Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen. This is Rhamy Alejeal, your host of People Processes. We're so excited to have you tune in today. Today we are interviewing Lee Caraher.

She is the founder and CEO of double forte PR, did a double forte PR and digital marketing. She is the author of “Millennials and Management: The Essential Guide To Making it Work at Work.” She based the book on her experience with epically failing and then succeeding at retaining millennials in her business. Her second book, “The Boomerang Principle, Inspire Lifetime Loyalty From Employees” was published in 2017. It's a pragmatic and actionable guide to creating high performing work cultures ready for the future. And we are so excited to have her on. Lee, are you there?

I'm here, Rhamy. Thank you so much for having me.

Well, I'm ecstatic to have you. I want to start with figuring out how you got into your current business, doing PR and really writing a lot about HR work.

So I started my PR career after college. I graduated from Carleton College in Minnesota with a degree in medieval history. Very helpful. I did not know what I was going to do when my friend Ramona and I were talking and she said, you should really check out this PR thing. I think you'd do well in it. And so I checked it out and here I am almost a little more than 30 years later having been in the public relations career and communications career my whole career.

30 years, man, you must start it at I guess what age, age to age, three rolled right out of college.

Sorry. You know, I'm very enhanced.

Sure. Well, in 30 years of doing this, I know you've had some crazy highs and some probably pretty rough lows. So what I love to do is start with our guests talking about their toughest time, because I think our listeners learn more from the failures in our guests stories and they do from the successes. So why don't you take us really to that time, maybe even like a specific day you realized you had a problem, what happened and tell us that story. Then we can talk about maybe some of the things that our listeners could learn.

Sure. So I started my company with a co-founder, a very good friend who we'd worked together many years before we started the company. In four years he said, I really don't wanna do this PR thing anymore, Lee. He left the company and actually he came back and then he left again. Which is about my second book, boomerang. But well, going forward, a few years ago I was thinking about what is next for the company. The company needs to transcend my tenure there and who would take over for me. There really wasn't anybody in the company who either wanted to or could become the CEO of the entity. So I was intent on bringing somebody in. I did that. I brought someone I knew pretty well.

I thought of the company and some cultural things were a bit different as you always will. You know, everything is not static. But my gut, I was very intent on finding this person and getting that person in place which I did. After a couple of years, that thing happened, it was like, Oh well, it's just him. He's just different than me, etc. And then one day or one week, he lost four clients all at the same time, really for the same reason. Not for our performance, but really about him. And I was like, okay, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I go, you have to listen to your gut. So, we parted ways and I wished him well. But it takes a long time to recover from that. You know, you don't just like one day have a succession plan and the next day, get rid of that person and say, okay, everything's okay. You really have to read it.

Right. The cascading. Yeah. We had a guest not too long ago, in a very similar situation. Brought on a COO with the idea of this person eventually taking over in the the investment and transition time to getting them up and then, that person not working out. It's a morale hit, if nothing else, not to mention operational hits your bottom line as well. Right. So, yeah. Not to mention, big piles of money. Absolutely. Well, I'm sorry to hear about that. So if our listeners are in their first couple of years of business and they're thinking about similar concerns you had. What do you think maybe they could take from your story and they could learn from your mistakes? What should they do when they're trying to accomplish something similar?

Beginning of your business and you have a partner, make sure that you have a great prenup. Whatever that agreement is between the partners on how they will leave, what the calculation will be for an earn-out, what are the conditions, whatever that is, batter that out before you get started because you will hate each other one moment in time for sure. It's going to happen. You can get past it if you have really good agreements. So, that was on my co-founder,, it was very clear what had to happen and what he had to do to get the maximum value out of the company for himself, which I was very happy to write the check for because he fulfilled all the agreements we had put in place before. On the second piece, bringing a successor in. Very tough. You know, it's one of the things that big companies struggle with so much. I think that if your gut is telling you something about the person, no matter what their credentials are, no matter how much you've known them, no matter how much success they've had in the past, if your gut is telling you something, you need to listen to it. And don't ignore what's happening just because you want it to work out.

I like that. So on these big decisions, these succession issues, listen to your gut. If you're feeling something wonky, timed up. Time to really zoom in on that and pay attention. I like that. Well, your book, which came out in 2017, is the boomerang principle. What is the boomerang principle? What does that even mean?

