question I try to ask, now I have to fight my own internal compass on this, but the first question I try to ask is, where did I fail to give them the context that would have helped them avoid making this mistake?

What did I do by not explaining? And we just had this come up with somebody on my team. They sent off a message wanting to be responsive quickly. But the thing they shared had a cost to us. And so I sat down and I said, Okay, so the thing you shared, 10 out of 10 on speed of response, 3 out of 10 on accuracy.

I would rather have you be an 8 out of 10 on speed, and a 10 out of 10 on accuracy, or even a 5 out of 10. On speed, as long as we're a 10 out of 10 on accuracy. And so it's letting the team members know, okay, what are our actual priorities? What are we trying to accomplish and giving them not only examples of what that looks like, but when they do stumble coming back and saying, this is an opportunity for a teachable moment, this isn't an opportunity for ridicule or punishment or consequence.

This is an opportunity to say, where did I go wrong? Help me to understand what I could have given you to have you understand this scenario better.

Topic 4. The 8 phases of the journey and how to make them part of your process (16:41)

Jeff Hunt:

That's great. Now, in your book, as I mentioned, there's these eight phases of the journey within the first 100 days. Can you, Joey, and, and they all start with a, which I actually really like because it's easy to sort of remember them.

They're all a's. But can you share with our listeners what those eight are? And then maybe, you know, we're not going to have time to review all of them, but pick out a couple that really stood out to you when you were writing the book and maybe you can share greater detail about those.

Joey Coleman:

Sure. So I'll do my best to go through this fairly quickly, Jeff, because there are eight of them and we could spend days on any one of these.

But at a 35, 000 foot level, here are the eight phases of the employee journey. The first phase is the assess phase. In the assess phase, a prospective employee is trying to decide whether or not they want to come work with you. They're assessing your organization. You're also assessing them as a candidate.

This includes your job listings or your career postings or position postings. They're reading those. They're going on the about us page on your website or the careers page on your website. They might be going to LinkedIn and seeing who else they know that works at your organization and having off channel conversations with them about what's it really like there, Jeff?

What do you think? They're going through your application and resume submission process. They're going through your interview process. All of those things that many HR departments think of as the whole enchilada. Is phase one of eight phases. Once we exit the assess phase, we move to the accept phase. The accept phase has two key elements.

Number one, the organization accepts that this is the candidate we want and extends an offer. And if we're lucky, that candidate accepts our offer. We then go to phase three, the affirm phase. Now the Affirm phrase is a phase that most organizations don't pay attention to, so let's put a pin in this one to come back to it.

Most folks listening or watching us are familiar with the concept of buyer's remorse, where somebody makes a purchase and they begin to doubt the decision they just made. It's scientifically proven this happens with every purchase, even if we're not aware of it. The exact same thing occurs when a new hire accepts your job offer, the ink isn't even dry on the employment contract and they begin to doubt the decision they just made.

So I'd like to introduce you to a concept called new hires remorse, the same thing as buyers remorse. And what we need to do is we need to affirm their choice to assuage any fears or doubts or uncertainty about the job offer they just accepted. We then come to phase for the activate phase. This is the first real moment of truth where they show up for the job, right?

The first official day of work. Now, what's interesting about this phase, Jeff, is it's the only phase in the eight phases that is literally a day long. It's no longer or shorter than a day. It's that first day. And the question becomes, are you creating a remarkable experience on that day that they will remember for years to come or does that they feel like an afterthought where they showed up and no one was ready for them? They don't feel appreciated. They don't feel seen. They don't feel valued. Emotions are huge in the activate phase. We then come to the acclimate phase. The acclimate phase starts on starts on day two on the job and can last for weeks or even months. What I think is interesting about Acclimate, Jeff, is in almost every organization on the planet, if I were to gather their team in a room and say, who's responsible for day one, someone would raise their hand, the head of HR, an HR manager, maybe a direct manager, and then I say, who's responsible for day two of the employee experience, day four, day seven, day 15, day 28, suddenly we got a lot of people looking around going, well, I, that's not really part of my job description.

I'm not exactly sure. And we have a huge problem in the acclimate phase. We have to hold the employee's hand. We've got to teach him the ropes. We've got to let him know our way of operating our way of doing business. If we want them to stay, we then come to phase six, the accomplished phase in the accomplished phase.

The employee achieves the goal that they originally had when they accepted the job offer and pro tip here, friends, it's not a paycheck. Yes, they want a paycheck, but if you're thinking, well, the only thing they're here for is a paycheck, we've got huge problems. How are you tracking the progress towards the goals they want to accomplish and how are you celebrating with them when they actually achieve those?

