Company culture doesn’t happen by accident.

Leaders set the tone by their mindset, values, and the standards they live out.

In this episode, David talks with Dr. Leroy McKenzie Jr. about how leaders shape culture and why clarity and principles matter for every organization.

Dr. McKenzie is the founder of JNF Enterprises (Jesus Never Fails).

He works with entrepreneurs and organizations to build what he calls the four pillars of sustainability: Mindset, Principles, Processes, and Systems.

His mission is to help people become 1% better each day and to move from chaos to clarity.

You’ll hear about:

• How mindset shapes culture
• The role of principles and values in business
• The difference between patching problems and true leadership
• Practical steps to observe and improve culture

Redeem Your Business Today by the Following:

How can we honor God in our business? 

Lead with clarity, living principles that reflect His character, and creating a culture that treats people as image-bearers with purpose and dignity.

One Challenge from Today:

This week, take time to observe, analyze, and evaluate your business. Then act on one change that better aligns your daily culture with the principles you want to model.

More About Leroy McKenzie 

Linktree: http://linktr.ee/jnfenterprises 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-leroy-mckenzie-jr-3986166/ 

More About David Schmidt

Sign up for the RBT Weekly Newsletter for weekly inspiration and Bible verses for business success for you to read, apply, and be inspired by.

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Website: redeemingbusinesstoday.com

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What God Says About Business

So company culture is essentially how you do business. And initially as an entrepreneur driven, they drive the standards for how other people look at the company. And when they start hiring people, they want to create values or standards or culture basically so that the rest of the company kind of acts like the owner does. But that's not always done intentionally. And so we have accidents and culture sometimes. Questions come about, like, who do I hire?

. .

How do I empower them to make

decisions like I like to make decisions? And that sometimes gets to be complex. So today I've brought on Dr. Leroy McKenzie Jr. and we're gonna talk about culture, especially about how the leadership, the role leaderships, leadership, the role leaders play in culture and how to sustain that culture once we get it achieved. ⁓ Leroy is a

you

Business consultant, he's a speaker and helps others publish books, kind of get them out of their head and onto paper. So,

I'm excited to have you on board. Leroy, welcome. And to start off with, I've always asked these questions to my audience, but to my speakers. ⁓ What is one way that you have found to honor God in your business?

that's good question. I'll start. Here's the first way that I honored God ⁓ was by the name of my company. The name of my company is JNF Enterprises, LLC.

but the J and F stands for Jesus Never Fails. So that came from that. actually, just the backstory, it came from looking at the ministry of Jesus and how he never failed in anything that he did, of course, in his life. The only two people that he encountered in the Bible that did not ⁓ move with him in his ministry was the

Mm-hmm.

The man who had all the riches, he said, what must I do to be saved? Jesus said, you must give all that you have away. And he walked away. He was like, nah, I'm sorry, I can't do that. And then the second one was the other thief on the cross, the one that said, hey, you know what, if you are who you say you are, then why don't you save us or save yourself from getting down here?

Yes.

You know, so those are only two that I recall, everybody that was in the Bible, that he did not, you know, that he did not impact in such a way that he made their lives better afterwards. So my thing is Jesus never fails. Even with those two, he still never failed because he achieved his assignment on the cross and not only on the cross, but resurrecting one on Sunday.

Absolutely, and it's not Jesus' fault. It's on them for walking away or the issues that they had going on in their heart. And so yes, Jesus does not fail. ⁓ I know I didn't really do it justice, but give us a little background of who you are and why you're coaching and what do you know about business culture. So tell us a little bit about what you do in your present role and how you got there.

Yeah, and here's what I do at JNF. We do three different things they explain to you. One is the business consulting, which is assisting entrepreneurs, leaders and organizations to be able to ⁓ develop their, what I call the four pillars of sustainability. And I think we're going to be talking about a little bit of those. ⁓ But those four pillars, which are mindset, principles, processes and systems.

Having those two, because when you have those four pillars, what it does is it creates clarity. You can't have clarity, you can't eliminate or transform from chaos to clarity without those four pillars. And every organization, every entrepreneur, every leader must have clarity, must have sustainability. And the way that you begin to have that are those four pillars that I just mentioned.

Sure, very good. So as a owner leader, you have a vision of a company. How do you bring that vision to life as far as I want people to know me for being kindhearted or want to know me for being ⁓ economical or speed or good quality? I mean, I know everybody has their own different things, but how do you get that out, out of your head and out to the business?

Well, yeah.

And I think here's the commonality. Here's the principle of just of that, that particular principle of that is you must first have clarity. You must know who you are as an organization, as an entrepreneur, but you also must know why you exist. What is the purpose of your organization? What's the vision? What's the mission? What's the assignment of what you do?

