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Rethink Culture is the podcast that shines the spotlight on the leaders who are rethinking workplace culture. Virtually all of the business leaders who make headlines today do so because of their company performance. Yet, the people and the culture of a company is at least as important as its performance. It's time that we shine the spotlight on the leaders who are rethinking workplace culture and are putting people and culture at the forefront.
[00:00:07.13 - 00:00:10.02] Good morning, good afternoon and good evening.
[00:00:10.02 - 00:00:13.10] Welcome to Rethink Culture, the podcast that shines the spotlight on business
[00:00:13.10 - 00:00:15.19] leaders who are creating intentional cultures.
[00:00:16.05 - 00:00:18.19] My name is Andreas Konstantinou and I'm your host.
[00:00:18.19 - 00:00:22.11] I'm the founder of Rethink Culture, a company that aims to help 1 million
[00:00:22.11 - 00:00:25.04] businesses create a healthier, more fulfilling culture.
[00:00:25.09 - 00:00:29.17] We just launched our culture health score that turns your culture into a KPI and you
[00:00:29.17 - 00:00:31.22] can learn more at rethinkculture.co.
[00:00:33.07 - 00:00:38.18] Today I have the pleasure of welcoming Jeff Hoffman, who's a successful
[00:00:38.18 - 00:00:44.14] entrepreneur, CEO, motivational speaker, Hollywood film producer.
[00:00:44.16 - 00:00:48.09] And he actually tells me he's also the producer of a Grammy-winning jazz album,
[00:00:48.09 - 00:00:52.20] very curious to learn more, and executive producer of an Emmy award-winning
[00:00:52.20 - 00:00:54.07] television show.
[00:00:55.03 - 00:00:58.01] In his career, he's also founded multiple startups.
[00:00:58.01 - 00:01:02.06] He's best known as the CEO of priceline.com.
[00:01:03.19 - 00:01:08.11] that's today known as booking.com, youbid.com and much more.
[00:01:08.18 - 00:01:11.07] And so Jeff, with that long introduction,
[00:01:11.09 - 00:01:13.22] very welcome to the Rethink Culture Podcast.
[00:01:13.22 - 00:01:14.16] Thank you.
[00:01:14.16 - 00:01:20.00] I am so excited to be here because I am such a firm believer in the importance of
[00:01:20.00 - 00:01:20.12] culture.
[00:01:20.12 - 00:01:22.14] So I love that you do what you do.
[00:01:22.23 - 00:01:26.01] So why is culture important to you?
[00:01:26.01 - 00:01:26.17] Why on earth?
[00:01:26.17 - 00:01:27.21] Why culture specifically?
[00:01:27.21 - 00:01:33.09] So, you know, looking back to see the businesses we launched that were
[00:01:33.09 - 00:01:35.22] successful, why they were successful
[00:01:36.06 - 00:01:41.12] is for one simple reason, because all the best people in our industry all wanted to
[00:01:41.12 - 00:01:42.12] work for us.
[00:01:42.17 - 00:01:48.12] And what draws, I always tell people the key to success is finding rock stars.
[00:01:49.14 - 00:01:52.15] And people tell me I can't afford to pay rock stars, they're expensive.
[00:01:52.15 - 00:01:55.16] And I have to tell them that stop hiring average people.
[00:01:55.17 - 00:01:59.18] Instead of spending your money on three employees who are average, spend all that
[00:01:59.18 - 00:02:03.15] money on that one expensive rock star who will outperform those three people.
[00:02:03.15 - 00:02:06.07] So then they say to me, how do you attract rock stars
[00:02:06.07 - 00:02:08.19] to work for your company and the answer is culture.
[00:02:08.19 - 00:02:10.18] They can work anywhere they want.
[00:02:10.18 - 00:02:13.11] They care about the culture of the organization.
[00:02:13.11 - 00:02:14.09] What are your values?
[00:02:14.09 - 00:02:15.08] What do you stand for?
[00:02:15.08 - 00:02:17.23] What do you do with your profits and your success?
[00:02:17.23 - 00:02:19.04] What do you believe in?
[00:02:19.04 - 00:02:20.23] The rock stars don't just need a job.
[00:02:20.23 - 00:02:24.22] They want a place that will help them grow and experience and have impact.
[00:02:24.22 - 00:02:30.02] So culture is the way you attract the rock stars in any industry.
[00:02:30.02 - 00:02:31.18] That's why it's so important.
[00:02:32.00 - 00:02:34.14] Were you always this intentional about culture?
[00:02:34.16 - 00:02:36.10] Did you have a eureka moment?
[00:02:36.10 - 00:02:41.03] Nope, I will tell you the eureka moment because, glad you asked that, because I
[00:02:41.03 - 00:02:42.06] wasn't at all.
[00:02:43.03 - 00:02:45.22] Instinctively, or maybe even accidentally I was,
[00:02:46.00 - 00:02:48.18] but I didn't know that, here's what happened.
[00:02:48.19 - 00:02:50.22] I was... sold a company.
[00:02:51.07 - 00:02:54.16] And I was going on television because they were interviewing me.
[00:02:54.17 - 00:03:00.02] And on TV, they were asking me, they had our numbers, your profits and your margins
[00:03:00.02 - 00:03:01.21] and your sales and your revenues, like Mr.
[00:03:01.21 - 00:03:05.16] Hoffman, these are very impressive accomplishments, which one of those are
[00:03:05.16 - 00:03:06.21] you most proud of?
[00:03:07.03 - 00:03:08.17] And I said, none of those.
[00:03:08.17 - 00:03:13.12] Because while I was driving to the TV station that day, the woman that ran HR
[00:03:13.12 - 00:03:17.23] for me called me all excited and she said, Jeff, I just finished verifying something
[00:03:17.23 - 00:03:19.21] and I wanted to call and tell you right away.
[00:03:20.05 - 00:03:21.14] And I said, what is that?
[00:03:21.18 - 00:03:28.02] And she said, I just realized or proved, found out, verified that from the day you
[00:03:28.02 - 00:03:33.07] started this company, through all those years, until the day you sold the company,
[00:03:33.08 - 00:03:36.10] not one person that works for you has ever quit.
[00:03:36.17 - 00:03:39.00] And I was like, well, that's the coolest thing I've ever done.
[00:03:39.00 - 00:03:40.08] And I don't know how.
[00:03:40.09 - 00:03:43.02] So I started calling people from the TV station.
[00:03:43.07 - 00:03:44.21] And I was like, how come you guys don't quit?
[00:03:44.21 - 00:03:46.17] And they're like, Jeff, is this a problem?
[00:03:46.17 - 00:03:48.02] Do you want us to quit?
[00:03:48.08 - 00:03:49.11] I said, no.
[00:03:49.11 - 00:03:51.06] But you're all rock stars.
[00:03:51.06 - 00:03:52.01] You could work anywhere.
[00:03:52.01 - 00:03:55.15] How come you all stay here and all everybody wants to work here?
[00:03:55.15 - 00:03:57.20] And they said, well, since you asked, I'll tell you.
[00:03:57.20 - 00:04:00.23] So I literally said, wait, let me get a pencil and a paper.
[00:04:01.04 - 00:04:05.18] Because whatever I did accidentally or even instinctively, I need to do it on
[00:04:05.18 - 00:04:07.10] purpose going forward.
[00:04:07.10 - 00:04:10.23] And that's how I found that was the eureka moment, like you said, because they
[00:04:10.23 - 00:04:15.16] started talking about values and culture and something that I like that you talk
[00:04:15.16 - 00:04:16.10] about that I love.
[00:04:16.10 - 00:04:18.22] In fact, it's what you do, which is how do
[00:04:18.23 - 00:04:21.12] you measure culture and how do you reward it?
[00:04:21.13 - 00:04:26.02] Because people reward KPIs and compensation at companies.
[00:04:26.02 - 00:04:27.16] They know that how much did you sell?
[00:04:27.16 - 00:04:29.09] How many units did you sell?
[00:04:29.09 - 00:04:29.22] Right?
[00:04:29.22 - 00:04:32.12] How long did you get the product finished by the due date?
[00:04:32.12 - 00:04:36.21] Those are all work related KPIs and compensation.
[00:04:36.21 - 00:04:39.17] But how do you measure and compensate people
[00:04:39.19 - 00:04:42.16] for demonstrating and living your culture?
[00:04:42.16 - 00:04:44.10] I didn't know any of that stuff.
[00:04:44.11 - 00:04:50.02] But my employees started telling me because the culture here is what we
[00:04:50.02 - 00:04:50.23] believe in.
[00:04:50.23 - 00:04:55.17] and we feel like we're at home in a tribe of people with shared beliefs.
[00:04:55.17 - 00:04:58.02] I was like, I had no idea that was so important to you.
[00:04:58.02 - 00:05:00.14] And they said, that's why we don't want to work somewhere else.
[00:05:00.14 - 00:05:02.21] So it was definitely a eureka moment.
[00:05:02.21 - 00:05:08.02] And going forward, I said, I need to make sure I'm always focused on creating an
[00:05:08.02 - 00:05:12.06] environment and a culture that makes you guys want to stay here.
