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The Build a Vibrant Culture Podcast explores the real-world strategies behind building strong work culture, improving organizational culture, and leading with clarity in today’s fast-changing business environment.
Hosted by leadership expert Nicole Greer, this podcast features conversations with business leaders, executives, and entrepreneurs who are shaping modern business culture through effective communication, leadership development, and intentional management practices.
Each episode delivers practical insights into leadership and business, including topics like team communication, project management, career growth, and creating workplaces where people perform at their best.
You’ll gain actionable tools, frameworks, and leadership skills you can apply immediately through coaching concepts, real-world examples, and professional development strategies, whether you’re a manager, executive, business owner, or emerging leader.
If you're looking for guidance on building a thriving organizational culture, improving communication, or advancing your leadership career, this podcast is designed for you.
Learn more about training, coaching, and courses at https://vibrantculture.com
Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/build-a-vibrant-culture-nicole-greer/
For speaking inquiries: https://vibrantculture.com/speaker-kit-request/
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Want to be a guest? Send your request to podcast@vibrantculture.com
Lee Caraher multicam
[00:00:00] Nicole Greer: Welcome everybody to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and they call me The Vibrant Coach, and I have yet another amazing
[00:00:07] Nicole Greer: guest and author, Lee Caraher She is a communication
[00:00:12] Nicole Greer: strategist, a CEO, an author, and a professional straight talker. I love this gal. Known for her practical solutions to big problems, her success as a communication strategist is rooted in her experience leading her PR firm, Double Forte.
[00:00:28] Nicole Greer: Write that down. A national communications agency serving well-known consumer, tech, financial, and food and beverage brands. And we had a whole talk before we got started about Torani. Did I say it right? Okay.
[00:00:40] Lee Caraher: You
[00:00:41] Lee Caraher: did.
[00:00:41] Nicole Greer: And I bet you you have been to the grocery store, to the TJ Maxx, and you have this in your cupboard.
[00:00:46] Nicole Greer: Mm-hmm. So anyway, she's part of that success.
[00:00:47] Lee Caraher: Add a few
[00:00:48] Lee Caraher: pumps, people.
[00:00:49] Nicole Greer: That's right.
[00:00:50] Lee Caraher: Two pumps goes a long way.
[00:00:52] Nicole Greer: That's right. The majority of her hands-on work focused on helping organizations achieve their business goals through communication, hello, and equipping leaders with the confidence and tools to say what they really mean, especially when stakes are high.
[00:01:06] Nicole Greer: L- Lee is the author of Millennials and Management, which came out of her own hard-earned lessons trying, and sometimes failing, to build a r- and retain intergenerational teams.
[00:01:18] Nicole Greer: Her second book, The Boomerang Principle, makes the case that actively seeking former employees is to return to an undervalued strategy for long-term success. Affectionately called the team whisperer, Lee is credited for building strong, productive teams that work hard, laugh a lot, I love that, and don't hide behind industry jargon.
[00:01:38] Nicole Greer: She believes communication isn't a soft skill, it's the glue that holds leadership, culture, and performance together. Outside of client work, she is active in non-profit leadership, limiting her service to two boards at a time, and advises organizations on governance and, and board effectiveness. She has a degree in medieval history, that is so cool-
[00:01:59] Nicole Greer: from C- Carleton? Is that right? Carleton
[00:02:01] Lee Caraher: Correct
[00:02:02] Nicole Greer: ... Carleton College, which she finds useful every day. Okay, 'cause we can learn from people's mistakes. Let's see. After 25 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, Lee now lives in northwestern Wisconsin with her family and several four-legged friends of varying heights.
[00:02:17] Nicole Greer: So tell us about the pets real quick, 'cause all of us pet people-
[00:02:20] Lee Caraher: I have a- a black cat, Stella. She's the shortest. I have a-
[00:02:24] Nicole Greer: Stella.
[00:02:26] Lee Caraher: Stella. Exactly. That's how she got her name. Ace is our dog. He's around 95 pounds. He's a lab and a corgi. Oh my gosh. I don't know how that worked.
[00:02:37] Lee Caraher: And I have a 17'2" draft horse named Merlin.
[00:02:43] Nicole Greer: Oh my gosh, that's so cool.
[00:02:44] Lee Caraher: So I have-
[00:02:45] Nicole Greer: You have a horse ...
[00:02:45] Lee Caraher: varying heights of animals. Yeah.
[00:02:48] Nicole Greer: That's so great. All right. Well, I love all that, and people love to know a little bit about my guests. So, hey, look what Lee sent me in the mail, everybody. The Boomerang Principle: Inspire Lifetime Loyalty From Your Employees.
[00:03:00] Nicole Greer: So I think that's what we're looking for. Everything I read, Lee everything I get from the SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management- Oh, good ... it's all about disengagement, disengagement. Mm-hmm. So, so, so tell me about the boomerang principle. Give us the 100,000-foot view- Sure ... and then let's get into it.
[00:03:15] Lee Caraher: So the boomerang principle is that if you are at a company or in a, a team that that actively rehires people who have left you, you are fricking winning Because what does that say? That says that you let them go in a generous way to go do something that you could not provide for them, and they went out into the world, and they learned new things, and they're like, "I wanna go back to that place, 'cause that place was awesome, and I have new things I can bring to that place."
[00:03:46] Lee Caraher: And then when you bring them back, what does it say to your current people? That grass, we are watering our grass right here, people. That's right. It may look greener, but we... You- just- it's 'cause they're so close, you can't see how much we're watering our grass. And so that is the idea, is that when you are a company that actively recruits former employees and brings them back that you have a strategic advantage over everybody else.
[00:04:13] Lee Caraher: And I got a lot of data on that.
[00:04:15] Nicole Greer: Okay. Throw some data at us. We'd like to hear it. What- Okay. What, what, what does- So
[00:04:21] Lee Caraher: let's talk about-
[00:04:22] Nicole Greer: What does the statistics say?
[00:04:24] Lee Caraher: So let's... So, well, let's talk about onboarding. So on, on- Okay ... so on onboarding, it takes a year. SHRM would tell you that it takes maybe shorter than that, but they're lying.
[00:04:34] Lee Caraher: It takes a year for someone- to be fully engaged, fully understand the culture, fully get the lexicon, fully jamming on all things. No matter how good they are, no matter what their expertise is, no matter what their atti- You need a great attitude, but it takes about a year to be fully on all cylinders.
[00:04:54] Lee Caraher: So number one. Number two particularly younger people, they expect... One, they expect to live till 120, and they also expect that they're gonna have six, seven, eight careers. So the fallacy that we think, "Oh, we can have this great person for the rest of their lives," is just so ridiculous. But so, but when they, and, and your company, no matter what it is, is going to evolve. Whatever it is today, it's gonna look different tomorrow. I started my PR firm before Twitter. Do you think we haven't changed 95 times since then? Hello.
[00:05:26] Nicole Greer: 120, 25 times.
