Unstoppable Cultures (Replay)

Intro: Duration: (02:11)

Opening music jingle & sound effects

Jeff Hunt:

Hey listeners, it's Jeff Hunt. As the holidays approach it's the time of the year, when we often reflect on the things that matter to us the most, family, friends, and the communities we belong to including work. That's exactly what I want to dive into today on the Human Capital podcast. As I take a break until the end of the year, today I'm selecting one of my favorite episodes from 2023 to replay for you. In this episode, my guest was Ginger Hardage a former C-suite executive at SouthWest Airlains who built one of the most well-known unstoppable cultures in the world.

Ginger and I talk about the importance of fostering conflict and building a positive workplace culture, especially during times of stress and uncertainty. As you listen to this episode my hope is that you'll see how a positive workplace culture is essential for organizational success and how you can make a difference in creating one regardless of your position. I love how Ginger shares about the critical role of leaders being to model healthy conflict while creating a safe work environment that's open to feedback and diverse perspectives.

As you gather with loved ones and work colleagues this holiday season I encourage you to embody curiosity for others, connection in your relationships, and camaraderie which will add some molding spices to your holiday season. Thanks for listening and I hope you have a wonderful holiday season.

Jeff Hunt:

Welcome to the Human Capital Podcast. I'm Jeff Hunt. The way we interact with each other, coupled with the decisions we make, ultimately shapes culture in any organization. For better or worse, I once was simultaneously coaching the c e o and the president of the same company. Their relationship had deteriorated to a point where we needed rules of engagement to prevent them from replying to each other's emails more than twice in the same thread.

Guess what? This unhealthy, conflictual approach they took with each other shaped the culture of the company they were running, and it ultimately took them a lot of work to unwind that dysfunction. Conversely, we have an opportunity to create workplaces where healthy conflict can abound. People feel respected and empowered, and they make decisions that are in the best interest of the company.

Today I'm excited to welcome Ginger Hard Edge to the podcast. Ginger's amazing career included leading a team of 150 people responsible for building and sustaining the legendary culture and communications enterprise at Southwest Airlines. Ginger was a perpetual standout on fortune's most admired companies in the world list, and she helped champion the values, purpose, and best place to work initiatives.

At our nation's largest airline, after retiring from Southwest Ginger founded Unstoppable Cultures where she helps leaders learn how to create and sustain cultures of enduring greatness. Welcome, ginger.

Ginger Hardage:

Well, thank you, Jep. It's a delight to be here, and I certainly enjoy your podcast, so I feel doubly honored to be here.

Topic 1. Who or what inspired you the most along your career? (02:11)

Jeff Hunt:

Before we jump into some of my questions for you, I would love it, ginger, if you would share who has inspired you most over the course of your career and or lifetime?

Ginger Hardage:

Oh, Jeff. One person. That's very hard. Put it. I put it into categories. What immediately comes to mind? I've been lucky to work for some great bosses and at Southwest Airlines.

I was hired by Herb Kelleher, who was the founder of Southwest Airlines. Who passed away a few years ago, and Colleen Barrett, who became the first female president of an airline. So in terms of career, those two definitely started me off with my Southwest Airlines career, although I, I'd been in the workplace before I joined Southwest.

And then for the longest time, my boss at Southwest was the C E o Gary Kelly, who's now the chairman of the airline. So in the professional category, I would say it would be those three, her, Colleen, because what they did to establish the culture of Southwest, that was so rare. When you think of a company that started out having fun in the early seventies as part of their ethos.

That was a different kind of airline and they set out to be a different kind of airline. So from them, I definitely learned about the U uniqueness and how if your brand can be so different from your competitors, how that sets you apart. And they also did that by treating people so differently. And then from Gary Elli, uh, learning about how to carry on a culture.

How to continue to build an organization and stay true to the founding, but changing with the times. So learn those lessons of learning that I know probably a lot of your listeners are dealing with is how to carry on a tradition.

Taking over from a founder or changing of so many organizations are, are changing and have had to take a very hard look at after the pandemic.

But also my parents. I think all of us are shaped by our parents. I, my parents, when I was growing up, when I was very young, had a grocery store and I got to literally stay in that grocery store 'cause it was part of our home as well. It's connected to our home. Wow. I saw customer service in action. Now as a six year old girl, I wasn't going Wow.