We then come to phase seven, the adopt phase. This is when an employee becomes loyal to you and only you. They're all bought in, they're committed, they're not taking that call from the recruiter. What's interesting in the adopt phase, Jeff, is most organizations Take their adopters for granted. These are the people that have been there the longest.

These are the people who are committed, but we probably haven't reinforced with them recently enough that they matter, that they're so valuable, that they're crucial to our operation. And last but not least, the eighth phase, the holy grail, nirvana, the advocate phase. This is when an employee becomes a raving fan singing our praises far and wide.

They're going on glass door and writing reviews. If we've got an open position in the marketing department, they're thinking of all the people they've ever met or known that do marketing and trying to get them to apply for that position because they know it's a great place to work.

Advocates also can continue advocating for your business when they're no longer employees. So if they retire, if they leave to go to a different job, they still have great things to say about you. So those are the eight phases of the employee journey. And what I imagine is coming up for some folks is one of two, if not both feelings.

Number one, Oh my gosh, Joey, that's a lot. Or two, hmm, there's some places where we can maybe enhance the experience.

Jeff Hunt:

Exactly. And what's interesting too is these don't have to be overwhelming. I think one of the things I really love about your book, actually both books, is how many resources you have online that are associated with these books.

So you've got these, you have a basically vault. Of resources that people can go to and they eat the elephant one bite at a time. They just simply take inventory and slowly over time, they can affect change on each one of these so that that first 100 days becomes an incredible sort of value point in the employee's journey versus something that's a liability for the company.

Joey Coleman:

Jeff, I so appreciate you saying that because that's certainly something I tried to do with the book and the resources that are available in the vault. These are daunting tasks, but they don't have to be daunting if we approach them piece by piece. And you could take any of those eight phases and decide to focus on it.

And even if you just put a little more intentionality or a little more effort towards it. For even a week, you can dramatically change the experience that all of your current employees and future employees will ever have when they're in that phase in the journey.

Jeff Hunt:

I also love how you have so many examples in the book, and I want you to share some of these examples, Joey. In fact, one of them I think I heard you talk about was a Canadian company and what happens when the employee shows up to work on the first day. Can you share a little bit about that?

Joey Coleman:

Absolutely. So the company we're talking about is a company called Jam. They're based in Toronto. And Jam really does two things.

They run sports networks for professionals. So think of you got everybody in your company is going to do a kickball league or, you know, you want to go join the local basketball team or soccer league to play after work and kind of connect with other people. They also run virtual events. So if your company is going to have like a virtual trivia night for remote workers or a happy.

Our holiday party, they manage all of those activities and because their CEO, Christy Harold, who's just a remarkable woman, is so committed to the concept of play and play is their business. They have incorporated a great degree of play intentionally into the first day on the job. So you show up for the first day on the job and you pull into the parking lot at jam headquarters and you're met at your car by your direct manager.

They know it's your first day. They come out to meet you. There's no walking into the building going, Oh, am I in the right place? Or, Oh, I've got to have that awkward conversation with the receptionist and introduce myself. No, they're, they're ready to walk you in personally. Think of this as, you know, when the grandparents pull up outside the house and the grandkids run out to greet them before they've even gotten the seatbelts off, right?

It's that same type of energy and vibe. When you open the door to the front building and the manager ushers you in, you hear music playing and the music you hear is your walk on music. Now, if you're familiar with sports and you've seen, you know, a baseball player coming up to the mat, to the plate, or a player getting announced at a basketball game or that, they play music that is the walk on music.

Well, as part of their application process at Jam, one of the questions they ask you is, If you had a walk on music, what would that music be? And then you share your answer. They never ask you about it in the interview. They save it as a surprise. And now they bring it back when you show up. So now you walk in, your tunes are playing.

You're like, these are my jams. This is my song. I'm feeling good. Your body's getting excited. And you round the corner and there is a tunnel of your co workers. It's a high five tunnel and as you walk down the tunnel, everybody's high fiving you and welcoming you to work. They're all wearing hockey sweaters, right?

So for those of you that don't play hockey, a hockey jersey basically with their name on the back of it and the year they started. And these are custom jerseys that have the jam logo on front. You funnel through the snake of all the people in the high five tunnel and then you come into the conference room where on the video screens.

