Business leadership and culture expert Paul Boomer joins Dennis Collins and Leah Bumphry to discuss how to recognize and transform dysfunctional workplace culture into a high-performing environment.

Hello, everyone.

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Connect and Convert,

where we share insider secrets to small business owners on how to

make your sales grow like lightning.

We have a very special follow up episode.

You may have seen our episode of with Paul Boomer, a conversation with Paul Boomer.

We're going to do part two.

But first of all, let me introduce myself.

I'm Dennis Collins, and my co host is Hi, Leah

Bumfrey from Sunny Saskatoon.

Hi, I like that, Sunny Saskatoon.

I'll bet I have more sun here than you have, though.

Oh

We, yeah, this time of

year for sure.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

So welcome back.

We had an enjoyable, productive conversation with Paul Boomer.

Now, Paul Boomer, let me give you, he's got one of the longest

titles in the world, but I loved reading every bit of it.

It's a good one.

It's employee and leadership optimization, company culture advisor,

wizard of ads, managing partner.

How about that?

And he deserves every bit of that and more.

Okay.

Paul is, someone that I've known for several decades.

Leah, I think you probably just met him recently, but he is a true subject matter

expert on business leadership and culture.

And if you, don't believe me, go to wizardofads.

org.

And when you see a class with his name on it, Take it.

Take it.

It will transform the way you think about leadership and culture.

Okay?

To add to his accolades, one more accolade, hopefully the next time

we interview Paul, will be author.

Yes.

Yes,

that's right.

He is working on his book and I'm excited to read that.

But you know what, anybody who teaches at the Academy, anybody

who starts dipping their toes into writing, specific to small business.

It always makes me think of Wizard Academy, the fact that

they sponsor our podcast.

They do.

I they all think small business is what's important.

And just, if you go onto the website and check out some of the

courses, Paul's included, wow.

It is just, what you need to learn is there.

Couldn't agree more.

I have participated in that class and it changed a lot of my old views

for 153 some years that I've held on.

Yeah, it's, going to be 154 soon.

So anyway two other things I want to mention about Paul.

He has two certifications that are very unique.

Most people have heard of the Myers Briggs.

Survey.

Guess what?

He is certified to facilitate a Myers-Briggs survey.

And even more important, he is a certified Leadership circle, facilitator.

And I'm gonna let him tell you about both of those during our chat.

But for now, he's a friend, he's a colleague, but most

importantly Leah, he produces this.

Podcast.

Can you believe it?

Thank goodness.

Otherwise, what would we

do?

Yeah.

We would do nothing because we would be floundering around

on the ocean of uncertainty.

We would have no idea.

So we want to thank him for that.

But today he is our guest and this is part two.

If you didn't see part one, you got to go back and pick up part one.

Okay.

Because part one was about leadership.

But today.

We're going to focus on business culture.

Now, are you there, Boomer?

We don't see you.

Hello, Paul Boomer.

Did he go out for a cup of coffee?

There

he comes.

He's making a grand entrance.

I love it.

I love it,

Paul.

Have some fun.

A dramatic reveal.

Yes.

Last time we spoke about the fact that you're a husband, a father, and we talked

a little bit about your personal story.

Do you want to share that again?

Paul M. Boomer: Sure.

Well, which part of it, but I'll, so there's so many things.

Yeah, there

are.

But you mentioned your wife and your your family, and that was, a nice.

Paul M. Boomer: Yeah.

So I'll go back to the previous episode and you asked me what,

why am I doing this thing?

It it goes down to my life experiences and for whatever reason was in special

education, which is not easy when you're being bullied and, such and

in a very large school, you And then you find yourself a lot of times

being in leadership positions, and you're like, why am I don't get it.

And I've never understood why I was put in so many leadership,

positions during my, education.

And then, unfortunately a few years ago, my wife was diagnosed

with breast cancer and then metastatic breast cancer after that.

A few years after that, my, my father, unfortunately passed away suddenly.

And that topic by the way is mental health is very dear to me because when he was

working for the one company he worked for his entire life he had some rough

spots that caused some issues to happen.

And in our conversations, his, my conversations, it surrounded around

leadership and where he's been in such.

And since his passing, I've really just said, you know what?

I want to become.

Who I've always been, which makes very little sense the way

I said it, but understanding, Hey, I have this thing over here.

I'm not using it.

I want to start using it now because as you can see as I light up when

I start talking about these topics.

So I know earlier off air, we were talking about my my wife and how

she's doing, wonderful actually.