The boomerang principle is the idea that those companies and organizations that don't just allow but actually encourage people to return to them as employees once they've left. Have a strategic advantage over those that don't. Something that we've practiced on that one fourth day since the beginning. We're a small company. We have 37 people right now. We have rehired 16 people and we rehired four people twice. So across the board, if you look at those companies that do rehire people, these people are the highest performers they have in their entity. So the more we will to that sort of point of view of having people return to the company when they've left, the better it is for the people who were there. And the better it is for your bottom line.

That's very unique. I mean, just an interesting idea. We've had, you know, this is an HR podcast. My company, Poplar financial, we work on the processes and systems around human resources. So systematizing things like on-boarding and off-boarding which everybody goes through. We talk about it all the time, it's a huge part of that. But everyone focuses on retention. How do you keep people from leaving? You're saying, no, no, no, no, no. Allow them to leave and in fact encourage exploration, but make sure they come back. Is that the idea?

A few things. One is when you create an environment that people return to, you're creating an environment in a culture that people have a hard time leaving, right? People don't return to something bad. They only return to something good, number one. So if you have an environment in a culture that helps people return, you actually have a culture that helps people stay longer and retention is built into that. Number one. Number two is when you actually have someone return to you, they are more valuable to you the second time around then they were the first for many reasons. One is you already know that they've worked well with you in your culture. They already have proved themselves as one of you. Whatever that culture company is.

The second is they've gone out into the world and learned other things that they're bringing back to you. You can apply a more worldly view to the work that they're going to be doing. And we all know, and there's a lot of data that says, the more different inputs you have, the better decisions you make. And the problem with retention sometimes is that we can become more inwardly focused. Right. It's really a challenge to get outside of view into a group that stays together for a long time. And I found this in my own business now. But when you have someone come back, right, they go, I learned this thing out there. What if we do it here? They bring other things back to you and they know what could and could not work. And the third is they come on board, you know, it doesn't, they're not a hundred percent day two. Right. But they're 100% around day 3540, which is so much right of a new employee. Right. A new employee takes six to six months to one year to become fully functional in any answer.

Yeah. And such an interesting idea. Obviously they're more valuable and also, the grass is greener on the other side mentality, which has been, if they're coming back, they've seen the other side. Right, right, right. I guess. Oh, interesting. So why I guess that makes sense. If an employee is going to leave you, you want them to come back, I'm assuming you didn't like to throw them out because they're thieves or something like that. Yeah. So how do you do that? What are the steps to actually creating a system that encourages return work?

Yeah. Well it starts on day one, right? It starts on day one. I meet every new employee in the company, in their first two weeks. And one of the first things I say to them, Rhamy is, "Hi, I know you're going to leave us. So it's really important to us that when you do leave here, you never take the devil to take off your resume." And that is a point of pride that you were at double forte. And I hope you're here for a long time. And I hope that it's mutually rewarding. I hope that you grow, learn new things and achieve your own personal goals within the constructs of our company. But I know when you hire someone, they're going to leave. So I know you're probably not gonna stay in for the rest of your life, but I hope when you do that, it's good that it's positive and that when you're no longer interested, come and talk to us and we will help you find what's next. Then I hope you come back.

I say that in the first week of their employment. And of course some people are like, just got here. But I think it's important to like to set the tone. I said, the tone I want to set is double before two, we want double forte beat to be important to your career. And we're set up to do that. We're also set up to do really good PR, digital communications and we have to do those two things together. And that means one, we have very high standards of work and that we're going to be training for, be mentoring for, be fostering. And two, it's going to be a good conversation with every employee around, what is it that is their goal? How do you see yourself? What do you want them to know about this job?

If it's an entry level person, they don't want to know that it's only one path. What are the past they could take? And to have really good conversations with these people, not just at review time, but throughout the course of the year. See what's going on. What are you interested in? My own assistant who came to the company, he's actually just left, but he was at the company for almost five years. He came from Michigan. He wanted to be an actor, but he knew he wasn't gonna be able to do that full time. So he wanted to be an assistant so he could then sort of get out by 5:30 and go act. And he did that. And then one day I turned around, he's great at it, and I turned around and he was drawing a greeting card for his mother and it was amazing.