Like great customer service. No. But what I was doing that was seeing those life lessons that I can recall to this day and knowing what, how, what great leaders my parents were in serving their customers, and also how they engaged their employees in our business.

Topic 2. Culture as a business differentiator and a change promoter (05:02)

Jeff Hunt:

I love that, and I'm just reflecting Ginger on how you connected the dots for us on how these people that inspired you really taught you lessons that are critical.

Like how culture is actually a differentiator in business, right? That is right. And how it's also difficult to sustain. You can't just assume that if you have a good culture that it's gonna be good tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year. I really love that and I am not surprised knowing who some of those personalities are.

Now, I don't know your parents or didn't know your parents, but knowing who some of those other personalities are, it's not surprising in the least that they were just an amazing inspiration to you.

Ginger Hardage:

Yeah. And, and Jeff, I think that what I hope I've been able to do, and I think a lot of us as leaders wanna do, is how are we mentoring other people, supporting other people, and making sure that they can dream and, and achieve those dreams and become more than they ever dreamed possible.

Jeff Hunt:

For sure. Let's shift and start off on some of these topics that are just so meaty. The first one that I want to focus on, ginger, is really about change. If you look at what happened with Covid and how this forced change occurred in organizations very, very rapidly, it required a different type of leadership.

Earlier this year, I actually interviewed Chris Scalia, who's the C H R O at the Hershey Company, and he brought up this concept or acronym that some people might be familiar with called vuca, volatility, uncertainty, complexity and Ambiguity. And that just feels like what we're faced with today. Every organization is experiencing a great rate of change, and so my question is, How can a focus on culture help an organization advance during such rapidly changing times?

Ginger Hardage:

Yeah, I think a lot of organizations are facing this. Um, and I think it'd be Ira, maybe they have on blinders if they think they're not, but organizations definitely are. And one of the key lessons I learned at Southwest is the importance of putting people first. What is their North Star? Are they, you know, how are their values in their company established that they can always go back to that and be centered by that?

And one of our premises when I was at Southwest and many of the organizations I've worked with since then truly do look at putting their people first. And that's something that's easy to say. And very difficult to do when you're leading it. When you're doing it every day. Do you have the mindset and the systems in place to make sure that you're literally able to put your people first?

And so I think of this wheel that Herb Kelleher taught us about, and it's where, um, you have your employees, your customers, and your shareholders. So where do you focus? And a lot of companies say, you know, customer comes first and you can't argue with that either, right? But I encourage organizations to start as Herb taught us, start further up the food chain and start with your employees to make sure your employees have the right level of information support so they can, in terms serve your customers.

And if your customers are happy, they'll keep returning and your shareholders will be served, and that flywheel will get started so much faster. If those organizations in these, in these difficult times of change, truly do focus on their people to make sure, because if you skip that and you go straight to your customers and your people aren't prepared from what might be coming or what the expectations are, our organizations are gonna fail.

So how do we really focus on putting our people first? And key to that is training and development. How much are we pouring back into our organizations of training and development? So that our people truly are ready for what might be facing them and that our leaders are prepared for that as well. Um, I listened to one another, one of your guests who wrote Culture Shock.

From Gallup and that background and talking about how our mid-level man, I talk about our mid-level managers a lot. He talked about how the importance of managers as well, and that is a key ingredient because if we are not focusing on that mid-level group of managers in our organizations, they have the most impact on our employees.

So how are we supporting them? They have so much on their plate. How are we helping them really get ready for that change? Um, an example of something we started, and if this would be applicable to anyone listening, we literally, before we had a change at Southwest, we would send out a note to that mid-level group.

Explaining what the change might be or what an announcement might be that would impact them, so they would have a little think time and some preparation time. Too often these organizations, we spring things, spring news announcements on people, so if we're having an initiative that's going to be announced, give those leaders some notice that it's coming so they can be prepared and be ready to address it with their employees.

Jeff Hunt:

Mm-hmm. I love the, the whole flywheel concept you just brought up as well. And the one word that's coming to mind for me, ginger, as you're, as you're talking about supporting employees and supporting customers and supporting shareholders, if we're trying to service our customers first, or our shareholders first, the word for me that comes up as hypocrisy because how can we actually treat them well and then not treat our employees well?