Are all of their remote employees, they've all showed up for your first day as well. This is a company wide meeting to honor you on your first day. And then they start asking you some questions like, Hey, what do you binge watching on Netflix? And if you were to have a last meal, what would it be? Or, oh, if you were at the grocery store and had 20 to spend on an indulgence, what would you buy?

Questions that are designed to figure out who you are as a person. Who you are as a human, not your role, your responsibility, but let's get to know you as you. And then you're presented with your rookie hoodie. So you don't get a hockey sweater. You get a rookie hoodie, which has the logo of the company on it.

And you will wear that hoodie whenever we have team meetings or welcome new people to the company going forward. And then on your one year anniversary, You're presented in a formal ceremony with your hockey jersey, with your name embroidered on the back and the year you started. So that's a lot of stuff happening on the first day at work.

But here's the interesting thing, Jeff. When that employee gets home that night and they walk into their spouse or significant other, their kids, their roommate, their parents, or they're headed home and they're on the phone with the person who loves them the most, the question that is going to be asked by their loved one is, how was the first day on the job?

What do you think? What story are you giving your new hires to tell when they have that conversation that night? Only you think of that. How am I scripting the story? You will dramatically change the experience your employees are having.

Jeff Hunt:

That is such an incredible story. And that memory that you just described is a lifetime memory. Truly. Yeah. To quote Pixar, it's a core memory, right?

Joey Coleman:

The core memory. This is a core memory. Exactly. That you and you'll be talking about your first day on the job, a decade from now. Exactly. The return on investment on making this day magical is unbelievable, especially when we look at the data that somewhere between 20 and 70 percent of new hires will quit before the 100-day anniversary.

They'll quit in the first 100 days of the relationship. How do you counter that? You make that first day remarkable and then you make day two remarkable and day three and day five and day 15 and day 30. Build on the foundation you laid on day one.

Topic 5. Employee Experience the ultimate differentiator (29:28)

Jeff Hunt:

Well, and really all of what you're describing, Joey seems to come back to employee experience and employee experience really ultimately ends up being a differentiator for companies because they don't have to try to attract talent.

And that makes me think of your advocate or advocate phase. They don't have to try to attract talent because people are referring their friends and their siblings. And other people that they know to come work there because the culture is great and they care about me. They understand who I am as a person and what I like and dislike.

And they actually gave me a gift that means something to me instead of some thing that I'm going to throw in my drawer and then eventually throw away in five or ten years.

Joey Coleman:

Right, Jeff, you are so right. I mean, this is how you become the employer of choice, the employer of choice in your industry, the employer of choice in your town, the employer of choice in the network of all your people.

Like you want to be the best place to work and not just because the local business newspaper calls you that be the employer that everyone is talking about. They're talking about, Oh my gosh, it's a great place. Like day one is amazing, but week one is even better than day one. And the celebration on my one month anniversary was unbelievable.

I didn't even realize anybody was paying attention that I had been there a month. I had forgotten that it had been a whole month, but I showed up and you know who hadn't forgotten. My team, the other people that were cheering me on this stuff doesn't require huge investments of time. It doesn't require huge investments of money.

It does require a significant investment of intentionality, though. You've got to be conscious about the experiences you're trying to create and design and architect them to elicit. Personal and emotional connection with your people.

Jeff Hunt:

And the default for so many organizations is that the employee shows up and pulls into the parking lot. And they are intimidated. They are nervous when they walk in the front door. The first meeting they have is with HR and then half that day is spent doing training modules and nobody connects with them until the afternoon. And they really don't know what's expected of them and their job.

Joey Coleman:

Absolutely. And then they get home that night and what is the story they tell? Well, it's like every other place I worked. They didn't seem too excited that I was there. I did a lot of paperwork. Not really sure if this is going to be a good fit or not, but let's see if tomorrow is better.

Topic 6. Attrition conversation and a retention conversation (32:03)

Jeff Hunt:

Exactly. So Joey, I used to run a family business way a long time ago in my career. And our average tenure with employees was 22 years, which is unheard of and unheard of kind of doesn't exist anymore today.

And one of the reasons was the way we engaged with our employees, but I'm wanting to ask you to talk a little bit about the difference between an attrition conversation and a retention conversation.

Joey Coleman:

I love this question, Jeff, because I think so many companies are having an attrition conversation instead of a retention conversation.

They're talking about, Oh, people are leaving. Oh my God, that person left again. Oh, what are we doing? Instead of what are we doing to make them want to stay? What are we doing to make this place the kind of place where people want to come back again and again? What are we doing to make this the kind of place where someone can grow their career?