And I'm like, David, did you do that? He goes, yeah, it's my lunch hour. I'm like, Oh man, I don't care about the lunch hour part. I'm like, I didn't know you were an artist. You didn't tell us you were an artist. Well, I didn't think you'd care. What do you want to do here? Do you want to use it? Oh, I'd love to do that here. I mean, who knew? Right? And he told us he was leaving and one of the reasons he stayed so long and was five-year for somebody under 30 is a long time in San Francisco. When he told us he was leaving, he goes, one of the reasons I stayed so long is, because I got to do the things that I love at double forte and help the company doing those things. So when you can find those interests and they can be so much more valuable within just the job description you hire, or because the job description is just one facet of those pictures, but people's role is how people show up in the world.

So you know, he's gone. I hope he comes back. He's already sent us to people who might be great employees. So already, he's come back to us in a way he didn't have to do that. And that's the loyal part, right? It used to be the old paradigm used to be, if you leave me like when you work for me, you're not loyal and you're dead to me. Well, actually not when you're getting paid. That is a transaction. I will give you a paycheck. You're supposed to show up, which frankly is not a skill, but you need to do it. And that's a paid transaction. Loyal act is when you don't expect anything in return that you're out there in the world and you go, you know what? I met Joe. Joe would be awesome at double forte. I'm going to give Lee a call and say, Hey, you should talk to Joe.

You didn't have to do that. You don't have to do that for me to know that for Joe and to do it for himself, but that's a loyal act. I'm thinking about the betterment of whoever you're talking to, right. When you don't expect anything in return. So that's what I'm talking about in the boomerang principle is if we get away from thinking about loyalty just when we pay people, right? Thinking about, Oh, I want someone to be loyal to the company for their entire career. Well how does that work? What does that look like? That looks like them going out into the world and always keeping in touch with us, always being connected to double forte. And when something comes across their viewpoint that could benefit the company, they pick up the phone and they make it happen. That's a loyal act. So how do you keep them involved after they leave? I mean, so you treat them when they're with you, you on-board them with the expectation of understanding.

Also, one thing about your first week conversation that struck me is it also gives you a little bit more. I think a lot of employers, as you said, they're pretending or kind of inferred anyway. I inferred, they're pretending that when they hire someone at 27, that they're going to retire from minutes. Right? And they're like, well, 68. Yeah, we want you to work for us forever. And that's our goal. And when you state your goal is that, one thing that puts you in a position is when an employee's not though, right? When an employee has needs, whether they're temporary or permanent, that does not fit the company's needs. So I don't know, maybe they don't have the skills to generate salary or they have some issues that need to work on before they move to another step or something.

You're putting a weird position in saying that we want you to stay here forever, but also, we can't satisfy the immediate needs you're presenting. Whereas, if you're saying, look this is the place for you for now and we want you here. We want this to be your place forever. But if it's not, we want you to stay loyal and we want you to join us at the moment, we want you to come back and be a part of us long-term. You're also implicitly stating, if this isn't the right fit for you, get to move on and we're all still friends and we can continue to work together. And it takes a little pressure off the company to be like, we have to meet your immediate needs, all the time. Forever for the entire future of our lives.

Well, it also takes pressure. I think it takes pressure off both sides. Right? It's sort of like, stating the obvious and as long as people aren't pretending, you're just removing a lot of pressure and anyway. Right.

Right. It's not like any other company is going to give you a pay. Yeah. It's just that you're being more honest.

That is what used to be the expectation, right? The expectation used to be when my parents were working, you come, you go, and when you go, it's when you're getting your watch and you're retiring. I mean that has changed,, that used to be the American dream and we could talk forever about this, Rhamy. I have a lot of statistics and data and maybe we can talk about it some other time, but that's just not reality anymore. And instead, particularly for younger people who they already know, that whatever job they have today, will look different in five years. Unlike people my age were like, Oh, I've learned a skill. I can do it for the rest of my life. It's not true anymore. And anything you do today, if you have a job title today, that job titles will look very, very different in three or four years.

So you're also setting the expectation if it doesn't work, we'll help you find something that does help you be successful somewhere else. That's what we're all about. Right. How do you keep the most productive organizations are the happiest organizations? The happiest organizations are the most effective organizations. So you have to have the most positive high producing teams, ones that are very clear on mission, very...