Those two can't really go hand in hand because if we're not treating our employees well, conversely they're not likely to be treating our customers well. It's sort of the kick-the-cat syndrome, isn't it?

Ginger Hardage:

Exactly. And so that's where organizations sometimes get, get their paradigms, in my opinion, in the wrong order.

And if you really do want to have momentum in your organization, make sure your people know and are part of it and are part of the decision making. Have a role know where they real. Really the strong best leaders, uh, are able to make the connection between the individual contributions of a team member and the purpose of your organization.

And when you, those two match up, you become unstoppable. You really do well.

Topic 3. Key elements of culture (11:40)

Jeff Hunt:

And I'm also just thinking about how all these little key elements add up to culture, like the communication. To those managers first. How often have you heard of people having negative experiences because they received some sort of corporate memo announcing a major strategic change and the manager found out about it exactly the same time as the employee and they just get super frustrated.

Ginger Hardage:

And I understand in public companies sometimes you have to announce it, uh, make announcements to the world at the same time. I'm not naive to that, but there's so many other initiatives that you can prepare people for and how much better are we doing that? And if you do have to make a public announcement, if you're a public company, what are the mechanisms immediately put in place where you're reaching out and preparing those managers, putting them front and center?

I know organizations, we did this Southwest, I know other organizations do it as well. As soon as you have an earnings announcement, are you communicating to your various audiences? How are you explaining it to employees, uh, so that they can understand how their contributions drove those earnings? How are you communicating if you're, I have labor groups or con contracted.

Employees in your organization, how are you doing that? Or if you have a lot of contract workers, how do you reach them? So making sure that all of those audiences are broken down and communications is clearly part of that.

Jeff Hunt:

Exactly. And staying on this vein for just a another minute, it makes me realize that especially through times of change, like Covid and all of these other, and even if you look back on the last six months and what's happened with ai, How it's sort of taken the world by storm and people are not really sure how it's gonna impact their jobs.

It feels like transparency and authenticity are really critical to a healthy company culture. And yet we have this dilemma, and you just described one for publicly traded companies, but it also exists in privately traded companies. Uh, we have this dilemma that sharing too much information or not sharing enough information, Can provoke fear and anxiety in people.

Maybe you can talk for just a second about how to determine as leaders what the right amount of information is so that it actually builds trust in an organization.

Ginger Hardage:

Yeah, and so I think, uh, my key suggestion would be looking at the audiences. Because diff, your different audiences will want different information.

It takes more time and more discipline. But how as leaders are we breaking that down by the various audiences we might serve? And I'd also encourage people to use storytelling because people were, remember stories. You may have told them that. 400 people would be affected. And you know, you may get throughout all these numbers, but what they're gonna remember is the story you tell them about those plans.

And so when leaders build storytelling, when they encounter an employee doing something great for a customer, how are you telling those stories in our organizations so that our employees know the, the limitless boundaries that they can go to serve our customers? So, I think plans inform people, but stories in inspire them.

So I don't think there are very many PowerPoints that people have stood up and cheered over us. So how are we using stories that, uh, help people understand how it would impact their life?

Jeff Hunt:

Our story is also the ways to connect the dots to our core values.

Ginger Hardage:

Oh, yes, thank you. Uh, so because you can reinforce those core values, when Gary Kelly was CEO, one of the things he did, uh, he recorded the message.

It showed up. Uh, you could listen to it, you could watch it on the internet. You, um, read it on the internet. You could watch him on video oftentimes. And, but every one of those recordings, he ended with a reinforcement or a story, or a shout, shout out that connected those dots for people. I love that. And it often reinforced one of those values.

Topic 4. How to be intentional about culture (16:04)

Jeff Hunt:

If you think about the listening audience, there's some leaders listening and organizations and even individual contributors that have a really good awareness of culture in their organizations. And maybe they've been super intentional. About shaping culture, and as I was saying in my intro message, that culture is shaped by leadership.

Regardless of whether you're intentional or proactive or not, it can be shaped for the positive or shaped for the negatives. For the leaders who haven't thought too much culture in their organizations, where can they start by determining what their culture is and how can they begin creating a strong culture internally?

