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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.
00:00:07:10 - 00:00:34:23
Andreas
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening. Welcome to Rethink Culture, the podcast that shines a spotlight on leaders of businesses that people love to work for. My name is Andreas Konstantinou and I'm a micromanager turned servant leader who developed a passion for workplace culture. My latest project is the Cultural Health Score, which is a service that lets you audit your workplace culture with data.
00:00:35:01 - 00:01:03:19
Andreas
Today, I have the pleasure of welcoming Traci Fenton. Traci is the founder and CEO of WorldBlu. WorldBlu is a well known leadership, culture, training and certification company. She founded WorldBlu during her senior year in college, which I'm looking forward to learning more about. And she's also the author of Freedom at Work, which is a framework that helps organizations create a culture of freedom and democracy.
00:01:03:21 - 00:01:28:23
Andreas
And she's a celebrated keynote speaker, author, and coach, recognized by Inc magazine as a top 50 Leadership Thinker and a recipient of the prestigious Thinkers50 Radar award. And she tells me she loves to spend time with Sunny and Lucca, her two giant white dogs and they're giant in that they're at 100 pounds or about 50 kilos each.
00:01:29:01 - 00:01:48:13
Andreas
And, she recently was in Athens and I'm in Athens, so we also share that background. And we were just talking about, Greece and the fires recently. But, with all of that, very welcome to the Rethink Culture podcast, Traci.
00:01:48:13 - 00:01:51:14
Traci
Thank you, Andreas, for having me. Honored to be here.
00:01:52:15 - 00:02:09:18
Andreas
So, lots and lots and lots of things we can talk about, but where do we start? Let's start from the basics. Tell us a little bit about WorldBlu and how you got there from that decision in college, in the senior year, in college.
00:02:10:12 - 00:02:37:03
Traci
Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up in a wonderful small town in Iowa, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And I'm the daughter of two teachers. And when my father... When I was about 13, my father decided to leave teaching. He taught the hearing impaired. So I grew up around sign language and things like that. He decided to leave that and to go into insurance and financial planning.
00:02:37:08 - 00:03:02:02
Traci
And the reason I say this is because at that point, all of a sudden, all of these leadership thinkers started to enter my life. He would be listening to leadership greats Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, all of these wonderful thinkers in leadership because in insurance and financial planning, they want to motivate you. They want you to be a great salesperson, you know, and have all these, great skills.
00:03:02:03 - 00:03:24:16
Traci
And so my father and I started to talk about leadership and culture and business while I was still very young, and something was awakened in me. I just knew that I was supposed to go down this road. And what I felt deep in my heart, my purpose was for my life, was to help unlock people's full potential. And I know a lot of people will feel that way.
00:03:24:19 - 00:03:42:15
Traci
They're like, wait, I want to help other people flourish. I want to help other people be at their best. And so that seed was planted in my heart, and I didn't know where it was going to go, Andreas, or what form it would take until my... I went to college and my kind of... you and I were talking before this.
00:03:42:17 - 00:04:09:18
Traci
What was sort of change in the direction of my life. When I went into college, I had gone to a performing arts public school that was performing arts high school, and it was very, very, very, high caliber. And I was in show choir, which I'm sure you don't have that in Greece, but what it is is we would sing and dance and have sparkle fingers and wear sequin dresses and dance with our partners, there's men and women.
00:04:09:18 - 00:04:25:19
Traci
And we... it was like Broadway, Broadway level. And my high school show choir, West Side Delegation, we were the number one show choir in the country. And so I loved doing all of that. I loved performing and doing all that. I laugh and say, that's why I still have big hair, because growing up in the 90s, we all had our big hair.
00:04:25:21 - 00:04:48:16
Traci
And then when I got to college, I really realized it was time to kind of set that aside. Although I've had the privilege of speaking on stages all over the world, and so I still pull on that. But I really wanted to get into thinking more about the world. And my freshman year, my first year of college, there was this thing on campus called a public affairs conference.
00:04:48:18 - 00:05:11:18
Traci
I was like, what was that? What's that? So I remember sitting in the auditorium at this conference at my college, and they had all these speakers from all over the world. And, you know, this is pre-Internet days. So I grew up, you know, pre-internet. And so to sit there coming from Iowa and hear all these speakers from all over the world talking about all these global issues, it was mind blowing for me.
00:05:11:20 - 00:05:34:15
Traci
And I found the guy who was the director of it afterwards in the, in the campus library, and I went over to him. His name was Abe. And I said, I want to do what you just did someday. And he was like, okay. And so my sophomore year, I joined the public affairs conference team and started to work on the conference and worked on it my junior year.
00:05:34:15 - 00:05:54:11
Traci
And then senior year, I was asked by our college president to head it up. And that really became the turning point for me because again, like I said, I always cared about helping people realize their fullest potential. And so a senior year, summer before my senior year of college, we got together the group of students who were going to run the conference for the year.
