Building a powerful personal brand as a leader isn't just about what you say online; it's about the culture you create within your organisation. When your team feels seen, valued, and connected to a larger purpose, that positive culture becomes your most significant competitive advantage.
But how do you move from simply having values on a poster to truly living them? In this episode, I talk with my friend and best selling author of 'Culture Pays', Margaret Brown, a leadership expert with 35 years of experience, about the art and science of building a culture that pays.
We explored several key areas during our conversation:
✳️ The Three Pillars of Leadership: Margaret explained that successful leadership requires a balance of business acumen, technical excellence, and-the often-neglected pillar-values and behaviours. We discussed why the EQ side of leadership is the true differentiator that separates thriving organisations from the rest.
✳️ The Real Cost of a Bad Culture: We looked at the hard numbers behind employee disengagement. With "quiet quitting" costing the global economy an estimated $8.9 trillion, it's clear that culture has a direct impact on the bottom line. Margaret shared a case study of how one company reduced its attrition rate from 12% to under 1% by focusing on its culture.
✳️ A Framework for Transformation: Margaret introduced her "Five Ls" of leadership-Listen, Learn, Lead, Leverage, and Live by your values. This model provides a practical process for leaders who want to understand the blockers in their organisation and inspire their teams to do their best work.
Here are three actions you can take this week based on our discussion:
✳️ Conduct a Listening Tour: Don't wait for formal surveys. Actively seek feedback from your employees, partners, and stakeholders. Ask them what's holding them back and what they need to succeed.
✳️ Practice Visible Leadership: Find small but consistent ways to connect with your team and show you care. It could be as simple as knowing the name of the person who brings the coffee or starting a "Good News Monday" meeting to celebrate weekly wins.
✳️ Audit Your Values: Look at your official company values and then honestly assess whether they are reflected in the daily experiences of your team. If there's a gap, start a conversation about how to close it.
More about Margaret Brown : https://www.margaretbrownconsulting.com/free-chapter/
---
(00:00) Introduction
(01:42) Welcome Margaret Brown
(03:04) Are Leaders Born or Made?
(06:51) The Three Pillars of Leadership
(10:07) Company Culture and Purpose
(13:31) Leading with Vision and Purpose
(17:10) Living Your Company Values
(21:34) Belonging in a Post-Pandemic World
(24:12) The Staggering Cost of 'Quiet Quitting'
(28:58) The Importance of Visible Leadership
(33:26) Connecting with Margaret and Her Book 'Culture Pays'
(35:00) Conclusion
----
Get your copy of my Personal Brand Business Blueprint
It's the FREE roadmap to starting, scaling or just fixing your expert business.
----
Follow on Instagram and Twitter @bobgentle
Join the Amplify Insiders Facebook Community : www.amplifyme.agency/insiders
Please take a second to rate this show in Apple Podcasts. ❤ It will mean a lot to me.
Welcome to Building your Leader Brand. Today on the show, Bob is speaking with Margaret Brown. We're all work in progress. And one thing I've noticed with the best leaders I work with, none of them think they're great leaders. They all want to get better. And without exception, over 35 years, all the people I've met who don't think they need any training or coaching are always the ones that most do.
(:Hi there, and welcome back to Building a Leader Brand. My name is Bob Gentle, and every week I speak with incredible people who share their secrets to building, marketing, and monetizing their expertise and the mindset you need for your business to grow and thrive. If you're new to the show, then while you still have whatever device that is in your hand, stop, take a deep breath, look around, and then look for the Follow or Subscribe button. Don't move on until you've done that. Margaret and I will wait. If you do enjoy shows like this, you will also love the Personal Brand business Roadmap. 100% free as a gift from me. Just visit AmplifyMe. Agency/roadmap. And I say that at the beginning because you might not reach the end. So this week, I am thrilled. I say this every week, but I'm more thrilled than normal to welcome my friend. And I say this every week as well. But I've known Margaret probably longer than I've known anyone else in business. And she's written a book, and I'm excited to help her spread word about it. Leaders and leadership. Margaret's taught me more about this than anybody I've ever met.
