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[00:00:00] Announcer: This is the Build A Vibrant Culture Podcast, your source for the strategies, systems, and insights you need to turn your dreams into your destiny. Every week we dive into dynamic conversations as our host, Nicole Greer, interviews leadership and business experts. They're here to shed light on practical solutions to the challenges of personal and professional development. Now, here's your host, a professional speaker, coach, and consultant, Nicole Greer.
[00:00:29] Nicole Greer: Welcome everybody to the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast.
[00:00:32] My name is Nicole Greer and they call me the Vibrant Coach. And today I have an amazing leader on the show. He has started an amazing company and written this book that I have in my hot little hands right here, _Leadership at the Edge_. And so we're going to talk today to Bryon Beilman. Did I get it right? Was I close?
[00:00:51] Bryon Beilman: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
[00:00:51] Nicole Greer: Fantastic. All right, let me tell you all about him. So Bryon is the co-founder and president and CEO of iuvo Technologies, an award-winning IT consulting and managed services firm that's been thriving for over 18 years.
[00:01:07] At its core, it is a people first company built on the belief that exceptional culture drives exceptional results. Please don't miss that. Exceptional culture drives exceptional results. That belief has earned them eight Best Places to Work Awards from Inc. Magazine and the Boston Business Journal.
[00:01:25] Bryon's passion for leadership and culture has also inspired his new book, Leadership at the Edge, embracing the -don't miss this- Hyperloop Mindset. We're going to explain all that to accelerate business growth and success, a practical guide for building empowered teams that thrive in fast moving high performance environments. Welcome to the show, Bryon. I'm so glad you're here.
[00:01:47] Bryon Beilman: Yes. Thanks Nicole. Really great to be here. I'm really excited about this.
[00:01:50] Nicole Greer: Yeah, it's going to be great. going to be great. All right, so this book, _Leadership at the Edge_, it is so good. When I got it, I started reading it and then I was like, I gotta get this thing under my belt. I think it is so practical, so helpful. And it's got some really cool analogies and metaphors in here that I think everybody needs to know. And so first thing, like what do you mean by Leadership at the Edge? What is that?
[00:02:14] Bryon Beilman: Sure, yeah. Leadership at the Edge, to be clear, like some people think, well, are you on the edge? It's like, no, you're not on the edge ready to jump off a cliff. Leadership is at the edge. So in a company where you think about leadership, thinking maybe the C level and so forth, but really is empowering people to become leaders. And so the edge is where like the rubber meets the road, where things happen.
[00:02:37] And so I think too often there's a top down or hierarchical time structure. And I think as people become leaders, they're at the edge. They're customer facing. They're doing the really important work. Where we can make them leaders, the the better your business could be.
[00:02:50] Hopefully this concept can resonate to everybody because you want to be a leader when you're at the edge. And if you are truly a C level, you want your people to be leaders so that they can be empowered to do great stuff.
[00:03:01] Nicole Greer: Yeah, that's exactly right. And I love what you're saying. One of the things I do inside my organization is tons of leadership development. And I'll have a room full of people and I'll be like, how many of you are leaders? And I'm like, I want all the hands to go up in the room. Right? So we want everybody to be a leader.
[00:03:16] Now, your book has two parts, which I love. The first part of the book is all about the important characteristics of high performing people as well as a high performing company and about enabling and empowering people to do that work. And you use this idea of a hyperloop mindset. So what does that mean, a hyperloop mindset? What is a hyperloop?
[00:03:37] Bryon Beilman: Yeah that's a great question. A hyperloop is a terrestrial way of traveling. So one way to think about what a hyperloop is, is if you ever go to the bank, and sometimes you go through the drive through and they have these little tubes and it's a vacuum and they transfer things back and forth through this. That is the visual representation of that. But really it's a way to travel in a vacuum system. So it's like a giant tube that goes, for example, from Boston to New York. And so you get in this tube, it's levitated, like a super high train. And it's also propelled by magnets. So nothing is touching anything. So it's really low resistance. They've taken the air out of it. It goes 700 miles per hour.
[00:04:12] Nicole Greer: Woo.
[00:04:13] Bryon Beilman: I use this analogy because there's elements of the hyperloop that can apply to your business. And, you know, to be honest, I, I needed some metaphor, some analogy that can allow people to visualize these in a different way, be a little unique. People use flywheel and various things. So the hyperloop was the mechanism I used. It's still really under development. There's a number of companies, there are 12 different companies out in the world that are working on this, and it's not available. You can't take a hyperloop yet, but I say you can still have the hyperloop mindset.
