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REMASTERED: Creating Healthy Workplace Culture, with William Vanderbloemen (Faith, Executive, Jobs, Career)
Episode 23517th November 2023 • The Action Catalyst • Southwestern Family of Podcasts
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Entrepreneur, author, and Founder / CEO of Vanderbloemen Search Group, William Vanderbloemen, explains the dynamics of creating an irresistible workplace, the 3 main reasons people leave their jobs (4 for millennials), what Saturday morning cartoons have to do with job retention, why most cultural problems boil down to hiring problems, the difference between culture and core values, how to assess the 8 key areas of workplace health or toxicity, and gives several quick exercises for pinpointing what your culture is.

Transcripts

Host:

My guest that we have for you today I'm super excited

Host:

about William Vanderbloemen. His company Vanderbloemen Search

Host:

Group wins all these crazy awards. They were like number 23

Host:

best search firm in the country number three best. Third Best

Host:

Place to Work in Houston. He writes for Forbes has a weekly

Host:

column there. He's got a couple books that are out. He's also

Host:

got degrees from Wake Forest at Princeton from Theological

Host:

Seminary. I mean, just a total awesome guy mover and shaker.

Host:

And his new book is called Culture Wins: The Roadmap to an

Host:

Irresistible Workplace. So William, welcome to the show.

William Vanderbloemen:

Wow, that I hope people don't believe

William Vanderbloemen:

everything you just said. That was awesome. Great to be with

William Vanderbloemen:

you, man.

Host:

Yeah. So in terms of creating an irresistible

Host:

workplace, why do people leave? Like if you have to boil it

Host:

down? What causes people to leave?

William Vanderbloemen:

Sure, sure. Well, so we did a whole

William Vanderbloemen:

lot of research for this book we did, we took time to say, Hey,

William Vanderbloemen:

we've won a lot of awards for a great place to work. And that

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led people to say, Can you write about this Forbes asked us to

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write about this. And then we said, well, we can tell our

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story about how we built a culture, we actually had to

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reverse engineer, we were like, how did we do that? So we

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stepped back. And he said, I guess we did this and this and

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this. And we sort of intuitively fell into what we've got. But we

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said, You know what other books are out there. But let's not

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just tell our story. Let's get up underneath the hood of all

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the great cultures we can find. So I took a stack of magazines

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that were award winning lists of award winning companies for

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culture, handed them to a young employee at our firm, and said,

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Go find the email addresses of all the CEOs and get me at least

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100 phone appointments so that we can study and it did and what

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we've been covered with some best practices. So getting back

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to your question, what we also uncovered, there are lots of

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studies on the internet, which are all true if they're on the

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internet, right? And the baseline like the most common

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answer to how many people in America like their job, the most

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common answer is two out of three Americans hate their job,

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not modestly dislike not Oh, I can't wait till hump day is

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over, or I need some more time off, I hate their job. And so

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like what in the world is causing that? And we found a few

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common answers. First of all, people don't leave jobs, they

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leave managers. turnover is usually a problem with

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management and not a problem with we don't have enough ping

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pong tables, or whatever the thing is for culture. The second

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thing we found was, people leave the job because they don't know

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what their job is. If people say, I don't know what I'm

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supposed to get done. And then the third thing we found is

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people leave a job is because once they do know what they're

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supposed to get done, they aren't equipped with the tools

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or resources to actually go get it done. So you know, people sit

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around, like, I don't know what success is. And then it finally

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gets defined. I can't get there. And I don't like my manager. So

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I hate my job. Now, a fourth reason you're, you're, I think,

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still a millennial, and what I'm learning about millennials,

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because I'm not one is if there's no why behind the what

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I'm out, there's got to be a cause. Behind the what we're

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doing, you know, the Simon Sinek talk that's been seen 18

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bajillion times. Now, I should start with why that whole why

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behind the what is a big deal? And I think, well, that's the

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fourth place answer right now. I bet in 10 years, it's number

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one, because that millennial generation is starting to

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dominate the workforce just by sheer numbers. So I think you're

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gonna see an even bigger shift. So the answer your question is

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people leave managers, not jobs. But I think within 10 years,

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it's gonna be people will leave if you don't have a cause for

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what you're doing.

Host:

Are people job hopping more?