Ginger Hardage:

Well, all organizations have a culture, just as you said, and it will either happen by default. Because you're not paying attention to it, or it can be intentional by the way that you set out as a leadership group to do it. So I would, again, start with your values. If you don't have values as an organization, spend time as a leadership team talking about those, but just don't announce them to the employees.

Have the employees be part of that as well, so they can say, you know, if you say, Hard work, and this is what it looks like at our organization, but that doesn't ring true to the employees. It will fail. So making sure the employees are part of that process as well, having them be part of that. And then looking at how, one of the thing, one of the basic things that I would have leaders do is look at the employee journey and they can map that employee journey.

It starts before hiring. What does your recruiting look like? What do people see who are applying for a job? When they Google you, what do they see? What do they see on Glassdoor? What do they see on LinkedIn? How are you? How is your culture and or your values, your purpose as an organization? How's it showing up?

How can people envision themselves joining you? So look at every aspect of the employee journey as a leader. What is your onboarding like? What is your recognition like? All the way to performance, appraisal, and farewell, and I used to not focus on farewell as much, but I do now because if somebody decides to leave our organization for what they consider their greener pastures, very oftentimes they want to boomerang back.

So let's make sure we handle farewell well. Um, and so that they will want to come back and at some point and bring even more knowledge back into our organization based on their experience. So I would look at the employee journey. Start with your values. Look at that. How are you in reinforcing those throughout your employee journey?

And those, that would be a great way to start.

Jeff Hunt:

I really love the reference because it's so holistic and it plays into the employee experience, like the entirety of the employee experience. I interviewed Jean Meister on the show and she's sort of an expert in this area as well, and and her definition of employee experience was basically the last best experience that an employee had regardless of whether it's inside your organization or out.

I think she may have even referred to Southwest Airlines who has this legacy of exceptional customer service. And so if an employee has dealt with somebody at Southwest Airlines and had an incredibly wonderful experience, even in the midst of what might've been a problem or a challenge, They feel like they were heard and understood, then they're gonna bring that back to their organization and that now becomes the definition.

So it sounds like Ginger, what you're saying is that if we pay really close attention to every single one of these touchpoints that we have with an employee over the span of their life cycle, then we're gonna end up with a better culture. Is that another way of putting it?

Ginger Hardage:

Absolutely. And you hit on it.

How are we making those? Points in that journey. Memorable. How are we really making sure that the recognition we give them is specific to them and is memorable to them and it's one, it would be a career highlight for them. And how are we making sure that they're onboarding is memorable? I. One of the things that Southwest does other companies do is on people's first day they have a red carpet and they have people welcoming in them.

Nice. And how are we really making those memorable? And then those same employees are gonna go out and do that for the customers. So I still see, I. People posting on Facebook or Instagram about a flight where, you know, where their child got to go look up in the cockpit and say hello to the pilots, or where someone was given a birthday crown because it was their birthday that day.

And you know that those people are proud and it's a story they wanna repeat. So let's try to make more memorable moments for our employees and our customers.

Jeff Hunt:

No question. I'd like to pause the podcast for a second and talk about an event that Ginger is speaking at in November. Of course, if you're listening to this podcast, you know better than anyone.

That organizational culture has never been more important. If you wanna retain and attract top talent, develop strong and agile leaders and keep customers coming back, culture is where you have to start. So back to the event. It's a four day organizational culture masterclass called The Fellowship. The Fellowship is being held from November 6th to ninth at the Four Seasons Rancho and Canto in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The lineup for this event includes next level speakers like the c e O of the Dallas. Mavericks sent Marshall, the director of employee experience at LinkedIn, Noel Kouri, and more. This isn't your typical conference spots are limited to just 60 people so that you can rest, retreat and actually retain what you're learning.

Learn more and register@experiencethefellowship.com. So one of the things I want to talk about is how this C-suite often kicks the proverbial culture can over to HR or people operations, and they like to say, okay, this is your. Realm, how can we pivot? So the entire C-suite owns culture rather than people ops.