And lots of little stories.

The best story I can tell you right now is she's always been

in these weird categories of 0.

2 percent chance of this or that.

She's actually now in the, I don't know what you'd call it, but very

small, percentage of somebody who might be cured of cancer.

Ooh.

Wow.

And that's a long story, but it's, it is possible that she might

actually be cured of metastatic, which is traditionally uncurable.

Boy, is that great news?

Paul M. Boomer: Wow.

I can't.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You have been, an outstanding partner and supporter and advocate.

You, you advocate in social media for the husband, the partner

the spouse of the cancer victim.

I know that you advocate for your wife and so good on you.

Paul M. Boomer: Don't forget about my kids.

Oh, I know.

Oh I don't, forget them.

I happen to, I don't know Paige but oh, I shouldn't say the name on there.

That's alright.

That's alright.

Your daughter she has helped me out in creating some nice.

Gifts for clients.

So yes, we know about page.

But anyway, we digress.

Let us jump headfirst into culture.

Paul, that word culture when I ran radio stations for all those years, and you

listen to all the gurus and all the Smart people with the big brains and Harvard and

Wharton and MIT and all these, the culture word, man, is that word thrown around?

Can you give our listeners a solid working definition of what in the

hell is business culture anyway?

Paul M. Boomer: The easiest way to put it is it's what

happens when the boss is gone.

That's it.

What happens when the boss is gone?

Now, that is a very short explanation of what it is.

But it encompasses everything that goes into culture.

Which is a lot of the assumed processes.

Which includes a lot of the, The underlying flow of why and

how people do what they do.

Lots of assumptions.

And the way the communication style, everything, there's so

many things that go into it.

So that's why I just shrunk it down to what happens when the boss is gone.

So

based on that, you're telling me that every

business has a culture.

Even if they don't have one that they've defined or am I misunderstanding?

Paul M. Boomer: No, you're absolutely right.

And that's one of the biggest things that I find is.

Because culture than the word and everything is seen as that fluffy thing.

I don't need to really worry about, I don't know, I don't know what it is.

I don't, I'm not a people person, whatever it is, what they

typically don't understand is you have a culture regardless if

you put effort into it or not.

The difference is, and this is something that, that just eats me a little bit

is there's no bad or good culture.

Did you know that there's no bad or good.

There is a functional or a dysfunctional culture.

You can still run and operate a business as a dish with a dysfunctional culture.

Now you're handcuffed a little bit, but you can still run it.

And there are many organizations that have a dysfunctional

culture and are doing great.

So

now that you mentioned that, can you give us.

It's an example of a dysfunctional culture and what does it look like?

What does it feel like?

And how does it affect the business?

Paul M. Boomer: Dennis, I might need to go get a dinner and I'll be back.

I know this goes on, but I'll, explain briefly.

I have one in mind.

I want to have two or we only have two or three hours to go.

Paul M. Boomer: Okay.

The.

One that comes to mind is a current client and they have, an an owner

who is, and actually this is the same client I mentioned in past podcasts.

I'll just let that be known.

Do you want me to go talk about another one?

Whichever one

comes to mind.

There's just so many

Paul M. Boomer: that come to mind.

I just, I, yeah.

You could, any one you want.

Paul M. Boomer: I'll just pick them.

I'll just pick on them.

Because they love me and I love them.

I won't tell.

The owner is I would say, if he were to talk to their

employees, he's a control freak.

And, he wants to know every single thing that's happening and jumps in on, in his

parachute Fixes everything in his mind and bails and then the managers have to

go in and fix everything that they might be able to knowing that this person might

come back and do it again and that's just at the very top of this pinnacle

mountain of culture and what that does that specific culture is it puts doubt in

everybody's mind am I doing my job right?

Okay.

Because you now have a boss who comes in, does it for you almost tells you how

to do it, tells you how not to do it.

You're doing something that probably is the best way to do it for whatever.

That's why they hired you.

But then they're being told no, That way I'm the boss do my way.

It creates toxic relationships.

And again, they're successful business, but they are a dysfunctional culture.

Okay.

So how would that be turned around to be a positive culture?

I want to use the same example.

You think it's an owner that cares, right?

This owner cares what's going on.

Paul M. Boomer: That's the key.

That's the key is when a dysfunctional organization culture is operating

and they're making money and they're, happy and such, they don't

see a reason to fix this thing.

It's hard for them to want to, because they're like, Oh, we're fine.