(:Margaret Brown, welcome to the show.
(:Thank you, Bob. Well, that's quite an introduction. Thank you so much. It's a real honour to be on your podcast. I've listened to so many, and you have so many fantastic guests. I'm honoured to be one of those now. Thank you.
(:Well, when I say I'm excited to have you here, there was a world before Bob Gentle and personal branding and leadership branding, where I was essentially running a little digital agency. You weren't a very few people in my current ecosystem who know that version of me. And when I say I've learned a lot about leadership through working with you, I've been around your work for a very long time, and I've met lots of people in leadership. Only a few of those are natural-born leaders and carry themselves around that ecosystem of leaders like they genuinely belong there. And you're near the top of a very short list there. And when I saw you'd written this book, I was really excited. I haven't got a full copy of it yet because it's not quite published yet, but I've got the table of contents printed out in front of me, and we're going to be spending some time on it. But for the listener who's meeting Margaret Brown for the very first time, can you maybe just give us a little bit of orientation Who are you? What do you do? Who do you do it for? And a bit of background.
(:Yes, sure. Well, thank you so much. I have been working in leadership development and organisational development for around 35 years, which has flown by the way. I've had the privilege of working all over the world at every level of leadership, from executive leadership, right through to first-line supervisor, and then even going wider into the organisation to work with employees, to have them buying into the corporate vision, the corporate values, and so on. So I've literally worked with thousands of people. And it's interesting, Bob, that you say that some people are just innately great leaders. You said something to that effect at the beginning. And I'm often asked, are leaders born or made? And I think it's a little bit of both. I mean, there's no doubt in my mind that some people are innately born to lead. You see it in children who are naturally kind and inquisitive and able to get people to follow them. So it's obviously an easier journey for people like that. But I also believe that people, even who are very introverted or maybe very logical and analytical in their thinking, can adopt the leadership behaviours that engage people fully and inspire them to give their best.
(:Those are what we call learned behaviours. For people like that, it's probably a little bit harder and it's a little bit more awkward for them to adopt those inspirations charismatic behaviours, but it can be done. That's what my book's all about. My book is not a theory book. It's very much about, in fact, the strapline is how to inspire, engage, and retain great people for a competitive advantage. I'll come to the numbers side in a moment because there emphatically is a bottom line impact on great leadership and creating a culture that really does pay, hence the title. This book is full of case studies. It's full of real-life stories and anecdotes of where organisations have gone through a transformation process and how it's benefited them, including the people at the very top, not just the wider organisation. It's divided into... I've got a model. It's called the leadership model. It's basically five steps. It's called my five Ls. It's five steps to transformational leader. And whilst leadership isn't a process, I work with a lot of people who are analytical and logical and they like a process. And when I analyse everything I did, and everything I do is bespoke, and nothing is off the shelf, it did actually follow a process.
(:And I found that the first thing that it starts with is listening. So whether that's me listening to my clients, what's concerning them, what's concerning them in their organisation, what are their pain points, it's up to me to listen to what those are so I can figure out the best way of addressing that. And then it's about those leaders with myself listening listening to all their stakeholders. What are the blockers for their employees? What's holding them back from doing their best work? So when I really dived in deep to how we work to build great cultures where people stay and others clamour to work, it actually does have a process that starts with listening. And then learning is the second L. What do we learn from the feedback we've heard? And what self-learning do we have to do to become great leaders? So this book is packed with action tips in every single section of these five Ls, how to become a better listener. What learning do we need to do about ourselves to be great leaders? Because most leadership is learned behaviours. I take it as a given that my clients know exactly how to run their organisations.