Ginger Hardage:

Well, one of the things you can do, you can put it on their performance, in their performance discussion. Uh, be sure that leaders are me measured for how they can contribute to the culture. During my time at Southwest, our values were warrior spirit, servant's, heart, and fun-loving attitude. And as. Senior Vice president, I was judged on that.

Is how I was living those values. So that is one way to do it, is making sure in their performance discussion, our leaders are part of that. But I'd give them assignments where they, they may not be comfortable, they may not feel comfortable in certain aspects, but that's, so I would give them assignments that help raise their comfort level.

About interacting with others. We had, we made sure that our leaders adopted another location that they weren't overseeing. So for example, someone from technology would adopt the West Palm Beach Airport. I. Oh, I love that here. And interact with those employees. So the employees there who didn't always get to spend a lot of time in headquarters would understand some of the issues that were going on in technology.

Mm-hmm. And vice versa. The head of technology would also understand the challenges that the employees were facing, and together they could come up and partner with even better ideas. So I would make sure that. All leaders felt that culture isn't someone else's job. Mm-hmm. If you're a leader in an organization, you can't offload culture.

It's part of your job because your employees are looking to you and nothing can turn an organization toxic faster than leaders not living those values themselves every day. 'cause if leaders aren't exhibiting the values of the company and, and leading that way, there's no incentive for the employees to either.

Topic 5. Telling a story with performance management (24:25)

Jeff Hunt:

Absolutely. I'm also thinking about how our clients running a performance management technology company, they use all sorts of different types of evaluations and reviews in quarterly and annual, but more and more and more of our clients are actually integrating core values. Into that assessment process.

Just like you talked about, even though it can be intangible, I think it also connects to what you said earlier, ginger, about telling stories. 'cause if I am an employee doing a self-assessment, or I'm a manager assessing an employee's performance and I come to a specific core value and I can tell a story about how that employee has performed well in that core value area, all of a sudden it becomes tangible, doesn't it?

Ginger Hardage:

It does, it is. Well, yeah. You're the expert in this area, so absolutely. That, that is what more organizations need to look at and do. Because a lot of times, and I'm sure you've heard this, people think culture's fluffy, the work you do. And uh, the work I've tried to focus on is helping create a return on culture.

Mm-hmm. Where organizations decide how collectively as a leadership group, how they're going to measure that. So is it employee engagement? Is it retention? There are a lot of other key performance indicators that people look at and, but I always point and I ask leaders, think about organizations that you admire their culture.

A lot of times I hear Chick-fil-A is one that back because you can see that the employees are well trained. They say, my pleasure. They're, they want to serve you and definitely they're number one in revenue per restaurant. So they're doing, they're, they are, their culture is helping them achieve great business results.

So how as an organization are you able to con connect. What your employees are able to do and the performance you're trying to drive and involving those employees in that. So one of the measurements, and this isn't a culture measurement, but it leads to great pride and also great company success. We really focused on on-time performance during a period of time when I was at, uh, at Southwest.

I'm sure they do today as well. How do employees, what, how, what role can they play in one of your performance indicators? And show, break it down. Maybe make it a competition between some of your divisions. How are they contributing to whatever your goal you're trying to achieve would be?

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah. It feels like you really can create a statement of tangible ROI, especially for all those in the finance community that are interested in this.

It's like, Because there are sort of demonstrable factors that change when you do culture well, and you mentioned some of them, like reduced turnover and increased engagement. I would even go so far as to say that performance on the whole is likely. Now I don't have any empirical evidence or anything to back this statement, but. Based on my experience. And I'm curious about your experience, overall performance for each individual employee or team or department is gonna be higher, where there's really good comparable and engaged culture versus where there's not.

Ginger Hardage:

Correct. Correct. Because you've got a high performance team. If they're motivated, feel seen, heard and involved, yes, that's, that's gonna improve retention.

It's gonna improve performance. Uh, all of it's just compounding. It will compound on itself. What a difference that makes. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Jeff Hunt:

You know, looking back at your time at Southwest, was there anything that the company refused to compromise on when it came to culture?

Ginger Hardage:

Hiring because really looking at it, looking at employees that would match the culture, match the value.

So if your company has a value that is integrity, for example, you might ask an emp, uh, potential employee, talk about how integrity came into play when, and give them a scenario that they need to respond to. And see how integrity, if, if their level of integrity is a value, would be a good fit for your organization as well.