[00:05:27] Lee Caraher: Right? Oh, my gosh. So the data on people coming, returning, is that their onboarding, it takes time, but it takes about four months, not one year.
[00:05:37] Lee Caraher: So you are, you are just getting so much more productivity and contribution from that coming back. The other thing on that there, this is soft data on this, 'cause it hasn't been fully vetted, but the impact of people returning keeps good people in your company longer. The retention... When you have a returning philosophy, of course you're not taking everybody back, but if you have a returning philosophy, you retain good people longer.
[00:06:04] Nicole Greer: Yeah. That's so good. And, and you, you talk about in chapter one the new loyalty paradigm, and you say- Mm ... loyalty is the state, the quality or state of having a strong feeling of support or allegiance to a company or an organization, has long been equated with the tenure of an employee. Mm-hmm. No more. No more.
[00:06:22] Nicole Greer: In today's world, no more. In today's world, where people expect to chart their own meaningful careers independent of a set time or entity, we need to shift our definition of loyalty.
[00:06:33] Lee Caraher: Yeah. So
[00:06:33] Nicole Greer: talk to me about that, this definition.
[00:06:34] Lee Caraher: Well, you know, somet- I, I think the old way, you know, you hear this all the time from people my age and older, like, "They're dead to me.
[00:06:40] Lee Caraher: They left." Well, leaving is not disloyal. Working is not dis- You are paying someone, they are coming to work. That is not an act of loyalty. That is an act of hiring, an act of being employed. And hopefully they stay with you a long time because you were a good employer. But you are not loyal by staying.
[00:07:01] Lee Caraher: The most loyal thing you can do, an employee could do, is leave when they're not engaged and they don't want to be there anymore. That's the most loyal thing you can do. Because you know a person who doesn't, who d- you know, is not engaged, brings everybody around them down. So the most loyal thing you can do is say, "You know what?
[00:07:21] Lee Caraher: This, I wanna do something different. And I'd like to leave easily," meaning, "How can I help you out? I'm not really sure what I wanna do," or, "I'm gonna go be a nurse." I've had some people leave Double Forte because they wanted to pursue a healthcare career. We are not a healthcare agency.
[00:07:36] Nicole Greer: Right.
[00:07:37] Lee Caraher: We don't operate on people.
[00:07:39] Lee Caraher: I cannot help them be nurses except for, "Okay, absolutely. How can... You wanna be a nurse? Awesome." This is a gr- actually a great example of loyalty.
[00:07:48] Nicole Greer: Okay.
[00:07:48] Lee Caraher: This woman wanted to be a nurse. She'd been with us, she had a degree in, in PR, she had a master's in communication, and she said, "I wanna go be a nurse."
[00:07:55] Lee Caraher: Awesome. How can I support you, 'cause I can't do it here, right? "Well, Lee I actually can't apply for school yet 'cause I have to get some credentials first." Oh. Well, do you need to work during those credentials getting? "Yes." All right. Well, how about, well, we could c- you could stay here and go get your credentials, but we'd have to change your job, you know, so it would work.
[00:08:16] Lee Caraher: But absolutely, if you wanna stay here, we go get your credentials and we can make that work. So we did that, and she changed her... So she was with us for another year, I guess. Maybe n- nine to 10 months, I can't remember while she got her credentials, then she applied, and then she left. That woman has sent us one, two, six clients.
[00:08:36] Lee Caraher: That woman has sent us- ... five employees. She did not have to do any of that. That is the most loyal thing an employee can do. She told me she didn't wanna be there. She told me she wasn't interested in, she told me she was gonna leave to do something different. And when she did go, she has improved our business, not because I was expecting it, not because I compensated her, because she had a loyalty to the company and to Lee, I guess, for how we treated her.
[00:09:07] Nicole Greer: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:09:08] Lee Caraher: That's the loyal act. So we have to think long-term, and we have to think long-term not in an ecosystem, not just ourselves, not just our own business, but how are we going to make sure that we have referrals later? It's not by chaining people to a desk, 'cause you can't, right? It's by understanding.
[00:09:27] Lee Caraher: It is messy. I mean, that, I did not describe something that is, one, simple or is, you know, nice, neat boxes, right? You gotta figure it out. But if you have the concept, you have good people, and good people, you get them on a bus and then that p- they wanna get off the bus 'cause they wanna go do something wanna go do something else.
[00:09:45] Lee Caraher: One, we should not be offended. We should not be offended. And two, how can we help them? Not with the expectation that they would do something for us ever, 'cause if you're waiting for that quid pro quo, that is not loyalty. But just putting that energy into the world, good things happen. So that's my idea about loyalty for the long term.
[00:10:05] Lee Caraher: And then what you have to do for that is to, you need an alumni group. You need to stay connected with them. But you, it's not a quid pro quo situation.
[00:10:15] Nicole Greer: Right. Right. And at the heart of what you're saying, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, Lee, is that, you know, this woman wouldn't, wouldn't have come to you and even told you that she's thinking about getting a healthcare career if she didn't trust you-
[00:10:29] Lee Caraher: Right
[00:10:30] Nicole Greer: love you, care about you, and also had a relationship that you intentionally built with her, question mark?
[00:10:36] Lee Caraher: Yeah. No, well, I think,
[00:10:38] Nicole Greer: You know? 'Cause most people just get it all- Yeah ... together behind the scenes, and then they drop the two-week notice
[00:10:42] Lee Caraher: . Right.
[00:10:43] Nicole Greer: Right?
[00:10:43] Lee Caraher: By the way, well, you know, I th- if, I can't remember which chapter it's in, but it's in there somewhere you know, I meet with everybody.
[00:10:49] Lee Caraher: I don't hire everybody in my company. We're a small company, but I don't hire everybody. But I meet with everybody in their first week, right? And probably the second or third sentence out of my mouth is, "I know you're going to leave." Double forte. "Hi, nice to see you. I know you're gonna leave us." I mean, literally it's probably not that stark, but it's in there.
[00:11:09] Lee Caraher: And that shocks- Right ... people, but I just get it out on the table. There's no way my little company can retain great people for their whole lives unless we change and they along with them, and I an- anticipate change for everybody, right? It's gonna happen. I know you're gonna leave us. Here's what I hope is that you're with us for a very long time, and that you get to do, explore lots of different things, and that you'll share with us what it is you want to do so that we can do whatever we can to allow you to do that in the constant, in the construct of our business.
[00:11:44] Lee Caraher: May not work, may, but we will always support you. Just know that. I say that in the first, you know, five minutes of every conversation. So it sh- I mean, it's, it's sort of jarring.
[00:11:55] Nicole Greer: Yeah, but don't,
[00:11:55] Lee Caraher: don't you- "I just got here. You're telling me you're gonna leave?"
[00:11:57] Nicole Greer: Yeah, but don't you think people like kind of your, back to your bio that I read- I
[00:12:02] Lee Caraher: think they do
[00:12:03] Nicole Greer: your, your
[00:12:03] Lee Caraher: straight talk ... 'cause it's straight talk.