(:And I believe that you have to have three key areas in equal balance. So one of those is business acumen. So that's everything about running your business in terms of commercial, NICE, all the regulatory aspects of your business. Without those things, your business would fail. I take it as read that my clients are experts in that respect because they're all very intelligent people. The second aspect is their technical excellence. That's basically what the organisation is there to do. Whether that's making cupcakes, selling mortgages, drilling for oil, that's the bedrock of what you do. I Then I take it as read that my clients have that sorted. Both those things are based largely on IQ. They're measurable, they're based on logic, analytical thinking, and most of my leaders Excel at those things. I don't need to deal with that. They know how to do that. The other thing that needs to be in with equal balance is values and behaviours. And that's the bit that's either neglected or possibly given lip service to Not with any malintent, because most people are just unaware of how huge the impact is on the business of getting that piece right.
(:But it's not easy. It's actually quite simple, but it's not simplistic. And it's because it's not an exacting science. Leadership really is an art. You're dealing with a constantly moving target. You're dealing with people who are fickle, they're complex. You're dealing with different opinions, different beliefs, backgrounds, generational expectations. It's not a measurable science in the way that the technical and business acumen is. That's very much the EQ side of it. There's a lot of right-brain involvement there. As I say, we have to actually learn some of these EQ type behaviours, but it is the differentiator because in all my client organisations, they have competitors. They all have access to the same potential employee base. They all have to the same infrastructure. They all have the same political forces working for or against them. So what sets them apart? And there's more and more research now that shows... I mean, Porter Noveli did a really interesting piece of research to the Harvard Business Review, which found that 93% of employees want to work for a purpose-led organisation, both for profit-led. Now, that's not to say that profit isn't critical. Of course it is. It goes without saying.
(:But the profit should be the result of excellence in what you do. And excellence is not just about the products that you're producing or the service that you provide, but it's the culture that you create as well, and that is the differentiator. So that's what we will time about, and I'm very, very passionate about it. I believe we're facing a major global leadership crisis. And while my book is not about political leadership, we are seeing in real time the effect of different styles of leadership on society. My focus is much more about business leadership because business leaders have complete control of the culture they create in their organisations.
(:It's really interesting. As I'm listening to you, there's quite a few things were coming up. I think company culture is one of these things that In many organisations, it feels like a bit of a cliché. And yet you walk into some organisations, people are running around with energy and enthusiasm. They feel like they're on a mission. Everybody that seems to be motivated and pulling in the same direction. These are unicorns. They feel like unicorns, and they're very special when you experience them. It's very easy to think that it's down to management processes or or it's down to putting corporate values on the wall, or it's just down to create products and services or a brand. It probably is all of those things. But there's a difference between being a leader and leading. You use the metaphor of leadership is largely is art as much as it is science. Well, depending on your artistic discipline, if you're an artist, and I know you're an artist, You have a palate. You get to know how to work your materials. You get to know how to use your brushes. You know what surfaces you like to paint on.
(:If you're a musician, you learn your instrument, you learn to read music. You understand how your instrument sits within the context of the orchestra. As leaders, a lot of the time we're just thrown into being in charge, not realising we have an orchestra we need to learn how to play. And not only that, we have a role within that organisation that's visible. And if the whole organisation is going to play, there's expectations on me. I need to integrate. I need to bring value. It's often missing. And I think that's what we see in these unicorn organisations. Similarly, the purpose component. We see a lot of polarisation in the world at the moment. And that, I think, is putting a strain on some organisations, and less so in Europe, but almost certainly in America, because organisations feel like they need to be responding to what they see in the world. And how do they do that? They need to pick a side. Almost doesn't matter which side they pick. Obviously, to me, it does. To you, it does. And to probably the demographic in that organisation, it probably does. But when we're talking about purpose, I think it's purpose that ultimately shaped culture.
(:A lot of leaders, when they're promoted because of their technical ability, that wasn't really on their radar. The majority of that palate wasn't on their radar. Much like an athlete, there's the cliché hard work beats talent where talent doesn't work. If you've got The natural talent as a leader, great. But how do you train these EQ things? How do you train people to perhaps express their purpose? What motivates them to be visible leaders and not just tell people what to do, but perhaps send these signals down through an organisation that tells it, This is what I care about. This is what I stand for. And this is what I think we mean. If you agree, let's go.
(:Gosh, there's so much in there, Bob. I know.