[00:05:12.15 - 00:05:20.19] So when you say culture, you talked about values, you talked about measuring and
[00:05:20.19 - 00:05:27.19] rewarding culture fit, which was one aspect of the culture of, let's say,
[00:05:27.19 - 00:05:33.12] Priceline or any other company that you were really proud of, that you think you
[00:05:33.12 - 00:05:35.00] did extremely well?
[00:05:35.03 - 00:05:41.21] Sure, so I think the thing that we did extremely well was, again, compensation is
[00:05:41.21 - 00:05:43.11] for you performing at your work.
[00:05:43.11 - 00:05:45.17] We'll stick with sales because that's easy.
[00:05:45.17 - 00:05:47.15] You have to sell a thousand units this year.
[00:05:47.15 - 00:05:53.17] You sold 1200 units of our product, so you got great compensation.
[00:05:53.17 - 00:05:57.18] When we talk about KPIs, they're business objectives, and everybody knew that.
[00:05:57.18 - 00:06:00.02] But we started a program.
[00:06:00.02 - 00:06:03.06] In fact, you'll probably get a kick out of this story.
[00:06:03.19 - 00:06:05.02] I came in one morning
[00:06:05.02 - 00:06:06.08] and everyone's like shh.
[00:06:06.10 - 00:06:08.06] And I said why and they pointed.
[00:06:08.06 - 00:06:13.04] One of my employees, Natalie, was face down sleeping in the office, clearly in
[00:06:13.04 - 00:06:15.03] the clothes she was wearing last night.
[00:06:15.04 - 00:06:17.21] So she had stayed all night, obviously, and fallen asleep.
[00:06:17.21 - 00:06:21.16] The other interesting thing was that she was not sleeping in her own desk.
[00:06:21.16 - 00:06:23.14] She was sleeping in someone else's.
[00:06:23.18 - 00:06:27.17] And so after a while, she woke up really embarrassed, right?
[00:06:27.17 - 00:06:30.17] She had like a keyboard on her forehead because she was face down.
[00:06:30.17 - 00:06:32.16] And she just ran out of the office and I
[00:06:32.18 - 00:06:35.01] said, don't come back, just go home and sleep.
[00:06:35.11 - 00:06:38.15] Of course being the employee she was she took a nap, showered, and came back three
[00:06:38.15 - 00:06:41.01] hours later in the afternoon, but
[00:06:41.10 - 00:06:44.23] I asked, so I went and asked her, what's going on?
[00:06:45.02 - 00:06:47.22] And she said, well, she's an account manager.
[00:06:48.02 - 00:06:54.11] And she said, while I was at my desk, the account manager who works next to me was
[00:06:54.11 - 00:06:59.04] having trouble with a problem with her customer, not Natalie's customer, her
[00:06:59.04 - 00:07:00.14] teammate's customer.
[00:07:00.19 - 00:07:06.11] And she said at the end of the day, her teammate said to the customer, hey, look,
[00:07:06.11 - 00:07:09.06] I'm a single mom, I have to pick my kids up at school.
[00:07:09.06 - 00:07:10.23] And the customer wasn't upset.
[00:07:11.10 - 00:07:13.18] said thanks for spending so much time
[00:07:14.08 - 00:07:20.00] you know, working on this, I'll talk to you tomorrow, but Natalie got up.
[00:07:20.03 - 00:07:23.17] And so part of our cultural thing is we're all in this together, right?
[00:07:23.17 - 00:07:25.10] And I talk about that a lot.
[00:07:25.13 - 00:07:31.06] Um, I talk about the fact that, um, with the, we're only strong as our weakest link
[00:07:31.06 - 00:07:34.17] and that we've got it, we all succeed or win or lose together.
[00:07:34.17 - 00:07:38.07] We talked about these things as part of our value set and our culture.
[00:07:38.08 - 00:07:43.01] And so anyway, it happened was Natalie, after everybody left, stayed late, moved
[00:07:43.01 - 00:07:44.01] over to the other desk,
[00:07:44.01 - 00:07:48.05] called this customer, said, I'm not your account manager, but I was listening
[00:07:48.05 - 00:07:50.04] today, and I have an idea.
[00:07:50.04 - 00:07:52.05] Turns out they stayed up all night.
[00:07:52.14 - 00:07:57.12] The customer did too with Natalie, not her customer, and they fixed the problem.
[00:07:57.14 - 00:08:01.17] So when I got into the office, I got a massively happy note from my customer.
[00:08:01.17 - 00:08:03.09] Your people are amazing.
[00:08:03.09 - 00:08:05.13] She's not even my account manager.
[00:08:05.13 - 00:08:09.03] Super happy customer who said, I'm gonna tell everybody, I'm gonna post this.
[00:08:09.03 - 00:08:10.10] Well, how great your company is.
[00:08:10.10 - 00:08:11.13] So that's a win.
[00:08:11.20 - 00:08:16.20] And Natalie, who doesn't even get compensated, her KPIs do not include that
[00:08:16.20 - 00:08:18.15] customer, but that's our culture.
[00:08:18.15 - 00:08:20.09] Let's all win or lose together, right?
[00:08:20.09 - 00:08:21.16] Let's do this together.
[00:08:21.16 - 00:08:25.21] So, I went out, and you asked me if it was something that I did well, I'm sorry for
[00:08:25.21 - 00:08:27.16] the long story that I was proud of.
[00:08:27.16 - 00:08:32.13] I went out at lunch the next day, and I went looking for a trophy shop.
[00:08:32.15 - 00:08:34.17] And all I could find was sports trophies.
[00:08:34.20 - 00:08:37.06] And, you know, they had football, they had
[00:08:37.08 - 00:08:39.19] baseball, basketball, none of those worked.
[00:08:39.19 - 00:08:42.14] But there was a Taekwondo trophy.
[00:08:42.18 - 00:08:44.20] The problem was all the rest were made out of metal.
[00:08:44.20 - 00:08:50.09] The Taekwondo one was this cheap plastic, gold-colored plastic, $12,
[00:08:51.05 - 00:08:53.14] the worst thing in there, but I bought it anyway.
[00:08:53.19 - 00:08:54.21] And I went back, and when I got there, I went out on the floor and I told all my
[00:08:54.21 - 00:08:58.12] And I went back, and when I got there, I went out on the floor and I told all my
[00:08:58.12 - 00:09:01.22] employees, I said, everybody stop working and come to Natalie's desk.
[00:09:02.00 - 00:09:03.17] And everyone's like, what's going on?
[00:09:03.19 - 00:09:05.23] And I had everybody gather around the desk.
[00:09:06.00 - 00:09:08.15] And I said, y'all know what Natalie did the other night?
[00:09:08.15 - 00:09:13.19] And I told them, and our values, our culture, we have signs on the wall that
[00:09:13.19 - 00:09:16.05] talk about what our culture is and what we believe in.
[00:09:16.05 - 00:09:19.16] And I pointed at that one, about winning together.
[00:09:19.20 - 00:09:23.17] And I said, that's one of the key tenets of our culture.
[00:09:23.21 - 00:09:28.06] And Natalie didn't just believe it, she lived it last night.
[00:09:28.07 - 00:09:34.19] And I said, so to show you how much we value our culture and people living our
[00:09:34.19 - 00:09:38.18] culture, I took that little plastic statue and I couldn't come up with it's
[00:09:38.18 - 00:09:39.20] Taekwondo.
[00:09:39.20 - 00:09:44.11] So what I did was I said, for Natalie's stealth in the middle of the night while
[00:09:44.11 - 00:09:45.15] you were sleeping.
[00:09:45.20 - 00:09:48.04] I'm now naming Natalie the first ever
[00:09:48.06 - 00:09:51.04] recipient of the company's Golden Ninja award.
[00:09:51.04 - 00:09:54.18] And I put this little plastic trophy on her desk and I said, Natalie, you are now
[00:09:54.18 - 00:09:56.23] the owner of the Golden Ninja trophy.
[00:09:57.06 - 00:10:00.20] And everyone else was staring and one of the people across the room said, how do I
[00:10:00.20 - 00:10:01.19] get that?
[00:10:01.23 - 00:10:03.09] And then it was on.
[00:10:03.09 - 00:10:08.23] I was like, you just need to do something that demonstrates that you are living our
[00:10:08.23 - 00:10:11.00] values and living our culture.
[00:10:11.00 - 00:10:13.17] So they've never been compensated for culture before.
[00:10:13.20 - 00:10:15.20] And Bill, the guy that said that pointed at
[00:10:15.22 - 00:10:17.22] Natalie and he goes, don't get comfortable.
[00:10:17.22 - 00:10:19.21] And everybody started laughing.
[00:10:19.21 - 00:10:26.22] But they realized that if it's the boss management standing up and saying our
[00:10:26.22 - 00:10:31.03] culture is real and it matters and recognizing an employee in front of their
[00:10:31.03 - 00:10:36.07] peers for a cultural accomplishment, which no one had ever seen before, that was a
[00:10:36.07 - 00:10:37.06] whole different thing.
[00:10:37.06 - 00:10:38.18] My employees loved it.
[00:10:38.18 - 00:10:40.19] That statue became competitive.
[00:10:40.19 - 00:10:44.00] Everybody wanted to win a culture award at our company.
[00:10:44.23 - 00:10:49.19] And it just, you know, it was a little $12 idea I had, but it became a major thing in
[00:10:49.19 - 00:10:53.08] our company that let people know our culture actually matters.