So we often ask employees about a customer service experience when you had a negative customer service experience, how did you turn that around? Or, but trying to make as many of your questions tie back into your values of your organization as you possibly can. Hmm. And it's a great way and uh, that would be one thing that we didn't compromise on.

Was in the hiring process and spending the right amount of time to make sure the hires were good because it paid off in the long run. Um, I just noticed Southwest, not too long ago, they celebrated their 50th anniversary and I was, it was so gratifying to see how many employees had been there that entire 50 years.

Wow. Is that right? Oh, absolutely. So that says a lot for engagement when you have employees who want to stay with your organization for that many years.

Topic 6. A healthy conflict and debate (29:39)

Jeff Hunt:

Sure, sure. So before we shift into some lightning round questions, I want to ask you a question about conflict. So I recently interviewed Patrick Lencioni on the podcast.

He has a new book called The Six Types of Working Genius, and Pat has done just remarkable work. Of course, he's got a lot of great bestselling books, but he preaches a lot on the importance of healthy conflict in organizations. And so I'm curious, ginger, from your perspective, this is not an easy topic for a lot of people.

How can we ensure that we're having healthy conflict or debate not only as an executive team, but in every level of the organization?

Ginger Hardage:

Yeah, well, I'm also a Pat Lencioni fan. So when Gary Kelly took over as c e o, one of the things he did was, uh, bring Pat in to work with our leadership team. And as we were forming this new leadership team, we talked about that very thing.

Mm-hmm. Uh, how are we going to blend our team together? We're coming together as a new team, and how are we going to have conflict and have healthy, healthy discussions? And we talked about each other's strengths and weaknesses, and I know lots of organizations today use Clifton strengths or other indicators where people know, uh, individual strengths of their peers.

We would have, it's especially when it came to where we're a company's going to spend its money, where is the budget going to go? There had to be healthy discussions about really where did we want to f focus as an organization. So the leader sets the tone. If the CEO's gonna lose their temper, it says, okay, everybody else can lose their temper as well.

So we had decorum in our discussions, but we didn't always agree. And you don't wanna, you don't want a leadership team that always agrees 'cause somebody's not really telling the truth. Oh yeah. Agree. I absolutely. And you've just gotta continue to look at the data, bring other people in. And I think the best thing leaders can do is bring in individuals into the room who are closest to the work.

So if you're about to make a change in your organization, in the technology area, uh, want many, many leaders over a long period of time from the technology department to be working on that, to come up with the best recommendation to guide leadership. So I think the best decisions are the ones that are studied over time and involve the people closest to the work.

Jeff Hunt:

It sounds like what you're saying is also leaders modeling this healthy conflict behavior, not just among themselves, but among their subordinates. Is it true that if they're sort of creating a safe work environment and they're soliciting this debate in this healthy sort of conflict from their peers or their direct reports or anyone that they're working with, that the likelihood is better that it's gonna permeate through the culture?

Ginger Hardage:

Right? Yes, absolutely. And how that tone is set and how that behaviors, models at every interaction because, uh, it can't just happen. Our employees see us as one of my friends says leaders cast along shadow, and our employees are watching us all the time to see how we're handling those situations.

Topic 7. Lightning round questions (33:10)

Jeff Hunt:

Yes, exactly. Okay. Ready for the lightning round.

Ginger Hardage:

Yes. Let's go. Let's go.

Jeff Hunt:

They're not tough, so I won't be too hard on you, but, okay. The first question is, what are you most grateful for?

Ginger Hardage:

You know, I am most grateful that from a career standpoint, that I get to continue to work in the area of culture because it's something that's I'm very passionate about.

And being able to share the lessons I learned. And then mold them, uh, with organizations into contemporary times and to continue to see how, how that continues to change. But I'm also very grateful for my family. I, you know, that's, I'm, I'm grateful for the balance that more and more people are seeing the balance between their work and their family, and I'm grateful that more and more people can experience that balance.

Jeff Hunt:

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

Ginger Hardage:

I think it's that one about when I was an early leader, I thought I had to know all the answers. Oh. And I think that's just typical. You know, you come out of college and you become a leader quickly and. My goodness. And you think, oh, I've gotta come up with, you've tested by yourself, right?