[00:12:04] Nicole Greer: Yeah. It's, it-
[00:12:05] Lee Caraher: I just put it out there at the beginning 'cause if we... Let's not have the... Let's just put it out there. You're gonna leave Now, sometimes, you know, we've had- Right ... people who are like, "I wish they said they were gonna leave a little earlier," because they didn't, they didn't, and I, I think I just said this, right? The loyal act is when you're not engaged, when you're not performing, when you're not doing your thing, you leave your own, your own volition. You figure out that we- you know, you, you're not giving to get. So,
[00:12:33] Nicole Greer: Yeah, let, don't make us write you up, please.
[00:12:36] Lee Caraher: Well, you know.
[00:12:38] Lee Caraher: Yeah. Basically, write you up. Yes. We don't do that in our company, 'cause who would write us up? But, you know, yeah.
[00:12:45] Nicole Greer: Right.
[00:12:45] Lee Caraher: Right. Talk to HR. Oh, me. Okay, good.
[00:12:47] Nicole Greer: Right, right, right, right. Yeah. Well, so, you know, you have this thing on, on page 12. We haven't got very far, but here's the thing. The the-
[00:12:55] Lee Caraher: Jam-packed, people.
[00:12:56] Lee Caraher: This book is jam-packed
[00:12:57] Nicole Greer: on page 12 It to- it totally is. But you say, "What happened to the gold watch?" So I was gonna tell you- Oh, yeah ... I was gonna tell you a story. So- Please
[00:13:04] Lee Caraher: do ...
[00:13:04] Nicole Greer: the gold watch is not out there anymore, but I was working with this organization, and you know, very sad in my heart, I'm just meeting these people, I'm coming in for the first time, and I said, "What do you all see in the future?
[00:13:15] Nicole Greer: What's the vision?" You know, which is basic, you know, management, leadership 101. Where are we going? Yeah. Right? Yeah. And all the leaders said, "To retirement."
[00:13:25] Lee Caraher: Oh, my gosh.
[00:13:25] Nicole Greer: And I was like, "Oh, this is gonna be a long day." I'm
[00:13:28] Lee Caraher: getting my book so I can even know what I said.
[00:13:30] Nicole Greer: Okay, get your book. But I was like, "Oh, this is gonna be a long day," because they all just wanna retire.
[00:13:35] Nicole Greer: So anyway, I said, well, you know, I went with the flow for the first 10 minutes, 'cause I'm just meeting these people, and I said, "So tell me, what do people get when they retire from here that you all are so looking forward to?" And they said, "Oh, they get us two rocking chairs from the Cracker Barrel." I was like, "And that's what you're looking forward to?"
[00:13:56] Nicole Greer: I bet you you could go get your own rocking chairs today if you really wanna rock. But I'm like, isn't that sad? Like, shouldn't we get people, like, bungee jumping equipment or roller skates- Oh my gosh ... or something when they retire. So, you know, I think
[00:14:10] Lee Caraher: that- Oh my gosh. Well, there you go. I prefer the idea of not rewarding, you know, celebrating retirement.
[00:14:21] Lee Caraher: We actually haven't had anybody retire from us yet 'cause we're not... You know, they will soon, I guess. I'll tell you something that we do at Double Forte is- Okay ... we reward tenure. So every year, this is a relatively new policy for us. So we re- we, we hon- we value tenure, and we have one of the highest retention rates in the country for an agency like us.
[00:14:43] Lee Caraher: So I was like, "Well, wow, since we value so much, why don't we do something about that?" You know, I talk about it a lot, but what, what would people like? People always want money. Everybody says they want money. I'm like, "Okay." So I was thinking, "Oh, should we get... Should they get something? Do they get a little plaque?
[00:14:58] Lee Caraher: What do they get?" Right? So at first year, when you've, you've made it, when year one, you get a bobblehead
[00:15:06] Nicole Greer: And- Okay. You gotta be- a
[00:15:07] Lee Caraher: bobblehead ...
[00:15:08] Nicole Greer: y- you gotta be on the YouTube to see this, people.
[00:15:10] Lee Caraher: So my bobble- this is what they gave me, a Superwoman bobblehead. But you get a bobblehead, and your team decides what your bobblehead should look like.
[00:15:18] Lee Caraher: So you get a bobblehead at one, and now for every year you're with us, on your anniversary of b- you being with us, you get $200 for every year. So at year one you get 200, at two you get 400, at 10 you get 2,000, all that kind of stuff. So it's not, it's like a person, you know, it's basically a full salary-ish, maybe a little more than that, for the year.
[00:15:39] Lee Caraher: But it's not enough for people to go, "I'm holding on for that $400." Right? "I'm holding on for $600." That's right. "I'm holding o-," you know, it's not enough for people to hold onto, but it does honor the fact that they have choice. Ev- in a, a bad economy and a good economy, anybody good can find a job.
[00:16:00] Nicole Greer: Oh, I believe that.
[00:16:01] Lee Caraher: I only hire good people. I believe that. So all of my people could get a job tomorrow. I truly believe that. So if we honor and value... What can you do now? So w- we haven't had anyone retire yet, really. We've had people leave later in their careers to go do something else, but, you know, there was no gold watch involved.
[00:16:20] Lee Caraher: We had a party celebration, but there was no big check. There were no cracker b- n- I'd rather do that while they're with us- That's right ... than on the way out.
[00:16:31] Nicole Greer: That's right.
[00:16:31] Lee Caraher: Right? That's
[00:16:32] Nicole Greer: right. That's
[00:16:32] Lee Caraher: right. And there's only so many resources we have.
[00:16:35] Nicole Greer: Right.
[00:16:36] Lee Caraher: You know? Okay. So anyway, sorry.
[00:16:38] Nicole Greer: No, you're
[00:16:38] Lee Caraher: good. I digress.
[00:16:39] Nicole Greer: You're good. No, but I lo- I, I love the idea of celebrating people, and I think a bobblehead. You know, this week, weird, I've had two bobblehead demonstrations.
[00:16:47] Lee Caraher: No.
[00:16:48] Nicole Greer: Yes. I w- I was teaching public speaking to a group-
[00:16:51] Lee Caraher: Everybody loves the bobblehead people. Everybody loves them.
[00:16:54] Nicole Greer: I was speaking to a group of, like, mid-level leaders that were inside- Uh-huh
[00:16:58] Nicole Greer: a manufacturing facility, and this one young man, Justin, he like, we did public speaking, so he had show and tell- Yeah ... and he brought his bobblehead. So everybody likes- Awesome ... a bobblehead, I'm just saying. All right, so chapter two you talk about the Oprah effect, and you talk about that-
[00:17:11] Lee Caraher: Yeah ...
[00:17:12] Nicole Greer: that evolution of loyalty from company to self- Mm-hmm
[00:17:16] Nicole Greer: to both. I really like this.