William Vanderbloemen:

Totally. And not just job hopping, career

William Vanderbloemen:

hopping? And you're talking about a generation and you can

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blame me and say those millennials? Or you can drop

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back and say, Well, why is that? So you know, the generation

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before where you do 35 years at Ford, and you retire with the

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gold watch and all that. That's the generation that grew up with

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radio, and then by later in their career, they had three TV

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stations to choose from. Now, think about your life, think

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about somebody 10 years younger than their life. You know, when

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I talk to older groups, I often say I'm old enough, I'm mid 40s.

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That for me, my favorite part of the week when I was a kid was

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Saturday morning. And the younger part of the room looks

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at me like what in the world are you talking about? The older

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brother room just nods and it you know why? And all the old

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people say the cartoons were on right you look at a millennial

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and say what are the cartoons on? What are you talking about?

William Vanderbloemen:

I just watch what I want. Again, an on demand. I watch it on

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YouTube. I watch it we're so you, you've got a generation

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that's grown up in a world of infinite options. So why

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wouldn't they see their career as a span of years full of

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infinite options? It's just natural. So I think you will see

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not just job hopping but career hopping and that's Where I

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found, you know, as we studied what makes a great culture? And

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who's sinking money into it, and why are they spending money on

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it? When I interviewed CEOs, I got a lot of different answers

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about why I spend money on culture. But the number one

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answer that every one of them answered was retention. The

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money I spend on culture always pays for itself because people

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stay longer than they would have otherwise, maybe that means they

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stay eight years instead of four, not 35 with a gold watch,

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but but when you start running the numbers of what it cost to

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replace people in the end of this loss, retention is the ball

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game for the future of the American workplace.

Host:

What are some of the numbers like, what's the cost?

William Vanderbloemen:

Well, yeah, I mean, you can justify

William Vanderbloemen:

anything you want, you can find a study on the Internet that

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will give you any number you want. But but we try to read a

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whole lot and then boil it down to a transferable principle. And

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what what we found is just for round numbers sake, $100,000

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employee, which is a high level employee, should they leave and

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will not will not even factor in Is it a good leave, or a bad

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leave? Is it $100,000 employee leaving will probably cost you a

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quarter million dollars. And that's how I did soft costs all

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wrapped together. And so it's and it's gonna happen, I mean,

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turnover happens in turnover, and always bad, you're gonna

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fast growing organization, you probably got people that were

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great when you had 40 employees. But when we got to 100, they

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couldn't, couldn't hang. And that's not their fault. It's

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just different. It's a different company. But if you can mitigate

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the amount and frequency of turnover, especially unnecessary

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turnover, then your ROI goes up. I talked to one CEO of a

William Vanderbloemen:

software company, he's up in New York City, and they have a very

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particular software solution that they sell. They're three

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companies that all sell the same type of solution, right? And all

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three of them sell it at the same price. They sell to the

William Vanderbloemen:

same market, there's no product differentiation, and he's a $20

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million company. And he said last year, he spent roughly $2

William Vanderbloemen:

million on culture. I'm like, what, why in the world? He said,

William Vanderbloemen:

well, because my EBIT da was 60 some percent higher than his

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competitors. I said, What do you mean your earnings is, is better

William Vanderbloemen:

than your competitor? You got the same price point, same

William Vanderbloemen:

solution said, Did you do more sales? Nope. Same revenue. He

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said, In our industry, we're notorious for churning through

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people, the average churn rate is about 38%. And I've got my

William Vanderbloemen:

churn rate down to one and a half percent. So if you think

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he's got 200 People 38% means 76. People would leave me

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normally every year and my other two competitors, they lose 76

William Vanderbloemen:

people every year. What are you going to charge me? Well, you

William Vanderbloemen:

have to do 76 searches, what have I got to do to train 76 new

William Vanderbloemen:

employees? How much momentum do I lose, and morale that drops

William Vanderbloemen:

when these people are walking out the door? I spent $2 million

William Vanderbloemen:

people love working here I fly my whole team to a big retreat,

William Vanderbloemen:

I spend money on things, not competitors don't, my people

William Vanderbloemen:

stay. And the fact that they stay makes us more profitable,

William Vanderbloemen:

even though we're not charging one penny more and not selling

William Vanderbloemen:

one widget more.