[00:04:43] Nicole Greer: I love it. Okay. All right. Everybody write that down. Hyperloop mindset, right? Okay. And the thing that I think is great too is in second section of your book, um, you are going to give us low friction, high performance techniques for our business. All right? So let's, let's jump into this idea of leadership at all levels. So why would a leader want to have leadership at all levels? It makes perfect sense to me, but I wish you would explain to everybody. What are you talking about right there?
[00:05:12] Bryon Beilman: Well, I think too often if you have a, a structure where people are waiting for somebody to tell them what to do and so sometimes people just wait because that's the way the company is and sometimes, it's not very efficient. What should I do next? What should do next? And so, uh, some situations the company does not allow that. They say, Hey, listen, don't do what? Just do what you're told. There's some common areas like that, I think like sometimes in the military, it's a top down design. You know, I had experience with TSA where basically if they see this little light go on, they have to do this and they can't deviate, they can't use their common sense on things. They can't use their judgment. So we want people to use their judgment. And so I think when everybody's empowered, people can do what they need to do without asking for permission. There's a lot of elements of the culture that have to allow this. So it doesn't happen just by saying, I want to be a leader. You know, it has to come from the organizational level. I could expand more, but that's the concept.
[00:06:00] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And I couldn't agree more, 'cause a lot of times people will be like, I have an employee that says, just tell me what to do and I'll do it. Which sounds good, but really what I want you to do is look around and see what needs to be done and do it right? Yeah. And I love what you said about common sense. I mean, I think most people -most- have a good dose of common sense. They've been on the planet 20 years or plus, and they come to work for us. And if we can just get out of their way, they can get things done.
[00:06:29] I love it. I love it. Okay, so you say that there's literally three things, three important things that leaders need to do that can transform their business and they are hire the best people. And that might sound like, duh, Nicole, duh Bryon. Hire the best people. But it really takes a commitment and some integrity to stick to that. You know, like,
[00:06:50] Bryon Beilman: Right, right.
[00:06:51] Nicole Greer: Yeah. So talk a little bit about hiring the best people. What is an experience and maybe even a story that you could share about hiring best people? 'Cause I couldn't agree more.
[00:07:02] Bryon Beilman: Yeah. You know, I think you hit part of that on the head for sure. Everyone says, oh yeah, we're going to hire the best people.
[00:07:07] And then when it comes down to it, you know, we don't always succeed in that. And so I guess first of all, you have to have good leaders that know what the good people are. So what are good people to you? What are the best people? What are the A+ players, as Steve Jobs would say? And the best players, they don't tolerate working for B and C levels. When you hire really good people, they want to work with other great people. And so in order to do that, I think you have to have a good hiring process, of course. And from what I've found, which leads a little bit into part of the book, is that what are your filters for getting a good person? And so you could, okay, yes. Can they do the job or, or do they have qualifications and so forth. But I think just as important is really around core values. And do they align with the core values of your business?
[00:07:50] We've had people who, um, we developed our actually core values because we said, you know, we need a better way to determine whether this is the right person. And not only when you hire them, but as they're performing, you can give them kudos or,
[00:08:02] Nicole Greer: Oh, I love that.
[00:08:03] Bryon Beilman: Or even on the other side, if you have to manage somebody I'll say that, you know, you're just not a good alignment with our core values. But if they're aligned that's a big first step. And I think the tricky thing that we've experienced about hiring the best people, is often, not always, but often great people are more expensive. So it's like, oh, we can't afford this person. Right? And then my experience has been, oh, they're asking way more than we're thinking about here. But the amount of value they bring is worth every penny you pay them.
[00:08:30] Nicole Greer: Right? It's exponential usually.
[00:08:32] Bryon Beilman: Yeah. You go, wow. Like they not only did their job, but they did this other thing and they improved this and they did this too. And, and they're, so I mean, if you can't afford, you can't afford them. But like we kind of went above what we thought and we ended up developing literally a sea of really great people.
[00:08:47] And you develop your own hiring process, but it has to be very thoughtful. Our process is, we do some filters for core values, understanding of are they a fit for the role? And we have a series of interviews. And the last interview is they have to do a presentation to the entire company. On anything they want. So we've had people who said, I'm a juggler. Let me tell you how juggling works. You know?
[00:09:08] Nicole Greer: Oh my God, I love it. Yeah.
[00:09:09] Bryon Beilman: Yeah. So something that they're passionate about. And then you know, one person could nix the whole thing basically, if they have, you know, rationale. We've had some people who, you know, when you go to interview, you put on your best face and then sometimes you get people loosened up, here's a presentation, let's have some dinner together. And they say something, ooh, maybe they're chauvinistic or something, but didn't come out, right? And, you know, they're not a good fit. So we do everything we can to make sure they're a good fit with our team. And they can learn. They can learn the job. It's hard to learn a personality. That's who you are.