We're good.

I'm I'm a good boss.

That actually reminds me of another one of, which is important.

This is also another very common thing.

I'll get back to you that answer there, Leah.

Sorry.

My mind goes all over because I'm the CEO that I met was talking and he was really

proud of himself in the organization for.

Shifting everything in his plan, business plan when COVID hit he was just proud

and he should be because he, skyrocketed his his, revenue and everything.

And then it was a group of us and somebody asked him, so what about your, employees?

How do you manage them?

Oh, we're good.

we we, didn't touch that.

We've never touched that because it works so well,

but you know what?

I started to snoop around a little bit and started to ask

some questions of employees.

They looked happy.

They look like they're excited to be working and such.

But when you secretly ask them, Hey, what's it like to work here?

Oh, no, I'm getting out of here as soon as I can.

As soon as I find another job, I'm leaving.

Why is that?

And they'd explain all these things.

A lot of it had to go with micromanaging.

So that CEO was blind to the fact.

That he could be better by looking at culture.

Now, the way you look at culture and accelerate it, or look at it, Leah,

and turn it to the positive is that CEO, president, leader, whatever,

they have to be willing to look in the mirror and ask themselves, what am I

contributing positively and negatively?

How am I helping this boat go faster?

How am I possibly hindering it from going faster?

Until they do that culture is, gonna be managed not by them, which by the way,

it can be managed not by that leader.

Actually, they are managing it, they just don't know it, but it's

being managed by the employees.

Would Paul, would that be would you consider

that man culture by default?

Or, it's just the way things are done around here, but nobody planned it.

It's just the way it is.

Is that, yeah.

Paul M. Boomer: That's a great phrase, Dennis culture by default

is this is just the way it is and we're not willing to adjust because

and that's, a blind spot.

Is it not?

That's a huge blind spot.

Paul M. Boomer: Yeah, it is a huge blind spot,

not able to be easily seen and clearly not something that's top

of mind with most small business owners.

Would that be fair to say?

Paul M. Boomer: Absolutely.

It goes back to that thing about we're making money.

So why do I need to focus on culture?

But let me tell you,

let me Yeah, go ahead, answer that

Paul M. Boomer: question.

Go.

I think I know where you're going already, but go for it.

I was,

going to ask you that question that you just posed.

Hey, we're doing great.

Why should I worry about this culture crap?

Paul M. Boomer: Gee, Dennis, it's like we're on a show together or something.

We do stuff together.

I'm just

glad one of you asked the question already, because

I was getting ready to do it.

The

Paul M. Boomer: question, the question.

What was the question?

We're making a lot of money.

Everything is rosy.

Why in the, should I go to this culture nonsense?

I don't understand it anyway.

So why

Paul M. Boomer: bother?

Why bother?

You built a company for a reason, right?

Yeah.

I have never met somebody who has a reason and says, eh, I want to work on it.

I really don't want to.

I'm passionate about it.

Eh.

But I'm not willing to.

Be better or help others be better within my organization.

When you work on culture, when you are self reflective, what happens in

a business is a accelerates profits.

It's just, there's no question about it because people are

more willing to be productive.

They want to be productive.

People are willing and wanting to come to work.

They want to come to work because it matters to them.

And if it matters to them, they're willing to bend over backwards to

do some work and it becomes easier to keep them and it becomes easier

to read, to to recruit new people.

And with that, and, yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

There's so many things of why you do this.

And when you do that, you read, you increase your profit margin because

you're not having to hire people all the time and retrain them.

Which.

Depending on your industry absolute minimum is at least

4, 000 per person to train.

So

this isn't a bunch of fluffy.

Oh, Kumbaya.

Let's all have a group hug here.

There are solid business reasons why you want to be able to change

your non functional culture into a functional culture.

Paul M. Boomer: Absolutely.

And for any business owner, it usually comes down to revenue and profit,

margins, because they want to, please their stakeholders, whoever it is.

Let it be the org, the employees themselves, let it be their

peers, let it be a board of directors, let it be the community.

So Paul, let's say you have made the unfortunate discovery

that you have a dysfunctional culture.

How easy is it and how, I know we could spend days on this,

but in brief, how easy is it?

What's the way to make it a functional culture?

How do

Paul M. Boomer: we do that?

First, look at yourself, look at your, organization.

My recommendation is for you as the boss to, to walk literally away

from the business for a few days and, reflect on what am I doing?

What am I not doing?