My assignment every day that I tell people is, my assignment is to make people 1 % better each and every day so that they're better by the end of the year than they were at the beginning of the year. And working on those aspects of me personally or them personally, the aspects of their business, individual, know, collected as an organization, but then the different compartments of that organization.

so that you have clarity in the direction that you're going and you know what you're about, know what you're supposed to be doing and why you're there. But then also at the end of the day, making, you should be making your clients better. However that looks for you, whatever they're purchasing from you, they should be better after that than they were before they had the interaction with.

It's the innovation you bring to the world. That's part of what the business is there for, is to bring something good, whether it's a new innovation or it's a cheaper product or more of it or whatever. But yeah, that is your innovation to help those around you. ⁓ So as far as business culture goes, how do you know what's a good culture and what's not a good culture?

Yes, I feel.

Mm-hmm.

⁓

not good.

Yeah, no, I'm just saying, how would you define a poor culture?

Well, your culture is what people may see from you. It's what people may hear from you, what people may think of you when you're not around. I'll give you an example. I'm sure you've heard of Chick-fil-A, right? The company for Chick-fil-A. The culture of Chick-fil-A is that of customer service. It's making sure that

Whenever someone comes into the establishment, they walk away with having an experience that they get, whether it's them simply greeting you when you come in, how are you today, how can I serve you, to the last thing that they may do is, you get everything that you needed? To me, that's an organization, that's a culture, and that's a mindset. Culture is nothing more than your mindset.

of the vision that the entrepreneur has or and of the organization and how it should be and the experience that you want to be able to give, whether it's internal customers or external customers. What's that experience that you want them to be able to have? Do you want them to have a ⁓ great, ⁓ a great experience or do you want them to have, you know, an experience that is, you know, that they just don't, they want to soon forget? And I've been a part of

both kinds of cultures where I just, I lied to you not to, I think I've mentioned I've, was one, a, when I was working in corporate room work, I was working for a company and I literally hated waking up to go to work in the morning. That's not that. I mean, that's not a good culture that I mean, and even me, that's not a good space for me to be able to be in and the way that I was thinking and the way that I was operating because I couldn't be

No.

I couldn't be the best employee that I needed to be. couldn't maximize my productivity with that mindset. So your culture is a mindset first, and then it's a set of principles that you instill in those that work for you, that work with you, and those that you serve. Because those that you serve are part of your culture too, because they believe in what it is they, you know, of why they support you. Most people support, ⁓

for life because of the culture that they created. The experience that they get going in, getting good food, getting good service at a reasonable price. So to me, that's what culture is in creating a good culture.

Sure. Do you think everybody gets it? Because I think sometimes people are...

No.

pressure to produce, whether it's a service or a product, they're pressured to produce and they don't, as owners or managers, I don't know if they always realize that what they're pushing down the road is not creating a good culture. Maybe their morale is down because, now you're working Saturdays because you didn't get it done during the week. Thinking that that's going to get productivity up and it doesn't. It's it's tanks because people have a poor morale and they, they just don't do the work.

Mm-hmm.

⁓ What can we do or how can we look at ourselves, if somebody's listening, to say, really need to produce my product, but I don't know if I have time to work my culture. How do I know where to start there?

Yeah.

That is a good question. And I think it starts with what we mentioned about the mindset, because you have to have the right mindset and want that to be able to see the results that you're to be able to get and have that clarity. But then the second part of that is what I call the principles

my personal value system and your brand value system. Those are your personal value system. Mine are five core values that I, seven core values that I have and that I operate by. It helps me to make decisions that help me to be able to move the, products and services that I offer to people. And then the, for the brand value system, I added three more. had three additional ones and that's your wisdom. That's your vision. That's your uniqueness.

That's your commitment, your consistency, your excellence and operating in excellence and in your accountability. Those are my personal value systems. seven are the same for my personal value and brand value. The last three for the brand is to enlighten, empower and impact. That's to teach people something, to equip people with something and to impact people to want to do something. When I operate from that core and that

Culture when I have to have that culture inside of me first before I then can can show others that I bring on or that I work with or those that that I actually that I actually serve they will then in turn see that from the work that I did do the experience that they gained from from working with with us all of those things get wrapped into to me wrapped into what your culture is and how you're able to

Begin to start having that. The beginning, if you're in a place, and talking to those that are listening to us, if you're in a place where you're not sure about how to get that culture quite heading in the right direction, begin with your brand value system. Begin with your personal value system. You need to develop those seven and 10 core that are non-negotiable to you. And you operate every decision that you make.

comes from those seven to 10 things that you believe that you and your organization are about.