00:05:54:13 - 00:06:14:08
Traci
And of course, still, my friends, because you recruit all your friends and I said, hey, let's do the conference on something that's very, you know, consciousness raising and outside the box and forward thinking about our world. So everyone was supposed to go off during the summer before their senior year and research different topics that we could do it on.
00:06:14:08 - 00:06:40:02
Traci
So they did. And they came back and we all met up in the president's boardroom. We took ourselves very seriously. And I said, all right, what are we going to do the conference on? Drum roll. And they said, let's do it on democracy. And Andreas, my first response was, what the heck are you talking about? Democracy is, I'm sorry to say, I said, old white guys in politics in Washington, D.C. and it's super boring and it means voting.
00:06:40:02 - 00:07:01:13
Traci
And I don't see anything interesting about it at all. I was 20 and I was very young and naive, and they said to me, no, you need to understand that democracy is a style of leadership. You know, you talk about servant leadership. We talk about communication leadership. And as you know being Greek, demos and kratos the people rule. That's what democracy means.
00:07:01:15 - 00:07:23:17
Traci
And it suddenly clicked for me Andreas, that the only way that we can realize our full potential is in an environment that gives us the freedom to realize our fullest potential. You cannot realize your freedom... your full potential in an environment of fear and control. And I saw yeah, I saw that democracy wasn't just about... It's not about government.
00:07:23:19 - 00:07:49:07
Traci
It's about leadership. And it's a style of leadership that applies to business. It applies to the way we run our schools, the way we run our communities, our churches. Everything can be run with this style of leadership that brings out the full potential of every person. So that was a turning point moment for me. And I did the conference very successfully on democracy applied to every area of life.
00:07:49:09 - 00:08:10:05
Traci
And the day after the conference, so a spring of my senior year, I flew to Indonesia to finish my last semester of college abroad. And I had never been out of the country at that point in my life. So I just come off the high of this conference, freedom, democracy, you know, realize your full potential. And I go to Indonesia.
00:08:10:07 - 00:08:38:02
Traci
I was there in the spring of 97. It was the Asian financial crisis. And the president at the time, Suharto was being overthrown. And all of a sudden, this very innocent, you know, naive Iowa girl at 21 was in a country where people weren't free. And I was seeing what that was like. And that was took everything from theory into reality to go, wait a second.
00:08:38:04 - 00:08:53:20
Traci
This is not how many people get to live. This is not how many people get to think. And that really made an impact on me. And when I flew back to the U.S., I realized also as a woman, not many women get to start their own businesses still in the world today.
00:08:53:20 - 00:08:54:08
Andreas
That's true.
00:08:54:08 - 00:08:56:16
Traci
And I was like, this is what I'm going to do.
00:08:56:17 - 00:09:17:21
Traci
I'm going to start a business that teaches the principles of freedom-centered democratic leadership, and we're going to spread more freedom in the world through the way we run our businesses. And that's what I've had the privilege of doing for 27 years, with hundreds and hundreds of the top companies in the world. So that's what got us there.
00:09:18:07 - 00:09:27:15
Andreas
What's. What's an example of a project that you feel you've made a lot of impact in a company? Whether you want to name them or not, but,
00:09:27:15 - 00:09:30:19
Andreas
what's something you look back to and say, wow, we've made a lot of impact?
00:09:31:13 - 00:09:57:01
Traci
Okay, so we have worked with brands from very small to large. We've worked with companies like WD-40 and Zappos and Groupon and DaVita and Hulu and ECL Technologies and Meetup and Glassdoor and Mindvalley. And so we've worked with all those companies, and every single one of them has been so fulfilling and a tremendous journey. Menlo Innovations we were talking about before.
00:09:57:02 - 00:10:19:15
Traci
It's hard to pick. It's hard to pick just one. I think, oh my gosh, there's so many. Let me pick one that has, because I love impact, we've impacted millions and millions of employees. Our vision at WorldBlu is to see 1 billion people working in WorldBlu Certified Freedom-Centered companies. Gosh, one of my favorite is DaVita.
00:10:19:17 - 00:10:41:22
Traci
They're a Fortune 500 healthcare company based in Denver. They were on the edge of bankruptcy. They were under investigation by the SEC. Their morale was in the tank. Their top leaders were jumping ship. They brought in a new CEO named Kent Thiry, KT, and KT had a different mindset. And we talk at WorldBlu what Freedom at Work is.
00:10:42:00 - 00:11:11:01
Traci
There's three things you have to have in place to make this shift. Freedom-centered mindset, freedom-centered leadership skills, and a freedom-centered organizational design. I'll go deeper into all those in a moment. But KT had a different mindset, and he wanted to build a democratic community within the company, first, and focus on the company, second. If we get the principles of democracy, of democratic leadership right in this company, it's going to ripple out and transform the company.
00:11:11:03 - 00:11:33:21
Traci
And we were privileged to be a part of that transformation. We've been working with them and they're still one of our WorldBlu Certified Freedom-Centered companies now, 15, 16 years later, and they've gone from the edge of bankruptcy to a $15 billion multinational company. And I have gone and spent, my team and I have spent countless hours with them.
