Unlock the secret to boosting your team's engagement and productivity with insights from John Hibbs of CoEfficient (our first guest from the UK) as we dissect the profound impact of purpose in the workplace. Discover how a clear understanding of the 'why' behind your business can lead to transformative results, bridging the generational divide and fostering a culture of enthusiastic, goal-aligned employees. Learn why so many workers may be missing this critical element and how fixing this could revolutionize your business's success.

Explore the dynamic relationship between leaders and their teams, where communication is king and the clarity of purpose is the crown jewel. With real-life examples of successful change management, we shed light on how companies can navigate the waters of alignment and engagement to sail towards a shared vision, benefiting not just the bottom line but families and communities at large.

Highlights:

-This statement made by John, "Giving people purpose is easier than you think," which emphasizes that instilling a sense of purpose in employees can significantly enhance engagement and productivity. 

-John’s remark and observation that "businesses now just say, hey, we're here to make money," highlighting a common disconnect where companies fail to prioritize the betterment of customers and communities over profits. 

-Discussion on how "four out of five people turning up to work just for a salary" indicates a widespread issue of disengagement in the workplace, suggesting a dire need for cultural shifts within organizations. 

-Johns analogy of a bus journey, where clarity about the destination (or purpose) ensures that the right people are on board, illustrates the importance of aligning individuals with a company's vision to achieve collective success.

Connect with our Guest:

John Hibbs 

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Connect with us: 

Steve Doyle:

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Brad Herda:

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00:00 - Speaker 1

Welcome to Blue Collar BS, a podcast that busts the popular myth that we can't find good people, highlighting how the different generations of today the boomers, gen X, millennials and Gen Z are redefining work so that the industrial revolution that started in the US stays in the US.

00:20 - Speaker 2

The Blue Collar BS podcast helps blue collar business owners like you throw the business that will thrive for decades to come by turning that blue collar bullshit into some blue collar business solutions.

00:32 - Speaker 3

In this episode, you're going to learn what bus are you driving and what bus are you riding. Purpose and clarity have meaning, the disconnect between leaders and non-leaders, and a marketing technique. Hello, here I Am.

00:47 - Speaker 2

Our guest today is John Hibbs, who has driven to build effective teams by using data to confirm the instincts. Giving people purpose is easier than you think. We hope you enjoy the show. And back to the show. My friend Brad, I know what you're doing today.

01:03 - Speaker 3

I am absolutely wonderful, mr Steven Doyle. It is a great day here in Wisconsin sunny, 70s fall is in the air. But today is one of those summer summer like days that we know we're going to have very few left. So you know time to go yourself.

01:20 - Speaker 2

Oh, it's great. It's an overcast day. It's a great fall day here in Michigan, so definitely loving it. This is my kind of weather, so I'm thoroughly tickled pink right now. It's just great day. Tickled pink, perfect, awesome.

01:34 - Speaker 3

I can't wait to see how this show goes. Who's on the show today? Brad, who's on the show today? So today we are honored to have our first non-North American continent guest here, john Hibbs, who is part of Coefficient. He and I met through networking in some way shape or form on LinkedIn or an email connection through somebody or whatever and what they do from data collection, analysis and culture and understanding behavior is absolutely freaking amazing and I am super excited to have a friend from overseas in England spending a Friday evening his Friday evening to be here for us on a Friday afternoon To talk to those slumps to bring us halfway around the world to this episode of Blue Cow RBS. John Hibbs, thank you so much for being here today.

02:25 - Speaker 4

Well, it's a pleasure to be here, guys. There is nowhere else.

02:30 - Speaker 3

I'd rather be on a Friday night at 9 pm, so that's a lie and we know it, but we appreciate the appreciate you, John.

02:38 - Speaker 2

We appreciate it.

02:39 - Speaker 4

So I was just going to say I'm honored, honored that I'm your first non-US guest. I think it's great. No, I didn't say non-US, oh, so you did.

02:48 - Speaker 2

North American news did.

02:51 - Speaker 3

He did. It is Ryder Cup weekend. I don't know if you're a golfer, John, or pay attention to any of that stuff.

02:58 - Speaker 4

Yes, it's not going well for you guys, is it? No, it's not, but it's early days. It's early days, a lot, a lot can still happen.

03:06 - Speaker 3

Yeah, we're going to get our ass kicked. That's what's going to happen.

03:12 - Speaker 2

All right, go ahead, Steve, it's the flower that's going to be in the red again. And I forget, John. Which generation do you best fit in with?