Host:

So what really makes them stay? I mean, is it just the

Host:

inverse of why they leave? Is that why they stay?

William Vanderbloemen:

I think a lot of it is inverse, you get

William Vanderbloemen:

people who actually want to be at work. I think when you say

William Vanderbloemen:

you know the culture doesn't belong to a corporate entity, it

William Vanderbloemen:

belongs to a person, the companies that I studied that

William Vanderbloemen:

got serious about defining what their cultural values were

William Vanderbloemen:

started hiring around those cultural values. So that up, put

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it this way, you know, everybody's crazy. And if you

William Vanderbloemen:

haven't figured that out, then you know, you will. So it's not

William Vanderbloemen:

finding people who aren't crazy to work for you. It's finding

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people who are the same kind of crazy as you. And when you start

William Vanderbloemen:

hiring, where you've got a tribe of people that are similar,

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well, then you're gonna have personality clashes because

William Vanderbloemen:

people are broken. And that's just the way the world is. But

William Vanderbloemen:

at least you're in the same tribe. And the manager is not

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insufferable. So frankly, most cultural problems are really a

William Vanderbloemen:

hiring problem. And I think that companies that have gotten it,

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right, the ones that have gotten it, right, frankly, are mostly

William Vanderbloemen:

newer companies, because they've been able to build from the

William Vanderbloemen:

ground up, you know, a company two, three generations deep or a

William Vanderbloemen:

couple 100 years old. The culture is pretty hard to turn

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on a dime. And if you've got a real problem, it takes a long,

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long time. But the other the other interesting thing about

William Vanderbloemen:

why people stay, you talked about millennials, job hopping

William Vanderbloemen:

Barna, you know, this group, they're a polling and surveying

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group pretty well known and they asked a question of people born

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in different decades. Here's the question, pretend your young

William Vanderbloemen:

adult 22 years old, what do you want to have accomplished by the

William Vanderbloemen:

time? You're 35? Great question. Right. So every group that

William Vanderbloemen:

answered except Millennials had almost identical, the same top

William Vanderbloemen:

five answers. Here's what they want to get done. They wanted to

William Vanderbloemen:

by the time that 35 We want to get married, start a family,

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owned a home, be on a secure job track and have some financial

William Vanderbloemen:

peace. Millennials? Have those top five answers, how many of

William Vanderbloemen:

them hit their top five? Just one, financial peace. So what

William Vanderbloemen:

does that mean for the workplace and for culture, what that means

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is you're hiring people who probably aren't near their

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family probably don't have a family to go home to probably

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haven't locked into a career yet, and probably see their

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workplace as the closest thing they're gonna have to a family.

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And so if you find a workplace, that's just, frankly, hell bent

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on building a culture where that family can feel like they're

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more connected than just their work and connected through a

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cause, and connected to the cultural code, well, then people

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are gonna stay, and they'll put up with highs and lows

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economically a lot better. And they'll put up with rising

William Vanderbloemen:

health care costs, and all those things a lot better. If this is

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my family, I don't have a wife and kids to go, this is it. And

William Vanderbloemen:

it's a cause I believe in and a well defined culture. And the

William Vanderbloemen:

people here are somewhat like me in terms of belief and how we

William Vanderbloemen:

function and the companies that I studied that got that right,

William Vanderbloemen:

have very few turnover issues.

Host:

So getting into the practical, how do we actually

Host:

keep people? How do we create retention?

William Vanderbloemen:

I think it all depends on what's the old

William Vanderbloemen:

advice of I forget which Greek philosopher it was that his his

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best advice was know yourself. And I think if a company will

William Vanderbloemen:

take time to drop back and know themselves, and then build all

William Vanderbloemen:

those bells and whistles around that, then that that will make a

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difference in here. So I'm guessing that a lot of your

William Vanderbloemen:

listeners have businesses that already have what they call core

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values. But are they cultural values? And when you say

William Vanderbloemen:

cultural, you know, you think what, what is a culture, and

William Vanderbloemen:

lots of different definitions are out there. But it's the

William Vanderbloemen:

traditions and symbols and behaviors that are passed along

William Vanderbloemen:

from one generation to the next without thinking about it. And

William Vanderbloemen:

and if a company can can get a hold of those customs and

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traditions and behaviors? And what is it that that we do

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that's good, and then build the ping pong table in the vending

William Vanderbloemen:

machine in the Yogen. Stir all that around that well, then that

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is a win. And here's a really practical question to ask if

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you're saying we do have core values, but they're not cultural

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values. They don't describe how we behave. They don't describe

William Vanderbloemen:

our customs. They just say things like, excellence. I'm so

William Vanderbloemen:

tired of excellence being a core value, I want to find the

William Vanderbloemen:

company that says, you know, mediocrity is really what we're

William Vanderbloemen:

after. But, but like, a cultural value is more how do we behave?