[00:09:38] Nicole Greer: Yep.
[00:09:38] Bryon Beilman: But you can learn the job and we can teach you the job. And so, like I said, hire great people, which are expensive, but I'm not always talking about the most experienced people. We happen to have very experienced people here, but it's really that growth mindset, the leader, like being able to learn, like just having a passion.
[00:09:54] And I noticed in one of your photos on your website, you standing next to a bookshelf. I can imagine, you read my book and very quickly, so you have a growth mindset, people who just want to learn.
[00:10:03] Nicole Greer: Yes!
[00:10:03] Bryon Beilman: And so those are the kind of people that I think are the A players. There are people who want to learn and they can pick things up.
[00:10:08] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And I love what you're saying, and thank you about my picture with my books, because Nicole Greer has loved books as long as she's been on the planet, like since I was itty-bitty. I mean, I don't know why anybody wouldn't be a reader because it's just like knowledge is power and it's fun to read a story. I don't know, it's just fantastic.
[00:10:25] Bryon Beilman: Sure.
[00:10:25] Nicole Greer: You know, in my interview process, I don't know what your interviews look like, I'm curious, but one of the questions I ask in the interview is what book are you reading? And somebody who I call an eagle or a lifelong learner, like you're saying, is really quick to be like, well, I'm reading this fantasy novel about whatever, but the business book I'm reading is this. You know? And here's the thing, everybody, please don't miss this. If somebody's a reader and they come to your company, when you say to them, you're going to have training, you know what they do? They go, oh, cool! Instead of, is it mandatory? You know?
[00:10:59] Bryon Beilman: Yeah.
[00:10:59] Nicole Greer: And so it just makes it easier. So I absolutely love it when people are readers.
[00:11:05] Announcer: Are you ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with their strategies, systems, and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy, and results. Your organization will get lit from within! Email her at nicole@vibrantcole.com and be sure to check out Nicole's TEDx talk at vibrantculture.com.
[00:11:31] Nicole Greer: Well, Bryon, on page 25, you talk about key elements of hiring A+ players, and I love this list, so let's have pens at the ready everybody. I love this one. It says they spend as much time marketing their culture and brand as they do to attract customers. And your company is such a testimony to that with all of your best place to work, uh, accolades. Yeah. So tell me how you market your culture. Will you talk about that for a hot second?
[00:11:57] Bryon Beilman: Yeah. So I think culture is to hiring as marketing is to sales, right? So I think you have to put on your website or social, like who we are. We have our core values, we have our why. This is what we are as people and so forth. And then as we're doing fun things or we're involved in our marketplace. Like, put that out as a blog or a social campaign. Let people know you're out there doing things. This is what you're about. I think that it's important to advertise the types of things you do that are important to you. So then the people that are like you or the people that agree with what you're doing as a philosophy. They will say, I want to work at that place because they want to work at a great place. As an example, one of the things we do is we have this event called "Women+ in Tech", right? Technology companies are often very male dominated. So we have a very special event. We've done it quarterly where it's just focused on building women as leaders. We have some really awesome ladies in our company that are doing great things and I, I'd never been to one of these events 'cause I'm a guy, but you know, we want to...
[00:12:54] Nicole Greer: They kick you back at the door. They're like, step back.
[00:12:56] Bryon Beilman: Yeah, yeah, right. I just say, here's some budget for that. Go do it. You know?
[00:13:00] Nicole Greer: Oh, that's fantastic.
[00:13:01] Bryon Beilman: And so this year we're going to try to ramp that up and so it kind of speaks to our values that we value people who aren't always represented very well in things. So whatever it may be, whatever your company is, showcase that and put it out there so people know what you're about. And I think if people see that, they go, I don't like that, then that's great. They're not going to align with your culture, but there are many people that would, I think, and you've got to put it out there.
[00:13:22] Nicole Greer: I totally agree. Yeah. And then you also say, and I have said this for years, that companies that do great with hiring A+ players use employee referrals because what I usually say is eagles know eagles 'cause eagles hang out with eagles and turkeys hang out with turkeys.
[00:13:36] Bryon Beilman: Oh yeah.
[00:13:37] Nicole Greer: And so if you have a great person, they run in a great circle.
[00:13:41] Bryon Beilman: Yeah. There's quite a number of our employees who brought on their friends, who brought on, whatever, right? And that's the best way. It's very true, it's analogous to sales, right? Where referrals in sales are great, but referrals for hiring are amazing.