00:11:33:23 - 00:12:01:13
Traci
We've gone to their village-wide events and meeting people and seeing how employees feel differently when they work in a WorldBlu certified freedom-centered company, because suddenly they're seen. They're treated with dignity. They're treated with respect. They're treated as a person who has worth. So I think there's a very strong correlation between Democratic leadership and knowing each person's worth.
00:12:01:14 - 00:12:25:07
Traci
And so that's what I care about, that every single person knows that they matter and that they have infinite worth and infinite value. And when you meet those people and you see how working in a freedom-centered, healthy environment and, as you know, Andreas, it makes them better people at home. It makes them better parents. You know,
00:12:25:07 - 00:12:29:13
Andreas
Yeah. Absolutely. We impact people's communities as leaders, not just
00:12:29:13 - 00:12:30:15
Traci
Yes. It ripples
00:12:30:15 - 00:12:31:17
Andreas
the employees themselves.
00:12:31:17 - 00:12:33:20
Traci
It affects everything.
00:12:34:13 - 00:12:48:07
Andreas
Is, is organizational democracy for everyone? So have you had clients approach you and you said this is not a person that will understand my work? Or have you had people who
00:12:48:07 - 00:12:52:09
Andreas
signed up but then you found that it was too much of an an uphill struggle?
00:12:53:06 - 00:13:18:02
Traci
So we vet every client to make sure it's going to work okay. And people love to ask me this question. I'm so glad you asked it, too, because organizational democracy works in every industry, every size company, every geography. And I can say that because we've worked in almost every single industry, even ones you wouldn't think of and, all over the world now, we've worked in over 100 countries.
00:13:18:04 - 00:13:28:13
Traci
But here's what determines if it works or not. It comes down to the level of self worth of the CEO.
00:13:28:13 - 00:13:29:05
Andreas
Tell me more.
00:13:29:05 - 00:13:46:17
Traci
So yeah, so I love to ask the question. I talk about this in my book and we talk about it when I speak live and all over. I love to ask people a question, on a scale of 1 to 10, with ten being the highest, how would you rate your level of self worth and why?
00:13:46:19 - 00:14:10:18
Traci
And worth is knowing our inherent value. It's knowing that each one of us deeply and uniquely matters. But most people don't have high self-worth. Most people are constantly letting, what I call the gremlins in their thinking, yippity yup, yippity yup at them. And this impacts the way we lead.
00:14:10:20 - 00:14:38:00
Traci
So when we say self-worth, self-worth is different than self-confidence. Self-confidence is situational. You know, I'm confident talking with you about freedom at work. I'm not confident flying a jetliner plane because I don't know how to fly a plane. So I'm not going to be confident of that. Sometimes people confuse self-worth with self-development, so they go, well, I don't have high self-worth because I'm still learning and growing.
00:14:38:03 - 00:15:03:04
Traci
No. That's self-development. That's great. We are all still doing that. But it's knowing your worth. Not in a narcissistic way. So I believe inherently every single one of us is a ten. But if a leader comes to us and they say, I'm a five or 6 or 7 or less than that, and we will say to them, do you want to work on your self-worth?
00:15:03:06 - 00:15:28:08
Traci
Because high self-worth leaders want to create environments where everyone can flourish. Low self-worth leaders create environments that control people. So if they're willing to work on their self-worth or their high self-worth, we can build a democratic company in a Democratic leadership style, but if they're not there yet and they're not willing to work on themselves, Andreas, we're not gonna be able to get there.
00:15:28:20 - 00:15:47:15
Andreas
Yeah, another way maybe that I would, I would see this from the lens of, self-awareness. And my favorite definition for maybe self-worth if not self-confidence, is to radiate the acceptance of oneself.
00:15:48:12 - 00:15:51:14
Traci
Yes. It's beautiful. That's exactly it.
00:15:51:14 - 00:15:52:15
Andreas
And
00:15:52:15 - 00:15:54:04
Andreas
leaders who will
00:15:54:04 - 00:16:03:03
Andreas
feel insecure about themselves will often use authority to re-enforce or cover that gap.
00:16:04:01 - 00:16:04:16
Traci
That's right.
00:16:04:23 - 00:16:06:16
Andreas
I think that that's what I hear you saying.
00:16:07:04 - 00:16:25:11
Traci
That's right. They use authority, or they can go the other way and just be super wishy washy. You know, be a people pleaser, not have the backbone needed to lead and to make the hard decisions. So I love how you said that. That's absolutely right. Yeah.
00:16:27:04 - 00:16:47:21
Andreas
You talked about working with clients in 100 countries. What are some of the stark contrasts that you can remember? Cultures in, you know, east versus west or north versus south, for example. Do you have any any examples that are top of mind?