[00:17:18] Lee Caraher: Yeah. So I don't think anyone has had bigger impact on the workforce than Oprah Winfrey. Why? Because she had a show for 20-something years where she said, "Don't put up with shit." She didn't say it that way. And she was like, "What do you wanna do? What's yourself? What do you, where do you get value?
[00:17:36] Lee Caraher: Where do," you
[00:17:36] Nicole Greer: know?
[00:17:37] Lee Caraher: Right, right. And everything had been... You know, so I highly align with my career. I highly align with my career. My identity is p- my, my career is part of my identity, but it is not all of my identity, as you said at the beginning when you read my bio, right?
[00:17:48] Nicole Greer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:17:49] Lee Caraher: And she did that for millions and mil- mostly women.
[00:17:54] Lee Caraher: Millions and millions and millions of women are like, "I don't have to put up with this." I can go do something else. And she sort of gave that spark, right? Of like, "Go read. Go get a candle. Go take a bath." You know, all the things, right?
[00:18:07] Nicole Greer: Right, right.
[00:18:08] Lee Caraher: And particularly in the mid-range of her show and then you see, that's when it...
[00:18:14] Lee Caraher: That, if you look at the years of that, and then you look at the years of when particularly women who are in mid to sort of mid-high jobs started moving Huge correlation. And when I I queried on this, I did some research. I had so many people come... I'm like, "I'm looking for people who were inspired by Oprah to change their careers."
[00:18:35] Lee Caraher: I had over 400-ish, over 400 people wrote me, and I put this on a, a forum, right? And they're like, "I wanna be interviewed." I'm like, "I can't interview 400 people." Sure. But they all had the same story. They had a different episode, but they all had the same story. So my belief is that no one has had a bigger impact on the workforce than, and the sort of than Oprah in terms of saying, "What are your values and how do you align with this?
[00:19:02] Lee Caraher: And if it grates against your soul, don't do it," which is my philosophy. I never really watched Oprah. So, so then we were like, "Okay, what am I about? What are my values? How do I align? What's my aura?" All those things. So if women of a certain age, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And then it's like, you know what?
[00:19:23] Lee Caraher: I have to work. I need to eat. I'm the breadwinner in my family, so I gotta put a f- roof over my hand- head. And then this concept of how do you align yourself with your work? And when we can align ourselves with our work, just, just to say my target should be 80%, oh my gosh, we are not working against our souls.
[00:19:46] Lee Caraher: We are not agitated all the time. We are not working against the man, or we've put it in context. I'm gonna go do this eight hours. I'm not gonna worry about it. I'm gonna go do something else. But when we intentionally say, "My life is this. This is what I care about. That company does or does not align with me.
[00:20:05] Lee Caraher: I'm gonna use it to get to something else or whatever," and we see a lot of this, right? And so that's also, same timeframe, when values in companies became so much more important and not just posters on the wall. So Patrick Lencioni, who I also talk about in this book, who I highly just have- Yes ... so much esteem for,
[00:20:23] Nicole Greer: Get the, get the five dysfunctions going, everybody.
[00:20:25] Lee Caraher: The, yeah. Well, that, his book, The Advantage, which I highly recommend to everybody- Oh, I
[00:20:28] Nicole Greer: love The Advantage ...
[00:20:29] Lee Caraher: right? Well, that's the value book, which is not just like what's the fricking poster on the wall, but what does, actually does excellence mean in your company?
[00:20:39] Nicole Greer: Right.
[00:20:39] Lee Caraher: Like, get down to the brass tacks.
[00:20:41] Lee Caraher: And that's where you find how people align with what does a team mean. Like in our team is number one for our values. Well, it's everybody's, right? But when it, for me, what that mean, like our company, and I didn't create these, we did this together, no one goes alone. That's the value. You don't leave your teammate hanging.
[00:20:59] Lee Caraher: We write that down. That's part of it. You don't leave us hanging. And so people know what the expectation of behavior is, right? But everyone has a little different one. So when you find people, a company that aligns with you, what you wanna do in the world... So we don't work with assholes. Sorry, just swore.
[00:21:14] Lee Caraher: That is a value of ours. Well, some people don't care if they work with assholes or not, as long as they can make a lot of money. I care. I care. I, I just, it grates on my soul. I can't do it. I will not choose that million dollars if it's an asshole. I won't do it. That's a choice. That's a choice I can make 'cause it's my own company.
[00:21:33] Lee Caraher: I couldn't make it in my last company 'cause I worked for somebody else, right? But the whole point is, if you can aff- if you know yourself well enough, and then you find a company that aligns with you even just 80... 80 percent's a lot, right? Get over 50%. Get to, get to plus 50%. Yeah. You are in a-
[00:21:50] Nicole Greer: 51.
[00:21:51] Lee Caraher: You're... But that, that's just life-enhancing, and when it's life-enhancing, it's actually productivity-enhancing, because we, what we know is, the data says many things around this.
[00:22:01] Lee Caraher: One, teams that feel appreciated outperform those that don't up to 30%, which means 30, up to 30% more profit on your bottom line, number one. Number two, those com- employees who are stressing out about f- particularly around finances, right? So they're probably at the bottom of the barrel of your workforce.
[00:22:19] Lee Caraher: They churn seven hours a week on worry, which means that's 19% productivity lost. What if you just paid them 19% more? What if? You would actually have a higher productivity with less people than you could actually do now. So when you get into the data on, like, the people, what it matters, like what impacts our performance, what ac- impacts our pr- productivity, what impacts our participation, it's pretty simple.
[00:22:51] Lee Caraher: Appreciate in many ways. Pay people what they're worth. And do things, and find people who are, wanna be in the same direction that you're going, that don't work against the grain.
[00:23:03] Nicole Greer: Yeah, going against the grain, not a good thing. All right, so you go on to talk about how personal and talent brands work, are, are, happen at work, right?
[00:23:13] Nicole Greer: Mm-hmm. And you say you need to create and maintain your own personal brand.
[00:23:16] Lee Caraher: Absolutely.
[00:23:16] Nicole Greer: Brand. Own your name, create a destination for potential employees, partners, and clients, consider your photo, and be helpful.
[00:23:24] Lee Caraher: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:25] Nicole Greer: Yeah.
[00:23:26] Lee Caraher: So, you know, we also know don't count on the man, don't count on the woman. You know, business I li- I work for...
[00:23:33] Lee Caraher: I mean, I own an agency. We are dependent on clients paying us for us to pay people. It's out of my control. What I can control is what contracts I sign. I can control who I hire. I can control you know, our standards. Those are things I can control. I cannot control the economy, I cannot control if a client gets gets bought.
[00:23:52] Lee Caraher: I can't control if a client... You know, if the CEO decides to do something stupid and loses his job, and therefore we lose our job because he brought us in. Right. I can't, I can't control a lot. Me either. I can control what I can control, right?
[00:24:04] Nicole Greer: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:04] Lee Caraher: So in the world where you should not count on a company keeping you forever, we've, I think every Millennial and Gen X-er and Gen Z has learned this from their own parents, right?
[00:24:16] Nicole Greer: Right.