03:23 - Speaker 4

Well, I'm a Gen X. Awesome, I'm a fast approaching 50. Never thought I'd get here, but here we are. Here we are, I'm still alive.

03:36 - Speaker 2

Awesome. So go ahead, brad, go Wow. Thank you, steve.

03:41 - Speaker 3

Oh, that one right now, so Still alive. Huh, okay, good With like. So, in your in your release form information we asked for prior to the show, one of the things you said that was really intriguing to me about approaching different people and in different industries to give them a purpose and it's easier than you think. So, within your application of coefficient and things like that, can you expand upon what that give them a purpose and how it's might be easier to get people a purpose than you think.

04:17 - Speaker 4

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I think just a couple of things that need to come before that is that, if it's a coefficient, measures organizational performance and it does it across all sectors. And what we have to remember is that, whatever sector you're in, every single business, every single organization is simply a group of people. That's all they are. It's a group of people trying to rub along to try to benefit another group of people. They happen to call that group their customers, and what businesses measure to define their success is how much money they make, which is odd. They don't often actually define their success by how well they've improved the world for their customers. It's, it's a byproduct of that how much money they've made, which means that we have fallen into this society where business is all about making money and as long as we're making money, then everything's fine.

05:14

And I think that misses one of the fundamental points of running a business, which is actually the money is great, but it's a byproduct of what you really set out business to do, haven't? If you think about? There's a? There's a start? I'm sure you guys know it 77% of people are Disengaged at work, according to the Gallup Global Survey. Now, now, that is a shockingly high start, because what that actually means is a four out of five people Turning up to work just for a salary, not to do something they're passionate about, they believe in or even they enjoy so here's.

05:52 - Speaker 3

So here's what I'm going to, I guess. And I struggle with the word engagement. Yeah right, because it's a hard thing to measure and yes, yeah, it is. Yeah, for my own experience, most engagement surveys that I have seen or been part of have been Discussing morale, not engagement, and in my opinion those two things are very, very different. I can be a very engaged employee with shitty morale, or I can have great morale and be completely disengaged.

06:23 - Speaker 4

Yeah, so actually Gallup define engagement as Emotionally or disengagement as emotionally disconnected from the workplaces and it, but it is really.

06:35 - Speaker 3

I like that definition. I appreciate that. Thank you for clarification.

06:39 - Speaker 4

But you but you're right actually coefficient. We don't measure engagement, we actually measure how star Are feeling about performance of the business across many different metrics. But anyways, it's sort of a broad brush. Gallup is saying this you know, four to five people don't really want to be at work, aren't enjoying work, etc. Etc. Now we know, just from being human beings, the stuff we enjoy doing, stuff we're passionate about. You know our hobbies, our sports, our families or whatever it, or even Sometimes our work, whatever it is. If we like what we're doing, we're just we're gonna do it, even if we don't get paid sometimes. We're gonna enjoy what we're doing. We're gonna give a little bit more. We're gonna be more into it and more passionate, more gay.

07:25 - Speaker 3

Now that's why we do this show, jack, because we're just passionate about the show. It's not about the money.

07:33 - Speaker 4

Well, this is why, this is why I'm staying up at 9 o'clock, 9 pm on a Friday night, because I'm passionate about you guys and what you're doing and the. But if we think about, if you're turning up to work just for a paycheck, just for a paycheck, then you don't really care about what you're doing, and I Feel that has got something to do with the fact that businesses now just saying, hey, we took care to make money. Now, I know that a lot of people really do want to make a difference in the world to some degree, and then and and being able to serve is a huge privilege, and if businesses don't Articulate who they're serving and why they're doing it, then we end up with people Jumping into businesses or getting into businesses without really understanding what business they're getting into. You know, now there's a great. There's a great analogy I heard about.

08:27

Let's imagine the three of us. We live in some little town in America and it's kind of okay, but we have like dreams of Getting out and you two guys are the party animals. You want to go to Vegas, you love Vegas and you and you want to go and party and and I'm the, I'm the boring guy and all I want to do is read books. I want to go to the, to a great library, and this and this bus pulls up, but the bus does has no description of where it's going. It's got blacked out windows. We don't know what the bus is or anything like that, or who's on board. So, anyway, we want to leave the town. So we all get on the bus together and learn behold it, party bus going straight straight to Vegas. You too are having the time of your life. I couldn't be happier. I'm like dammit, I've got on the wrong bus. If this bus had been clearer About where it was going and how it's going to get there, I could have gotten you know what guys been great hanging out with you in our boring town, but you, you go off and and you got in this bus. I'll wait for the next one.