00:16:49:02 - 00:17:12:07
Traci
You know, people come to us and so one of the things we do is we have leadership training. So we have Freedom-Centered leadership training that companies can put their people through. And we've had people go through our Freedom-Centered leadership all access pass from 100 countries. And at first people are like, oh, it's just going to apply to me and my culture or whatever.
00:17:12:09 - 00:17:39:04
Traci
You know, you definitely see there are some cultures that are obviously more hierarchical or more, almost cultures that are, kind of going back to what we're saying on self-worth. Start from the premise that you don't have worth. And so we think about cultures in terms of countries, right. Sometimes we think cultures like, oh, US versus, Japan versus wherever.
00:17:39:09 - 00:18:04:12
Traci
But it's not just country cultures. It's also cultures of religion. You know, like religious traditions that people are a part of. It's cultures of a family, the family you grew up in and how that... So the different cultures that we're a part of that are telling us different messages and telling us different things can really impact the way we lead.
00:18:04:14 - 00:18:29:01
Traci
You know, and some of our first leadership experiences are in the family. And so I can think of we have a wonderful leader right now who's in our Freedom-Centered leader training. She's actually in our course called Fearless Worth. So we have a whole course on Fearless Worth. And she grew up in an extremely successful family.
00:18:29:02 - 00:18:59:00
Traci
Her parents were in the financial industry, did very, very well. And, but they were... Her father was very low self-worth, command and control. So she grew up under that, in that leadership within her family, very, putting people down, undercutting. And now she's going through our training and completely changing her paradigm because she's like, I always knew I had value and worth, but she couldn't get out from under the thumb.
00:18:59:02 - 00:19:23:05
Traci
And now she is going to go build her own financial services company and create it democratically, using the principles we taught her to create a new model, you know, within that industry. But every, I mean, we've worked with so many people. Every single person has a story of what they've gone through. Maybe they've been a part of a religion, you know, that has taken away their sense of self-worth.
00:19:23:07 - 00:19:39:01
Traci
And I mean, maybe that's controversial to say, but I think there are a lot out there that can really diminish a person so they don't feel they're worthy of working in the kinds of environments that you and I stand for. So it's a very interesting question you ask. Yeah.
00:19:39:09 - 00:20:10:18
Andreas
I can tell you that, I've worked for many years in the tech business and, in my early 30s I was reading a lot of mainstream media, praising, you know, the usual suspects, Steve Jobs and the like. And that was my role model of a leader. And that's the leader who doesn't make mistakes. And is controversial and,
00:20:10:18 - 00:20:36:04
Andreas
pushes people away with his or her authority or authoritarian style. And I was teaching in a class, I was teaching entrepreneurship in a class. And I thought, you know, the students were pointing out that I had some of my facts wrong. And I, I thought at that point, I cannot admit to not having my facts right. So just insist they're right.
00:20:36:04 - 00:21:09:11
Andreas
Even if I know they're wrong. And and that was, you know, an "aha" moment. Of course, I felt the following days I felt so stupid. And then I realized how misled that, impression was, that the leader is infallible and is superhuman in a sense, because they're the leader. I mean, we're human in every, every way. And by virtue of being, a member of, Entrepreneur Organization, EO, we talked about it in the pre-show.
00:21:09:13 - 00:21:36:05
Andreas
You know, I've seen so many leaders more successful and less successful. But what I've seen in everyone is we're all human, and we're all as fragile and sensitive, and we have our bad moments, and we have our shitty moments, and we have our brilliant moments, but we don't talk about the dark side of our lives. So, you know, someone outside cannot relate to who you are as a leader.
00:21:36:07 - 00:21:42:19
Andreas
They just see the shiny side of you. So long story short, I think.
00:21:42:19 - 00:22:00:06
Andreas
If we accept ourselves and accept that every leader out there is a human and we are human, we are also allowed to be fragile and, rusty from time to time. And that's okay. And that's how we become better leaders.
00:22:01:03 - 00:22:29:18
Traci
That was a great aha moment you had. And I remember about 15 years ago, I was speaking at a very large conference in Orlando, and, someone got up on stage. I won't say who, but it was a big name political leader. And he said, "I make it a point to try to say at least once a day, I was wrong," and I really embraced that philosophy.
00:22:29:20 - 00:22:50:05
Traci
You know, if you talk with anyone on my team, you're going to hear me say, oh, I was I was wrong about that. I was wrong about the oh, because like you said, we're always learning and we don't have to always be right. It's okay. And I think when you have high self-worth, you don't beat yourself up for not knowing.
00:22:50:07 - 00:23:19:17
Traci
Something we teach is it's not... you're not your mistakes. I learned from Garry Ridge CEO of WD-40, another WorldBlu certified company that we've worked with since 2008. He talks about learning moments. Maybe you know about this. So if you reframe it in your mind as, oh, learning moment. Nope, I didn't know that. Whoops, I got that wrong and move on versus oh my gosh, I'm going to beat myself up.
00:23:19:19 - 00:23:22:15
Traci
It's just a whole different way of approaching life.