(:I'm sorry.
(:We could usually do a five-hour podcast here, but it's actually perfect because I mentioned my first two Ls of my model are listen and then learn. The next bit is lead. Now we've learned what everything in our organisation is about, how are we leading with purpose and vision? And most organisations will have nice vision statements and value statements on their walls. I spend a long time interviewing employees in focus groups, one-to-ones, through surveys, et cetera. I always ask them, What do you think about your company's vision statement? I almost never get a positive response. It's just a poster campaign. We need to be seen to have one. Their vision is just about making money and achieving their bonuses. It can be really quite vitriolic, but this is not just opinions, this is data. The leaders need to know this. People do want to believe that part of something special. In fact, I think the best example I'm old enough to remember when Neil Armstrong took his first step on the moon, but President Kennedy at the time had this massive vision around space exploration that they would put a man on the moon and bring him back to Earth alive.
(:The whole country was galvanised into that vision to the point when there were some dignitaries visiting NASA, and they asked this janitor, What are you doing here? And I'm helping to put a man on the moon. Leaders can really get behind that and mean it and weave it into conversations. I've worked with some IT people who are very analytical and detail-focused. I'm the complete opposite. I'm a big picture thinker. And they just don't get that at all because part of my objective with my clients is to get everyone to buy into the vision. I'll come back to how they do it that later. But highly detailed analytical people It's a difficult thing for them to grasp anyway. So if we just have a conversation with everybody about, because you're doing such a great job of keeping these immaculate records and do this incredible high-performing coding, that's exactly how we are going to be the company that stands out from the rest and achieves, insert vision statement here. So it's weaving it into conversations rather than standing up at town hall meetings and going through this month's numbers. Everyone's eyes are glazing over because that's what they hear.
(:They honestly believe that it's all about the money. So again, a leader can learn to do this. And this is why the listening and the learning part of my model is so critical. So what I do once I've gathered all this feedback, I work with the leadership team, and we have vast amounts of feedback. You need a lot to really make the impact. If I just had maybe five or six trends and say, well, there's quite a lot of feedback around silos, or there's quite a lot of feedback about leaders. They'll sit there comfortably and say, yeah, it doesn't really hit them. I'm very reluctant to use the F word when I start with leadership teams. I mean feel. We don't talk about how people are feeling. They like numbers, they like data to begin with. But when they see the vast amount of feedback, which is around the walls on posters, they really do feel it. Oh, my goodness, this is what people actually think about working here. This is what they think about our vision, because they do just see it as a statement. More so the values, which, by the way, is L number 5, living by your values.
(:We have these value statements on the walls as well, and nobody buys into them. Now, when I say nobody, I'm talking largely in corporate. Some of the smaller companies, it's much easier to embed these values and visibly live by them. So we look at all this feedback and I say, How does this The feedback sit against these value statements, which are beautifully written. It might be words like, We treat our people with dignity and respect. Our people are our greatest asset. The well-being of our employees is paramount, or whatever. The feedback never backs up those value statements. This is where the EQ starts to kick in a little bit because there's a bit of real feeling there. There's a bit of impact. Gosh, we actually do need to do something about this. It's a very, very powerful process Process. I said at the beginning, it's simple, but it's not easy, and nor is it simplistic. A lot of my leadership clients have MBAs. They've been on all... Or we've been on these things before. If it's a leadership off-site. Well, I know that, and I'm not here to preach the obvious. We know that we need to lead with values and purpose, et cetera, but what are we actually doing?
(:I'll maybe pick one of their value statements, We treat people with respect. Do you know the name of the guy that brought the coffee in there just now? If this is in their boardroom. And they maybe shift them. I said, Well, that guy's called Doug. This is a real case study, by the way. That guy's called Doug. He's one of the most professional people in this organisation, in my opinion. He keeps the coffee area immaculately clean. He takes pride in his work. He's always got a smile for everybody. He peeped through the glass just now just to check it was okay for him to bring in the coffee. And he brought the cups in really quietly, didn't rattle them around. Now, do you think he feels he's being treated with dignity and respect, and he's not even offered the courtesy of a good morning, How are you, Doug? These simple things are huge, and that applies in any relationship. A piece of advice I give to leaders and people who are dealing with customers, customer-facing employees, I say, Just imagine all your people and your customers have a tattoo across their forehead saying, Make me feel special.