Yep. And so you have to, you have to have all the answers. And I think that was one, luckily I earned learned it early on, but the best decisions are one that have a lot of input from other people. And, uh, again, being as close to the people who are, would be impacted by those decisions as well.

Jeff Hunt:

So, Quickest way to earn respect is by telling your people you don't know the answer.

Ginger Hardage:

Let's, let's, let's decide that together. What do we need to know?

Jeff Hunt:

Exactly, exactly. Who's one person that you would interview if you could living or not?

Ginger Hardage:

I would interview Lady Gaga, uh, because I think she's really transitioned her career and I'd like to know how she continues to think about that and stay authentic to who she is.

And how she has drawn audiences, her decision to be in movies, her decision to be with Tony Bennett, ah, on one of his last albums. How do you continue to, uh, change as we go through our careers?

Jeff Hunt:

Do you have a top book recommendation? Ginger, have you read anything recently? Are there any books that really rise to the top for you?

Ginger Hardage:

You know, I'm going to read Culture Shock because I read that yet. That was one of your guests on the podcast.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, that the Culture Shock book is fantastic. The author's Jim Harder and it's a really easy read and it's backed with just a ton of great evidence and research, so I would highly recommend that as well.

Ginger Hardage:

So, Well, you know, you've give, I guess for a business book, five Dysfunctions of A Team by Pat would be one of the best and most practical. Um, because it's, it's lessons that we will continue to have to, uh, as we get with a, a different group of people every time, whether it's a nonprofit, volunteer or as, um, in our corporate lives or our business lives, five to month functions of a team by Pat Lencioni.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, that's a great one for sure. What is the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Ginger Hardage:

I think it would be for my dad, and it was to be bold and he taught me different ways to be bold and stand up for what I believed in and to not bow to, uh, peer pressure, especially when I was younger, uh, but to be bold and follow my dreams, and I very grateful that.

They encouraged me. And I think that's one thing with parents. How do we help continue to help our children be bold and achieve their dreams? And, uh, the role we play me as a grandmother now, uh, doing that as well with my grandson, how I'm going to help him become all he ever dreamed possible.

Jeff Hunt:

Well, you've certainly demonstrated that over the course of your life. There's no question. So I would love to hear from you out of all this Great. Sort of wisdom, what would you like to leave as the most important takeaway with our listeners?

Ginger Hardage:

I would think it would be for leaders to set the tone and realize that they are setting the tone for their organization and their leadership team that they do cast along shadow and make sure that how they are conducting themselves every day would be how they would want to see their organization run.

Jeff Hunt:

Fantastic. And Ginger, tell us before we stop a little bit about unstoppable cultures and what your work is there. Obviously I've got, I've mentioned your upcoming retreat in the middle of this episode, so people are familiar with that as well. But tell us about what you're doing now.

Ginger Hardage:

Primarily, I am a keynote speaker and I speak to organizations as a proof point to, uh, what leaders can do and how they can address their culture, how it's not fluffy, how they can have a return on their culture and give them ideas of some great leaders that I've observed throughout my career who have developed incredible culture.

So mainly keynote speaking. I had the pleasure of addressing all the operators for Chick-fil-A, so that's how, why I had some of those Chick-Fil-A examples. Sure. Um, studying their organization and seeing how they really did focus on their restaurants as a micro event. So keynote speaking primarily, and, and then also the unstop, the fellowship that we do where we have leaders in and help organizations create a roadmap.

For what they want their culture to look like. 'cause every culture's different. They should be, but we have many common things that we can share regardless of of the size of your organization. There are commonalities that we all struggle with and how we can learn from others who have been down that path and how we're going to continue our culture journey.

Jeff Hunt:

Well, ginger, thank you so much for all this wisdom you brought to the show today and for joining me.

Ginger Hardage:

Jeff, it's been a delight. Thank you so much.

Outro(39:34)

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Jeff Hunt:

Thanks for listening to Human Capital, if you like this show please tell your friends and also take the time to go rate and review us. Human Capital is a production of GoalSpan, your integrated source for performance management. Now go out and be the inspiration to other humans, and thank you for being human kind.