[00:10:53.08 - 00:10:56.03] These aren't just posters, this is how we live.
[00:10:56.03 - 00:11:00.15] And it's something that you made up impromptu, right?
[00:11:00.15 - 00:11:02.17] It's not, it wasn't a strategy.
[00:11:03.01 - 00:11:08.20] It was a spur of the moment and it really touched the employees.
[00:11:08.20 - 00:11:17.15] Um, I mean, their heart, I think, and, and resonated.
[00:11:17.17 - 00:11:18.22] I love that.
[00:11:18.22 - 00:11:20.03] Really made a difference.
[00:11:20.03 - 00:11:22.22] And it got people talking about culture.
[00:11:22.22 - 00:11:27.08] And it got people saying things like, in the company I used to work for, they put
[00:11:27.08 - 00:11:30.06] posters on the wall, but no one really believed that stuff.
[00:11:30.12 - 00:11:34.14] And they said, in this company, clearly our values mean something to the people
[00:11:34.14 - 00:11:37.15] that own this company, because of that happening.
[00:11:37.19 - 00:11:42.07] So it impacted the team a lot, and I heard a lot of discussion about it.
[00:11:42.15 - 00:11:47.07] What do you think separates the companies who just put values on a wall and those
[00:11:47.07 - 00:11:48.06] that actually live them?
[00:11:48.06 - 00:11:54.20] You know, I think that becomes like a little crack in the damn of credibility.
[00:11:54.20 - 00:11:59.02] What I mean by that is employees start saying they just make these posters, they
[00:11:59.02 - 00:12:00.11] don't even care, right?
[00:12:00.11 - 00:12:03.17] They're just trying to impress us and they don't even believe it.
[00:12:03.17 - 00:12:06.23] So what I mean by a crack in the damn is you got a little bit of leak in your
[00:12:06.23 - 00:12:10.12] credibility because the next time you say something, they're like, yeah, do they
[00:12:10.12 - 00:12:13.15] believe that too or are they just trying to make us feel better?
[00:12:13.15 - 00:12:14.06] So.
[00:12:14.11 - 00:12:18.02] They start to think that you say things because you think it's cool to say them,
[00:12:18.02 - 00:12:19.15] not because you believe in them.
[00:12:19.20 - 00:12:21.20] And so I was like that.
[00:12:22.10 - 00:12:25.10] I only ever had one corporate job for a big corporate.
[00:12:25.11 - 00:12:29.06] And our management would say things and then they'd behave completely differently.
[00:12:29.09 - 00:12:32.18] And so we started saying, what else are they telling us that they're just telling
[00:12:32.18 - 00:12:35.20] us now that we didn't know that we couldn't trust them?
[00:12:36.02 - 00:12:40.10] But we see them posting one thing and then doing another and we're like, wait a
[00:12:40.10 - 00:12:42.11] minute, so what is true around here?
[00:12:42.12 - 00:12:48.19] So it starts to cause a credibility issue for everything you say if people realize
[00:12:48.19 - 00:12:52.06] you just put that up as a poster and you don't even live that yourself.
[00:12:52.10 - 00:12:59.05] And very often as a leader you turn the blind eye and you don't just want to admit
[00:12:59.05 - 00:13:02.03] that people are not following.
[00:13:04.00 - 00:13:08.01] What was a moment where you learned the hard way?
[00:13:08.10 - 00:13:12.21] Whether it is culture or something else that, you know, changed you as a leader,
[00:13:12.23 - 00:13:14.10] made you a better leader.
[00:13:14.12 - 00:13:19.11] So I guess learning the hard way, there have been a couple.
[00:13:20.09 - 00:13:25.02] At one company, I needed help.
[00:13:25.02 - 00:13:26.18] This was a startup that was growing.
[00:13:26.18 - 00:13:31.12] So I made somebody at the company a co-founder.
[00:13:31.16 - 00:13:32.17] He wasn't a partner.
[00:13:32.17 - 00:13:35.06] I made him a co-founder with me and made him
[00:13:35.08 - 00:13:37.22] a partner because I was doing the marketing.
[00:13:38.01 - 00:13:40.06] I was the outside person and he was the inside person.
[00:13:40.06 - 00:13:43.00] He was doing the technical development of the product,
[00:13:43.00 - 00:13:46.03] and I was out there marketing and selling it, and we were a good team.
[00:13:46.03 - 00:13:49.08] So I made him a co-founder and a 50-50 partner.
[00:13:49.14 - 00:13:57.00] And based on his work, not on a cultural assessment, which I didn't do, and by
[00:13:57.00 - 00:14:01.11] making him a co-founder, he suddenly was in charge of half the company.
[00:14:01.15 - 00:14:05.00] And before he was just one of the company, and I was in charge.
[00:14:05.00 - 00:14:09.00] I put him in charge of half the company, and then as soon as there were, which
[00:14:09.00 - 00:14:12.11] there always are, wherever humans gather, you have human issues.
[00:14:14.10 - 00:14:18.12] I have a friend who has this great quote about growing a company.
[00:14:18.23 - 00:14:24.11] He says, everything was going fine until people.
[00:14:24.11 - 00:14:28.22] And I always love that because in the early days, all you're doing is building
[00:14:28.22 - 00:14:29.19] your product.
[00:14:29.19 - 00:14:35.03] But as you grow, you have days where you like, I've handled 15 people issues and I
[00:14:35.03 - 00:14:37.08] haven't even talked to a customer today.
[00:14:37.08 - 00:14:40.01] Because as the group gets bigger, that's how humans behave.
[00:14:40.01 - 00:14:40.22] You get human issues.
[00:14:40.22 - 00:14:41.20] But anyway.
[00:14:42.04 - 00:14:48.06] He had a problem with an employee, and an employee who had a big personal issue at
[00:14:48.06 - 00:14:53.11] home with family and was extremely emotional and upset at work and wasn't
[00:14:53.11 - 00:14:54.18] able to do his work.
[00:14:54.22 - 00:14:59.13] And what I was going to do was walk over there and tell this employee, how can we
[00:14:59.13 - 00:15:00.13] help you?
[00:15:00.13 - 00:15:01.12] Do you need some counseling?
[00:15:01.12 - 00:15:03.06] Do you need some days off?
[00:15:03.06 - 00:15:06.18] What do we need to do to help you with your family situation and you can just
[00:15:06.18 - 00:15:09.03] come back to work when you're able to focus.
[00:15:09.08 - 00:15:10.02] We want to help you.
[00:15:10.02 - 00:15:12.14] We want... your family is more important than your job.
[00:15:12.16 - 00:15:14.13] So I'm on the way over there to do that.
[00:15:14.13 - 00:15:20.16] And I overhear this person that I made a partner based only on work, not cultural
[00:15:20.16 - 00:15:23.08] fit, go over to him and say this.
[00:15:23.10 - 00:15:26.06] He said, I heard you were crying at work.
[00:15:26.06 - 00:15:28.02] We don't pay you to cry.
[00:15:28.02 - 00:15:30.16] So whatever the hell your problem is, get over it.
[00:15:32.00 - 00:15:36.03] And I stood there and said, I have just made a massive mistake.
[00:15:36.05 - 00:15:39.01] And I pulled him aside and I said, why on earth would you say that?
[00:15:39.01 - 00:15:42.15] And he said, because we don't pay people to be non-productive and to sit at their
[00:15:42.15 - 00:15:43.20] desk and cry.
[00:15:43.20 - 00:15:47.10] Whatever his problem is, he needs to be professional and deal with it.
[00:15:47.10 - 00:15:51.08] Well, his problem is somebody in his family was dying.
[00:15:52.07 - 00:15:54.11] And I said, do you even know what he was crying about?
[00:15:54.11 - 00:15:56.07] He said, it's not our business.
[00:15:56.18 - 00:15:57.14] This is a company.
[00:15:57.14 - 00:15:59.04] His job is to write code.
[00:15:59.04 - 00:16:02.00] And I was like, why don't you leave right now and go to lunch?
[00:16:02.00 - 00:16:03.12] I don't want you in the building.
[00:16:03.13 - 00:16:06.00] And I went and talked to my employees, my team.
[00:16:06.00 - 00:16:08.17] So you asked learning the hard way, that was the hard way.
[00:16:08.21 - 00:16:12.23] And then I started uncovering, talking to people while he was gone and finding out
[00:16:12.23 - 00:16:16.03] that he was treating people in a way that some of my best people were looking for
[00:16:16.03 - 00:16:17.07] other jobs.
[00:16:17.07 - 00:16:19.20] And I was like, please don't go, I'll get rid of him.
[00:16:20.01 - 00:16:21.17] But people were job hunting.
[00:16:21.17 - 00:16:26.03] And I didn't even know any of that because their view was Jeff brought him in so he
[00:16:26.03 - 00:16:27.17] must think this is okay.
[00:16:28.00 - 00:16:33.08] Major mistake, major learn the hard way, super hard to remove him from the company
[00:16:33.10 - 00:16:35.19] and then to recover the damage that he did.
[00:16:35.21 - 00:16:38.14] I did not know that I should, well, I made the
[00:16:38.16 - 00:16:41.08] mistake of not doing a cultural assessment.
[00:16:41.08 - 00:16:43.09] I only did a skills assessment.