09:25

And very often companies aren't clear about their, their true purpose, and if they are, then over time you attract the right type of people to you, and this all comes down to to Branding and perception and marketing and who you are and who you are as a business and who we are as individuals as well. Now I gave them I do a talk is called the secret of life and I do it to companies occasionally. But sometimes I go into schools and I give it in schools and part of the process is I talk about marketing and About ten years ago I asked a bunch of a level I've talked about marketing. I thought, quite you, these kids won't know what marketing means. So I I said to these bunch of 11 years old, I do.

10:11

I said does anyone know what marketing means? And this one little girl put her hand up and she said yes, I know what marketing means. It means being able to say hello. Here I am, and I was almost stopped in my tracks because I was like damn, the best definition of marketing I've ever heard.

10:27

Because I think, as, as Businesses and as human beings, if we can be genuine and authentic and stand on the street and say hello, this is me, this is, this is what I believe in, this is what I'm doing, this is what I stand for, and guess what?

10:42

People will hear that and people who like that and align that will come over for a chat. So I mean, as, as you know, brad, coefficient is we're only just over a year older and start up mode. We've actually got ten people working for us for free, like they're not earning any money what they believe in, what we're doing. Because they believe in what we're doing, because all I do is I stand up and I talk about it, and I talk about you know the good that we want to do in the world, the fact that if we improve businesses, we not only improve businesses, we improve communities, because the two are so closely linked and you know we're building our tribe now. The goal is, the aim is that we will pay everyone eventually and and I didn't think anyone's gonna know what's gonna work for free forever. But they're like look, I'm into this, can I help? Yes, let's, let's see if we can all work together and get that quicker.

11:33 - Speaker 2

That's very interesting, just the whole concept of how people are buying into your purpose. So let's just dissect that a little bit. More. People are buying into your purpose, your why for the big ones. So, if you don't mind, sharing their dynamics from a generation standpoint, are we talking? Are the younger people buying into the purpose? Are they kind of all different age groups?

12:00 - Speaker 4

They're all different age groups so I don't I'm sorry, I don't know all of the different demographic groupings. So I'm 48. Probably the oldest guy who's buying in and part of the company is early 60s, the boomer, the boomer plenty of Gen X and a bunch of millennials. Yeah, the youngest is probably just turned 30. The youngest has just turned 30.

12:28 - Speaker 3

Okay, maybe the youngest. That'd be the second half of the millennial generation.

12:33 - Speaker 4

Yeah, we're really clear with with the why. Yeah, I'm sure you've already signed in Seneca book. Start with why, and I think people haven't read it. They really should. It's a fantastic book. We're really clear.

12:46

So, businesses are just groups of humans. The humans in an organization know everything. They literally know everything. Who's cool, who's not, what's working, what is it working? People inside your.

12:58

If you can change the culture and get you get the right type of people inside your organization, not only is it better for the organization and people who are more engaged or more productive, companies that are more productive or more profitable profitable companies get to do two amazing things. They get to pay their staff and when you pay a member of staff, you usually contribute to a family but you also get to pay taxes and it's not very cool. People don't think it's cool to pay taxes, but I think it's really cool to pay taxes because you're you're. You're helping to educate everybody and the future. You're helping to look after the people who can't look after themselves and you're helping to build the environment for us all to thrive. But also, those people go home at the end of the shift every every day and they go home to their families and we know there's been studies done workers who are less stressed and feel like more belonging at work, and all those positive things, take that home to their families. Happy families become the happy communities, which is not only where you and I live, but where we go to to employ people. So it's a. It's a massive win-win.

13:59

14:58 - Speaker 3

16:01 - Speaker 4

So, yes, we do kind of touch on those things. A sense of belonging is really important, a sense of community is really important. We know that connection and giving a sense of self improvement and improvement of the whole is really important for mental well being. So we are able to measure those things. But what I suppose one of the largest things that we've discovered in the last year or just over a year of all the companies that we've worked with, is it doesn't really matter what sector you're in. We've done construction, we've done healthcare, we've done all sorts of things.