Okay, so if I'm trying to push product out the door and it's not happening, and I feel like there's some tension in the room, it could be a culture issue, is what you're saying.

Mm.

It could be. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It could be.

Okay, okay.

And you keep mentioning mindset. Let's go a little deeper into mindset. what mindset do we need to have to even think about culture?

Well, I think your mindset has to be the, like I said, the vision. What's the vision of yourself, first of all? Why did you start the business? What is the purpose of you wanting to be able to do what it is that you do and having the mission? How do I go about completing the vision that I'm telling those that I serve about? How am I going to go about

giving you the what I call the before, the before, the during and the after. That's it. That's the whole experience. That's the mindset that I have and that I tell entrepreneurs that I tell entrepreneurs that they should have. What do I do in the beginning to be able to create the awareness for them so that they know what you know what's going on? What do I do? What am I doing for those that I'm during when I have you there? If it's an employee, what am I doing?

to create the culture that I tell you that I wanna be able to have. I can tell you, I want that we have a culture all day long. But if I'm not the representation of that culture, if I'm not physically ⁓ implementing the different aspects of the culture that I say that I want, if I want a healthy work environment, then I have to create the healthy work environment. And I go about creating the healthy work environment by saying, okay,

I'm going to be able to do these things. I'm going to hold people accountable. I'm going to be respectful. I'm going to operate in excellence. And not only holding myself to that, but I'm holding everyone that comes to work for my organization to that same standard. can't hold ⁓ someone that works for me to a standard that I can't even hold to myself. And when there is tension, like you said, if there's tension between, you know, two

to employees or there's managers and executives that disagree or can't seem to get along, it's like, no, okay, feelings aside, what are we here for? What are we doing? We have to always be pointing to the vision and the mission and having those core values, those core principles in the front of our mind. That should be the mindset that we must possess and that we have to have.

if we're going to be successful in creating the culture there.

Okay. What about the difference between getting it done versus doing it right? Bandages versus fixing a problem correctly. Is that a cultural thing or is that just something that happens?

No, no, it's not something that happens. think that's not just a cultural thing. I think that's more leadership thing. when you are leaders, leaders dictate culture. had a manager, one of my supervisors years ago, he told us this. He said, people don't leave jobs, they leave managers. And he was talking about culture.

heard that.

that we as supervisors, managers, leaders, that we create. And if we create a toxic culture, most people don't want to be there. I've found that some people, stay just because they need to the paycheck and they don't have an alternative. But the majority of the people will say, you know what, I can find another job, but it's just not worth my sanity. It's not worth me being in a culture that is not healthy for me.

So I think what you asked, I think it's not just a culture thing. I think that's a leadership thing to me, also a leadership.

Okay, I have seen that because I've seen that in some places where the leaders, the supervisors or whatever, there's something wrong and they, I've seen.

making a product, a pontoon boat. There's a dent in the side that they couldn't quite get out. Instead of ripping the panel out, they actually put a sticker over it. I'm like, are you kidding me? They put a sticker over it, a cool sticker, you know? was like, wow. And that really sends a message to everybody else. like, would that work? I don't really like that. Well, ask the supervisor. Oh, he'll let anything go. And that was the culture. They'll let anything go.

Wow. Wow. Yes.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yep.

I don't know where they are today. That's been a long time ago. But that's, you're right. The leadership drives the culture as far as what they accept. If they're going to sliding by or if they want things to be fixed correctly.

Yeah.

Yeah, and unfortunately, when you have leaders, if you want to call it the leaders that allow that type of mindset and that type of mentality, what will happen is that filters down to those that were all I don't have to worry about it. They didn't, you know, and what that does is that impacts the the the brand is going to impact the organization as a whole because that

that standard of excellence isn't there. And when you operate with mediocrity or that's acceptable, what it does is people, those that you serve begin to say, man, this product isn't as good as I thought it was. by the time it gets to you, that product gets to those that that company serves, it's gonna be an inferior product.

And then you lose them because they're going to go somewhere else that they're able to get a better promise.

So what are some, what you think are some of the top characteristics of good leaders in how they try to create a good culture? What are some of the top things that you see in the businesses you worked with?

I'll give it to you in the acronym that I use and it's right there in the word leader. Here's what a leader is. Here's the characteristics that I've found. Someone who listens and learns, someone who is empowering, which means to teach someone or equip someone with something, someone who assists and who is authentic, someone who develops, someone who executes.

Okay.