[00:16:43.19 - 00:16:47.22] And the people we hire send messages about our standards.
[00:16:47.22 - 00:16:50.02] Yes, exactly.
[00:16:50.02 - 00:16:51.17] And that's the mistake that I made.
[00:16:51.17 - 00:16:53.12] People are like, well, that must be okay with Jeff.
[00:16:53.12 - 00:16:57.01] He brought him in here and told us how great he was, but I was only talking about
[00:16:57.01 - 00:16:59.08] his technical abilities, my mistake.
[00:16:59.08 - 00:17:03.03] What is, let me ask you a different question.
[00:17:03.03 - 00:17:08.09] How do you balance compassion with consequence or accountability?
[00:17:08.22 - 00:17:13.09] So how do you balance high performance with really caring about people?
[00:17:13.09 - 00:17:17.05] Sure, I think that's a great question and
[00:17:17.07 - 00:17:21.04] I, in fact, really glad you brought that up.
[00:17:21.04 - 00:17:23.12] Let me just share another story with you.
[00:17:23.12 - 00:17:28.11] Now that I'm retired and mentor leaders and CEOs, I call this one guy, he sends me
[00:17:28.11 - 00:17:29.12] a note, can you give me a call?
[00:17:29.12 - 00:17:32.13] So I call him up, I go, hey John, and he goes, Jeff.
[00:17:33.01 - 00:17:34.15] He said, can I call you back?
[00:17:34.15 - 00:17:35.23] He said, I said, what's up?
[00:17:35.23 - 00:17:40.01] And he said, I have to go find something for John to do again, sorry...
[00:17:40.01 - 00:17:41.05] For Jack to do again.
[00:17:41.05 - 00:17:43.15] And I said, John, every part of that sentence is wrong.
[00:17:43.17 - 00:17:45.00] And he said, why?
[00:17:45.00 - 00:17:47.19] And I said, find something for Jack to do again.
[00:17:47.19 - 00:17:49.03] I said, what's the story?
[00:17:49.03 - 00:17:53.02] He said, we hired him for sales and he didn't sell anything.
[00:17:53.02 - 00:17:57.08] So we moved him to marketing and the sales team said, all his marketing materials
[00:17:57.08 - 00:17:58.08] were wrong.
[00:17:58.09 - 00:18:01.06] He said, so now I'm gonna go find something else for him to do.
[00:18:01.09 - 00:18:02.02] I said, why?
[00:18:02.02 - 00:18:03.23] And he said, compassion.
[00:18:03.23 - 00:18:04.23] He didn't use those words.
[00:18:04.23 - 00:18:06.20] He said, I love this guy, he's so nice.
[00:18:06.20 - 00:18:08.20] He's a friend of mine, everybody likes him.
[00:18:08.20 - 00:18:10.08] I'll find something for him.
[00:18:10.08 - 00:18:12.11] So here is where you draw that line.
[00:18:12.20 - 00:18:19.08] I said to him that business is about results.
[00:18:19.12 - 00:18:21.05] And you don't even make it personal.
[00:18:21.05 - 00:18:26.11] You simply say, this job is this slot in the company.
[00:18:26.11 - 00:18:30.00] This job has to achieve the following list of results.
[00:18:30.00 - 00:18:33.15] We are currently not seeing these results, so we need to find somebody who can
[00:18:33.15 - 00:18:34.21] deliver the results.
[00:18:34.21 - 00:18:37.20] And what I told him is, if you are
[00:18:38.01 - 00:18:44.00] finding things for people to do at your company because you like them, that's why
[00:18:44.00 - 00:18:48.22] you're not firing them, then you are not running a business, you are running an
[00:18:48.22 - 00:18:51.01] adult daycare center.
[00:18:51.04 - 00:18:53.00] You are running a center where people drop
[00:18:53.02 - 00:18:55.03] adults off and you create activities for them.
[00:18:55.03 - 00:18:56.19] It's an adult daycare center.
[00:18:56.19 - 00:19:02.00] A business is a place where every position has a list of deliverables and if it
[00:19:02.00 - 00:19:04.12] doesn't deliver them, you can't work there.
[00:19:04.13 - 00:19:06.07] And so they said, what about compassion?
[00:19:06.07 - 00:19:07.20] Well, I will tell you this.
[00:19:08.07 - 00:19:13.18] I have had many tears cried on my shoulder in my office, but I still fired them.
[00:19:14.00 - 00:19:19.10] I have cried many tears in my office because I love those people and I know
[00:19:19.10 - 00:19:20.16] it's going to be a problem.
[00:19:20.16 - 00:19:24.11] The difference is compassion is outside of the job.
[00:19:24.11 - 00:19:27.16] So for example, people are always surprised when I tell them this.
[00:19:28.00 - 00:19:34.07] Twice, two times, I let employees live in my house for as long as they want and pay
[00:19:34.07 - 00:19:37.21] no rent and eat my food until they could find another job.
[00:19:37.21 - 00:19:42.06] Because I knew that when I fired them, they would be in financial trouble, but I
[00:19:42.06 - 00:19:43.06] still fired them.
[00:19:43.06 - 00:19:44.22] I'm not running a daycare center.
[00:19:44.22 - 00:19:46.01] I'm running a business.
[00:19:46.01 - 00:19:48.02] You can run a daycare center at your house.
[00:19:48.06 - 00:19:50.10] I have loaned people money personally.
[00:19:50.10 - 00:19:51.21] I have let them stay in my house.
[00:19:51.21 - 00:19:55.23] I have found them other jobs, but I never kept them at the company.
[00:19:55.23 - 00:20:02.03] Compassion is something you do on your own, outside of meaning that you always
[00:20:02.03 - 00:20:03.21] have compassion every day at work.
[00:20:03.21 - 00:20:06.11] But the point is that you're running a business.
[00:20:06.13 - 00:20:07.13] and results have to win.
[00:20:07.13 - 00:20:12.07] And people that don't generate results, you show them compassion on your own, but
[00:20:12.07 - 00:20:15.01] you don't show them a paycheck for not performing.
[00:20:15.01 - 00:20:17.06] It brings everybody else and the whole company
[00:20:17.08 - 00:20:19.12] down and they don't believe in you anymore.
[00:20:19.12 - 00:20:23.21] Here's what they say, looks like you don't really have to do your job here because
[00:20:23.21 - 00:20:27.16] Jack, this guy never performs and that seems to be okay with Jeff, so why am I
[00:20:27.16 - 00:20:28.22] working so hard?
[00:20:29.00 - 00:20:32.05] When I call everyone and said, I know everybody loves Jack, but I'm letting him
[00:20:32.05 - 00:20:33.09] go Friday.
[00:20:33.12 - 00:20:35.15] They said, oh, Jack, we know this is going to be tough.
[00:20:35.15 - 00:20:36.18] If you need anything, call me.
[00:20:36.18 - 00:20:38.00] You can borrow my car.
[00:20:38.00 - 00:20:39.22] My employees all showed compassion.
[00:20:39.22 - 00:20:42.20] But not one of them said, don't fire him just because he's nice.
[00:20:42.20 - 00:20:44.04] I hope that makes sense.
[00:20:44.17 - 00:20:45.18] Let them live in your house.
[00:20:45.18 - 00:20:46.20] Loan them money.
[00:20:46.20 - 00:20:48.06] Show compassion.
[00:20:48.06 - 00:20:53.01] But people that don't perform the business objectives cannot stay at your company
[00:20:53.01 - 00:20:54.09] just because you like them.
[00:20:54.12 - 00:21:00.20] Right, so what I hear is compassion is a personal duty, performance is an
[00:21:00.20 - 00:21:02.10] obligation to the company.
[00:21:02.10 - 00:21:04.09] There, I think you said it very, very well.
[00:21:04.09 - 00:21:05.05] Thank you.
[00:21:06.17 - 00:21:10.23] How did your leadership style develop over the course of time, Jeff?
[00:21:10.23 - 00:21:17.09] Was there someone who really influenced you in how you think about people?
[00:21:17.21 - 00:21:18.22] There were.
[00:21:19.01 - 00:21:23.14] The problem is, the first company I started, I was a CEO when I was 24.
[00:21:23.15 - 00:21:27.07] And this was the company where we were building the kiosk when you go to the
[00:21:27.07 - 00:21:29.08] airport and you check in at the check-in kiosk.
[00:21:29.08 - 00:21:30.19] That was my first product.
[00:21:30.19 - 00:21:31.22] But I was 20-something.
[00:21:31.22 - 00:21:33.21] I had one job ever and I failed at it.
[00:21:33.21 - 00:21:35.21] It was my corporate job that I quit.
[00:21:36.01 - 00:21:37.21] And so I don't know how to run a business.
[00:21:38.09 - 00:21:41.01] And I'm hiring 40-year-olds and I'm 20-something.
[00:21:41.08 - 00:21:44.01] And they're saying, okay, you just hired me.
[00:21:44.01 - 00:21:44.19] What do you want me to do?
[00:21:44.19 - 00:21:45.15] I was like, I don't know.
[00:21:45.15 - 00:21:46.23] That's why I hired you.
[00:21:47.01 - 00:21:49.05] Figure it out, you're way smarter than me.
[00:21:49.13 - 00:21:53.06] So I was drowning with the first company that I started.