William Vanderbloemen:

It's the how we get our work done. And the question that a

William Vanderbloemen:

company can ask all of its employees to start the

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conversation is this, you can say, Look, when we are

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functioning at our very, very best. What do we do as a team

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that's common to us, but uncommon to other teams we see

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around us. Because there's some quirkiness that you guys share

William Vanderbloemen:

when you do your best for us. It's like responding with almost

William Vanderbloemen:

dysfunctional speed. Like, don't you have a life form getting

William Vanderbloemen:

back to me so fast? But you know, that's, that's our deal.

William Vanderbloemen:

And it's been a signature for us. And we didn't even realize

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that we went through this exercise. When we're functioning

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at our best, what do we do as a team that's common to us? That's

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uncommon to others. And long story short, through the process

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of building cultural values. We named it as ridiculous

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responsiveness. That's our deal. And, you know, we interview for

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it, we, we do sneaky bad stuff, during interviews to see if

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somebody's got the same dysfunction we do. If they're

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really ridiculously responsive. If they are, they're gonna fit

William Vanderbloemen:

if they're not, they're probably a great employee for somebody

William Vanderbloemen:

else.

Host:

Yeah, before we go, where should people go? If if they

Host:

want to kind of learn about Culture Wins? And where would

Host:

you point people?

William Vanderbloemen:

You can go to culturewins.org And find

William Vanderbloemen:

the book there. If you're really interested in other things about

William Vanderbloemen:

us, you can go to vanderbloemen.com and it just

William Vanderbloemen:

spell it just like that.

Host:

It's clear and obvious and easy to spell, and there's a lot

Host:

of vowels.

William Vanderbloemen:

You know, we bought probably 300 domain

William Vanderbloemen:

names when we started. And we hired an SEO consultant and

William Vanderbloemen:

said, which one of these I don't want to name it after me, don't

William Vanderbloemen:

be my name on the door. And he came back and he said, I got

William Vanderbloemen:

good news and bad news. I got the great website for you.

William Vanderbloemen:

You're not going to like it. So bad news. He said, We need to

William Vanderbloemen:

use your last name. Your last name is so screwed up that you

William Vanderbloemen:

can misspell it 200 different ways into Google and it'll feed

William Vanderbloemen:

back to you so we just went with that. So misspell it however you

William Vanderbloemen:

want vanderbloemen you'll you'll find your way or there or

William Vanderbloemen:

culturewins.org.

Host:

Smart. Alright, William. So what's the first thing? The

Host:

first step?

William Vanderbloemen:

That's a great question. We tried to

William Vanderbloemen:

answer that while we were writing the book. There's really

William Vanderbloemen:

two layers to culture. The first thing you have to ask yourself

William Vanderbloemen:

is is this a healthy place to work? It is toxic. That's a

William Vanderbloemen:

whole different conversation. And then defining values. So to

William Vanderbloemen:

help people know, are we functioning? Well, we did some

William Vanderbloemen:

research, we found eight key areas of health or toxicity. And

William Vanderbloemen:

we built online assessment. So if people go to the culture

William Vanderbloemen:

tool.com, they'll find a free online assessment. They can have

William Vanderbloemen:

their whole team, take the test, we'll send you back a report

William Vanderbloemen:

that shows you how you measure up, what's your median score,

William Vanderbloemen:

where you work, what's better, what's worse, and how do you

William Vanderbloemen:

measure up against all the other businesses that have come and

William Vanderbloemen:

taken this test? So that's the culturetool.com.

Host:

I love it. Thank you for sharing this this as interesting

Host:

perspective to have from somebody who has a full time

Host:

living of talking to people that are coming and going in and out

Host:

of companies.

William Vanderbloemen:

Thanks so much. I appreciate you having me

William Vanderbloemen:

on.

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