I know a lot of leaders right now who, they've said to me in private sessions, in consulting meetings, at events. Joey, I don't want to have to be responsible for every one of my team's career. I got enough time working on my own career. And I'm like, I get that. I empathize with that concern. But if you want to be an employer in 2023 and beyond, you got to pay attention to your people's career.

I'm sorry. And you know what you also have to pay attention to the life they have outside of their career. That's right. It's as important to pay attention, especially to your adopters and your advocates as to what's going on in their life between 5 p. m. and 9 a. m. as it is to paying attention to what goes on between 9 a.m. and 5 p. m. Right? You gotta know. What is their home life like? What are their hobbies like? What are their interests? Where do they want to go on vacation? What are they learning? What are they studying? Where are they having challenges? Where are they feeling pressure and knowledge of all of those things?

An awareness, empathy for all those things. Creates a space where people feel like, yeah, this is where I want to continue to work. This is where I want to continue to spend the majority of my waking hours. That's what we're talking about. I think people have a tendency to forget that, especially CEOs and leaders, right?

Entrepreneurs that found companies. Cause we're so excited about it. We'd work all day, every day, forever. Employees aren't hardwired the same way you are, and they need to know that you care about them as individuals, not just as workers.

Jeff Hunt:

It's almost like you're describing the different conversations that can happen on Monday morning.

I could show up and somebody could say, Hey, Jeff, how was your weekend? Or I could show up and somebody could say, Hey Jeff, how was that a PTA meeting? How was that? Uh, event that you were having with your friends. How was the ball, not, you know, how was the ball game or whatever it might be, right? It's a, it's a huge difference.

Joey Coleman:

It's a huge difference, Jeff. And I find that to be one of my favorite little testers with leaders who are like, Oh, I'm totally connected to all of my people. I know what's going on. I'll say great. Let's write up a list of all your direct reports. Let's say there's 10 of them and we write down all the names.

I say, great. Now we're going to do two columns. Column number one, going well. Column number two, not going well. And I want you to put one thing in the going well in their life and one thing in the not going well in their life and it can't be anything about work. That's such a great test. Oh, suddenly it gets real quiet, Jeff.

I think they, uh, I think they had a kid recently. Yeah, that kid is four. Sorry. It was not so recent ago. They've had a long time with that child at this point. Um, well, I think they, uh, they've got an anniversary coming up soon and I'm like wedding anniversary or work anniversary.

I actually don't even know if they're married. Well, we've got some fundamental challenges here, and again, I'm not being critical of the managers and the leaders who are being asked to do so many things. I'm not trying to pile on and say you also have to do this. What I am saying is if you prioritize caring about people personally and emotionally, it will help you solve so many of the other things on your list.

Their productivity, their efficiency, their engagement, their commitment to the workplace, their quality of work, whatever it may be, you will see all of those things improve when you focus on them as individual people.

Jeff Hunt:

Exactly. And I'm just reflecting on how You know, if you put it in the context of brand equity, so many companies spend millions of dollars managing brand equity, and it's this external thing.

It almost feels, Joey, like your book holds up a mirror, uh, to employees, uh, employers showing them how to build internal brand equity in addition to external brand equity.

Joey Coleman:

Absolutely. No, I love that analogy or that perspective on it, Jeff, because here's the interesting thing. We would think nothing of taking our top client to dinner and letting them wax on about their golf game, where they'd like to go on vacation, what's going on with their family, we think nothing of that.

But yet, when I say, when is the last time you took your team to dinner or lunch and let them talk about their lives? It's like, well, Joey, I don't have time for that. Why? Why don't you have time for that? I would posit you have time for nothing else until you've done that.

Topic 7. Lightning round questions (37:35)

Jeff Hunt:

Let's shift into the lightning round. You ready? All right.

Joey Coleman:

Lightning round, speed round. Let's see how I do.

Jeff Hunt:

The first one, Joey, is what are you most grateful for?

Joey Coleman:

There's so many things I'm grateful for Jeff. So many things. I actually have a practice where I use something called the five minute journal, which is a gratitude journal that I write in every single morning and every single night.

Things I'm particularly grateful right now in my life, an absolutely incredible wife, two amazing sons, that my family is healthy, that we are happy, that we are safe, that we are feeling feelings of progress and excitement and experience and opportunity. That's top of mind right now that I'm incredibly incredible.

Jeff Hunt:

What's the most difficult leadership lesson you've learned over your career?

Joey Coleman:

That when something goes wrong with somebody on my team, the first place I need to look is myself. For what I could have done differently in onboarding, training, teaching, educating, supporting them to have that problem not happen.