00:23:22:15 - 00:23:41:22
Andreas
You know, the same person came to mind. Gary was on the podcast a few episodes ago, and my key takeaway is this. We don't make mistakes. We have learning moments. And mistakes are a prerequisite for those learning moments. You can't have learning moments by simply borrowing someone else's mistakes.
00:23:42:12 - 00:24:04:02
Traci
Right. Right. You can't. And I don't know if Gary shared this with you, but, I've spent so much time there at WD-40 and with Gary's dear friend. When he became CEO, he wanted to shift the culture at WD-40. You know, they became a WorldBlu Certified Freedom-Centered company. And I said, you know, okay, where does it start?
00:24:04:03 - 00:24:23:23
Traci
He goes, we had a punitive culture, and that's part of how we came up with the learning moments. They had such a punitive culture, and I think a lot of business cultures are like that, whether it's collectively punitively punitive or individually punitive. So yeah, the learning moment shift is huge. Yeah.
00:24:23:23 - 00:24:31:03
Andreas
Absolutely. Because this is the paradigm that comes from a traditional family,
00:24:31:03 - 00:24:55:19
Andreas
governance system, if you like. It's authority based. It's authoritarian leadership. Because, you know, parents have responsibility. They have experience. They have, power. But we, we don't know any other democratic system or peer, peer-based system
00:24:55:19 - 00:24:59:21
Andreas
For leading for, managing conflict, for, collaborating and so on.
00:25:00:13 - 00:25:23:01
Traci
I like to say command and control leadership says you serve me. You serve me as you know, a commander. Command and control says you, employee, serve me. Servant leadership says I serve you, which I love. I love the concept of servant leadership. But I believe there's another step that can embrace servant leadership, which is democratic leadership says we serve each other.
00:25:23:03 - 00:25:24:03
Traci
We serve each other.
00:25:24:03 - 00:25:24:22
Andreas
Oh, I see.
00:25:25:07 - 00:25:43:10
Traci
Yeah, and that's why what's so unique about democratic leadership is you actually have to change the systems and processes in order to do that. Otherwise, you're still in a paradigm of... You can still be a servant leader in a hierarchical company. You know, you can be, I'm a CEO, I'm here to serve you.
00:25:43:10 - 00:26:01:12
Traci
But guess what? It's still going to be unnecessarily hierarchical. I'll just be a benevolent, you know, dictator, so to speak. And I've had many CEOs come to me and say, well, I'm a benevolent, I'm a benevolent leader. And I was like, yeah, that's not there yet. You know.
00:26:01:12 - 00:26:34:00
Andreas
No. In a similar concept is accountability based leadership. Which I see as two people within the team, whether they are, you know, hierarchically, in different layers or whether they're peers, come to an agreement on what each is expecting of each other, whether it's the goals that a manager asks their employee to set or whether it's like one team working with another team, it's an accountability contract.
00:26:34:02 - 00:27:09:10
Andreas
And this is, very common, if not the rule in, boss lists or self-managed organizations. Morningstar comes to mind where they have this, accountability contract. But, it should be the, it should be the norm because. Yeah. I guess we're saying the same thing. You're coming at it from a cemocratic, leadership angle, and I'm coming at it from an accountability leadership.
00:27:09:10 - 00:27:19:07
Andreas
But I think it's, we're talking about the same thing, which is being, being accountable to each other, being, peers to each other. How would you describe it?
00:27:19:20 - 00:27:40:21
Traci
Yeah. Well, you don't have freedom without accountability. So in my book, I talk about what is organizational democracy. And I did both my undergraduate and graduate work that I think no one's done in the world to actually define what democracy is. You know, people think, oh, is democracy a vote? Is that democracy? No, voting is a way of making a decision.
00:27:40:22 - 00:27:59:09
Traci
You can have voting. You can have consensus. You can have consent-based, voting is a way of making a decision. So I go all over the world, I say to people, what's democracy? Oh, is it transparency? Okay, so I have transparency. Do I have democracy? You know, what about in North Korea? And you can vote, but you only get one choice, or you don't get a choice.
00:27:59:09 - 00:28:23:02
Traci
You get one option. So what are the principles that create democracy? You know, it's this thing that you're there in Athens. I was just there in Greece. I mean, I've studied Athenian democracy, right? I've studied all these early, early, examples of democracy many people don't know about. Many people don't know about the Iroquois and how we got our sense of democracy from the Iroquois.
00:28:23:04 - 00:28:45:01
Traci
Or they don't know about democracy in Turkey, in parts of Turkey, or what about, you know, in Iceland. And, so I've been all over I've studied all of this. And what I've found is there's ten principles that create a democratic system. And organizational democracy is not, it's not values. They're principles because principles are inviolate and unchanging.
00:28:45:03 - 00:29:15:14
Traci
So one of those principles is accountability. One of them, you have to have all ten to actually have democracy work. And I think that's what's very unique about Worldblu. Yes, there's bossless, the bossless self-management conversation. I, I think you have to self-manage. But what... And we've worked with many companies that are self-managed, but you have to have the systems and processes that allow people to self-manage put into place.