[00:24:17] Lee Caraher: Options for yourself are built on your own reputation. Reputation is brand. Personal brand is reputation. And being easy to find, being clear on what you bring to the world is super important if you want options. And then also when you work for someone, this is part of the talent brand at work who you work for reflects on you, much as, like, what brand you wear.
[00:24:42] Lee Caraher: You like Nike? What? I like Adidas. You know, it's the same thing with the brand of who you work for reflects on you. So if you're in a company that's shitty, get out. 'Cause no one wants to hire someone who stayed when they knew it was bad. So that's your responsibility, right?
[00:25:00] Nicole Greer: Right, which goes back
[00:25:01] Nicole Greer: to Oprah.
[00:25:01] Lee Caraher: Own your
[00:25:02] Lee Caraher: name.
[00:25:02] Lee Caraher: Oprah, absolutely. It's you- It's on you to manage this, right? So I tell everybody when they have a baby, get their name. We- so I have my na- my kids' names, miraclecaraher.com, williamcaraher.com, michaeltcaraher.com. Let me... You know, I have all... Get all their names and then sign them up for all the social media platforms and make, and then make them private, and then give them to them when they're old enough.
[00:25:25] Lee Caraher: Because the more you can own your domain, the better it is for you.
[00:25:30] Nicole Greer: Yeah. I got, I bought- That's what that is ... all that for my kids. Yeah, absolutely. That's so good. All right, so I, I, I just wanna say on page 34, there's this really great Venn diagram that everybody should take a peek at. I'm gonna
[00:25:41] Lee Caraher: take a peek at it myself.
[00:25:43] Nicole Greer: I love a Venn diagram. So it's got a talent- Oh, yeah ... talent brand and personal brand. And, and honest to God, Lee I, I coach a lot of people one-on-one, and people who are wanting to get ahead and get to the next level- Mm-hmm ... and grow their career, and they don't have this concept down. Yeah. They're more like, "I can do PowerPoint."
[00:26:00] Nicole Greer: It's like, everybody can do PowerPoint.
[00:26:01] Lee Caraher: Everybody can do PowerPoint.
[00:26:02] Nicole Greer: Right, so- Hey,
[00:26:03] Lee Caraher: I can do PowerPoint. That's- Don't tell him PowerPoint.
[00:26:06] Nicole Greer: Right, right, yeah. You've gotta... Yeah. And, and it's about, again, what is it like to experience you, which all of you listeners know that's my favorite thing. So I just didn't want that to go past us.
[00:26:14] Nicole Greer: All right, let's go to the next chapter. Yeah. You talk about creating a culture of value, and you hit on already the core values, but I preach this all the time. So you gotta have a vision, a mission, a purpose, individual purpose in a role. Mm-hmm. And I would love for you to kinda talk about how to build a culture of value, but you've- Mm-hmm
[00:26:32] Nicole Greer: you've gotta have these things totally dialed in. They're not just posters on the wall.
[00:26:36] Lee Caraher: Oh, my gosh. Yes. So this is where we talk about communication being the culture.
[00:26:43] Nicole Greer: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:43] Lee Caraher: Yeah. So a few things. One is the, the worst behavior you allow is the culture, number one.
[00:26:49] Nicole Greer: Yes.
[00:26:50] Lee Caraher: So you could say all the words you want- Or
[00:26:51] Nicole Greer: what you tolerate, right?
[00:26:52] Lee Caraher: Right, what you to- Yeah ... you could say all the words in the world, but- Yes ... if you tolerate things that don't actually line up to what you're saying, it's crap. Mm-hmm. Right?
[00:26:59] Nicole Greer: That's right. That's exactly right.
[00:27:01] Lee Caraher: So, if we think about vision and values, it's what is the vision? Where are we going? What is our purpose in our world, right?
[00:27:08] Lee Caraher: Putting all the... And then bringing it all the way down. So this is our, the entity. This is our goal. This is the change we're gonna make in the world. This is who we're gonna impact. This is what we're bringing of value, and everyone should bring something of value. Then not just that, then your team.
[00:27:23] Lee Caraher: What, what team are you on? How do they contribute to that group?
[00:27:28] Nicole Greer: That's right.
[00:27:28] Lee Caraher: What is their role?
[00:27:29] Nicole Greer: To the vision. Mm-hmm.
[00:27:30] Lee Caraher: What is the team's role? And then what is my role on the team that does this to the vision? Because there is no one who has a job that doesn't rep- that does... No one's hiring anybody just to sit around, people.
[00:27:43] Lee Caraher: It's not happening.
[00:27:43] Nicole Greer: Right. No. Right? Contribution, contribution. Contribution, contribution.
[00:27:45] Lee Caraher: Contribution management, we could talk about that all day-
[00:27:50] Nicole Greer: Okay ... is
[00:27:50] Lee Caraher: where we all need to get to. I didn't talk about this in the book, but,
[00:27:54] Nicole Greer: We could go off the
[00:27:54] Lee Caraher: board for 20
[00:27:55] Nicole Greer: points ...
[00:27:55] Lee Caraher: that's my next book. That's my next book.
[00:27:56] Nicole Greer: Okay. All right. Well, call me when it's done. All right.
[00:27:58] Lee Caraher: But individual purpose and role, that's how you know I, the, One, everyone needs to know exactly, and your team needs to know what your role is, right? Let's not assume someone's doing something when it's not their responsibility. This is where you get so much discord.
[00:28:11] Lee Caraher: I thought you were gonna do it. I thought you were gonna do it. I thought... What? What crap is that?
[00:28:15] Nicole Greer: No.
[00:28:15] Lee Caraher: The leader needs to communicate- And then true pr- we all lead, I would tell you, that everybody leads
[00:28:24] Nicole Greer: 100%.
[00:28:26] Lee Caraher: We're all
[00:28:26] Nicole Greer: leaders
[00:28:26] Lee Caraher: So the more... Good teams talk, man. Good teams talk, and they are spec- prescriptive.
[00:28:33] Lee Caraher: And we'd love to tell you that everyone gets it on the first try, and that, but that's not true, so you need to repeat yourself, and then it's, like s- we just pr- we're, well, when is this? We're promoting two people next week. I'm so excited about it. It's my f- my favorite day is when we promote people, and I'm, it's not even my job, but it's my favorite day.
[00:28:52] Lee Caraher: But so their roles are gonna change a little bit, so what changed on the team? You have to reset every time something changes. You're resetting all the time.
[00:28:59] Nicole Greer: Yeah, weekly, daily.
[00:29:01] Lee Caraher: Mm-hmm. But the vision, but the vision and the mission doesn't change. The team's role might change in that. I mean, we've seen a lot, a lot in technology right now, teams are changing their purpose against the goal, but you need to be clear on what the hell that is, and so that is how...
[00:29:16] Lee Caraher: And then you need to reinforce it with appreciation, and then opportunity and possibility for the culture of value is what is my opportunity in this role? Well, if I do my job well, this is what's, the team is gonna benefit from this, the company's gonna benefit from that. I am creating opportunity, right?