I have found that about 99. 99 percent of the problems that come up with team members are things that can come right to my doorstep for behaviors that I could have avoided or situations I could have avoided if I would have been a little more intentional.

Jeff Hunt:

Sounds familiar. In fact, one of our Favorite questions to ask CEOs is what is your role in this dysfunction?

Joey Coleman:

It's so true. So true. And I love the follow up question of how is your perpetuating this defunction serving you? Exactly. Because I think a lot of people look at it and they're like, oh, there's so many problems. I'm like, yeah, but you love chaos. So you, you seek this out and a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of leaders are like that.

They've been rewarded effectively throughout their lives for putting out fires. And when you've been rewarded for being a fire putter outer. You have a tendency to walk around with matches in your back pocket just in case there are any fires.

Jeff Hunt:

Exactly. Who is one person you would interview if you could, living or not?

Joey Coleman:

Ooh, again, great question and so many people. I, I think probably the one that comes To mind is probably Da Vinci, you know, this whole idea of being a renaissance person and having interests that cut across a variety of different fields and topics and activities. I'd love to just know what a day in the life really looked like and felt like to him.

We obviously can see the work product that he voluminous and cuts across dozens of dozens of fields of study. But I'd be curious to know what, what he was, which threads he was deciding to pull on, which itches he was deciding to scratch, and if there was any type of a process that he was applying, uh, to chase interest and chase curiosities.

Jeff Hunt:

I love it. What's your top book recommendation? You've written a bunch of books. I'm saying other than your own books. In fact, I will say my recommendation is never lose an employee again. So you got to go.

Joey Coleman:

Thank you, Jeff. It depends. It depends on the topic, right? It depends on the category. I consider myself to be a pretty voracious reader.

I try to get through at least a book a week. We've got over 6000 books in the house, um, many of which have been read, many of which haven't been read yet, and that's okay, too. What I will say is, um, especially knowing this audience, right, I'm going to put out a challenge that is going to potentially seem contrarian, but I'd love to see how many of you are willing to adopt it.

And that is for the next three months. So we'll do this experiment for a quarter. Every time you read a business book. I want the next book to be a fiction book, and then you can come back to a business book, but then you got to go back to a fiction book. I think that reading fiction hones our empathy muscle.

It allows us to see the world from another person's perspective. It allows us to transport us into different characters, into different scenarios. Business books are great. Don't get me wrong. I write business books. I love business books. But if all we ever read is how to optimize, optimize and systematize and processize our lives, we're missing out on the human part.

So I highly encourage people to read more fiction and talk about reading fiction with your team. That's another great way to have connection because I guarantee there's people on your team that are reading fiction that are afraid to admit that because they think the boss wants them to read business books.

If they know they have permission to read fiction, you're increasing the empathy of everybody on your team as well.

Jeff Hunt:

That's a great piece of advice and one that I want to take myself as well. I love it.

Joey Coleman:

Well, let me know what you decide to read, Jeff, in terms of some fiction books. There are a thousand, tens of thousands, beautiful fiction books out there, and it's so fun to experiment with.

Jeff Hunt:

No question. Joey, what is the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Joey Coleman:

Again, I, I've lived such a blessed life, Jeff, I've had so many mentors and so many advisors and so many friends and leaders and, you know, colleagues and coworkers and random strangers who've, who've given me advice. I'm going to go with something that my mom said when we were growing up, and she said often and she continues to say to this day, and this may be contrarian for somebody who is a paid public speaker and professional speaker to share, but the phrase she always used to say and continues to say to this day is, if we knew the power of our words, we wouldn't speak.

And where that hits for me is we live in a Society where we're driven to create content, to express our opinion, to say what's on our mind, all these things. And I don't think we often appreciate or value the negative impact that we can have with our words that when we just say something off the cuff, or we say something without thinking through the ramifications of it, I'm not saying we should censor ourselves, all right, I'm not trying to cancel anyone here by what they say.

But what I am saying is if you're going to take the time to have a microphone, whether that's a microphone on social media, whether it's a microphone in your organization, that's a microphone in your home when you're the parent talking to your kids, think about the words you're using and the impact they're having.

Jeff Hunt:

That's such a great piece of advice in what is an incredibly polarized world. So thank you for sharing that. You're very welcome. Yeah. And Joey, you've given us so many tips and tools and there's so much content in your book and so much for us to do as business leaders. What are the one or two most important takeaways to leave our listeners with from our talk today?