00:29:15:16 - 00:29:19:18
Traci
And what kind of systems and processes are those? They need to be democratic, in my opinion.
00:29:20:06 - 00:29:24:01
Andreas
So besides accountability, what are the other principles or some of the other principles?
00:29:24:10 - 00:29:53:03
Traci
Transparency. Decentralization of power. The balance of the individual and the collective. Dialog and listening. Reflection and evaluation, fairness and dignity. So I break them down in my book. I go through each of the ten principles, and I've pulled from the hundreds and hundreds of companies we've worked with. I give ten practices for each principle of how you can put it into practice in your company at a beginner, intermediate, and advanced level.
00:29:53:05 - 00:30:16:09
Traci
So people are running all over going, I want to be bossless or self-managed or no hierarchy, which, by the way, I don't believe in completely flat organizations. That's there's just no way that's possible. But how do you get there? And in our research, we found that 75% of culture is determined by your systems and processes. So we have a whole program called Grow with Freedom where we work with entrepreneurs.
00:30:16:09 - 00:30:46:10
Traci
And we take our Freedom at Work Scorecard, which is the only scorecard tool in the world that I'm aware of that actually measures the level of freedom and democracy in a company, at a leadership individual and systems and processes level. So it's those things that then drive behavior. So when we get really clear of how well the principles of democracy are being practiced, think about a continuum of a hierarchical command and control company on one end and a democratic company on another.
00:30:46:12 - 00:31:06:23
Traci
Where does your company fall? Right? And when we look at those ten principles, we say, all right, you're doing great on fairness and dignity. Not so well on accountability and transparency. How can we then put the right systems and processes in those areas that can turn the company around? And I bet you did something similar, Andreas, when you were turning around your company.
00:31:06:23 - 00:31:17:20
Traci
Right? You changed the way you do things and that's what gets it done. But I find most systems don't go far enough, or they cherry pick 1 or 2 things, and they're not as comprehensive as what we do.
00:31:18:04 - 00:31:27:11
Andreas
What is the hardest aspect of those ten values or principles to get right? Where do most companies fail in?
00:31:27:11 - 00:31:47:18
Traci
Okay, so I do make a distinction, a very important distinction between principles and values. Because values are how we behave. But principles are how you build the house. Right? So if I'm building a house, the principles of building are going to be the same, whether I'm building a one storey house or a hundred storey building.
00:31:47:20 - 00:31:56:06
Traci
So principles are inviolate. And then within a democratic company, you have the values that guide the behavior of the citizens of that company.
00:31:56:09 - 00:32:04:14
Andreas
So sorry when you talked about transparency and accountability, what is the moniker you use? What is the word you use for them?
00:32:05:07 - 00:32:29:20
Traci
Principles. They're principles of organizational democracy. Yeah, yeah. So for us it's a very important distinction because like I have core values that guide my life, but those values could change. But or we have values at WorldBlu that guide us. But the principles are how we built the company, it's organizational design, its systems and processes. Right. And so most people talk about just one thing, like just about accountability.
00:32:30:00 - 00:32:55:07
Traci
Yeah. But okay, cool. But what else is needed is the whole system. What is hardest for companies it's not a principle, it's systems and processes. And I think that's so... what's so unique about what we do at WorldBlu when I talk about my book that I haven't seen anywhere else is we actually present the whole system and give you systems and processes for how to do it.
00:32:55:09 - 00:33:17:07
Traci
And that are democratic. And there's tons of books out there that are like, oh, I'm just going to go study a whole bunch of companies, and I'm going to cherry pick one or 2 or 3 cool things that this company has happens to do. But in my book, every single company is a WorldBlu Certified Freedom-Centered company, which means that their employees have taken our scorecard and let us know.
00:33:17:09 - 00:33:24:05
Traci
Yeah, this actually is a democratic system. So we know that all of these practices come from a proven system.
00:33:25:08 - 00:33:28:04
Andreas
Is there a...? Was there a moment where you
00:33:28:04 - 00:33:45:03
Andreas
had to confront your own fears? And I'm asking because you often ask: What would you do if you're not afraid? So how much of your principles are you able to play in your own life? And how did you deal with the personal fear?
00:33:45:17 - 00:34:04:19
Traci
Yeah. I mean, all of them. All of them. So when I was, I started WorldBlu when I was 21. I've been running... We've been building WorldBlu. I have a whole team. We work around the world for 27 years. So, as you know, being an entrepreneur, I like to say, if you're not confronting fear on a daily basis, you're not driving hard enough.
00:34:04:20 - 00:34:26:07
Traci
You're not reaching high enough. I have to overcome fear all the time in my personal life. I'm about to make my 17th move in 25 years. I've moved to so many cities knowing no one and starting from scratch, because I love to learn. I love to meet people. I've done crazy stuff like skydiving when I don't even like a roller coaster.
