The Leadership and Learning Podcast

The shared values and practices of employees shape the culture of companies. Leaders have tremendous influence on those values and practices. Their influence comes from their strategies, controllable actions, and inaction.

Their influence can be positive and constructive in forming the company culture and employee retention. Or their influence can be damaging and destructive to achieving the culture they desire and employee retention success.

Host Randy Goruk shares:

• 3 – Leadership strategies for employee retention success.
• The top 5 - actions exceptional leaders take to achieve employee retention success.
• The 3 – biggest mistakes leaders make impacting employee retention success.

In this episode of The Leadership and Learning Podcast, host Randy Goruk, has a conversation with Sara McElroy, a former hustle culture devotee, ex-chief marketing officer, the Wall Street Journal's poster girl for pandemic career burnout, and a two-time member of the Great Resignation: class of 2021 and 2022.

In this episode you will learn:

• About Raze to Rise, an organization created to amplify women's voices from the Great Resignation and to inspire others.
• What is causing the Great Resignation for many, and what leaders can do about it.
• Why the distinction between male populated industries versus male dominated industries is important.
• The key success factors for women to be successful in a male populated industry?
• Advice for company leaders to eliminate biases against women in the workplace.
• Advice company leaders to attract and retain female talent to the building materials and construction industry?

In this episode we meet with award winning entrepreneur and author Mr. Walter Hill Jr to discuss his book, Think Red Flags – A Proactive and Practical Approach for Your Small Business. In this episode you will learn:

• What red flag thinking is and how it helps with profitability.
• How companies have applied red flag thinking.
• You will hear specific example of what red flagging can do for a leader?
• How red flagging help companies with retaining their employees?
• How you can become more of a red flag thinker.

In this episode of the Leadership and Learning Podcast, host Randy Goruk shares a segment from a recent a webinar titled: A Leaders Guide to Employee Retention success.

You will learn the 3 – biggest mistakes leaders make impacting employee retention success and how what to do about them.

In this episode of The Leadership and Learning Podcast, host Randy Goruk, has a conversation with life-long friends, military veterans and authors, John Buford and Sean Georges. We discuss their new book, Mission Focused Leadership and the key role leaders have in attracting, recruiting, and retaining top talent.

In this episode you will learn the importance:

• The importance for leaders to focus on people – up and down the chain of command.
• How leaders should not focus on what to do, but how they should focus on what their team needs – and why.
• A leader's best and highest role to serve their teammates to accomplish the mission.
• The importance of the quality of leadership and quality of relationships to attract, recruit and retain top talent.
• Servant leadership is not about being warm and fuzzy – it's so much more.
• Sharing the why of the mission - with context
• A few reasons leaders typically fail.
• A powerful question you can ask someone.
• Balancing managing and leading.
• Three pieces of advice for someone making the transition from management role to a leadership role.
• The one thing that separates exceptional leaders from the others.
• How exceptional leaders spend their time and recognizing a leadership moment not to be wasted.

In this episode of The Leadership and Learning Podcast, host Randy Goruk, has a conversation with Ben Juncker, the co-founder and CEO of Craftsman's Choice, a leading exterior remodeling contractor in Minnesota ... and one of the highest volume James Hardie siding installers in the United States talk leadership.

In this episode you will learn:

• How he built a family like culture in the business.
• How he intentionally and brilliantly scaled the business.
• Advice on CRM's and the value of repeatable processes.
• The importance of identifying the important tasks and knowing what takes you away from doing them.
• A creative marketing technique or two.
• Unique ways to provide incentives that grow the business and reward your people.

In this episode, we tackle the very challenging issue of the labor pool impacting building material manufacturing companies, construction companies and distribution and lumber yard operations.

We explore the benefits of Team Engine's proprietary software tool specifically created to help blue-collar companies hire and retain the best workforce possible with CEO, Carlos del Pozo.

In this episode you will learn:

• What Team Engine's software does for building material and construction companies.
• How the software is different than other available software.

• How companies need to adjust their approach to attracting and retaining top talent – tip; be competitive but the solution isn't more money.

• How different the 2022 recruiting process is compared to 2019 and how you can adapt to it.
• The biggest mistakes employers make when it comes to hiring and/or retention.
• The best way organizations should engage / communicate with prospects.
• How leadership is still key to retaining your talent.

Host Randy Goruk shares a story from Miles Levin, a young blogger who lost his battle with cancer at age 18 and a leadership tip.

The overall message in this short podcast episode is ... If you aren't at your best and don't prepare like it matters, you miss opportunities you'll never get back.

Live every day shooting as if it's your last shot.

Creating an innovative culture for most organizations is critical to long-term survival, however it is not an easy thing to do. In this episode of the Leadership and Learning Podcast, host Randy Goruk is joined by Karen Hold, an established innovation expert.

In this episode you'll learn:

• What leaders can do to create and sustain an innovative culture.
• How some companies have had success creating an innovative culture and why some have not.
• What 'design thinking' means, where the term originates and how you can get your organization on board with it.
• The role of empathy in innovation – it's not what you think.
• Advice to get you started with an innovative culture.

When relationships are critical to your business, your reputation is one of the most important assets you manage. In today's podcast, host Randy Goruk is joined by Bill Coletti - a highly experienced and sought-after reputation management strategist and speaker.

We do a deep dive into the world of corporate crisis management.

You'll learn:

• The different types of crises that can impact your reputation.
• Why you will want to avoid public outcry.
• How leaders of companies are not prepared for crises and what they can do to be better prepared.
• Best practices to be prepared to handle a crisis.
• The number one mistakes leaders make when faced with a crisis.
• Examples of crisis that impact a company's reputation.
• How single event crisis can negatively impact an entire industry.
• How to be better prepared should a crisis occur.