(:And just smiling and Good morning, says, I see you and you matter. And that takes nothing. You don't have to invest vast sums of money in a comprehensive initiative to really embed this culture. I mean, a lot of organisations will need that, especially the bigger ones. They do need help and support. There's no doubt about that. And certainly the part that I play in gathering all this feedback, I'm more importantly, facilitating them through accepting the feedback. So in these events, that's my objective is to help these leaders to really accept the feedback. Actually, I'm watching them how they respond to it. So if they're getting upset, actually, that's a good thing. And I feel that my heart's usually going because I just want to give them a big hug and say, Look, it's going to be okay, but I can't. We have to get full acceptance. Those are the people that will drive it and say, This is not good. We have to do something about this. If they roll their eyes and say, Well, they've got a job. What else do they want? Well, I'm sorry. You're now in my sights because this is such a damaging behaviour.
(:And then you wonder why you've got high attrition. I did say in the strapp one in my book, Culture Pays and you do this for a competitive advantage. There is a bottom line impact of this So I worked with one organisation in the oil and gas sector, one of the medium-sized companies. And when I started working with them, their attrition rate was sitting around 12 %. And within a three-year period, we got that to under one %. So we quote papers on that, present to them at Offshore Europe, which is one of the biggest energy events in the global calendar. And they had people queuing up to work at the recruitment fairs to work for them. So it emphatically does. It's not just touchy-feely. A lot of it's actually kicky-punchy, as one of my client, HR directors said, because you're having to have tough conversations sometimes with people that are not prepared to work in this this positive culture that benefits everybody?
(:It's really interesting. Another thing that I want to talk about is belonging and purpose. They go hand in hand. We're moving into a world that's, obviously, it's vaguely volatile at the moment. That's perhaps a temporary thing. But what's permanent is we live in a post-pandemic world where we may not meet our direct reports or senior leadership team in person ever. People are feeling increasingly commoditized. They're line items on a spreadsheet, and they don't feel, a lot of the time, like they belong to part of a corporate family, if you like. They don't feel like they're aligned with the mission or the purpose. Where all that's true, you're going to see a high attrition, as you described there, because When people are commodities, they'll treat their role as a commodity and they'll move for a little bit of money or slightly better benefits. When people feel like they are part of the DNA of an organisation, where it feels like family, where they feel that they're respected and seen and valued, and that they're aligned with the purpose of an organisation, and that the organisation has a purpose, they no longer feel commoditized. This is where where the culture pays aspect comes in.
(:This is a challenge because an awful lot of people in very senior leadership roles are there because of their technocratic abilities. They come up through the 1950s, 1960s legacy leadership programmes. What you're describing is something completely different. What I'm curious to hear from you, you mentioned a lot of the time there's resistance. I'm willing to bet there's a lot of anger comes up because it holds a mirror up to people's leadership. If you've been transactional in your leadership, the numbers are going to show this. And a lot of the time, this is identity work. And what I wonder is, from a very senior board level, if we want this to work, then our KPIs and our selections need to be focused around, can people tolerate that mirror? Can they learn? Can they embrace identity shift? Can they embrace personal growth? Because if they can't, they're not equipped for leadership in the way you describe it.
(:That's absolutely right. I've met a lot of executive leaders who just think it's a lot of weak that they regard that as soft leadership. So numbers talk. And one of the things I should mention is when I'm speaking to employees and running surveys, one of the questions I always ask is, Have you ever considered leaving this company for reasons other than unavoidable personal circumstances? And normally more than 50 % say yes. Their leaders don't know that. So what's the actual cost to the organisation of this? It's called quiet quitting. And every year, Gallup runs an employee survey. They interview 2 million people and produce a very, very comprehensive survey of the data. And Last year in 2024, 25, the survey's return showed that the cost of quiet quitting, which is disengaged people, they're not making a noise, they're just doing what they have to do to get paid. They're not going the extra mile, they don't have the leaders back, but they're doing their job. They're doing an okay job. It costs the global economy $8. 9 trillion or 9% of global GDP. Now, when you put that number up to leadership team, so I set the scene with lots of empathy.