00:34:26:07 - 00:34:49:08
Traci
I asked myself, what would I do if I weren't afraid? I jumped out of an airplane. I travel around the world often by myself as a woman, and so don't underestimate how much, how courageous and fearless you have to be. I built a company, you know. So every day you're overcoming so much fear and helping all the CEOs and leaders you work with to work through their personal fears.
00:34:49:08 - 00:34:57:21
Traci
So what would I do if I weren't afraid? I ask myself that question every single day. Every day. And it keeps me going forward.
00:34:59:00 - 00:35:03:12
Andreas
And how do you, how do you overcome the fear? Is that what you say to yourself to overcome the fear?
00:35:04:00 - 00:35:20:22
Traci
Yeah, I go through... in the book, I talk about the five questions that I ask and the power question, what would you do if you weren't afraid, came from when I was in my early 20s and I called a mentor of mine, and I was... had just started WorldBlu. I was a full time graduate student in Washington, DC at American University.
00:35:21:03 - 00:35:39:10
Traci
I was also working part time for the Nasdaq Stock Market, running their $30 million corporate foundation. I was traveling nonstop. I was about 25, and I called a mentor of mine and I said, I'm so stressed out, I don't know what to do, hear all my problems, kind of barfed them up to her. And she said to me, I have one question for you.
00:35:39:12 - 00:35:58:11
Traci
And I said, what is it? And she says, what would you do if you weren't afraid? And I did not realize, Andreas, that I was afraid. I didn't think I was afraid, I thought I was stressed. But stress is fear. Anxiety is fear. All these words, you know, mental health is so much of it's fear handling the fear within.
00:35:58:13 - 00:36:23:21
Traci
And so that question changed my life because I realized what would I do if I weren't afraid. And I instantly knew what I needed to do. And so often we don't make a decision. We don't move forward because we're afraid. And the hardest thing is even to admit we're afraid. So in the book and where I teach and in our Fearless Mindset course and all this stuff, we have five questions, that I call the Power Question Practice.
00:36:23:23 - 00:36:41:20
Traci
It's what are you afraid of? So I do this to myself. Just the other day, I took out my journal I was working through. I'm about to make a move. What am I afraid of? What would I... why am I afraid? Well, what am I afraid of? Why am I afraid? I wrote two pages. What would I do if I weren't afraid?
00:36:41:22 - 00:37:00:10
Traci
I wrote even more. How would you feel without the fear? How would I feel without the fear? Energized. People, I was like, why are you so happy? Because I know how to handle fear, you know? And the last question is, why is it okay to let the fear go? And I'm a deeply spiritual person. I talk to God all the time.
00:37:00:10 - 00:37:22:06
Traci
For me, God is love. And, I, I listen to God and I try to live my life being obedient to how I feel. I'm being led by divine love. And so why is it okay to let the fear go? For me, it's because I can trust God. And that's been proven in my life over and over and over again.
00:37:22:08 - 00:37:48:06
Traci
And that's why even when you walk into storms and hard times, you can still feel joy. You can feel confidence. You can feel open to the learning that you're going through. Because we're all learning all the time. So yeah, I use it all the time. At WorldBlu we take the principles, we put them into operation, we do everything democratically and, we walk our talk.
00:37:48:06 - 00:37:52:22
Traci
And to me, it's not a big deal. It's just who we are and what we do. So, yeah.
00:37:54:00 - 00:38:02:04
Andreas
What's something that makes culture at WorldBlu special? So, what is like a habit or
00:38:02:04 - 00:38:07:03
Andreas
ritual or anything else that you're proud of?
00:38:08:06 - 00:38:28:16
Traci
That's a great question. You know what makes our culture? So we do things democratically, all of that. But here's what makes the WorldBlu team so awesome is because everyone has high self-worth. And when you have a team of high self-worth people, you are not dealing with dumb drama. You are all aligned and getting it done every day.
00:38:28:16 - 00:38:52:04
Traci
Like I said, our vision, our purpose at WorldBlu is to transform the way leaders lead with Freedom at Work. Our vision is to see 1 billion people living, leading and working in freedom. And we're at 1.25 million now, so have a long way to go. But it took me a long time to figure out how to hire high self-worth people who also had the skill set.
00:38:52:06 - 00:39:15:12
Traci
And we actually asked, I mean, I went through, oh my gosh, you know, it's so painful to make a bad hire or to hire someone who you really like. And they have the perfect CV and, you know, resume and then they get in there. I mean, I've had I've had to deal with men who I hire who think, you know, hey, little lady, I'm going to come in and take over your company.
00:39:15:14 - 00:39:33:01
Traci
I've had to deal with all that kind of stuff, but we ask the question now in our hiring process, which is on a scale of 1 to 10, with ten being the highest, how would you rate your level of self-worth and why? We ask that question. And I talk about that in the book. I talk about how you have to hire for high self-worth.