16:49

There's what we see most of is huge disconnects between different groups inside an organization, and it's usually the leaders or the managers or the partners or the directors thinking very differently to all the staff, and it's cross-generational stuff. There's huge disconnects and, of course, where we see those disconnects, we see things like poor communications, negative energy, inefficiencies. We then partner with business coaches and consultants to close up, to help close up those gaps, and start asking the questions Look what you've scored this very differently to other people. So what do you know that you're not sharing with other people? Because if they knew what you knew, there's a chance you might arrive at the same answers, but you haven't, so let's start opening up those conversations. Any group of people trying to work together, a lot of it comes down to communication, building good relationships.

17:46 - Speaker 3

It's all communication and expectations. I've got a client right now that we're going through a bunch of change management stuff and we're talking through it. Like you guys know, you get the leaders are four miles ahead of everybody else because they already have it Planned. They've been talking about and going through it and the individual employees on the floor they they get the bits and pieces of information versus coming on the same journey right the the bus that they're on is four stops behind the bus that the leaders are on and and and they're wondering why it's not working so well.

18:16 - Speaker 4

Huh.

18:17 - Speaker 3

Yeah, can't imagine.

18:17 - Speaker 4

Why yeah, so that of course, that comes out of communication. You're absolutely right. The other thing that I think it comes down to is Trust, and we know that we've got declining trust around the world in, you know, in each other and the institutions that Create the environments that we live in. There's a, there's a website, the Edelman trust barometer, which is always slightly depressing to go and look it up. But and and I find that really really interesting, because actually trust Forms an inherent part of all of our lives if we think about the things that really bind us together, like Money, for example, I play a game sometimes with people.

19:03

I or when I'm doing talks, and I hold up like Well, in in the UK is a five pound note or something, but in the states would be some dollars, and I say, and I hold it in the air and I say, like the first person to tell me what this five pound Notices gets to keep it, and of course, everyone just out it's money, it's money, it's, it's five pounds or something. Eventually some bright spark will go it's a piece of paper and you know they're absolutely right. And and nobody Ever, has ever seen any money, because money doesn't exist. It's a human construct. We use bits of paper what we call fear money to to represent money and actually most of the time now we're just using numbers on a computer screen and the whole. The only reason we believe in paper money Is because we as a society believe in money.

19:48 - Speaker 3

20:28 - Speaker 2

So, john, one of the things that you talked about and I kind of want to get a little bit more insight on is Can we go a little bit deeper on the disconnect between Leaders and non leaders? Like, can we categorize or kind of just talk a little bit more in detail on what it is that we're seeing as the disconnect?

20:50 - Speaker 4

On our platform. We measure a whole host of things. So we measure a measure, psychological safety, we we measure trust, measure values, purpose, communication, all these sorts, many things like this, a sense of belonging. All of those scores are usually high for the leaders and usually Not as high for the, for the, for the others. So, yeah, leadership people will rank their own leadership skills and integrity and trust really highly and others staff members, won't and we see things like staff members saying things like they don't feel acknowledged. There's there's limited support measures in place when they feel overwhelmed. People aren't civil and respectful. I and all of these things that the leaders are saying. Nope, we think everyone's civil and respectful and there's great support measures in place. It is very interesting when you start seeing these things come out in black and white or, in our case, red and green graphs and numbers.

22:01 - Speaker 3

Right, yes, and your graphs and numbers are amazing, amazing. So I guess, to help our audience understand exactly what coefficient is doing, can you maybe walk us through briefly what an engagement looks like with coefficient, because we may have some folks on what is needed, what's required, so we have some folks listening that go, huh, how do I find out? Because your analogy of the bus to Las Vegas for us, I think, resonate really really well from a leadership perspective. As to what bus are they driving?

22:31 - Speaker 4

Yep.

22:31 - Speaker 3

And who are the people looking for. And that's real and I think your analogy there really makes it very simple for us to understand. So I appreciate that. Yeah, so if you can help us, maybe.

22:43 - Speaker 4

Yeah, thank you. So if anyone who's a leader of an organization will have a gut feel of what's going on, and if your gut feels is kind of going, this just feels a bit sluggish, I just kind of get the sense that, you know, not everything's humming along nicely, then those we love people's instincts, we love them. But actually data sets you free from having to guess. So this is why it's so powerful, and the more hearts and minds you can get in your data pool, usually the better the data is. So what coefficient does is it actually helps organizations become more profitable by improving things like, you know, efficiency and communication and all that stuff.

23:27

First of all, we collect the data. We do that in a really clever way. We've got some amazing clever data scientists that work for us and are able to collect data out of humans, treat it really really well with high levels of integrity and display it in really usable ways. We always, always partner with business coaches, consultants, hr specialists. That's really the root into coefficient.