[00:21:53.06 - 00:21:56.13] So I certainly didn't know anything about leadership.
[00:21:56.13 - 00:21:58.04] In fact, I had a funny moment.
[00:21:58.04 - 00:21:59.23] I'd only hired three people.
[00:22:00.06 - 00:22:05.11] So there were four of us at this kiosk company and somebody, one of the three
[00:22:05.11 - 00:22:09.20] people came running down the hall and he goes, Jeff, the other two employees are
[00:22:09.20 - 00:22:12.13] arguing and I think they're about to fight.
[00:22:12.16 - 00:22:14.03] You better get down here.
[00:22:14.06 - 00:22:16.18] So we're running down the hall and
[00:22:17.00 - 00:22:19.15] to break up any potential physical fight.
[00:22:19.18 - 00:22:22.23] And my employee, when we're running, goes, hey boss, what are you gonna do when we
[00:22:22.23 - 00:22:23.20] get there?
[00:22:23.20 - 00:22:27.20] And I stopped running and I said, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do when I get
[00:22:27.20 - 00:22:28.12] there.
[00:22:28.12 - 00:22:31.04] I said, no training for this, no experience.
[00:22:31.04 - 00:22:32.14] I don't know what I'm gonna do.
[00:22:32.14 - 00:22:37.01] And I said, I hope they figured it out before I get there because I have no clue.
[00:22:37.01 - 00:22:40.00] And that's when I started realizing, I don't know what leadership is.
[00:22:40.03 - 00:22:46.09] And you're raised to believe, if you ask a child, what do you think the boss does?
[00:22:46.09 - 00:22:50.07] The child would tell you, the boss is the one that tells everybody else what to do.
[00:22:50.07 - 00:22:50.21] Right?
[00:22:50.21 - 00:22:52.14] That's what we think leadership is.
[00:22:52.14 - 00:22:58.06] But what I learned is that real leaders don't create followers at all.
[00:22:58.06 - 00:23:00.04] Real leaders create other leaders.
[00:23:00.08 - 00:23:04.01] I didn't have success by telling people what to do and being in charge.
[00:23:04.02 - 00:23:09.02] I had success when I started saying, I don't really know what I'm doing, so I am
[00:23:09.02 - 00:23:11.07] going to go find people smarter than me.
[00:23:11.07 - 00:23:13.02] Then I'm going to hire those people.
[00:23:13.02 - 00:23:15.23] Then I'm going to just do what I need to do to make sure they're happy there.
[00:23:15.23 - 00:23:17.15] Then I'm gonna get out of the way.
[00:23:17.19 - 00:23:20.18] So I've only ever written one book with a friend of mine, David Finkel.
[00:23:20.18 - 00:23:22.10] We wrote a book called Scale.
[00:23:22.14 - 00:23:27.01] And pretty much page one says, you're never gonna scale your business till you
[00:23:27.01 - 00:23:28.05] get out of the way.
[00:23:28.08 - 00:23:33.09] And you can't get out of the way until you can trust and empower people to do things
[00:23:33.09 - 00:23:35.17] without your permission, right, outside of you.
[00:23:35.17 - 00:23:38.02] And you can't trust and empower until you're
[00:23:38.04 - 00:23:40.08] surrounded by people smarter than you.
[00:23:40.08 - 00:23:44.00] So what I evolved to was instead of running the business,
[00:23:44.03 - 00:23:49.00] I evolved to leaving the office to go find people smarter than me and then letting
[00:23:49.00 - 00:23:50.10] them run the business.
[00:23:50.10 - 00:23:54.04] Now I have CEOs that I say, why don't you just let her do that?
[00:23:54.08 - 00:23:56.18] And they'll say, well, she's not going to do it.
[00:23:56.18 - 00:23:58.00] I started this company.
[00:23:58.00 - 00:23:59.15] It's my idea, right?
[00:23:59.15 - 00:24:00.11] I'm the CEO.
[00:24:00.11 - 00:24:01.11] I'm the founder.
[00:24:01.11 - 00:24:03.02] No one's going to do it the way I do it.
[00:24:03.02 - 00:24:04.02] And my answer is right.
[00:24:04.02 - 00:24:06.23] She might do it better than the way you do it.
[00:24:06.23 - 00:24:09.19] So step back and let other people grow.
[00:24:09.19 - 00:24:11.08] Until you can do that
[00:24:11.20 - 00:24:12.13] you don't scale.
[00:24:12.13 - 00:24:15.14] We didn't grow until we started letting go.
[00:24:15.14 - 00:24:18.04] And I learned that in an evolutionary way.
[00:24:18.04 - 00:24:19.13] No one told me that.
[00:24:19.13 - 00:24:22.10] Which is why, by the way, I do things like this, right?
[00:24:22.10 - 00:24:25.07] Joining your podcast or the mentoring I do.
[00:24:25.12 - 00:24:29.06] Because when I was there, I was saying, I wish somebody that knew how to do this
[00:24:29.06 - 00:24:30.23] would tell me what I'm supposed to do.
[00:24:31.00 - 00:24:36.02] So then I thought, well, later, if I figured out and learned how to do it, then
[00:24:36.02 - 00:24:38.09] I should, I know what it feels like.
[00:24:38.09 - 00:24:38.16] Right?
[00:24:38.16 - 00:24:40.23] So I should try to share what I've learned,
[00:24:41.02 - 00:24:43.10] which is what you and I are doing today.
[00:24:43.10 - 00:24:47.07] Hopefully, I'm sharing something that helps somebody somewhere.
[00:24:47.08 - 00:24:50.03] I'm sure it does.
[00:24:50.07 - 00:24:55.05] The notion that often troubles me is that we still use the term resources for
[00:24:55.05 - 00:24:57.06] people, human resources.
[00:24:57.16 - 00:24:59.18] And so this industry is still alive and
[00:24:59.20 - 00:25:02.08] kicking and events are still called HR events.
[00:25:02.08 - 00:25:09.04] And still some of us are trying to build a solid culture, but there is still people
[00:25:09.04 - 00:25:15.11] who are using the term resources and who see people as a means to do stuff.
[00:25:16.20 - 00:25:21.10] How did you think about the HR part of your company?
[00:25:21.10 - 00:25:24.03] Like what kind of people did you hire to
[00:25:24.05 - 00:25:26.22] run people or to run the people operations?
[00:25:27.04 - 00:25:30.19] It’s interesting you say that because HR was one of the big ones.
[00:25:31.01 - 00:25:37.08] I was, and for all the people that are listening to us now, they're founders,
[00:25:37.08 - 00:25:39.18] they're CEOs, they're running a company.
[00:25:39.21 - 00:25:42.06] And so if I ask them, when you were building
[00:25:42.08 - 00:25:44.13] your company, did you interview people?
[00:25:44.13 - 00:25:45.14] They say, of course I did.
[00:25:45.14 - 00:25:46.09] It's my company.
[00:25:46.09 - 00:25:47.17] I hired the people.
[00:25:48.00 - 00:25:52.21] And so one day I'm doing an interview and a thought just popped into my head.
[00:25:52.21 - 00:25:54.12] I'm a software engineer.
[00:25:54.17 - 00:25:56.13] I have zero HR training.
[00:25:56.18 - 00:25:59.00] So I'm interviewing people based on what?
[00:25:59.00 - 00:26:01.07] Based on what I think an interview is like?
[00:26:01.19 - 00:26:05.16] I was almost like, that would be like me getting an HR person and saying, would you
[00:26:05.16 - 00:26:07.11] just write some code for me?
[00:26:07.11 - 00:26:10.01] Because I'm a software engineer, they'd be like, I don't know how to write code.
[00:26:10.01 - 00:26:13.09] So I was thinking then, why do you think, Jeff, I'm saying this to myself, why do
[00:26:13.09 - 00:26:15.14] you think you know how to do interviewing?
[00:26:15.14 - 00:26:19.16] You're not HR trained, just like the HR person is not trained in writing code.
[00:26:19.16 - 00:26:22.05] It's a profession, it's a skill set, right?
[00:26:22.05 - 00:26:25.00] There's research, there's data, there's best practices.
[00:26:25.00 - 00:26:26.17] All of that came to me one day.
[00:26:26.20 - 00:26:29.03] So I was like, I need to stop trying to run HR.
[00:26:29.03 - 00:26:33.18] And I finally was growing a little bit so I could hire somebody.
[00:26:34.00 - 00:26:35.03] And this was not early on.
[00:26:35.03 - 00:26:36.02] I was doing it myself.
[00:26:36.02 - 00:26:38.10] I said, I need to hire an HR professional.
[00:26:38.18 - 00:26:44.11] And I tell people this all the time, that remember what I said earlier, that the key
[00:26:44.11 - 00:26:47.17] to success is hire less people but hire rock stars.
[00:26:47.19 - 00:26:50.09] Well, rock stars don't wander into your office.
[00:26:50.19 - 00:26:54.12] And rock stars probably don't respond to job postings because most of the people
[00:26:54.12 - 00:26:57.13] responding to a job posting are people that lost their job.
[00:26:57.17 - 00:26:59.15] And so people say to me, how do you find rock stars?
[00:26:59.15 - 00:27:01.14] And the answer is you hunt for them.
[00:27:01.20 - 00:27:06.23] And so I would schedule one or two days a month where I would tell my team, don't
[00:27:06.23 - 00:27:09.20] call me, I'm not gonna be in the office today, I'm gonna go hunt for talent.