[00:13:54] Nicole Greer: Yeah, that's absolutely right. And people want to get up and go to work and be with people they know and trust, right? Yeah. And so if they're working with their friends, their colleagues, their buddy from the fraternity, the high school, the college, the last job, it's fantastic.
[00:14:08] You also say that companies that have A+ players are constantly recruiting. I couldn't agree more. One of the things I say is we're always hiring. If somebody says, are you hiring? You say "Yes. Who do you know?" And then find out who this human is and get after them. It might be perfect. And if you have good people on your waiting list per se, you can always move somebody who's not quite hitting the mark out of the way and put this, this ace in the right place.
[00:14:32] You also say that these companies are rigorous, yet efficient and speedy fast. Why is it, why is fast important in the recruiting process?
[00:14:41] Bryon Beilman: I think if it takes a month or two or something, a long time to hire somebody. If if they're good, they're going to be, they're going to be snatched by somebody. Hey, you know what? I really liked you, but this other company, they moved fast and they got me. Right? And you don't even have a chance. So I think the moment you see somebody, you've got to move. Like if somebody's busy, or if your company's busy, just make time. It's really important to get that person in there. As you know, nobody wants to wait, even if they really like you. Yeah, just the good ones go up fast.
[00:15:06] Nicole Greer: That's right. That's right. If you think you have a hot candidate, you better get on the program here. I think that it's refreshing because I don't think many people recruit quickly and, as you said, rigorously. They kind of fart around, as my daddy would say, right?
[00:15:22] Bryon Beilman: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:15:22] Nicole Greer: They're like, I think we should let him talk to Susan and we should let him talk to Tanika and then Juan, you know? And so like this is taking a very long time because Juan's on vacation and whatever else is going on. No, we need to put this on people's to-do list. We're going to hire for this position, so be available. Be ready for the moment where I need you to get up with this guy or gal. Right? So I couldn't agree more. You also say they hire as much on cultural fit as they do on job skills, which you talked about that. And that they effectively and collaboratively determine how well a person will do before they hire them. So you actually get up with some other folks other than one interviewer to find out. And then also, talk about this one. Everyone in the interview process has a voice and anyone can veto a candidate. Talk about that one. I love it.
[00:16:09] Bryon Beilman: Yeah. It kind of, actually, I didn't think about it till now, it does mirror the 'everyone's a leader in the company'. So back in 2021, we went virtual. We had an office. And then we said, well, how often would you come to the office if we got a new office? And people said, well, maybe once a month. I don't know, kind of liking this remote thing. But when we were there physically, we'd almost get in a circle and we'd say, okay, let's talk about this candidate. And, the newest person gets to go first. Typically it's their first time being behind the covers, but you don't want the most senior person to have an opinion that clouds everybody.
[00:16:39] Nicole Greer: Right. Because they feel like they need to go along with it. Right. Right.
[00:16:41] Bryon Beilman: Right. Yeah. So we do that virtually now too. Same thing, we say, okay, let's ask the newest people first. What do you think of this candidate and why? And so forth. And if there is some dissension, like say, I don't like this person because of whatever. So let's talk about that, if it's a deal killer. But really, if somebody feels very strongly for whatever reason throughout the interview process, 'cause everybody has the interview notes going all along and they can review how it went and so they're hopefully forming some new questions or some new challenges for this person. Yeah, everyone has a veto. Everyone has a voice.
[00:17:07] Nicole Greer: Hmm. That's so good. All right, so we're talking about _Leadership at the Edge_ and the things that we need to do in order to get into this hyperloop mindset. So one is you have to hire the right people. Don't settle. Make this a business priority. Are you hearing what Bryon is telling you?
[00:17:25] Okay. So number two is to let go. I love this. Everybody listen up. To move from managing to leading, you need to learn to let go, trust people and your processes you have in place. This provides a springboard for managers to become _coaches_ everybody. I preach coaching everywhere I go Bryon. Okay, so talk about letting go and getting out of the minutia and coaching people. Please talk about this.
[00:17:53] Bryon Beilman: Yeah, well, I'll tell you, it's not something that happened with me overnight, right? I think people tend to, if you're a doer and you know what's going on, like, you often say, well, this is taking too long, or I want to do it my way. And you take over or tell them how to do things. And I think the power of it really is, you know, let them do their thing and see how it works out. I think though, that, along with letting go, there's some fundamental things that have to happen.