[00:29:37] Lee Caraher: I understand my purpose, and then what is the possibility for me to do other things? Am I just gonna go up the chain? Most people d- most companies don't have chains anymore. They have lattices- No, they're squares ... and ladders and all the kind of things, right? Right. It's too flat. But what are the possibilities?
[00:29:48] Nicole Greer: Right. Right.
[00:29:49] Lee Caraher: But if y- your possibility and your opportunity is built by, one, what company you're in. Are they clear about what they're doing, right? Right. And then, two, your performance and your reaction, understanding your own role being part of a team so that you're not just an ind- an individual contributor on a team still has to pull the damn oar, right?
[00:30:09] Lee Caraher: Still has to sing the song. So, and then imagining how are these skills transferable? We are in a world we're ne- I don't think we're ever gonna get out of this world, where I hope we don't, right? That skills are so transferable today When you were a secretary, you just were a secretary. You're, you're, you were typing.
[00:30:31] Lee Caraher: We don't have those anymore, right? We don't have people who are just in elevators p- punching buttons and going up l- you know. That whole career is gone. That doesn't mean those people didn't have transferable skills.
[00:30:45] Nicole Greer: Oh, that's right. That's right. And it's actually kind of grieves you, doesn't it, to think about how long that guy was in that elevator when he could've been running the company, right?
[00:30:53] Nicole Greer: Right. So yeah. So it, it's, it's- But they
[00:30:55] Lee Caraher: prob- that, but those guys who c- did that job, they were probably the glue in those buildings. They knew everything.
[00:31:02] Nicole Greer: Oh, yeah. It's sort of like the, the- And they, and they could've been whispering in the CEO's ear too- Oh ... when he's in the elevator,
[00:31:07] Lee Caraher: right? Oh, yeah.
[00:31:08] Nicole Greer: Right?
[00:31:08] Nicole Greer: Or she.
[00:31:09] Lee Caraher: Or she. You know, sort of the, you know, you know, you don't hire anybody un- l- until you know how they treated the person who made the, the appointment
[00:31:17] Nicole Greer: Yeah, that's exactly right. Thanks. That's exactly right. Yep. Now I do wanna take a quick pause and go to page 46 and 47 because- Okay. ... I, I preach- We're going
[00:31:25] Nicole Greer: I preach this all the time.
[00:31:27] Lee Caraher: Oh, good.
[00:31:28] Nicole Greer: Because- ... core values can be- Mm-hmm ... very fluffy-
[00:31:34] Lee Caraher: Ugh ...
[00:31:34] Nicole Greer: to, to people, okay? Now, one of the things that I do when I work on culture with people, when we're building a vibrant culture, is we'll go in and we will rework core values. They don't need to be aspirational. They need to be real-real.
[00:31:47] Nicole Greer: And so I'm gonna point out on page 47, at Double Forte, who is Lee- ... who is Lee- which is Lee's company, one of her core values is, is we get shit done, hyphen, well. Okay? So I just wanna tell you, I have a client in Detroit, Michigan, and his company it, it's, it's the same core value. That's what they've decided on, too.
[00:32:07] Nicole Greer: Awesome. Get shit done, which I think is so funny.
[00:32:09] Lee Caraher: Maybe he read my book.
[00:32:10] Nicole Greer: Oh, I don't know. But he's a, he's a big reader. N- Navot Sharesh is his name. Anyways-
[00:32:16] Lee Caraher: We get shit done well. Yeah. You can get shit done, but if it's not well, why bother?
[00:32:19] Nicole Greer: Right, right. And he, he actually puts very high-end electronics into homes.
[00:32:25] Nicole Greer: Like, you walk in and say, "Disco ball down, shades up- Yeah ... music on," or whatever, and it just all happens. Right. That's what he does. But so it has to be done well or people are gonna complain. But- Yeah ... if you'll notice in here, everybody, she says "We get shit done," but she doesn't leave it at that. You have to define the behaviors and let people- Mm-hmm
[00:32:41] Nicole Greer: see what this looks like, and I think that is a big part of building a vibrant culture, one that's lit. Absolutely. Like, I know what that looks like. So let's just read this. It says, "They are accountable," hello, "for their work." And everywhere I go, "Accountability's a problem, Nicole." I'm like, okay. Mm-hmm. Well, we have to spell it out.
[00:32:56] Nicole Greer: "Do not leave people hanging," she said that before. "Solve problems first, then figure out how to avoid them. Demonstrate willingness." And Lee, let me share this with you. Mike Kernocki wrote a book, and I love this definition o- of willingness, because people, I don't know if they understand what it is. But he said in his book, "Willingness is the ability to do what needs to be done without reservation, refusal, or judgment."
[00:33:20] Lee Caraher: Mm-hmm.
[00:33:21] Nicole Greer: And that just sings- I love it ... to my heart, right? Love it. So I, I didn't wanna s- slip right past these awesome core values in your example in the book. I think they're fantastic. Okay.
[00:33:29] Lee Caraher: Thank
[00:33:30] Lee Caraher: you.
[00:33:30] Nicole Greer: Yes,
[00:33:31] Lee Caraher: and then- Actually, they've evolved since this moment in time, but yes, now it's- Okay.
[00:33:34] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Okay. All right, so the next chapter you go into, you know, when millennials thrive, and our millennials, wow, now they're, like- 40s
[00:33:42] Nicole Greer: 30s and, 30s and 40s. Mm-hmm. Yep. So I've got a son who's on the very end of the cusp, you know- Yes ... as a millennial. And he is thriving. But- Mm-hmm ... talk about how to get, get those people that are probably... And, and, and he, and he's- Now
[00:33:55] Lee Caraher: it's Gen Z, right? Yeah.
[00:33:57] Nicole Greer: Yeah. But he's m- he's in a leadership role, and and how to get those folks to do.
[00:34:01] Nicole Greer: Talk about professional development and feedback. Mm-hmm. These are huge things- Yeah ... that people need. Huge. And we're on page 72 and 73.
[00:34:08] Lee Caraher: Okay. So first, you know, I wrote this, my first book was Millennials and Management, Mm-hmm ... which was when everyone's complaining about millennials. Now everyone's complaining about Gen Z.
[00:34:17] Lee Caraher: Oh. And my whole point on this this is where my degree in medieval history plays a really helpful. We've been complaining about the next generation since the first time. Forever. Since be- with the dinosaurs. Tyrannosaurus rexes were complaining about their children. So this is nothing new. We think we're, like, inventing, you know, disdain for the new generation.
[00:34:36] Lee Caraher: We are not. Everyone complains. So, and, and particularly in America, we have this idea of the American dream that our children will be be- will have it better off than, than we do, and we can debate that all day if that's possible or not. But I'm a boo- I'm the last year of boomer. So I'm a, a boomer X-er kind of thing, right?
[00:34:57] Lee Caraher: And I grew up in a family i- in a certain way where we're expected to work. Yes, me too. You know, white collar family. We, you know, da, da, da, and I number one. The and it was so much less diverse at that time in terms of who went to college and then who got white collar jobs. Today, that's so different.