[00:27:09.20 - 00:27:11.06] So I'll tell you that story.
[00:27:11.06 - 00:27:13.19] I was like, I need a rock star HR person.
[00:27:13.22 - 00:27:18.01] And so I started calling people and saying, do you know anybody in HR?
[00:27:18.01 - 00:27:20.11] And people would give me a friend's number.
[00:27:20.12 - 00:27:23.07] And I would say, where do HR people hang out?
[00:27:23.09 - 00:27:27.01] And people kept in the United States telling me this word, SHRM.
[00:27:27.08 - 00:27:28.13] And I was like, I don't know what that is.
[00:27:28.13 - 00:27:30.10] So I looked it up.
[00:27:30.10 - 00:27:32.04] It's an acronym, not a word.
[00:27:32.04 - 00:27:35.13] It's the Society for Human Resource Managers.
[00:27:35.13 - 00:27:37.04] So I went to the website.
[00:27:37.06 - 00:27:43.08] And on the website, it said, don't forget to sign up for the annual Human Resource
[00:27:43.08 - 00:27:45.07] Executive Conference.
[00:27:45.13 - 00:27:47.08] So I signed up for the conference.
[00:27:47.08 - 00:27:49.13] And when I went to this conference, there were,
[00:27:49.13 - 00:27:53.11] like everybody had a green badge, because green means you work in HR.
[00:27:53.11 - 00:27:56.18] Mine was red, and I'm walking around, there's like a thousand people, and
[00:27:56.18 - 00:27:58.20] they're like, why is your badge red?
[00:27:58.20 - 00:28:01.17] And I said, because I don't work in HR, and they're like, then why would you come
[00:28:01.17 - 00:28:02.23] to this conference?
[00:28:03.02 - 00:28:05.02] And I said, they said, what are you doing here?
[00:28:05.02 - 00:28:09.02] And I said, well, I'm pretty much shooting fish in a barrel, because there's a
[00:28:09.02 - 00:28:12.12] thousand of you and one of me, and I need someone to do HR.
[00:28:12.13 - 00:28:15.19] And people kind of laughed, and that's how I found my HR person.
[00:28:15.19 - 00:28:19.08] I went to their conference, not my office, I didn't post a job.
[00:28:19.10 - 00:28:24.23] I started meeting people and my shortlist, when you go to a conference, who are the
[00:28:24.23 - 00:28:26.07] speakers at a conference?
[00:28:26.07 - 00:28:27.23] The industry experts.
[00:28:28.06 - 00:28:32.04] So I just circled the small number of speakers at the conference from the
[00:28:32.04 - 00:28:33.04] thousand people.
[00:28:33.04 - 00:28:35.14] And I went and found those people after they spoke.
[00:28:35.21 - 00:28:42.00] Um, and I wound up basically talking this woman, Angela, into leaving her job and
[00:28:42.00 - 00:28:45.08] coming with me by giving her equity, which she didn't have at the big company she
[00:28:45.08 - 00:28:46.04] worked for
[00:28:46.04 - 00:28:47.08] which you can give to start up.
[00:28:47.08 - 00:28:50.02] Angela ran my HR for the next four years.
[00:28:50.04 - 00:28:55.05] So I went out and hunted someone down who was really good at their job.
[00:28:55.06 - 00:28:59.13] And I had to give up some equity to get her, but the difference is the value of my
[00:28:59.13 - 00:29:03.01] company went up because she did the job way better than I did it.
[00:29:03.01 - 00:29:07.13] She increased and improved our talent acquisition and retention.
[00:29:07.14 - 00:29:11.22] Go find, hunt for talent is the story that I'm telling.
[00:29:12.06 - 00:29:19.07] And do you find there's a difference between people who think about culture
[00:29:19.07 - 00:29:21.11] versus people who think about HR?
[00:29:22.02 - 00:29:25.12] I see there's two different worlds and I don't know if you have the same view.
[00:29:26.05 - 00:29:26.14] I think they are two different
[00:29:26.14 - 00:29:29.11] worlds and they most definitely have to work together.
[00:29:29.11 - 00:29:34.21] I think what we were successful at is that we had people doing both.
[00:29:34.21 - 00:29:39.22] We had Angela and a professional HR team, but we had a culture committee at my
[00:29:39.22 - 00:29:43.20] company and Angela from HR was on the culture committee.
[00:29:44.04 - 00:29:48.08] So it wasn't a side job of HR to do culture.
[00:29:48.08 - 00:29:49.14] Culture was its own thing.
[00:29:49.14 - 00:29:52.13] We had a culture committee with volunteers from
[00:29:52.15 - 00:29:55.15] sales, from accounting, from product development.
[00:29:55.18 - 00:29:57.20] But HR was on that team too.
[00:29:57.20 - 00:30:04.08] So we made culture a company-wide responsibility that HR helped implement.
[00:30:04.08 - 00:30:05.17] I totally agree with you.
[00:30:05.21 - 00:30:08.03] What was the culture committee doing?
[00:30:08.03 - 00:30:10.12] Like, it sounds an interesting concept.
[00:30:10.12 - 00:30:12.09] What was it responsible for?
[00:30:12.14 - 00:30:19.19] Their job was to, on a regular basis, recurring basis, survey our workforce and
[00:30:19.19 - 00:30:21.14] ask them several questions.
[00:30:21.21 - 00:30:25.17] What things are we as a company doing that you don't like?
[00:30:25.23 - 00:30:32.19] Our goal is this, and I tell founders this all the time, your goal is to build the
[00:30:32.19 - 00:30:35.06] company, the environment, right?
[00:30:35.06 - 00:30:39.04] To build the place where all the best people in your industry wanna work and
[00:30:39.04 - 00:30:41.09] never wanna leave, as I said before.
[00:30:41.09 - 00:30:41.22] So...
[00:30:41.22 - 00:30:44.13] Culture committee's job was to do that.
[00:30:44.14 - 00:30:48.06] So what they would do is, well, I'll give you an example.
[00:30:48.06 - 00:30:51.17] The day I started that committee, I called all the employees in.
[00:30:52.18 - 00:30:54.06] Because here's what happened.
[00:30:54.06 - 00:30:57.00] Somebody came to me, now I had a layer of management.
[00:30:57.00 - 00:30:59.14] So everyone didn't report to me, my company's growing.
[00:30:59.14 - 00:31:01.16] Right, from 10 people, now we have 40.
[00:31:01.18 - 00:31:05.20] So I have a handful, I have a small number, four people that report to me and
[00:31:05.20 - 00:31:07.19] the rest of the 40 report to them.
[00:31:07.19 - 00:31:09.00] Now I have management.
[00:31:09.00 - 00:31:10.22] One of my managers comes in and says, Jeff,
[00:31:11.08 - 00:31:12.19] I don't want you to handle this.
[00:31:12.19 - 00:31:16.09] I'm going to handle this situation I have with one of my direct reports.
[00:31:16.10 - 00:31:20.06] One of my employees, and he said, but I'm a little unsure what to do next.
[00:31:20.06 - 00:31:21.12] And I said, so what do you need?
[00:31:21.12 - 00:31:25.19] He said, I just came in to get a copy of our employee policy manual.
[00:31:26.02 - 00:31:30.22] And I said, in what universe do you think we have an employee policy manual?
[00:31:31.03 - 00:31:34.13] And he said, well, all my other companies I've worked for, you worked for
[00:31:34.13 - 00:31:36.01] corporations before.
[00:31:36.05 - 00:31:39.03] And I said, but conceptually, your point is good.
[00:31:39.03 - 00:31:41.06] So I said, do me a favor, stop all employees
[00:31:41.08 - 00:31:43.05] and send them to the conference room.
[00:31:43.07 - 00:31:45.06] So all 40 people in the conference room.
[00:31:45.06 - 00:31:47.10] And I'll tell you what I told them to do.
[00:31:47.10 - 00:31:50.01] I said, take out a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle.
[00:31:50.01 - 00:31:51.08] Everyone's staring at me.
[00:31:51.13 - 00:31:55.10] And I said, on the left, I want you to make the following list.
[00:31:55.10 - 00:32:02.07] I want you to write down any behavior or action that any company or manager ever
[00:32:02.07 - 00:32:06.10] did to you at any other job that made you feel disrespected.
[00:32:06.10 - 00:32:10.06] made you feel undervalued, made you hate your job, made you quit your job.
[00:32:10.08 - 00:32:15.11] Write down all the things that other companies did that you hated, you didn't
[00:32:15.11 - 00:32:17.14] like, and you felt disrespected.
[00:32:17.14 - 00:32:18.18] Write that down.
[00:32:18.19 - 00:32:23.07] I said, now on the right side, I gave them some time, I said, write the opposite.
[00:32:23.09 - 00:32:27.13] What is anything that any management you've ever worked for did that made you
[00:32:27.13 - 00:32:30.05] feel valued and respected and love your job
[00:32:30.07 - 00:32:32.23] and can't wait to come to work tomorrow?
[00:32:33.05 - 00:32:35.12] And then I gave everybody like a push pin.
[00:32:35.12 - 00:32:37.01] And they said, what is this?