(:I know they're very busy. I get that. They might be thinking, Is this good use of my time? I've been on these things before. They don't necessarily make a difference. I genuinely get that. I want to assure them I'll do everything I can to make sure it's completely relevant. It's not going to be a waste of their time. I start with the numbers. So it's empathy first then numbers. So when you put that number up, you do see quite a few eyes opening, wow, 8. 9 trillion. How can that be? So the cost of an individual quitting the company is average about 150 % of that person's salary in costs. If it's a more senior person, it's about 210 % of their salary. And again, these are numbers, okay, that's interesting. And I say, now let's look at how your numbers in this company compare. I asked this question to your people, have you ever considered leaving this company for reasons other than unavoidable personal circumstances? And up comes their number, it might be 51 %, 57 %, which is exactly in line with the global statistics. You are part of that shocking 8. 9 trillion.
(:And here's your opportunity, because the key is the word quiet. We don't know why they're thinking of leaving or why they're not being productive. But now we've spoken to all of you, You've made the commitment to listen to what people are saying, and we're going to be looking at all that feedback to see what we can learn from it. Then that's how we then go out. I should have said the fourth L is leverage, by the way. We've done listen, we've done learn. We're now going to lead with purpose. We really look at what our vision is. The profits are a result of having a great culture where people are productive, they have your back, they're bought in, they're doing their best work, they're coming up with ideas and knowing that will be heard. That, again, has a bottom line impact. So the fourth L is leverage, is how do we get the best out of people? How do we know what they need? Have they got the tools they need? Have they got the support they need? Have they been developed their full potential? Where are the creative people? Where are the analytical people?
(:And are we using them to the best of our advantage? And that goes into the final L, which is really living by our values. So none of these are stand-alone Ls. Those five Ls, they do build on each other. But it's the same with my book, you can dip in anywhere and get value from it. Say, Well, I'm not a great listener, so where are the action tips to make me become a better listener? And I'm very transparent here. I know with my passion and enthusiasm as in that sometimes I know I'm not listening properly. I am waiting for my, oh, I thought it was something really exciting to say. So I have to step back and say, Come on, Margaret, if you really are listening and you're fully deeply listening, put that thought aside, because Bob might have something even more important to say. They might even have a better idea. So we're all work in progress. And one thing I've noticed with the best leaders I work with, none of them think they're great leaders. They all want to get better. Out of exception, over 35 years, all the people I've met who don't think they need any training or coaching are always the ones that most do.
(:So they don't read books like this. I know that the people who buy this book are already good leaders. They've got great intentions. They might not be getting everything right. They might not know what's missing in their organisation, but they want to get it right. And those are wonderful people to work with. I forgot what your question was, Bob.
(:It actually doesn't matter I think it was really all about how can we, as very senior leaders, really select for the qualities that are going to allow people to thrive as leaders. And there's another aspect to this, which is visible leadership. That it's one thing that you might have incredible values. You might be a leader that has an amazing vision and is purpose-driven. But if that doesn't trickle through your organisation, if people don't know, then you have a problem. You may as well not. You may as well be transactional. This is where a lot of people struggle is. It's like the math teacher used to say, You need to show your workings. You can't just have these values and have this purpose and not express yourself. Because if I know that you get up in the morning with an enthusiasm for a company purpose, then I'm going to feel very differently about being part of your organisation. Leadership these days, particularly with these distributed organisation, is something that almost needs to be done in public. It's not about lines of reporting anymore. I think you need to think with a mindset of, I don't just have direct reports and employees, I have an audience.
(:I think that's where your work and my work intersect very, very nicely.