[00:35:16] Lee Caraher: We are less white than we've ever been. We are more white today than we will be tomorrow. I just wanna say that. And we're more white today than we will be in a month and a year, 'cause that's just what the world is doing, right? That's just the world. And you know, when I grew up, I was Irish English. So, a- and my father was...
[00:35:34] Lee Caraher: This is important. My mother grew up very clenched teeth, and my father grew up as a potato farmer, you know, potato famine second-generation import, or I guess third in fr- you know, from Ireland who was, couldn't be, you know, so disadvantaged, all the things. Clash of cultures, that's what we would've called diversity when I was growing up.
[00:35:57] Lee Caraher: Right?
[00:35:58] Nicole Greer: That's right.
[00:35:58] Lee Caraher: Truly, truly. Oh my God, she's Irish American, Irish Catholic, and Episcopalian. How did that happen?
[00:36:05] Nicole Greer: Oh, God forbid. You know,
[00:36:06] Lee Caraher: God forbid. So, you know, that was like, ah, at that time. Now, you know, that's just so cute now to think about, right?
[00:36:15] Nicole Greer: Right.
[00:36:15] Lee Caraher: But we are all, So we're super diverse, and we have different expectations for our lives, and our expectations have risen over time in terms of where our agency is, meaning our personal agency.
[00:36:29] Lee Caraher: So when you can my point on this was when you can make the youngest generation in your workforce, help them thrive, everybody benefits 'cause they get more. And it could be irritating that you didn't get that when you were their age, but just shut up Oh, and that's
[00:36:50] Nicole Greer: what I hear everywhere
[00:36:51] Lee Caraher: I go Just shut up.
[00:36:52] Nicole Greer: "They didn't do this for me." I'm like, "Well, they should have."
[00:36:54] Lee Caraher: Yeah. Well, they shoulda.
[00:36:55] Nicole Greer: Right.
[00:36:56] Lee Caraher: Right? They shoulda. So stop complaining. Your job in this... I mean, I come from this point of view is our job in this world is to leave it better than we came into it.
[00:37:05] Nicole Greer: 100%.
[00:37:05] Lee Caraher: So that's our job. They, they were dumb, right?
[00:37:08] Lee Caraher: And look at all the waste, and now look at all the- That's right ... opportunity we have today. The guy
[00:37:11] Nicole Greer: in the elevator again. See that?
[00:37:13] Lee Caraher: Geez. How much opportunity there is when you actually un... So my first book, I basically almost killed my company, 'cause I thought when I hired mill- it's, oh, wow, that's another podcast.
[00:37:23] Lee Caraher: But I hired these millennials. I didn't have any millennials in my company. I hired... When I say I, we hired six sort of within two or three, maybe a month of each other. They were all gone in eight weeks. All gone. In my career, I had never had that many people leave me in a year, even when I had 7,000 people on my team.
[00:37:43] Nicole Greer: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:45] Lee Caraher: Ever. And so they were all gone in six months. Now if they in one month. If I had if they had, you know, petered out over time, I would ma- I would not have noticed it. But they all left within a month of each other. At, they hadn't been there, most of them hadn't been there three months. I was like, "What the hell just happened?"
[00:38:01] Lee Caraher: And I was tr- we were just treating them like we treated everybody else, who was at minimum 10 years older than them Oh my God, what the hell just happened? And then when I dug into it every- everyone was complaining, "The millennials are terrible, millennials are entitled." I'm like... And then I start, I'm like, that's stupid.
[00:38:20] Lee Caraher: Everything was negative. There, 80 million people cannot all be entitled. It's impossible.
[00:38:24] Nicole Greer: That's exactly right.
[00:38:25] Lee Caraher: Everyone was complaining, so I decided, you know what? I'm not gonna read any of this crap. I'm gonna go do my own research, and the own research was their parents told them n- not to put up with shit, and what their definition of shit was how we were working.
[00:38:38] Lee Caraher: We were working in a way that was so much better than where we came from, but they didn't have that understanding. Truly, my agency was, like, breaking down all these rules from old agencies. Every- everyone who had been at other agencies was so excited to be in this environment, and then we brought people who had never worked before into it, and they're like, "This is terrible."
[00:38:56] Lee Caraher: Right? And I had to re- we had to dig into what matters, and then I found out what matters, it matters to everybody. What is my role? I wanna know my role. Don't d- just tell me what to do, make me understand, help me understand it.
[00:39:11] Nicole Greer: Right. Don't, don't- You know? ... just read the job description or the job placement- Right
[00:39:14] Nicole Greer: ad. Make I understand. Right.
[00:39:16] Lee Caraher: Because I said so was a way of doing work. It is no longer a way of do- unless you're, you know, someone's gonna die, bec- because I said so doesn't work. So, that was a h- that's a huge shift, and when we all are in because I said so doesn't work, everybody benefits. It is a huge shift in mindset, and we've gotten there, right?
[00:39:36] Lee Caraher: And basically we've gotten there, and now millennials, and now millennials are c- complaining about the Gen Z. This is not new. But it's the s- but and then really, I real- you know, somewhere in the book, I talk about the problem. Two things are big problems. One, social promotion, which has become an education and grade inflation on that.
[00:39:58] Lee Caraher: Grade inflation over, right before this book was published in 2017, grade inflation had increased almo- universally across the country in high schools and college by 1.5 points. So if you were a 3.5, you were a 5. So, and they got As and As and As and As, and their parents negotiated better grades, and the parents got involved, and helicopter parents are a thing.
[00:40:21] Lee Caraher: Please go away. And they get into the real world, and they realize this isn't done. It's good enough. No, it's not. It was good enough in college. Yeah, well, that's crap. I cannot send this to the client, therefore it's not good enough. Therefore, you need to do it again. Well, I don't wanna do it again. If you don't wanna do it again, go find a new job We are not sending subpar work.
[00:40:43] Lee Caraher: Our clients are not paying for us for an iteration. They're paying for us to give them something different.
[00:40:48] Nicole Greer: To blow
[00:40:49] Nicole Greer: their minds. That's right.
[00:40:50] Lee Caraher: Yeah. And that is not an expectation in most education. They don't put up with it, and, ugh, we could talk about that particularly in the last 10 years. Oh my God, oh my God.
[00:41:00] Lee Caraher: But, you know, when you d- you said willingness-
[00:41:04] Nicole Greer: Yes ...
[00:41:04] Lee Caraher: and understanding initiative.
[00:41:07] Nicole Greer: Yes.
[00:41:07] Lee Caraher: I don't get paid for that. And
[00:41:07] Nicole Greer: work ethic and discipline. People
[00:41:09] Lee Caraher: out here a lot- And talents ... I don't get paid for initiative. Yeah, you do. You just don't know what initiative is.
[00:41:15] Nicole Greer: Yeah.
[00:41:15] Lee Caraher: Right?