And someone who gets results, as you mentioned, getting the results, do they get the results? Though, if you want to define, if you want to see if judge or not judge, but if you want to say whether or someone is a good leader, or if you want to look at within yourself and say, are you a good leader? Ask yourself, are you those characteristics that I just made? Do you listen and learn? Do you empower? Are you authentic? Do you develop? Do you execute? And do you get the results?

That's it for me.

No, that's

good. That's a lot of good stuff there. So what's one practical example that we could look at that would help us turn our company a little bit better culture today? From today to tomorrow, that 1 % better. What's one thing that we could practically apply today?

Yeah, here's the first thing. ⁓ I think that you want to start the one thing that you could start with today is doing what I call think, I call it think through it, which is where you want to actually ⁓ observe. You want to ⁓ analyze. You want to, ⁓ what is the other that I had? You want to observe, you want to analyze and you want to actually evaluate.

And once you evaluate, then you execute. When you start with, just start with that. Just start with those observe, take an observation of, of your organization. Analyze it. See, look at the different, your different, ⁓ the different departments that you have in your business and see which ones, ⁓ are they working well? Are they, do they do things well? Or what are the things that they may not be doing well? And then you want to evaluate.

Give them an evaluation. mean, and you have to be willing to ⁓ give a solid evaluation and not like you were saying with the one that you're, yeah, well, we just put this over that. No, you have to do a serious evaluation of your organization and be honest about it. And then you have to execute. You have to develop a strategy in order to be able to get it to where it is, get the results that you want and to be able to create the culture that you want.

and start with saying, okay, here's the culture that I want. How do I, then you go through those steps there and you'll be able to say, okay, I either have it, I have the culture already or here are the parts of the things that I can do to create the culture that I want to build.

Okay, that makes sense. Basically sit back and look, look, observe. ⁓ I know for the Toyota production system, they call that doing a Gemba walk, where you basically go out on the floor and you observe what's going on. And that's essentially what you're gonna do with your business. You're gonna go out, whether you go out on the floor, just sit back and just observe all that was happening. You can look at probably turnover rate versus people staying.

that make sense?

Mm-hmm.

If you have a high turnover rate, why? Ask why. Very good. Yep. There's always a reason why. You're right. ⁓ So how can my audience find out more about you if they wanted to hire you or work with you or find out more of your materials? Where can they find you?

Yep, there's a reason why. Yeah.

Sure, they can connect with me through the fastest quickest way is through Linktree, which is the HTTP, ⁓ colon forward slash forward slash link, L-I-N-K-T-R dot E-E forward slash JNF enterprise that has everything on it as far as like my social media handles, because I'm on LinkedIn, of course I'm on Facebook, on Instagram, on TikTok, all of those platforms, our YouTube channel,

I have a YouTube channel that is for organizations, that is for leaders, that is ⁓ for entrepreneurs. I create content every single day ⁓ except for the weekends, but I create content for them to be able to talk about that, making them that 1 % better. So they can go there, check out all of the content there as well, in addition to connecting with me. My email is JNF Enterprises.

Okay.

LLC at gmail.com they can connect with me there as well and then all of my other information they can DM me or how they want to connect with me as well.

Okay, and we'll put all those in the show notes in case you're taking notes and you just ran that through and you're lost. So we'll put all that in the show notes. You've talked about a lot of good things today. What is one challenge you'd like to leave with my listeners to walk away with for today?

Okay.

Okay.

Is that one challenge?

Yeah.

Here's what I will challenge every listeners to do. And it has to do with ⁓ this week. What I've been focusing on this week is talking about ⁓ shifting and being able to understand when to shift or not to shift and how to be able to do what I was talking about as far as analyzing and everything like that. To be able to know if you want to really understand

your organization and you want to take your organization to the next level. Make sure that you take the time to be able to truly understand your brand and take that brand with the right mindset and the right principles. When you're grounded in those, I believe that you will be successful. And as I say, I say keep the doors open.

And that's what that's my goal with every entrepreneur. I want you to be able to keep the doors open. Having the right culture keeps the doors open. Understand that. If you don't get anything else that we say today, understand that having the right culture keeps the doors.

Very good, Leroy, keep the doors open by having a good culture, that's great. And ⁓ your next steps friends is to put into practice what you've heard. One, check the show notes for the links and sites to contact Leroy some more and sign up for the newsletter because it's a great way to be inspired and to challenge spiritually. And we are going to be having a verse of the week being put into our weekly email. So be challenged by that and.

That's gonna be a great thing to do. So sign up for the emails weekly. And friends, that's all I have for now. Trust you've been inspired to redeem your business, redeem your time, buy it back and walk worthy of God's great name. Bye for now.

Thanks again for having me.