[00:32:37.01 - 00:32:40.16] I said, that thing you just wrote is our new employee policy manual, stick it on
[00:32:40.16 - 00:32:41.13] the wall.
[00:32:41.17 - 00:32:43.11] And so those were all over the wall.
[00:32:43.11 - 00:32:48.03] And I said, if I ever see you do anything that you wrote down on the left side,
[00:32:48.03 - 00:32:48.19] you're out of here.
[00:32:48.19 - 00:32:50.23] You're fired, because you told me you hated it.
[00:32:50.23 - 00:32:53.04] So why would you treat anyone else that way?
[00:32:53.05 - 00:32:57.00] And I said, and at least once a month, I want you to look at the things you wrote
[00:32:57.00 - 00:33:00.13] on the right and go do that thing for some other employee.
[00:33:01.10 - 00:33:04.02] And so that was the start of a culture.
[00:33:04.02 - 00:33:06.12] How do we treat each other every day?
[00:33:06.12 - 00:33:07.20] What is okay, what is not?
[00:33:07.20 - 00:33:09.12] What do we love, what do we hate?
[00:33:09.12 - 00:33:15.05] And so our culture committee was, job was to take that a level deeper.
[00:33:15.20 - 00:33:17.18] I'll give you an example and then I'll stop.
[00:33:17.18 - 00:33:22.05] There was one of the things I noticed that I had multiple single mothers that worked
[00:33:22.05 - 00:33:22.19] for me.
[00:33:22.19 - 00:33:27.08] And one of the things they put on the left side of their paper was if they were a
[00:33:27.08 - 00:33:30.03] little stressed because they were single moms
[00:33:30.05 - 00:33:33.01] and they had to leave their child at daycare
[00:33:33.01 - 00:33:34.15] at somebody else's house.
[00:33:34.15 - 00:33:38.17] And so sometimes they would call and just check on their kid.
[00:33:38.17 - 00:33:41.07] They would call the daycare because they were a little worried about it.
[00:33:41.11 - 00:33:44.23] And their management frowned upon that.
[00:33:44.23 - 00:33:45.17] What are you doing?
[00:33:45.17 - 00:33:46.22] I'm just calling daycare.
[00:33:46.22 - 00:33:49.14] Well, we're not paying you to babysit your own child.
[00:33:49.16 - 00:33:53.14] Several of them wrote that I'm stressed out because I feel like I'm committing a
[00:33:53.14 - 00:33:59.02] crime when I'm checking on my kid in daycare, but I can't fully function until
[00:33:59.02 - 00:34:00.15] I know my child's okay.
[00:34:00.15 - 00:34:01.05] So.
[00:34:01.05 - 00:34:03.03] That was one of our culture things.
[00:34:03.03 - 00:34:06.19] And the culture committee came back and they said, Jeff, we want to set up a
[00:34:06.19 - 00:34:07.18] long-term goal.
[00:34:07.18 - 00:34:08.06] I said, what?
[00:34:08.06 - 00:34:14.05] And they said, we want to add a room, like take a conference room and turn it into a
[00:34:14.05 - 00:34:20.09] daycare center and hire people in the building and let our single moms have a
[00:34:20.09 - 00:34:24.02] daycare center in this building where their kids are that when they need a
[00:34:24.02 - 00:34:27.00] little break or at lunch, they can go check on their kids and see them.
[00:34:27.03 - 00:34:28.07] And they said,
[00:34:28.07 - 00:34:32.00] that would make people love this place even that much more.
[00:34:32.00 - 00:34:33.16] And so we set that as a goal.
[00:34:33.16 - 00:34:36.11] And we set aside money every time we got paid as a company.
[00:34:36.11 - 00:34:38.05] A little bit of money went into the daycare
[00:34:38.07 - 00:34:39.23] fund until we built the daycare center.
[00:34:39.23 - 00:34:43.21] The culture committee came up with that idea by talking to the employees and
[00:34:43.21 - 00:34:46.09] saying, what would make this an even better place to work?
[00:34:46.15 - 00:34:53.06] Another similar idea I've heard is asking staff to come up with cool behaviors and
[00:34:53.06 - 00:34:59.18] the not cool behaviors and creating lists of those and stating those as the value of
[00:34:59.18 - 00:35:00.18] the company.
[00:35:00.18 - 00:35:05.19] Yep, I did that just kind of on the fly as well.
[00:35:06.15 - 00:35:08.05] But it worked.
[00:35:08.13 - 00:35:13.04] So now you spend a lot of your time, if not most of your time, coaching and
[00:35:13.04 - 00:35:14.17] mentoring entrepreneurs.
[00:35:15.04 - 00:35:20.04] How would you mentor someone or help someone build a culture?
[00:35:20.04 - 00:35:24.13] How would you guide them to build a strong culture?
[00:35:25.08 - 00:35:26.10] Two ways.
[00:35:26.16 - 00:35:33.06] One is I would tell them to research best practices, right?
[00:35:33.06 - 00:35:37.20] Ask around companies that have, you know, companies that have the lowest turnover,
[00:35:37.20 - 00:35:40.04] companies that have the highest employees.
[00:35:40.04 - 00:35:46.17] For example, in the U.S., there is the Forbes list of best companies to work for,
[00:35:46.17 - 00:35:48.07] as voted by employees.
[00:35:48.09 - 00:35:52.00] One of the CEOs that I was mentoring, his company
[00:35:52.01 - 00:35:54.06] wound up becoming, winning...
[00:35:54.06 - 00:35:56.04] We did everything I just talked you through,
[00:35:56.06 - 00:35:58.02] but I did that with him and his company.
[00:35:58.02 - 00:36:01.11] They wound up becoming one of the... getting
[00:36:01.13 - 00:36:04.17] rated one of the best companies to work for in
[00:36:04.17 - 00:36:05.20] their state.
[00:36:05.20 - 00:36:09.02] And then later they made them the Forbes list, the national list of best companies
[00:36:09.02 - 00:36:10.17] in this whole country to work for.
[00:36:10.17 - 00:36:14.05] So I would tell people, you can look at that list and you could have emailed him
[00:36:14.05 - 00:36:16.20] and said, what exactly did you do?
[00:36:17.00 - 00:36:20.05] And he would tell you, we started with no culture and here's how we built one.
[00:36:20.05 - 00:36:24.05] He would share the best practices that got him voted one of the best
[00:36:24.05 - 00:36:27.19] companies in the entire country to work for, by employees.
[00:36:27.20 - 00:36:30.03] So best practices is one thing.
[00:36:30.06 - 00:36:34.16] Find out who's doing it well and ask them how did they do that?
[00:36:34.16 - 00:36:37.06] And then the second one is what we just discussed.
[00:36:38.03 - 00:36:39.12] Ask your employees straight up.
[00:36:39.12 - 00:36:40.19] What do you like about working here?
[00:36:40.19 - 00:36:42.05] What do you like about working anywhere?
[00:36:42.05 - 00:36:43.12] What do you not like?
[00:36:43.17 - 00:36:44.19] And make that list.
[00:36:44.19 - 00:36:47.01] Well, I was amazed when I asked employees.
[00:36:47.07 - 00:36:50.09] They said, can you give me a minute because no company I've worked for has
[00:36:50.09 - 00:36:52.00] ever asked me that before.
[00:36:52.05 - 00:36:52.20] And I was like, what?
[00:36:52.20 - 00:36:56.00] And they said, I've never been in a company where management said, how do I
[00:36:56.00 - 00:36:58.04] make this the best place you've ever worked?
[00:36:58.09 - 00:37:00.13] So they said, let me think about it because I've never been asked that
[00:37:00.13 - 00:37:01.15] question before.
[00:37:01.15 - 00:37:04.10] And I realized not that I had that many jobs, but I never had.
[00:37:04.10 - 00:37:08.05] I never had the owners of the company come to me and say, we want you to love working
[00:37:08.05 - 00:37:08.15] for us.
[00:37:08.15 - 00:37:09.22] What do we have to do?
[00:37:10.03 - 00:37:13.19] So when I asked that, people said, I need time to think about it.
[00:37:14.11 - 00:37:15.14] Ask your employees.
[00:37:15.16 - 00:37:21.06] If you could help leaders who are not intentional about their culture, how to
[00:37:21.06 - 00:37:23.02] rethink about culture?
[00:37:23.17 - 00:37:25.01] What would you tell them?
[00:37:25.11 - 00:37:28.07] Why is culture important?
[00:37:28.07 - 00:37:35.09] I mean, you talked about the superstars, but why, you know, besides that, why is
[00:37:35.09 - 00:37:36.14] culture important?
[00:37:36.14 - 00:37:39.22] Why do we need to care about people in our business?
[00:37:39.23 - 00:37:44.04] Because it reflects on your entire brand.
[00:37:44.08 - 00:37:50.05] One of the cultural things we had was people before profits, right?
[00:37:50.05 - 00:37:54.06] People talk about that a lot now, but we did that long before that was long ago.
[00:37:55.08 - 00:38:00.20] And we had situations where we made mistakes in business, violated a contract,
[00:38:00.20 - 00:38:02.01] this is a real story.
[00:38:02.01 - 00:38:06.11] Customer called us and said, you violated the contract and technically you just lost
[00:38:06.11 - 00:38:10.05] our business and we have to cancel our contract.