[00:18:16] So first of all, we talked about if you have really great players, why are you going to hire great people and then tell them what to do? That defeats the purpose. So getting out of the way. And the question is, if you want them to do this, what do they need to do their job?
[00:18:29] Nicole Greer: Right? Resourced.
[00:18:31] Bryon Beilman: Yeah. They're not going to go off in the wild without understanding what are we trying to do here? What's our roadmap? Or if you're building a product or a service or whatever, what are we trying to do? And what's the end result? And it's not even sometimes you started out with kind delegating, can you do this, can you do this? And I'm going to let you do it. It ended up transforming a little bit more to: we want to have great customer service. What do you think we should do about that? How do we make our customer service better? And let them own it. Now, I think in order for this to happen, though, you have to have a culture where failure is okay. Like you have to say, well, you know, you tried this, it didn't work. That's okay. Let me help you. And coach them, like, what are the things that you could do? What were the barriers? Was there a resource you didn't have or something you didn't know? And so you coach them along. And they may make another mistake, but hopefully not on the same thing.
[00:19:15] And one of the other elements we try to do is when somebody makes a mistake in our company, we tell them, Hey, advertise that mistake. Let everybody know the mistake you made because that way they don't make that mistake.
[00:19:25] Nicole Greer: That's right.
[00:19:26] Bryon Beilman: And so instead of saying bad person, you made a mistake, say, Hey, I tried this thing, it didn't work out. Let's try something different. And then it could be like, well, did you know about this? And like, oh, I didn't know about that. So people start collaborating and they realize that they're not alone. And then maybe even next time, if they try this, they may seek other collaboration. So it feeds upon itself where people are empowered, they want to do this, and they get the support from not only the management, but their peers. And it's okay to fail. And so when that happens, that allows the person to step out of the way. And honestly, it's been empowering for me as a CEO because I can really focus on some more of the strategic things.
[00:20:02] And even that, in the last year, I have some very strategic go to market things I'm doing. And I realized, well, I could go off in my tower and say here's our new plan. But now I've realized every step of the way I'm getting people to get buy-in. Like, Hey, what do you think about this? What do you think? Because when people own a solution, they're for it. They don't go, well, this was handed down to me. It takes a little more effort and sometimes it's more efficient, in the beginning, just to do this, but like letting go and saying, what do you think? And somebody said, can I run with this for a while? And they're like, yeah, go for it.
[00:20:31] Nicole Greer: Yeah. I love what you're saying. And he's talking about like, he can't scale this company unless he gets people to do the stuff he's done. Right? So, you know, if you want to grow your company, you have to grow the people first. That's why coaching is so important, right? You're going to have to take people to a next level. And then I love what you're saying about, you know, I've got ideas about what I want to do. But if you're down in the minutia, you can't work on the business while you're working in the business. I don't know who coined that one, Bryon, working on the business, working in the business. I don't know who owned that one, but that is so true. Right? Let go so you can go up and be more strategic and cast vision and have the time to have conversations to get the buy-in that you were talking about. I love that. Okay. And last one about how we get into a hyperloop mindset and do _Leadership at the Edge,_ is dedicating time to make change. Most companies are forced into change because they, they're like uhoh, the rubber just hit the road and now we need new software. They're sunsetting my stuff or whatever. Yeah.
[00:21:32] Bryon Beilman: Yeah.
[00:21:32] Nicole Greer: Yeah. So dedicating time to make change, you said real change takes dedication and thoughtful allocation of time. It cannot be an afterthought and needs to be worked into --don't miss this everybody-- daily and weekly activity. Ooh, I love that line. Yes. So it's not like we're going to make a change. No. It's like we're changing. We do change every week. I love that.
[00:21:54] Bryon Beilman: Yeah. Yeah. I will say I sometimes get impatient with the rate of change, just the kind of person I am.
[00:21:59] Nicole Greer: Yep, me too.
[00:22:00] Bryon Beilman: But like we have a three year plan, a one year plan, and then we have these, we call them quarterly rocks. We have these rocks.
[00:22:05] Nicole Greer: Oh, are you guys on _Traction_?
[00:22:07] Bryon Beilman: Yeah, we're on _Traction_, yeah.
[00:22:08] Nicole Greer: Okay. All right. Everybody get the book _Traction_ by Gino Wickman. Do yourself a favor, get with the program. All right. Get an integrator.
[00:22:17] Bryon Beilman: Yeah, yeah. We've embraced it. So everybody, you know, we have company rocks and tar rocks and so forth. And often, these are the things that need to change. And so by putting them down and tracking them, saying, okay, well where are you? 'Cause we're moving the businesses forward. This is how we're doing it.