And while you are doing that, you pose that same question to your leadership

team and they do the same thing of, okay, how am I contributing or not contributing

such, and then you set a time.

That all of you sit down away from the company, not in your office, but

actually outside and have a frank and honest conversation with each other.

That's the, that's it.

And then there's many steps after that.

It becomes down to change management and processes and such, and

what exactly needs to change.

But that is what I'd recommend for somebody who wants to do it.

Do it themselves is just start understanding.

Hey, I have a contribution in this.

And I have to be some, there has to be some solid ground rules

though, because it's, you talked about establishing that trust, because if

I'm going to tell Dennis at Dennis, I don't like when you wear that red

and white checkered shirt, I had to know, Dennis, isn't going to be mad

at me and say, Lee, I don't like when you wear that black, one all the time.

There's gotta be, you gotta establish the ground rules here, I would think.

Paul M. Boomer: Yeah.

And that's, it goes in sync with that conversation is if.

You are not sure if you don't know, if you have psychological safety, a ask,

honestly, your leadership team should be a leadership team that you're willing

to have frank conversations with, right?

Why would you want them on your leadership team otherwise?

And ask them or simply ask, Hey, can we honestly tell each other what's going on?

Do I have your permission?

Even ask that, do I have your permission to be honest with you?

That way.

By the way, Dennis, I like your shirt.

Just saying, I do

your shirt,

That I was getting very concerned.

I almost started crying.

I, could

Paul M. Boomer: tell that question myself.

I'm so

sensitive.

Paul.

He's so

sensitive.

Oh, I,

Paul M. Boomer: I don't know the half of it.

153 years old.

Geez.

. Paul M. Boomer: See right here, we have a culture, the three of us.

Yeah.

. Everybody has a culture

and is it function, is it functional or dysfunctional?

Paul M. Boomer: It leans on the functional side.

There's some dysfunctions here and there, but

Leans on the functional side.

I

Paul M. Boomer: like that.

I want a

t shirt.

Very diplomatic answer, Paul.

Paul M. Boomer: I'll be honest, Leah, I want to answer that, but that is a hard

long answer that requires understanding the organization itself, and every

organization is a little different.

There is no templates or that's how we're going to do it.

The first thing really comes down to that conversation and knowing your

leadership team has your back and you have theirs and they have yours.

But yeah, there is psychological safety that has to come into play to that.

And again, that's why you start at the very top where they're better already.

Be some trust amongst everybody.

Better be.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It sounds like in our, as per our last episode on leadership.

The, common denominator is it's really hard to do this on your own.

You really need to reach out.

So when they reach out to you, how do they find you?

Paul M. Boomer: The easiest way is to simply email me.

Paul Paul Boomer at wizard of ads.

com.

I forgot my email address.

Paulboomeratwizardofads.

com or go to wizardofads.

com and look under the partners list and you'll see me in there.

Those are the two easiest ways to get ahold of me.

Now, by the way, earlier, you as your producer, I'm going to say something.

Oh, we're

going to get some notes.

We're going to get some notes, Leah.

Be

prepared.

We knew it was.

We knew

Paul M. Boomer: it was coming.

Because we can do this because we trust each other.

I noticed that you said wizard of ads.

org for Wizard Academy.

Oh gosh.

I just, that's a terrible, so am I.

It's, am I gonna get

Paul M. Boomer: fired?

, but it's wizard academy.org.

academy.org.

Yes.

Wizard academy.org is where you'll find it's wizard of

ads.com for the email.

But wizard academy.org for the academy.

You got

Paul M. Boomer: it.

And that there, which you did.

Yeah.

Is another way to get a hold of me.

Like you said, I have a course on cultural leadership and teamwork.

And the last time, the inaugural I had so much peop so many of the people saying,

When you do the next one, let me know.

Yes.

And that would come

in as well.

I knew you got a lot, I knew you got a lot of good feedback.

Both, cause I was at that class.

Yes.

You got feedback both right then and there and afterwards.

You had people reaching out to you.

Which, to me, is the mark of a great course.

So when you see that course come up, wizardacademy.

org, go take it.

Paul, thank you.

Again, we could spend more hours and hours, but again,

we've reached our time limit.

So what can I say?

You're a subject matter expert.

You've shared a big piece of your brain with us that has inspired

and informed and encouraged.

Thank you for being our producer and what you know about

business culture and leadership.

That's this episode of Connect and Convert.

Stay tuned, because we're going to be back shortly.

Stay tuned.

Bye.