[00:41:15] Nicole Greer: Yeah. So, you know, I say all the time, Lee, that people think that this sounds good, and it does kinda sound good, you know, tell me what to do and I'll do it.
[00:41:23] Nicole Greer: Oh, wait, wait, wait. No. I don't want that. I want people- Yeah ... that go, "You know what I think needs doing done? This is what I'm gonna do." Right? You know, that's what we need.
[00:41:30] Lee Caraher: Right. Well, and we got some of that, right? We get that all the time. I have another idea, and I particularly... well, actually it doesn't have as much...
[00:41:37] Lee Caraher: you're right, doesn't have as much today as it did maybe right before COVID, like, before COVID. But people come in like, "This is stupid. Let's do it this way." And they sort of up upend the apple cart, which I want 'cause I- we- everything can be improved. That's one of our values. Everything can be improved.
[00:41:54] Lee Caraher: But what I tell everybody, that's like the sixth sentence I say when they join us, "You're gonna have a lot of ideas on we- how we can improve, and I want you to improve everything you touch. At the same time, there's a reason we do things the way we do them, and it's really hard to see it until you know all the dependencies.
[00:42:11] Lee Caraher: So my request to you is that you do it our way first- And then we improve it, because then you have done it our way, so you see where all the, like, this needs to go to that person, and then he goes... And it may not make sense to you why that has to happen, but then you'll be at least living in the process to say, "I have an idea on how we can improve this."
[00:42:32] Lee Caraher: But if you just come in and say, "We can improve this," without honoring all the work that's gone into this, whatever it is we're doing right now, beforehand, 'cause it's not like we just, like, came up with that out of nowhere is disrespectful. So this is what I ask of you. Do it our way first and then improve it.
[00:42:49] Nicole Greer: 100%.
[00:42:50] Lee Caraher: But I want, I want everything to be improved. My expectation is that everything can be improved, and if we have people on our team who don't think it c- they can be improved, they are not on our team. That's why we don't- we send all our values to, to candidates beforehand. Make sure you can live with all this, 'cause not everyone can.
[00:43:07] Nicole Greer: That's right. That's right. When I would do recruiting, I'd put it right in the job placement ad and say- Yeah ... "Please read this carefully before, before fully applying for the position."
[00:43:15] Lee Caraher: And then you can tell who didn't read it.
[00:43:17] Nicole Greer: Right, right, right, 'cause I, it's like, "Oh, he didn't like that one." Anyway, yeah.
[00:43:21] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Well, here's, here's where I wanna put a bow on things is you know, I love the chapter about 'cause this speaks to being a vibrant culture, and again, what it is like to experience you as a leader- Mm-hmm ... as a team, as a company. You say, "Being a good place to be from." Yeah. Oh my gosh, I just love how that reads.
[00:43:39] Nicole Greer: That's so good. So- Being
[00:43:40] Lee Caraher: a good place to be from ...
[00:43:41] Nicole Greer: yeah, talk about that and, and then we'll tell everybody how they can find you if they wanna- Sure ... get your PR genius-
[00:43:47] Lee Caraher: Absolutely ... get your book. I've said it during this pod- you know, during this interview, you know, be- you wanna be a place people can return to.
[00:43:55] Lee Caraher: That's right. That people want to... Good people want to return to. Not everybody will want to return. Not everyone should return, right? Not everybody can return. But when you've left a good place and you're going to another place to do more good stuff, oh, they came from where? Oh my gosh, that's awesome. Oh, she came from Double Forte.
[00:44:14] Lee Caraher: That's what I was always looking for when I was- Yeah ... building my company, that pe- Here's how I measure our success on that. Do people take us off their resume or not? And they don't. They could, but they don't. And when I get... I mean, I've been around a long enough time, so people go find other, you know, or I help them get jobs.
[00:44:38] Lee Caraher: Lee, anybody you send me, I'm gonna talk to. That's because of the brand of the company. That's because people know that we have a very high standard, that we work for great companies. Be- any- people would die to work for our roster of clients. I mean, seriously. We work for Torani, we work for Visa, we work for Intuit, we work for the Wine Group, we work, you know, we work for, you know, Silver Spring Foods.
[00:45:01] Lee Caraher: We w- I mean, all these things. People would die for our cluster. So when you can die for s- you know, you'd be like, "Oh my God, that's so great," they can't dislodge us. Try, fine. But when you are a company that has that reputation You have people who are gonna trade on that. So find a place that is good to have on your resume, not because it's like the badge of honor, "I made it through.
[00:45:27] Lee Caraher: I made it through the war." Right,
[00:45:29] Nicole Greer: right.
[00:45:29] Lee Caraher: Because it follows you. "Oh, that place is so toxic. Why'd you stay there so long?" You don't wanna be in that situation. "Oh my God, I heard they did this and this and this. Is that true?" Sort of." Okay, you need to know now that we don't do any of that here, so we're gonna have to deprogram you first, and th- it gets in your way.
[00:45:47] Lee Caraher: The reputation of the company you're coming from can either aid you or it can hurt you. It's probably not a zero. It's probably not a zero. So be in a place, and go contribute to a place that is good to be from, and you'll have so many more options. And then you can probably go back if you want to.
[00:46:06] Nicole Greer: Yeah, so good. Well, we only got about halfway through this, people. It's the, it's The Boomerang Prince- Principle. Here it is. But it
[00:46:13] Lee Caraher: reads really fast, I promise.
[00:46:16] Nicole Greer: And it's, it's, and it's got pictures, for those of you, "I don't read books without pictures." Okay? So this will work for you. But, you know, The Boomerang Principle: Inspire Lifetime Loyalty From Your Employees, and I think that's all about what, you know, building a vibrant culture is all about.
[00:46:30] Nicole Greer: So l- basics in here sprinkled with Lee's personality, which I absolutely adore. We're like sisters from another mother, so I love that. So Lee if people want to bring you their product for, Yes ... public relations purposes, where should they find you? Where can we find you?
[00:46:44] Lee Caraher: You can find me at double-forte.com is the agency, and leecaraher.com is my personal stuff.
[00:46:51] Lee Caraher: Okay. I am easy to find, easy to find. Okay. There aren't that many Lee Caraher's in the world, so.
[00:46:57] Nicole Greer: Okay. All right, and guess what? It'll all down- be down below. And while you're down below looking for her information, would you just please like this episode? And would you do a girl a favor and leave a little love note for myself and Lee We'd be grateful. We need, we need approval and support, people.
[00:47:11] Lee Caraher: We need, we all need support. Support your girl. Support a girl, people.
[00:47:15] Nicole Greer: That's right. Okay. This
[00:47:16] Lee Caraher: is what the bobblehead says- That- "... support a girl."
[00:47:19] Nicole Greer: That's it. That's it. All right. Well, it has been awesome to be with you, Lee Thank you so much for being on the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast.
[00:47:25] Nicole Greer: Everybody, have a great rest of your week, and I look forward to seeing you next Wednesday when we drop another great episode.