[00:22:32] And by doing the rocks... and I think people who haven't done _Traction_. I guess the concept of a rock really is you have a jar. Let's say you have a jar and the first thing you do is you put in your sand and then maybe you put in your little things like that don't have
[00:22:44] Nicole Greer: pebbles,
[00:22:44] Bryon Beilman: pebbles and so forth. And by the time you're done, you don't have time for the rocks for the really important things.
[00:22:48] Nicole Greer: That's right.
[00:22:48] Bryon Beilman: The concept that's put the rocks in the bucket first and then the little things will fill around it and the sand will fill around that and, and you have room for everything. So we try to focus what are the most important things? And so we allocate time. It goes all the way down to the employee level. Their rocks individually might be how are you going to improve yourself or how are you going to grow your skills? Or how are you going to do this? And if we could tie that into, well, we want to do something in the cloud, or something relates to it business-wise, that's perfect.
[00:23:13] It's also about communication. So you get these A+ players, everyone knows what to do. When you step out of the way you realize, wow, they did some, like, I'm constantly amazed. Like, wow. How did you guys come up with that? And it wasn't like they got my permission, just like, Hey, by the way, we have this new product, it's going to do this thing, blah, blah, blah. And yeah, we just got together and we thought of it and it's going to save us X, Y, Z and do this, whatever. But that's part of they might've got initiative to make this process easier or more efficient or more profitable or something. That was the high level. And because they're empowered, they did it.
[00:23:43] Nicole Greer: Hmm. That's so good. All right. Okay, now let's talk about culture, because your book is about culture. My whole life is about culture. So let's talk about culture. You say in the book that culture is absolutely paramount. But you start out with, "We all have an entrepreneurial side. Some have discovered it already, while some have yet to explore it. Being unaware of one's entrepreneurial instincts is often the result of one's lack of self-exploration. This aptitude is somewhere inside all of us. The discovery of it sooner or later can prove essential for one's personal professional growth. Have you met your entrepreneurial side yet?" So connect the dots for us between being an entrepreneur and culture. I think this is really interesting. I love it.
[00:24:29] Bryon Beilman: Yeah, some people think of entrepreneurs in the real truest sense. Oh, so and so, Sergey Brin, whatever, they started Google. They're entrepreneurs and they started a company and so forth. I think that there's only so many people who can start a company, but I think everybody can have an entrepreneurial mindset inside.
[00:24:45] Nicole Greer: I agree.
[00:24:46] Bryon Beilman: I mean, some of the larger companies try to get the internal startup mentality or a group or something like that. They're trying to spark people 'cause when people have that spark to do something new and exciting, I think it adds energy to the company and usually helps the bottom line. But I think when you want to map it to culture, it's that, it is something that has to be built into the culture. It relates closely to whether people are empowered or not in their business. So the culture could be, I want to be the best Bryon that I can be. I believe this idea that if you can, as an individual, be growing and thriving and doing things. And people go like Bryon, or Nicole, how did you, like, you love your job, how are, how are you doing so well? And then say I want to be like you. And then so it starts spreading almost.
[00:25:29] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:25:30] Bryon Beilman: And then all of the sudden the next thing your whole department's, like, why is your department rocking it so well? Like we're taking this to the next level and we're super excited about it. We love our jobs. And so it can spread that way, but it helps if the culture is designed. I think if you don't design your culture, then somebody else is going to design your culture. You may have subcultures. You know, this department over here has that culture and so forth. They should all be aligned, but I do think that, it can come from within. And so part of being a leader is you don't have to have a title to be a leader. I think a leader is really somebody that someone else is going to follow. And I've experienced this before I started this company.
[00:26:05] Nicole Greer: Yeah, and you know, you go on in the book to say that culture as a verb, especially as it relates to biology, also fits well into a business perspective. So listen to this, everybody, and most of us have been lucky enough to be in biology class and been around a Petri dish maybe once in our life or one semester or something. But you say, "One cultural definition is to grow a microorganism, AKA human resource, tissues, et cetera, in or on a controlled or defined medium." So you've got to have the belief system, like this is how we're going to grow our people. This is how we're going to roll, this is how we're going to do things. And don't miss his three things from before. Hire the best people, let go and make dedicated time for change. So if that's what people are growing on top of, that's what you're going to get more of, right? You're going to get more A players, more people letting go, more empowerment, more change, more scaling, more money, all the things. So I absolutely adore that. Now you go on to talk about culture and say, perks are not culture. And I love that because people don't need another pizza party.
[00:27:11] Bryon Beilman: Right, right.