[00:38:10.05 - 00:38:14.12] And they said, but my, this was a CFO.
[00:38:14.12 - 00:38:20.15] He said, all my employees tell me that none of our vendors treat us the way you
[00:38:20.15 - 00:38:21.15] guys do.
[00:38:21.17 - 00:38:26.19] Your human focus and the way you take care of us and talk to us and listen to us is
[00:38:26.19 - 00:38:31.14] so much hands and shoulders, head and shoulders above everybody else out there
[00:38:31.14 - 00:38:35.11] that even though you violated the contract, we're not only not gonna cancel
[00:38:35.11 - 00:38:38.04] it, but we wanna renew the contract for three more years.
[00:38:38.07 - 00:38:39.11] And I said, wait a minute.
[00:38:39.11 - 00:38:42.05] How did I make a mistake and get a new contract?
[00:38:42.07 - 00:38:46.04] And he said, because the mistake caused us to have a committee meeting.
[00:38:46.04 - 00:38:48.03] And in the committee, it was the first time
[00:38:48.05 - 00:38:50.04] I said, what do you think of Jeff's company?
[00:38:50.04 - 00:38:57.10] And he said, I was blown away by all the stories of your employees focusing on us
[00:38:57.12 - 00:38:59.19] as people before profits.
[00:38:59.19 - 00:39:04.04] Times that he said, people told stories of times that we as the customer were wrong,
[00:39:04.04 - 00:39:07.18] and your people knew we were wrong and told us we were wrong, but you still
[00:39:07.18 - 00:39:08.23] refunded our money
[00:39:08.23 - 00:39:10.08] or whatever it was.
[00:39:10.09 - 00:39:13.11] And he said, when I heard all these stories of the way you run your business
[00:39:13.11 - 00:39:17.05] and the way you've been treating my employees, my employees were like, please
[00:39:17.05 - 00:39:19.15] never get rid of that company as a vendor.
[00:39:19.19 - 00:39:26.05] And so that's why it's a glow, it glows positively or negatively on your brand.
[00:39:26.07 - 00:39:31.22] And some of the customers that reached out to me said, I heard from this company that
[00:39:31.22 - 00:39:35.02] I just told you about, he said, we heard them talking about you guys.
[00:39:35.02 - 00:39:38.17] So you don't, we didn't even, you didn't even send us a proposal.
[00:39:38.17 - 00:39:42.22] We've just heard so many good stories about your company that we'd like to sign
[00:39:42.22 - 00:39:43.23] a deal with you.
[00:39:44.10 - 00:39:46.19] So that's the other reason to care about culture.
[00:39:46.19 - 00:39:51.18] Besides attracting people, it creates a personality for your brand that resonates
[00:39:51.18 - 00:39:52.15] in the market.
[00:39:52.23 - 00:39:56.20] And as we close, Jeff, what are some of the things you're really passionate about
[00:39:56.20 - 00:39:59.21] today and how can people learn more about you?
[00:39:59.23 - 00:40:07.03] Um, today, uh, I am, uh, my, my single biggest focus is youth.
[00:40:07.11 - 00:40:12.21] Just came back from an event we held in Europe, um, where, uh, we have teenagers
[00:40:12.21 - 00:40:17.18] around the world and creative kids that are not heroes cause they're not athletes.
[00:40:17.18 - 00:40:17.22] Right?
[00:40:17.22 - 00:40:21.21] In school, the sports star, the football player is the star.
[00:40:22.02 - 00:40:25.21] And we wanted to create a similar opportunity for creative kids.
[00:40:25.21 - 00:40:29.02] So, um, this thing is called Junk Kouture.
[00:40:29.09 - 00:40:34.08] And they compete, kids from around the world compete live on stage.
[00:40:34.10 - 00:40:38.18] And they have to make clothing out of trash and dress a model in it.
[00:40:38.19 - 00:40:41.03] And we just came back from the world finals of that.
[00:40:41.03 - 00:40:45.16] And I spent time with all the teenagers, the kids from around the world that made
[00:40:45.16 - 00:40:46.18] the finals.
[00:40:47.10 - 00:40:52.06] To see these creative kids have a chance to be themselves and not feel like misfits
[00:40:52.06 - 00:40:56.00] and be the stars on the stage, not the football players, was absolutely a
[00:40:56.00 - 00:40:57.02] phenomenal experience.
[00:40:57.02 - 00:40:58.06] So for me-
[00:40:58.07 - 00:41:02.08] I spend most of my personal time now working with youth and trying to convince
[00:41:02.08 - 00:41:07.02] them to go pursue their own passions and to design their own path in life, not take
[00:41:07.02 - 00:41:09.07] the one everyone's telling them they have to take.
[00:41:09.14 - 00:41:13.15] Youth is my source of energy these days.
[00:41:14.21 - 00:41:17.05] LinkedIn, I'm on LinkedIn a lot.
[00:41:17.05 - 00:41:21.01] My Instagram is speakerjeffhoffman.
[00:41:21.08 - 00:41:26.22] I have a website, jeffhoffman.com, which has my contact info, but I would say...
[00:41:26.22 - 00:41:29.05] LinkedIn, there's a lot of Jeff Hoffmans.
[00:41:29.06 - 00:41:33.13] So the way to find me is just type Jeff Hoffman Priceline, and then it goes
[00:41:33.13 - 00:41:35.03] directly to my profile.
[00:41:35.09 - 00:41:39.04] But I love hearing from people and hearing stories of things out there that work so
[00:41:39.04 - 00:41:43.22] that people like you and I can continue to share whatever we've learned that helps
[00:41:43.22 - 00:41:44.22] other people.
[00:41:45.07 - 00:41:46.14] Feel free to reach out.
[00:41:46.18 - 00:41:52.05] And any parting thoughts or any book or anything you'd like to recommend,
[00:41:52.05 - 00:41:55.15] something to take away as a recommendation?
[00:41:55.16 - 00:42:01.17] Um, wow, I am not prepared to answer with a book because the books that I've been
[00:42:01.17 - 00:42:03.23] reading lately aren't really relevant to
[00:42:04.01 - 00:42:06.12] culture, which is your topic, but I still...
[00:42:06.12 - 00:42:12.20] No, anything, I mean, anything that's true to heart, whatever it is, whatever you
[00:42:14.00 - 00:42:18.13] felt warm and fuzzy about.
[00:42:19.07 - 00:42:25.07] I think I'm going to stick with the same topic which is youth.
[00:42:25.10 - 00:42:29.14] Giving a voice to youth, right, because the difference is they don't know what's
[00:42:29.14 - 00:42:33.20] possible or what's not, so they will suggest things that your team never would.
[00:42:34.03 - 00:42:38.02] Spending more time talking to young people who say, how about we do this?
[00:42:38.02 - 00:42:41.12] Your employee won't say that because they know budget-wise we can't afford to do it,
[00:42:41.12 - 00:42:43.08] but it might have been a brilliant idea.
[00:42:43.13 - 00:42:48.08] So I love listening to the creativity of young people and asking them crazy
[00:42:48.08 - 00:42:52.07] questions because they'll just answer unfiltered because they don't know.
[00:42:52.07 - 00:42:55.05] They don't know what's doable and what's not.
[00:42:55.05 - 00:42:59.14] People that filter their thought process, when you get your employees and say, let's
[00:42:59.14 - 00:43:03.03] brainstorm, they're not really brainstorming because they don't say stuff
[00:43:03.03 - 00:43:04.04] that might sound stupid.
[00:43:04.04 - 00:43:07.02] They don't say stuff that might sound like it's criticizing you.
[00:43:07.02 - 00:43:09.16] They don't say stuff that might be too expensive.
[00:43:09.18 - 00:43:14.20] Youth that have not been jaded by the world, they just let the crazy fly.
[00:43:14.20 - 00:43:19.10] So a lot of times we even propose some of our business problems.
[00:43:19.10 - 00:43:21.21] And we ask young people, what would you do if you were me?
[00:43:21.21 - 00:43:25.03] Nine out of 10 of their ideas are crazy and can never be done.
[00:43:25.03 - 00:43:28.18] But because they're unfiltered, the 10th one is brilliant.
[00:43:28.18 - 00:43:34.15] So spend some time around young people, asking them questions about your business
[00:43:34.15 - 00:43:37.08] and your industry and actually listen to what they say.
[00:43:37.12 - 00:43:41.19] They're the only people who have a beginner's mind without even trying, I
[00:43:41.19 - 00:43:42.07] would add.
[00:43:42.07 - 00:43:45.19] Yup exactly. Thank you so much for having me today.
[00:43:46.07 - 00:43:49.06] Thank you, Jeff, and thank you for the stories.
[00:43:49.06 - 00:43:54.23] I've never heard so many stories in one podcast, but very, very illustrative.
[00:43:54.23 - 00:43:56.03] Thank you for that.
[00:43:56.05 - 00:43:58.00] And thank you to those who listen to us.
[00:43:58.00 - 00:44:01.22] If you like the show, you can support us by telling your friends or you can leave a
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[00:44:14.09 - 00:44:18.09] That's the { sign, rethink culture.
[00:44:18.17 - 00:44:21.17] And keep on creating a happier, healthier
[00:44:21.19 - 00:44:25.09] workplace for those around you and keep leading.
[00:44:25.09 - 00:44:26.04] Thank you.