(:Well, if I could jump in there Bob, you're 100% right. It's obviously a bigger challenge with big organisations, global organisations. When we have all this feedback, the rest of the workshop, which is normally a couple of days, two or three days, is what do we do with this? They work on identifying the trends, and there's normally between seven and 10 clear trends supported by hundreds of comments. So one of them often is invisible leadership. I ask the question directly, how would you describe the style of leadership in this organisation? I'll get comments like, It's invisible style, or they sit in their ivory terror, they haven't a clue what's going on. And if you've ever watched the programme Undercover Boss, which is I'm not really a reality TV fan, but that is one I recommend all leaders watch. As an eye opener when the chief executive goes undercover, disguised, and works with frontline people, and they really see what it's like out there in the real world, trying to do their jobs.
(:If I could jump in, there's one thing I want to say because the natural consequence of what you described is to hire an internal communications person. This is a terrible idea. It's a nice function. It's worth having, but it's not a replacement for building some confidence and building some communication skills and perhaps embracing a little bit of technology and going through the fiery hell of imposter syndrome and comparison and all of these things.
(:Well, that's it. For many leaders, all that stuff It was quite awkward to them. For the workshop, they'll say things like, Well, we don't have time to go on walk about. We're dealing with multi-billion dollar budgets and things. I would argue you don't have time not to, but I could stand and tell them that. It's the employee feedback that really impacts them so hard to think, Okay, we need to figure this out. I worked with one company where it was actually a professional services organisation, a big one, and this managing partner said, Every Monday, he does a thing called the Good News Monday. The whole organisation from their different locations dial in for 20 minutes. And all it's about is him telling them all the great things they did last week, great feedback that they've had from clients. He gives the other partners the opportunity to do the same. And that's all it is. Just share great feedback, what they appreciate, and they start the week with a great feeling. So they're connecting, they're using the technology to do these check-ins. 20 minutes is nothing. It costs him absolutely nothing to do that. So with the feedback on the walls and the values It's been very visible as well.
(:I'm very conscious of time, Bob. I could speak about this forever. I really could.
(:Let's wrap things up a little bit, and I'm going to have you back once the book is launched and it's had a little bit of time to get some legs and you've had some theme back.
(:All these stories are in the book, by the way. All these anecdotes and how-tos are in the book for those people that think maybe we need to pay attention to culture more.
(:Remind people what the book is called. Full title.
(:It's It's called Culture Pays: How to Inspire, Engage, and Retain Great People for a Competitive Advantage.
(:I think there are many other culture books, but this one should be yours. I would honestly advocate for Margaret as someone you should pay attention to very wholeheartedly. Margaret, if people weren't getting closer to you, if they want to find out more about your work, how can they do that?
(:They can find me on LinkedIn. Margaret Brown, B-A-Ons on LinkedIn. That's probably the easiest way to connect.
(:And the website? Because I believe people can get a chapter of your book.
(:They can. Margaretbraunconsulting. Com, and there's a download for a preview, which is completely free, just to give you a flavour of how the book is structured. It launches on the 29th of January.
(:Awesome.
(:I'm very excited I like that.
(:Well, I can't wait to read it. Hopefully, people listening are rethinking how they think about culture. Certainly, I am. Margaret, this has been a lot of fun. I've really enjoyed it. You have outdone yourself as a podcast guest. I've hard spoken, which is very rare. Probably not your experience. But thank you so much for your time.
(:No, thank you. I've loved it, and I'm sure we could talk for several hours yet. I love the subject.
(:That does bring us to the end of another episode. For you at home listening, thank you very much. You got this far. Well done. If you did enjoy this, you will love the personal brand business roadmap. Fifty pages. They're very easy pages of everything you need to start, scale, or fix your expert business. Again, five star reviews. That's five. If you're on video, I'm holding my hand up. Like the fingers on your hand. I joke about this quite often, but it does make a massive difference to the discoverability of the show. So it really is something I'm genuinely grateful for. And thank you for listening, and see you next time.