[00:27:12] Nicole Greer: They're all on diets. It's summer. Everybody wants to look good in their swimsuit, so like no pizza. Right? So why do you say perks are not culture? I think that is a fantastic line.
[00:27:21] Bryon Beilman: Yeah. Well, I've been to places where they say we have a great culture and we oh, we have ping ponging tables and blah, blah, blah, and whatever it might be.
[00:27:27] Nicole Greer: Right?
[00:27:28] Bryon Beilman: But when you get there, and I used to work in Silicon Valley, and like, the culture was somewhat toxic. I didn't realize it, but the people were afraid to play ping pong because it would look like they weren't working, you know ?
[00:27:37] Nicole Greer: So we have to dust the ping pong table every day.
[00:27:41] Bryon Beilman: Yeah, yeah. So, like we had a ping pong table in our office and I loved it because I was like, Hey, let's go play ping pong. It'll make you smile and then you walk away, you're smiling.
[00:27:48] Nicole Greer: That's it, re-energize.
[00:27:49] Bryon Beilman: Yeah. But these perks aren't going to, if you don't have the great culture, they're not going to solve anything. Part of it is nurturing and taking care of your employees and letting them know that, you know, it's okay to have a work life balance. We want to take care of you. Showing compassion for them. But if you say, here's our culture and you list free food on Fridays and whatever, those are perks and it's not necessarily your culture. So it might be nice things, but I do think the culture's much deeper.
[00:28:12] Nicole Greer: I agree. And I think it's all about feelings. Yeah. Dare I say that? And I think you agree, Bryon, because you say in the book that culture is relationships. And earlier, I wanted to say something, I forgot to say it, but Bryon said something about like, it has to be aligned. And so in your mind's eye, everybody draw a big circle on the paper in your brain. That's the culture. And then within the culture, you might have like little areas, right? Like, it could be departmental, it could be like he was talking about, his women who are in tech, who are in his group, that might be a little circle. And those little circles, if not attached to the culture, can start to grow their own little culture. And then it's like, well, what's going on in finance? I don't know, but it's not the same thing that's going on in marketing, you know what I mean? Like, so it can be all messy. So the leader has to be so dang intentional about that medium, deciding what we want people to grow off of so that we grow the same way. I love that. So what's your thought about relationships? You say, culture is relationships. I couldn't agree more.
[00:29:16] Bryon Beilman: Yeah. I often even tell this in sales calls, but I say we're essentially a relationship company.
[00:29:21] Nicole Greer: But wait, we do IT, what do you mean?
[00:29:23] Bryon Beilman: Yeah, exactly. Because when it boils down to it, our relationships are tight enough that we know we're going to take care of you. So we do IT, right?, and you say, well, that's a lot of technical stuff. Take care of computers. But really it's about finding out what's important to you? Why do you have a computer? You don't have a computer just to have a computer. What are you trying to do with it? You know, are you in finance and you, it's really important in your spreadsheets or your QuickBooks works, or what are your deadlines? And so when you get to know the person and you have a relationship with them, you can take that next step and you can do the thing that's right for them.
[00:29:51] And oh, technology is a part of it. And you know, it's like we're on this podcast here on technology. If we were in person, you know, for me it'd be better, but this still
[00:29:59] Nicole Greer: Me too.
[00:30:00] Bryon Beilman: works fine. But it's all about relationships and I think that I'm lucky because I have a company of the best people I've ever worked with.
[00:30:08] Nicole Greer: Aw. Listen to that.
[00:30:09] Bryon Beilman: I love them all. And I know their kids' names. I know what's going on. So we're a small company. We're 30 some people, and I worry, we only get bigger, like I always worry like, I want to make sure I know everybody, right? And, you know, when we have all company events, we invite the entire families to it too. So you'll want to get to know them, 'cause in the end, we're all an extended family. Now, we may not be best friends, but we are certainly very close.
[00:30:31] Nicole Greer: Right. And I think the thing about it is, you're saying, you know, maybe we're not friends, you know, but there is a certain amount of care, Right, because I have a consciousness that if Bryon does good, then Nicole does good. And if Nicole does good, then Bryon does good because we can't do this whole dang thing by ourselves. And so I care about the work, I care about you. Just yesterday, Bryon, I was trying to recruit a gentleman to be a production shift manager. And he answers his phone. He's like, Nicole, 'cause we had already talked before and I said what's going on? 'cause it was weird the way he answered. He goes, oh, I'm in the hospital. My son found out he has a tumor in his brain. You know, and so I'm not friends with this gentleman, but I do care about him because we do want him to be our production manager. You know? And so I just stopped in my tracks and asked a lot of nice questions to see how my guy was and how his son was and everything. Good news, not malignant. So.