Joey Coleman:

All right. So since you asked Jeff, I'd love to leave our listeners with a challenge. And this is going to be a challenge of something you can choose to do or not to do. Totally up to you. I'll tell you those that do it will find incredible rewards and benefits, but no pressure. You do you. So here's what I'd like you to do.

I'd like you to think of someone on your team, one of your employees, one of your coworkers, who, if they weren't at your organization, your organization would suffer mightily. It might even collapse. Someone who is absolutely crucial to your operation. Now, what's fascinating, Jeff, is I've done this with enough audiences around the world to know that already people are thinking of a name.

That's all it took. You're already thinking of a name. Fantastic. Here's what you do. I want you to pull out your cell phone. I want you to turn it on to video camera mode. I want you to flip the camera so it's a selfie video and I want you to film a video and the video is going to go something like this, but the script isn't, doesn't matter.

Amend it to fit your scenario. I'm going to pretend I'm filming the video for Jeff and Jeff is one of my coworkers. Hey, Jeff, I was listening to this podcast today and they had this crazy guy on who was talking about who's the most valuable member of your team. And he challenged us to think of that person.

And I got to tell you, I immediately thought of you. It didn't even take me two seconds and I immediately thought of you. You're incredible. The value you bring to our organization can't even begin to be measured. You always have a spring in your step when you come into meetings. You've got a smile on your face.

When we get into heated discussions, you're the voice of reason. You always seem to have read something that's relevant to what we're talking about. You're constantly bringing new ideas, new perspectives, and you're going out of your way to make sure that the other people in the room get to voice their opinions and their perspectives as well.

I don't say it enough. I've never said it enough. I don't know that I'll ever be able to say it enough, but I wanted to say it today. You are remarkable. You're incredible. We couldn't exist without you. We couldn't succeed without you. Thank you. Thanks for your contributions to our theme. Thanks for making my life better.

Thanks for making our organization better. Thanks for being you. Stop recording. And here's where the trick is, folks. It's right here. Send it. Don't watch the video. See, you're going to want to watch the video. You're going to watch the video and say, Oh, how did I sound? Oh, I felt like I stumbled a little there.

What did I do? Oh, let me just reshoot it. The lighting wasn't. No, no, no, no, no. Just send the video and see what happens. What I know is going to happen is that person is going to receive the video, especially if you text it to them. They're going to receive the video and they're going to watch it very quickly.

The research shows they're going to watch it within 90 seconds of receipt. I don't know about you, Jeff, but there are many, many modes of communication with people. I don't know any that are clocked in seconds in terms of how quickly the person sees it. They're going to watch the video. You know what they're also going to do?

They're going to watch the video more than once. Because I guarantee it has been weeks, if not months, if not years, since someone has sent them a digital artifact that they matter, that is spoken so empathetically, so from the heart, so honestly, so vulnerably about the value they have. And the third thing they're going to do is they're going to watch it more than once and share it with others.

They're going to share it with their significant other, their spouse, their kids, their friend, whoever it is that is closest in their life, because they're going to be so moved by this small gesture that, by the way, took you less than two minutes to record and less than five seconds to send is going to have a ripple effect impact on their life that you can't even begin to imagine.

So, that's the challenge. If you do it, message me and let me know how it went because my gut instinct is. It's going to be remarkable.

Jeff Hunt:

What an incredible gift you just gave a lot of people out there.

Joey Coleman:

Well, I appreciate it, Jeff, and I, I hope they'll go out and do it. And I've received videos like that, and I've loved it.

I've sent videos like that. And I've had fun in just the sending even before they get to it. Because I'm like, you know what? I've done my best to let that person know they matter. I've done my best to let that person know that I'm thankful for having them in my life.

Jeff Hunt:

And you've done it in a way that it's free. Meaningful, engaging, what a incredible gift to give somebody. So thank you for that. So, Joey, thanks so much for coming on the show today and sharing this incredible wisdom with our listeners.

Joey Coleman:

Jeff, it's been my pleasure. Thanks for your great questions and the conversation. And thanks to everybody who is listening in.

I hope you got one or two things that you can apply in your business to create those kind of personal and emotional connections. To honor and acknowledge the remarkable people on your team. It's going to lead to great things and I'm excited to see how it comes together for you.

Jeff Hunt:

And just a reminder, everybody, the book is never loose an employee again. I'm putting the book on my books recommended reading list on the podcast website. You can find it there. And I hope you enjoy the book, and thanks for listening in.

OUTRO ()

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