23:52

We do that because data by itself doesn't solve anything. It's like you know you go to the doctor, he takes your temperature, sticks you in an MRI scanner or something. It doesn't tell you what to do next. It just gives you facts. Right, you need a human interpreter for that. So we use these human interpreters, who I hope usually are familiar with the businesses already, and then they can translate that data into actions for that tailored for that business. And what we're seeing with companies that are engaging with us and are then engaging with their coaches and their consultants and making positive change, we're seeing great results. Their coefficient scores are going up, their revenues increasing and you know, when you have all that positive energy, then the relationships improve, and when the relationships improve, people feel better, and when people feel better, they perform better. And it's a lovely virtuous circle and spiral up we go.

24:50 - Speaker 3

So it sounds like coefficient is potentially the anti-edulment index.

24:57 - Speaker 4

Yeah, I hope so that sounds like great. I'm going to steal that from my marketing. Perfect, thank you.

25:06 - Speaker 3

It's the anti-edulment index that is showing all this negativity. We are trying to show the positivity within coefficient and building that up with purpose and intent and driving intent with meaning and connection, versus just making money, and that's a fantastic place I am an optimistic guy, I will say that we watch the news and all we hear is bad stories. That's why I don't know anymore.

25:34 - Speaker 4

It's awful and I've spent the last 12 months meeting people all over the world. I've met about 800 people at those. Out of that 800, I've met three that I thought these people just don't get life. The other 797 are all amazing.

25:58

The positive that are working, and it's true there's so many good people out there who are just quietly getting on with doing good things and playing their part of trying to make the world a little bit better. As current custodians of this amazing world, I think it's our privilege to try to leave the world a slightly better place than we found it, and I think that by working together we have a much, much better chance of achieving that. Rather than looking after number one taking and making sure number one's all right. I think if we can live in a giving world, then actually that giving circles around and we end up building much, much better communities.

26:39 - Speaker 3

I agree with that whole principle for sure.

26:44 - Speaker 4

No, I totally agree with everything that John just summarized and said, and so I think a lot of the time we're just not thinking big enough, we're not reframing the world we live in. We live in these little siloed buckets. This is my town, this is my family, this is the blink of job that I've got. And corporations are really bad at engineering this. They never say, hey, we want a broad thinker that's going to think across many different aspects of this company. They say we want, like an accountant, to fit in this box here and don't look outside of this cubicle, just get on with these numbers that we put in front of you. Or we want someone in the production line to go in here and fix this. It leads to a world where we don't reframe it and think about how it is all interconnected. And, of course, what you do and how you speak and how you are affects your listeners and affects me, and what I say affects you and my family and my kids, and then their friends and their friends' parents, and round and round it goes.

27:54 - Speaker 3

Right, it's a pebble in the pond, right, it's doing all those little things to have an impact. So when our show reaches all those leaders that go hey, yes, this is very cool, John. How do they find out? Want to connect with you to get that positive energy and that influx of just good human nature that you bring and exude and learn more about coefficient. How do people find you? Where do we get ahold of you? Where do we start to make those?

28:21 - Speaker 4

conditions. The easiest way is just put in John Hibbs coefficient into Google and I just pop up like magic. I love LinkedIn, so I'm on LinkedIn. Please, if you, I'd be thrilled. If you connected with me on LinkedIn, I'd be really happy about that. You can go and visit our website co-efficient-solutionscom. Those are the two best ways.

28:49 - Speaker 3

All right cool. Thank you so much for taking a Friday evening to spend with us for a little bit, versus spending it with your family, and thank you for being our first non-North American continent guest.

29:05 - Speaker 4

Nice job, Tuckett.

29:07 - Speaker 3

When this show releases and we're hoping I would expect to see a big bump over in the UK and England with all of the connections you may have on that side of the pond for us. So, yeah, looking very forward to it. I appreciate it.

29:21 - Speaker 4

Yeah, guys, it's been a pleasure and thank you very much.

29:24 - Speaker 3

And thank you for all you're doing to help organizations understand the value of people and understand that people are our greatest asset. Regardless of how much automation we try to put into the world and AI and all those other things, it still comes down to people 100%. Thank you very much, john. Thanks, john, thank you. Thank you for listening to Blue Collar BS brought to you by Vision Forward Business Solutions and Professional Business Coaching Inc. If you'd like to learn more on today's topic, just reach out to Steve Doyle or myself, brad Herda. Please like, share, rate and review this show, as feedback is the only way we can get better. Let's keep Blue Collar businesses strong for generations to come.