00:39:33:03 - 00:39:55:07
Traci
And now that my whole team is high self-worth, eight or higher is kind of the high self-worth zone. It's just a game changer. And I think that's what makes our culture so special. And that's why when people come to our global summits and events and they meet WorldBlu and they meet all of us, people always say, I found my tribe, I found my people, and I think it's because they feel love.
00:39:55:09 - 00:40:17:03
Traci
I hope it's because they feel love. Because when you love who you are, you naturally love others. And that's because on my team, everybody gets texts from me, which usually every text I send probably involves like multiple emojis that include hearts. That's who I am, you know, that's my style. Not everybody has to be that way. But that's just how it is.
00:40:17:05 - 00:40:38:16
Traci
It doesn't mean... I mean, we work hard. It doesn't mean it's all Kumbaya. But you can have I mean, I talk about that one of the attributes of a freedom-centered leader is love. And another attribute of a freedom-centered leader is being in their power. And you're not in your power if you're in fear. So love, when we're loving it takes us out of fear.
00:40:38:21 - 00:40:39:06
Traci
Yeah.
00:40:39:09 - 00:41:14:01
Andreas
One of my favorite sayings is love, not fear. I have this friend who's created this movement, Love not Fear. And it's some workshops and some, and a philosophy, but it's that there's either love or there's fear. So every emotion, from jealousy to resentment to, looking down on someone to insecurity. It all starts from fear.
00:41:14:14 - 00:41:15:17
Traci
Yeah. All of it.
00:41:15:17 - 00:41:17:11
Andreas
So it's really binary.
00:41:18:16 - 00:41:41:23
Traci
it totally is. And that's why you hear so much talk right now about mental health. And I'm not trying to say that I'm a doctor, you know, or anything like that, but I think a lot of it has to do with people not understanding how to handle fear. And the thing is, like, for me, in my experience, if I say I don't have to be afraid because of love, well, what?
00:41:42:00 - 00:42:08:02
Traci
Well, because God is love. But also, I think another aspect of it that's very important, that takes people out of fear is understanding. When you understand something, you're not as afraid. You know when you understand, okay, why do I not need to be afraid? Because this thing that I thought isn't what it is. You know, when you understand, then you're not as afraid.
00:42:08:02 - 00:42:13:16
Traci
Part of fear comes from when we don't understand something or how to move forward. Yeah.
00:42:13:21 - 00:42:28:07
Andreas
Traci, as we come close to wrapping up the podcast, is there something that you would go back to your 21-year-old self in your senior year, and you would whisper to the young Traci?
00:42:29:12 - 00:42:58:11
Traci
Yeah. I would say it is going to be really freaking hard, but you're going to be super successful to stay at it. Your intuition is right. Your intuition is right. And I'm really proud of what we've been able to do all over the world. And it's so true. Like, you just don't, just don't quit. And I think for us, at WorldBlu we have a very big vision.
00:42:58:11 - 00:43:12:20
Traci
We want to bring freedom to the world in a world that is not free. And that's what I will be doing for the rest of my life. And that's why we're WorldBlu. Blue is universally recognized as the color of freedom, and we want to see a world where everyone can live, lead, and work in freedom rather than fear.
00:43:14:05 - 00:43:21:19
Andreas
And is there any book or any thing you read or watched recently, or any parting thoughts you'd like to leave us with?
00:43:23:09 - 00:43:52:17
Traci
Well, there's so many. I mean, I'm always reading wonderful books and podcasts, and I really think it comes back to I would say to your audience, anyone who's listening, it all comes back to just loving who you are. If you can truly love yourself and figure out how to get there and do that, and we have programs that do that, but that's not the point of this, is just more saying, find the way to embrace the ten that you inherently are.
00:43:52:19 - 00:44:15:16
Traci
It's going to change every single relationship in your life and help you handle fear. And you'll take that into your team or your company, and they're going to go, wait, something's different about you because each and every one of us matters. That's the whole premise of democracy. You matter. That's why you should have a voice, and that's why it's what I believe in so firmly.
00:44:17:12 - 00:44:28:02
Andreas
So, Traci, thank you for inspiring us. And hopefully that has planted a few seeds for some of the people listening to think about
00:44:28:02 - 00:44:55:14
Andreas
leaving that work in a different way and in a more democratic way. And I'm glad we got to meet. I know we didn't get the chance to meet in Athens, but we at least got the chance to meet here. Thank you to everyone listening to the podcast. And thank you for being generous with your time. You can support us by telling your friends about the show or leaving a comment so that more people can actually learn about the show.
00:44:55:14 - 00:45:20:08
Andreas
And if you've been listening but not watching, you've been missing out. And you can actually go to YouTube. The channel is Rethink Culture and you can just watch, not just listen. You can also email me personally, andreas@rethinkculture.co is the address. And like I love to say, keep on leading, creating happier,
00:45:20:08 - 00:45:26:01
Andreas
and I would add a more democratic place for you and those around you.