[00:31:31] Bryon Beilman: Oh good.
[00:31:31] Nicole Greer: But I mean, you've gotta demonstrate that from the get go, right, that you do care and people are humans. It's a human resource, everybody. So in Bryon's book, he talks about key elements of culture, and I'm just going to, I'm just going to rattle them off real quick, but he talks about collaboration, diversity, again, hiring the A+ players, well-planned, well-executed process and prioritizing A players.
[00:31:54] And then let's finish our podcast on this one. And hey everybody, we haven't even got off the tip of the iceberg here on Bryon's amazing book, _Leadership at the Edge_ and having a hyperloop mindset. So you've gotta get the book. It's on the Amazon, it's in all the places.
[00:32:11] But you talk about, don't discount the vibe or the team's opinions. Hello, all senior leaders, anybody who has a direct report, listen up right now. Don't discount the vibe or the team's opinions. Will you kind of bring us home on why that's important?
[00:32:28] Bryon Beilman: Wow. Um, in general, I think everybody has something to give, right? And I think you have to be aware of that, right? It doesn't matter if you're just started in your career, or you're seasoned. I mean, people have opinions. And I think what really creates a beautiful product and company is when everybody kind of tangles up and sees everybody's opinion. And then knowing that we're all working towards the same thing. We have different opinions. We have this all the time. Just yesterday I had a meeting with somebody who was, you know, we have these virtual CIOs and they come from very different sides. And it was just this morning, I probably watch too much stuff on Steve Jobs, but he talked about this.
[00:33:04] Nicole Greer: He was, he was a successful dude, whether we liked him or not.
[00:33:08] Bryon Beilman: Yeah. He was polarizing one way. But just this morning I thought about people's opinions because we had these two different opinions yesterday, and I said, okay, these both are right in their own ways. There's different viewpoints with the new salesperson. But he had this video, Steve Jobs did, where he said, he met this guy and he put some rocks in a rock tumbler, and they put some grit in there and they came back and the rocks were shining. And he says my teams are like being in a rock tumbler, everyone's got a opinion and, you know, they're tumbling and bumping into each other and eventually comes out this shiny rock. He was great from these metaphors, but, you know, I felt like that's what it is. Like if you go in with a good intention, like no one's really against you. They just have a different viewpoint. And I guess the vibe is around knowing that it's okay to have a different opinion and when everything comes out, it's like, well, maybe my idea didn't win this time, but this is okay and we're going to go forward on this.
[00:33:56] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Okay, so you have been listening to Bryon Beilman. Okay. So his book is called _Leadership at the Edge, embracing the Hyperloop Mindset to Accelerate Your Business for Growth and Success._ It is a fantastic read. So I would love you to go to the Amazon and buy this.
[00:34:14] And hey, right now, go to the bottom of the screen, whether you're listening on Spotify or one of your favorite podcasting places, uh, leave a little love for Bryon and then maybe pop over to the YouTube so you can take a look at the two of us and see what the book looks like. Make sure you buy the right thing. Yeah. And leave a comment over there. We'd really appreciate it. And here's where you can find Bryon. He's got his own website. Will you tell us about your website real quick?
[00:34:40] Bryon Beilman: Yeah, it's beilman.com, my last name, dot com. B-E-I-L-M-A n.com. It's my non-work site, if you will. I do some public speaking, but it has resources for the book. So inside the book, there's a lot of references to other things. You know, it's hard to click a link inside the back of an index, so you can follow the content in there. It's a little bit more about me.
[00:35:00] And, if you want to chat more, if you just want to chat about. culture, leadership. I just love talking about it. I'm tickled to be on Nicole's podcast here. She's, you know, kind of a legend in the culture space. I also would love to talk about it.
[00:35:12] Nicole Greer: Okay, fantastic. And of course you can find him on the LinkedIn. It's B-E-I-L-M-A-N. He's also over on youtube.com so you can catch him there. And also on X, just use his first initial and his last name. And it's B-E-I-L-M-A-N. Bryon, it has been such a treasure and a pleasure to have you on the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.
[00:35:36] Bryon Beilman: Yeah, thank you very much.
[00:35:38] Speaker: Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Build a Vibrant Culture Podcast. If you found value in today's episode, please take a moment to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps us improve and reach more like-minded listeners. Remember the journey to building a vibrant culture never stops.
[00:35:58] Stay inspired, keep nurturing your vibrant culture, and we can't wait to reconnect with you on the next exciting episode of Build a Vibrant Culture Podcast.